K Jeter - The Kingdom of Shadows

As Marte wept quietly, curled up in the chair on the other side of the desk, von Behren reached out and turned a few pages of the old book before him. He stopped at the woodcut print of the cloaked and hooded figure, stalking with a crossbow through a night-dark forest. The figure leaned forward, the hidden face intent upon its prey. Der Rote Jager. The story and the image had sealed itself into von Behren’s dreaming years ago, when he’d been a child and his grandmother had first read it to him as he’d sat in the safety of her lap. The red hunter, the hunter of men. The one from whom there was no escape, no matter where you fled. As the nobleman who’d broken the ancient laws ran through the entangling branches, seeking the shelter of daybreak, only to find an endless night and a red-cloaked figure barring the path before him, the same faceless image that had strode unstoppable behind him…

Perhaps it was unavoidable, and always had been. Von Behren closed the book and let out a pent-up sigh. “We had better pack, then. You will only need to take a few things. I’m sure the gracious folk of the consulate will take care of all the rest.”

Marte raised her head. “You would come with me?”

He nodded. “Yes, of course.” He picked up the old book; that was one thing he would take with him, back to that land from which he had brought it. A rueful smile came to his face. “How could I not?”

After she had hurried away, back to her little house to throw a few things into a suitcase, he went on sitting at the desk, mulling over answerless questions.

He supposed he loved her as well. But he hadn’t realized it, until after he had given her to the eyes of other men.

The forest snared him in its branches, as he closed his own eyes and ran toward the waiting figure.

The house felt empty. Except for the man standing in the middle of the living room, the exact center of the little house with the other empty rooms echoing around. A man with necktie loosened and pulled askew, and a two-day stubble on a face trembling with anger.

“Well?” David Wise turned, his fists tightened. “Any word?” His voice was a demanding bark.

The head of security for the Wise Studios had left the house’s front door open behind him. With somebody in the state that his boss had worked himself into, Wilson knew it was best to keep his own options clear.

“It’s pretty sure they went through Mexico, and probably on to Buenos Aires.” He glanced at a piece of paper he took from his shirt pocket, though he’d already memorized what was on it. “Apparently von Behren tried to cash a check in Tijuana. At a hotel – the clerk remembers a group of about six people speaking German, and one of them was a woman. He didn’t see her face; they hustled her in and out before he got a good look at her.”

“How long ago was that?”

The security head shrugged. “Three days. Possibly four.”

“Damn.” Wise’s glare swept across the house’s doorways. “Those bastards kidnapped her.” His nostrils flared, as though catching a trace from a perfume bottle that Marte might have left open on her dressing room table.

“Come on – we don’t know if that’s true or not.” Wilson folded the paper and put it back in his pocket. “I talked to the cab driver, the one who brought Marte home that night – he told me about seeing the man waiting inside. And that there’d been a sedan with German diplomatic plates parked across the street; you don’t see that very often. You gotta face the facts, David – they might’ve found some way to talk her into leaving. Why else would von Behren have been with them?”

“I don’t know, and right now I don’t care.” Wise’s face looked as if it were about to explode from the pressure building up inside. “Look, you hire whoever you need, anybody who knows his way around down there. You can raise a goddamn army and send ’em if you have to. But I want you to find her and bring her back here. Got it?”

“If that’s what you want. But the chances are good she’s already on her way back to Europe. She steps off a plane in Lisbon, or more likely, off a boat in occupied France, you really think I can have a crew waiting there to throw a blanket over her and freight her back here? If somebody thought she was important enough to sic their operatives in the consulate on, they’re not going to hand her over with a smile.”

Wise raised a straining fist, as though he were about to cock it and throw a punch. His eyes were red slits. Wilson took a step back, getting his own hands ready to fend off the blow.

“David… come on.” He kept his voice low and soothing as possible. “How much of a mess do you want to make this? You want to blow this up into some kind of international incident? This is already going to hit the papers pretty soon. We’ve already called in every favor we had on the books, to get all the gossip columnists and movie mags to play her up as a refugee. They’re going to tear into this like a pack of wolves, just ’cause we’ve made ’em look like fools now. And how’s it going to play when the Germans get Marte to lay out some cozy spiel about why she wanted to go home again? It’s going to be more raw meat thrown to that pack if you go carrying on like some kind of jilted lover.”

“Screw that,” muttered Wise. “Look, I’m telling you, I don’t give a damn about any of that. I just want to find her and bring her back here, and I don’t care what it takes. And if the people I thought were my friends aren’t going to help, then fine, I’ll do it myself. But I’m not letting her go.”

The other man shook his head. “And I’m saying you can’t do it. Don’t you understand? She’s already gone. They got something on her, they told her something to make her want to go. Even if you found her and talked to her, are you sure you want to find out what it is you didn’t know about her?”

“The hell with you.” Tears welled up in Wise’s eyes. “Get away from me. I don’t want to hear any more crap from you.” He jabbed a finger at the security head. “You’re fired. I don’t want some disloyal bastard like you working for me.”

“Fine.” Wilson stepped toward the door. “You want to talk to me again, you can call me at home. Or don’t; it doesn’t matter to me. But just don’t make a bigger fool out of yourself than you absolutely have to, okay?” He turned and walked.

At the curb, pulling open the door of his car, he heard the sudden crash of sound from inside what had been Marte Helle’s house. He knew what was going on; he could see it unreeling on the screen inside his head. The overturned furniture, the lamps crashing against the walls, the manic fury pulling the heavy draperies from the windows, trampling them before smashing the glass panes themselves. David Wise was taking the place apart, stick by stick. Like a blinded, enraged Samson pulling down the temple, without benefit of two stone pillars to bring the whole thing crashing down upon his head.

Nothing more he could do for the poor bastard. He slid behind the wheel, twisted the key in the ignition, and drove away…

“I had the strangest dream.” Marte raised her head from the back of the airplane’s seat. She stayed curled up, legs tucked beneath her, the thin blanket sliding away. The only light came from the stars arrayed in the little window close by. “ Ganz befremdlich…”

“Oh?” Von Behren stirred in the seat beside her, a thick book on his lap, his finger marking the spot where he had stopped reading. He raised his voice just above the drone of the airplane’s engines. “And what happened in it, child?”

“I don’t know.” She looked out at the immobile night. Where were they? Somewhere above South America, she supposed. It didn’t matter. “I saw David.”