him up, but the wolf made a low grunt deep in its throat and she retreated.
Mikhail was left to stand on his own. The wolf watched, head cocked slightly to one side, as Mikhail struggled up to his knees, and that was as far as he could get for now. His shoulder was a mass of pain, and his mind spun like a kite seeking a balancing tether.
“Look at him!” Belyi said. “He doesn’t know whether to scream or shit.”
The wolf spun toward Belyi and snapped its jaws shut about two inches in front of the young man’s nose. Belyi’s sardonic grin fractured.
Mikhail stood up.
Wiktor turned back to him and advanced. Mikhail took a single step in retreat, then halted. If he was going to die, he would join his parents and sister in heaven, a long way from here. He waited for what was to be.
Wiktor came on toward him, stopped-and sniffed Mikhail’s hand. Mikhail dared not move. Then, satisfied with what he smelled, the wolf lifted his hind leg and sprayed a stream of urine onto Mikhail’s left boot. The warm, acidic-odored liquid got on Mikhail’s trousers and soaked through to his skin.
The wolf finished its task and stepped back. He opened his mouth wide, fangs gleaming, and lifted his head toward the ceiling.
Mikhail, fighting on the edge of another faint, felt Renati’s strong hand grip his arm. “Come on,” she urged. “He wants you to eat something. We’ll try the berries first.”
Mikhail allowed her to guide him out of the chamber, his legs wooden. “It’s going to be fine now,” she said, sounding relieved. “He’s marked you. That means you’re under his protection.”
Before they got very far beyond the archway, Mikhail looked back. On the wall he saw a fire-scrawled shadow, lurching to its feet.
Renati took his hand, and they ascended the stone stairs.
THREE – Grand Entrance
1
Stone stairs, Michael thought. Just the thing to break an ankle on. He blinked, and returned from his inner journey.
Darkness all around. Above his head an open white parachute, hissing as the wind strummed the taut lines. He looked down and to all sides; there was no sign of the green blinker.
A broken ankle wouldn’t be pleasant, and certainly not the way to begin his mission. What was he descending onto? A marshy field? A forest? Hard, tilled earth that would twist his knees like bits of taffy? He had the sensation of the ground coming up fast now, and he grasped the chute’s lines and angled his body slightly, bending his knees for the impact.
Now, he thought, and braced himself.
His boots smashed into a surface that gave way under his weight like mildewed cardboard. And then he slammed down against a harder surface that shook and creaked but held him from falling any farther. The harness tightened under his arms, the chute snagged on something above. He looked up and could see a jagged-edged hole in which stars sparkled.
A roof, he realized. He was sitting on his knees under a roof of rotten wood. Somewhere out in the night, two dogs barked. Working quickly, Michael unsnapped the harness straps and shrugged out of the parachute. He narrowed his eyes, could make out heaps of material around him; he grasped a handful. Hay. He had crashed down into a barn hayloft.
He stood up, began to get the chute unsnagged, and drew it in through the hole. Faster! he told himself. He was in Nazi-occupied France now, sixty miles northwest of Paris. The German sentries on their motorcycles and in their armored cars would be all over the place, and the radio messages might be crackling: Attention! Parachute spotted near Bazancourt! Patrol all nearby farmland and villages! Things might get hot very soon.
He got the chute into the loft, then began to bury the silk and pack in a large pile of hay.
Four seconds later he heard the scrape of a latch drawing back. He tensed, becoming motionless. There came the soft squeaking of hinges below. A reddish glow invaded the barn. Michael slowly, silently slid his knife from its sheath, and saw by the lantern light that he was balanced near the loft’s edge. A few more inches and he would’ve gone over.
The lantern probed around, spreading light. Then: “Monsieur? Ou etes-vous?”
It was a woman’s smoky voice, asking where he was. Michael didn’t move, nor did he lay aside the knife.
“Pourquoi est-ce que vous ne me parlez pas?” she went on, demanding that he speak to her. She lifted the lantern high, and said, again in the crisp country lilt of Normandy French, “I was told to expect you, but I didn’t know you’d drop on my head.”
Michael gave it a few seconds more before he leaned his face over the loft’s edge. She was dark-haired, wearing a gray woolen sweater and black slacks. “I’m here,” he said quietly, and she jumped back and probed the light up at him. “Not in my eyes,” he warned. She dropped the lantern a few inches. He glimpsed her face: a square jaw, deep-cut cheekbones, unplucked dark brows over eyes the color of sapphires. She had a wiry body and looked as if she could move fast when the situation demanded it. “How far are we from Bazancourt?” he asked.
She’d seen the hole in the roof about three feet over the man’s head. “Take a look for yourself.”
Michael did, pulling his head up through the hole.
Less than a hundred yards away a few lamps burned in the windows of thatch-roofed houses, clustered together around what appeared to be a large plot of rolling farmland. Michael thought he’d have to congratulate the C-47’s pilot for his good aim when he got out of this.
“Come on!” the girl urged tersely. “We have to get you to a safe place!”
Michael was about to ease down to the loft again when he heard the rough muttering of engines, coming from the southwest. His heart seized up. Three sets of headlights were quickly approaching, tires boiling up dust from the country road. Scout cars, he reasoned. Probably loaded with soldiers. And there was a fourth vehicle bringing up the rear, moving slower and carrying much more weight. He heard the clank of treads and realized with a cold twist of his insides that the Nazis were taking no chances; they’d brought along a light panzerkampfwagen: a tank.
“Too late,” Michael said. He watched the scout cars fanning out, surrounding Bazancourt to the west, north, and south. He heard a commander yelling “Dismount!” in German, and dark figures leaped from the cars even before the wheels had stopped turning. The tank came clanking toward the barn, guarding the village’s eastern side. He’d seen enough to know he was trapped. He lowered himself to the loft. “What’s your name?” he asked the French girl.
“Gabrielle,” she said. “Gaby.”
“All right, Gaby. I don’t know how much experience you have at this, but you’re going to need it all. Are any of the people here pro-Nazi?”
“No. They hate the swine.”
Michael heard a grinding noise: the tank’s turret was swiveling as the machine neared the rear of the barn. “I’ll hide as best I can up here. If-when-the fireworks start, stay out of the way.” He unholstered his.45 and popped a clip of bullets into it. “Good luck,” he told her-but the lamplight was gone, and so was she. The barn-door latch scraped shut. Michael peered through a crack in the boards, saw soldiers with flashlights kicking open the doors of houses. One of the soldiers threw down an incandescent flare, which lit up the entire village with dazzling white light. Then the Nazis began to herd the villagers at gunpoint out of their houses, lining them together around the flare. A tall, lean figure in an officer’s cap walked back and forth before them, and at his side was a second figure, this one huge, with thick shoulders and treetrunk legs.
The tank treads halted. Michael looked out a knothole toward the rear of the barn. The tank had stopped less than fifteen feet away, and its crew of three men had emerged and lit up cigarettes. One of the men had a submachine gun strapped around his shoulder.
“Attention!” Michael heard the German officer shout, in French, at the villagers. He returned to the crack, moving silently, so he could see what was happening. The officer was standing before them, the large figure a few steps behind. The flare light illuminated uplifted pistols, rifles, and submachine guns, ringing the villagers. “We knew
