The Pale House (25 page)

Reinhardt nodded, saying nothing, biting back a remark that Muamer
and
were cut from different cloth, the doctor having been so much more attuned to Reinhardt's state of mind at that time, so much more sensitive to the restrictions Reinhardt felt around him.

“Nothing more? Then Simo will take you back to the theater. He will be back in touch with you shortly.”

“You leave me no option?”

“None,” said
, simply, and turned to go.

“Mr.
. A moment.”
paused, looking back. “Where is Dr.
?”

stared back at Reinhardt, his flat nose flaring out as he took a long breath in. “He is dead, Captain. Executed, after Operation Schwarz. He would not leave the wounded. And when the Germans overran the hospital camp . . . They shot them. All the doctors. All the nurses. All the wounded.”

They stared hard at each other, each of them with a memory of that one man between them.
made to go again, and again he paused. “Perhaps . . .” He paused, though, whatever he might have said going unsaid, as if words could not bridge that sudden gulf of loss, and he turned and left, one of his men preceding him out a door, two more following.

Reinhardt stared after him, then turned as Simo tapped him on the shoulder, handing him a piece of paper. He glanced at it, noting the three names written on it—Bozidar
, Tomislav Dubreta, Zvonimir Saulan—and then folded it, almost crumpled it, into his pocket.

“You knew? About
?” Simo nodded. Reinhardt felt empty, sick, even, at the news, even though he had feared such ever since the end of Schwarz, and the orders given to the German armies to take no prisoners. He had hoped, a small harbor he looked into from time to time, that the little doctor might have made it out of those forests alive.

“It is time to go, Captain.”

It was just him and Simo on the way back down the crooked corridors and cramped staircases that threaded the walls and gaps between and through the buildings. Reinhardt took no notice of it, thinking only of what he had just heard, and that news of
, and he was surprised when Simo laid his big hand on his shoulder in that room behind the bar, and he noticed suddenly the bearded Partisan was there, his ear against the door into the foyer.

“Do not act differently, Captain. It will be noticed. Do not look for us. We will find you.” Simo looked to the other man for the all clear, and when it came, he handed Reinhardt back his pistol as the bearded Partisan slipped back past them.

“I'm sorry, Simo. For
.” Reinhardt paused with his hand on the door and turned, but the room was empty.