his mind. He was also pretty sure he and Jet had given the two Arnolds the slip at the Adlon in Berlin.
Jet had flashed an okay sign and started to creep toward the staircase on tiptoe. Girl moved like a big cat who—
The explosive sound of the big weapon firing was so unexpected and so loud in the stillness of the dark room that Stoke almost came out of his shoes. He saw Jet hit the floor, hard, and roll up into a ball. Couldn’t tell if she was hit or what. He looked at Viktor and saw the smoke seeping from the muzzle of the gun in his hand, still aimed at where Jet had been. An old gun, some kind of funky machine gun, but it seemed to work okay. Now, Viktor swiveled on his piano bench and aimed the gun directly at Stokely. He was resting his shooting arm on top of the piano.
There was a second explosion as Stoke made a move toward the heavy desk to his left. The round buzzed by his head and slapped into the stone wall, just missing a big old woolly grizzly’s gleaming chompers.
“Don’t move,” Viktor said, “I warn you.” So, he spoke English, too. Boy was full of surprises tonight.
“Take it easy, Viktor, I’m not going anywhere,” Stoke said, inching sideways toward the desk. He’d considered simply diving over the piano and taking the old Kraut out. But he was watching Jet out of the corner of his eye. She was crawling silently on her belly toward the piano. No blood that he could see anywhere on her. She didn’t seem to be hurt. Good.
“I said, don’t move!” Viktor said.
“Easy does it, Viktor. Let me ask you, what kind of gun is that?”
“Das ist ein Schmeisser! A Schmeisser machine pistol. The best gun the Reich has ever produced.”
“It’s cool. I like it.”
“Zo, the Amerikaner, Mr. Jones. Enjoy your tour of Schloss Reichenbach, mein Herr?” Viktor asked him. The way he said it, his little grin, and the way his voice rose up at the end of the sentences, you could tell this was his idea of sarcasm and humor. His voice was scratchy like some old newsreel from World War II.
“Well, I didn’t get to see all that much of—”
“Das ist verboten!” he screamed. “Strictly forbidden!” He pointed the business end of the old Wehrmacht machine pistol directly at Stoke’s heart. It was pumping pretty hard at the moment. Stoke wondered if Viktor’s overdeveloped ears could hear it.
“Your heart is beating very fast, Herr Jones. You are scared, no?”
“Jesus. Not that much.”
“I have orders from Baron von Draxis to shoot anyone who tries to gain entry to der Schloss.”
“Well, good. I’ve already been up there once, so you can scratch me off the list of folks to shoot. What a view, up there, Viktor. You ought to charge admission,” Stoke said. “Make you a fortune.”
“Der Schloss is off-limits to the guests,” Viktor said. “I told you. Strictly verboten.”
“Verboten, huh? Well, how about that? Nobody told me. Hey, Viktor, let me ask you another question. What’d you do? Go get that laser eye surgery while I was up there taking the Schloss tour?”
“Eyes? I see with my ears, Herr Jones. You should wear soft-soled shoes.”
“You see with your ears? Unbelievable. Okay, Viktor, how many fingers I’m holding up right now?”
“Was?” Viktor said. “Nicht verstehen.”
Stoke had figured his fingers joke was pretty funny but Viktor didn’t seem all that amused. If he lived to be a hundred, Stoke thought, he’d never understand the German sense of humor. Jet was in range of the piano now, and she was up on the balls of her feet, palms on the floor, in a crouch. She had a plan and Stoke could see it was a good one. He even saw a way to help her out.
He’d seen a heavy glass paperweight on the desktop behind him. A snowy alpine village inside. Stoke carefully reached behind his back, crabbed his fingers across the desktop until they brushed up against the baseball-sized globe. He palmed it, liking the heft. He considered just beaning Viktor with it, then decided on a better plan.
“Who’s that?” Stoke said suddenly.
“Who?” Viktor instinctively responded.
“Over there,” Stoke said, “Look! Another somnambulist.”
He hurled the glass ball at the mirror over the fireplace. The glass shattered and Viktor rose up off the stool, leaned forward across the opened piano and fired the Schmeisser at the sound of breaking glass. He got off a short burst of useless rounds but by then Jet was already in the air, flying toward the piano.
She came out of her tuck, did at least one midair somersault, and landed with both feet on the raised piano top. The heavy wooden lid slammed down hard on Viktor’s head and shoulders, smashing his face down against the taut wires. The whole top half of his body was now trapped inside the piano case, Jet’s weight keeping the lid down.
Jet stood atop the Steinway, smiling at Stoke.
“Crouching tiger,” she said. “Never fails.”
“Damn, girl, that was pretty good. Bruce Lee, eat your heart out good. You ever make a kung fu movie?”
From inside the piano came a low moan. Viktor was still alive anyway, but just barely, and Stoke didn’t really feel like giving him first aid right now. He pried the Schmeisser from his clenched fingers just for good measure. Good souvenir. Plus, he wasn’t remotely interested in that horror movie ending where the dead guy raises up and shoots your ass while you’re going out the door with the girl.
“You know what,” he said to Jet, “let’s do the early checkout thing. Do they have that here, you think?”
“Good idea. Where to next?”
“You said Leviathan was designed at this Tempelhof in Berlin, right?”
“Yes.”
“Ever been there?”
“Countless times.”
“How’s the security?”
“I think I could get us inside. Getting out alive would naturally be up to you.”
“Yeah. We’ll go check it out. Let’s pack up and vamoose.”
At the top of the stairs, they separated. He sent Jet along to her room to pack up since he knew she’d take longer. He continued up the stairs leading to the top floor. He thought it would be a real good idea to check on Frau Irma. He couldn’t imagine how she’d been able to sleep through all the commotion downstairs.
He entered the dark bedroom, pausing at the door to listen for snoring. Nothing. There was a funky smell in the room, but nothing he could put his finger on. The east windows were beginning to cast a faint grey light into the room. He could make out a lumpy shape lying in the middle of the four-poster bed. She was out all right, not moving a muscle. Jet must have administered some serious sleepy-time tea. He walked over to the bed and looked down at her.
He switched on the lamp by the bed. The shade was draped in a silk scarf that bathed the whole scene in soft red light.
Sleeping like a baby. A very ugly baby. Stoke had to say he finally understood that old expression “a face only a mother could love.” Her hooded yellow eyes, those man-eating fish eyes, were closed, praise God, and her long grey hair was down, splayed out on the pillow in thick, greasy strands. Stoke had to say it looked better up in buns. Her lips were pulled back from her teeth in a kind of grin and there was a little dried spit on her chin. She was very still. He bent down to see if she was breathing.
In the lamplight, her face looked yellow, as if all the blood had drained out of it. He reached down and put his hand on her powdery cheek. It was very cold and he quickly pressed two fingers to her carotid artery. Nada. There was another star in the skies over Germany tonight. The lovely Frau Irma Winterwald was dead. Jet had maybe accidentally overloaded her teapot with deadly nightshade. He’d have to ask her about that. Girl was getting frisky.
Stoke switched off the lamp. He hoped like hell Frau Irma was going to have herself a closed-casket funeral. Just for the undertaker’s sake if nobody else’s. She hadn’t looked all that good when she was breathing, but at least she had some color in her cheeks. Dead, she was a train wreck. You don’t want something like that lying around your funeral parlor in plain sight. Bad for business.
He looked up from the corpse and saw Jet standing in the doorway. She’d changed clothes. She was wearing
