Blok approached Michael and leaned over him. “Really? Then tell me, Baron: what is Iron Fist?” His breath smelled of sausage and sauerkraut.
The moment of truth had arrived. Michael knew very well that one sentence might spell judgment for him. He said, “Dr. Hildebrand’s created something quite a bit more potent than delousing spray, hasn’t he?”
A muscle clenched in Blok’s bony jaw. Other than that, the man didn’t move.
“Yes, I did get into Sandler’s suite,” Michael went on. “But before I did, I got into yours. I found your satchel, and those photographs of Hildebrand’s test subjects. Prisoners of war, I suspect. Where are you shipping them from? Here? Other camps?”
Blok’s eyes narrowed.
“Let’s speculate, shall we?” Michael asked. “You’re shipping POWs from a number of camps. They go to Hildebrand’s workshop on Skarpa Island.” Blok’s face had turned a shade gray. “Oh… I think I’d like a sip of wine, please,” he said. “To wet my throat.”
“I’ll cut your throat, you Slav son of a bitch!” Blok hissed.
“I don’t think so. A sip of wine, please?”
Blok remained motionless. Finally a cold smile crept across his mouth. “As you wish, Baron.” He took the goblet of white wine from the tray and held it to Michael’s mouth, allowing him one swallow before he drew it away. “Go on with this fanciful conjecture.”
Michael licked his swollen lower lip, the wine stinging it. “The prisoners are subjected to Hildebrand’s tests. Over three hundred of them so far, as I recall. I assume you speak regularly with Hildebrand. You were probably using those pictures to show your superiors how the project’s coming along. Am I correct?”
“You know, this room is very strange.” Blok looked around. “You can hear the dead talking in it.”
“You might want to kill me, but you won’t. You and I both know how important Iron Fist is.” Another shot in the dark that hit its target; Blok stared at him again. “My friends in Moscow would be thrilled to pass that information along to the Allies.”
What Michael was hinting at took root. Blok said, “And who else knows about this?” His voice was reedy, and there might have been a quaver in it.
“Chesna’s not the only one.” He decided to lead Blok by the pinched nostrils. “She was with you while I was in your suite.”
That sank in. Blok’s expression was stricken for a second as he realized that someone on the Reichkronen staff must be a traitor. “Who gave you the key?”
“I never knew. The key was delivered to Chesna’s suite during the Brimstone Club’s meeting. I returned it by dropping it into a flower pot on the second floor.” So far, so good, he thought. It would never occur to Blok that Michael had descended the castle wall. He cocked his head to one side. His heart was beating hard, and he knew he was playing a dangerous charade but he had to buy time. “You know, I think you’re right about this room. You can hear the voice of a dead colonel.”
“Mock me if you wish, Baron.” Blok smiled tightly, whorls of red in his cheeks. “But a few injections of truth serum and you’ll tell me everything.”
“I think you’ll find I’m a little tougher than Frankewitz was. Besides, I can’t tell you what I don’t know. The key was delivered, and I returned it in an envelope along with the film.”
“Film? What film?” The quaver was more pronounced.
“Well, I wouldn’t have gone into your suite unprepared, would I? Of course I had a camera. Also furnished by Chesna’s friend. I took pictures of the photographs in your satchel. Plus those other papers, the ones that looked like pages from an accounting book.”
Blok was silent, but Michael could tell what he must be thinking: that secrets under his responsibility were out, possibly headed by courier to the Soviet Union, and the Reichkronen was a nest of traitors. “You’re a liar,” Blok said. “If these things were true, you wouldn’t be volunteering them so freely.”
“I don’t want to die. Neither do I care to be tortured. Anyway, the information’s already been passed. There isn’t anything you can do about it now.”
“Oh, I disagree. Very strongly.” Blok reached onto his tray, and his hand gripped the fork. He stood beside Michael, his face blotched with red. “I’ll tear the Reichkronen to the ground and execute everyone from the plumbers to the manager, if that’s what is necessary. You, my dear Baron, will tell me all about how and where you met Chesna, what your escape route was going to be, and so much more. And you’re right: I won’t kill you.” He jabbed the fork’s tines into the flesh of Michael’s left arm and drew it out. “You do have a certain value, after all.” Again the fork jabbed down, piercing Michael’s shoulder. Michael flinched, sweat on his face. The fork was withdrawn. “I’m going to consume you,” Blok said, and drove the tines into Michael’s chest just below the throat, “like a piece of meat. I’ll chew you up, digest what I need, and spit out the rest.” He pulled the fork out, the tines tipped with blood. “You might know about Iron Fist-and about Dr. Hildebrand and Skarpa Island-but you don’t know how Iron Fist is going to be used. No one knows where the fortress is but myself, Dr. Hildebrand, and a few others whose loyalty is unquestioned. Therefore, your Russian friends don’t know either, and they can’t pass the information to the British and Americans, can they?” He jabbed the fork into Michael’s left cheek, then he drew it out and tasted Michael’s blood. “This,” Blok said, “is only the first course.” He snapped off the spot lamp.
Michael heard him cross the room. The heavy door opened. “Bauman,” the colonel said, “take this trash to a cell.”
He had been holding his breath; now he let it go in a hiss between his teeth. For the time being, at least, there would be no more torture. Bauman entered, along with three other soldiers. Michael’s wrists and ankles were unstrapped, and he was pulled up off the X-shaped table and guided by gunpoint along a stone-floored corridor. “Go on, you swine!” Bauman-a slim young man with round-lensed spectacles and a long, gaunt face-growled as he shoved Michael forward. On either side of the hallway were three-foot-high wooden doors with iron latches, set at floor level. In the doors were small square insets that could be slid back for, Michael assumed, either air or the passing in of food and water. The place smelled damp and ancient, with suggestions of sodden hay, human excrement, sweat, and unwashed flesh. A kennel for wild dogs, Michael thought. He heard the animalish moans and mutterings of his fellow prisoners.
“Stop,” Bauman commanded. He held himself stiff-backed and looked at Michael with disinterest. “Get on your knees.”
Michael hesitated. Two rifles jabbed his back. He bent down, and one of the soldiers drew the iron bolt back with a rusty shriek. Something scurried beyond the door.
Bauman opened it. A hot, sickening wave of stale air rolled out into Michael’s face. In the kennel’s rank darkness he could make out five or six skinny human bodies, perhaps others crouched up against the walls. The floor was covered with filthy hay, and the ceiling was only five feet off the floor.
“Go in,” Bauman said.
“Mercy of God! Mercy of God!” an emaciated, bald-headed man with bulging eyes cried out, and lurched toward the door on his knees, his hands upraised and running sores all over his sunken chest. He stopped, shivering, and looked hopefully at Bauman, his eyes blinking in the gloom.
“I said, go in,” the Nazi repeated. Two seconds after he’d spoken, one of the soldiers kicked Michael in the ribs with his booted foot, and the others shoved him into the hellish cubicle and slammed the door shut. The iron latch scraped into its socket. “Mercy of God! Mercy of God!” the prisoner kept shouting, until a gruff voice from the rear of the cell silenced him by saying, “Shut up, Metzger! No one’s listening to you!”