The smuggler's boat had taken him in near Silivri, west of Constantinople—no, they were calling it Istanbul now, weren't they? He remembered the current regime changing it nearly a decade ago. He'd have to get used to the new name, but old habits were hard to break. He had beached the boat, jumped ashore with his long, flat case under his arm, then pushed the launch back into the Sea of Marmara where it would drift with the corpse of its owner until found by a fisherman or by some ship of whatever government was claiming that particular body of water at that particular time.
From there it had been a twenty-mile trip over the gently undulating moorland of European Turkey. A horse had proved as easy to buy on the south coast as a boat had been to rent here on the north. With governments falling left and right and no one sure whether today's money would be tomorrow's wastepaper, the sight and feel of gold could be counted on to open many doors.
And so now he stood on the rim of the Black Sea, tapping his feet, drumming his fingers on the flat case, waiting for his battered vessel to finish fueling. He resisted the urge to rush over and give the owner a few swift kicks to hurry him up. That would be fruitless. He knew he couldn't rush these people; they lived at their own speed, one much slower than his.
It would be 250 miles due north of here to the Danube Delta, and almost 200 more west from there overland to the Dinu Pass. If not for this idiot war, he could have hired an airplane and been there long before now.
What had happened? Had there been a battle in the pass? The short-wave had said nothing of fighting in Romania. No matter. Something had gone wrong. And he had thought everything permanently settled.
His lips twisted. Permanently? He of all people should have known how rare indeed it was for anything to be permanent.
Still, there remained a chance that events had not progressed beyond the point of no return.
THIRTEEN
The Keep
Tuesday, 29 April
1752 hours
"Can't you see he's exhausted?" Magda shouted, her fear gone now, replaced by her anger and her fierce protective instinct.
"I don't care if he's about to breathe his last gasp," the SS officer said, the one called Major Kaempffer. "I want him to tell me everything he knows about the keep."
The ride from Campina to the keep had been a nightmare. They had been unceremoniously trundled into the back of a lorry and watched over by a surly pair of enlisted men while another pair drove. Papa had recognized them as einsatzkommandos and had quickly explained to Magda what their areas of expertise were. Even without the explanation she would have found them repulsive; they treated her and Papa like so much baggage. They spoke no Romanian, using instead a language of shoves and prods with rifle barrels. But Magda soon sensed something else below their casual brutality—a preoccupation. They seemed to be glad to be out of the Dinu Pass for a while, and reluctant to return.
The trip was especially hard on her father, who found it nearly impossible to sit on the bench that ran along each side of the lorry's payload area. The vehicle tipped and lurched and bounced violently as it raced along a road never intended for its passage. Every jolt was agony for Papa, with Magda watching helplessly as he winced and gritted his teeth as pain shot through him. Finally, when the lorry had to stop at a bridge to wait for a goat cart to move aside, Magda helped him off the bench and back into his wheelchair. She moved quickly, unable to see what was going on outside the vehicle, but knowing that as long as the driver kept banging impatiently on the horn, she could risk moving Papa. After that, it was a matter of holding on to the wheelchair to keep it from rolling out the back while struggling to keep herself from sliding off the bench once the lorry started moving again. Their escort sneered at her plight and made not the slightest effort to help. She was as exhausted as her father by the time they reached the keep.
The keep ... it had changed. It looked as well kept as ever in the dusk when they rolled across the causeway, but as soon as they passed through the gate, she felt it—an aura of menace, a change in the very air that weighed on the spirit and touched off chills along the neck and shoulders.
Papa noticed it, too, for she saw him lift his head and look around, as if trying to classify the sensation.
The Germans seemed to be in a hurry, and there seemed to be two kinds of soldiers, some in gray, some in SS black. Two of the ones in gray opened up the rear of the lorry as soon as it stopped and began motioning them out, saying, "Schnell! Schnell!"
Magda addressed them in German, which she understood and could speak reasonably well. "He cannot walk!" This was true at the moment—Papa was on the verge of physical collapse.
The two in gray did not hesitate to leap into the back of the truck and lift her father down, wheelchair and all, but it was left to her to push him across the courtyard. She felt the shadows crowding against her as she followed the soldiers.
"Something's gone wrong here, Papa!" she whispered in his ear. "Can't you feel it?"
A slow nod was his only reply.
She rolled him into the first level of the watchtower. Two German officers awaited them there, one in gray, one in black, standing by a rickety table under a single shaded light bulb hanging from the ceiling.
The evening had only begun.
"Firstly," Papa said, speaking flawless German in reply to Major Kaempffer's demand for information, "this structure isn't a keep. A keep, or donjon as it was called in these parts, was the final inner fortification of a castle, the ultimate stronghold where the lord of the castle stayed with his family and staff. This building"—he made a small gesture with his hands—"is unique. I don't know what you should call it. It's too elaborate and well built for a simple watchpost, and yet it's too small to have been built by any self-respecting feudal lord. It's always been called 'the keep,' probably for lack of a better name. It will do, I suppose."
"I don't care what you suppose!" the major snapped. "I want what you know! The history of the keep, the legends connected with it—everything!"
"Can't it wait until morning?" Magda said. "My father can't even think straight now. Maybe by then—"
"No! We must know tonight!"
Magda looked from the blond-haired major to the other officer, the darker, heavier captain named Woermann who had yet to speak. She looked into their eyes and saw the same thing she had seen in all the German soldiers they had encountered since leaving the train; the common denominator that had eluded her was now clear. These men were afraid. Officers and enlisted men alike, they were all terrified.
"Specifically in reference to what?" Papa said.
Captain Woermann finally spoke. "Professor Cuza, during the week we have been here, eight men have been murdered." The major was glaring at the captain, but the captain kept on speaking, either oblivious to the other officer's displeasure, or ignoring it. "One death a night, except for last night when two throats were slashed."
A reply seemed to form on Papa's lips. Magda prayed he would not say anything that would set the Germans off. He appeared to think better of it. "I have no political connections, and know of no group active in this area. I cannot help you."
"We no longer think there's a political motive here," the captain said.
"Then what? Who?"
The reply seemed almost physically painful for Captain Woermann. "We're not even sure it's a who."
The words hung in the air for an endless moment, then Magda saw her father's mouth form the tiny, toothy oval that had come to pass for a grin lately. It made his face look like death.