Heroes, David Hagberg [me reader .txt] 📗

said. He was in the back. Deland crouched a little lower.

“No one says you are a deserter.” The apartment was mostly in darkness. Only a small amount of light coming from outside provided any illumination.

“I was wounded. By Russians. Here, in the city.”

Russians? Christ, was he already too late? “What Russians?

Where?”

“In the laboratory at the Kaiserhof,‘“Schey said softly. “The scientists were giving everything to the Russians. I managed to shoot two of them.” Schey appeared at the bedroom door.

Deland almost brought the Luger up and shot him then and there, but something stayed his hand. The Russians. Schey had shot the Russians. Christ, had Donovan been that far off? “Is that how you were wounded?”

Schey nodded. “There was shooting.” He looked beyond Deland to the doorway, as if he were expecting someone. The girlfriend Dannsiger had mentioned?

“Was it the American atomic bomb secrets?”

Schey nodded again. His shoulder was bandaged. But a lot of blood had leaked out. “Yes,” he said. “I slowed them down.”

He was dressed in his uniform, his tunic unbuttoned. He held his Luger in one hand and his Iron Cross in the other.

“The secrets you brought back from America?”

“Yes. What a joke.”

Deland’s insides were tied up in knots. He brought the Luger up. “Drop your weapon, Colonel Schey,” he said in English.

“You stupid bastard, I’m telling you …” Schey began, but then he rocked back on his heels, thunderstruck. “English,” he said. “My God, you’re American.”

“Drop your weapon, damn it!” Schey just looked at him. “Why?” he asked, in English.

“You did not come all this way in that uniform to kidnap me and take me back for trial.”

Deland couldn’t say a thing. His hand was rock-steady, but his knees were terribly weak.

“You’ve come to kill me … because of what I did? But no, it wouldn’t be that. It would be the Manhattan Project secrets.”

Schey smiled. “Well, it’s too late. I’ve given everything I know to my scientists. And they in turn have sold out to the Russians.”

Deland didn’t know if he could just pull the trigger and kill this man.

Schey raised his Iron Cross so that it caught a bit of light. He looked at it wonderingly. Then he looked at Schey.

“Back in the States, at the hospital in Knoxville, Tennessee, is my son. Robert Mordley, Junior. I had to leave him when his …”

“Mother was killed?” Deland finished it.

“You know?”

Deland nodded.

“I was going to return to the Fiihrerbunker tonight to assassinate … my Fiihrer,” Schey said. “I was getting dressed to go.” He lowered his head. “But I could not have done it, you know.”

“He has brought all this down on your people. He has killed millions of Jews … or I suppose that doesn’t matter to you.”

“It matters very much,” Schey said with much feeling. He tossed’the Iron Cross to the floor at Deland’s feet. “See that my son gets this, will you …” he started, while at the same moment he brought the Luger up.

“No!” Deland shouted, and he fired a single shot, catching Schey in the chest, just to the left of his breastbone, driving him back into the bedroom, his shoulder bouncing off the door frame.

Deland leaped forward, his mind numb. Schey lay sprawled at the foot of the bed, his eyes open, his head at an odd angle, his chin on his chest. He still held the Luger limply in his hand. He was dead.

He had known that Deland could not simply pull the trigger on a helpless man. He had precipitated the action.

Deland holstered his Luger, took Schey’s, and slid the action back. There was a loaded clip in the butt, but no shell in the firing chamber. The gun had not been ready to fire.

Schey had been a remarkable man. From what Deland had read of his exploits, he had not thought it possible for one man to have done so much. But now, for no definable reason, looking down at him, Deland was certain reports contained only the half of it.

He dropped Schey’s Luger, then got to his feet and went back out to the front door. With the car, his uniform, and the Fuhrer letter, he did not think he’d have much trouble getting up to Wolgast. If Katrina was still there, he knew she would come with him. There had never been any doubt in his mind. He had promised her that he would be back. And they loved each other.

Outside, he suddenly remembered something, and he went back in. Schey’s Iron Cross lay on the floor where he had tossed it. Deland picked it up, put it in his pocket, and left.

Oh, the older man knew that a lot of heroes turned out happy in the end. But he also knew that they all wondered, at least once in their life, what had been of most importance: their contribution or all the crowing about it afterwards?

—Fuckin’ shit, don’t leave me hanging like this, man, the younger man said.

Just about everyone had left the club by now. It was very late.

The bartender came over and nodded toward the door. It was time to leave.

Surprisingly, the younger man rose without a fuss. —Come on, he slurred.

The older man finished his beer and got to his feet. Together they staggered out of the bar. It was very cold. The wind blew the snow down State Street in long swirls. He couldn’t see Bascom Hill from here, but the capital dome was lit brightly. It looked cold and forbidding.

–-So, what happened? Did Deland get out of Berlin okav? I mean, the fuckin’ krauts were getting jumpy. How many times could he run into a stupid captain with his head up his ass?

—He got out all right, the older man said.

—Yeah, but how?

They crossed State Street and headed up toward the older man’s apartment on Langdon Street. The younger man seemed mindless of the cold or of where they were going. He wanted to hear more. The older man suspected he had wanted a love story out of it.