Rhineland Inheritance Page 11

  “For this I am glad,” Jake replied quietly.

  The woman dredged up the faintest hint of a smile. “When one has nothing, even the smallest bit of hope is very big, is that not so, Herr Kapitän?”

  Suddenly Jake was struck by the thought that there was an entire city of mothers just like this one in Karlsruhe, all terrified by the thought of their children being snatched away by death. He stepped back, as if physically assaulted by the enormity of the crisis, pressed by the multiplied sorrow and the burden of all the pleas for help.

  “Captain?”

  In this moment of clarity, Jake no longer saw just this one scarred and exhausted woman. He saw a whole nation in desperate need. He saw all those who extended their hands in the terror of a dark and lonely room, with no one to help, no one to call upon, and knew he had to go. There was no choice. “Yes,” he said softly.

  “The children,” Frau Friedrichs continued. “The children of the street, they tell me you seek Nazi treasure.”

  Jake focused on her with difficulty. “I am not—”

  “I wish to help you, Captain,” she went on. “I and many others. Others who have some hope today because of you and your men.”

  “It is not necessary,” Jake protested. “You have enough to do just caring for your family.”

  “For me, yes, it is necessary.” The woman straightened herself with visible effort. “My husband was a Nazi. But he and all he stood for is gone. Gone. Gone to the graveyard of tragic error. It is finished, thank God. It is finished.”

  “Yes,” Jake agreed, and could only admire her strength.

  “He never spoke of treasure. But I know of others who heard things. I will ask. I will search papers. And whatever I find is yours.”

  “Thank you,” Jake said solemnly. “You shall receive your share of whatever is brought to me.”

  The news brought the faintest glimmer to her weary eyes. “Perhaps I should refuse, but I cannot. I shall accept anything you give, but not for me.”

  “For your children,” Jake said, nodding. “I understand.”

  “You should know something, Captain,” the woman continued. “Others are searching.”

  “I have heard.”

  “Men with white helmets and white sticks,” she told him. “Men who have evil eyes and voices.”

  The news rocked him. “Connors?” he asked of no one in particular.

  “They do not offer anything in return,” she went on. “They do not bring kindness. They come in danger, and they wreak havoc. If they are against you, Herr Kapitän, then you must take care. Great care. I fear they are friends to no one but themselves.”

  * * *

  Sally found him wandering around headquarters a few hours later. “You look lost, soldier.”

  “I was looking for Pierre. Sort of, anyway.”

  She searched his face, said, “What’s wrong, Jake?”

  He looked around to make sure no one else was within range, then said quietly, “I just had an indication that Connors might be hunting for Nazi treasure.”

  “So?”

  “You don’t find that surprising?”

  “If you hang around these halls long enough, you’ll be surprised at the things you can pick up.” A group of officers exited noisily from a conference room. Sally grasped his arm and steered him away. “You’ve got to admit it makes sense.”

  “What does?”

  “Come on, Jake. Connors may be a hazard, but he’s no fool.”

  “He’s not?”

  “No, he isn’t, and you know it. He probably had some treasure-hunting scheme festering in that little mind of his when he started collecting that gang of hooligans.”

  “It makes sense,” he said slowly.

  “Sure it does. You stick with Sally, soldier. She’ll take care of you.”

  “But I never figured Connors for a money-grubber.”

  “Connors likes his own comfort, but I doubt that money is behind all this activity. What Connors wants most is power.” She popped into her office and came out shrugging on her coat. “I’ve been cooped up in here all day. Mind taking a lady for a walk?”

  “Not at all.”

  “There’s a general in Freiburg who’s gained a reputation for wanting to crown his career by unearthing a major Nazi hoard,” Sally continued. “It’s my guess that Connors has linked up with him, in return for a promise of those little stars for his shoulder pads.”

  Jake pushed through the door, returned the guard’s salute, and declared to Sally, “The day Connors gets his promotion is the day I hang up my hat.”

  “You and me both, soldier. But for the next fifteen minutes, let’s pretend Connors and all the rest don’t exist, okay? I mean, a weary woman can take only so much of the world.”

  “Fine with me,” Jake said, turning with her to follow the road away from town.

  They walked in silence for a time, passing through a growth of tall trees before emerging into a pasture-like clearing. Sally took a breath. “Back home, this is what we’d call a big sky,” she said, her face suddenly open and relaxed, her skin lit by the day’s waning light.

  Clouds scuttled high overhead and down along the horizon, cloaking a winterland scene back-lit by the late afternoon sun. “Sure is a good day to be alive,” Jake said.

  “And healthy,” she added. Then more quietly, “I’ve missed you, Jake.”

  “I’ve missed you—very much.”

  “You’ve been too busy to miss anybody.”

  “Not you,” he replied. “Not ever.”

  Her look softened. “I’m proud of what you did. Very, very proud.”

  “I’m not sure who it was behind the doing,” he confessed.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Jake struggled for a moment, wanting to share his thoughts, but not sure he could, even with himself. “It just didn’t make any sense.”

  “It made all the sense in the world,” Sally corrected.

  “Wait, let me try to explain. Logically, I mean. None of this was any of my business.” He stopped and turned toward her. “But I’ve never felt so sure of anything in my whole life, Sally. Can you make any sense out of that?”

  She looked up at him. “And you said you weren’t a believing man.”

  “I’m not.” He stopped, then admitted, “Or at least I wasn’t. I’m not so sure about anything anymore. And the chaplain said some things to me this afternoon that . . .”

  Sally nodded slowly. “I know,” she assured him. “That man has a way of making it all seem so clear. So possible.”

  “What he’s suggesting suddenly seems the most sensible thing in the whole world,” Jake agreed.

  “Who knows,” she said, taking his arm. “Maybe it is, and we’re just slow to find out.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “I’ll flip you for it,” Jake offered as they entered the Karlsruhe base the following evening.

  “No need, my friend,” Pierre replied. “You have already been volunteered.”

  “This is worse than going into battle,” Jake groaned.

  Pierre nodded. “I agree. In battle all they do is shoot you. There is no telling what the high command will do if you mess this one up.”

  Jake glared at his friend. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Something slow, I would imagine,” Pierre suggested. “Undoubtedly very painful.”

  Jake pointed to where Major Hobbs was motioning them over. “I think he means us.”

  “I happen to have a blindfold in my pocket if you think it would help,” Pierre offered, and wheeled the jeep into place.

  “Glad to see you boys,” the major said in greeting. “We’ve got quite a crowd in there.”

  Jake gave a soft moan.

  “Something wrong with our man?”

  “A touch of indigestion,” Pierre assured him. “Nothing serious.”

  “Oh. Right. Okay, here’s the plan. I’ll stand up and make just a couple of remarks—you know, pave the way for the main action
. Then I’ll introduce you, and you get on with the show.”

  Jake wiped clammy hands down his pantlegs.

  “We’ve talked it over,” the major continued. “And we don’t think there’s any need for you to go into great detail. We can handle that ourselves. What we need from you is a little pep talk, something to inspire them to get out there and work.”

  “That’s what Jake is best at,” Pierre offered. “Inspiration.”

  “Great, just great. Exactly what I wanted to hear.” The major clapped Jake on the shoulder. “Okay, let’s get this show on the road.”

  The several hundred men and women crowded together transformed the hall into a smoky din. Jake shook hands with a variety of officers, nodded greetings, stood while introductions were being made, yet heard not a word of what was said. Someone led him up onto the stage and directed him into a rickety folding chair. Jake sat and watched as the major approached the podium and called for order. He half listened as the major entertained the group with a few jokes. Then the major turned and pointed toward him. Applause swept through the hall. Jake knew it was time.

  He found it to be just like the moment before combat. As soon as it started, his nerves quieted down. Jake stood and walked forward to the podium, shook the major’s hand, waited for the applause to die. And somehow he knew what he needed to say. The words had long been there, just waiting for an opportunity like this to be spoken.

  “You will all find your own reasons for doing this,” Jake began. “Or you will quit. There is no glory in this work. There aren’t any medals. Nobody is waiting to pat you on the back and say what a great job you have done. And what you are going to find when you get out there is not pretty. As a matter of fact, it is about as ugly and disgusting as it comes. So if you are not able to find something in yourselves to keep you going, you’d better get out. All I can tell you is what worked for me.”

  A hush gathered, a stillness from a deeper place of listening and understanding. The room became so quiet Jake could hear the occasional foot sliding across the polished floor. “Anyone of you who has been in combat knows what it is like to take a village, or a hill, or a river, or whatever the objective might be. When it’s over, you’re bone-tired, more exhausted than you ever thought possible. Maybe you just saw a couple of your friends take a hit. Maybe you came close enough yourself to death to still have the feel of it lingering around you. So there you are. You sprawl out, maybe grab a quiet smoke and a cup of java. And what happens? Out of nowhere comes this cluster of little kids.

  “Your first reaction is, go away. But you’re probably too dog-tired even to say the words. So the kids hang around, just out of reach, and they stare at you. All rags and dirt and limbs as thin as little sticks.”

  Here and there in the room, heads began nodding as Jake intoned scenes and memories. “Then you move on,” Jake continued. “It’s strange what you remember from all that just happened. After coming that close to death, you’d expect the most vivid recollections to be of the battle. But that is not the way it works, at least not for me. No, what I remember most clearly is how big those kids’ eyes looked. I used to think that all the war and suffering they had seen somehow opened their eyes to twice their normal size.” Jake shook his head. “All I have to do is close my own eyes, and their faces are still there, still staring back at me.

  “So what happens now? We won the war, right? We will be going home soon, at least most of us will. I am, and let me tell you, I am counting the days.” Jake waited through the quiet chuckles, then said, “But those faces are still with me, just as I described them. All those kids, in every place I left behind.

  “When this problem surfaced down in the town by my own base, I decided that maybe it would be a good idea if I could try to do a little something for just one kid. In just one town—before I went away and left all the ruin and destruction behind me. Before it was too late.”

  He stopped and waited for a moment, then finished, “I know those faces will still be with me until the day I die. But at least now, right there alongside them, will be these other faces. Some with smiles, even. Faces of a few people who might have a little more chance to make something of their lives because of what some of us did, or tried to do. And that is what is most important—that we tried. We tried to give them back a little hope.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  When the base at Offenburg asked him to come down and give the same talk two nights later, Jake was less bothered. At least, until Sally Anders insisted on coming along.

  “No how, no way,” he declared, and tried to turn away.

  But Sally was not having it. “You may consider it an order, soldier. You are taking me along, and that’s final.”

  “Over my dead body.”

  “That can be arranged,” she snapped. “Jake, who brought you to meet the kids in the first place?”

  “I forget.”

  “Well, you best just unforget, mister. I’m calling in my chips.”

  “The only way I get through this is because I’m talking to a bunch of strangers,” he pleaded.

  “Then you can just consider me one of them,” she retorted. “That should be easy enough, as scarce as you’ve been these past few weeks.”

  “Sally, you know how overwhelmed I—”

  “So here’s your perfect opportunity to make up for lost time.” She batted her eyelashes. “Look at it this way. How often does an attractive girl throw herself at you?”

  In the end it was all right. Once up on the podium, Jake had no room to think of anything else. The pressure to tell what was in his heart was just too strong.

  Afterward, Sally waited while the commanding officers gathered and shook his hand and offered compliments. Her gaze never left his face, not even when Pierre tried to capture her attention. For that moment, that hour, she was his.

  Without asking, Jake ushered Sally into the backseat of the jeep, clambered in beside her, then said to Servais, “Home, James.”

  Pierre surveyed the pair, his eyes dark and unreadable. Then he said, “I suppose it is time for the white flag.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she told him, but her voice lacked conviction, and her eyes were still on Jake. “I sat up front with you for the trip here. Turn about is fair play.”

  Pierre nodded, his expression blank. “Your mouth says one thing,” he replied, “your eyes another, ma chérie.” Then before Sally could respond, he gunned the motor and started off.

  They sped back under a star-streaked sky. The trees were dark guardians lining the road; their sharp spears jutted upward, granting a sense of safety to the surrounding night. Sally shifted from time to time, drawing closer to Jake. Jake took heady draughts of the biting air, and felt that here, this moment, his life might truly begin anew.

  Pierre drove with a chauffeur’s precision, his eyes ever forward. He spoke not a word. Jake resisted the urge to reach out and pat Pierre’s shoulder and offer words of friendship. Now was a time for Sally. She leaned against his chest, she filled his world.

  Then they rounded the final corner before entering the city’s outskirts, and the peace was shattered.

  It was not a full-control checkpoint. Just a trio of white-streaked MP jeeps set at point, with a series of striped barrels rolled in front and their tops set alight. Spread out around the barrels were a dozen or more white-helmeted soldiers.

  “Hang on!” Pierre shouted, simultaneously hitting the brakes and spinning the wheel violently.

  The jeep almost went over. It careened up on two wheels, teetered, then slammed back and did a grandiose four-wheel skid into the right-hand pair of barrels. They missed the MPs stationed there only because the men flung themselves out of harm’s way.

  While Jake was still frozen in the protective position he had taken across Sally, Pierre jumped from the seat. “Come on, move it, move it!”

  Jake’s muscles obeyed the urgency in Pierre’s voice. He lifted a visibly shaken Sally up and out of the jeep. Before her feet were even in c
ontact with the earth, Pierre grabbed her and sped toward the closest shadows. Jake was immediately after them.

  The MPs’ stunned stillness was shattered by a violent, “After them!”

  Tree limbs whipped Jake’s face and snatched at his uniform, as if trying to hold him until the assailants could catch up. He fought with an animal’s panic strength, struggling to keep up with the racing Servais.

  “Through the trees! Over here!”

  Thundering feet crashed through the brush behind them, adding speed to their flight. Sally’s breath was a series of high-pitched gasps. Jake barely missed slamming into a tree he saw only at the last possible moment. Then came the unmistakable crackling sound of gunfire. Jake dropped, rolled, was up and running again, even before the sound had finished its echoing refrain.

  Pierre jinked and weaved, crossed over a rutted track, and slid down the embankment on the other side, dragging Sally after him. Jake followed close on their heels, his breath a thunder in his ears. Pierre struggled up a rise; Jake moved in to take Sally’s other arm and help lift her up the steep hillock.

  At the top there was danger—a clearing without cover. From the other side, figures bounded out of the shadows, struggling through the high snow toward them. Jake was baffled. Panting hard, he dropped to his knees beside Pierre, wondering how their pursuers could have made it up and around them so fast. No, that wasn’t possible, he could still hear the shouts and curses following them through the woods behind. Then who—

  “Halt!” A voice carried strong and clear across the snow-covered pasture. “Who goes there?”

  Behind them the other voices cut off as though sliced with a knife, and Jake knew a blessed rush of relief. “Captains Burnes and Servais. Who are you?”

  “Captain Burnes? Is that really you, sir?” A shadow approached at a run; the moonlight revealed the fresh-faced squad leader from one of their own incoming border patrols. “Captain Servais? And who—Miss Anders? What are you folks doing out here?”