As he fired, he saw Montag stop, actually barely pause, then lumber on again. The plane banked steeply, but Krieger kept his prey in view. In seconds the American would reach forest, unless he killed him. Krieger pivoted the gun on its mount; he dared not spare the man again.
He never noticed the child running toward Montag.
It was then the pain struck, like an explosion in his skull. With a bellow, a roar, Krieger let go the gun, clasping both hands to his temples, and unconscious, plunged headfirst out the door.
In the cockpit, hornets attacked the pilot, hornets large as his thumb, swarming about his head, stabbing face, eyes, hands with liquid fire. He roared, raging, holding the stick with one hand, swatting and snatching with the other. The pain was excruciating…
Macurdy felt Lotta's fear, her desperation, and fell to his knees, suddenly too weak to stand. Heard but didn't see the plane crash and explode on the far side of the river. Lotta ran to him and flung her thin arms around his neck, sobbing wildly. "I couldn't help it!" she cried. "I couldn't help it! They were going to kill you! They were going to kill you!" He hugged her, patted her, telling her it was all right, all right, that it was over with. Then Berta was there too, sobbing, her arms around both of them.
It seemed to Macurdy he couldn't get up. How many charges had he fired in those few minutes? In that one minute alone? More than there'd been targets. Then it occurred to him that when he'd picked Edouard up, the man was still alive. His aura had shown it. But he might not be for long, unless something was done for him. It took a major effort to lift him again, this time in his arms. Slowly, Macurdy staggered with him to the forest, then carried him a hundred yards farther, to get well away from the road.
He sent Berta to hide by the roadside and watch; if anyone came, she was to return and tell him. Nearby farmers might well have heard the gunfire-almost surely someone ha but how long it might be before the authorities arrived, he could only guess. He didn't think local police would investigate that much gunfire. Surely no farmer would. There'd be soldiers at Feldkirch, manning the border checkpoint, but surely not many, and probably in their forties an older. Landsturm, perhaps Volkssturm. The tiny nation of Liechtenstein, more or less a Swiss protectorate, was hardly a threat to Hitler's Third Reich.
Edouards aura reflected the severity of his wounds. He'd been hit twice. One bullet had punctured the lower lobe of his right lung and collapsed the pleurum. The other had entered the lower abdomen on the right side, and exited his back on the left without hitting the liver or either kidney. Macurdy didn't know the details, of course, only that no major blood vessels had been ruptured, or Edouard would already have bled to death. But he assumed the intestine had been perforated, and infection would follow.
He also knew that Edouard could hardly have gotten those wounds rolling toward the ditch. Perhaps in the scramble he'd crawled, trying to shield Berta.
With a shivering Lotta beside him, Macurdy worked on Edouard beneath a cloak, manipulating energy threads with mind, eyes, and fingers, and bit by bit the threads stayed where he wanted them. After 20 minutes, Berta trotted up, whispering that a truck, a kind of van, was coming up the road from the west. Without speaking, Macurdy motioned her to kneel beside himself and Lotta, within the perimeter of his cloak. Then he continued manipulating and visualizing while they watched.
Visualized not only Edouard whole and well. Visualized white cells and antibodies, like microscopic cartoon soldiers rampant in Edouard's bloodstream, vaporizing germs in tiny back uniforms. For it was not enough simply to save his life. He had to create enough healing that Edouard could survive being carried to the border and across. It was a challenge he didn't doubt he'd win.
Distant voices reached them, barely, but he ignored them. A second truck arrived. Dead soldiers were load on it and covered by a tarp; then it left. Minutes later the Gestapo van followed it. Macurdy continued, till he'd done what he could for the moment.
It was only then he realized that during his efforts-perhaps because of his efforts-his energy had returned, and his confidence. Pulling the large quilted horse blankets from his pack, he helped Berta wrap Edouard in them. Then he knelt by his three co-fugitives. "I'll be back soon," he said. "I'm going to get something to eat. Talk to him. Tell him to get well. Tell him-tell him you need him."
Macurdy trotted easily through the dusk of early evening, passing two farms before he came to one without a dog. Never hesitating, he entered the chicken house, and in the midst of squawking flapping chickens, wrung three necks and left carrying supper, unseen by the farmer who stormed from his back door with a shotgun. Let a polecat or fox take the blame, he thought. Tomorrow night I'll come and get that wheelbarrow by your woodpile, and leave a few reichsmarks by your door.
After a supper of creek water and scorched chicken, Macurdy gave Berta a lesson in concealment spells. She was short on confidence, but before they stopped, she'd succeeded in making herself-obscure. Easy to overlook. He told her to work on it, that she'd be responsible for Lotta and for foraging. He'd be busy wheeling Edouard to Liechtenstien.
Then he scraped together a bed of conifer needles and lay down. Waiting for sleep, he examined the day's wild climax. He did not doubt that someone in the plane had seen through his cloaks, had guided the soldiers and fired the machine gun.
He also knew what had saved him, knew with certainty. The night before, Edouard had told him that Lotta was "a terror poltergeist." Macurdy had assumed that meant a poltergeist who caused terror, and perhaps it did. But it was her terror that triggered it.
Perhaps in Switzerland, with Berta, she'd lose her need of it. He had no doubt they'd make it there.
PART SIX
May 1945
41
The Schurz Family
Flying over in still another C47, it seemed to Macurdy that Bern, Switzerland must be one of the world's more beautiful cities.
A year earlier he'd been interned there, briefly. Then Colonel Dulles had gotten him released and flown to Algiers, from where he'd returned to London. There he'd learned that a naval vessel on patrol in the Adriatic had picked up a body floating in a life jacket. A very peculiar body-Trosza's. That had been about the time he and MacNab arrived back in London, but word wouldn't find its way to Grosvenor Square for three weeks. When Macurdy had returned from Switzerland, General Donovan had pinned 1st lieutenant's bars on him: He'd not only provided proof positive of the aliens; he'd blown up the schloss, alone.
The promotion hadn't been Macurdy's only surprise. Anna Hofstetter was dating Vonnie Von Lutzow.
With his fluency in German, and experience in the Bavarian and Austrian Alps, Macurdy had next been assigned to a project to undermine Hitler's bitter-end "National Redoubt" plan, a plan that never remotely came to pass.
Now the war in Europe was over, and as of 19 June, 1945, Macurdy would officially be stationed in Washington D.C. Until then, he was on leave. With new captain's bars on his collar, and the DSC, silver star, purple heart, jump wings, and combat infantry insignia on his Ike jacket, he could have caught an Air Corps transport to the States via Reykjavik and Gander, and been in Nehtaka five days after leaving London. Instead he was landing at Bern. There were things he had to check on, had to know. If he flew home without following through, he never would. He was still in Europe; things were still fluid and opportunities available. The chicken-shit specialists hadn't taken over yet, though they were working on it, and this was the time to do what he had to.