The Vengeance of the Tau (26 page)

A slight breeze disturbed the currents in the black pool beyond, pushing a shape through the night. Johnny waded out farther into the muck and made out a boat snailing along the murky waters. He moved in up to his knees and peered into the skiff as it slid by. Empty. A guard must have once been posted in it, but he was in it no more. Johnny retreated back into the cover of sweeping vines and branches and glided about the edge of the bayou.

He came upon the first body hidden in a hollow tree. Its positioning told him the man had squeezed himself in and had been killed at his post. A single bullet hole lay in the center of his forehead. His dead eyes seemed to be gazing up at it. Not the mark of the killers of Joe Rainwater, which could only mean …

Someone else was here! Besides the force he sought, besides Heydan Larroux’s guards. …

Perplexed, Johnny slid back out into the swamp. The soft bottom retreated beneath his step. Tangled weeds stroked his ankles, occasionally twisting themselves into a determined hold. A cottonmouth snake slithered past, ignoring him. He listened for the hiss of an alligator or the telltale thump its swinging tail made when it swiped against the water.

He found another pair of bodies hidden in the bushes they had used for camouflage. Again there were bullet wounds in the heads, the rear this time. The shots had been fired from in close, the killers obviously very sure of themselves.

Not Joe Rainwater’s killers, though. This was the trademark of an entirely different, though very proficient, style. Whoever the killers were, it was clear to Johnny now that they had slain all of the Larroux woman’s guards systematically, one or two at a time. The bodies in the bushes had been dead for at least thirty minutes, plenty of time for the killers to close in on the house and finish their work—if, in fact, that was what had brought them here.

To better investigate, Johnny risked moving across a narrow peninsula affording little cover to bring him closer to the woman’s hiding place. He raised his binoculars and inspected the house for signs of intrusion or violence. The door was intact. The walkway leading to the small porch was unmarred.

He checked the windows. Also intact. The lights were on but the blinds were drawn. Johnny continued his patient scan. A shadow passed before one of the blinds. Thirty seconds later, it returned. A guard inside was making regular checks of the windows. The defensive perimeter erected had been primitive; the dead guards had not been in communication with each other or with those inside the house.

But those inside the house were still breathing. The mystery force that had isolated them had not made its move yet. Why? The apparent contradiction mystified Wareagle. He could not find the logic in what had occurred here.

The night breeze picked up. Gooseflesh prickled Johnny’s flesh. He felt the presence of the spirits. They had never made themselves more known to him, had never been more insistent.

Something
was coming, its movements dark, sleek, and one with the night. He waded back into the thick snarl of the shallow swamp waters to return to firmer land to await its arrival.

Melissa reached the town of Arnsberg in Bertlemass’s Mercedes an hour before nightfall. At the first address for a “Brandt,” the family had never heard of a Gunthar; at the second, the man who answered the door told her he had an uncle by that name. Melissa asked him if the uncle had fought in World War II. The man said he had indeed, after which he had taught science at a nearby high school. This Gunthar Brandt, he explained, had spent the last three months in a rest home operated by the Catholic church another hour away in Remscheid after suffering a stroke.

She felt certain this was the Gunthar Brandt who had written the journal. Still, she had to realistically consider what condition the stroke might have left him in. He would be seventy-two now, hardly old age by modern standards. That gave her as much hope as anything.

Night had fallen by the time she reached Remscheid, an industrial town not far from Düsseldorf; provincial, Melissa thought as she drove through it toward the nursing home. The nursing home was located amidst a residential neighborhood on Hansastrasse. It was made up of two interconnected buildings, and Melissa followed the signs toward the visitor parking lot. From there she walked down a small stone stairway to a second driveway that led to the lobby. The huge glass double doors slid open automatically as she approached them, and she moved toward a reception booth formed by a long counter on the left.

The receptionist accepted her announcement that she was here to see Gunthar Brandt matter-of-factly.

“Oh,” she said, after checking the log.

“Is something wrong?” Melissa wondered.

“You have not been here before?”

“No.”

The receptionist seemed to be considering whether she should say more. “Ward Three,” she directed. “Third floor. I will tell a floor nurse to expect you.”

Melissa took the elevator to the third floor and stepped out into a large, open area. Before her, patients lingered in wheelchairs or walked about aimlessly. Some stood leaning against the wall. Others gazed vacantly out one of the large windows. Obviously this was the chronic-care ward, which did not bode well for her chances of obtaining any information from Brandt.

“You are here to see
Herr
Brandt?”

Melissa turned toward the speaker and found herself facing a kindly bull of a woman in a white uniform.

“I am
Herr
Brandt’s night
Altenpfleger.
”

“The word—I’m sorry, but my German is lacking.”

“Nurse for the elderly, that’s all.” Her expression sombered. “The receptionist informed me you have not been to see
Herr
Brandt before.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“I’m sorry to have to disappoint you, then.”

Melissa’s heart sank.

“You must be a long-lost niece or distant cousin of
Herr
Brandt’s. You should have called ahead. We would have spared you the trouble.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Let me show you.”

The nurse led Melissa to the last room down an L-shaped corridor.

“Fortunately,” she explained, “we’ve been able to keep him in one of the private rooms. It’s quite smaller than the ambulatory apartments on the first floor, but I’m afraid he doesn’t notice.”

The door to the room was open. Melissa entered ahead of the nurse and froze.

The man in the bed lay in a state of virtual catatonia. The music of a radio by his beside droned on.

“He can eat. He can hear. We’re almost certain he can see,” the nurse explained. “But he’s lost the ability to comprehend and communicate. I’m afraid he’s completely lost.”

“Can I have a few minutes alone with him?”

“Of course.” The big nurse started toward the door, then swung back. “I am sorry.”

“Thank you.”

And she was gone.

Melissa moved to Gunthar Brandt’s bedside. Her hope for an easy solution to the mystery of the missing crates fizzled and died.

“Mr. Brandt, can you hear me?”

No response.

“Mr. Brandt, can you hear me?”

His eyes didn’t so much as flicker in her direction.

“Mr. Brandt, I need your help. If you can hear me, blink your eyes twice.”

They didn’t even blink once.

“Please try. I know you can try. I’ve come a very long way, and I think many, many lives may be at stake.”

When Gunthar Brandt continued to just lie there, Melissa pulled the journal that he had penned almost a half century before from her shoulder bag. She held it forward in front of his glazed eyes.

“Do you know what this is? You wrote it. You described a battle you were a part of, a battle that for all practical purposes never happened. No record of it exists. Also, there is no record of your service or of your company’s existence. It’s all been wiped out, Mr. Brandt, and I think the lost contents of this journal are the reason why. Am I right? Please tell me.”

His breathing remained steady and even. Melissa waited a few moments, pressed him again, and then gave up. It was useless. The man’s mind was a sieve. He was lost to the world. Melissa turned away from him.

“Close the door,” a voice whispered, and Melissa nearly jumped.

“What?” Her eyes fell back on the bed.

The eyes of Gunthar Brandt flashed alive and looked in her direction. “Close the door,
Fräulein,
and hurry.”

McCracken and Tessen waited in the car while their sanctioned access was confirmed within the large house on the Bokelberg. A residential area located fifteen minutes from downtown Mönchengladbach, the Bokelberg is actually a hill with several off-streets featuring mansions both large and small. The farther up the hill, the larger and more separated the residences become. Several of these, called
Villen,
had tall fences circling the property. The fence of the one they were parked in front of on Schwogenstrasse was rimmed with brick stretching ten feet up from the ground.

“I don’t know the man’s name,” Tessen said. “I’m not sure anyone does anymore.”

McCracken looked his way.

“I have heard that he had refused to share any of his secrets with anyone else. He believes to this day that this is the only thing keeping him alive.” Tessen stopped and then started again. “He has not been out of this house for fifteen years. The men you see around the grounds, he thinks, are his guards here to ensure his safety. Actually, they are his keepers.”

“Your movement seems to have maintained plenty of resources, Tessen.”

The Nazi shrugged. “Greatly depleted, I assure you. Most of our membership consists of the young, frustrated poor and unemployed—hardly people of means. Our funding these days comes from gifts to the party from abroad—America, most prominently.” He smirked. “I think those in your country believe even more strongly in the dogma than we do. The fools … None of them saw what it could do, what it
did
do in the war. They think hate is all they need. They think that is all we ever had.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“For a time, perhaps, but not any longer.” Tessen’s eyes sought out Blaine’s, in search of compassion, maybe, or understanding at the very least. “I don’t think I was ever the same after that day in the schoolyard. I was just a boy myself at the time. What was the point? What were we proving? We drove others to hate as we hated, and that is what ultimately destroyed us. That is why there can be no more wars, no mythical rise from our own ashes. No Phoenix for this movement, McCracken, eh? We must be content to live our lives as we are.”

Blaine turned to scrutinize the mansion beyond the gate. “So you wall up the man with the keys to your vast weapons storehouse in the name of peace, is that it?”

“The others are realizing slowly. Still more will come to their senses before long. They are old, frightened men, nothing more.”

“A minute ago you were speaking of the frustrated young now making up the bulk of your movement. What would they do if they got their hands on what this old man can give them?”

Tessen’s expression hardened. “The rest of us must ensure that never comes to pass. You have more influence in this regard than you realize. The chance that the curse might be unleashed again to complete its work was too much for the older members to bear. You became their greatest hope. They looked at your involvement as a godsend. They would have sacrificed anything to bring you to help us, to save themselves. Anything.”

A pair of imposing-looking men gave them the okay to pass through the gate. Tessen drove on and parked the car along the circular drive fronting the mansion. Another Nazi was waiting just outside the front door.

“Was the old man told we were coming?” Tessen asked before entering.

“We informed him,” the man replied. “Whether he heard us or not is anyone’s guess.”

Tessen signaled Blaine to enter ahead of him and closed the door behind them. McCracken froze. Around him everywhere were toys. Toys of all shapes and sizes. Dolls sat on a large mantel that ran the length of the foyer wall and they dangled from the ceiling like a town meeting of marionettes. The floor was littered with elegant shoebox-sized reproductions of classic trucks and cars. And there were games, dozens of games—none of which McCracken had ever seen before. Their boards were laid out on tables throughout the hall, complete with pieces, as if all were in the process of being played.

A guard posted at the foot of an ornate spiral staircase looked right past McCracken at Tessen.

“He’s upstairs in his workshop,” the guard said.

Tessen and Blaine chose their steps carefully to avoid the many scattered toys, and slid past the guard. The stairs were thankfully free of the clutter, so they climbed side by side. At the top Tessen seemed unsure of which way to go. A soft humming emanated from the right, and that was the direction they turned in. As they advanced closer, the humming took on a more raspy, choppy tone. Tessen entered the room that it was coming from through a set of open double doors. Blaine was just behind him.

“Professor … Professor?” Tessen called.

McCracken entered the room and froze once more. Again toys dominated the scene, but these toys were of a far different nature from the ones downstairs. They were exclusively devoted to war. Blaine could see a hunched figure toiling away with a paintbrush behind a workbench and realized that each and every toy in this house must have been made by this man over the years since World War II ended.

As he worked, the old man kept up his continuous, tuneless humming. Shelves lining every wall in the room were filled with toy soldiers of varying sizes, some miniature and some the size of small dolls. Many clutched at wounds that had been torn open and painted red. In several instances doll-sized figures were shown confronting each other, bayonets or knives rammed through plastic guts with gasps of agony frozen forever on their painted faces.

“Professor,” Tessen called again.

“Almost finished,” the old man said, still hunched over his work. He started to hum again, but stopped suddenly as if he had lost his place.

His workshop was a massive room lit with the tones of twilight, except for the old man’s work area, which featured daylight-bright bulbs. McCracken continued to examine the room and noted that the vast bulk of its floor displays were battlefields, totally re-created in miniature and set atop tables. Somehow the old man had successfully captured the intensity and pain of war itself in these tiny stages. Tank treads were upraised over figures that were appropriately crushed and bloodied. Other figurines were shown shredded and torn by heavy-caliber machine-gun fire. Blaine could almost hear the sounds of machinery and men, of screams and orders. Each diligently re-created battle atop the various tabletops was different, and the old man had meticulously re-created the terrain as well. Where water was supposed to flow, the coloring looked real enough to drink.