Two Graves

He therefore had fifteen minutes to wait. Now would be a good time to examine the laboratories he had passed earlier.

The first lab he came to was locked with a primitive World War II–era mechanism that resisted the ministrations of his knifepoint for only a moment. He found himself in a laboratory, not advanced by modern standards, but adequate for its purpose: the dissection and autopsying of human remains.

But as he examined the space more closely, shining the flashlight around, he noted a small but telling difference between this room and a standard pathology lab, such as might be found in the basement of a hospital. No pathology lab he had ever seen required straps, cuffs, and other restraining devices.

It became clear to Pendergast that this lab was not for dissection; it was for vivisection.

Moving out of the room, Pendergast continued down the hall, shining his light into the open doors or the window insets of the closed ones. Most showed evidence of recent, active use. Several had not even been cleaned, with hair, blood, and bits of sawed bone still littering their gurneys. Much dreadful scientific work had been done here—and despite the apparent sudden abandonment, he nevertheless got the impression that a long-extended project had recently reached its culmination.

Something in one of the locked labs caught his attention. He stopped, peering intently through the window. Once again, he was able to defeat the lock in a matter of moments. The beam of his flashlight revealed a swatch of hair lying on a gurney. Other evidence—including dead insect larvae—indicated that the remains that had lain on this gurney had been in a state of decomposition.

Slowly, very slowly, he moved closer, shining his light on the hair. He noted that it had the precise auburn shade of Helen’s hair; a color that had always reminded him of wildflower honey. Instinctively, he reached out to touch it—then managed to withdraw his hand before it made contact.

A plastic box stood on an organ table, and he went to it and—after a brief hesitation—removed its cover. Inside he found the remains of Helen’s dress, buttons, some personal effects. As he gingerly reached inside and stirred the contents with his fingers, the beam of his light caught a flash of purple. He pushed aside a fragment of cloth to reveal a gold ring, set with a star sapphire.

Pendergast went rigid. For ten minutes, perhaps more, he did not move, simply staring into the box of personal effects. Then he took the ring and placed it in the pocket of his rough prison pants.

Leaving the room as silently as he had entered it, he paused for a minute, listening attentively to the distant drumming of feet, the hoarse bark of shouted commands. Then he quickly returned to the crack in the outer wall and the makeshift oxyacetylene bomb he’d placed within it, glancing at his watch. He was overdue to begin the detonation process.

70

COLONEL SOUZA WAITED WITH HIS MAIN BODY OF MEN, hidden in the heavy forest at the edge of town. He had met with his returning scouts shortly before one PM, and things were exactly as he had hoped. The single road and three trails leading into the town were lightly guarded, but there did not appear to be patrols along the perimeter or elsewhere. The inhabitants did not expect an attack, especially one coming from a random part of the immense forests that encircled the town. They were living with a false sense of security—engendered, no doubt, by their extreme isolation.

The colonel, however, was taking no chances. He had set up a diversionary feint at the road gate, which would occur—he checked his watch—in exactly two minutes. There might be a large body of armed troops garrisoned in the town, ready for action at a moment’s notice. One couldn’t make assumptions.

His men, in full camouflage, waited in absolute silence. He had divided them into three batalhões of ten men each: Red, Blue, and Green, with one man from each squad assigned to the feinting maneuver.

The seconds ticked by. And then he heard it: automatic gunfire, punctuated with the louder, deeper explosions of grenades. The diversion had begun.

He raised his arm in a gesture of readiness as he listened intently to the diversion. There was return fire, but not as much as he expected, and it sounded scattered and disorganized. These Nazis, with their militarism and alleged martial brilliance, appeared to be flat-out unprepared.

Nevertheless, the colonel considered the possibility that they themselves could be made victim of a false display of weakness, lured by overconfidence into a deadly ambush.

The minutes ticked by as the diversion grew in sound, with additional explosions and gunfire issuing from his men, hidden in the forest outside the main gate. The response continued to sound anemic.

He adjusted his radio headset; watched the seconds tick down on his watch; and then abruptly lowered his arm. Instantly his men broke into movement, rushing forward. They burst from the brush at the edge of the clearing and began spreading out into three squads. The outbuildings of the town lay a hundred yards before them, across a muddy road and some garden plots: cheerful buildings with painted wooden shutters, flower boxes, and pitched roofs. His men crossed the road, trampled a vegetable patch. Two girls picking tomatoes dropped their baskets with a shriek and ran.

Souza’s batalhões, now divided, streamed into the closest streets, the colonel leading the Blue unit and Thiago the Red. The key was a blitzkrieg tactic, racing down the streets with lightning speed and avoiding the kind of bunching that would favor a catastrophic grenade or RPG attack. They had to reach the harbor before any organized resistance could develop—a firefight in these narrow lanes was the last thing he wanted.

The colonel led his unit onward, the few pedestrians they encountered either freezing with surprise or fleeing in terror. As they drove deeper into the town, however, some unorganized gunfire began from house windows, rooftops, and side streets.

“Suppressing fire at will!” the colonel yelled into his headset.

His men began returning fire, shooting down the streets and up at the rooftops, and the scattered fire dropped away.

As they approached the central square and town hall, a more serious resistance developed. A band of young men, hastily armed but not in uniform, came piling into the square, taking position behind some horse-drawn carts. As Souza’s three squads emerged into the open area of the plaza, gunfire erupted in front of them and from the intersecting streets.

“Red squad, maintain suppressing fire,” the colonel ordered. “Blue, Green, keep moving!”

Thiago’s Red batalhão took cover and unleashed a savage volley: a portable .50-caliber machine gun that swept the plaza with a murderous barrage, backed up by half a dozen well-placed RPGs. It had the desired effect, scattering and terrorizing the resistance; as soon as the square was clear the Red unit charged across it, following the other two squads into the narrow streets on the far side. Here the streets began sloping down toward the waterfront, and Souza could see vessels tied up along the stone and wooden quays.

He had already selected the two target boats during his binocular reco

“Counterattack!” the colonel cried, but already Thiago’s machine gu