On the fifth floor, Mason stopped on the landing and listened. Silence. Why had she gone up here? It was the worst thing to do. Her panic had driven her deeper into Ramek’s trap.
A creak of wood just above his head. The sixth floor.
Mason crept up the stairs, pistol ready. Ramek was armed, but Mason worried only about Laura. If Ramek felt cornered and unable to capture her for his ceremony, Mason was sure Ramek would kill her rather than let her go.
The building fell silent, and he imagined Laura hiding and Ramek stalking his prey. Mason stepped carefully to avoid debris as he climbed up to the sixth floor. He hid behind the return wall at the doorway between the staircase landing and the hallway. He peered around the corner.
On this level a hallway led to doorless offices. The monotony of black was broken only where fire had stripped the inner walls down to concrete and steel supports. As on the other floors, and eighty feet from where he stood, a few wooden planks lay precariously across the expanse of the gaping hole where the floor had collapsed.
Mason sneaked into the hallway, taking one careful step at a time. His ears strained to hear anything move. A few steps farther, he heard it. Soft sobbing somewhere across the gap. Laura. But where was Ramek? Ramek had to have heard it, too.
Mason took longer strides, checking each room as he passed. Still fifty feet from the hole his foot broke through the flooring. Floorboards gave way. Wood and plaster tumbled to the floor below.
Laura wailed in panic. Like a trapped animal, she shrieked and shot out of a room on the other side of the hole. She ran for a back stairway.
“Laura!”
Laura stopped, recognizing his voice. She burst into tears and ran recklessly across the planks spanning the hole. Mason tensed with alarm as the planks jumped and bent under the force of her steps. He broke into a trot, eyes alert, expecting at any moment for Ramek to attack.
Laura leapt the last few feet onto solid flooring.
At the same moment, Ramek burst through an adjacent office door and grabbed her from behind. His muscular arm wrapped tightly across her neck, choking off her screams. He used her as a shield and aimed his pistol at Mason.
Mason dived into another office just as Ramek fired. The bullet ripped into the door frame, dusting Mason in plaster and splintered wood.
“I told you that you and I were not done,” Ramek said. “I have been sent a perfect Chosen One. You can’t imagine my joy that she is also your lover. Let us leave, or I will kill her, Herr Collins.”
“You know I won’t let you do that.”
Laura screamed in pain. Mason extended his head and gun arm out of the doorway and took aim at Ramek.
“You kill her, and I’ll kill you,” Mason said. “Now, let her go and put the gun down—”
“I have nothing to lose. You have. You will please throw your gun away, or I swear I will kill her. Her head will explode before your eyes. . . . Do it!”
Mason had no choice. He was sure Ramek would follow through on his threat. He tossed the pistol forward. It rattled along the floor and dropped into a fissure, clattering to a stop below.
“Now you will let us pass,” Ramek said, and he took a step forward.
“I will let you pass, but only if you let her go.” Mason poked his head out beyond the doorjamb when he heard Ramek’s footsteps.
Ramek fired again, the bullet piercing the wall near Mason’s head. Mason ducked inside. He was trapped, and every step Ramek advanced brought Mason closer into Ramek’s line of fire.
Quickly, Mason tried to recall all he’d learned about Ramek, from the interviews, from Ramek’s own diary, from the basement shrine. . . .
Against every ounce of self-preservation in his body, Mason stepped into the hallway.
“I met your mother, Doctor,” Mason said.
Ramek froze.
“You butchered her and lashed her to a cross. How can you expect to go to heaven after doing that to your mother?”
Ramek gripped Laura tighter, but his gun hand trembled. “You know nothing about it!” he shouted, as if the memory of it brought him pain. “She was my first beatification. Through her suffering, she became a saint.”
Mason took a step and kept his voice calm. “I know you hear voices, Doctor.” He paused to let Ramek process that. “I hear them, too. And your mother whispered a prayer to me: ‘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. . . .’ She knows it’s your favorite.”
“That was her prayer,” Ramek breathed.
Another step. “She wants you to realize that those evil spirits, the ones that prowl the world, are also the voices that speak to you, and they seek to ruin your soul. She begs you to show mercy, that mercy is the path to heaven. Otherwise, you will never be free from what you’ve done. Letting this woman go is a first step. Letting her go and delaying your path to ascension will be your greatest sacrifice. A selfless act that will go far in cleansing you of sin.”
“You lie!” Ramek jammed the pistol into Laura’s temple and released her throat long enough for her to scream. “My mother would never say such things. We must all suffer. We are all vessels of sin and depravity . . . and it must be cut out!” He squeezed Laura’s neck so hard that it lifted her off the ground.
Mason hesitated. Talk of his mother seemed to push him closer to losing what sanity he had left. He took another step forward while desperately thinking of a new tack. . . . “I know you are tormented because you let the little girl, Angela, go.”
Ramek stopped breathing.
Another step. “That was an act of mercy. Don’t you see? You saved that child. You have goodness in your heart. But the voices want to keep you blind to that. And that is why they had you mask your mirrors, isn’t it? To prevent you from seeing the truth? The truth that lies deep within you? This woman, who looks like your mother, was sent to help you back from darkness. I was sent to help you, not destroy you.”
“This woman was sent to me by divine grace,” Ramek said. “Not by you.”
Mason took two steps and opened his arms as if daring Ramek to shoot.
“You remember Dr. Blazek, don’t you, Doctor? You two talked in the night and shared your fears and desires in a barrack at Mauthausen.”
Stunned, Ramek relaxed his hold on Laura. His gaze went elsewhere, as if remembering.
Mason continued. “Dr. Blazek said that you, like all the prisoner doctors, felt terrible guilt about working for the SS doctors. That you survived by making a pact with the devil for the chance of survival. Do you remember that? You were forced to assist in savage and inhumane experiments. You were never a monster. You have simply lost your soul.”
Another step.
Ramek regained his composure. “You know nothing.” He aimed the pistol at Mason and pulled back the hammer. “Not another step further.”
But Mason took another step, even as he braced himself for the impact of a bullet. “I can see into your tortured soul. I can see within your mind all the innocents you made suffer at Ravensbrück and Mauthausen. All their suffering . . .” He took a step. “Remember the innocent people you strapped to operating tables? Doing Dr. Kiesewetter’s bidding? They screamed in pain at your hands.”
Ramek tensed as if hit by an electrical current. He panted and sputtered incoherently.
“Drop the gun and let her go. God commands it. Your mother begs you.”
“I won’t. . . . I can’t. . . .” Tears came to Ramek’s eyes and he began to mutter a prayer. His trembling had grown almost out of control. His gun arm began to sink.
Mason saw his chance. He charged.
Ramek tensed and aimed the gun at Mason. “No!”
Mason jumped to his right, and Laura slapped Ramek’s gun arm. The gun fired. The aim was wide. Ramek flung Laura aside and f
ired again. The bullet sliced across Mason’s rib cage. It felt as though he’d been hit with a sledgehammer, but his momentum carried, slamming him into Ramek. To Mason it felt like he’d run into a brick wall, and searing pain from his wounded ribs paralyzed him. Ramek stumbled backward, losing his grip on the pistol, and it tumbled into the hole.
Ramek growled and slammed his fist into the bullet wound in Mason’s ribs. Mason’s entire body convulsed as if receiving a jolt of electricity. His lungs froze and his knees buckled. Ramek immediately wrapped both hands around Mason’s throat. The man had unbelievable strength and he held Mason tight to his body, almost lifting Mason from the floor. Mason struggled to maneuver out of the hold, but the incredible pressure from Ramek’s grasp cut off blood to Mason’s brain. He felt his hyoid bone strain under the pressure and it threatened to break. He lost feeling in his legs, and he began to lose consciousness.
A cry from Laura brought him back momentarily, and Laura struck Ramek across the back with a piece of wood. Ramek hardly registered the blow, but it had distracted him for a split second. That brief moment was enough.
Summoning his waning strength, Mason thrust his open hand into Ramek’s trachea. Ramek gagged and his grip loosened. Mason then twisted his body and raised his right arm up high. With all the power he could muster, he brought his arm down on Ramek’s wrist, breaking Ramek’s hold. Mason reversed the twist and rammed his elbow into the bridge of Ramek’s nose. Mason heard the crunch of bone, and blood spurted from Ramek’s nose.
Ramek staggered in place, but seemed impervious to the pain. In a swift movement, he reached around to his opposite pocket and brought his scalpel out, swinging it in a wide arc toward Mason’s throat. Mason was ready for it. He ducked the swing and slammed the palm of his hand into Ramek’s already broken nose. Ramek recoiled and screamed at what must have been excruciating pain. Stunned, his legs buckled and he dropped to his knees.
Mason began pounding Ramek in the face. Left fist, then right. He couldn’t stop. He was turning Ramek’s face to a bloody pulp. Ramek slumped to the ground, senseless. He no longer struggled. Blood bubbled from his nose, mouth, and ears.
Mason grabbed Ramek’s throat and squeezed. His rage added to his strength.
“Die, asshole.”
Ramek tried to strike him, but the blow landed without force. His faced turned scarlet. He exhaled more blood than air. His struggling became desperate swipes at Mason’s face. He grasped Mason’s arms, but his strength was gone. His kicking slowed. . . .
“Mason!”
Laura’s voice snapped him back.
“Stop,” Laura said with such horror and grief that it made Mason ease his death grip on Ramek’s throat. The doctor took a desperate gulp of air.
Keeping the man pinned, Mason looked into his eyes. “You’re under arrest.”
Mason struggled to rise. Laura helped him to stand, but, faster than thought, Ramek’s foot took out Mason’s legs. Mason fell heavily to the floor. Ramek climbed unsteadily to his feet and tottered at the edge of the chasm.
“Only by plunging into the abyss can one then soar to heaven,” Ramek said in a calm voice.
With a bloody smile, Ramek dropped backward into the hole. Mason rushed to the edge to stop him, but was too late. He could only watch as Ramek collided with the edges of several floors before his body hit the concrete floor of the dark basement.
Mason fell to his knees. His head spun and his entire body turned cold. He’d never been so exhausted. Then he became aware of Laura’s hands on him, tending his wound as best she could while she sobbed. Her touch, her smell, her face so close to his, brought sudden warmth. And he felt as if he had come out of a dark place.
FIFTY
Mason sat in the passenger’s seat, riding in a five-ton army truck loaded with supplies. Both sides of the snow-covered road were bordered by thick pine forest, and in the distance rose the snow-capped mountains of the Bavarian Alps. The truck was the only transport available from Munich. A two-day snowstorm had clogged the roads, delayed trains, but the army deemed the truck, its driver, and Mason expendable enough to send them out anyway. He stared out the window as he thought about the past few weeks.
Mason had stopped a brutal murderer, purged a small patch of earth from madness, and for a heartbeat the world seemed brighter, cleaner after Ramek’s death. But the moment quickly passed. The clouds still obscured the sun, the snow still fell, and the people in Munich still starved or froze to death.
The army was left without a clue what to do with Mason Collins—hero or vigilante? The Stars and Stripes and the American-controlled German press hailed him as a hero. Colonel Walton wanted to bust him in rank and send him to a remote mountain outpost, but the army brass had dragged him in front of the cameras as the new military police poster boy, then stuck him behind a desk when the dust had settled.
Mason had managed to use his temporary star status to wangle a deal: no remote outpost, no desk job, but instead an assignment to an out-of-the-way German town, where he’d spend his remaining year in the army busting black marketers and wayward soldiers. That suited Mason just fine.
Wolski had survived and was now convalescing at the Walter Reed General Hospital. He was trying to convince the army to let Anna immigrate, and he’d probably succeed because of his wounds in the line of duty and his aid in the dramatic case. He still planned to go for a law degree. He and Mason promised to keep in touch, but Mason knew how those things went. . . .
Mason saw Becker often during his final month in Munich, and they had forged a strong friendship. It gave Mason hope that with men like Becker, Germany would rise from the ashes to become a better country. Together they had located a Catholic foundation that agreed to take in the orphans. Kurt had opted out; he had a good business going with cigarettes (partially funded by Mason), and Mason saw him becoming a successful entrepreneur one day. Angela thrived in her new home, however; she and the others would no longer have to survive alone in the ruins. Mason vowed to visit them whenever he could.
After Laura and he had spent New Year’s in Paris, she had immersed herself in her serial about life in postwar Germany. Mason guessed that charging into the fray at full steam was her way of coping with the trauma of the abduction. And though Mason had objected, she had left Munich to try to pick up the trail of the black marketers. Whether they could overcome their differences, reporter and cop, and see their relationship flourish, only time would tell. Either way, Mason was through with the army, and he planned to go back to the States after his year in purgatory was up.
“Whoa!”
The truck had hit a patch of ice and swerved side to side as the driver tried to keep it on the road.
The driver finally gained control of the truck. “That was close.”
Mason settled back in his seat and returned his gaze to the snowy landscape.
The driver was a Hawaiian and went by the nickname “Bubbles.” Mason had no idea why; the man was built like a rhinoceros.
“Garmisch is a real nice place,” Bubbles said.
“I wouldn’t know.”
“It never got a scratch during the war. It’s like some town you’d see in a kid’s storybook. A big ski destination. You like to ski?”
“Never saw the sense in putting sticks on my feet and sliding down a mountain.”
Bubbles laughed. “I ain’t built for it, that’s for sure.”
Garmisch-Partenkirchen was going to be Mason’s new post. A sleepy town—at least, that was its reputation—nestled in a mountain valley near the Austrian border. Only Wolski and Becker knew the real reason why he had used his temporary clout to go from a high-octane city to a somnolent town: Laura was there somewhere, working her story.
Colonel Walton had been more than happy to approve the plan, sending Mason off with a self-satisfied grin. “You’re not going to be able to stir up any trouble down there.”
&nb
sp; Mason smiled.
We’ll see.
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