Down: Trilogy Box Set (44 page)

“What does a king’s wagon look like?” John asked.

“It will be large,” Antonio said, “and very nice.”

John laughed. “Thanks for that. I mean, any flags or emblems?”

“Not likely,” Simon said. “No sense making him an easy target.”

Caravaggio was concentrating in silence but after a while he said, “That one may belong to Barbarossa. I see many men coming and leaving, men with fancy uniforms.”

He gave them instructions on where to point their telescopes and Antonio and Simon agreed it was a likely enough suspect.

“Good eye,” John said.

“It is what I do, I see things,” the painter replied.

Working against the fading light they kept sweeping their scopes around the surrounding wagons but they failed to spot anyone promising. Antonio urged a return to the Italian camp but John pressed for more time. It was getting harder and harder to make out much more than shapes and campfires.

Suddenly, Caravaggio whispered, “There!” He spied a hulking figure leading another figure in a long dress from a wagon near the king’s to an adjacent small tent. Armed men circled the wagon.

John frantically tried to focus on the white tent Caravaggio was describing and when he had it in his sights he held his hands as steady as possible. The others found it too and four pairs of eyes locked onto it.

“It may be a privy set up for a lady,” Antonio said.

John felt his heart beating through his chest. Looking through the spyglass he had a flashback to the time he had spent an entire day peering through a sniper scope in Iraq, but this time his target wasn’t an enemy. It was the woman he loved.

The tent flaps parted and the woman emerged. The hulking man immediately grabbed her by the wrist. John tracked her, step by step. She had a hooded cloak pulled over her head and he couldn’t make out her face but just as she climbed the stairs to enter the wagon, the hood slipped down.

He saw it in the light of a nearby torch.

Blonde hair.

And in the briefest moment, a flash of a profile.

Emily.

“It’s her,” he said, more to himself than to his comrades.

“Are you sure?” Simon asked.

“Yeah, it’s her.”

“I am also sure,” Caravaggio said, collapsing his spyglass.

“Why?” John asked.

“Because she is as you described her. Very beautiful.”

Upon his return to the Italian lines John urgently sought out Adolphus. The old monk was on his knees praying in the dark. He stopped when John touched him and he looked up with a smile.

“I was praying for you,” he said.

“I think it worked. She was there.”

“I am glad.”

John got down on his haunches so he could look the kneeling monk in the eyes. “I would like you to do something for me. If you feel you can’t, just say so.”

“Tell me what you wish.”

“You speak German. You’re a monk. You won’t be considered a hostile threat. I’d like you to carry a message from me to Emily inside the German camp.”

“Of course, my son. I will do this for you, happily.”

“It could be dangerous.”

“I have no fear. Even here, I still feel I am in God’s hands. What is the message?”

“Tell her John Camp is here to rescue her. Tell her I’ll come for her soon.”

“How will she know this is not some trick?”

“My name.”

“Might she have uttered your name to someone who is now using it to fool her?”

“You’ve got a devious mind, Adolphus.”

“It is a skill of survival. Tell me something only you would know.”

He thought for a few moments and said, “All right, tell her thirty TeV.”

“Thirty T-E-V. Is that correct?”

“You’ve got it.”

“What does it mean?”

“It’s hard to explain. If you’re ready we’ll ride with you most of the way.”

Adolphus wandered into the German encampment on foot as if he were invisible, all the while, practicing his message in a self-whisper, “John Camp is here. Thirty T-E-V. John Camp is here to rescue you. Thirty T-E-V.”

The frail old man in monk’s robes hardly raised an eyebrow and when one soldier finally looked up from his plate of millet the monk blessed him in German and asked where he might find the lady with golden hair.

The soldier seemed to know precisely what the old man spoke of because rumors of a live woman with golden hair had spread through the camp like wildfire.

“She is alive, you know,” the soldier said.

“I have heard this.”

“Is that why you want to see her?”

“It is. I wish to hear if our Lord, Jesus Christ, is still revered on Earth as he was in my day.”

“Christ is my lord no longer,” the soldier spat, “but you may find her in a fancy wagon near the king’s at the center of the camp.”

Adolphus soon found the likely wagon as it was gilded and near a white tent as had been described to him. Tall guards with muskets surrounded it.

He was challenged as he approached and asked, “Is the live woman in here? I am a poor old monk who wishes to speak with her.”

The captain of the guard demanded to know who he was and how he had gotten into their midst. Adolphus would only say he had heard a rumor and as a loyal subject of King Frederick he prayed he might have the briefest of words to ask her about Christianity on Earth.

The tough soldier told him to go away or suffer the consequences. He tried his best to persuade the tough soldier otherwise. But it was to no avail. When another soldier grabbed his robe to pull him away, he called out in English, “Emily! Emily! Could I speak with you, please?”

The wagon door opened and Andreas stepped out. A curtain parted from a window and Adolphus saw a woman. Hearing the commotion, Himmler emerged from another wagon close by and headed in their direction.

“Who are you?” Andreas asked the monk.

Adolphus whispered, “I have a message for the lady Emily.”

Himmler was shouting now and the captain of the guard responded briskly to the order and came behind the monk.

Adolphus was about to speak when he inhaled sharply at the sight of a saber blade emerging from his belly. The captain pulled the sword out as quickly as he had thrust it in and the monk collapsed onto his side, his breathing turning desperate.

Andreas knelt beside him and put his ear close to the monk’s moving lips. Adolphus seemed to be struggling with his thoughts and a full sentence was not forthcoming. At the moment before exsanguination forever cost him his speech, the only thing he remembered to whisper was, “Thirty T-E-V.”

“What did he say?” Himmler demanded.

Andreas rose, shrugging. “He said a number.”

“What number?”

“Thirty.”

“Thirty? Was that all?”

“I think just that. Then some gibberish before he said no more.”

“Does anyone know him?” Himmler demanded.

No one did.

“All right then, probably just a crazy old man who followed us from Germania. Throw him into a fire and let’s get back to sleep.”

Emily had been watching from the window and when Andreas came back in she demanded to know what the old man had wanted.

“He said he wanted to speak to you.”

“How did he know my name?”

“I do not know.”

“What else did he say?”

“He said he had a message for you.”

“What message?”

“He said, ‘Thirty.’”

“What does that mean?”

“I do not know.”

“That was it, nothing else?”

The eunuch thrust out his chin as his mind tried to grind out a recollection of the last bit of gibberish. His face lit up. “I remember. It was letters. T-E-V. That is right, T-E-V.”

She began trembling. “Are you absolutely sure? He said, ‘Thirty TeV?’”

Andreas nodded vigorously.

She collapsed on her bed in tears and one thought churned over and over.

I’m saved. My God, I’m saved.

John felt the recoil of each burst of automatic fire against his shoulder. His aiming point was the top of the low wall surrounding the Taliban farmhouse. Each time there was a new muzzle flash, he adjusted his targeting to that point. Through his nights cope he could see his rounds pulverizing mud bricks.

“How bad’s he hit?” he shouted into his radio.

The medic answered back, “It’s a through and through to his leg but it’s not arterial. He’ll be okay.”

“Fuck I will,” Stankiewicz blurted out in pain.

John saw that Knebel and Stankiewicz were exposed to incoming fire so he got to his feet and positioned himself into a crouch between them and the hostiles.

He and his men on the south side of the house kept up a steady rate of fire, changing out mags when empty. Mike Entwistle’s squad was on the north side. It sounded like they had engaged too.

“Mike! Give me your status,” John said out into his headset.

“We’re taking and returning fire,” Mike radioed. “This is fucked up.”

“Billy,” John shouted, “put some 40s into that wall.”

His gunnery sergeant immediately sent a round from his M203 grenade launcher down range, blowing a hole the size of a watermelon through it.

“Keep them coming,” John said. “Mike, put 40s into your side too. We’re going to have to blast our way in.”

“Roger.”

Through his scope John saw something sticking out of the fresh hole in the wall.

“RPG!” he shouted, as the grenade streaked toward him.

He flopped to his belly and heard the whoosh of the projectile above his head. The explosion finally came well behind them.

Ben Knebel had also fallen to the ground, landing beside Stankiewicz and scattering first-aid supplies onto the sandy soil. “Christ!” he shouted. “Too damn close.”

In his ear, John heard the calm voice of his Black Hawk pilot. “Hey, Major, we’re watching your fireworks from one click out. You want us to throw some heat on your tangos?”

“That’s affirmative,” John said. “Light up the perimeter walls. Perimeter walls only. Not the house. Repeat, not the house. We want our HVT alive.”

“Roger that.”

Soon tracer rounds from the chopper’s M60C machine gun began thwacking into the mud walls and then the gunship’s 30mm cannon let loose.

Through his night-vision scope the flashes were unbearably bright so he watched the explosions with his naked eyes. Each orange fireball lit the farmhouse for a moment.

The night was black then orange, black, orange.

He was almost mesmerized by the raw beauty of the desert light show when he heard an awful scream through his earpiece, the kind of scream that once you hear it, never gets out of your head.

Startled, John looked around for the source of the screaming only to hear Simon’s raspy snoring coming from the cot beside him. He threw off his blanket, stepped over his sleeping comrades, and parted the tent flaps.

A fog that clung to the tops of the tents and the tips of the meadow grass heralded the morning of the grand battle. Few of the soldiers were pleased but John welcomed the mist like a friend and hoped it would linger well into the day. He was far less pleased about Adolphus, since the monk had failed to reappear at the Italian camp. When John had left him near the German position the night before, the monk had assured them he could find his way back. After all, he said, he had been wandering these parts for a very long time.

“I am sorry, John,” Antonio said sympathetically when he returned to the cooking fire. “I have not seen him.”

“Then I have no idea she got my message.”

Simon looked up from his bowl of oats. “I’ll wager the monk got through and delivered it just fine.”

“Why do you say that?” Caravaggio asked.

Garibaldi joined them. “Because living in Hell has turned Simon into an optimist,” he chuckled. “John, I promise you that we will launch a raid into the German field encampment as soon as we have neutralized Henry.”

John adjusted his heavy shoulder bag, went for his saddled horse and said, “Then let’s get this show on the road.”

King Henry was raging at the fog and none of his nobles could calm him.

“How can we begin our assault if we cannot see our way? I was cursed in life and I am cursed in death.”

“We must make our way with caution,” Oxford said, “but the fog cuts both ways, Your Majesty. We cannot see the French but the French cannot see us. Once we reach the Seine the visibility should be much improved.”

Henry fumed. “Send scouts ahead. And where is my mounting block so I may get astride my damned horse?”

Cromwell was no soldier and he had no intention of becoming one now. He would stay in the camp with a retinue of servants and a light guard. He called out to Henry, “I beg you to stay back, well out of harm’s way. You are the treasure of Brittania whose value cannot begin to be measured. You must not be injured or taken or your kingdom will surely crumble.”

Henry began to mount his steed and said, “You are a sycophantic toad, Cromwell. Have I told you that of late?”

“Just yesterday, if I recall, Your Highness.”

John could hear the clopping of a thousand horses and the rumble of artillery carriages but still couldn’t get eyes on the English through the soupy conditions.

“They’re close,” he whispered to Antonio.

“I hope they cannot smell you,” Antonio said.

“With you guys around, all they’ll smell is shit.”

Simon snorted and patted his horse’s neck to keep the beast from getting skittish. Caravaggio reached for one of the grenades in his saddlebag and inspected it for the hundredth time.

“Don’t drop it,” John said. “It’ll be hard to paint without arms and legs.”

“I remain impressed by the beautiful design.”

“I always told my men not to fall in love with their weapons. They’re only tools to get a job done.”

Garibaldi had been persuaded to stay at the rear and leave the initial assault to younger, more agile men but he grumbled and fussed as each squad assembled and galloped off into the mist.

John’s plan was in full swing.

Twenty squads of thirty to fifty riders each fanned out to the north, the east, and the west with the intention of snaring the English in a noose. Lacking any effective form of battlefield communication, John would send a signal, and then in guerilla fashion, implementation would be in the hands of each squad.