there was an area that was blocked off and had so far proved impenetrable to their best efforts. Its real-world counterpart would be a filing cabinet with many drawers. Most of them were wide open for inspection but there was one at the bottom that was locked securely. Why?
With renewed vigor, Dr. Curt Newton, P.C.—
Physical Cryptologist—vowed that he wouldn't rest until he had broken into that mysterious bottom drawer.
6
'You have lied to me.'
The man spoke English precisely. Carefully. He had obviously been educated in one of the finer universities in England. But the clipped words—seemingly sheared off at their consonants by the razor-thin lips—were imperfect. Captain Josef Menk preferred it that way.
The young man swinging from the bare beam in his small office on the island of Usedom was Menk's latest pupil, scheduled to learn the true horrors awaiting the young boys unlucky enough to land on the wrong side of this war.
An army corporal, not much younger than the dangling man, had just brought in a piece of paper that Josef Menk had taken officiously. Of course it was for show. To the Geheime Staatspolizei, much these days was show.
'You are not French,' Menk commented absently at the exhausted, sweating man who dangled from the frayed ropes before him. He perused the paper in his hand a moment longer. When he was satisfied that sufficient time had elapsed to let the information sink in, he placed the square white sheet on the surface of his immaculate desk. He paused to stub out his cigarette in the spotless green glass ashtray.
He walked slowly over to the dangling man, who didn't cower at his approach. Menk bent at the waist, placing his gloved hands on the black woolen knees of his Gestapo uniform. He leaned in close. When he whispered, his mouth was no more than an inch away from the young man's ear.
'A man who lies under torture, hmm? You are very brave. What do you suppose I should do with you?' he asked softly, so that the man would have to strain to hear the words.
'Frangais,' the man croaked.
Menk slapped the man sharply across the cheek.
He had ordered his personal tailor to stitch a network of tiny ball bearings into the finger seams on the back of the glove. It increased the pain while simultane-ously increasing Menk's pleasure. He smiled at the fresh trickles of blood that ran from three new gashes just above the man's jaw.
'American,' Menk corrected. He leaned back against his desk and made a show of reading the information that he had already memorized before he had even entered the office. 'Smith, Harold. Office of Strategic Services. You are a long way from Washington, Herr Smith.'
The young man didn't react. He stared straight ahead, at the concrete wall of the converted stone house.
There was a hint of black stubble across his normally clean-shaved jaw. His eyes were a watery, almost steel gray. His nondescript hair was cut short, too short to be totally disheveled by the five days he had so far spent suspended in Captain Josef Menk's torture chamber. His skin was pale, his clothing plain. But in his demeanor there was a certain precise dignity that hinted of the man he would grow to be.
'You are quite resistant, Smith,' Menk said with more than a hint of approval in his voice. 'One wonders why a man of your caliber would waste your time and, yes, your life, on these worthless, lost souls. The French.' Menk spit on the cold granite floor as if he had just spoken a curse. 'Dogs to a man. Europe will fall as easily. And a new order will be established that will allow mankind to achieve a greatness that you cannot possibly understand.'
'You are insane,' Smith said softly. For the first time in nearly a week, he spoke in English.
Menk grinned broadly. 'A pragmatic man,' he said. 'I am liking you more and more every day, Herr Smith.'
'My incarceration and treatment are in clear violation of the Geneva convention,' Smith said.
Menk smiled. He waved his hand around the room.
'There is no Geneva convention within the confines of these four walls,' he said, laughing. 4'Have you not yet learned that?'
Smith said nothing. He was obviously in the hands of a lunatic.
The war in Europe was nearly over. Russian and U.S. troops were closing in even as Menk preened and threatened. The 'glorious' Nazi Third Reich was at an end. Why did Captain Menk not seem to see that his brand of fascism was in its death throes?
Menk regarded Smith's silence with a curious tip of his head.
At last he crossed to his desk. Primly taking his seat, he called out an order on his office phone.
Seconds later the door opened, and a hulking man—whose broad shoulders nearly caught in the heavy oaken frame—entered the room.
Smith recognized the man. He was slightly over-weight and, despite the coolness of the stone building, perspired profusely. He walked with a limp, probably from an injury in an earlier battle, which would explain why he was not off fighting now.
Smith knew him only as Ernst. Menk's torturer.
Beneath his giant bicep, Ernst carried a tattered suitcase. The huge man set the package down on a wooden stool near Smith. Inwardly Smith cringed at the sight of the large valise. He knew what would come next.
As Ernst proceeded to pull a variety of gruesome and clumsy steel implements from the interior of the bag, Menk lazily pulled off his gloves. He examined his fingernails.
Beads of sweat formed on Smith's forehead. He had to bite down on his thin upper lip to keep it from quivering. Then Ernst seemed to find what he was looking for. In the wan light of the tiny room, he held up a metal rod much like a tire iron. At the end of the device, tiny metal prongs reflected the room's dull light.
Ernst would not be subtle today. With his clumsy fingers, he found the old bullet hole—the one that had been inflicted when Smith was first captured on this small island near the Peenemunde Army Experiment Station. They had given it some time to heal.
But not too much time.
Ernst jammed the small end of the metal device into the scabbing wound. Smith knew it was coming, had braced himself for the incredible, searing pain.
He grunted as the device was inserted. But he did not cry out. The sweat on his brow grew thicker. It was prickly and hot. The rivulets of perspiration that ran down his back were chilling. Smith felt the gooseflesh rise on his skin.
A mantra ran through his mind, the only help he had. Do not scream. Do not allow these madmen the satisfaction.
Ernst didn't seem disappointed. As Smith writhed on his ropes, the German gave the metal rod a full, harsh twist.
It was pain beyond pain. The metal spikes bit through the dead flesh. Living tissue tore away as the brutal man spun the metal rod in the other direction.
The circuit completed, he jammed the rod farther into the newly bleeding wound.
Smith succumbed to the agony.
As the American OSS agent screamed in anguish, Captain Josef Menk noticed that one of the ball bearings stitched into the back of his gloves had become exposed. He could see the shiny silver orb peeking out between the splitting seams like the tiny hairless dome of an infant about to be born. He smiled at the simile. Captain Menk had always considered himself to be somewhat of a poet.
As he congratulated his own cleverness, Captain Menk made a mental note to have his tailor strengthen the seams in both of his pairs of uniform gloves.
Smith made himself surface from his own thoughts.
Night had fallen.
