The Billy Club Bastard Case Files: The Case of the Electrocuted Gangsters, Part 4 of 4

The Grave is the Office’s most secure facility, a secret prison for the Axis’ most dangerous assassins, spies, and saboteurs. There are no trials, no charges, no release dates, and no sunlight. It isn’t the perfect solution, but in desperate times, compromises are made. Now something has gotten out, and only more compromises can put it back it.

Crazy, Crazy, Crazy, All the Time is available as a Kindle ebook, in paperback, and as a DRM-free ebook.

This is the finale of The Case of the Electrocuted Gangsters, and Parts 1, 2, and 3 are essential reading to avoid spoilers.

Content Warnings: Mild Swearing, Violence, Gore, Torture, Death, Tobacco Use, Alcohol Use, Nazis

SATURDAY AFTERNOON, OCTOBER 3, 1942
HUMAN ASSET RETENTION CENTER, LEVEL -32
“THE GRAVE”, CAMP X, ONTARIO

A fat drop spattered onto Mickey Malloy's shoulder. He swiped at it without a thought and his knobby hand came back striped red. Blood. More blood. He took a wide step to the side before he looked up.

“Missed one,” he mumbled to no one in particular. The corpse had been crushed so thoroughly into the steel support struts of the catwalk above him that it stuck there like an over-flipped pancake.

The pained, disgusted grunts of officials doing grisly work sounded up and down the re-purposed mine shaft. The corpse mashed overhead was just one of several like it. No one was sure yet how many, and they were all as badly mauled as this one. Identifying the bodies would be twice the chore of removing them.

Warden Turner ducked around a few drops of gore and joined Mick.

“Another prisoner,” Turner noted. The older man's sleeves were rolled all the way up, blood staining all the way to the elbow, but his uniform shirt was still pristine. That was Turner in a nutshell: not afraid to get his hands dirty, but professional enough not to let any of it spill over onto the rest of him. “I was afraid it would be another official.”

“How many are down so far?”

“Crayfish, Spider, Oilbird, Scorpion, Brown Bear, Lungfish, and Flying Fox from the walking guards, along with Centipede and Swiftlet in the Crow's Nest.”

“You can say their names,” Mick offered.

Turner ignored him.

“We have to find this animal.”

“Which prisoner could have done this?” Mick asked.

“Six got out. According to the access logs, one priority one group cell was breached, then one priority four single, followed by one priority one single. We are operating under the assumption that the priority four was the goal, and the priority one group was needed to open it.”

“So they knew your procedures. Then once they had their target, they got rid of the dead weight. Who were they? Plants?”

“Not likely, simply dupes. According to records, they were Silver Legionnaires. The leadership of the Grand Model cell. This body would make all four of them.”

“Grand Model?” Mick asked. He knew that particular troupe of idiots all too well. He'd sent them to the Grave months back after a dust-up in Charleston. Their proclivities might've gotten them killed, but Mick had put them in a place to die. He grunted and stuffed that idea back deep and said: “Couldn't've happened to a better crew.”

Mick wrangled a cigarette out of his pocket, anything to cover the red copper stench dripping off the steel around him. His arthritic fingers almost couldn't handle the tiny white cylinder and he barely got it to his lips. He grimaced at the thought of trying to light a match, but Turner flipped out his Zippo and flared Mickey up. Mick took a puff and nodded appreciatively.

“Tell me about the priority four,” Mick said. “'Nobody escapes the Grave.' It's painted on the damn door. He must be something.”

“Doctor Emil Fleischer. A German engineer previously associated with I-A projects. The B.W.E.A. captured him in London in August. He was interred here eight days ago.”

“In London? What was he doing, spying?”

“A defection gone wrong. He killed Lander van den Berghe in the process.”

“Jesus.”

“The method was... horrific. No one was sure how he was able to do it. But this...” Turner gestured at the dripping corpse pounded int the joists. A blob of congealed blood dropped inches in front of his nose. He grunted: “Stand back.”

Turner jabbed the body with his cane. Mick barely had time to scoot away before the corpse smacked against the steel catwalk. Gore splattered onto his shoes. Fluids sluiced through the metal grating and fell into the darkness below, disappearing into the mile-deep maw.

“Definitely a Silver Legionnaire.” Turner shoved the carcass with his cane to show Mick a portion of the identification number on his jumpsuit. The dead man's face was so pulped that it could have been any of the four traitors, if not Mulholland Grace himself.

“Prisoner Fleischer was X-rayed upon entry, of course. His body was run through with all manner of wires and mechanisms, but our doctors could not speculate as to their use. They were determined to be inert. Still, I categorized him as priority four.”

“You think he did this by hand?” The corpse at Mick's feet gurgled as it settled, boneless.

“I have no explanation. Injuries like this are consistent with industrial accidents with heavy machinery.”

“So someone releases the Silver Legion and enlists them to turn keys,” Mick says, working through the sequence of events. “Who was that?”

“We captured him on the automatic cameras,” Turner explained. The warden handed Mick a thin dossier on Raymond Russell, an American medic recruited from a post in England. Grim, young, and scarred in his photo. Typical field recruit.

“Russell, we called him 'Meshweaver,' passed all the screens. He was recruited by Brigadier General Stephens himself,” the warden explained as Mick read it out of the file. “I know Stephens, sedition wouldn't get past him. Not a chance.”

“That means our guy got flipped here,” Mick concluded for them.

“Fleischer only arrived eight days ago. To be turned in that short a period is absurd.”

“Maybe the doktor had a silver tongue, or Russell was getting pressure from outside. We'll have to check on his family, make sure they're okay,” Mick said. Turner nodded grimly. “None of the officials you found have been confirmed as him?”

“Not yet,” Turner said.

“Look what Fleischer did to his other 'comrades.' They'll use him and lose him,” Mick mumbled. “How'd they get out of here?”

A sudden pounding on the cell door behind him made him jump. Mickey dropped his cigarette and it fizzled out in blood.

“What has happened out there?” a muffled voice called out from behind a couple inches of steel. “I heard quite a commotion! This place is supposed to be safe!”

“Can it, Calhoun!” Turner shouted, and pounded back on the door a few more times with his cane.

“That Laythan Calhoun?” Mick asked.

“Like I said, we keep plenty of yours down here, inspector,” Turner answered.

Calhoun was a traitorous batty doctor Mickey'd sent up the river. The warden's outburst seemed to settle Calhoun, and the little physician didn't make another peep. Mickey picked up where the warden had left off.

“So Russell opens up the Silver Legionnaire cell,” Mick prompted.

“Which registers in the Crow's Nest as an unscheduled access. That triggers a code bravo, wherein guards from the adjacent two floors, above and below, converge.”

“So that should have stopped it then and there.”

“Russell lures them into the cell, them mows down each one with the suppressed Thompson he had somehow smuggled in.” Turner chewed on his lip for a second. “On second thought, Malloy, I'll take a hit from your deck if you don't mind.”

Mickey held out his pack and the warden took a smoke. Turner lit up and took a few calming puffs while Mick contemplated. Killing one's comrades with a suppressed Tommy gun was an M.O. he'd seen up close before.

“So Russell and the Legionnaires take the dead guards' keys and go to bust out Fleischer.” Mick looked up and down the pitch black shaft. “The only way down is the elevator.”

“Code bravo means it needs to be manually operated from the surface,” Turner said. “Russell calls up and cancels the code bravo, which is confirmed by two other guards, Oilbird and Spider, which frees up the bucket for their use. So they at least kept them alive that long.”

“Or Russell might have been able to copy their voices,” Mick said. He had a bad feeling growing in his gut, and a missing Nazi scientist who could pulp men by hand might be the least of their troubles.

“Russell did not display a predilection for impersonation,” Turner said.

“It might not be him.”

“Guards verify their identities upon clocking in,” Turner snapped. “It was Russell on the floor.”

“Absolutes are liabilities,” Mick replied. He lit up another butt, somehow managing to flick a match himself before Earp could quick-draw his Zippo. Watching Turner puff away was getting to him.

“‘Absolutes are...’ What kind of Sun Tzu bullshit is that?” Turner snarled.

“That's a Malloy original,” Mick said. Something was bothering him, however. “What abut the third cell? They already had Fleischer.”

“Records show that they released Merci Sauveterre, a French collaborator. Doctor Fleischer's paramour. The Western European bureau captured her during Operation Fieldmouse.”

“They got every damn Abwehr agent we've ever caught on a silver platter, but instead they stop to release this guy's girlfriend?”

“Miss Sauveterre had gotten scooped up during the raid on his labs in France. She was there with forty mutilated corpses in a trench pit. Captured without incident,” Turner said. “She herself was not a high-value target, but within a month of her internment here, Fleischer himself had been captured in London.”

“You think he's sentimental to the point to of getting himself caught just to be close to her?” Mickey asked. Turner considered the question for a moment before answering.

“That sounds like a foolish risk, and a waste of resources,” Turner considered.

“That's what his bosses would tell him when he wanted her freed. Maybe he loves her, maybe he felt guilty for her capture, maybe she's the real brains behind it all, maybe I don't know how an insane mass murderer thinks. Maybe he is here for her, but he didn't seem to have to be here, given what he could do.”

“There was no indication he was capable of...” Turner gestured toward the dead Legionnaire, “... this.”

“'Cept for the Belgian,” Mick said. He'd heard about the state van den Berghe was in when they found Fleischer. Maybe the Nazi didn't have a weapon, maybe he was the weapon. It made sense that the krauts would want him back, and why they'd acquiesce to busting his dame out of the clink even mid-escape.

“The fact is that we don't know what this man is capable of. We don't know how he does what he does.” Mickey continued. He stabbed the glowing cigarette cherry in the air with each point. “We do know that he kills easily, both morally and literally, we know he uses people and tosses them when he's done, and we know he is driven. We need to start after this animal now.”

Turner stared at his cigarette for a long second, mesmerized by its glowing cherry. He snapped back to reality after a long pause.

“My men found the Jeep they stole after ascending, just a few miles outside the base. We already have the word out to every authority in hundred miles. He has the damn mounties after him.”

“Call them off,” Mick said.

“What?”

“Ain't a one of 'em ready to deal with this character if they corner him. Best case scenario is that he only kills the people who come looking for him. And that's not even counting who I think he's got with him.”

“Who's that?”

“This whole breakout reeks of another creep I know.”

“So what do you suggest?” Turner asked.

“We track him, let him get comfortable, then stomp him out when he's alone,” Mick said. “I got just the guys for the job.”

“You want to let him get away?” The warden was building himself up for some yelling, but Mick headed him off at the pass.

“We let him think he did. If he's not desperate, he's not killing,” Mick replied in a gravelly tone he thought might pass for soothing.

“You don't know Emil Fleischer,” Turner growled. “I have seen what he was doing in France. He is a murderer rationalizing himself to be something more.”

“Isn't any shortage of those in this war, warden,” said Mick. “But begging your pardon, you don't know me or my people. We find monsters. I can have two of our very best on a plane in twenty minutes, hand-picked by me and trained here.”

Mickey took one last drag off his cigarette, looked around, found no place to stub it out that wouldn't contaminate the scene, and reached to toss it over the rail. Turner stopped him.

“We have a crew descending to the bottom recover bodies. We think some men went over the rail,” Turner said. Mick nodded, stubbed the butt out on the blood-wet sole of his shoe, then pocketed the trash.

“Who are your monster hunters?” he asked.

“Inspectors Laska and Iker,” Mick replied Turner's eyes went wide. He knew the pair well; they'd just completed training at the Academy up top. He had declined offering them posts within the Grave after seeing their rap sheets.

“A disgraced, punch-drunk boxer and a dirty, mobbed-up fed,” the warden fumed. Mickey shrugged. The warden's assessment was fair.

“Their jackets may be more colorful than your other recruits', but they are Americans and they are goddamn good at what they do. Even before they worked for me, Laska could track a witness through seventeen layers of bureaucratic bullshit, protective details, and identity changes and Iker could find a wino that owed a vig two cities away by whispered rumor alone.”

“You forget to mention that Laska would turn said witness over to Montuoso button men and Iker would break that debtor's arm once he found him. I trust your recruits about as far as I can throw them,” Turner said.

Mickey snorted. The warden had indeed read Laska and Iker's files cover to cover, but Mick judged a resume a little differently than the rest of the Office. It was too soon to bring up that fact that it was one of Turner's people who started this whole thing: every minute they spent arguing was more distance that Fleischer was getting on them.

“There's two ways this could go down, Turner, “ Mick started, “You send a whole damn army after Fleischer and let a good chunk of them get massacred when they stumble onto him, or you let the best fugitive hunters in the Office track him down and slice him out like the greasy tumor he is.”

Turner was silenced. His rage had bled off, leaving Mick feeling guilty about getting in his face. The warden had had his greatest achievement poisoned by this escape. He'd just had men under his command die. He wanted the same thing as Mick, and he knew that once the animal was out of the cage, Mick was the expert.

“Look at what happened to your boys expecting Fleischer, prepared for him. We can't send anyone else into this, especially non-officials,” Mick said, trying to be diplomatic. He was gruff and tactless at the best of times, but the Office knew he was the best at what he did, a reputation he was earning the hard way.

“I know,” Turner said softly. Mick stepped back from the warden, careful not to put a boot in the jellied Silver Legionnaire.

“This is Crow's Nest Actual for Undertaker Actual, do you read?” A radio embedded in the wall crackled to life about halfway around the circumference of the shaft. Turner squeaked over to it on his protesting knee brace.

“Crow's Nest, this is Undertaker, I read you,” he said into the handset.

“Both field teams called in. Two found a body, Undertaker. They made a positive preliminary identification despite the decomposition,” the spelunker said through the radio.

“Two went to Russell's apartment,” Turner said to Mick. He pressed the button and asked: “Decomposed? How long?”

“Looks like at least two weeks, Undertaker. In the bathtub.”

“They got a positive I.D. after two weeks rotting, Inkwell?” Turner asked, saying out loud exactly what Mick was thinking.

“He'd been garroted with his dog tags, Undertaker. It's Russell,” the radio squawked.

“Repeat that. You sure it's him, Crow's Nest?” Turner said.

“They're saying height, hair, race, they all match, Undertaker. They're bringing him back here.”

“All right, thank you, Crow's Nest.”

“Yellowjacket is transcribing team one's call, stand by.”

“Standing by.”

Turner set down the receiver and leaned back against the wall. He looked exhausted.

“Need another?” Mick asked, holding out his pack of smokes again. Turner shook his head.

“Not another of those.” Instead he pointed his cane at the silver flask nearly concealed in Mick's inner jacket pocket. Mick slipped it out and tossed it to him. The warden unscrewed the cap and took a quick swig, bringing the flask away from his lips much faster than he'd brought it up.

“What is this?” he asked, then handed the flask back to Mickey, who took a long gulp. The big man wiped his mouth on his sleeve and smiled.

“It's here,” Mick replied.

“Well one of those is good enough for me,” the warden said.

“Crow's Nest Actual for Undertaker Actual,” the radio crackled.

“Still here, Crow's Nest,” Turner grunted.

“Team one finished searching the Jeep and the surrounding area. They found tire marks consistent with a small commercial truck, but no indication of where it came from or was headed. There was also no indicators in the abandoned vehicle regarding its destination. All they found was...” the radioman cut himself off. His transmission was muffled like his hand was over the mic “Yellowjacket, can you confirm this?”

“Confirmed, Lichen,” a woman replied.

“All they found in the Jeep was a wax mask and a wig,” the official upstairs reported sheepishly.

“A what?” Mickey jumped up so hard that he bit through the cigarette in his mouth, spilling embers all over his coat. He ignored them and snatched the receiver out of Turner's hand.

“What kind of mask?” he shouted into it.

“Who is this?” the man on the other end demanded. Turner took the receiver back from Mickey and pushed the big man away.

“Crow's Nest, this is Undertaker Actual, answer the question.” Turner stared down Mick as they listened for the response from the surface.

“A set of sculpted lips, a chin, and a nose, sir,” Crow's Nest replied.

It was Mick's turn to fall back against the reassuringly solid, cool stone wall.

“Eizhürst was here,” Mick mumbled. Eizhürst, the merciless Abwehr killer, and he was one step ahead of him again. Monsters helping monsters, the Smiling Man freeing the Doktor. “He just walked in as he pleased.”

They let that sink in. The Grave was one of the best kept secrets in the Western Hemisphere. It was so classified that even its cover story's cover story had a cover story. The Grave was concealed within the Office's Bellegarde School, the Academy. The Academy was further hidden by the code-busting HYDRA program, and Camp X was cover for that. Only a few folks at the highest levels had any notion about the Camp X joint American-Canadian commando training facility, and none of them knew anything deeper.

For Eizhürst to be at the Grave was an escalation in enemy intelligence that no one had been prepared for.

“What does that mean, Malloy?” Turner asked.

“It means your man Russell was framed, and he died for it. It also means this place has to change,” Mick answered, his words sure and methodical. “When my boys find Fleischer, you're going to lock him back up in the deepest hole you have. Once he's there, it means that this can never happen again. No one ever leaves here again. No matter what you have to do.”

“What about Eizhürst?”

“That means that I have work to do, too.”

FRIDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 5, 1943
MAISON PUJAU WINE CAVES, PUJAU FLEURI
BORDEAUX REGION, GERMAN-OCCUPIED FRANCE

//translated from German//

“Well, there was wine here,” Untersturmführer Borchardt said as he looked over the dusty rows of bottle racks.

“The men must have taken it all,” Oberscharführer Senft grunted. “I would not put it past them.”

“They are growing bored here,” Borchardt muttered. There were only so many partisans to torture and execute.

“What do you expect?” Senft asked. “We ran out of Jews to play with.”

“We were overeager,” Borchardt agreed.

The oscharf kicked an empty bottle, sending it clattering into the back of the cave. They had promised Untersturmführer Taube a nice malbec. Neither man was looking forward to returning empty-handed.

“How did they find this place?” Borchardt asked.

“One of their local 'companions' told them about it while... recuperating, and when I caught them drunk, they told me,” Senft reported. Borchardt understood that. When Senft wanted something from his men, they gave it to him. None dared risk the gnarled oscharf's ire; they had all had their share of midnight parade drills.

“They neglected to mention that they had cleaned out the stash, however,” Borchardt sighed. It had been a hike to find this hidden cave. The family who had owned this vineyard was long dead, their vines neglected, their personal cellar looted long before that. The existence of this hidden cache, vinified and collected over decades, had remained a secret for over eighteen months of occupation. Once found, it had only taken a few idle schützen a week to reduce it to broken glass and empty crates.

“Perhaps they missed something,” Senft suggested. He followed his flashlight further into the cave.

“Hungry dogs crack bones,” Borchardt reminded him, but ventured deeper into the darkness.

“Those men are lucky they are not in Russia,” Senft muttered.

“Many of them have lost friends to the communists,” Borchardt noted. “They fear we will send them any day now.”

“Yet here they are, drinking wine and carousing with locals,” Senft said.

“They are men of the SS, they feel entitled to their spoils.”

The flashlight only revealed the back of the cave and more emptied wine crates. Borchardt sighed. He was not looking forward to the walk back. The disused trail was knotted with roots and slick with moss. Half of the journey was scrambling up rocky outcroppings on all fours. Not to mention, it would be dark by the time they emerged from the woods. He had no idea how they'd planned to haul wine by the case back with them.

“We should have taken the horses,” Senft mused. Borchardt agreed. Horseback would have been his preferred method of travel, as it had been on father's hunts. He'd always been an avid outdoorsman, but his expeditions hadn't consisted of clomping through the mud like a cow. Nature was perfectly fine as a concept. Traipsing through it, with the thorns and bugs and dirt, was unnecessary to the experience.

“My feet are sore,” he complained. “I dread facing that trail again.”

“I'll save you the trouble,” an unseen man said. His voice rasped like sandpaper. The overgrown boards that had concealed the cave clattered into place, blocking out the little light that leaked in.

“Who is there?” Senft barked, swinging his flashlight around. His Luger was in his hand. Borchardt fumbled with his holster.

“I don't see anyone,” Borchardt stammered. Senft whipped his beam back and forth, illuminating every corner of the small cave.

“Neither do - !” Senft was cut off with a pained gurgle. The flashlight fell and bounced to Borchardt's feet. He snatched it up and scrambled backward, still unable to get his pistol out of its holster. The light shook in his hands. Red spattered Senft's boots.

“Oscharf?” Borchardt asked. He directed the wobbling beam upward, illuminating Senft slowly. The red downpour increased as it moved up his body. He stood swaying, his throat as open and vibrant as a new issue of Signal. A dark figure peered over the oscharf's shoulder.

“No,” Borchardt whispered.

The man behind Senft grunted and leaned back. There was a twang and blood splashed across his face. The oscharf's head and body fell in two different directions.

The figure before him was cracking and gray, as if his flesh was dried clay. He held up a thin golden wire wrapped between two wooden grips. Scarlet beads clung to its length.

“My God,” Borchardt said. The button on his holster finally snapped open, but his fingers merely brushed the pistol's grip. He could not close his hand. A sharp pain ran up his arm and blood oozed between his fingers.

“Not your God,” another man hissed, his face inches away from Borchardt's own. He was gray as well, with fresh fissures forming as he smiled cruelly. He waggled a bloody straight razor in the ustuf's face. Borchardt stumbled away, clutching his cold, unresponsive hand. The deep slash on the back of his wrist was pumping blood. The gray man added: “Those were your tendons.”

“What are you?” he demanded.

“We are just trying to get by,” a third one said, appearing out of the gloom.

“Do not take this personally,” the first told him. He snapped his garrote taut, twanging it like a violin string. The clinging blood misted his gravelly face.

“Stay back!” Borchardt shouted. He lurched away from them, pressing his back against stone.

One of them began babbling in English. The others nodded. Borchardt could not understand a word of it, but he knew what they were: assassins.

“Hey! Stop it!” he yelled.

“Sorry, we were talking logistics,” the man with the wire said. His accent was unplaceable. Borchardt could not tell if he was English, Australian, Canadian, or something else.

“Yeah, I do not want to drag your corpse through those woods,” the one with the razor said. He snatched the flashlight out of Borchardt's grasp before he could react.

“But I do not trust you not to run, either,” the third said. He was holding an empty wine bottle by its neck, testing its heft.

“Where would I even go?” Borchardt asked, trying to reason with them.

They began talking in English again, arguing. Borchardt was beginning to feel faint. The throb in his injured arm had faded. He gulped down the musty air and leaned against the stone. He was no longer using it for cover, but for support.

“Hey, hey, stay with us,” the one with the bottle said. He patted Borchardt's face a couple times to stir him. “We made a decision.”

“What?” the ustuf mumbled.

“We refuse to carry you out of here,” the man said.

“We not do like heavy,” a fourth man grunted from the shadows. His pronunciation was awful and he stumbled over the words as if he weren't sure where they started or ended. Borchardt knew the accent: American. He clutched a thin metal spike in his right hand, a weapon the ustuf recognized from Yankee crime films: an ice pick.

“Sorry about Magoon, he is still learning German,” the one with the wire said.

“Sorry,” Magoon said. He sheepishly tested the tip of his ice pick with his thumb.

“It is fine, you are doing great,” Borchardt said carefully. “So you will let me live?”

“Give us your dog tags,” the one with the razor demanded. The one with the wire pulled Senft's tags out of his pooling blood. Borchardt was shaking. He let his sliced arm go to grab his own necklace chain, but the blood spurted out of the wound and he nearly collapsed.

“No, no,” Magoon said. He caught Borchardt and held him up. Magoon babbled something in English. The man with the razor reached inside the ustuf's collar and slipped the tags over his head. Borchardt noticed Magoon admiring his totenkopf pin on his lapel.

“You like it? Take it, you can have it,” he offered.

The man holding his dog tags barked something, and Magoon turned his attention elsewhere.

“You will let me go now?”

“Why?” the man with the wire asked.

“I did what you wanted, you have my tags, you do not want to carry me,” Borchardt gasped.

“Yes, but your friends need to find you,” the one with the bottle told him.

“We will make them come here,” the one with the razor told him. “Happy here had a good idea: the girls in town will tell them you are up here. Your men will come looking for you in a day or two.”

“Thank you,” Borchardt gasped.

“For what?” the one with the bottle asked.

“For... for sparing me?”

The four men laughed at this. When they recovered after a moment, the one with the wire stepped up to him. He scratched at the crust on his chest, quickly dislodging a slab of dry clay. A gold Jewish star dangled from his neck.

“You are a piece of shit Nazi,” the man snarled. “The only thing we are sparing you is having to live another day as venomous scum.”

The chill in Borchardt's arm reached his chest, and the snarling Jew barked his orders. The man with the bottle lifted it high, that brought it down like a woodsman's ax. Borchardt heard a clunk and a crack, and he fell to his knees. The left side of his vision went black, and blood gurgled in the back of his throat. He gasped, but held himself up.

“Listen, Untersturmführer,” the Jew whispered. He spoke as he brushed the clay from his skin: “We have each died once already, and we liked it so much we thought we would come back to have another. You will only get this one, so pay attention.“

Borchardt shuddered. He couldn't move, he couldn't speak. Magoon stood over him and lifted his chin with his hand. Borchardt tried to be defiant, but he was crying. He had killed, but not like this. It had been duty, not a show, not pleasure. His cruelty had been rote, not rejoiced.

“You and your friends have committed awful acts,” the one with the razor hissed. “But you forgot one thing: no matter how awful you are, in this world, there is always someone worse than you.”

“Today, that is us,” the Jew said.

“You Nazi assholes made it worth our while to come show you how awful things are truly done,” the one with the bottle said.

“Do not say to employer, but I would to do this as free,” Magoon whispered. He drew back his ice pick and drove it into the kneeling Nazi's ear. Borchardt heard a pop. He tried to struggle, but Magoon held on tight to his face, ignoring the bleeding Nazi's feeble scratches and punches. When Borchardt ran out of steam, the assassin leaned in and churned the ice pick like he was winding up a jack-in-the-box inside his skull.

The Nazi heard the scrape of metal on bone, then nothing. When Magoon dropped him, he was still alive. The Jew placed a playing card next to him, bowed and floating atop his blood. Borchardt exhaled one last time, his breath rustling the card. The king of hearts glared at him as if annoyed for being interrupted while stabbing himself through the temple.

The four clay-coated men shoved the boards aside and ambled out of the cave. A little orange remained from the sunset to illuminate Senft's headless body.

Borchardt hoped in that instant that the new stories were true, that the All-Highest would grant him a fertile tract in the Goldenreich for having fallen to an enemy. His final thoughts, however, would have earned him a flogging from the Regimentsglaubenfuhrer. In case the new stories proved false, he supposed the old stories would be tolerable, as well, for if those four devils were on Earth, Hell must be at peace.

He closed his remaining eye and drifted off to wherever he was going to go.

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Copyright © 2023 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin. Art by Bruce Conners.