Mason took a few minutes to explore the furnace room. Like three rusting beasts, the hulking furnaces sat silently, spreading their tentacle-like pipes along the ceiling and extending out into each of the converging corridors. With a last scan, his flashlight glinted off polished metal behind one of the furnaces. He went around the furnace and came upon Ramek’s “operating room.” A butcher’s table similar to the one they’d found in Ramek’s workshop had served as the operating table. The leather straps still hung from the sides, and a rumpled white sheet lay along its length. A rolling cart stood next to the table, void of any surgical instruments. The few shelves and a workbench contained nothing that would indicate Ramek had been there. Ramek had removed all his instruments of torture. Mason didn’t need proof, but now it was confirmed: Despite every setback, Ramek planned to continue his gruesome work.
Mason entered the maintenance tunnel where Ramek had escaped. In the alcove with the descending stairs, he sent his flashlight beam into the hole. Eight feet below, another tunnel. He climbed down the ladder, making as little noise as possible. As far as his flashlight showed, the tunnel continued arrow straight in both directions. A ceramic drainpipe, at least four feet in diameter, ran through the tunnel, leaving him barely enough room to face forward. A thick layer of sludge covered most of the floor. Multiple footprints led off in both directions.
He tried to picture the building plan. From the changes in his path’s direction, he estimated that behind him the tunnel led back to the main collection area in the processing plant. In front of him, it must lead to the storm drains or the Isar river.
In the dark underground maze, he quickly lost track of time. He looked at his watch: 9:50. Still three hours before Laura’s train left. Mason had spent the entire night awake and thinking. Near six that morning he’d come to a couple of conclusions: He was a damn fool, and Laura was the best thing to come along in his life. Nonetheless, it was still up in the air whether he would get on the train with her or not.
Mason moved forward, his shoulders scraping against the wall and the drainpipe. He’d never considered himself claustrophobic, but the journey through that tunnel tested his tolerance. The foul stench overwhelmed the still air. Rats scurried away from his flashlight beam. The roof and floor seemed to compress in on him as he went.
At about a hundred feet, he encountered several cracks in the floor, ceiling, and drainpipe. He figured he was under the canning plant, which had suffered the worst of the bombardments. Even at this depth the impacts of one-thousand-pound bombs had ruptured the foundation. The threat of another collapse, burying him in this tomb, compounded this new sensation of claustrophobia.
A few yards farther and the cracks became fissures and breaks. A few minutes after that he had to stop. The ceiling of the tunnel had collapsed. There was no way to continue. He tested the chunks of concrete and jabbed at the earth, but all was firmly in place. This was the end of the line. No trapdoors. No secret passage.
How had Ramek escaped? There had to be another way out. The other direction led back to the processing plant. It was unlikely Ramek could have gotten out that way. There had been too many men converging on the processing plant by that time, plus the men as lookouts on each corner. He must have fashioned several means of escape, and perhaps one of them might be in the very direction Mason would not expect—beneath the processing plant.
When Mason turned to go back, he stumbled on a chunk of concrete. As he tried to regain his balance, his flashlight struck the drainpipe, creating a hollow sound that reverberated within the pipe. With the butt end of his flashlight, he banged on the ceramic pipe again and listened, a new thought coming to him. Mason retraced his steps, examining every inch of the drainpipe. It had many small cracks and breaks; occasionally he’d stop and tap in places that looked loose. Thirty feet farther on, he came to a section of the pipe that was riddled with a web of fissures. With one good tap, a manhole-sized portion fell into the pipe. Mason examined the edges of the break. The ceramic looked new, and at several places shards of the cut material had shredded away dark blue fibers. Ramek had cut through the shattered section of pipe and fashioned the piece so he could reset it upon his escape.
The opening was barely big enough for Mason to squeeze through. He didn’t know how Ramek had managed with his much greater bulk, but he was sure Ramek had figured that out long before being pursued.
Once inside, Mason had to bend forward to avoid banging his head. And there, in the sludge, was a set of footprints leading away from the plant. He moved forward, bent at the waist, flashlight up. He tried to close his mind to the suffocating darkness, but the pipe was worse than the tunnel. He’d never experienced true claustrophobia before, but now giant invisible hands squeezed air from his lungs and constricted his throat. Maybe it was the crushing events of the last few days; maybe it was the sheer exhaustion. Whatever caused it, sweat streamed down his face despite the cold. His lungs demanded more air. He quickened his pace, feeling like a desperate man climbing out of a grave. What felt like an hour had only been ten minutes when he saw faint daylight.
Finally he reached the end and saw that a falling bomb had blown off the drainpipe just before it terminated at the river. He dropped off the jagged edge onto the muddy bank of the Isar River and grabbed his knees. He gulped in fresh air and felt the cold grip of panic subside.
Mason surveyed his immediate surroundings and calculated approximately where he was in relation to the city. A narrow islet divided this part of the river. His side of the river flowed swiftly and had cut into the land, forming a high embankment.
He searched around the base of the drainpipe for footprints, but, except for the last foot before the water’s edge, snow covered the riverbank. He then headed south, away from the city, scanning the ground as he went. After a hundred yards, he ran into thick trees and brush growing on the steep embankment. It would have taken Ramek a great deal of effort to push through this natural barrier, and he definitely would have left evidence of the struggle. It had to be the other direction.
Mason backtracked and started the search north of the drainpipe. Here, the way narrowed, the high embankment encroaching on the water’s edge, with scrub brush and small trees growing from the sand and mud. The embankment would have forced Ramek to keep to the edge of the water, and Mason did the same. At thirty feet, he spotted a large footprint in the mud where the water lapped the land. The same footprint as in the sludge of the drainpipe.
Industrial buildings lined this side of the river, any one of them an ideal place for Ramek to set up his torture chamber. He could be waiting close by or deep inside the dense ruins. Even if Mason found more footprints, there would be no way to track Ramek once he hit concrete and asphalt. Almost eighteen hours had passed since Ramek had fled into the plant’s maintenance tunnel. Eighteen hours to find a new lair. Mason cursed himself for being there, scrambling along the riverbank, hoping beyond reason that he would find a definitive clue of where Ramek had gone.
He wondered if he should go on and looked at his watch again: 10:25. He still had time to stumble around on a fool’s errand . . . something he was getting used to.
Mason walked on. Twenty yards later, he found another footprint just as the embankment flattened out to a gentle slope. Now he had a choice: continue along the riverbank or head inland. He could toss a coin or rely on instinct. He headed inland.
He moved through thick scrub and sparse saplings. Above the top of the rise, he could just see the upper section of a defunct cement factory. Scanning the area, he spied another footprint at the base of a tree, where its branches had blocked the snow. He was right: Ramek had gone this way. With a little luck . . .
At the top of the slope he came to a wide field bisected by train tracks. Beyond the field and to his left were flat-roofed warehouses, and a half mile to his right a blue-collar neighborhood on the fringes of the city.
About a hundred yards down the track
s, a bevy of men worked to repair the bomb-damaged tracks. Mason walked down to the spot and showed the men the sketch of Ramek. They all shook their heads, but one man suggested asking around at a homeless camp near an old hydroelectric plant built over the smaller branch of the river.
A five-minute walk along the riverbank brought him to a camp of lean-tos and salvaged army tents. The occupants, all men, sat around fires or washed clothes in the icy river. They all were gaunt and bedraggled. Some still wore their ragged Wehrmacht uniforms. Not too long before, it had been Mason’s duty to try to kill these men, but now he only felt pity for them.
As Mason circulated the camp, showing the sketch of Ramek, the men eyed him with suspicion. Most of them gave the sketch only a cursory glance and seemed more concerned that a U.S. soldier had invaded their domain. Mason took a position at the water’s edge to face them and gave them the now oft-repeated speech about Ramek butchering innocent Germans and his job being to stop the killer.
The speech, well-worn as it was, seemed to garner their interest. The men started to talk among themselves. Finally a hollow-eyed man stood and limped toward Mason.
“I saw that man last night,” the hollow-eyed man said, then pointed south along the riverbank. “He was carrying two heavy duffel bags. I didn’t pay much attention. I assumed he was just another homeless veteran. He was snooping around that building, though the building’s boarded up.” The building he pointed to lay in an open field farther up the tracks to Mason’s right. “Even if he got in, he wouldn’t be able to stay. Every ten days or so the police come back and kick out anyone trying to use it as a shelter.”
Mason thanked them all and hurried away. A few minutes later, he came opposite of the building and stopped. The two-story building lay in the middle of the field near a defunct track, a turn-of-the-century relic that had probably been a maintenance and switching station for the railroad at one time. The brick had turned black with age and years of soot. Boards covered the windows of the first floor, but the broad observation windows on the second story were exposed and either broken or streaked with dirt.
Mason entered the field and crossed the train tracks. With nothing to provide cover, he tried to keep his line of approach to a blind corner, but nothing could prevent Ramek from spotting him if he watched from the shadows of the second story. Bent low and gun out, Mason took quick strides and rushed up to a corner of the building, then stopped and listened. No sound but the wind and a transport plane flying overhead.
Then he saw them: on the ground where the eaves stopped the snow, a whole series of Ramek’s footprints.
He sneaked up to a window and tried to peer through the separation in the boards. Too dark inside. Ducking below the window, he moved around to the front and only door. A new padlock had been added to the door’s hasp. With every muscle tensed and his finger on the trigger, he kicked the door.
The old wooden frame gave way and the door exploded inward. He charged in with his gun up. He moved sideways, his ears alert to any sound. Sunlight poured through the gaps in the boards and made slashes of light in the billowing dust. Still, too many shadows. Mason turned on his flashlight and scanned the single room. To his left, a narrow desk sat under one window and was flanked by shelves of rotting boxes. To his right, one under each window, sat two tables with rags, rusting cans, and papers. Nothing in the space could conceal a big man like Ramek.
He moved up the narrow stairs. The boards protested under his weight. With his gun out, he poked his head above the second-story floor. The space was empty except for a lone table.
Back downstairs, Mason checked the outside again. Several tracks led to and from the door. Inside, Mason frantically swept things off the shelves and tossed crates aside. A metal cabinet sat in one corner, nearly buried in empty wooden crates. He shoved away the crates and yanked open the doors.
“I found you, you asshole.”
On the upper shelves of the cabinet lay an assortment of Ramek’s surgical instruments and supplies, and on the bottom shelf, cans of food, blankets, and a kerosene lantern. Then he noticed something very odd: On a stool wedged between the cabinet and the wall sat a very large children’s toy. No, not really a toy. It appeared to be too sophisticated for that. The two-foot-high rabbit stood on its hind legs and held a violin as if bowing the strings. Why had Ramek thought this contraption was so important? There were a lot of other things he could have brought with him, either to help him in hideous tasks or for his survival. Why this?
Mason would address that conundrum later. The building probably served as a temporary stop for Ramek, and he’d be back to collect his things after finding a more secure location. So, at that moment, Mason had to get ready for Ramek’s return. He brushed away his tracks in the snow in front of the building, then closed the broken front door as best he could. After completing those tasks, he stood inside the front-facing window and peered out through the gaps in the boards. How much time before Ramek came back?
Mason checked his watch. A little more than an hour and a half before Laura’s train. He cursed. Of all the damn luck. He couldn’t let Laura go, but now that he had Ramek he couldn’t walk away, either.
With one last glance through the gaps, he walked over to the mechanical rabbit and examined it closely. For Mason, the eerie device conjured up images of something out of a kid’s haunted childhood. He felt around the heavy base, then lifted the device from the stool. There, underneath the rabbit, lay a small brass key. Mason inserted the key into the base and turned the key several rotations. The music began. The rabbit bowed the violin, swaying with the music and turning its head. Mason glanced at the door, worried that the noise might alert Ramek to his presence. With the last plucked note, the rabbit stopped. A click of metal and a scrape of wood on wood brought Mason’s attention back to the rabbit. A drawer had popped out from the base. Inside the drawer lay a leather-bound book. Mason removed the book and placed it on the narrow desk where a slash of dusty light entered through the wooden slats.
He opened it.
Every page was covered edge to edge in written text. On a random page he read:
November 19, 1945
It is 744 days since the end of my being, since the descent, since the beginning of the black day . . . oh, how they screamed. The voices taunt us with dreams of their agony. They torment us with the curse of remembrance. . . .
Ramek’s diary.
FORTY-SEVEN
Mason leafed through Ramek’s diary and stopped at the page dated December 22.
. . . We are being punished. Why did we let the angel go? Oh, God, give us the strength. Our burden is heavy. . . . The forces of evil have sent their agent to hinder us. We have eluded him again and again to carry on our holy mission, but we fear he is not far behind. He is no match for our divine powers or the sanctity of our destiny, but before we can perform again the ceremonies of beatitude and extract all our sins, we must defeat the American policeman!
Then page after page of one word repeated: Mother, Mother, Mother, Mother . . . Then:
Mother watches over our Chosen Ones.
On another page he discovered a prayer to Saint Michael. It began:
O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
In another, much longer prayer to Saint Michael, Ramek had underlined one particular passage:
The Church venerates thee as protector . . . as her defense against the malicious powers of this world and of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude.
An idea struck Mason. He opened the diary to the last pages and scanned the entries.
December 23 . . .
Last night.
. . . It is 778 days since the beginning of the black days. . . .
We rejoice! We have found a second angel, a most perfect Ch
osen One. They have brought her to us as a great sign. We felt fear at the sight of her. We thought she had been sent back to haunt us, but it is truly a divine sign. She is so much like Mother!
The last entry, a short passage entered that morning, December 24 . . .
Today at high noon, we will have the most perfect Chosen One!
Ramek was on the hunt again, and at this very moment.
Mason checked his watch: 10:55. An hour before Ramek abducted his prey. Possibly even a child who resembled his mother. That meant within twenty-four hours she would be tortured, butchered, and put on display. The only chance to stop Ramek was to determine the victim’s identity. If he could do that, there might be a slim chance he could save her and trap him. There was no time to go to headquarters, convince a skeptical Colonel Walton, then muster all available forces. Going to them now would take too much time. It would be too late to do anything but wait until the body was found.
But how could he determine the victim’s identity? Someone who looked like Ramek’s mother . . . Mason thought back. No pictures had been found at Ramek’s workshop or his house, let alone any of his mother. And the only documents found about her had no accompanying pictures, only the statement: missing, presumed dead.
His mind raced. He tried to summon every scrap of detail. He let the images roll through his mind, but nothing helped. There was the diary, but it would take too long to read everything. He fanned through the diary pages hoping something might stand out. A page swept past with a large drawing. Ramek had taken up almost an entire page sketching out a baptismal cross. Then written underneath: The cross Mother wore next to her heart.
Ruins of War Page 34