15 Signs Of Murder (Fifteen thrillers)

by Luis Samways

  “What’s going on Klaus? What is the meaning of this?”

  The Commander grabbed the First Officer by the scruff of the neck and got face to face with the flashy Nazi.

  “You think New Germania is going to stand by as we are made a fool of? You think just because you are from the motherland that you can control us? Where have you been all these years? When did you offer us the support we needed when we were dealing with the rebels in Section 8? Germany didn’t help us, so we helped ourselves. We are the real Nazis. You are nothing but old-fashioned. You’ve got nothing but memories of victory on your side. Well, now it’s our turn. We are no longer answering to the German Empire, for we are the German Empire, and you shall do as we say. I dare you to say different!”

  Commander Klaus let go of the German First Officer and signaled his guards to do away with the prisoner.

  “Take him to the Dark Room. I want the world to see what we stand for. I want the world to know that we are no longer messing around. It’s time that we show our force. Diplomacy has just died.”

  Klaus waved off his fellow guards and was left alone in the room. He smiled as he watched the sunset on Section 8. New Germania was finally serving its purpose. It was finally living up to the idea of the Nazis.

  New Germania was no longer just a name for the old USA. It was the rebirth of a new empire. It was the rebirth of war.

  Chapter Nineteen

  A Motel, Section 45, Germany

  Cindy Goldstein braced herself as another punch collided with her jaw. She spat some blood out; it dribbled down her chin. Another punch landed firmly on her jaw, that one nearly knocking her completely out.

  “You thought you could outwit me, you stupid bitch?” the man in the leather coat said as he whacked her another time. Another firm hit to the jaw. She could hear nothing but bone crunching against bone with every shot that connected. All she could manage to say was one thing:

  “My daughter, please don’t hurt her!”

  And then she took another shot to the jaw.

  “The hell with you!” the man said.

  He hit her again.

  “My daughter.”

  He hit her again.

  She couldn’t speak after that. Her tongue seemed to widen in her mouth as the man in the leather coat hit her again and again.

  Her vision went black. He continued to hit her until she wasn’t moving. He thought she was dead. It didn’t stop him from saying the things he wanted to say. They were like a burden to him. It was weighing down on him, much like the blows he was delivering to her.

  “You killed him! Why did you do that?”

  He took off his leather coat and hung it up on the edge of the half-open bathroom door. He went to the sink and washed his hands. The blood on them mixed in with the fresh water from the faucet. It caked the white basin and turned it a pinkish color. He stood in front of the mirror for a few minutes, looking at himself for a long while. He didn’t break the expression on his face. It remained placid and indifferent until he uttered something to himself.

  “Why? Why would she kill him?”

  And then it was obvious to the man. Maybe he didn’t understand many things, but he understood why he wanted her dead. She had taken away from him the only thing that kept him going. He loved his partner. He grew up with his partner. They were in the army together, and now they were separated, all because of a woman! And that made him mad. It made him very mad indeed.

  “I will kill her,” he said to himself. “I’ll sell the little girl. I’ll make that little girl mourn the death of her mother like I mourn the death of my friend.”

  Cindy wasn’t conscious when he brought out his service pistol. He sat on the edge of the bath, looking at her laid out on the floor. The bleeding from her head was profuse, but she would live…until she woke up. Because the man staring at her was ready to kill. He just needed her to be awake for the event. He needed her to see it coming. It was the only way he could do it. He wanted her to know why she was going to die. He wanted her to beg him.

  He would not indulge her cries, though, for he was dead set on taking her life, much like she had taken his partner’s.

  An eye for an eye.

  Chapter Twenty

  Outside a Chapel, New Germania

  Baston looked up at the lights in the sky in awe. He had never seen such a thing before. It was nearly beautiful, but he knew what it represented.

  “The lights? What do they mean?” Danni Mendez asked. Quako looked at the night sky in the same awe-struck manner as the others.

  “It means war, Danni,” he said.

  Baston agreed with Quako. “Yes, it means war.”

  Danni looked down and saw a group of men coming out of the chapel. They were heavily armed. They were all looking at the sky in anticipation.

  “The Germans, they would fire missiles up into the air and detonate them. It was a way for the army to march on toward the explosions in the sky. Sooner or later, those bombs will be dropping on us,” Quako said.

  “But why? I don’t understand. Why not just drop the bombs? Why give it away like that?”

  “Intimidation. They are trying to intimidate us. They know there are rebels in the area, and they are telling us that they are not far off. I can’t explain their methods, because nothing but madness reigns at their tables of government. But I can tell you that this means they know about the chapel, and the village. They are ready to take it over,” Quako said.

  Baston continued to look on in wonder. “The next bomb that drops won’t be a signal flare. The next one to drop will be nuclear.”

  Danni was surprised at the revelation of their fate. She didn’t truly believe that the Germans would nuke their own land. It sent a shiver down her spine. She could feel her vertebrae vibrate in anticipation of the worst. Her body was giving way to panic, but she remained still. Her feet dug into the soft ground outside the chapel. It was the sort of ground one would expect from a church. The sort of soft ground that constitutes a burial ground. Many graveyards felt that way. Like the soil underneath was disturbed by the souls buried beneath it. It made her panic worse, but she knew she had to remain calm. Baston noticed her anxious state and put an arm around her waist.

  “I’m sure we’ll be long gone before any nukes drop,” he said, his thick accent comforting her like a blanket in the cold. “I’m sure the boys and gals here have a plan,” he said, gripping at her curvaceous hips with every word spoken.

  “That’s where you’re right,” a voice from behind them said. Both Danni and Baston turned to see an older man standing in the doorway to the chapel. He had a cigarette in his mouth and a bottle of whiskey in his right hand. His rough beard spoke a thousand words of wisdom, and his pot-holed face spoke even more of age. He was an abrasive-looking man who wore a battered grey overcoat. He looked like an old-time Nazi and spoke with a German accent. That surprised Baston. He had never spoken more than death threats to a German before, and there he was in the presence of one.

  “Excuse me? Who are you?” Baston found himself saying, relieving the tight grip he had around Danni’s waist. He let go of her and balled his fists. He was on standby mode, always ready for action. That was normal for men like him. Men who couldn’t switch off their defenses because they were always switched on, like the war machines they were.

  “My name is Peter Hansen. Most people call me Hanze.”

  There was a pause in the jaded confrontation that the three of them found themselves in until Quako put his arm around the old man. “This here is my pops,” he said.

  Baston couldn’t believe it. He’d known Quako before, had heard of him even, but never imagined that Quako’s dad was a German.

  “You’re a German?” Danni said.

  Hanze smiled. “By blood, but I much prefer seeing them in a pool of theirs,” he said.

  “Well, that’s good enough for me.” Danni smiled. Baston, on the other hand, looked far from pleased.

  “You’re telling me that I h
ave to be in the company of a damn Kraut?” he said in disdain, nearly spitting the words out.

  Quako stopped embracing the old man in the doorway to the chapel and shrugged. He didn’t know how to defend his father, nor did he think Baston would understand…until their plan began to unfold.

  “Yes, I am a German, but I also hold information on the Reich. You see, a long time ago I was part of the Empire, but then I met a lavish-looking babe in a village and ended up having a good night. Nine months later, Quako was born. You see, Quako and his mom weren’t exactly what most Germans would consider of ‘pure race,’ but that didn’t stop me from raising my boy. The Empire didn’t like it and kicked me out,” Hanze said.

  “Why didn’t they kill you?” Baston asked almost immediately.

  “The same reason you aren’t going to,” Hanze replied.

  Baston chuckled. He almost found it humorous that the old man Hanze was ballsy enough to declare what Baston would and wouldn’t do to him.

  “And why would I not kill you?” he finally asked.

  “I’m just too valuable to die,” Hanze said, a big grin on his pot-holed face.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  We stopped dead in the middle of the road. In front of us lay a load of dead bodies. It appeared that they had been shot. It looked like an ambush. To our horror, we recognized some of the men on the ground.

  “It’s the rebels,” Jerry said as we started to examine the dead men on the road.

  The trees were swaying around us. They encased us in a tomb of despair as both sides of the dirt road, from left to right, were heavily saturated with green bushes and tree trunks. It was a great place to get ambushed. It had plenty of growth, and plenty more room for sentries to attack. My immediate thought was the realization that we could be attacked just like the guys on the ground.

  “Man, I think we should be going. It doesn’t exactly scream ‘safe’ around here,” I said, half cracking under the squeaky voice that seemed to escape my dry mouth. Both Jerry and I were in need of some food and water. It had been a good day since we’d had either, and it had started to show. We were drowsy and, more importantly, incoherent. If we were to be involved in yet another ambush, it was likely that we wouldn’t survive. We were too drained to be able to be efficient in a combat situation — not that I was very handy before I was deprived of substance, that is.

  “Looks like the Germans popped out of the bushes and shot up a few rebels. The wounds look fresh, I’d say no more than six hours. Unlucky for the Germans, though, seems as if they were bested. I count more dead Germans than rebels. If I remember correctly, they didn’t exactly have many rebels left after I finished scoping them out on the mountain ridge,” Jerry said, bending down and grabbing some ammo from the corpses on the dusty ground. They were all half laced with fallen leaves from the trees. Fall was upon us, and the wintery climate was starting to settle in. A few more days, and the corpses on the ground would likely be frozen blocks of flesh before long.

  “Yeah, your scoping skills sure did help kill those rebels. Must have been real tough, shooting people in the head with a high-powered rifle. Your shooting is beyond anything I have ever seen,” I said.

  “Some of the Germans still have their canteens on them!” Jerry said, ignoring my sarcastic jab at him.

  “Any water?” I asked.

  “Yeah, we got some rations, looks like bread and jelly and some water!”

  I quickly knelt down next to Jerry and went rummaging through a random dead German’s ration pack. I found the jelly bread stuff Jerry had found and a full canteen of water. I popped the lid and drank a huge gulp. The water rushed down my gullet, and I could literally feel my mouth’s dry and cracked insides rejoice at the sensation of H2O.

  “Oh, damn, this is nice,” I said.

  Jerry was too busy eating some rations. We didn’t talk for ten minutes. We were using the dead corpses in front of us like a buffet. It sounds morbid and a tad disgusting, but we hadn’t had any nutritional substance for days, so we were just grateful for the bounty of dead soldiers in front of us. It wasn’t as if they were mangled or anything. All the Germans on the ground had been shot cleanly in the head. The four or so rebels on the other side of the road were a bit worse off; obviously the marksmanship of the dead Krauts was a bit off compared to that of the guys responsible for cleaning out the dead Germans. All in all, half a dozen dead bodies didn’t put us off from eating. It did, however, put us off from going down the road.

  “I don’t know about you, but dead people on the road that we are supposed to be traveling down doesn’t exactly fill me with joy,” I said. This time my voice sounded fresher and more full, thanks to the rations.

  “Yeah, but if you look at the scene in front of us, it looks as if a small raiding group of Germans surprised the rebels. They were dealt with accordingly. Sure, some rebels died, but I think it was just sucker bullets in the back. You’ll notice that by the position of the bodies on the floor, the Germans had the advantage. Note the rebels closest to us — they’re face down. However, the Germans are all on their backs, so it means that somebody or everybody reacted fast enough to deal with the threat.”

  It amazed me how Jerry’s mind worked. He was rather good at piecing stuff together.

  “Wow, that actually makes sense.”

  And it did. Looking at the “scene of the crime” as we were, it was fascinating to see how things unfolded, and it was even more interesting to see the clues left behind by the dead on the road.

  “Found a radio,” Jerry said.

  In the end, after about thirty minutes, we had scavenged a working radio that belonged to the Germans and three ration kits that belonged to various corpses from both sides. We recovered a few mags of ammo and two pistols. We also recovered a really nice brooch that I found on a German soldier. It had a skull on it and the Nazi insignia. I felt happy to tear that son of a bitch off and keep it for myself. Screw them! It was mine now.

  “Danni seems to have survived,” I said.

  “Well, she isn’t here, and neither is that big bastard she always hangs around with. I think all that’s left is those two now, maybe a few more rebels. I didn’t do a head count.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure she’ll be fine,” I said.

  Jerry stopped rummaging through the dead and turned to look at me. He had a wide grin on his chops, as if he was about to tease me.

  “You sure talk about Danni a lot,” he said.

  My face went red. I couldn’t help it. “No, I don’t!” was all I could manage, in my best six-year-old-boy impression.

  “Whatever, man. Just keep your head in the game. Leave the sex and womanizing to your good old Yank pal, Jerry.”

  We finished up our scavenging mission and decided to head on down the road. I could see the lights in the village come on as the sun started to set. It was amazing to see so many lights. The place looked alive and well.

  “Wow, that sure is a lot of lights,” I said.

  “Yeah, they don’t seem to care about covering their tracks. That to me looks like a show of force,” Jerry said.

  “But why? You reckon it has anything to do with that flare thing that went off earlier?”

  Jerry grunted in agreement.

  We both walked side by side down the dirt road. I took one last look at the ambushed dead behind us. I was now carrying a rucksack that I had taken off one of the dead rebels. It felt heavy, much like the sympathy I had for everyone who seemed to be dying around us.

  “Will it ever end?” I asked as we walked toward the village lights, down the winding dirt road.

  “Will what end?” Jerry asked.

  “The violence?”

  Jerry broke out in laughter. I was surprised by how loud his laugh was. It seemed as if he genuinely found it funny.

  “What?” I asked, a bit annoyed.

  “Abel, the violence never ends. People will always find a way to kill other people. It never ends. Peace will never come. Humans will never stop s
pilling each other’s blood. This war is just an excuse for more bloodshed. When that ends, people will find other excuses to shed even more blood.”

  With that, both Jerry and I walked off into the unknown once again. But I had one thing on my mind, and that was what Jerry had said. If that was true, what was the point in rebelling against the Germans, when death and violence would always come, no matter who was in charge?

  That thought accompanied me as we walked down the dirt road toward the village.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A Motel, Section 45, Germany

  Cindy Goldstein felt the throbbing in her head increase as she opened her eyes. The hanging light bulb above her head on the ceiling swung from left to right. The wire it was attached to came in and out of focus. The walls surrounding her began to fluctuate. The man sitting on the edge of the bath looked at her with an evil spark in his eyes. He broke a smile as he reached for the gun beside him and caressed it in his hands. The floor she was lying on felt cold and slick. She felt stuck to it, as if she was taped down to it, or worse, nailed down. She couldn’t breathe. The mere sight of the man was enough for her to break out in a sweat. The man stood up from his seated position on the edge of the bath and yawned.

  “Waiting for death to come is a tired old thing. You see, Mrs. Goldstein, the wait is now over, and I have places to be. So be sure to savor these last breaths of yours, because I’m about to give to you what you have had coming ever since you decided to take the law into your own hands!” the man said.

  The man with the gun paused as he looked at Cindy on the floor. She still couldn’t move. The rapid pulse in her neck made her skin feel alive as both the sweat and the intense heat she was feeling made her even more panicked. It wasn’t enough that the man with the gun had stalked her since she’d left Berlin, but he had finally gotten her, and now he was going to make her suffer. She knew that he wasn’t playing around. She knew that her time on the planet was coming to a close.