“You must kill her.” He lifted the animal up toward the soldier. She weighed about five and a half kilos — he translated the metric measurement because he was in America now — twelve pounds, not much more than a human newborn.
“It’s only a monkey.” The soldier made no move to take the warm furry body.
“Take her,” the doctor ordered.
The monkey’s eyes widened as if she knew what he intended. Lightning fast, she sank her teeth into the doctor’s thumb. Her sharp canines grated against his phalange bone, and his grip weakened. She squirmed free of his wounded hand and landed on the floor on all fours like a cat.
Holding his bloody hand, the doctor stumbled back against the wall of the car. He cursed. Pain throbbed through his thumb, but that was not the worst of it.
A harsh screech rose from her throat. His blood dripped from her bared fangs and fell onto the floor. She trembled and swiveled her head from side to side as if she saw enemies everywhere. She probably did.
While the soldier gaped at the angry creature, gun lax in his hands, she leaped onto his knee and climbed him like a tree, little hands and feet gripping the folds of his uniform. When she reached the top of his head, she leaned down to sink her teeth into his ear before leaping off his head and grasping a light fixture hanging from the ceiling of the car.
Nimble and quick, she swung along the wire toward the back door. The soldier’s bullets stitched a neat line behind her, never quite catching up. Bullets ricocheted around the car, and both men dove to the floor.
When they stood, the monkey had disappeared.
The soldier cupped the bite on his ear, and Dr. Berger gripped his bleeding thumb.
“We may be infected,” Dr. Berger said. “We must follow protocols.”
The train engineer’s surprised face stared at them through the thick glass window separating the engine from their car. The engineer was protected from them, and from the monkey. He lifted a black object with a curly cord. His radio. Good. He would explain what had happened, and proper protocols would be in place when they arrived. The danger would be contained.
Dr. Berger nodded his approval, and the man turned around again.
The doctor lifted the heavy top off a cut glass decanter that stood next to the compact steel sink, and the harsh smell of gin billowed out. That would do. He sloshed gin over his thumb. The alcohol burned like acid in his open wound, but it was not to be helped. It ran down the drain, colored pink with his blood. He tore a strip from the bottom of his white lab coat and used it to fashion a crude bandage for his thumb. Then he cleaned and dressed the soldier’s wound, slow and fumbling because of his bandaged hand.
The monkey stayed hidden, and neither of them attempted to find her.
The soldier put down his gun and poured them each a glass of gin. He pointed to the bottle of vermouth, and Dr. Berger shook his head. The soldier didn’t bother with any, either. Some things called for liquor straight up.
The gin burned a warm trail down his throat. His aching thumb would heal, and the chances of cross-species infection were minor. It was a mere inconvenience, but they would both have to be quarantined for a few weeks to make certain. Fortunate, indeed, that he had brought his notes. Perhaps the time in isolation would let him truly concentrate. At least there he would be spared the drudgery of meetings. He drained his glass, and the soldier filled it again.
The train jerked to a stop. Dr. Berger peered into the gloom. The row of orange light bulbs hanging from the ceiling cast faint light on ten armed soldiers standing in formation around the car — four on each side and two behind. These soldiers looked like the soldier inside the car, except that their Thompson submachine guns were raised and pointed at the train.
With his hands raised above his head and a meek expression plastered on to his face, Dr. Berger stood. He knew how to surrender. He walked toward the back door, to open it and explain to them they had nothing to fear from him or from the soldier.
“Don’t open the door, sir,” barked one of the outside soldiers.
Dr. Berger stood still and called through the door. “It is not airborne. You could only be infected by transfer of blood. There is no danger.”
The soldier kept his weapon up.
Clanking at the front of the car told the doctor that a worker was unhooking the engine, but he could not see him. Half the lights were burnt out. Postwar rationing.
He’d have to wait until an intelligent man arrived to whom he could explain the situation properly. In the meantime, he sat and drank more gin while a new engine pushed their car down the tracks from behind after the old engine had left. There would be time to explain when they reached their destination.
He hoped.
A spike of paranoia rose in his brain, but he quashed it. He posed no threat to these men, and they posed no threat to him. They were no Nazis. Human life mattered to them.
The engine pushed his blue railroad car into a dead-end tunnel, then pulled away.
Darkness cloaked the car at the back and on both sides. He stared at the mouth of the tunnel. Soon they would send a doctor to whom he could explain the risks, and they would be released into quarantine.
Lit from behind by the lights strung from the ceiling, the silhouette of a tall man moved in front of the men with guns. The tall man carried a triangular blade and a bucket. A smaller man carrying the same curious items walked behind him. Were they setting up to disinfect the car with chemicals from their buckets? That was unnecessary, and they must know it. They wore blue overalls like workmen, not white lab coats, so they must be here to perform a different task.
Dr. Berger pressed his face against the cold bulletproof glass to watch.
The first man fumbled with rectangular objects on the ground, covering them with something from the bucket and slapping them with his blade. He’d already completed one row before the doctor realized what they were.
Bricks.
The two men were walling them in.
The gin burned through his system in an instant. Blind panic replaced it.
He yanked open the train door and jumped onto the tracks. Dank underground air hit him like a wall. The soldiers standing outside the shed raised their guns to point at him.
The bricklayers gave him frightened looks and increased their pace.
“There is no risk,” the doctor said. “None. You are all safe.”
He took another step toward the soldiers, tripping on a train tie.
“Don’t move, sir,” said a voice behind him.
He faced the soldier he had been drinking with a moment before. The man stood on the steps of the train, gun leveled at the doctor’s chest. Blood had seeped through the makeshift bandage on his ear, but his dark eyes were determined.
“We are ordered to stay here. We must stay,” the foolish soldier said.
“Those are bricks.” The doctor pointed a white-clad arm at them. Already there was a second row. “They wall us in here now.”
The soldier stared at the bricklayers as if he had never seen one. Perhaps he hadn’t. He was young.
“We will follow orders,” he said.
The men worked quickly and methodically — laying in a brick, covering it with mortar, and adding another next to it. If he ever built another house, he would want to hire them. He pulled himself together — his mind could not be allowed to wander, not now.
“We will die in here,” the doctor said. “Together with that damned monkey.”
The soldier lowered his weapon a few degrees.
That was enough. Dr. Berger walked toward the light.
“These are not the correct protocols,” he called. There was no scientific reason to brick him in here. His heart sank. There might be political ones.
“Don’t take another step, sir.” This time, the soldier who spoke was on the other side of the bricks. His weapon aimed straight at the doctor’s chest. The doctor did not doubt that the man would shoot him.