Hour of the Assassins (27 page)

“Don't worry,” Franz said, stopping chewing long enough to give Caine a comforting smile. “We just want to take you to someplace quiet and ask you some questions.”

Of course, Caine thought. They didn't want him to panic into giving them any trouble, because he couldn't stop the sweat from breaking out over his face and Franz had picked up on it at once. They were very good and only wanted to keep it clean. This way to the showers, they had told them at Auschwitz. A surge of anger coursed through him and he let it happen because he needed the adrenaline. He wasn't about to die like a steer being led to the slaughter. In the darkened car his eyes glowed as green as the dashboard dials as they began to go through the suburbs.

“Questions about what?” he asked.

Franz's thin lips parted in a smile as the gum flicked between his teeth like a snake's tongue.

“You can tell us all about
der Seestern
. In fact, I'm sure you'll want to cooperate, won't you, funny man.”

“Shut up, Franz,” the driver said sharply.

“He knows all about it,” Franz said airily. “Don't you, funny man?”—jamming the Walther hard into Caine's ribs.

“You got a big mouth, Franz,” the driver said angrily.

Der Seestern
, the Starfish again, Caine thought rapidly. What the hell was going on? Who or what was it? Except it looked like he would never find out because Franz wouldn't have ever mentioned it if they had the slightest intention of letting him live. The question was rapidly becoming academic, he realized. The only thing that mattered now was sheer survival.

It would have to be in the car, he knew, his eyes flicking around the interior of the Mercedes without moving his head, measuring distances. Once he started moving, he would be irrevocably committed and there would be no time to see and no chance to correct. It had to be inside, because outside the car they could create any distance they wanted and Franz would be smiling and chewing his gum as he fired into Caine's body, making his last futile run. That was the one thing he must never do: give up. He had seen many men collapse and die in Asia because the organism just gave out, and it was always the same. The collapse of the will to go on suffering, to live, invariably preceded any physical collapse. No, it would have to be inside the car, with the driver too preoccupied to do anything for the first four or five seconds. That left only Franz to deal with. He began to move his body slightly, to get Franz conditioned to his movements. The door on his side could be used as a fulcrum, but he needed a natural movement for the reaction to occur, like the slight lean on a curve.

Time was running out; they were already nearing the
autobahn
beside the woods. The tall, dark shadows of trees, gleaming and heavy with snow, began to crowd down to the road. He began the rhythmic
kokyu
breathing, because it had to come now and he wanted to clear his mind and to look a little sick, with sweat induced by slight hyperventilation, to fractionally decrease the distance between him and Franz. Given the way he felt, he didn't think looking sick was going to be anything of a problem. Franz looked over at him, annoyed. He wanted it clean.
Alles in ordnung
, everything in order, Caine thought.

“Don't try it,” Franz said, the gun held steady, as if a statue were holding it. Franz was good. He had noted Caine's movements and he was ready. It wasn't going to work. Caine sighed with defeat and slumped back a tiny bit closer to the door. Franz smiled happily as he chewed, his teeth a pale phosphorescent blue in the dark car, almost like the color of the snow at night. Caine had been right about him. He was truly going to enjoy the killing.

The Mercedes skidded slightly as the first policeman took a wide curve into the woods and began to reduce speed. Caine let the hate and anger come from the dark and ancient corners of his subconscious in a blinding surge, drowning any conscious thought. Those ancient instincts that could transform a man into a berserk animal, would make him fight without quarter for his very existence, as the centrifugal force allowed him to complete the lean against the car door. The instant his shoulder hit the side, he twisted slightly and kicked savagely with a recoil movement of both legs at Franz's gun hand. The explosion of the gun going off echoed deafeningly within the confined space of the car, succeeded by a roar of cold air as the window beside his head shattered and exploded out to the darkness. His right foot had Franz's forearm pinned against the opposite door, as a savage pain flooded up from his groin from a blow by Franz's left hand and Caine kicked again with his left foot, feeling it connect with bone. The car slewed sideways as the driver tried to brake on the icy road, but Caine couldn't worry about that as he slapped his palms together and whipped the twin hand edges at Franz's temple with everything he had in him. Franz tried to duck the blow, howling at the driver, as the blow caught the side of his neck, stunning him for a second. That was all Caine needed. With a sudden heave he sprang for Franz's throat, his bound hands like steel claws that bit mercilessly into the flesh, and with a surge that seemed to emanate all the way from his groin, he smashed Franz's head through the opposite window, exploding the glass and covering them both with screaming wind and blood.

He scarcely had time to register the fact that Franz's badly gashed skull and neck had gone slack, when he sprang for the driver, who was fumbling at his shoulder holster while he frantically tried to control the erratically skidding car with one hand. Caine brought his hands over the driver's head and yanked back and down with all his might, using his weight and legs against the front seat, as the handcuff's chain bit deep into the driver's neck. He pulled the head down backward across the headrest, trying to snap the straining neck, but the man was incredibly strong and he was still holding the wheel as the car skidded wildly out of control. The driver had managed to free his Walther and twisted his arm backward to point it at Caine. But Caine's hands were locked fruitlessly around the driver's throat and there was nothing he could do except haul at the neck. His body tensed involuntarily as he waited for the split second of sound that would be death, the muzzle pointed into him. Then there was an explosion and sudden savage G-forces were tearing at him as the car smashed into the trees and the driver's body tried to leap through the windshield, despite the handcuffs around his neck. Caine felt his arms being wrenched out of their sockets with the force and then there was only tangled darkness as the car began to roll over. He felt a dull blow somewhere in his body, but he didn't know where, because it wasn't his body anymore and then there were only flickering images and somebody screaming with a voice like his own. Then there was nothing.

Death is cold. He hadn't known that it would be so cold. And dark and wet. He tried to move, but he couldn't, so he simply rested and tried to see. He was looking at a strange rounded shape that formed out of the darkness, and it took him a long while before he realized that he was staring at his own shoe as it rested against the roof of the Mercedes. He was pinned under the heavy body of the driver, his handcuffed hands still locked around the man's throat. Like an electrician testing circuits, he tried systematically to feel the damage to the different parts of his body, but he could feel only two sensations, numbness and pain. But at least nothing seemed to broken. Something had hit him near his eye. It felt sticky but he could still see.

The driver's body was heavy on him and he tried to free himself, but the body was immovable. A feeling of lassitude and warmth stole over him and he felt himself smile. It felt good to rest and he decided not to move. But somewhere in the darkness an alarm was going off and it took his groggy mind a while to realize that some part of him was screaming at him that the warmth was an illusion, that if he didn't move, he would die. But I can't move, he reasoned with the voice that was him. I tried and besides I don't feel like it. Don't give up, the voice cautioned, and then it handed him a memory from the brain's data bank.

It was Hudson's voice giving them their final instructions before the drop. Hudson was a grizzled Green Beret master sergeant who taught survival training for pilots, Special Forces, and Company types heading for Vietnam. He was shouting over the roar of the engines as they prepared for a parachute jump into the Chiriquí forest of Panama, for one week on their own in the jungle. Hudson cupped his hands and shouted,

“When you can't go on anymore, when all you want to do is just lay there and die, when you've given up completely, remember my voice. Remember just one thing. TAKE ONE MORE STEP! Just one. If you do, it will save your life. Because once you take one step, you're bound to take another.”

All right, Hudson, all right, he thought irritably. Just one, you bastard. And summoning up all his strength, he managed to pull his hands from around the driver's head. The head lolled loosely against his chest, the neck broken. With sudden disgust at the thought of lying there under a corpse, he heaved sideways and managed to partially free himself. From a dozen parts of his body came shooting signals of pain. With another heave he managed to roll the body off him, then he had to rest. He panted heavily, his eyes glazed with fatigue and pain, like a winded animal. He began to paw at the already stiffening body of the driver with his own stiff and frozen hands, searching for the Bauer. He found it still stuck in the driver's belt and dropped it into his jacket pocket. He shook his head, trying to remember something.

The keys, he thought dully. He had to find the keys to the handcuffs. Who had put them on him? Franz, he remembered. Where was Franz? He looked around. Franz wasn't in the smashed, overturned car. Slowly, and with frequent pauses to rest, he managed to crawl inch by inch through the shattered upside-down window and into the snow. When he finally looked up, he could see the dark blot of Franz's body lying in a snowdrift about ten yards away, where he had been thrown clear. Caine managed to crawl over on all fours, like a wounded animal, leaving dark prints of blood crystallizing on the snow.

Franz was still breathing, Caine realized as he began searching him for the keys. He found them in the pants pocket and it took him many tries before he was able to insert the key into the lock. Finally he held the key between his teeth and managed to turn it that way, releasing the fastening. Then like a toddler trying his first steps, he painfully managed to pull himself erect with the help of a tree trunk.

He took out the Bauer and briefly debated shooting Franz. Then he decided against it. The first Stadtspolizei on the scene might take the whole thing for an accident and he would need as much of a head start as possible to get clear of Austria and pick up his new cover in Marseille. He glanced at his watch and then down again at Franz. He still had forty-five minutes to make his r.d.v. with Feinberg. As for Franz, he would probably freeze to death in a little while anyway. He put the Bauer away and began to stagger toward the road.

“
Mein Gott
, what happened to you?” Feinberg said, his eyes wide behind his glasses at the sight of Caine swaying drunkenly in the doorway. Caine's suit was torn and filthy and soggy with melted snow and blood. His hair was matted and his face was red and blue with bruises, like patches of raw hamburger. One of his eyes was swollen shut, the puffed skin showing all hues of a rainbow.

“I cut myself shaving,” Caine muttered thickly.

“Let me call a doctor,” Feinberg said anxiously and helped Caine over to the old sofa.

“There isn't time. But I could use a drink,” Caine said through swollen purplish lips. He sat gingerly on the sofa, while Feinberg bustled through a metal file cabinet, finally coming up with a bottle of schnapps that he uncorked and handed to Caine.

“
Prosit
,” Caine toasted and drank deeply. The warmth of the harsh liquor flooded his veins like a benediction. He took another drink and passed the bottle back to Feinberg, who tilted it in a toast.

“
L'chayim
, to life,” Feinberg said and took a swig. To life, Caine thought, and smiled, remembering the icy feel of death in the overturned Mercedes. Amen, he thought. Good or bad, here's to it.

“What happened?” Feinberg asked, a genuine concern written over his sad Jewish face.

Caine shrugged. “I'm not sure, but a couple of boys from the Stadtspolizei tried to take me for a one-way ride to the Vienna Woods.”

“What happened to them?”

“Let's say that I made a lasting impression on them,” Caine replied, and smiled grimly. Feinberg shuddered. It wasn't a pretty smile.

“Can what happened be traced back to this office?”

Good, Caine thought. Feinberg was thinking like a professional.

“No. You're clear. Have you got the goods?”

Feinberg nodded excitedly, his eyes gleaming with enthusiasm. He went over to the desk and brought back a sheaf of Xerox copies.

“I was just going over it when you arrived. Look for yourself. I've marked the significant entries with blue ink.”

Caine quickly scanned the pages, the certainty sprouting up within him like a mushroom after a rainstorm. Over a period of almost six years the firm of Mengele and Sons had made quarterly contributions averaging around seventy-five thousand marks to a medical hospital in the Peruvian Amazon, near the town of Pucallpa, called the Mendoza Institute. The drafts had been countersigned by the head of the institute, a Dr. Felix Mendoza. Audaciously, the company had taken the contributions off their corporate income taxes as a charitable deduction.

“Who is this Dr. Felix Mendoza?” Caine asked.

“I was waiting for you to ask,” Feinberg said, the excitement sparkling in his voice like the bubbles in a glass of soda pop. He went back to the desk and brought over an opened copy of the
International Who's Who
. He handed it to Caine, who devoured the entry on Dr. Felix Mendoza.