Unhinge the Universe

His gaze drifted to the red beside his arm.

  And everything went dark.

  The gunfire had ceased. The driver was dead, his motionless body collapsed against the wheel of the idling Jeep. Outside, no one moved or made a sound, which meant they were waiting. Hagen couldn’t begin to stomach the thought of what had become of John after he’d been thrown from the vehicle, and the ongoing silence only made the cold dread in his chest swell.

  At least two men spoke outside, their voices hushed but agitated. Hagen couldn’t see, but they were close.

  “Fuck,” one said under his breath. “The driver and the captain.”

  “Captain’s useless anyway. Goddamned Nazi sympathizer. And if he wanted to play human shield, then this serves him right.”

  “Just make sure the Nazi’s dead, and let’s get out of here. My feet are freezing.”

  Hagen’s heart pounded. Footsteps crunched on snow, coming closer. He was a dead man if he just sat here.

  He looked around as much as he could without moving, and the driver’s gun caught his eye. Avoiding any sudden movements, he reached between the front seats. His wrists were still cuffed together, but with some straining and silent swearing, he got his hands up to the pistol on the driver’s hip. He carefully slid it free, along with an extra magazine, and drew them back against his chest.

  The men came closer.

  “Ain’t no way he survived that fall.”

  “Somebody ought to go check. Just in case.”

  “Need to turn in his dog tags anyway. But I want to make sure this fucking Kraut is good and—”

  Hagen fired four times, and both men dropped.

  Shouts and gunfire erupted from the hillside behind them. Hagen flung himself over the side of the Jeep as bullets whistled past, and he hunched down on the ground, using the Jeep as cover. From here, no shot would hit anybody, but if the enemy dared to circle him, he’d show them who they were up against.

  Opposite him, one of the soldiers was completely still and silent. The other groaned and sputtered, making strangled noises and writhing on the snow-covered ground. Hagen leaned down. He aimed the pistol underneath the Jeep—a challenge with bound hands—and fired. The soldier jumped. Stilled. Didn’t move again. A waste of ammo, perhaps, but he saw no need to leave a man to die in agony.

  He quickly changed magazines. As he did, another groan came, this time from behind him, farther down the slope.

  Hagen glanced back. John was crumpled on the rocks below beside entirely too much blood. He was alive, if not for much longer.

  Hagen fought the impulse to run down there immediately. First, the attackers. He wouldn’t be any help to John if the Americans gunned him down.

  Although they were likely green just like every American he’d fought so far, if they acted in concert and with cool heads, they’d still win. What that meant for him, he knew. What it might mean for John, he could only guess.

  He held so still the frozen ground beneath his feet didn’t make a sound. He slowed his breathing. Unfocused his eyes. Listened.

  Snow crunched. Hagen’s senses homed in on the source, concentrated on it, made it the focal point of his entire existence, and waited.

  Crunch.

  Hagen slowly, slowly swiveled toward the sound, wary of every sound his uniform and joints might make as he leveled the pistol at the unseen target beyond the idling Jeep.

  Crunch.

  Hagen rose a millimeter at a time.

  A jacket snapped with sudden movement, like a sail catching a sudden updraft, and Hagen flew upward and fired the shot. A muzzle flash blinded him for a split second, but the American’s barrel had been jerked off course. The shot echoed, but the bullet flew uselessly and harmlessly into the trees.

  The American staggered back, making a choked sound as his hand went to the front of his bloodied uniform. Hagen swept his pistol right, left, right again, seeking motion and hunched men and well-aimed barrels.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw movement, and he’d already aimed, fired twice, and hit his target before he even realized it was the soldier who’d confronted John over the table last night.

  John.

  Hagen’s senses tried to drag him back toward John.

  I’ll do him no good if I’m full of bullets.

  He listened. Movement again. Underbrush snapping beneath boots. Coming from . . . coming from . . .

  There.

  He spun toward the sound, and rose, pistol aimed and ready. The soldier’s rifle was already up.

  Gunfire. Muzzle flash. Recoil.

  A bullet screamed past Hagen and ricocheted off a rock before hitting the Jeep with a sharp clang.

  The rifle clattered to the soldier’s feet. The man doubled over, his face twisted in agony, and he locked eyes with Hagen as his knees started to shake. One buckled. Then the other. He fell to his knees on the icy ground. Looked down at the blood pouring out into his hand. Looked at Hagen.

  They held each other’s gazes for a few seconds that seemed to stretch on for hours.

  He was one of the younger soldiers in the group. One who’d sat quietly beside John during the dining room altercation. Not more than nineteen or twenty. And kneeling there, catching his own blood in his hand, he looked even younger.

  “This is war, Hagen,” John had said not long ago. “It’s brutal. It’s ugly. And sooner or later, someone has to lose.”

  The soldier groaned and toppled forward. His hand landed beside his rifle, his arm shaking as he struggled to hold himself up. “Oh, God . . .” He sounded like he was sobbing. Then, slowly, he raised his head and met Hagen’s eyes. Tears carved clean lines down the dirt on his face.

  He’s only a boy.

  Not much younger than I.

  Hagen ended it quickly for him. One bullet to the face, and he turned away before the boy hit the ground.

  Hagen’s gaze swept the hillside for any reinforcements, but that seemed to have been it. That was all he’d seen in the château, anyhow.

  John. He had to get to John. No more men were dying here today.

  He dashed down the hillside, slipping and stumbling before skidding to a halt and dropping to his knees beside John. Pulling frantically at his jacket to open it, he found the bullet hole high up on the shoulder, and another one on the other side, which at least saved him from digging for the bullet out here in the open. The leg worried him far more. Several broken bones from the look of him, and while John was sweating, he was breathing, his pulse fast but steady. Hagen placed a hand against John’s cheek, the chain around his wrists touching his jaw.

  “The keys? Which pocket?” But John didn’t respond, which might have been a small blessing. Seemed he was barely conscious, which could only be a good thing, considering Hagen would have to pull him out from between the rocks. But not before he dealt with the bullet holes and secured the leg. His knee wasn’t aligned with his hip.

  He remembered his training: splint before moving. He’d seen a medic look after a broken femur before.

  He searched John’s pockets and found the keys to his cuffs. Once his hands were free, he managed to get John’s jacket off and used it as a crude bandage, wrapping it tightly around John’s arm and shoulder to staunch the bleeding.

  Then he climbed back up the slope with the aid of any hand- and foothold he could find, and rifled through the Jeep to see what he could use. His search yielded a small hatchet, and that allowed him to cut a young tree and end up with two reasonable wooden pieces he placed left and right of John’s leg. He pulled his own coat off and wrapped it tightly around the leg, securing it with his belt and John’s, and the driver’s.

  Moving John made Hagen’s skin crawl. John howled and thrashed, but in this condition, it was impossible to not cause him searing agony.

  Hagen eventually grabbed John’s coat and dragged him up to the road. The only way to save John was to put him through that pain, so Hagen just winced through the sickening moans and occasional—when John was conscious enough—screams
.

  At the top, he eased John to the ground.

  The Jeep’s front tire was blown out, and its front end was embedded in a snow bank. As hard as it had hit, Hagen wouldn’t have been surprised if the axle was broken.

  He eyed the corpses strewn on the road. They’d planned this ambush. They’d also had a Jeep. Two, if he recalled. Which meant the vehicles wouldn’t be far from here. He searched jacket and trouser pockets for keys, and finally found a set that hopefully went to the vehicle’s ignition. He traced the tire tracks in the snow, jogging as best he could on the slippery ground.

  Just around the next bend, the pair of Jeeps were parked beside the road. The ignition key started the first one, and Hagen carefully turned the vehicle around and urged it up the steep road. It slid, of course, tires spinning here and slipping there, but he made up to where he’d left John. He turned the Jeep around, set the brake, and got out.

  “Hagen?” John moaned.

  Hagen crouched beside him, touching his face.

  Eyes closed, John swallowed. “You left.”

  “I had to. I’m not—”

  “Don’t leave.”

  “I won’t.” He stroked John’s sweaty face. “I’m getting you out of here.”

  John moaned, his lips moving as if he was trying to speak, but Hagen couldn’t understand him. No matter. There’d be time for conversation later.

  “This is going to hurt,” Hagen said, easing his arm beneath John’s shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

  Getting John to the Jeep and into the backseat was clearly so painful that John finally lost consciousness. Hagen stripped the jackets off the dead men, wishing he had a little more to cover John with or make it more comfortable, but first he had to get the damned car down the rest of the way.

  Hagen got into the driver’s seat and drove as fast as he could without killing them, weaving between trees and rocks, fishtailing around bends and corners. He was sure he’d taken out every threat, but all the way down the mountain, every glint of sun off ice was a scope on a rifle waiting to kill him and doom John to slowly bleed to death.

  No one shot at him, though. Eventually, half sliding, half bumping, the Jeep made it to the frozen flat ground of the valley.

  Hagen consulted the driver’s map, oriented himself, then began to drive toward the nearest American camp.

  Behind him, John groaned, the sound carrying over the engine and the wind.

  Hagen glanced back. “We’ll be there soon.” What else could he say?

  “They’ll . . .” Another groan. “Shoot you.”

  Hagen pulled in a sharp, cold breath. So they would, but what else could he have done? Driven back up the hill to the château and hope for the best? Piece together a frozen, stained uniform from those of the dead Americans? He had no papers to confirm who he was, and the blood saturating John’s clothes said there wasn’t time to change. If the road had been smoother, flatter, and there hadn’t been so much ice, he’d have accelerated.

  Maybe they would shoot him. If they didn’t, someone else would. The only thing within his control was getting John somewhere he might survive before one overeager American obeyed that take-no-prisoner order.

  Driving through the snow-packed countryside, past farms and buildings that were abandoned or bombed. Possibly even occupied by would-be snipers—Germans? French? American? Would any one of them be less dangerous to him now than the others? He saw no evidence of troops from any side, though. No weapons. No uniforms. No vehicles meant for any kind of strategic purpose. This countryside was so peaceful, so quiet, despite the occasional field that hadn’t been harvested, black stalks of rotted grain testament to the French civilians getting the hell out before the German retreat from southern France. Still, the snow-hushed quiet was so at odds with the war and with the man who might be dying behind Hagen.

  Snow be damned. He accelerated, teeth chattering as the winter wind snapped at his shirt, which was made not to ward off the December cold, but to identify him as a soldier. As a member of the SS.

  “They’ll shoot you.”

  Hagen shuddered and drove on.

  Finally, he reached the next base along the American supply line. Just a glorified guard shack, he remembered John calling the ramshackle camp around the church.

  Hopefully one with adequate medical facilities.

  He was still a good hundred meters from the gate, but someone had already noticed him. Sentries came out of corners and shadows, weapons at the ready, and even from here, the afternoon sun glinted off a pair of binoculars.

  The men adopted hostile stances. Leveled weapons at him. He couldn’t count how many barrels were trained on him, but he could count his options: one.

  He stopped the Jeep. Held up one hand, fingers splayed, as the other released the latch on the door. Then he raised his other hand and carefully nudged the door open with his foot.

  Someone was shouting, but he couldn’t make out the words. An order to kill him, maybe, or an order for him to stand down.

  He took three large steps away from the Jeep. With one hand, he pointed sharply at the vehicle. Heads turned toward each other, and he could distantly hear voices and see puzzled gestures.

  “Wounded!” he shouted. “Wounded captain!”

  Someone barked what sounded like an order. Three of the sentries, guns still up, started toward Hagen. They approached him like they’d have approached a skittish animal. A predatory one or prey, he wasn’t quite sure, but the weapons strongly suggested the former.

  “Hold it.” The soldier in the middle stopped abruptly, hand up, and the others skidded beside him. “He’s SS! Shoot—”

  “Wait!” Hagen held his palms out in front of him. “Wait. I’m a prisoner.”

  The men exchanged puzzled looks.

  Heart pounding, Hagen slowly lowered himself to his knees on the cold, rough ground.

  The men still didn’t move. They didn’t relax, didn’t lower their weapons.

  He held his breath and brought one hand—slowly—toward his chest. His heart thundered, and he looked from one barrel to the other as he closed his fingers around the Iron Cross. A sudden movement could have been a death sentence. No movement at all, same thing. He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and jerked the medal hard enough to rip it free from its place on his breast pocket.

  He cringed. No gunfire came, just a whispered “What the hell?” that was so soft it may have been the wind.

  Then he opened his eyes. Held out the medal. Opened his fingers.

  The Iron Cross made a quiet, metallic clink as it hit the frozen ground.

  Hagen laced his fingers behind his head. And waited.

  Somebody was most definitely trying to twist his leg out of its socket. In a daze, John fought whatever was holding him in that awkward and painful position.

  Then somebody touched him by the shoulder. “I think he’s waking up,” a female voice said.

  John blinked the grit from his eyes. Hospital beds and nursing staff, and some metal contraption that kept his foot pulled away, supported by several leather cuffs stabilizing his leg. A Thomas splint. That torture device, along with the fierce pain between his knee and hip, told him he’d snapped a femur.

  But he was here. In a hospital somewhere. He’d survived the ambush and the fall, and he was here, which meant . . .

  “Hagen,” he said with a start. Where was . . . he looked around, but didn’t see a blond head anywhere.

  The nurse looked at him quizzically. “Excuse me?”

  “Hagen? The . . . man who brought . . . the German prisoner?” Christ, how to explain this? Had Hagen actually brought him or dumped him somewhere? Did he remember gunshots? Screams? He tried to move, but his shoulder was bandaged and immobilized. Seemed he’d messed up his whole left side in some way or other.

  “I’ll fetch someone.” She hurried away, leaving John rather frustratingly tied up and unable to move. Nothing happened for a while, just shreds of conversation that wafted through the door on the ot
her side of the ward.

  John racked his memory, tried to figure out how he’d gotten there, and what the hell had happened. There’d been an ambush. The details didn’t come to him, just the visceral knowledge that something had occurred. Violence and an impact. Then came the certainty he needed to . . . to do something. Get something?

  Hagen. He’d needed to get to Hagen. Right?

  Then there was noise. Pain. Motion. His vision cleared now and again, and he looked straight up at an overcast sky. Planes? Had he seen planes? In and out, light and dark, jarred into awareness by the same pain that would, a moment later, send him back into oblivion.

  And then . . . then nothing but brief, blurry moments. Some dreams, some not, and he couldn’t have said which were which to save his life.

  Nausea swept over him as the bed listed beneath him, and John raised his good arm to rub his forehead. As his stomach settled and the world evened out, footsteps approached. He looked up to see a colonel.

  The man stopped beside John’s bed with his cover tucked under his arm. “Captain John Nicholls?”

  John nodded, now more guarded, his leg throbbing after the exertion of just trying to move. “Yes, sir.” He tried to sit up a little. Should’ve known better. Pushing out a breath, he let himself sink against the hard cot and pillows again.

  Chair legs ground across the floor, and the colonel parked it right beside the bed before he lowered himself into it. “Colonel Morris.”

  “Sir,” John said with a slight dip of his chin and the closest thing he could muster to a salute.

  Morris crossed one leg over the other, set his cover in his lap and folded his hands on top of his knee. Leaning back in the chair, he peered at John. “You’re a lucky man, Nicholls.”

  “Easy for you to say,” John muttered, and gingerly rubbed the bandage on the side of his head. “I feel like I was dropped out of a bomber.”

  Morris laughed. “Well, from the looks of you, that might have been the case.” His eyebrow arched. “We’re all curious, to be honest with you.”

  “You’re—” They don’t know. They don’t know what happened. That truth and its possible implications hammered at the inside of his skull. “How did I get here?”