by Paul Kenyon
The guard shifted his weapon uncomfortably. His mouth opened and closed once.
Horst turned and strode in the direction of Heidrig's bedroom, his Luger drawn and the two Dobermans padding silently at his heels.
* * *
Inga, a light sweater over her nightgown, tugged at the Borzois. Igor finished his attentions to the shrub and wagged his tail at her, his tongue lolling in a clownish smile. She continued down the pathway, the big white dogs bouncing gracefully at her heels.
A guard with a machine pistol touched his hat and smiled as she passed. She had gotten the security people accustomed to the sight of her giving the wolfhounds their constitutional at the same time every night.
She passed the barracks and got another friendly nod from the lance-corporal on duty. She was obviously harmless, a pretty girl in a nightgown walking a pair of ornamental dogs. The girl was ornamental, too, the lance-corporal thought, and when she passed in front of one of the lanterns on the path you could see her legs through the thin stuff of the nightgown.
Inga skirted the fence that surrounded the laboratories and workshops, pausing once as Igor lifted his leg against a post. Then the kennels were in sight, a line of low wooden buildings against the wall, the tall shape of the northeast guard tower looming darkly above them.
"Inga, how nice to see you. I was beginning to think you wouldn't come this way tonight." It was Martin, the kennel man, framed by the lighted door of the shed. She had been developing a little flirtation with him.
"I thought I might ask you to take a look at Igor," she said. "He hasn't been eating too well lately, and I was afraid to tell the Baroness. She blames me whenever something is wrong."
"Of course." He looked around shrewdly. "Why don't you come inside. The Borzois will set the Alsatians barking if they see them."
Inga had counted on that. She had walked too close to the dog run a couple of times and let the wolfhounds and the guard dogs have a barking match.
Inside was a concrete floor, grooming equipment, an unoccupied sick pen, the narrow cot where Martin slept when he was on night duty. He pulled a hanging lamp down and prodded Igor all over, and looked in his mouth, pulled back an eyelid.
"There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with him," Martin said, looking up. Inga was standing there in her nightgown, bending over, the open sweater giving him a view. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to lift his face and kiss her on the lips. One arm went around her, the other hand reached inside the nightgown. Her hands came up to cradle the sides of his face, and her lips parted in invitation. Her thumbs probed and dug into the pressure points below his ears. Martin slumped unconscious to the floor.
Working quickly, she went to the big meat locker and took out a slab of beef. She cut it up into tiny pieces; they'd have to be scattered widely enough so that each dog would be sure to get at least one.
The little bottle and syringe were in the pocket of her sweater. She injected a drop of the drug into each piece of meat. One drop would make a dog groggy, uninterested in barking. Two would make it stand about stupidly. Three or four would render it unconscious.
Martin stirred, and she bent quickly to press the carotid arteries again. She shivered. Until now, she had been a servant, walking her mistress's dogs. There would have been time to retreat at any sign of danger. Now she was committed.
Carrying the pail of meat, Inga went through the door into the room that connected with the dog run. She began to call them softly, the way she had heard Martin do it.
* * *
The door burst open. Penelope jackknifed to a sitting position, muscles bunched for a spring that would carry her over the side of the bed and launch her directly at the intruder.
She stopped cold when she saw the Dobermans. Horst was between them, his eyes wild, the Luger in his hand. She might have taken a chance with Horst alone, rolling to avoid his first shot and striking before he could get off a second. She might have taken a chance with one Doberman. If you know the canine anatomy there are ways of killing a dog as instantaneously as you can kill a person. But there is no way at all to deal with an armed man and two Dobermans.
When Horst saw Heidrig's body, angled randomly in death, an anguished cry burst from his lips. "Verraten!" he sobbed.
Penelope was sitting awkwardly, her legs stiff and splayed apart, her weight supported by hands behind her on the mattress, helpless for any quick move. Horst motioned with the gun for her to slide to the far edge of the bed, away from the body. He knelt and rubbed his face against Heidrig's hair, making choking sounds. "Verderbt, verderbt!" he sniffled. Cradling the back of Heidrig's head with his free hand, he kissed the dead lips. But his eyes never left Penelope, and the gun never wandered.
"Get up," he said.
Carefully, keeping her eyes on the Dobermans, Penelope got to her feet. She reached for the robe on the bedside chair, and the dogs snarled. She let her hand stay where it was.
Horst said, "You will not need that. Move!"
Horst's eyes roved over the tender flesh bulging over the top of the stiff corset, the explicit nakedness below. He was not looking at her as a man looks at a woman. The flesh held other possibilities for him than sex.
"To the door," he said.
Penelope made a last try. "He just… just keeled over. His heart…"
"You killed him," he said with utter certainty. He motioned with the Luger. The dogs were crowding her, herding her like a sheep.
Penelope moved into the hallway, her hands clasped behind her neck. She held her head high and let nothing show on her face. There was an elderly guard with a Schmeisser, and the horror of Sumo sitting there in a high-backed chair. Sumo bit his lip when he saw her and looked away.
"Put the man under lock and key," Horst said to the guard, and then tell Heinz to take a squad and find the other woman, the blond one. Then search all their rooms."
Penelope could see Sumo stiffen as the guard saluted, gauging his chances. But his eyes tracked the two guns and the dogs and he sank back in the chair.
She descended the wide staircase, Horst and the dogs behind her. There were at least a dozen people at the bottom, uniformed guards, servants, a fat woman in a nightgown, Hermann the butler. It was the classic nightmare. He's enjoying parading me past them, Penelope thought. They parted to let her through.
They were outside now, the few night strollers and uniformed guards gawking as the odd little procession passed. Horst kept her moving down the driveway. The gravel bit into her stockinged feet.
"Where are you taking me?" she said.
"You will find out soon enough," he said, his voice shaking with fury.
There was a strange sound behind her, and she realized that she was hearing Horst crying. He was taking great ragged gulps of air, wheezing, blowing his nose.
"You have not only killed him, you have defiled him!" Horst was working his emotion up like a child having a tantrum. "Filthy swamp of a woman! Diseased whore! What can you know of German honor, of our shining destiny?"
They were at the main gate. Horst marched her past the goggling guards. "Remain at your posts," he said. "I wish to be alone with this one." He pushed her toward the left. They were outside now in the perfumed jungle. Penelope followed the blank face of the wall, the dogs trotting at her heels and Horst breathing hard behind her.
"Your death will be too precious to share with anyone else," he said. "It will be exquisite. To avenge Wilhelm will be my honor."
He made her stand aside while he unlatched a wire mesh gate. They went through and he closed it carefully behind him. "We will not be disturbed," he said.
Penelope looked around the enclosure. She recognized it as the place she'd been the other night when she'd gone over the wall too far to the south. The scaffolding she'd hidden under was a skeletal shape in the moonlight. The water of the artificial lagoon lapped the concrete rim at her feet.
"It will make it easier to get rid of whatever is left of you afterwards," Horst said. She di
dn't understand what he meant. What she did understand was that she was trapped in a closed area with this satanic boy and his two hellish pets. There would be little maneuvering room, no chance for a quick dash into the jungle.
Horst giggled like a small boy. It was somehow more frightening than the fury he'd shown previously. "I wonder how much of you they will eat before you die," he said.
Penelope began to back slowly away, trying to get her back against the fence. She remembered what she'd heard about the concentration camp guards at Auschwitz, the games they played with their attack dogs. When the long lines of naked people were being herded toward the gas chambers, the SS men would add to the fun by ordering the dogs to savage the stragglers. The dogs were especially trained to go with their teeth for the genitals of the men, the breasts of the women. Horst must have grown up listening to such tales.
He watched her with amusement. "Go as far as you like," he said. "It will not make any difference."
Her back was against the mesh of the fence now. She could feel the cold metal against her flesh.
The dogs were whining, their bodies trembling with eagerness. Their demon eyes were fixed on Penelope.
Horst's face, pasty in the moonlight, showed a growing sick excitement His mouth had gone loose, the full girlish lips parted and moist. He put his Luger back in its holster.
"Schlage," he said.
The dogs loped forward.
Chapter 15
Inga hurried back the way she'd come, keeping to the shadows, avoiding the bright patches of moonlight. They were searching for her, fanning out over the grounds; she'd heard the guards' voices calling to one another, seen the bobbing flashlights. She couldn't go back to the big house now. They'd be waiting for her there.
She could hardly believe what she'd seen. Penelope, dressed in some kind of black lace whore's outfit, her hands clasped behind her neck, being marched at gunpoint down the gravel drive toward the gate. That effeminate blond boy with the slack mouth stumbling behind her, tears running down his face, those devils of black dogs following him.
She could be thankful for the tears. He must have been blind, and deaf, too, not to have noticed her and the Borzois crossing the grass toward the driveway. The Borzois had gone rigid and begun that strange high-pitched sobbing, as if they had spotted a hare or some other small game they wanted to kill. Fortunately she'd been able to control them. She'd been ready for that first lunge, the chains wrapped around her wrists, and the Dobermans were just far enough away so that Igor and Stasya hadn't gone mad. But her arms felt as though they'd been half wrenched out of the sockets.
She let herself and the dogs quickly into the little shed and closed the door behind her. Martin was lying where she'd left him, his mouth hanging open, dark bruises showing under his ears. He wasn't breathing; she must have pressed too long that last time.
She went through the inner door into the room that connected with the dog run. Through the screen gate she could look all the way down its length, to the bend of the wall at the northwest corner. Penelope was somewhere on the other side of that wall.
There were the dark shapes of guard dogs all down the narrow corridor of the run, sprawled on their sides or standing stupidly. Someone would notice that sooner or later. Time was running out in every possible way.
Inga shrugged. The game was lost, forfeited by a small failure in timing. Another fifteen, twenty minutes and they might have won. Now she could wait to be discovered; perhaps be safe for another hour or two. Or she could do something that would bring death — her death, Sumo's, Penelope's — sooner. She set her mouth with Swedish stubbornness. They were dead anyway. If it is possible to do something, it is better to do it.
She opened the screen gate. The hard-packed earth of the dog run stretched in front of her, a thousand-foot headstart for the Borzois' long legs to build up speed in. A blank rectangle of concrete loomed at the far end. Penelope had once told her that a Borzoi in full stride could clear a twelve-foot wall. She hoped she was right.
There was a scream in the night.
The voice was Penelope's.
The Borzois pricked up their ears. Inga barely had time to slip their leads. Like bullets in a gun barrel they flashed down the long corridor.
* * *
Penelope crouched in front of the fence, her arms flexed in a defense that would give her perhaps another second before she felt the Dobermans' teeth in her flesh. Dobermans' reflexes are fast. Even if she could strike at one of them, the other one would have her on the ground that same instant. Once off her feet she was finished.
She screamed as the black shapes leaped at her, that last scream that is torn from you at the sight of your death. There was never a chance to strike out. The outstretched paws hit her high in the chest, and she was bowled over.
And then, incredibly, two silent flashes of white sailed over the top of the wall. The Dobermans turned to meet the challenge. Even as they turned, the tall narrow forms of the Borzois, like pale illusions in the moonlight, were there, each choosing a separate target and knocking the Dobermans flat, as Penelope had been knocked flat. The throat of one of the black dogs was torn out; it had happened so fast that no one could have seen it. The other Doberman was still alive, unable to move, its throat held on either side by the wolf-killing jaws of the Borzois. Igor and Stasya wagged their tails for approval, waiting in a reconstruction of ancient instinct for the hunter to come and slit the throat of the wolf.
Penelope already was rolling away, along the edge of the lagoon. No more than five seconds had gone by. Horst awoke from his paralysis and remembered the gun. He fumbled at the holster.
Penelope's shoulder struck him below the knees. He went over, the Luger spilling to the ground. He reached for it. Penelope, on her back in the gravel, kicked out. The gun spun over the concrete rim into the water. Penelope heaved herself up and dove for it.
Horst was there first. His hand shot out after the gun, into the water.
There was a piercing scream, like a woman's. Penelope, on her hands and knees now, saw Horst lying on his stomach, his hand in the water, his legs kicking like a child having a tantrum. She couldn't imagine what was happening.
Horst struggled to his feet, his face drained and bloodless, staring down in horror at his right hand. He swayed, holding it up in the moonlight.
The bones of the hand were picked clean. There wasn't a scrap of skin or flesh. Protruding from the wet cuff was a white, gleaming skeleton's hand.
Horst staggered along the rim of the pool making a peculiar sound, choking whooping sobs. "Nein, nein, nein, nein…" He turned to stare accusingly at Penelope. He reached toward her with the skeleton fingers. "Ein totenhand!" he said in disbelief. He floundered off balance and pitched into the water.
The water churned, as if dozens of little paddles were working under the surface. After a minute or two, the ripples died down. The surface of the lagoon was calm and still, a flat mirror reflecting the moon.
Penelope backed away instinctively. A whimper made her turn around. The Borzois were still holding the Doberman immobile, their eyes hurt and accusing. "Good dogs," she said. Igor wagged his tail and there was a blur of movement. The Doberman dropped to the ground, its throat ripped out. Igor lifted his head and gave her a doggy smile, his muzzle red with blood.
She found the gate and peeked cautiously through, holding the Borzois by their collars. She could hear the sound of frogs and chirping insects.
Then there was a great white flash in the night. There was a deep thump, a giant's foot stamping on the earth, and the frogs and insects went silent.
The laboratories, she thought. Skytop and Wharton and Paul and Eric got through. There were more flashes, more thumps. She could smell it now, smoke and plastique, and the moon was covered by a drifting cloud. A siren had gone off, and searchlights were ineffectually stabbing the sky. She could hear men shouting inside the walls. I hope they got out, she prayed; I hope they got out before that first charge went off.
She barely made it to the shelter of a thick clump of bamboo when she heard a new sound. Automatic weapons fire.
What were they shooting at? Had Skytop and the others been caught inside the walls?
Then a bullet zinged by her ear like an angry hornet and tore up some bamboo. She relaxed. That would be the Germans firing at shadows outside the walls. Her team was out.
Except Sumo.
Wharton was the first one to find her. He frowned when he saw the kinky black costume, and gave her his shirt to wear. Gratefully she buttoned it up.
"We've got a rendezvous point over there, Baroness," he said. She smiled at him. He looked enormously comforting and competent, towering over her, bare-chested, a submachine gun slung over his shoulder, his face smeared with shoe polish.
"We're going back in," she said. "Give me the gun."
"Baroness! It's a hornets' nest in there. Germans, hundreds of them, running around with guns. We blew the labs, set fire to the barracks. Now we've got to get out of here. Fast."
She shook her head. "We don't have the diamond. Or the laser. No chance to get them now. But we damn well can make sure that nobody else ever uses them."
"What do you have in mind?"
"Blow the reactor."
He faced her impassively. "That's my job. Once the cooling system is ruptured, it'll take about three minutes for the uranium to melt its way through the big egg." He paused to study the wind direction. "You and the rest of the team should be safe from the radioactive cloud on this side of the estate. But anybody inside the walls is going to have to get out in a hurry."
She held out her hand. "Give me the gun."
They stared at each other in a brief clash of wills. After a few seconds, Wharton handed her the automatic weapon.