F. Paul Wilson - The Keep

One of the guards down there on the south wall had noticed it too and was coming over to investigate. Woermann was tempted to call down to him to take his partner with him but decided against it. The second man was standing in clear view by the parapet. It was a dead-end corner down there anyway. No possible danger.

He looked on as the soldier disappeared into the shadow—a peculiarly deep shadow. After perhaps fifteen seconds, Woermann looked away, but then was drawn back by a choked gurgle from below, followed by the clatter of wood and steel on stone—a dropped weapon.

He jumped at the sound, feeling his palms grow slick against the stone windowsill as he peered below. And still he could see nothing within the shadow.

The other guard, the first's partner, must have heard it too, for he started over to see what was wrong.

Woermann saw a dull, red spark begin to glow within the shadow. As it slowly brightened, he realized that it was the bulb coming back to life. Then he saw the first soldier. He lay on his back, arms akimbo, legs folded under him, his throat a bloody ruin. Sightless eyes stared up at Woermann, accusing him. There was nothing else, no one else in the corner.

As the other soldier began shouting for help, Woermann pulled himself back into the room and leaned against the wall, choking back bile as it surged up from his stomach. He could not move, could not speak. My God, my God!

He staggered over to the table that had been made for him only two days ago and grabbed a pencil. He had to get his men out of here—out of the keep, out of the Dinu Pass if necessary. There was no defense against what he had just witnessed. And he would not contact Ploiesti. This message would go straight to High Command.

But what to say? He looked at the mocking crosses for inspiration but none came. How to make High Command understand without sounding like a madman? How to tell them that he and his men must leave the keep, that something uncanny threatened them, something immune to German military power.

He began to jot down phrases, crossing each out as he thought of a better one. He despised the thought of surrendering any position, but it would be inviting disaster to spend another night here. The men would be nearly uncontrollable now. And at the present death rate, he would be an officer without a command if he stayed much longer.

Command ... his mouth twisted sardonically at the word. He was no longer in command of the keep. Something dark and awful had taken over.

SEVEN

The Dardanelles

Monday, 28 April

0244 hours

They were halfway through the strait when he sensed the boatman beginning to make his move.

It had not been an easy journey. The red-haired man had sailed past Gibraltar in the dark to Marbella where he had chartered the thirty-foot motor launch that now pulsed around him. It was sleek and low with two oversized engines. Its owner was no weekend captain. The red-haired man knew a smuggler when he saw one.

The owner had haggled fiercely over the fee until he learned he was to be paid in gold U.S. double eagles: half on departure, the rest upon their safe arrival on the northern shore of the Sea of Marmara. To traverse the length of the Mediterranean the owner had insisted on taking a crew. The red-haired man had disagreed; he would be crew enough.

They had run for six days straight, each man taking the helm for eight hours at a stretch, then resting for the next eight, keeping the boat at a steady twenty knots, twenty-four hours a day. They had stopped only at secluded coves where the owner's face seemed well known, and only long enough to fill the tanks with fuel. The red-haired man paid all expenses.

And now, alerted by the slowing of the boat, he waited for the owner, Carlos, to come below and try to kill him. Carlos had had his eye out for such a chance ever since they had left Marbella, but there had been none. Now, nearing the end of their journey, Carlos had only tonight left to get the money belt. The red-haired man knew that was what he was after. He had felt Carlos brush against him repeatedly to assure himself that his passenger still wore it. Carlos knew there was gold there; and it was plain by its bulk that there was a lot. He also appeared to be consumed with curiosity about the long, flat case his passenger always kept at his side.

It was a shame. Carlos had been a good companion the past six days. A good sailor, too. He drank a bit too much, ate more than a bit too much, and apparently did not bathe anywhere near enough. The red-haired man gave a mental shrug. He had smelled worse in his day. Much worse.

The door to the rear deck opened, letting in a breath of cool air; Carlos was framed briefly in starlight before closing the door behind him.

Too bad, the red-haired man thought, as he heard the faint scrape of steel being withdrawn from a leather sheath. A good journey was coming to a Sad end. Carlos had expertly guided them past Sardinia, sped them across the clear, painfully blue water between the northern tip of Tunisia and Sicily, then north of Crete and up through the Cyclades into the Aegean. They were presently threading the Dardanelles, the narrow channel connecting the Aegean with the Sea of Marmara.

Too bad.

He saw the light flash off the blade as it was raised over his chest. His left hand shot out and gripped the wrist before the knife could descend; his right hand gripped Carlos's other hand.

"Why, Carlos?"

"Give me the gold!" The words were snapped out.

"I might have given you more if you'd asked me. Why try to kill me?"

Carlos, gauging the strength of the hands holding him, tried a different tack. "I was only going to cut the belt off. I wasn't going to hurt you."

"The belt is around my waist. Your knife is over my chest."

"It's dark in here."

"Not that dark. But all right..." He loosened his grip on the wrists. "How much more do you want?"

Carlos ripped his knife hand free and plunged it downward, growling, "All of it!"

The red-haired man again caught the wrist before the blade could strike. "I wish you hadn't done that, Carlos."

With steady, inexorable deliberateness, the red-haired man bent his assailant's knife hand inward toward his own chest. Joints and ligaments popped and cracked in protest as they were stretched to the limit. Carlos groaned in pain and fear as his tendons ruptured and the popping was replaced by the sickening crunch of breaking bones. The point of his knife was now directly over the left side of his chest.

"No! Please... no!"

"I gave you a chance, Carlos." His own voice sounded hard, flat, and alien in his ears. "You threw it away."

Carlos's voice rose to a scream that ended abruptly as his fist was rammed against his ribs, driving the blade into his heart. His body went rigid, then limp. The red-haired man let him slip to the floor.

He lay still for a moment and listened to his heart beat. He tried to feel remorse but there was none. It had been a long time since he had killed someone. He ought to feel something. There was nothing. Carlos was a cold-blooded murderer. He had been dealt what he had intended to deal. There was no room for remorse in the red-haired man, only a desperate urgency to get to Romania.

Rising, he picked up the long, flat case, stepped up through the door to the rear deck, and took the helm. The engines were idling. He pushed them to full throttle.

The Dardanelles. He had been through here before, but never during a war, and never at full speed in the dark. The starlit water was a gray expanse ahead of him, the coast a dark smudge to the left and right. He was in one of the narrowest sections of the strait where it funneled down to a mile across. Even at its widest it never exceeded four miles. He traveled by compass and by instinct, without running lights, in a limbo of darkness.