two doors down and across the corridor, and behind the barred inset Chesna, her eyes brimming with tears in her dirty, haggard face, tried to speak but couldn’t form words. Finally they burst out: “Where the hell have you been?”
“Lying low,” he said, and went to her cell door. He found the right key, and the latch popped. As soon as Michael had pulled the door open, Chesna was in his arms. He held her as she trembled; he could feel her ribs and her clothes were grimy, but at least she hadn’t been beaten. She gave a single, heartbreaking sob, and then she struggled to gather her dignity. “It’s all right,” he said, and kissed her lips. “We’re going to get out of here.”
“Well, get me out of here first, you bastard!” Lazaris shouted from his cell. “Damn it, we thought you’d left us to rot!” His hair was a crow’s-nest stubble, his eyes glaring and wild. Chesna took the submachine gun and watched the corridor as Michael found the proper key and freed Lazaris.
The Russian emerged smelling of something more pungent than roses. “My God!” he said. “We didn’t know if you’d gotten away or not! We thought they might have killed you!”
“They gave it a good shot.” He glanced at the wristwatch. It was creeping up on one o’clock. “What’s the date?”
“Hell if I know!” Lazaris answered.
But Chesna had kept count of their twice-daily feedings. “It’s too late, Michael,” she said, “You’ve been gone for fifteen days.”
He stared at her, uncomprehending.
“Today is the sixth of June,” she went on. “It’s too late.”
Too late. The words had teeth.
“Yesterday was D day,” Chesna said. She felt a little light-headed, and had to grasp hold of his shoulder. For the last twenty-four hours particularly, her nerves had been worn to a frazzle. “It’s all over by now.”
“No!” He shook his head, refusing to believe it. “You’re wrong! I couldn’t have been a… couldn’t have been gone that long!”
“I’m not wrong.” She held his wrist and looked at the watch. “It’s been the sixth of June for one hour and two minutes.”
“We’ve got to find out what’s going on. There must be a radio room here somewhere.”
“There is,” Lazaris said. “It’s in a building over by the fuel tanks.” He explained to Michael that he had been forced to work along with some other slave laborers to unclog an overflowing cesspool near the soldiers’ barracks, which accounted for the reek of his clothes. While up to his waist in shit, he’d been able to gather information about the plant from his fellow laborers. Hildebrand, for instance, lived in his lab, which was at the center of the plant near the chimney. The huge fuel tanks held oil to heat the buildings during the long winter months. The slave laborers were kept in another barracks not far from the soldiers’ quarters. And, Lazaris said, there was an armory in case of partisan attack, but exactly where that was he didn’t know.
“Can you get in that man’s clothes?” Michael asked Lazaris, once they were back to where the guard lay sprawled. Lazaris said he’d give it a try. Chesna went through the desk, and found a Luger and bullets. In another few moments Lazaris was in a Nazi uniform, the shirt taut at his shoulders and the trousers drooping around his legs. He pulled the belt to its last notch. At least the guard’s flat-brimmed cap fit. Lazaris still wore the boots that had been issued to him when they’d left Germany, though they were encrusted with indelicacies.
They started toward the radio room, Chesna still hobbling but able to walk on her own. Michael saw the radio tower, two lights blinking on it to alert low-flying aircraft, and steered them in that direction. After fifteen minutes of dodging through the alleys, they reached a small stone structure that was, again, unguarded. The door was locked. One of Lazaris’s shitty boots kicked compliance into it. Michael found a light switch, and there was the radio under a clear plastic cover atop a desk. Chesna had had more experience with German radios than he, so he stood aside as she turned it on, the dials illuminating with dim green, and began to search the frequencies. Static crackled from the tinny speaker. Then a faint voice, in German, talking about a diesel engine that needed overhauling: a ship at sea. Chesna came upon a Norwegian voice discussing the king-mackerel catch, possibly a code being transmitted to England. Another change of frequencies brought orchestral music into the room-a funeral dirge.
“If the invasion happened, it ought to be all over the airwaves,” Michael said. “What’s going on?”
Chesna shook her head, and kept searching. She found a news report from Oslo; the crisp German announcer talked about a new shipment of iron ore that had just sailed for the glory of the Reich and that a line for milk rations would be formed at six o’clock in front of Government Hall. The weather would continue unsettled, with a seventy- percent chance of rainstorms. Now back to the soothing music of Gerhardus Kaathoven…
“So where’s the invasion?” Lazaris scratched his beard. “If it was supposed to happen on the fifth-”
“Maybe it didn’t,” Michael said. He looked at Chesna. “Maybe it was canceled, or postponed.”
“There’d have to be a damned good reason to postpone something of that magnitude.”
“Maybe there was. Who knows what it might be? But I don’t think the invasion’s happened yet. If it had begun on the morning of the fifth, you’d hear something about it on every frequency by now.”
Chesna knew he was correct. The airwaves should be burning up right now, with news reports and messages to and from various partisan groups. Instead, it was simply another morning of funeral dirges and milk lines.
It was clear to Michael what had to be done. “Lazaris, can you fly one of those night fighters out on the strip?”
“I can fly anything with wings. I’d suggest the Dornier two-seventeen, though. It’s got a thousand-mile range if the fuel tanks are loaded, and it’s a quick little bitch. Where are we going?”
“First to wake up Dr. Hildebrand. Then to find out exactly where Iron Fist is being hangared. How long would it take us to fly from here to Rotterdam? That’s almost a thousand miles.”
He frowned. “You’d be cutting it damned close, even if the tanks are brimmed.” He thought about it. “The Dornier’s maximum speed is over three hundred. You might be able to sustain two-fifty, on a long flight. Depending on the winds… I’d say five hours, give or take.”
There were too many if’s, Michael thought, but what else could they do? They began a search of the building. In another room, full of filing cabinets, he found a map of Hildebrand Industries Skarpa Chemical Installation thumb-tacked to the wall next to a portrait of Adolf Hitler. A red X indicated the radio room’s location, and the other buildings were marked “Workshop,” “Mess Hall,” “Testing Chamber,” “Armory,” “Barracks Number One,” and so on. The development lab was about a hundred yards from their present position, and the armory was way over on the opposite side of the plant from the airfield. Michael folded the map and put it in a bloodstained pocket for later reference.
The development lab, a long white building with a thicket of pipes connecting it to a series of smaller structures, stood near the central chimney. Lights glowed through narrow windows of frosted glass; the doctor was at work. Atop the lab building’s roof stood a large tank, but whether it held chemicals, fuel, or water Michael didn’t know. The front door was barred, and locked from the inside, but a metal-runged ladder ascended to the roof and that was the path they took. On the roof a skylight had been opened. Michael leaned over its edge, with Lazaris holding on to his legs, and peered in.
Three men in white coats and white gloves worked at a series of long tables, where microscopes, racks of test tubes, and other equipment were set up. Four large, sealed vats, like pressure cookers, stood at one end of the lab, and it was from them that the pulsing heartbeat noise came. Michael assumed it was the noise of an electric engine, stirring whatever was in the devil’s brew. About twenty feet off the floor a catwalk ran the length of the lab, passing within a few feet of the skylight and going to a panel of pressure gauges near the chemical vats.
One of the three men was almost seven feet tall and wore a white cap over blond hair that flowed down his back. He was engrossed in studying a group of microscope slides.
Michael pulled himself away from the skylight. The pulse made the roof throb. “I want you both to get back to the airfield,” he told them. Chesna started to protest, but he put a finger to her lips. “Just listen. Lazaris, if that Dornier isn’t fueled up, you and Chesna will have to do it. I remember seeing a fuel truck on the field. Can you handle it?”
“I used to fuel Warhammer myself. I was my own ground crew.” He shrugged. “There won’t be much difference. But there might be guards watching the planes.”
“I know. After I finish here, I’m going to try to create a diversion. You’ll know it when it happens.” He looked at his watch. It was thirty-two minutes after one. He took the watch off and gave it to Chesna. “I’ll be at the field in thirty minutes,” he promised. “When the fireworks start, you’ll have a chance to top the Dornier’s tanks off.”
“I’m staying with you,” Chesna said.
