He knelt down, watching it sweep across the distance, cutting through the darkness like a sabre.
Scott lowered himself beside Tommy.
"I doubt he came this way, either," he said.
"Not weighed down and carrying a body."
Tommy half-turned, staring down the black corridor toward the Abort.
"I don't think he was killed anywhere here. Too much noise. Too close to all the windows. If Vic shouted, even just once, someone would hear him. They could hear a fight, too. But the problem is, I don't see how you could carry a body around either end of the building. So, how the hell does it get here?"
"Maybe he didn't carry it around," Scott said quietly. "You know, the same problem exists for any of the escape committee men or the tunnelers-anyone in Hut 101 who needs to be out and somewhere else at night, right?"
"Right," Tommy said, starting to think.
"Well, that means there's another route. One that only a few folks know about," Scott said.
"Only the men who need it."
Scott craned his head past Tommy. He lifted his hand and pointed back down the length of Hut 102. "There's a crawl space," he said, still keeping his voice soft.
"There's got to be. A way to pass completely under this hut, come out on the other side…"
Scott didn't continue. Instead he started to creep back the length of the hut, peering under the edge of the building. At the fourth window, shuttered above their heads, he suddenly ducked down and whispered sharply, "Follow me. Hart."
With those words, the black airman abruptly wiggled beneath the lip of the hut, his legs and feet disappearing as if they'd been swallowed up by the earth.
Tommy dropped to the hard ground, bending over, staring underneath Hut 102. For an instant he could detect just the slightest sensation of movement in the utter darkness beneath the barracks and he realized that it was Scott worming his way beneath the floorboards. The narrow blackness of the space under Hut 102 was enveloping. He inhaled sharply, reeling back a step, almost as if the emptiness of the space had reached out and grabbed at him. His heart started to race and he felt a sudden heat on his forehead. He gasped again, almost as if it were hard to breathe, and he told himself: You can't go in there.
He would not give a word to the terror that swept over him.
It was deep, rooted hard within his heart and reaching down into the pit of his stomach, where it twisted and clenched at his guts. He shook his head. Not a chance, he said. Not under there.
He forced himself to look again into the crawl space and saw that Scott had traversed the breadth of the barracks and emerged on the far side.
There was just enough moonlight for Tommy Hart to make out the distant exit. A skinny passageway that unless you were looking for it wouldn't be noticed.
The hut was probably not more than thirty feet from side to side, but to Tommy this seemed an impossibly long road. He shook his head again, but penetrating past the voice within him that refused to follow was Scott's urgent whisper: "Come on. Hart! Damn it! Hurry up!"
He told himself: It's not a tunnel. It's not a box. It's not even underground. It's just a tight fit with a low ceiling. In the daylight, it wouldn't be a problem. Just like crawling under a car to work on a transmission.
He heard again, more insistent: "Come on. Hart! Let's go!"
Tommy realized it was his idea to be out of the bunk rooms at midnight.
He realized that searching for the murder location at night was his idea. Everything was his idea. He realized that this was something he had to do, and so, trying feverishly to clear his mind of all fears and tremors, locking his eyes on the distant exit, he thrust himself under the building, crawling rapidly with a desperate man's urgency.
He scrambled forward, pawing at the loose dirt beneath the hut. His head bumped against the flooring above him, but he pushed ahead, feeling the first awful taste of panic rise in his throat, threatening to freeze all his muscles. For an instant, he thought he was lost, that the exit had disappeared.
He imagined he was drowning and he struggled against the wave of fear.
He lost track of time, unable to tell whether he'd been in the passageway for seconds or hours, and he started to cough and choke as he scrambled ahead. He could feel the panic taking him over, thought that he was going to pass out and then he burst through, rolling forward, only to be grabbed by Scott, and pulled to his feet.
"Jesus, Hart!" the black airman whispered.
"What the hell's the matter?"
Tommy gasped for breath, like a man rescued from wildly tossed seas.
"Can't do it," he said slowly.
"Not in enclosed spaces.
Claustrophobia. Just can't do it."
His hands were shaking and sweat streaked down his face.
He shivered, as if the night had suddenly turned cold.
Scott draped an arm around Tommy's shoulder.
"You're okay," he said.
"You made it. It wasn't that bad, huh?"
Tommy shook his head.
"Never again," he said.
Breathing in harshly, he picked up his head and surveyed the darkness around them. It was like being in another world, to suddenly arrive in the alleyway between two unfamiliar huts. Though there was little difference in reality, it seemed to be odd, unique. He swept his eyes down the corridor.
And then he saw what he thought he needed to see.
The huts had been laid out in typical German regimentation, row upon row. But Hut 103 had been angled slightly nearer the end of Hut 102.
The stump of a large tree that had been cut when the campsite had been cleared had not been removed, and the building had been pushed closer to the adjacent hut. The narrowing V shape caused by the odd convergence of the two huts created a darker, shadowy spot. He pointed in that direction.
"Down there," he said.
"Let's go."
The two men maneuvered down the length of the barracks once again until they reached the end. He saw that there was some cultivated earth, and he just made out the shapes of some garden plants. But the area was far blacker, protected from the night better than the ends of the other huts. The roofline cut off the moonlight. The narrowing space seemed to defy the searchlight, which lingered on an opposite hut's roof, spreading some light in the alleyway, but creating many deep shadows as well. And the wire, with its perimeter guards and goon tower, was pushed out to accommodate another series of tree stumps. This made him pause, for he realized that in the day, the same spot would receive less sunlight. And this made it an odd location for any kriegie to place a garden.
Tommy considered. An easy place to wait hidden. A quiet place. Very dark. He walked forward, then turned, realizing that he was concealed by the darkness, while anyone making their way down the alleyway would be outlined against distant searchlights. He nodded slowly to himself, and spoke directly to his own imagination. A spot, he told himself, that provided much of what a killer needed.