The Steel Ring

by R. A. Jones

  “And just how is it you know all that, mister?” Denton could feel the familiar flowering of anger in his breast.

  “Stay calm,” the Clock said soothingly. “I’m no threat to you.”

  “I’ll be the judge o’ that.”

  “Fair enough. The ‘how’ of what I know about you is simple. I belong to an … organization. A secret society, really. We call ourselves the Steel Ring.

  “I never heard of it.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t really be secret if you had, now would it?”

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot, old man.”

  “Forgive me, Mr. Denton. No offense was intended. But now I have a question. You can’t see my face, or even my hands. What makes you think I’m ‘old’?”

  “That’s simple,” the Ferret replied, smiling smugly. “Your voice has just a trace of the rasp all men develop with time. You also smell of age. Yeah, age has a smell, all right.

  “Oh, you ain’t ancient, mister. But you ain’t young, either.”

  “Impressive,” the Clock conceded. “And I’ve already witnessed, and,” he again touched his side, “already felt some of your other capabilities. That’s why I was on my way to find you, when you so conveniently found me.”

  “And now that we’ve found each other, what is it you want from me, Clock?”

  “The first thing I want is to help you get out of Iraq. I think you’d agree you’ve worn out your welcome here.”

  “Yeah, through no fault of my own.”

  “Granted. You just got caught up in events, that’s all. Right now, we’re all living in a cauldron that’s fixing to boil over. But I can get you out of the kitchen for awhile, all the way back to the States.”

  “And what will you want from me in return?” Denton asked, suspicion in his voice.

  “For now, just that you wear this.”

  From one of his coat pockets, the Clock withdrew a steel ring and handed it to the tall Texan. The Ferret studied the unfamiliar runes etched around its outer surface, eyed the older man warily, and then placed it on the ring finger of his right hand. He growled softly as he felt the ring expand of its own volition to circle his thick finger perfectly.

  “I’ll be in touch with you again, soon. On that day, I’ll ask you to join the rest of us in the Steel Ring. I hope you’ll give the offer serious consideration.”

  Denton, who had been staring intently at the ring, now looked up and fixed the Clock with a baleful stare.

  “You’d better be on the level, old-timer. ‘Cause if yer futzin’ around with me … you’ll barely live long enough to regret it.”

  If the threat worried the masked man, he didn’t show it.

  “You have my word, Mr. Denton. Everything I’ve told you is true. Everything I’ve offered you is real.”

  “You mentioned my … abilities before. How ‘bout you? You got any special talents hidden under that mask?”

  “Not me, no,” the Clock replied. “I’m just a man. But sometimes, one man, in the right place at the right time, is all it takes.”

  Turning sideways, the Clock gestured with his right hand. From the shadows of yet another doorway leading into the courtyard, two men in native garb stepped out into the open and approached. Ferret had been aware of their presence from the moment his physical struggle with the Clock had ended, but they seemed to pose no threat to him either then or now.

  “These gentlemen are Armenian friends of mine,” the Clock said by way of introduction. “As such, they have no problem ignoring British regulations and they absolutely delight in working against the Turks.

  “Do everything they tell you, every time they tell you, and they’ll be able to get you onboard the Baghdad Railway. They’ll get you through Turkey – all 1300 miles of it – to Istanbul, and from there into Greece.

  “Once there, you’ll be contacted by another one of my agents. You’ll know him because he’ll be wearing a ring identical to your own. He’ll get you on a boat in Athens, bound for the United States.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got it all worked out, mister.”

  “You’d better hope I do.”

  Denton’s features were still dark, his brows knitted.

  “I don’t like taking it on the lam, though,” he said gruffly. “I never have.”

  “I understand how you feel, Cal,” the Clock told him. “But I guarantee you that in this instance discretion is most assuredly the better part of valor. Accept my offer, and you have a greater chance of living to fight another day. And I fear there’s a great deal of fighting waiting ahead for all of us.”

  “Sounds like my kind o’ party,” Ferret said, smiling now and extending a hand, which the Clock gladly took.

  “But what about you? Yer not comin’ with me?”

  “No. I’m needed elsewhere for the moment. It seems a young woman named Natalia has also begun to exhibit extraordinary abilities.”

  “And yer goin’ to recruit her for yer little social club?”

  “If I can, yes.”

  “Let me guess; she’s in trouble, just like I was.”

  “Maybe worse,” the Clock declared, his voice betraying his concern. “You were in the middle of a relatively small lynch mob.

  “She’s in the middle of Nazi Germany.”

  CHAPTER XII

  June 4, 1939

  As it almost always did, the sun shone brightly on the city of Miami.

  At one of its many docks, a sleek passenger ship, the St. Louis, bobbed slightly in the gentle swells of the incoming waves. Most of its passengers were out on deck, many of them pressed against the railings as they gazed longingly out over the city that lay so tantalizingly close to them.

  All of these spectators were Jews. Knowing at last that there was no hope of a peaceful existence for them in Europe, they had banded together and set sail for friendlier shores.

  So far, the search had been fruitless.

  Their first port of call after the long crossing of the Atlantic had been Havana. But the Cuban regime had more in common with the German authorities than with the refugees and they had refused to allow the St. Louis to disembark its passengers.

  But the Jewish refugees’ hopes were higher now that they had reached the shores of the United States. Both their minds and their hearts told them that this land of liberty, this nation built of immigrants, would surely open its arms to these few fearful voyagers.

  They would soon learn that their hearts and minds were wrong.

  Near the stern of the ship, Natalia Nastrova and her companion Otto Berenger stood apart from the others. They alone stood looking back the way they had come rather than toward the route that led to safety.

  “I’ve just come from talking to one of the younger officers,” Otto was telling her. “It’s not official yet, but he tells me he’s sure our request for asylum will be refused.”

  Natalia banged a tiny fist down on the railing.

  “Damn it! It’s not fair. We’ve been through so much, traveled so far. It can’t all have been for nothing. Not when we’ve gotten so close!”

  She thought of how their fortunes had seemed to change for the better just a few weeks ago, beginning with the sudden and unexpected arrival in Berlin of the masked man who insisted on using no other name save “the Clock”.

  How he knew where to find them, how he even knew who and what they were, he would never explain. Yet, mask or no mask, he was still a man, and Natalia knew men; thus very quickly she had grown to trust in him and his intentions.

  He had bolstered her diminishing funds with his own, used influence she wouldn’t have thought any non-German would be capable of wielding, to get her, Otto and others on the St. Louis.

  In truth, he had seemed mainly concerned only with getting her free of the Nazis, but had offered no real resistance when she insisted she would only leave if as many others as possible came along.

  “We can’t fail now,” she muttered through clenched lips.

  “There’s stil
l hope for us,” Otto said, ever optimistic. “Just last month, remember, the British put forth a plan to create a homeland for Jews, in Palestine. That could happen, Natalia.”

  “It could,” she agreed. “But it won’t happen today, so for now it does you no good. It may never do you any good. Some Jews are saying all it will do is create a new ghetto, in a different place.”

  “What other choice do we have?” Otto asked. “If the Americans turn us away, what can we do except return to Europe?”

  “I don’t know!” she snapped, spinning away from the railing.

  As she did, a little girl no more than six years of age walked by. She was clutching a tiny cloth doll in the crook of her left arm. The child’s face was momentarily hidden from view by the blue and white checked scarf her mother had tied over her head and under her chin.

  She turned her head and tipped it back to glance up at Natalia. As the woman gazed down at the cherubic face and into dark brown eyes the size of tea saucers, she thought she had never seen a more beautiful child in her life.

  Dimples dotted the girl’s cheeks as she smiled up at the woman staring down at her. Then the smile diminished just ever so slightly, and a look of ancient sadness tugged her eyebrows downward. With her free hand, she pulled her scarf off and held it out to Natalia.

  “What? Oh, no, darling … I can’t take your scarf.”

  “It’s all right,” the child said, in a voice that tinkled like wind chimes. “It’s to wipe away your tears.”

  Until that moment, Natalia had not even realized she was crying.

  She accepted the gift, pressing it against her eyes, her lips. It smelled faintly of love and freshly baked bread.

  “May I keep it?” she asked, using it to dab at the corners of her eyes.

  “Of course,” the little girl chirped. “For ever and ever.”

  A woman’s voice called out and the little girl’s head snapped around.

  “That’s my mother,” she declared, then ran off without another word.

  Natalia stood silently, stared down at the checked scarf in her hands. Unseen and unsensed by her, a large, ephemeral eye appeared in the still, muggy air above her.

  From the middle of its pupil, an equally invisible wave of warm energy flowed outward, washing over the woman below. Even so, Natalia shivered at its touch, then turned her gaze toward her companion, who was likewise oblivious to the presence of the mystic orb.

  “I’ve just had an idea, Otto,” she said. “I’ve spent nearly all of my money, and we’re both still wanted by the authorities in Berlin. So there’s little more we can do in Germany.

  “But there’s lots of money in America, at least in the right circles. And no one’s looking for us here.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying we should slip off the boat now. Maybe make our way to New York. We can continue to raise money for your people, and try to make the rest of the world aware of what’s happening to them in Germany.”

  “I think they already know,” Otto said, wearily waving in the direction of the docks. “And this is how they respond to it.”

  “Not everyone,” she insisted. “Besides, we have to do something. We can’t just quit.”

  “Oh, I agree. Completely. Only ….”

  “Only what?”

  “Only I’m afraid you’ll have to carry on without me.”

  “What? No!”

  “Listen, darling,” he said, smiling tenderly and gripping her by her arms. “You know I’ve grown very fond of you in the time we’ve been together. More than fond.” His eyes swept out over the other passengers milling about on deck.

  “But some of these people are family of mine. I can’t save my own neck and just leave them to face God only knows what back in Europe.

  “You can see that, can’t you?”

  Actually, she was having difficulty seeing anything clearly at the moment, so blurred was her vision by the tears welling up once again in her eyes. Still, she smiled and tried to put on a brave face.

  “I’ll miss you,” she said softly.

  “Not half as much as I’ll miss you,” he replied.

  “Promise me one thing, Otto.”

  “Anything.”

  “If they do turn the boat back, don’t return to Germany. Go anywhere else that will have you … but not there.”

  “I’ll do my best, darling.”

  She threw her arms around his neck, squeezing so tightly he could scarcely breathe. At last she pulled back far enough to kiss him on both cheeks and to tousle his hair with the fingers of her right hand.

  Then, without another word, she leaped over the railing.

  Her lithe, athletic body cleaved the surface of the water so cleanly that there was barely a splash. She stayed under as long as possible before allowing her head to peek up ever so slightly.

  Her departure had gone unnoticed by any save Otto, and he was leaning over the railing, watching for her. He smiled when he saw she was all right, and waved one hand slightly. She returned the wave, then sank back below the waves, not resurfacing until her strokes had carried her to the edge of another pier, some hundred feet to the south of the one at which the St. Louis was moored.

  After climbing a ladder up out of the water, she paused, peering cautiously above the edge of the dock. Satisfying herself that it was empty, she jumped up to her feet and ran for the cover of a nearby warehouse.

  Pressing herself against the wall for several minutes, she at last ventured to peek around the corner. She could see the St. Louis clearly; there appeared to be no more activity aboard than usual, nor were any shouts or alarms ringing out.

  It appeared she had gotten away cleanly.

  Only now did she think of the strange steel ring she wore on her left hand, the ring the Clock had insisted that she take and wear. She wondered how he had managed to get out of Germany (for she had no doubt he had), and whether he would keep his promise to contact her again.

  For now, her main concern had to be putting as much distance between herself and this pier as possible.

  After pouring the water out of her shoes and putting them back on, smoothing out her wet dress and hair as best she could, she reached into her pocket and retrieved the blue and white scarf the little girl had given her. She smiled as she tied it loosely around her neck.

  “I’ll keep it for ever and ever,” she said softly.

  It was best that Natalia Nastrova had no way of knowing that, for the little girl, for her dear Otto Berenger and for scores of others onboard the St. Louis … forever would not be long in coming.

  Only Holocaust was in their future.

  CHAPTER XIII

  June 8, 1939

  King George VI was about to become the first reigning British monarch to visit the United States of America.

  But only if he survived this night.

  Tomorrow, he would meet with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was somewhat dreading the visit; one of its purposes was to impress upon the President the level of danger the entire world faced due to the machinations of Chancellor Hitler of Germany. The clouds of war were growing darker and more imminent by the day, by the very hour.

  The English monarch had little faith that his French allies were up to the task of keeping Herr Hitler at bay, and his own proud but tiny nation might soon find itself alone against the Teutonic hordes. Despite the imposing breadth of its empire, the dual threats of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan could well prove overwhelming. So he felt compelled to enlist the potential power of America to aid in this hour of need.

  And so it was that he dreaded this voyage, though he clearly saw and accepted the need for it. To a man as proud as his majesty, it felt too much like he was coming hat in hand to beg assistance from the crown’s former colonists.

  The thought did not sit well with him, but if he need humble himself in the present to spare his subjects a future of subjugation at the hands of the Hun … well, he was prepared to do anything short of actually begging
.

  For tonight, his party had taken up residence in a luxury hotel just north of the U.S./Canadian borderline. The hotel had been discretely emptied of all other lodgers under a veil of tightly policed secrecy. The king and his wife Elizabeth took occupancy of the hotel’s entire top floor and now slept soundly even as dozens of security agents patrolled every floor of the hotel and the grounds around it on every side. Only two other buildings were within a hundred yards of the hotel, and armed guards had been placed on the roofs of both.

  On one of those rooftops, Reginald Baldwin stood near its outer edge, staring intently at the darkened hotel nearby. He smiled tightly at the thought of the royal couple sleeping peacefully so close to hand, certain that they were safe so long as he and his brother officers were assigned to keep them so.

  That may have been his last thought of anything other than his own survival before the thin wire of a garrote was looped over his head and pulled tight against his throat.

  Pulled backwards and off balance, he nonetheless tried to claw the wire loose, to no avail. He choked in pain and felt the warmth of blood oozing from the torn flesh where the wire bit him so savagely. His eyes rolled to the tops of their sockets and all the world went dark as his life expired.

  The assassin who had so expertly garroted the guard lowered the limp body gently to the rooftop, not from pity but simply to muffle the noise that would have been generated had the corpse been allowed to fall heavily.

  Clothed from head to toe in black, the assassin was almost invisible. Even the eyes that peered from the two holes in his hood were nearly as dark as the night.

  Crouching, he quickly scanned about him. To his satisfaction, he saw that his five comrades had been equally efficient and successful in dispatching the two other guards on the roof.

  One of the dark killers was now kneeling on the edge of the building, taking aim with what almost appeared to be a crossbow. His target was the lip of the hotel rooftop.