B004U2USMY EBOK (34 page)

The other mistake was not realizing the old
man was more important than the girl. What had he been thinking in
those few seconds of chaos? That the old man was Gabriela’s lover,
he supposed. She was a prostitute, after all, and prostitutes
couldn’t be picky. Any man with money would do, and if he were old
and ugly, he’d be that much easier to play. And of course old men
like this one usually convinced themselves the girls loved them.

So he’d left the old man in care of the
Franc-gardes. Only upon his return, when he was carting the man
off for interrogation, did something about his demeanor make him
reconsider. Hoekman called him Gemeiner and the old man hadn’t
answered to the name, nor shown any surprise or confusion. The
lack of response was telling.

And so Hoekman’s mistake with the old man
proved fortuitous. If he’d known then what he knew now, he’d have
been outside the lounge with Gemeiner when the Jew pulled up. He’d
be left with the prostitute to interrogate. This was much better.

Hoekman didn’t turn away from the cages until
all three mice were reduced to lumps inching down the length of
the snakes. “A rodent is a warm creature, curious, passionate. A
reptile is cold, analytical. You’ll never see it afraid or angry.”

Gemeiner sounded bored. “I’m not scared of
snakes, if that’s what you’re trying to do. And I’m not afraid of
torture. I’m not fond of it, but I can endure it just fine.”

“Is that where you got the scars on your
back?” Hoekman asked. “They are old, you are old. Were you perhaps
captured by the Russians in the last war? Did they burn you? Were
they looking for information, or torturing you for their own
amusement?”

“My, what a skilled investigator you are.”
Gemeiner turned his head to where Hoekman stood by the cages. “Did
you go to a special school to develop that penetrating insight?
And such searching questions. They have rendered me quite
helpless.”

“Your arrogance is tedious, but not
particularly surprising. You are in the reptile phase right now.
You still think you control the situation. You will eventually
pass to the rodent phase. We will see what you say then.”

“Reptile phase? Rodent phase? Is that
supposed to be profound?”

“Merely an observation of human nature,”
Hoekman said. “My point is simply this. You will talk eventually.
They all do.”

“Maybe, but it will be too late to help you.
Two hours, three, it will be too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“Too late to stop our cavalry of magic
unicorns from flying over Berlin and dumping ten thousand
kilograms of gummi bears onto the city.”

He was tired of being mocked. Time to take
control of the situation. “Do you know the difference between a
hungry snake and a hungry rodent,
Herr
Gemeiner?”

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“A hungry snake will curl into a ball and
wait. It can wait for months, with nothing but hunger to occupy
its time. A snake can wait until it is almost dead and there’s
nothing left but a lean, starving hunger. It never panics, it just
waits. Sooner or later something will crawl into its den and then,
just like that,” he said with a snap of the fingers, “the snake is
fed.”

“Fascinating.”

“A rodent, however, is quite frantic with
hunger after twenty-four hours. A mother mouse, unfed, will devour
her blind, hairless young. Put two starving mice in a cage and one
will attack and kill the other. Eat its brains first. It’s true,
that’s where the most energy is and somehow the rodents know it.”

“I’m sure they do.”

“Now, rats, they’re even nastier. You know in
Stalingrad, when our troops were trapped in the
Kessel
, it
was widely reported that hunger reduced our men to eating rats.”

“They taste okay if you clean them properly
and use plenty of salt. Not much meat.”

“What is not widely known is that hunger also
reduced the rats to eating our men.” Hoekman opened the cabinet,
removed one cage, then another. Inside, the frantic sound of
scratching, squealing. They were desperate to be fed.

“One sniper fell asleep at his post,” Hoekman
continued. “When he woke, there were rats on his face, tearing at
the soft tissue on his lips and ears, biting at his eyeballs.
Hundreds of them. But rat teeth are small. Their bites,
individually, are far from fatal. It took some time for the
soldier to die while they ate him alive.”

“And how do they know this is what happened?”
Gemeiner asked. Hoekman detected a note of uncertainty in his
voice. “Was he writing it down while they ate him, or was there
someone watching and taking notes?”

“You’re right. Perhaps he was killed by a
Soviet sniper and then eaten. It does sound like conjecture. A
story told to scare other soldiers. Keep them from falling asleep
at their posts.”

He brought the two cages over and set them on
the table next to Gemeiner. “Look at these cages. You can open
them from the top, or you can slide open this panel on the
bottom.”

“I’m not afraid of a few lab mice.”

“Not even hungry lab mice? After everything
I’ve told you?”

“No, sorry, you’ll have to do better.”

Hoekman pulled up Gemeiner’s shirt. There
were rope-like scars on his abdomen that matched the ones on his
back. Too bad he couldn’t know what had caused those scars. It
would be interesting to know what techniques the Russians used and
whether or not they’d been effective. He checked the straps on
Gemeiner’s hands and feet, then turned to the bin of tools next to
the table. He fished out a razor blade, held it up to the light
and check its edge. Sharp.

“This is my favorite part of the job,”
Hoekman said.

“I’ll bet it is.”

It was warm in the office—both snakes and
rodents preferred temperatures that could make a man loosen his
collar—but that didn’t fully explain the sweat beading at the old
man’s forehead.

“Don’t get me wrong, I do not enjoy torturing
people. Causing them pain. I am. . .
indifferent
, I suppose
you could say. I am not like some men for whom the pain is
everything. What I enjoy is the learning. You learn a good deal
about people doing this. Human nature, the capacity to resist, the
need to please. Who talks, who stays silent. And why. I believe
that every man has his breaking point.

“One man starts babbling at the first glimpse
of a pair of forceps. Another man can handle pain, but if you keep
him awake, standing on his feet, he’ll beg, cry for mercy after
three or four days. Most cooperate fully if you threaten their
wives and children, but not everyone.”

Hoekman bent to the man’s stomach. This would
be more interesting if he didn’t get carried away at first. He
drew the blade across the flesh. One, two, three, four, five
times. Gemeiner drew in a sharp breath, but didn’t cry out. Blood
welled to the surface and ran in rivulets down his side.

“Very good,
Herr
Gemeiner. Some pain, some fear, but your
reptile side still holds sway.”

He lifted the two cages and put them side by
side across the man’s stomach. It was slick with blood now and
Hoekman had to hold the cages in place to keep them from simply
sliding off. The animals inside scratched, squeaked.

“So what, you’re going to let some hungry
mice bite me?”

“They’ll lick at the blood at first. Your
bucking and thrashing will confuse them, but they are too hungry
and there is nowhere for them to go in any event.”

Gemeiner was panting and his eyes watered.
“Go ahead. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll see I can’t be
broken.”

“That sounds like quite a challenge.”

“You’ll see. I’m not afraid of lab mice.”

This
would
be interesting.

“When did I say anything about lab mice?
They’re not from a lab. They were brought to me from the Eastern
Front. And they are not mice. The rats of Stalingrad are nothing
more than a few bones at the bottom of a cook pot by now, but
there are still plenty of rats in Kiev.”

Colonel Hoekman slid open the bottoms of the
cages. The rats were starving and needed no encouragement to start
their work.

#

It was just before dawn and Gabriela was
dismayed to discover the streets of Paris already flooded with
enemies. Gendarmes on foot, waving over cars, German checkpoints,
bunches of
milice
in black shirts, pulling on black
berets. Hoekman, it seems, had roused the entire city to look for
the fugitives.

Helmut wore a cap and a fake mustache that
wouldn’t hold up to serious scrutiny, but was close enough to the
real thing if Gabriela didn’t look too hard. The truck had “
Farine
du Quartier
” painted on the side, together with a helpful
picture of a sack of flour and three baguettes for those who might
not speak French.

Problem was, if they were stopped, subjected
to even a rudimentary inspection, it would all be over. Those
weren’t bags of flour in the back.

Gabriela tried to shake off the fear. “A
million people living in Paris, and half the city is awake
already. They can’t stop everyone.”

“Until we try to leave,” Helmut said. “The
city is strangled with checkpoints. They’ll double- and
triple-check every transit document and open every car trunk and
every truck.”

Christine leaned forward to look over
Helmut’s shoulder. “That’s what I’m here for.” She sat behind the
seats, near the boxes of gold coins. “Take the second left. Yes,
here.” A moment later she said, “The edge of the 15
^th
is like a sieve. You want to get out of the city, I can find at
least four routes into the southern
banlieus.
”

Make that three. The first road they tried
had two policemen, questioning a man with a cart filled with
cabbages. The man was shouting, pointing at his cart, then giving
exaggerated, disgusted shrugs. The police were so focused on the
arguing man that Helmut had time to turn around without getting
stopped.

“Try here instead,” Christine said a moment
later. “Left, then bear right.”

It seemed they were doubling back on their
tracks, but then they hit a cobbled street and they were slicing
due south. Minutes later, the city fragmented into villages and
then unbroken farmland.

“I told you she knew the city,” Gabriela
said.

“Nicely done,” Helmut said.

“Stay on this road until you cross a green
iron bridge,” Christine said, “then take the immediate right.
Follow it. . .oh, about half an hour. Then you’ll see what looks
almost like a cow trail on the right. That’ll carry us all the way
to the Lyon highway.”

“How long?”

“Another hour, hour and a half maybe.”

Gabriela looked down at her clothes, glanced
back at Christine and her coat and dress. “We can’t go all the way
to Marseille like this. Sooner or later we’ll hit a checkpoint and
it’s going to be sticky explaining why a flour truck is carrying
two girls who look like they stepped out of a city lounge and
spent the night in a warehouse.”

“I don’t have to be there until tomorrow
morning,” Helmut said. “We have all day and night to get to
Marseille.”

“Perfect,” Christine said. “We can bypass
those old Vichy check-points at night. Meanwhile, I’m dead tired
back here. Can you find the bridge and the dirt road on your own?”

“Sure, get some rest. My jacket is tucked
behind my seat. You can use it as a pillow. Feel free to pull off
those tarps and do something with them, if you can.”

“Can I open the boxes?” Christine asked in a
teasing voice. “70,000 gold coins might not make the most
comfortable bed, but I’m willing to give it a try.”

“They’re booby trapped, so maybe not.”

“Booby trapped? Are they really?”

“Maybe, maybe not. If they’re not, the guy
who packed the box should really be deported.”

“Gaby, hand me Roger’s drawing,” she said.
“You know, the rooster on the building, you still have it?”

“Yes, it’s here.”

“I want one more look. There's something
that's bugging me.”

#

After Christine had fallen asleep in the
back, Gabriela looked out the window. A gray, rain-splattered dawn
greeted them. The truck heater thawed her feet, but it wasn’t
enough to warm the front, so she was cold in spite of her coat.

“So here we are,” Helmut said. “Together
again.”

“Yes.”

“Thank you for coming back to warn me,” he
said.

“I need your help getting my father out of
that pit. You can’t help if Hoekman arrests you.”

“Is that all it is?”

“No, it’s not,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t
have left you behind anyway, I hope you know that.”

“I wouldn’t have left you, either.”

“I know.” Gabriela thought about what Alfonse
had said about Helmut. He was wrong. It wasn’t an act; Helmut was
a good man who cared about people. Flawed, like anyone else.

“It wasn’t my idea,” he said. “I never wanted
to hurt you. I don’t know if you’ll believe that, but it’s true.”

“You were playing the good soldier, I
understand.”

“No, not really. If I’d played my part, I
would have seduced you, sent you to kill Hoekman, and then never
thought about it again.”

“It’s a strange time and place for a German
to grow a conscience.”

“I always had one. I never managed to lose
it, that’s the problem.”

“I’m sitting here, thinking and thinking, and
I can’t figure out who you’re going to bribe with those 70,000
French roosters. And how it can help the Germans.”

“It’s safer if you don’t know.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore, what could go
wrong? David Mayer left for Switzerland. Hopefully, he’s on the
train by now. Hoekman has Gemeiner. I don’t even want to think
about that. You’ve got employees, but by now Nazis are dragging
them out of bed.”

Helmut’s grip tightened on the wheel. “My men
have contingencies. I hope to God they followed them. If they did,
they’ll be long gone by the time the Gestapo arrives.”