The Hunter From the Woods (13 page)

Konnig grunted softly. He put his hands behind his back and locked the fingers. “I’m detecting here a certain level of animosity.”

“That may be because you killed two of my crew.”

“Really? And how many of your crew are left?”

“Enough to count.”

“Count for what? More coffins?”

“You worry about coffins for your own crew.”

“Oh, I
surely
will!” Konnig began to stroll around the room, looking here and there. “You did kill one of ours, by the way. A young sailor from Hamburg with a wife and two daughters. Shot right through the lungs. Died just before I left the ship. Does that make you proud?”

“It makes me wish more of my men had aimed better.”

“You’re
harsh
!” Konnig said with a small wicked grin. “A Frenchman from…where?”

“France.”

“And what about you?” Konnig turned his attention to Michael. “Who and
what
are you?”

“I’m a man in a chair,” said Michael.

“No, you’re a man in a chair who will be dead before this day is done,” Konnig answered. He was no longer grinning. “As all of you will be dead, if you refuse to turn your passengers over.” He showed his palms. “Now
listen
! What is to be gained by a show of resistance? Nothing, in the long run. We all know that.” He motioned toward Kpanga. “Even
that
one knows it. Captain, why do you wish your crew to be killed? And for a few people you really have no interest in? What should it matter to you and to your crew what becomes of those people?”

“Captain Beauchene,” said Michael, “knows you’ll kill everyone on board and sink this ship as soon as you get them. That’s why it matters.”

“
Wrong
!” Konnig stabbed a finger at him. “I am offering this: we receive the Wesshausers, and then we remove your crew. Yes, we do sink this freighter, but…My God, isn’t she already half-sunk? Continuing on…we transport you, Captain Beauchene, your officers and your crew to Germany, where we will offer you lodging, food and all possible care. We’re not
monsters
, sir! We just want what is ours.”

“Lodging?” Beauchene’s eyebrows had gone up. “For how fucking long?”

“Until,” said Konnig, with a shrug, “we say it is in our interest to send you home. Now…that might be weeks, months, or years. We don’t know the future. Who does?”

“Your big-mouthed Nazi boss seems to.”

“Well, he’s special,” Konnig admitted. “One of a kind.”

“We’re not giving you the Wesshausers,” said Michael.

“Pardon me!” Konnig frowned. “Who’s the captain here? The dead man in the chair or the French garbageman?”

Beauchene laughed. It was an evil sound.

He walked purposefully toward Michael. With the remnant of that twisted laugh on his face, he wrenched the revolver from Michael’s waistband. He cocked it, and then he turned and walked straight toward Manson Konnig, who blinked furiously and took a backward step.

Beauchene was faster. He put the revolver’s barrel against the peak of Konnig’s white cap. One shot blasted the cap from Konnig’s head and made the eardrums sing.

Konnig staggered back and nearly fell before he righted himself. His mouth was open, his eyes furious at this crass indignity. But he was smart enough not to protest against a madman with a revolver in one hand and a Tommy gun in the other.

Beauchene stood over the smoke-stained cap. “I’ve always wanted to put a hole in one of those,” he said, with a huge satisfied smile.

Konnig released the breath he’d been holding. A lock of reddish-blonde hair had fallen over his forehead, which appeared to be sparkling with sudden sweat. His smile was less satisfaction and more stupefaction. “With my compliments,” he managed to say.

“He’s speaking for me, but I can speak for myself,” said the Frenchman. “You can go back to your ship. We’re sailing on, with our passengers.”

“Not sailing very far, I’m afraid.” Konnig was inspecting his scalp with the fingers of his right hand. “We’ll have to stop you, of course. I will tell you that my mission involves two choices. I was told the first choice was to remove the Wesshausers and take them back alive. The second choice, if the first proved difficult, was to make sure no one on this poor, sad vessel ever passes across the North Sea. It’s really up to you, sir.”

“It may really be up to me to put this gun against your head and give your cap a twin.”

“That wouldn’t be wise,” Konnig said. “And why not? Because if I am not back on my motor launch within another ten minutes,
Javelin
will start to miss me. And when she misses me, she gets very angry. She begins to shoot incendiary shells, which will burn this ship to a crisp and causes such agonies to human flesh. And my death does nothing for you, because I have three very experienced and capable officers all more than willing to take charge. Now…we are going to destroy this ship, if you refuse our demands. Yes. But we will not use the incendiaries and we will gladly accept any crewmen we rescue. If
I
am dead, however,
Javelin
will run the survivors over until there is nothing left but a red smear in all this gray sea. So, you pompous little idiot, what is
your
choice?”

The African suddenly advanced on him. “Here!” he said angrily. “You can’t speak to my captain like—”

Konnig’s right arm straightened. There was a click of metal. In his hand appeared a small derringer, guided along a metal track laced from elbow to wrist. Michael realized it had been overlooked when Konnig was frisked, probably because the concentration was usually on armpits, sides and groin. Michael reached frantically for his pistol, which wasn’t there.

There was a single loud
crack!
and Enam Kpanga’s head was rocked backward.

His glasses flew off. A small round wound, deadly enough, had appeared at the center of his forehead. Kpanga’s knees buckled and he slithered to the floor and twitched as he died.

Konnig stood over the body. “I’ve always wanted to put a hole in one of those,” he said. With a snap of his wrist the derringer was retracted back along his forearm to the inner elbow.

Beauchene gave a shuddering breath and swung both guns up, pistol and Tommy. Michael was on his feet, advancing to pin Konnig’s arms.

“Gentlemen?” Konnig said. “I am leaving now.”

The absolute, chilling disinterest in his voice caused Beauchene’s fingers to freeze on the triggers and Michael’s shoes to stick to the floor.

“Honestly, what good would it do to even hold me here, much less kill me?” Konnig stepped over the dying or dead African on his path to the door. “I don’t think I’ll wear the blindfold out, if you don’t mind.” He narrowed his eyes at the expression of horror on Beauchene’s face. “Surely…that
thing
wasn’t worth the price of a funeral pyre, was he? Now, you have my word I won’t use the incendiaries. Those are very nasty. Remember, sir, that we will rescue any crewman we find in the sea. You might spread that little bit of information around, to help matters. Oh…and I do have another cap.” He paused at the door. “Do the two men outside know our agreement?”

When he received no reply from either Beauchene or Michael, Manson Konnig turned away and left the mess hall as nonchalantly as if he had just eaten a four-course meal and was on his way to take a nap.

They went after him.

Up on the deck, the crewmen who had guns were training their weapons on him. He strode to the port gunwale, where the rope ladder was still hanging over the side. The rain had lessened, the sea flat except for broad-backed rollers, visibility still closed-in. Konnig waved to the motor launch, which had kept pace with
Sofia
. It nosed in at the bottom of the ladder.

The captain of the
Javelin
started over the gunwale. He looked up as Beauchene approached, the pistol and Tommy gun ready to blow him to pieces. Rain streamed from the Frenchman’s face and hair and his mouth was a grim gray line.

Konnig hesitated. “Sir!” he called to Michael, who was just behind Beauchene. “Restrain your captain, if you will. There is yet time for a peaceful conclusion to this. And your freighter would make such a lovely fire.”

Beauchene didn’t stop. He came across the deck like a juggernaut. He reached Konnig and put the Thompson’s barrel under the man’s chin.

“Surely,” Konnig said, with a half-smile, “you wouldn’t sacrifice your entire crew for a single nigger?”

Michael saw Beauchene’s trigger finger twitch.

But the Thompson remained silent.

Konnig stared into the Frenchman’s eyes for a few seconds, and then—satisfied with what he saw there—he pulled his throat away from the submachine gun and began his climb down the rungs.

The motor launch received him and he stepped under the shelter of its canopy. The boat turned to port and moved off through the shifting curtains of gloom.

Beauchene stood alone, as
Sofia
rocked him.

He abruptly turned away and walked quickly past Michael, who followed him because he knew where the captain was going.

In the mess hall, Beauchene approached the African’s body. Blood had trickled like a pattern of scarlet lace from the bullet hole. Kpanga’s eyes were open, his forehead misshapen. Beauchene set the revolver and submachine gun on a table and bent down to pick up Kpanga’s glasses. As he stood over the body, he wiped the lenses on his dirty once-white shirt.

Michael picked up the pistol and slid it back into his waistband. He said nothing; words were no good in this room.

Beauchene knelt, opened the African’s coat and put the glasses in the inside pocket. He remained kneeling for a moment, with his head bent forward. His eyes didn’t know where to rest. He made a noise like a gasp, and that was all.

He stood up.

“I’ll have to find somebody to say something,” he told Michael. “I didn’t know him.” He went to the door and paused. “We’ve got to get ready. You coming?”

Michael nodded. “I am.”

They left the mess hall and the dead African on the floor and went back to the deck where the crew was waiting to be told.

Ten

Bucket Of Blood

By late afternoon the Wesshausers had been placed in a single stateroom with mattresses padding the walls. They tried to make a joke of it, something to do with a padded cell, but they knew exactly what was coming.

The crew had been fed steaks as tough as boot leather and energized with hot black coffee. Those who wanted or needed Benzedrine tablets got them from the doctor. The rest of the mattresses from the crews’ bunks were roped to the gunwales and allowed to hang down nearly to the waterline; it was thin insurance against the five-inch shells, but might prevent a hull breach. Crewmen stood watch along the deck and from the crow’s nests atop both masts. The rain fell intermittently, the sea foamed and swirled, and
Sofia
kept on her full-speed course to the land of Shakespeare. The
Javelin
made no appearance from the North Sea mists.

Michael Gallatin was standing near the bow, searching those mists with a pair of binoculars, when he heard her approaching. She stopped on the other side of a lifeboat that had unfortunately been punctured by fifteen slugs from
Javelin
’s machine gun.

“You shouldn’t be on deck,” he said, lowering his glasses.

“I needed to walk.” 

“Keep walking, then. And get below as soon as you’re done.”

“You sound like you think you’re my father.”

“I’m amazed your father would let you out here. Don’t you know what’s likely to be happening any minute now?”

Marielle peered warily around the splintered lifeboat. She was wearing her buttoned-up overcoat with the collar upraised. Her blonde hair spilled out below a wine-red beret. She had her hands thrust into her pockets; though
Sofia
was rolling, Marielle had found her sea-legs.

“I know,” she said, and she let her eyes graze past him. “My father knows, too. He appreciates the effort, but he thinks we’ll be on our way to Germany before nightfall.”

“Not if I can help it.” He brought the binoculars back up and kept searching.

“My father doesn’t think anyone can help it,” she replied. “They’ve found us and they’re going to take us, and that’s that.”

Michael grunted. “I wouldn’t have thought your father was a quitter. Or you either, for that matter.”

“It’s not quitting. It’s being accepting of reality. That’s what my father says.”

“Whose reality? Hitler’s?” Michael let the question hang. He lowered the glasses again and turned his head so he could look directly into her aquamarine eyes. She pulled back just a little, but not by much. “Your father’s been very brave so far. He
must
be a brave man, to have risked his family. To have risked everything, really. Well, I’m not giving up and neither is the captain and crew of this ship. So why should he?”

“He doesn’t want anyone else to be hurt.”

“Someone’s going to be hurt, whether they take you off this ship or not. It’s the Nazi way.” He gave her a brief tight smile.