Jeffery Deaver - Garden Of Beasts

The man spun around, spittle flying from his mouth, set in a large, square face. He stared into Paul’s blue eyes. “Who are you? Do you know who I am? Hugo Felstedt of the Berlin Castle Stormtrooper Brigade. Alexander! Stefan!”

Paul eased the woman aside. She bent and helped up the other bookseller, who was wiping his mouth, tears falling from the pain, the humiliation.

Two Stormtroopers emerged from the store. “Who is this?” one asked.

“Your card! Now!” Felstedt cried.

Although he’d boxed all his life, Paul avoided street brawls. His father used to sternly lecture the boy that he should never compete in any event where no one oversaw the rules. He was forbidden to fight in school yards and alleyways. “You listening to me, son?” Paul had dutifully replied, “Sure, Pa, you bet.” But sometimes there was nothing to do but meet Jake McGuire or Little Bill Carter and take and give some knuckle. He wasn’t sure what made those times different. But somehow you knew without a doubt that you couldn’t walk away.

And sometimes – maybe a lot of times – you could, but you just plain didn’t want to.

He sized up the man; he was like the kid lieutenant, Vincent Manielli, Paul decided. Young and muscled, but mostly talk. The American eased his weight to his toes, balanced himself and struck Felstedt’s midsection with a nearly invisible straight right.

The man’s jaw dropped and he backed up, struggling for breath, tapping his chest as if searching for his heart.

“You swine,” one of the others cried in a high voice, shocked, reaching for his pistol. Paul danced forward, grabbed the man’s right hand, pulled it from the holster cover, and popped a left hook into his face. In boxing there is no pain worse than a solid blow to the nose and, as the cartilage snapped and the blood flowed onto his camel-brown uniform, the man gave a keening howl and staggered back against the wall, tears pouring from his eyes.

Hugo Felstedt had by now dropped to his knees and was no longer interested in his heart; he was gripping his belly as he retched pathetically.

The third trooper went for his gun.

Paul stepped forward fast, fists closed. “Don’t,” he warned calmly. The Brownshirt suddenly bolted up the street, crying, “I’ll get some help… I’ll get some help…”

The fourth Stormtrooper stepped outside. Paul moved toward him and he cried, “Please, don’t hurt me!”

Eyes fixed on the Brownshirt, Paul knelt, opened the satchel and began rummaging through the papers inside to find the pistol.

His eyes dipped for a moment and the Stormtrooper bent suddenly, grabbed some shards of window glass and flung them toward Paul. He ducked but the man launched himself into the American and caught him on the cheek with his brass-knuckled fist. It was a glancing blow but Paul was stunned and fell backward over his briefcase into a small weedy garden next to the store. The Brownshirt leapt after him. They grappled. The man was not particularly strong nor was he a trained fighter but, still, it took Paul a moment to struggle to his feet. Angry that he’d been caught off guard, he grabbed the man’s wrist, twisted sharply and heard a snap.

“Oh,” the man whispered. He sagged to the ground and passed out.

Felstedt was rolling into a sitting position, wiping vomit from his face.

Paul pulled the man’s pistol from his belt and flung it onto the roof of a low building nearby. He turned to the bookseller and the woman. “Leave now. Go.”

Speechless, they stared at him.

“Now!” he muttered sharply.

A whistle sounded up the street. Some shouts.

Paul said, “Run!”

The bookseller wiped his mouth again and glanced at the remains of their shop one last time. The woman put her arm around his shoulders and they hurried away.

Looking in the opposite direction down Rosenthaler Street, Paul noted a half dozen Brownshirts running in his direction.

“You Jew swine,” the man with the broken nose muttered. “Oh, you’re done for now.”

Paul grabbed the satchel, scooped the scattered contents back inside and began running toward a nearby alley. A glance behind. The clutch of large men was in pursuit. Where the hell had they all come from? Breaking from the alley, he found himself on a street of residential buildings, pushcarts, decrepit restaurants and tawdry shops. He paused, looking around the crowded street.

He stepped past a vendor selling secondhand clothing and, when the man was looking away, slipped a dark green jacket off a rack of men’s garments. He rolled it up and started into another alley to put it on. But he heard shouts from nearby. “There! Is that him?… You! Stop!”

To his left he saw three more Stormtroopers pointing his way. Word had spread of the incident. He hurried into the alley, longer and darker than the first. More shouts behind him. Then a gunshot. He heard a sharp snap as the bullet hit brick near his head. He glanced back. Another three or four uniformed men had joined his pursuers.

There are far too many people in this country who will chase you simply because you are running…

Paul spit hard against the wall and struggled to suck air into his lungs. A moment later he burst out of the alley into another street, more crowded than the first. He inhaled deeply and lost himself in the crowds of Saturday shoppers. Looking up and down the avenue, he saw three or four alleys branching off.

Which one?

Shouts behind him as the Stormtroopers poured into the street. No time to wait. He picked the nearest alleyway.

Wrong choice. The only exits from it were five or six doors. They were all locked.

He started to run back out of the cul-de-sac but stopped. There were now a dozen Brownshirts prowling through the crowds, moving steadily toward this alley. Most of them held pistols. Boys accompanied them, dressed like the flag-lowering youngsters he’d met yesterday at the Olympic Village.

Steadying his breathing, he pressed flat against the brick.

A swell mess this is, he thought angrily.

He stuffed his hat, tie and suit jacket into the satchel, then pulled on the green jacket.

Paul set the bag at his feet and took out the pistol. He checked to make certain the gun was loaded and a round chambered. Bracing his arm against the wall, he rested the weapon on his forearm and leaned out slowly, aiming at the man who was in the lead – Felstedt.

It would be difficult for them to figure out where the shot had come from and Paul hoped they’d scatter for cover, giving him the chance to lam through the rows of nearby pushcarts. Risky… but they’d be at this alley in a few minutes; what other choices did he have?

Closer, closer…

Touching the ice…

Pressure slowly increasing on the trigger as he aimed at the center of the man’s chest, the sights floating on the spot where the diagonal leather strap from belt to shoulder covered his heart.

“No,” the voice whispered urgently in his ear.

Paul spun around, leveling the pistol at the man who’d come up silently behind him. He was in his forties, dressed in a well-worn suit. His thick hair was swept back with oil and he had a bushy mustache. He was some inches shorter than Paul, his belly protruding over his belt. In his hands was a large cardboard carton.

“You may point that elsewhere,” he said calmly, nodding down at the pistol.

The American didn’t move the gun. “Who are you?”

“Perhaps we may converse later. We have more urgent matters now.” He stepped past Paul and looked around the corner. “A dozen of them. You must have done something quite irksome.”

“I beat up three of them.”

The German lifted a surprised eyebrow. “Ach, well, I assure you, sir, if you kill one or two, there will be hundreds more here within minutes. They’ll hunt you down and they may kill a dozen innocent people in the process. I can help you escape.”