The devils shepherd, p.25
The Devil's Shepherd, page 25
“Of what were you dreaming, Mr. Hearthstone?” she asked in a low whisper.
Eckstein hesitated, fumbling in his damp pocket for his cigarettes. He lit one up and in the brief flare of his lighter saw that Dominique was frowning at him.
“That is so bad for the health,” she said.
He looked at her carefully, wondering that she could be so naive. They were all going to die here in this country, he knew that now, and even a three-pack-a-day habit wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference.
“My name is Eytan,” he said. “Eytan Eckstein.”
Something like a wry smile crossed her full lips, as if she had heard the confession of a mischievous child. “A-tahnne,” she pronounced in her lilting accent. “It is a nice name, like the French name Étienne.”
“Yes, well, it’s mine and I guess it will do.” He paused for a moment. He wanted to tell her about his dream, yet he was a private man by personality and profession, and confiding in strangers was far from habit. But his well of secrets had long overflowed and it all seemed like so much nonsense now. “I was dreaming about my wife and son,” he said. “And about Krumlov and my superior officers.”
Dominique laced her fingers together and looked out through the broken doorway of the room.
“And are you happily married?” she asked, not as if she cared about his status, but wondering herself how such comfort might feel.
“A man who is never home can be easily pleased with his marriage,” he sighed. “My wife calls me a ghost. I’m afraid she’s right.”
Dominique turned her head back to him. “I must apologize to you, Eytan. For my anger.”
“There’s no need.”
“No, there is need. You are not here to save souls. You are here to save lives, and I do understand that. I sometimes have, how do you say, a temper?”
“Got one myself.”
“I was very upset about the death of Nikita and Jan’s loss, and then these things happened in the valley, but I know it was not your fault.” She looked at him as if she could not reveal all of her impressions without baring too much. “I think your appearance reminded me of some things.”
Eytan just watched her, unsure if she meant his arrival or his looks.
“At times we meet someone,” she continued, “and they remind us of the past and other sadness and these things bubble up, but it is not their fault. Do you understand?”
“I think so.”
She searched his face for a moment, then said very directly, “Jan is a good man.”
“Is he?”
She lifted a hand from her knee and waved it as if brushing off an annoying fly. “I am sure your superiors do not think so, yet I know him well.”
“Where did you meet?”
“In the Balkans. His service was there and I was with a relief organization.”
Eckstein nodded, waiting, expecting to hear perhaps that the two had become lovers, at least for that time. She seemed to know what he was thinking.
“No,” she said. “We were never lovers. Perhaps he wanted to bed me, but when he learned my story he stopped. He has been like a father.”
“It must be quite a story,” Eckstein said gently, as if he was not probing at all. He had learned the subtler gifts of interrogation from Baum.
“It is just a story of broken love.” Dominique shrugged. “Perhaps like your own. Nothing special.”
“They are all special,” said Eckstein, thinking of Ettie Denziger and what might have been.
Dominique sighed wearily, as if she had told the tale too many times and each time it pained her anew. But then she began to relay it, like a fable with lessons to be shared by all victims of love and loss.
“I was nineteen years old, in Paris.” She laced her fingers and again squinted out through the doorless opening of the castle. “I fell in love with a man twice my age. But no,” she emphasized as she briefly wagged a finger. “He was not, how do you say, a lecher? We were simply thrown together and he was wonderful and I was young and wounded and he gave me everything I needed then.”
“And you, him,” Eckstein said.
“Oui. And I gave him the same. I wanted desperately to marry him, but he was wise and insisted that we wait, that I was too young, that I would grow tired of him and want my youth and my young life and a younger man.”
“And did you?”
“No, I never did, but I thought he must know better and so I left him and I tried. And when I came back to him, it was too late.”
Eckstein probed no further. He knew that she would tell the rest in her good time.
“His family hated me.” She slowly shook her head, remembering. “They thought I was very bad for him and that I would hurt him. But it was not so.” She paused for a moment, and in the glow of his cigarette as he took a slow drag Eckstein could see the glisten in her eyes. Yet she did not cry, only gathered herself for the rest and went on. “He died very suddenly. All at once he was very ill and it did not take long. He wanted me to go on and to live and love again, but I swore that I would not, that I would rejoin him in time, with my own death, whenever that would be.”
Eytan felt a constriction in his throat, a terrible sadness for such a young life frozen for eternity. He chose his next words carefully and barely whispered them.
“But he did not want that, Dominique. Isn’t it a waste?”
She turned to him, and he thought he might have angered her with his challenge, but she only smiled weakly.
“What is a waste, Eytan Eckstein? What is a waste? Is it not a waste that you travel the world fighting for something that will go its own way with or without you? Is it not a waste that somewhere you have a love and a wife and a child, yet you may die here in this place and be forgotten by everyone except them?”
There was no reply to be made except the most painful affirmative, so Eckstein just watched her in silence.
“I am twenty-six years old now,” she continued. “And I am not a saint. I have had other lovers, though without love. I miss that one true thing, yes, but it is all right because I know there cannot be something more in the world than what I had. That kind of love comes only once, and even though I was young I knew that then.” She raised her chin a bit. “But I am not here to die. I am here to help these children, so that they can grow and perhaps find such a love, which is all there is in life. Yet I am also not afraid to die, because I believe in another life after this one, and in that life I will be with him again forever, as we should have been.”
She stopped talking as something stirred in the large room, and Eckstein watched her move quickly to the side of a small girl who lay on her back, moaning in her sleep. Dominique touched the girl’s forehead and Eckstein could see the bone white of her hand against the small black brow glistening with fever. The nurse opened a canteen and lifted the girl’s head and helped her drink, then soothed her in French and covered her with a muslin sheet.
Eckstein wanted to run, to jump up and flee from this hell of despair, to escape back to his home in Jerusalem and lock himself away with Simona and Oren and never come out again until there was a final peace in the world. But he knew that, as with Dominique’s love, it was an illusion, something that would never be.
He shook his head and squinted at the luminous dial of his watch. His rest period was over and he was grateful to have a reason to leave, and as he stubbed out his cigarette, picked up his pistol, and came to his feet, he heard the first shot.
It was distant, perhaps a probe or a sniper or even Bernd too jumpy at the wire, but it froze Eckstein like a hunted doe. He flicked his eyes toward Dominique, unsure if he was in fact awake and had really heard anything at all, but her eyes told him he was fully within the reality of the moment. From a darkened corner of the large room Max suddenly leapt forward from where he had fallen into an exhausted slumber after tending to the sickly for four hours. He was cocking his Hi-Power and swiping sleep from his eyes with his sleeve.
“Atkafah? An attack?” he snapped at Eckstein, but before Eytan could reply a sudden flurry of gunshots echoed from somewhere close outside the camp and both men smashed into each other as they charged the open doorway.
They skidded into the pitch-black compound, twisting their heads around madly, ears wide open and scanning like sonar, for the firing had died for a moment. And then it came again, long bursts of automatic concussions mingled with the erratic pulls of single shots. It was coming from the mouth of the horseshoe, where Bernd and Manchester were holding the wire, and then they could see the star flashes outside in the shallow valley throwing the razor wire and the two mercenaries’ positions into brief and sharp silhouette. Baum suddenly appeared, trundling by at full tilt and waving to Eckstein.
“Kadima! The fools are trying a full frontal!”
Baum was closely followed by Krumlov, who had somehow acquired a pair of Makarov pistols and was sprinting with them in his fists like an old-time American sheriff.
“Don’t be so sure!” Eckstein yelled at his partner. “It might be a feint.” And as Baum’s thick form sprang over the earth toward the razor wire, the colonel waved his arms at the berms on both sides of the compound.
“Then cover the flanks,” he yelled, and Eckstein and Max looked at each other, then immediately split up, each of them leaping to climb the piles of broken castle stones that formed the legs of the horseshoes.
Eckstein rent his jeans and the skin of his shins as he scrambled up the left berm, but he felt nothing and barely heard the growing gunfire above the ragged rasping from his own lungs. At the top, he flopped onto his belly over a painful pile of jagged building blocks and squinted out into the valley.
They were there all right, but as Baum had said, they were mounting a ridiculous frontal attempt, with no flanking action or suppressing fire. Perhaps it was plain foolishness, poor training, or bravado, but all in all over twenty rebels were leapfrogging up through the black valley, firing their AKs toward the mouth of the horseshoe and yelling like banshees. In response, Eckstein could hear Bernd and Manchester returning short, conservative bursts from their Uzi and Sterling, and as every fourth round was a tracer, the red streamers lanced out toward the rebels and sparked off of stones, making a strange web pattern of ugly lightning that bounced up into the night.
Eckstein came to his feet, for he could not possibly crawl fast enough over the ragged stones, and he clumsily hopped from rock to rock, making his way along the battlement toward the main gate. He winced as Debay suddenly opened up with the MAG from behind and above, and he looked back to see the Belgian prone on the roof of the castle, carefully aiming defilading fire down and just over the heads of his comrades. The heavy 7.62 caliber rounds made long red lines like laser beams, and the thunder of the MAG and its ringing shell casings obliterated all of the other gunfire and yelling that were erupting in the camp below. Baum and Krumlov had reached the main gate, but having nothing more than handguns, they had taken up positions behind the crumbled stone gate sides, waiting until the rebels closed and they could be really useful. Eckstein glanced across the compound, and between Debay’s tracer streams he could make out Max moving forward on the same plane as himself.
He reached the tower at the end of the berm, but it was no longer an architectural form at all, its square body collapsed long ago into a peaked pile of rubble. Eckstein slid partway down the slanted formation, found a footing, and lay partially on his left side. He extended his quaking arms between two large broken blocks and gripped his pistol two-handed, squinting to find a target out there in the night.
But before he could fire, the rebels suddenly lay down en masse, perhaps 100 meters out. They ceased their fire and rolled into the best covering positions they could find, and for a moment the echoes of gunshots died away and Eckstein could clearly hear the men of his recent kinship breathing and cursing, and the metallic clinks as they checked their weapons and reloaded.
“Come on, you bloody fuckers,” Manchester hissed hoarsely. “Let’s give ya a taste of the Queen’s own armaments.”
It was strange to hear the Brit suddenly so chauvinistic regarding the origin of his personal weapon, but Eckstein knew that the merc was just shit-scared and pumped up on adrenaline.
“Ja, kommt hier, ihr Schweine!” Bernd yelled more forcefully.
There was an endless delay of silence while the gun smoke that had been spewed drifted clear and away on a light gust of predawn breeze. Yet Eckstein held no illusions that the rebels had had a change of heart and would withdraw. They had no doubt found their dead comrades in the road not far down the valley, and they would be wanting the blood of the murderers and nothing would deter them.
He unlocked his elbows to allow his muscle tremors to settle, and he looked down to check the defensive perimeter below. Nearest to him was Baum, peeking from behind Eckstein’s perch, his pistol at the ready. To Baum’s right, Bernd lay behind a pile of stones, poking his Uzi through the razor wire, with Manchester in a similar position five meters hence. Krumlov mirrored Baum’s stance across the thick strands of concertina at the far gate, and above him Max crouched atop the second crumbled gate tower.
“They are preparing to take us,” Baum said.
“How do you know?” Krumlov whispered.
“It is the silence before the violence.” Max’s voice echoed from the darkness.
“Think they’ve got heavy weapons?” Eckstein wondered aloud.
“They’d be suppressing us with them if they had, luv,” Manchester said.
“But there is an RPG out there,” Bernd snorted. “I can smell it.”
“Never argue with a German nose,” Baum agreed.
“Das stimmt, Herr Oberst.” Bernd pulled a grenade from the pocket of his smock.
“Do not fire until I do,” Baum ordered. “Then quickly, and together.”
Eckstein tried to adjust his position for more comfort. Sweat had beaded on his forehead and was gathering in his eyebrows, and a muscle in his back had drawn itself into a painful knot between his shoulder blades. For a moment he wondered how Dominique was faring back in the castle keep with the children, but he decided that Jan had probably given her a pistol of her own. That, along with her stoic view of death and afterlife, would make her more dangerous than any of these men.
A thick quilt of high clouds had slid in to obscure the stars, and now Eckstein could see nothing of the dark valley or Mobote’s men. Yet suddenly there was a long rustle, like a large snake sliding through a dry wheat field, and he knew the sounds of soldiers coming quickly to their feet, their weapons slings clinking and ammunition pouches bouncing.
Someone out there yelled hoarsely and the attack began, one assault rifle firing first, then a long string of the barrels opening up as the rebels came on at a running crouch. Green tracers flicked out from the darkness and smashed into the castle stones, and Eckstein hunched low and tried to steady the triangle of his tritium night sights, aiming just behind one flashing rebel gun barrel. He waited for Benni’s signal, knowing Baum would want his men to open up together and with everything they had, and he waited and waited and his entire body began to quake and he cringed inside and felt as if he would explode if Baum did not let them fly already.
“Now!” Baum yelled, and everyone in his firing line opened up, submachine guns, pistols, Debay’s MAG. Eckstein started pulling his trigger, and as soon as he did so he was instantly deafened by his own gunfire, his ears stuffed as if with wet cotton, his wrists bucking and his eyes squinting against the sun-white bursts from his own barrel.
He heard thin yells from the rebels, some of fury, some of horror and pain, and he fired carefully and precisely and only at sure targets, albeit ghostlike shadows that leaped and staggered quickly forward. He winced hard when a huge flash exploded thirty meters out from the front gate, and he glanced down quickly to see Bernd standing to his full height, hurling hand grenades while Manchester covered him with long bursts from his Sterling. Just beyond them, Krumlov was firing both his Makarovs and above him Eckstein could see the flashes from Max’s pistol on the far berm. Then Benni came into view, stepping from cover and nudging closer to Bernd, covering the grenadier from his left flank.
Eckstein’s pistol slide locked back, which was not good, since he only had two more full clips in his pockets. “Magazine!” he yelled, a reflex of his training, and he quickly thumbed the slide release, caught the empty clip, tucked it into his pants, and came up with a fresh load. For some reason, Debay’s MAG had stopped firing, and Eckstein glanced back to see the big Belgian leaping from the castle roof and down onto the far battlement. The MAG was a very heavy tool, yet Debay hefted it like a plastic toy and sprinted forward along the crumbled battlement with the grace of Gene Kelly.
The surviving rebels continued their rush, although their momentum was waning, and Eckstein opened up again. Bernd’s grenades were taking their toll, but the enemy AK-47s were powerful and unceasing, the heavy Russian rounds cracking through the air and sparking off of every abutment. Peripherally Eckstein saw Max slam backward onto his rump, and then the surgeon toppled forward onto the ground just outside the wire. Eckstein twisted and immediately began to slide down from his perch, but Krumlov was faster.
The Czech snatched at the razor wire and hauled back on the concertina, opening it just enough to slip through, and Eckstein could not hear what he was yelling as he leaped out, firing both pistols. The sight was stunning, enough to root Eckstein’s eyes to the scene as Krumlov emptied his right-hand pistol, tucked it into his belt, grabbed the fallen Max by his shirt collar, and dragged him back through the wire into the compound.
Debay suddenly appeared, jumping from the battlement berm with his MAG, and as he hit ground he yelled, “RPG!” Everyone slammed himself down as the launching boom of the Russian rocket blasted from somewhere out front, and then the secondary explosion erupted inside the compound. A gout of flame threw the encampment into harsh daylight as the Land Rover’s petrol tank exploded, and for a moment both defenders and attackers paused as if someone in the game had suddenly changed all the rules of engagement.
