The Schliemann Legacy (11 page)

Katrina made no move to cover herself. She knew that without a weapon, she was dangerously outmatched. With little effort, she allowed fear to creep into her eyes and the Mouse's confidence grew. In his mind, he held his knife on a helpless woman. Katrina watched as he took a step toward her, studying his weight distribution and the way he held the knife.

When the man stepped forward again, she smoothly regained her feet. A clear view of her almost bare breast shifted his gaze. Katrina moved. She feinted a punch to his left. As the Mouse slashed upward at her arm, Katrina kicked out and connected with his exposed right knee. A pop sounded as the joint dislocated.

The Mouse slashed again, the blade's tip catching the inside of Katrina's upper left arm. Blood quickly soaked her blouse. She retreated and he scurried back, dragging his injured leg. He slipped his foot under the wardrobe, and pulled, snapping his knee joint back into place.

The Mouse's face was drenched with sweat. Knowing he was close to passing out, he rushed at her, but his hurried thrust was high. Katrina stepped hard on the top of his left foot and could feel the fragile bones splinter.

The Mouse turned sideways and thrust the knife up, but his injured foot could not support the weight. Katrina jabbed the heel of her hand upward to push his ribs into his lungs. She connected with his diaphragm instead. The Mouse let out a rush of air and sank to his knees, moaning as his right knee hit the ground.

Katrina moved behind him, grasped his head, and placed her leg along the right side of his back. She heard a sickening snap as she twisted his head with a rapid turn.

* * * * *

Katrina stripped off her blood-drenched blouse and bra and carefully washed her wounds. Although the cut on her breast was a scratch, the slash in her arm was serious. It needed stitches, but she could not afford the time or the questions. Pressure was doing little to stop the flow. Remembering a favorite remedy of her grandmother's, she risked infection and used pepper from her room service tray to aid the clotting. The pain was slight and the bleeding stopped quickly.

She hurriedly dressed and went back into the bedroom. The Mouse was still on the floor where he had fallen. Katrina did not have time to dispose of the body and still make her flight. The body would have to stay where it was. And she'd have to get out of the country before the maid discovered the corpse.

PART THREE

COLOMBIA

THE WHIPPING STRING SANG, AND THE ARROW WHIZZED AWAY,

NEEDLESHARP, VICIOUS, FLASHING THROUGH THE CROWD.

THE ILIAD-BOOK IV

Chapter 12 - IN FLIGHT MEMORIES

When psychologists reasoned that a professional impression gave passengers more confidence,
Avianca
had discarded the "fly me" look of previous years and updated their employee uniforms to light brown business suits. Now, as the seat belt sign blinked out, the stewardesses began to make their way along the aisle. David Morritt rose and started toward the back of the plane, but a beverage cart blocked his way. He returned to his seat unperturbed. He'd completed his desired task; Katrina Kontoravdis sat eight rows behind him on the other side of the 747.

Following his visit with Mardinaud, David had contacted the Mossad station in Athens. He'd placed the call from Munich, using the system of phone relays he'd set up in his Tel Aviv apartment. Moshe, an old acquaintance and the station head in the Greek capital, promised to gather whatever information he had on Kontoravdis. Because of the relays, Moshe assumed the call originated from Israel and thought the request was part of a training exercise. He gave David better than usual service. David had the information within four hours and studied it on the train from Munich to the Frankfurt airport.

Initially, he'd planned to find Kontoravdis in Bogotá and follow her. He knew Duman would be unable to resist a Greek target and would eventually move against her. When he did, David would move against him. Morritt wanted to capture Duman alive, if possible. If not, he would kill the fanatic with little remorse.

But when he arrived at the departure area, Katrina Kontoravdis was standing just ahead of him. He immediately sensed something was wrong. The Greek woman appeared nervous and agitated. She relaxed slightly once she passed through the metal detector, but continued to watch the other passengers.

Then, David noticed a small spot of blood on her blouse and a bulky bandage beneath. Her manner, combined with an apparently fresh wound, led him to suspect Duman had already attacked. If so, Katrina Kontoravdis' survival attested to her ability.

She favored her left arm and massaged her ribs. Watching her, David felt a surge of protectiveness that made him cringe. He knew such a macho attitude directed toward a woman with much the same training as he was ridiculous. The file from Moshe made her accomplishments clear.

Moshe had implied that Kontoravdis' work in intelligence compilation and extrapolation over the last three years was nothing less than brilliant. But the Station Head had said nothing about her beauty. As she moved to the boarding gate, her graceful movement attracted him. Now, sitting on the plane, he knew he was experiencing dangerous feelings.

He would try to ignore her, he thought, pulling out the file Mardinaud had given him the night before. He placed the blue folder on the tray in front of his seat. Until now, he had avoided reading it - reluctant, almost afraid, to even open the cover. As he removed the enclosed papers and saw the picture attached to the front page, he felt the terror and the anger seize him.

Sweat stood out on his forehead. Staring at him from the grainy black and white photograph were the strange, penetrating eyes and evil face of Friedrich Heiden as he had been in 1941; a Nazi standing at attention in his black SS uniform. The demon's presence emanated from the photo and surrounded David. He felt the familiar dizziness. The smells came first. Always the smells, he thought. He fought the sensation, but the horror grew, engulfing him.

For years, David had tried to remember every sight, every sound, every detail. He needed those memories to kindle the fires of revenge. He would lie awake for hours on his wooden sleeping pallet, preparing for the vengeance he desperately sought. In a hundred different ways, he had imagined himself killing Friedrich Heiden.

Later, forced to accept that revenge was beyond his reach, David had prayed for the memories to leave him. Night after night, his own screams had awakened him while during the day every woman's tortured cry reminded him of another's.

Then God, in His compassion, created a block for the pain. The memories faded, becoming a blur of the past.

Now, confronted with the returned evil, David faced his past to relive the darkest time of his life.

* * * * *

The train stopped suddenly. The people in the cattle car were tossed to the front only to be thrown backward when the train resumed its course with a lurch. David slipped to the floor and an old lady fell on top of him. He struggled to get out from under her. She was asleep and he couldn't rouse her, no matter how hard he tried. Though big and strong for a ten-year-old, he could not move the woman and soon gave up his exhausted effort.

David had lost track of time during the journey. He remembered the loading of the trains in Warsaw. Although all the Jews on the platform wore the bright yellow star on their drab, dirty clothes, the talk had been of relocation and new hope. Now, David could hear the passengers mumbling about
Majdanek
. He didn't know what
Majdanek
was, but the tone of their voices frightened him.

The doors of the car slid open and the cold winter air rushed in. David watched through the forest of legs as several elderly people collapsed from the abrupt change in temperature. He felt warm and protected under the sleeping lady.

Three men dressed in coveralls pushed their way onto the car as the Jews shuffled out. Without the crush of people, David found he could move. About to crawl from under the old woman, he froze when he saw what the workers were doing. The oldest man carried a clipboard. The other two each carried a great hook, similar to the ones his uncle used in the butcher shop. As the older man made marks on his clipboard, the others used the enormous hooks to drag the sleeping Jews from the car. A chilling realization seeped into David's consciousness and a wetness soaked his trousers. These people, including the old lady on top of him, were not asleep. They were dead.

In shock, David watched as the sharp hooks plunged into the chests of the still warm bodies. The hooks made plopping sounds as they broke the skin and then grated against bone. Steam rose from the gaping wounds. Some were not dead but merely unconscious. Still, the hooks dug deep into these pitiful souls. They screamed as they were dragged out.

David struggled under the old woman, startling the man with the clipboard. A hook came at him and David, his legs crippled with cramps, stumbled outside. He landed amid the dead and dying bodies on a wagon beside the door. He squirmed frantically and plummeted over the edge, puncturing his hands when he hit the ice-covered gravel. Two guards grabbed his arms and dragged him to the group that had exited from the car moments before. Covered in blood and urine, he desperately searched for his mother.

What would his father want him to do? David thought. He could feel the light touch of his father's massive hands on his shoulders and smell the familiar odor of flour and yeast. The gentle baker had discussed much with his son before leaving with the Polish Army to defend the country. Though David knew the Germans had killed his father, the man's spirit lived on in him. "You must be a man," his father had said. "Be strong and look after your mother. You've got a good head, David. Remember to use it. Don't act rashly. We face dangerous times. Stop and think."

As he remembered his father's words, his panic eased somewhat. David saw his mother ahead of him. A tall man dressed in the black uniform of the
Schutzstaffel
led her away. In his limited dealings them, David had grown to hate the sadistic Germans, especially the dread SS. His mother should not be with one of those creatures, he thought. She should be with him, not with the Germans. David moved carefully through the frightened people.

Before the Germans invaded Warsaw, David had spent many hours playing a combination of tag and hide and seek, soon learning to throw small pebbles and twigs to distract the other children. He used natural cover and always watched for any convenient diversions. The other players never saw him until it was too late.

Now, as he watched the Nazi push his mother into a small shack, he began to play the game. His instincts told him the stakes were much higher this time.

The guards were busy playing sadistic jokes on the older Jews so they ignored the boy. Suddenly, David heard a shout about two hundred feet away. Three shots followed. David took advantage of the disruption and ran to a jumbled pile of scrap wood by the shack where he crouched and edged his way toward the shack's misted window.

He could hear his mother's voice through the thin walls as she pleaded with the soldier. The soldier laughed an evil laugh that chilled David's soul. A vicious slap rang out, followed by a sound like a sack of flour hitting the floor.

David stretched to peer through the high window and heard a noise behind him. Before he could turn, a powerful arm encircled him. A voice spoke to him in broken Polish.

"Want to see inside the shack, boy? Want to see what it is to be a man?"

"My mother..." David began.

When the big arm twisted him around, David saw Horst Dausel for the first time. Dausel looked so deeply into David's frightened, angry eyes that for an instant, David thought the man would save his mother. But then Dausel began to laugh and twisted him back to the window, pressing his face against the glass. "Your mother?" the guard sneered. "You must watch what happens to dirty Jew whore mothers."

His mother was lying on her back on a filthy, wooden table inside the shack. Her skirts were bunched up around her waist, her blouse and undergarments in tatters. Blood - bright red on her bare, white breasts - dribbled down from the deep scratches in her skin. Her face was bruised below one eye. She seemed to be unconscious.

David squeezed his eyes shut but then heard his mother scream as she swung at her attacker. Beating at Heiden's face, his mother landed two blows before the Nazi backed off. A broken button on her sleeve slashed the left side of his face. Blood ran freely from the ragged gash and dripped onto his uniform. Heiden grabbed a thick piece of firewood and stood over her, cursing in German.

The club rose and fell, spraying blood across the wall and window. His mother stopped screaming, stopped moving. Still, Heiden bludgeoned her with the stick. He beat her until his arm fell limp and her face was an unrecognizable mass of torn flesh and broken bone.

Then, he breathlessly began to laugh.

David heard Dausel's hoarse voice in his ear. "Be proud of your mother. She has just serviced the Third Reich!"

* * * * *

David was sweating when the stewardess tapped his arm. "Are you all right, sir?"

His eyes snapped open and he gave her a weak smile. "Yes, just a bad dream," he said.

"You'll have to put your seat belt on. We'll be landing shortly."

David looked out the window and saw Bogotá in the distance.

Friedrich Heiden was Ulrich Kadner. Horst Dausel still served his friend, but now as Viktor Bitkowski.

David vowed to send both to hell.

After they taxied to the terminal, David followed the other passengers off the plane. He stopped and pretended to read a sign as Katrina Kontoravdis walked past him. He glanced at her occasionally as they went through customs.

She had lost her tenseness during the flight and, with her features relaxed, she was even lovelier. David felt desire as he had not felt in years. He shook his head to return his thoughts to business.

Once through customs, Katrina went straight to the line of rusty taxis parked outside the terminal. David followed and took the taxi behind hers. He tossed some bills into the front seat and told the driver to follow the car ahead. Lounging back, he tried to forget Heiden and the painful memories that always left him so emotionally exhausted.