The Wolf's Hour Part 42

Because he was different, he realized. Where had he come from? At whose nipples had he suckled? How had he gotten here, in Wolftown, as the five of six neared with every breath he drew?

He was with Golda, basking in the warming breeze near the seawall as the stars blazed in the heavens, when they heard Yipper give a long, quavering note from up in the rocks. Neither of them liked that sound; there was alarm in it. Then Yipper began a series of fast, harsh barks, relaying a warning to Wolftown. At once the black wolf and Golda were up off their bellies, hearing the noise that made Yipper shriek with pain.

Gunfire. Golda only knew it meant death. The black wolf knew it was the noise of a Schmeisser submachine gun.

Yipper's shrieking stopped abruptly as another burst rattled. Ratkiller took up the alarm, and Amber spread it. The black wolf and Golda ran deeper into Wolftown, and soon they smelled the hated scent of men. There were four of them, coming down the rocks into the village and sweeping their lights before them. They fired at everything that moved, or that they thought might have moved. The black wolf caught another odor, and recognized it: schnapps. At least one of the men, perhaps the others, too, was drunk.

In another moment he heard their slurred voices: "I'll make you a wolfskin coat, Hans! Yes, I will! I'll make you the most beautiful d.a.m.ned coat you've ever seen!"

"No, you won't! You'll make it for yourself, you son of a b.i.t.c.h!"

There was rough laughter. A burst of bullets whacked into the side of a house. "Come on out, you hairy s.h.i.ts! Come out, and let's play!"

"I want a big one! That little thing up on the rocks won't even make a decent hat!"

They had killed Yipper. Drunken n.a.z.is with submachine guns, hunting wolves out of sheer boredom. The black wolf knew this, without knowing how he knew. Four soldiers, from the garrison that guarded the chemical plant. Shadows stirred in his mind; things moved, and sleeping memories began to awaken. His skull throbbed-not with pain, but with the power of recollection. Iron Fist. The Flying Fortress. The five of six.

The fifth of the sixth month, he realized. The fifth of June. D Day.

He was a wolf. Wasn't he? Of course! He had black hair and claws and fangs. He was a wolf, and the hunters were almost upon him and Golda.

A light streaked past them, then came back. They were caught in its glare. "Look at those two! d.a.m.n, what coats! Black and yellow!" A submachine gun chattered, and bullets marched across the ground beside Golda. She panicked, turned, and fled. The black wolf raced after her. She went into the house where the skeletons lay.

"Don't lose them, Hans! They'll make fine coats!" The soldiers were running, too, as fast as their unsteady legs could manage. "They're in there! That house!"

Golda backed against the wall, terror in her eyes. The black wolf smelled the soldiers outside. "Get around to the rear!" one of them shouted. "We'll catch them between us!" Golda leaped for the window as bullets whacked into the frame and splinters flew. She fell back to the floor, spun madly in a whirl of yellow. The black wolf started out through the door, but a light blinded him and he retreated as bullets knocked holes in the wall above his head.

"Now we've got them!" a coa.r.s.e voice crowed. "Max, go in there and clean them out!"

"Not me, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d! You go first!"

"Ah, you gutless s.h.i.t! All right, I will! Erwin, you and Johannes watch the windows." There was a clicking noise. The black wolf knew a fresh ammo clip was being loaded into the gun. "I'm going in!"

Golda again tried to get out through the window. Splinters stung her as another burst fired, and she dropped back with blood on her muzzle.

"Stop that shooting!" the coa.r.s.e voice commanded. "I'll get them both myself!" The soldier strode toward the house, following his light, the courage of schnapps in his veins.

The black wolf knew he and Golda were doomed. There was no way out. In a moment the soldier would be at the doorway, and his light would catch them. No way out, and what would fangs and claws be against four men with submachine guns?

He looked at the knife.

His paw touched the handle.

Don't fail me, he thought. Wiktor had said that, a long time ago.

His claws struggled to close around the handle. The soldier's light was almost into the room.

Wiktor. Mouse. Chesna. Lazaris. Blok. Names and faces whirled through the mind of the black wolf, like sparks escaping a bonfire.

Michael Gallatin.

I am not a wolf, he thought, as a blaze of memory leaped in his brain. I am a- His paw changed. Streaks of white flesh appeared. The black hair retreated, and his bones and sinews rejointed with wet whispering sounds.

His fingers closed around the knife handle and drew it out of the skeleton. Golda gave a stunned grunt, as if the air had been knocked from her.

The soldier stopped on the threshold. "Now I'll show you who your master is!" he said, and glanced back at Max. "You see? It takes a brave man to walk into a wolf's den!"

"Two more steps, coward!" Max taunted.

The soldier probed with the light. He saw skeletons, and the yellow wolf. Ha! The beast was trembling. But where was the black b.a.s.t.a.r.d? He took the two final steps, his gun ready to blow its brains out.

And as the soldier entered, Michael stepped out from his hiding place beside the doorway and drove Kitty's hooked blade into the pit of the man's throat with all the strength he could summon.

The German, strangling on blood, dropped the Schmeisser and the light to clutch at his severed windpipe. Michael scooped up the submachine gun, planted a foot against the man's belly, and shoved him backward through the doorway. Then he fired at the other man's light, and there was a scream as the bullets mangled flesh.

"What was that? Who screamed?" one of the men at the rear of the house hollered. "Max? Hans?"

Michael walked out the door, his knee joints aching and his spine stretching. He stood at the corner of the house and took aim just above the two flashlights. One of them weaved toward him. He sprayed fire at the n.a.z.is. Both lights exploded and the bodies crumpled.

That was the end of it.

Michael heard a noise behind him. He turned, an oily sweat leaking from his pores.

Golda stood there, only a few feet away. She stared at him, her body rigid. Then she showed her fangs, snarled, and ran away into the darkness.

Michael understood. He did not belong to her world.

He knew who he was now, and what he had to do. The transport plane had already taken the bombs of carnagene away, but there were other crows on the field: the night fighters. Those each had a range of about a thousand miles. If they could find out exactly where Iron Fist was hangared, and...

And if it wasn't too late. What was the date? He had no way of knowing. He hurried to find clothes that might fit him from the four dead men. He had to settle for the shirt and jacket from one soldier, the trousers from another, and the boots from a third. All of the clothes were damp with blood, but that couldn't be helped. He stuffed his pockets with ammo clips. A gray woolen cap, free of bloodstains, lay on the ground. He put it on, and his fingers found the gash and the scabbed crust on the right side of his head. A fraction of an inch more, and the bullet would have smashed his skull.

Michael strapped the submachine gun around his shoulder and started along the road to the rocky slope. The fifth of June, he thought. Had it pa.s.sed already? How many days and nights had he been here, believing himself a wolf? Everything was still dreamlike. He quickened his pace. The first task was getting into the plant; the second was getting to the stockade and freeing Chesna and Lazaris. Then he would know if he had failed or not, and whether tattered bodies lay in the streets of London because of it.

He heard a howl, a floating quaver, behind him. Golda's voice. He didn't look back.

On two legs he climbed toward his destiny.

9.

They had made a meager effort to fill up the hole he'd dug under the fence, but it was obvious their shovels had been lazy. It took him a few minutes to scoop the loose dirt out, and he winnowed under again. The thumping heartbeat of the plant was in operation again, light bulbs glowing on the catwalks overhead. He went through the alleys, threading his way toward the edge of the airfield, where the stockade was. A soldier came around a corner and strolled in his direction. "Hey! Got a smoke?" the man asked.

"Sure." Michael let him get close and dug in a pocket for cigarettes that weren't there. "What time is it?"

The German checked his wrist.w.a.tch. "Twelve-forty-two." He looked at Michael and frowned. "You need a shave. If the captain sees you like that, he'll kick your-" He saw the blood, and bullet holes st.i.tched across the jacket. Michael saw his eyes widen.

He hit the German in the stomach with the gun b.u.t.t, then cracked him across the skull and dragged his body to a group of empty chemical drums. He took the watch, heaved the body into a drum, and put the lid on it. Then he was on his way again, almost running. Forty-two minutes after midnight, he thought. But of what day?

The stockade building's entrance was unguarded, but a single soldier sat at a desk just inside the door, his boots propped up and his eyes shut. Michael kicked the chair out from under him and slammed him against the wall, and the soldier returned to dreamland. Michael took a set of keys from a wall hook behind the desk and went along the corridor between several cells. He smiled grimly; the log-sawing snore of a certain bearded Russian reverberated in the hallway.

As Michael tried various keys in the lock of Lazaris's prison, he heard a gasp of surprise. He looked at the cell two doors down and across the corridor, and behind the barred inset Chesna, her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears in her dirty, haggard face, tried to speak but couldn't form words. Finally they burst out: "Where the h.e.l.l have you been?"

"Lying low," he said, and went to her cell door. He found the right key, and the latch popped. As soon as Michael had pulled the door open, Chesna was in his arms. He held her as she trembled; he could feel her ribs and her clothes were grimy, but at least she hadn't been beaten. She gave a single, heartbreaking sob, and then she struggled to gather her dignity. "It's all right," he said, and kissed her lips. "We're going to get out of here."

"Well, get me out of here first, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" Lazaris shouted from his cell. "d.a.m.n it, we thought you'd left us to rot!" His hair was a crow's-nest stubble, his eyes glaring and wild. Chesna took the submachine gun and watched the corridor as Michael found the proper key and freed Lazaris.

The Russian emerged smelling of something more pungent than roses. "My G.o.d!" he said. "We didn't know if you'd gotten away or not! We thought they might have killed you!"

"They gave it a good shot." He glanced at the wrist.w.a.tch. It was creeping up on one o'clock. "What's the date?"

"h.e.l.l if I know!" Lazaris answered.

But Chesna had kept count of their twice-daily feedings. "It's too late, Michael," she said, "You've been gone for fifteen days."

He stared at her, uncomprehending.

"Today is the sixth of June," she went on. "It's too late."

Too late. The words had teeth.

"Yesterday was D day," Chesna said. She felt a little light-headed, and had to grasp hold of his shoulder. For the last twenty-four hours particularly, her nerves had been worn to a frazzle. "It's all over by now."

"No!" He shook his head, refusing to believe it. "You're wrong! I couldn't have been a... couldn't have been gone that long!"

"I'm not wrong." She held his wrist and looked at the watch. "It's been the sixth of June for one hour and two minutes."

"We've got to find out what's going on. There must be a radio room here somewhere."

"There is," Lazaris said. "It's in a building over by the fuel tanks." He explained to Michael that he had been forced to work along with some other slave laborers to unclog an overflowing cesspool near the soldiers' barracks, which accounted for the reek of his clothes. While up to his waist in s.h.i.t, he'd been able to gather information about the plant from his fellow laborers. Hildebrand, for instance, lived in his lab, which was at the center of the plant near the chimney. The huge fuel tanks held oil to heat the buildings during the long winter months. The slave laborers were kept in another barracks not far from the soldiers' quarters. And, Lazaris said, there was an armory in case of partisan attack, but exactly where that was he didn't know.

"Can you get in that man's clothes?" Michael asked Lazaris, once they were back to where the guard lay sprawled. Lazaris said he'd give it a try. Chesna went through the desk, and found a Luger and bullets. In another few moments Lazaris was in a n.a.z.i uniform, the shirt taut at his shoulders and the trousers drooping around his legs. He pulled the belt to its last notch. At least the guard's flat-brimmed cap fit. Lazaris still wore the boots that had been issued to him when they'd left Germany, though they were encrusted with indelicacies.

They started toward the radio room, Chesna still hobbling but able to walk on her own. Michael saw the radio tower, two lights blinking on it to alert low-flying aircraft, and steered them in that direction. After fifteen minutes of dodging through the alleys, they reached a small stone structure that was, again, unguarded. The door was locked. One of Lazaris's s.h.i.tty boots kicked compliance into it. Michael found a light switch, and there was the radio under a clear plastic cover atop a desk. Chesna had had more experience with German radios than he, so he stood aside as she turned it on, the dials illuminating with dim green, and began to search the frequencies. Static crackled from the tinny speaker. Then a faint voice, in German, talking about a diesel engine that needed overhauling: a ship at sea. Chesna came upon a Norwegian voice discussing the king-mackerel catch, possibly a code being transmitted to England. Another change of frequencies brought orchestral music into the room-a funeral dirge.

"If the invasion happened, it ought to be all over the airwaves," Michael said. "What's going on?"

Chesna shook her head, and kept searching. She found a news report from Oslo; the crisp German announcer talked about a new shipment of iron ore that had just sailed for the glory of the Reich and that a line for milk rations would be formed at six o'clock in front of Government Hall. The weather would continue unsettled, with a seventy-percent chance of rainstorms. Now back to the soothing music of Gerhardus Kaathoven...

"So where's the invasion?" Lazaris scratched his beard. "If it was supposed to happen on the fifth-"

"Maybe it didn't," Michael said. He looked at Chesna. "Maybe it was canceled, or postponed."

"There'd have to be a d.a.m.ned good reason to postpone something of that magnitude."

"Maybe there was. Who knows what it might be? But I don't think the invasion's happened yet. If it had begun on the morning of the fifth, you'd hear something about it on every frequency by now."

Chesna knew he was correct. The airwaves should be burning up right now, with news reports and messages to and from various partisan groups. Instead, it was simply another morning of funeral dirges and milk lines.

It was clear to Michael what had to be done. "Lazaris, can you fly one of those night fighters out on the strip?"

"I can fly anything with wings. I'd suggest the Dornier two-seventeen, though. It's got a thousand-mile range if the fuel tanks are loaded, and it's a quick little b.i.t.c.h. Where are we going?"

"First to wake up Dr. Hildebrand. Then to find out exactly where Iron Fist is being hangared. How long would it take us to fly from here to Rotterdam? That's almost a thousand miles."

He frowned. "You'd be cutting it d.a.m.ned close, even if the tanks are brimmed." He thought about it. "The Dornier's maximum speed is over three hundred. You might be able to sustain two-fifty, on a long flight. Depending on the winds... I'd say five hours, give or take."

There were too many if's, Michael thought, but what else could they do? They began a search of the building. In another room, full of filing cabinets, he found a map of Hildebrand Industries Skarpa Chemical Installation thumb-tacked to the wall next to a portrait of Adolf Hitler. A red X indicated the radio room's location, and the other buildings were marked "Workshop," "Mess Hall," "Testing Chamber," "Armory," "Barracks Number One," and so on. The development lab was about a hundred yards from their present position, and the armory was way over on the opposite side of the plant from the airfield. Michael folded the map and put it in a bloodstained pocket for later reference.

The development lab, a long white building with a thicket of pipes connecting it to a series of smaller structures, stood near the central chimney. Lights glowed through narrow windows of frosted gla.s.s; the doctor was at work. Atop the lab building's roof stood a large tank, but whether it held chemicals, fuel, or water Michael didn't know. The front door was barred, and locked from the inside, but a metal-runged ladder ascended to the roof and that was the path they took. On the roof a skylight had been opened. Michael leaned over its edge, with Lazaris holding on to his legs, and peered in.

Three men in white coats and white gloves worked at a series of long tables, where microscopes, racks of test tubes, and other equipment were set up. Four large, sealed vats, like pressure cookers, stood at one end of the lab, and it was from them that the pulsing heartbeat noise came. Michael a.s.sumed it was the noise of an electric engine, stirring whatever was in the devil's brew. About twenty feet off the floor a catwalk ran the length of the lab, pa.s.sing within a few feet of the skylight and going to a panel of pressure gauges near the chemical vats.

One of the three men was almost seven feet tall and wore a white cap over blond hair that flowed down his back. He was engrossed in studying a group of microscope slides.

Michael pulled himself away from the skylight. The pulse made the roof throb. "I want you both to get back to the airfield," he told them. Chesna started to protest, but he put a finger to her lips. "Just listen. Lazaris, if that Dornier isn't fueled up, you and Chesna will have to do it. I remember seeing a fuel truck on the field. Can you handle it?"

"I used to fuel Warhammer myself. I was my own ground crew." He shrugged. "There won't be much difference. But there might be guards watching the planes."

"I know. After I finish here, I'm going to try to create a diversion. You'll know it when it happens." He looked at his watch. It was thirty-two minutes after one. He took the watch off and gave it to Chesna. "I'll be at the field in thirty minutes," he promised. "When the fireworks start, you'll have a chance to top the Dornier's tanks off."

"I'm staying with you," Chesna said.

"Lazaris can use your help more than I. No arguing. Just get to the field."

Chesna was professional enough to know that she was wasting time. She and Lazaris hurried back across the roof to the ladder, and Michael strapped the submachine gun around his shoulder. He eased himself over the skylight edge and caught hold of an iron pipe that snaked across the lab ceiling. Hand over hand, he guided himself toward the catwalk and stepped over its railing.

He crouched down and watched the three men. Hildebrand called one of them over and showed him something on the slide. Then Hildebrand shouted and slammed his fist on the table, and the other man nodded docilely, his shoulders slumped in submission. The work was not going well, Michael thought. What a pity.

A droplet of moisture plunked to the catwalk next to him. He looked up. Set at intervals along the iron pipe were spray nozzles, and one of them was leaking. He held out his palm and caught a few drops, then sniffed at them. The odor of brine. He licked his palm. Salt water. From the tank on the roof, he realized. Plain seawater, probably. Why was there a storage tank of seawater on the tab roof?

He remembered something that Blok had said: Carnagene doesn't get along well with sodium. As in salt water. Perhaps salt water destroyed carnagene. If that were so, Hildebrand had set up a system so that if any of the gas escaped into the lab, nozzles would deliver a salt.w.a.ter spray. The system's controls had to be within easy reach of anyone working below. Michael stood up and walked to the control panel near the vats. There was a row of red switches, all at the ON position. He began to flip them all off. The heartbeat noise faltered and began to die.

A beaker crashed to the floor. One of the men shrieked. It was Hildebrand. "You fool!" he shouted. "Turn the aerators back on!"

"No one move." Michael walked back toward them, the Schmeisser's barrel upraised. "Dr. Hildebrand, we're going to have a little talk."

"Please! The switches! Turn them on!"

"I want to know where Iron Fist is. How far from Rotterdam?"

One of the others suddenly bolted in the direction of the front door, but Michael shot him down before he could take three strides. The man fell, crimson spreading over his white coat.

The noise echoed within the lab. Someone would have heard it. Time was growing short. He trained the smoking gun barrel on Hildebrand. "Iron Fist. Where is it?"