Act I
The dark, cold, miserable journey in the trunk was a blur of confusion and delirium. Hanley tried to keep track of the twists and turns until he realized it was pointless. With no idea where they had started, he couldn't possibly know where he was going. He tried to rest, determined to regain his strength and renew the fight once they let him out of the trunk. The pain and nausea kept him awake, made worse by the carelessness of the driver.
He rode in the back for an hour, knowing his shoulder was bleeding, feeling his fingers swelling despite the tight rope cutting off circulation. Every joint stiffened, and every scrape or gash crusted over with blood, sticking his uniform to his skin. The taste of his own vomit never went away and his throat was so dry and raw he couldn't have swallowed, even if he wanted to.
He knew he was near the ocean when they dragged him out of the trunk. He got his final licks in when he vomited once more on the two men assigned to carry him. They dumped him on the ground and laid into him with their shoes until the second car pulled up and Brown-eyes shouted for them to stop.
An argument escalated in German, ending with one of the now soiled men getting a backhand and the other having a Luger shoved into his face. Both of Brown-eyes' lackeys backed down. They were ordered away and the rest of the men dragged Hanley to his feet and into a warehouse that extended out over a wharf. There was a large yacht inside.
"Remember what I have said about cooperation, Captain. Inside there is a room prepared for you. There is a lavatory with a bathing facility, warm clothes, and a soft bed. We will treat your wounds once you've had the chance to clean up. Feed you." Brown-eyes paused for a moment then said, "Or we can force you to strip here, use water from the ocean to clean you, and let you stay there."
Brown-eyes pointed to a crate by the door that looked barely big enough to house a dog. Hanley put his swollen, disfigured fingers up, capitulating for the moment. Brown-eyes gave more orders and Hanley was helped onto the yacht. He wanted the gag out of his mouth. He wanted the power to speak and negotiate for himself, but Brown-eyes seemed to know the danger of that power, and denied him.
They lead him down a narrow staircase into the bowels of the boat. He was preceded into the suite by two young girls, dressed in simple brown and black skirts and blouses.
"There will be guards just outside this room. There is no escape but through this door. If you are trouble for them, it will mean trouble for you." Brown-eyes warned.
One of the girls was shaking so bad she couldn't get her fingers to work on the knots keeping his hands bound. The other looked like she was going to faint, vomit or both. Neither of them were ready for the task they had been handed. Hanley turned and held Brown-eyes' gaze, then pointedly looked to the two young ladies.
To his satisfaction, Brown-eyes looked, too. He snapped a command in German and both of the girls stiffened to attention, shouting the same response. Brown-eyes studied them again before he turned a satisfied smirk towards the officer. Then the door closed and Hanley was left alone with the two girls.
They had to cut through the rope around his wrists, carefully using a scalpel to sever the fibers, before they did the same with the gag. One of the girls couldn't tear her eyes away from the swollen sausages that had once been fingers, and she was fighting for control over her stomach.
They pulled Hanley's uniform off, one article at a time. Hanley stood as still as he could, bracing himself on the wall with his left shoulder. They stripped him down to his boxers then guided him into the small lavatory. The shower stall was narrow, and far too short for his tall frame. The water was blessedly hot. He swallowed as much of it as he could, praying it was hot enough to be potable, turning in endless circles in the tiny stall until he had washed most of the blood and vomit away.
He found a fresh pair of shorts on the toilet seat and did his best to change into them on his own. The room was simple, had only the tiniest of portholes and very little in the way of possible weapons. He found a straight razor in a shaving kit, but he had no place to hide it. There were towels and soaps, and combs and lotions. Hanley balled up a hand towel, hid the razor inside it, and left the bathroom with the towel pressed to his head.
He was guided to sit, and the girls took care of the smaller wounds, cleaning them with care and covering them with gauze. They prodded at the bruises on his back and ribs, but found no broken bones. One of the girls had to leave the room, presumably to fetch something, while the other straightened the joints in his fingers. The skinnier one was squeamish, Hanley noted, tucking it away. The larger nurse was more tanned than her counterpart, and the darker color of her skin was complemented by blonde hair and hazel eyes. She was fit, and had good muscle tone in her fingers and hands, but plenty of soft, pleasing curves along her waist, her bosom, and her legs.
It was the only succor Hanley could hope for, and he took full advantage of it through the more painful parts of his treatment, doing his best to be silent and stoic through it all. The nausea wouldn't leave him alone, though. He knew part of it was blood loss, part of it pain, and part of it the aching emptiness of his stomach, despite the water he had forced down. The boat was on calm seas, inside a sheltered warehouse, but it was still moving, ever so slightly.
He had decided against the Navy, all those years ago, for a reason.
After D-Day he'd been determined never to board another boat in his life.
When he could hold it no longer he did his best to give the young lady warning. She helped him to the toilet inside the small lavatory and he managed to avoid a mess this time. When he was done, shivering, sweat bathed, completely exhausted, the girls determined that the shoulder wound could wait. They finished bandaging him, gave him a robe to pull over the masses of gauze decorating his body, and helped him lay down on the narrow bunk. The mattress couldn't have been more than three-inches thick but it felt like a cloud.
Hanley had managed to keep the razor in his hands. He tucked it down between the mattress and the wall of the cabin before he passed out.
They let him sleep for an hour. There was a small clock in the cabin and he remembered staring at it for a few seconds before he'd fallen asleep. He was awakened roughly, forced to his feet, then up the stairs and onto the deck. By that time the boat had left its safe harbor. It was still night, and remarkably cold out on the water. Standing in only the shorts and the robe, Hanley was already trembling.
They walked him across the deck, up another set of stairs and into the pilot house at the top most point of the boat. Brown-eyes and two other men were there. Brown-eyes was perched on a table that held a radio and a mess of papers. One of the two men already in the pilot house was driving the vessel, while the other sat at the radio with a set of headphones.
"We have contacted your military. They want proof that you are alive and that you are indeed Captain Hanley. You will provide that proof." Brown-eyes said, holding the stem of the microphone out toward the American officer. Hanley hardened the muscles in his jaw and stayed silent.
"Put him in the chair." Brown-eyes said.
A chair with straight arms was moved from against the wall and Hanley resisted as much as he could, bunching the muscles in his arms as they secured him to the chair with ropes. Between the tension in his arms and the thick cloth of the robe, he had a little slack in the rope when the two stepped back. Brown-eyes stepped in, easily fit his fingers between the rope and the sleeves of the robe, and barked something at them. They jolted forward again, loosening the ropes, then shoving the sleeves of the robe up and tying Hanley again.
This time Brown-eyes saw the American officer bulging his muscles. A single command brought a hard fist against his jaw, forcing him to refocus on the new pain. The ropes were made taut enough to press deeply into the skin of his arms and Brown-eyes finally leaned back, satisfied.
Hanley kept his mouth shut, breathing hard through his nose, and eventually leveling his glare on the leader of the group. The punch had been to rattle and distract him, not to do damage. When he saw that Brown-eyes was waiting for him to appear to be coherent again, Hanley slammed his eyes shut and huffed a hard breath out. It bought him some time. Brown-eyes turned his attention to his men, muttering soft commands, while Hanley play-acted, working his jaw and giving small pained grunts.
A distant voice asked a question in English and Hanley opened his eyes, watching the radio operator respond, then whisper something to his leader.
"They would like you to give your full name, rank and serial number. It is no more than you would have given during war time. It can not harm you, Captain." Brown-eyes reasoned.
Hanley said and did nothing.
Brown-eyes thought for a moment then gave an order. One of the men left the pilot house, and the door remained open, filling the small room with a bracing breeze.
"Nurse Bette informed me that they were not able to remove the bullet from your shoulder. I understand that it is dangerous to leave lead inside the human body for a long period of time. For your health and well-being, I am obliged to see that the bullet is removed." Brown-eyes waited and let his words sink in.
He picked up a pointed, silver handled letter opener that had been sitting atop the radio. He circled around behind Hanley, prodded a finger against the small spot of blood on his back, then slid the letter opener into the cloth of the robe and split the garment from the area above the wound, up through the collar. Hanley heard the pop and sizzle of a match, and the creak of a lantern being lit, and the glass shield being lowered around the flame.
Warmth and light crept up over his right shoulder, and Brown-eyes ordered the radio man to hold the lantern. The point of the letter opener came to rest under the tape holding the bandage in place. The cold metal slid between his skin and the adhesive, not sharp enough to do any damage, but shockingly chill against the fevered flesh.
The bandage was removed and Brown-eyes made soft noises of consideration and thought. Hanley felt a trickle of sweat or blood roll over his shoulder blade and down his back.
"There would appear to be some infection. I wonder if it is so far gone that we must remove the bullet now…with this primitive tool." Brown-eyes rested his forearm on Hanley's right collarbone, leaning enough weight over the wound that Hanley stiffened and sucked in a hard breath. Brown-eye's hand appeared to his right, turning the blade in the lantern light, showing off just how dull it was.
"Who are you?" Hanley asked, and the blade froze.
Brown-eyes seemed to think for a long moment. "No fear, no capitulation, only curiosity. Not what I expected from you, but underestimation of one's opponent is easily overcome. I will give you my name, if you give yours to the authorities."
Hanley snorted and shook his head once.
"Ah, you are not that curious, I see." Brown-eyes went back to toying with the knife, returning his weight to the wound. "So then, which will get me your cooperation faster? Letting the bullet remain, and putting you in the crate for an hour or so? Removing the bullet with my lack of skill and with poor tools and no painkillers? Or the promise of a skilled, surgical removal, with morphine and antiseptics?"
"How about giving yourselves up, and letting me go?" Hanley said.
Brown-eyes chuckled. "After all the hard work it took to bring you here? I am willing to acknowledge that you put up an admirable fight. When you are in your right mind, you are formidable. Perhaps under the influence of drugs you will be more compliant? Or…am I relying too much on your cooperation? Perhaps hearing your voice, your screams, will be enough to convince the military."
Brown-eyes gave a command to the radio man, and the light and heat from the lamp went away. The radio man toggled the mic and Brown-eyes began to speak loudly from behind Hanley's shoulder.
"Attention United States Coast Guard. You have disregarded my transmission foolishly. You ask for proof of identity when you should rather have asked for proof of life. I will give you that proo-"
Hanley pushed away from the floor as hard as he could, rocking his shoulders against the backrest of the chair and tilting it up, and to the side. He crashed to the floor and felt one of the arms of the chair splinter under his weight. The pilot house descended into pandemonium as Brown-eyes struggled to get him and the chair upright. Hanley kicked and fought, knocking over equipment, catching the leg of the table that the radio was on, and finally dumping the whole apparatus on the floor. It popped and squealed and he saw the satisfactory smoke rising from the casing before he was being freed from the remains of the chair and forced to his feet.
Brown-eyes was enraged. He'd dropped the letter opener and was taking his coat off and rolling up his sleeves. When the radio man reported to him that the unit was no longer working, Brown-eyes shouted and gestured for the two men holding Hanley to take him out onto the deck. Hanley cooperated until he was outside. He put up the fight of his life in the open, stomping, tugging, swinging his head back into anything that got close enough and biting anything that came near his mouth.
He had broken free of one of the men, and was swinging his elbow into the nose of the other when Brown-eyes stepped out onto the deck. He fired into the air, stalling Hanley's wild fight.
"I will not warn you again, Captain!" Brown-eyes shouted. "Your corpse washing up on the beaches of Washington District of Columbia will make just as loud a statement as the promise that you might be returned alive. It is only my dislike for delays that has kept you breathing unto this moment."
Hanley was bleeding again, and he was so near exhaustion he couldn't respond. It took all his focus to stay on his feet, but he tightened his jaw again, and fed every ounce of energy left into an angry and defiant glare.
Brown-eyes gave orders to his men. There was a curving pole on the main deck that held the signal flags for the boat. Hanley's arms were fastened to the straight part of the pole that ran parallel to the deck. For a smaller man it might have forced him onto his toes, but Hanley was tall enough that the position forced his hands over his head, but allowed him to rest his weight comfortably on his feet. That was the sum total of any measure of comfort he would feel that evening.
Brown-eyes gave another order and the robe was ripped away from him. He was allowed to keep the dignity of the boxers, but that was all. It might have been summer in DC but on the open waters of the bay it was unpleasantly cold. Another order was given and Hanley was doused by several buckets of frigid ocean water. The saltwater bit at the wounds and lowered the officer's body temperature rapidly. He was shivering violently, in short order.
He closed his eyes against the new pains, and was surprised to be left alone. The dousing had convinced him that escaping and jumping into the water would be a final solution, and not the path to freedom. The water was cold enough that he would've certainly died of hypothermia before he could hope to be rescued. To his right the curving pole ended and there were ropes, and flags dangling from the back end. He might be able to shimmy his tied hands to the end of the pole and free himself there, but to what end?
The cold was uncomfortable but not unbearable, only because it was a calm night with little wind. Brown-eyes changed that. It took him ten minutes, perhaps to think up the new torture idea, or to clean up the mess of the radio, but eventually the motor came to life and the yacht began to move. They picked up speed and with the speed came the wind.
The cold became a living thing, carving into every inch of exposed skin. His body reacted by shutting down, truncating the circulation to his limbs and conserving as much energy as possible to protect the vital organs. Hanley became a pale, bluish reverse figurehead for the unknown vessel, drifting in and out of consciousness until the sun began to rise.
With nothing to stop its heat or light, in the first hour of the morning, Hanley found blessed relief. He began to shiver again, then warm under the power of the sun. His hair and shorts dried and he managed a modified kind of voluntary sleep after he worked his way to the decking, sliding his hands over the curve of the pole and down to where it met the floor.
When he woke to several more buckets of ice cold ocean water it was closer to noon, based on the position of the sun. He could already feel the sunburn, and as the ocean water dried on his skin the salt tightened and irritated the burned flesh, cuts and bruises. Relief and torture in one entity. It was deviously clever. Hanley was dehydrated, but could drink nothing. He was hungry, but could eat nothing. He was exhausted and burning with fever but had only sleep for medicine. Yet sleep meant he spent untold hours exposed to the sun and all the damage it could do to unprotected skin.
He was left in this hell for an additional hour before Brown-eyes sent men to retrieve him. Every touch, every move, even the cover of a towel over his shoulders, was agony. He was taken back up to the pilot house, but instead of tying him to a chair they forced him to his knees and tied his hands behind his back. The new position broke open the wound on his shoulder, folded back skin that was hot to the touch from fever and sunburn, and stretched muscles that had stiffened through the morning hours.
Brown-eyes stood before him with a glass of clear liquid. It could have been water, gin, salt water, ethyl alcohol. Hanley told himself it was poison, and closed his eyes.
"I find it remarkable how little I must do to wear you down, Captain. On the open sea, the elements are both more beautiful and more harsh than they are on land. I not only have the power to kill you, but far more important, I have the power to keep you alive indefinitely."
The glass was pressed to his lips and tilted into his open and gasping mouth and to his astonishment it was pure, clean water. Hanley forgot, in an instant, the mental control he'd been struggling to maintain, and gulped the water until the glass was empty.
Brown-eyes waited for Hanley to look at him. "I can be reasonable. Convincing the authorities that we have you is only the very first part of the plan. No one will be harmed if you cooperate."
It took a minute to work up the breath for it, and the single glass of water was quickly becoming a faint and failing memory. "Who are you?" Hanley finally croaked.
Brown-eyes smiled at him. He ordered the radio man to toggle the mic, then once more held the device by the stem, positioning it in front of Hanley's cracked lips. Hanley pressed them together and said nothing.
Brown-eyes waited twenty seconds, then released the toggle and handed the mic back to the radio man. Hanley was forced to his feet but to his astonishment he wasn't led back to the curving pipe. He was taken below to the cabin, forced into the room, then left alone. Hanley quickly found the razor and cut his hands free. He went into the lavatory and ran the water cold as it would go in the shower, stepping into the stream and staying there until his skin was numb, clean of the salt water, and his belly so full it hurt.
He stared at the angry red burns on his body, the bruises and cuts, and tried to look at the bullet wound on his back. He grabbed a towel and managed to wedge it under his weight on the bunk, and lay on his back, quickly falling asleep.
Horrible pain in his stomach woke him twenty minutes later. He went from his back to his hands and knees on the floor and was vomiting in seconds. He cycled from vomiting to pain, to vomiting and worse, then lying in his own filth on the cabin floor and once more in pain. He had been poisoned. The glass of water had to have held poison and the poison that tasted and smelled like nothing was arsenic. He'd downed the glass without the control to stop himself and willingly poisoned himself. He could only hope that the water he'd drunk shortly after had hastened the poison through his system, and reduced the damage it would do to his body.
He crawled to the lavatory and into the narrow shower, stripping out of his shorts and curling up under the water until he passed out again. His smallest hope was that he would run the fresh water tanks dry and force the boat back to its harbor.
It didn't take long for his captor to realize something had gone awry. He was dragged, naked, out of the shower and up onto the deck of the ship. Brown-eyes stormed out of the pilot house and looked down at Hanley in disgust. He gave an order and a man disappeared into the cabin then returned with Hanley's soiled and soaked shorts. Brown-eyes stared at the garment then gave an order. The shorts were tossed overboard. Hanley was tied to the curving pole again, and he turned a defiant and miserable glare up to the pilot deck, then flashed his teeth in a grin.
Brown-eyes was very uncomfortable with Hanley's lack of clothes and the officer took advantage of it, turning his hips to put his most private self on display. Brown-eyes stood for only a few moments before he descended to the deck and disappeared toward the upper cabin door at the front of the boat.
Hanley wanted to crow! He wanted to scream his victory to the skies. He'd found a weakness in the brown-eyed sadist and it felt so damned good that for a few minutes he couldn't feel anything but that victory. It was V-E Day all over again. It was stepping off the plane onto American soil for the first time in several years. It was standing at Doc's wedding, watching two courageous young people join their lives together.
Brown-eyes didn't return. Instead he sent the two girls out to where Hanley was tied, and they were forced to help the officer step into a fresh pair of shorts a size too big, and a pair of pants that had to be secured to his frame with a short length of rope fed through two belt loops at the back. The girls weathered the indignity of their position, but not quietly. Hanley could hear the dissension in their voices as they talked to each other. When the bigger of the two girls accidentally brushed the skin of her arm against his chest, they were alarmed at how hot he was.
The girls began to argue. The bigger one seemed to be on his side while the smaller one wanted little more to do with him. The bigger girl, named Bette, had started to untie his hands, to the smaller girl's terror, when Brown-eyes reappeared. He demanded to know what Bette was doing, and as the bigger girl turned to face him down, Hanley was struck, suddenly, at how young Brown-eyes was. The change had occurred in an instant, the moment Bette defied him. As their conversation rose in pitch, Hanley watched the dynamic between the two and wondered if Bette and Brown-eyes were brother and sister.
When Bette won the argument, Hanley was further astonished to see Brown-eyes simply turn away. Shortly after, Hanley was released and led into the main floor cabin. Brown-eyes had returned to the pilot house. The cabin he was guided to contained a double bed that likely folded away to make room for other activities during the day. Hanley was pushed down onto the bed, on his stomach, turned so that Bette could easily reach and tend to his shoulder wound. She went to the lavatory that was down a narrow hall and returned with a towel, soaked with water.
She laid it over his back and shoulders and Hanley could stop neither the cry of pain, nor the sob of relief.
"Dieter is a fool." Bette said, shocking him with crisp English that matched Brown-eyes. "He thinks he will break you before he kills you. I have seen men like you before. Too proud to be broken. Preferring death."
The speech confused him. Was Bette truly the more compassionate, and mature force on the yacht, or was this a staged performance. The good guy to Brown-eyes' bad guy routine. Much as he was desperate for a soft touch, relief from the pain, and the kindly caress of a woman, Brown-eyes' trick with the arsenic in the water had taught him a bitter lesson. He could still feel the phantom pain carving away at his insides. He lay and soaked up as much comfort as the wetted towel would give him, half-expecting his skin to begin sloughing off once the acid had set in properly.
When sleep claimed him, he let it.
He woke to find his right wrist in front of his face, the tube and needle of an IV jutting out from under bandages. He was still on the boat, and it was night, judging by the warm, flickering lights from the lantern. He heard Bette's voice as she entered the cabin behind him, giving orders in German. When she stepped into his vision she sighed.
"I am sorry that you are awake. I have only limited morphine. It is best to only use it when it is needed." She told him. "If you can sleep, you should."
He was confused until he felt a light sheet descending over his bare back, then the cold spill of alcohol burning into the wound. He bit into the pillow under his face and hunched his shoulders against the pain as Bette forced cold metal tools into the hole in his shoulder, probing for the bullet.
"The antibiotics were necessary, to reduce the swelling and make it possible to remove the lead." She told him, speaking over his muffled screams. She went deeper and still deeper, wrenching louder and louder screams out of her patient until her tools came to a stop, wedged inside the muscle and sinew of the joint.
She sat back, panting, saying something insistent in her native tongue before Hanley felt pinch after pinch in the skin around his shoulder wound. Slowly the shoulder went numb. It wasn't morphine. Hanley knew instinctively that she had used something else. The pain was gone and the skin felt frozen until she began moving her tools again. He could feel the movement in the muscle, and scraping against the bone and tendons, but anytime the pain grew close to unbearable Bette seemed to know and he felt the pinches of pain, deeper and deeper in his shoulder.
He was starting to feel his heartbeat through the numbness, and Bette lowered the light to look at his pupils. What she saw seemed to frighten her. "I have used a new drug, a derivative amino amide called xylocaine. It is a local anesthetic, and it will numb most of the pain. I can not get through the muscle in your shoulder when you are tense. I can not give you any more of the drug or it will kill you. You must hold still. Relax your shoulders."
"What…what about morphine?"
Bette licked her lips, thinking. He could see deep regret on her face. "I..I can not give you both. It is too late now for morphine."
Hanley pressed his forehead into the pillow and moved his right hand until it fell from the bed. He stiffened in defense of the pain the movement caused then slowly relaxed and turned his head away from Bette and toward the wall of the cabin. Weakly he said, "Okay…"
She began again. At first Hanley couldn't tell the difference between her movements, and the movement of the tools when his muscles would tense. She softly began to coach him through what she was doing, and after a few minutes they were working in a twisted sort of concert. Bette would prepare him for each move with a soft description and Hanley would breathe through the pain, imagining that he was a third party to the surgery, neither performing it nor being subjected to it. It was only his job to watch from afar, and he could, therefore, no longer feel any of what was going on.
He'd been through something like it before. He vaguely remembered lying in the most ornate bed he'd ever seen while a countess bantered with him, distracting him from most of the extraction. Then the adrenaline thrill when the bullet came free, seconds before a German officer almost discovered the Americans hiding within their own headquarters.
He hadn't been as far gone then. Not nearly as tired, dehydrated, hungry, sunburned, feverish. Somehow, without the adrenaline of panic and fear, he was in worse shape, than with it. The bullet came free in two pieces. Bette showed him each chunk before he heard it clang distantly into a tea cup. She cleaned and dressed the wound in silence and Hanley drifted, the power of the xylocaine doing it's job flawlessly now that she was focused only on the surface of his skin.
She left him, taking handfuls of gauze and tools with her out of the cabin and Hanley tried to press upright. When that failed he tried rolling and managed to get onto his left side before Bette returned. She wasn't happy that he had moved, but she only went about clearing up the detritus of the surgery. Hanley eased his shoulder against the cabin wall until he had all his weight pressed against it. He used his bandaged, stiff left hand to shove the pillow between his left shoulder and head and instantly felt the strain on his right side ease.
He was drifting towards sleep when Bette returned. She forced her fingers back between his shoulder and the wall, checking the bandage before she let him return to the position he'd found.
"Where's Dieter?" Hanley asked.
Bette watched him, washing the blood from her hands with a gauze pad soaked with alcohol. She seemed to battle with herself for a long moment before she said, "He is gone. He will be back by morning."
"Where are we?"
She paused, closing long-nailed fingers around the gauze pad. "You should rest."
"Bette…you said yourself…he'll kill me before he wears me down. Do you want to be responsible for my death?"
Bette's eyes hardened. "You fought in Germany?"
Hanley's eyes narrowed, and he knew he'd misjudged her.
"My mother, and sisters were in Germany when the Americans came. Americans who didn't care who stood in their way. They did not see innocent civilians. They saw objects, under Nazi flags, that were theirs to use..or destroy." She stood, checked his IV, then tossed a blanket over his legs.
"You will die, Captain. Make no mistake. But it will not be because I failed Dieter. It will be justice, for the death of our sisters. And our mother. Rest." She said, finally, then left the cabin.
Hanley had heard what some Americans, Russians, Belgians, Poles, even German civilians and political prisoners had done at the end of the conflict. Anyone at all who had been injured by the Nazi party had turned on their former captors seeking revenge. Some hadn't been so particular and had made targets of anyone flying a Nazi flag, appearing to have wealth or prosperity, or known to have supported the party. They had taken out their anger and revenge on what and whom they found.
Following his return to the states, Hanley had first been assigned to sifting through endless reports of atrocities perpetrated by his fellow soldiers on the hapless civilians throughout Germany when the Americans and Russians finally broke through. It was a job that had frequently tested his resolve to remain in the military. It had made him ashamed to be what and who he was.
If war had revealed to him the many shades of grey in the souls of man, Germany had shown the blackest of those shades. Any nobility he might have once imagined coursing through the veins of the American GI had been swept clean by the little he'd seen for himself, and the reams of reports he'd seen following the war.
Two of his colleagues had committed suicide since returning. He'd finally finagled his way to a different duty for the sake of his sanity. Knowing that Bette, and his sadistic captor, were victims of those atrocities, and Bette had been forced by her brother to care for a man who may well have committed them himself. Whatever strength of character he thought he had, Bette had it ten fold.
Despite the exhaustion in his body, Hanley couldn't sleep. While he fought the pain, thirst and hunger he forced his way to a sitting position, and stared at the lantern left on the table by the small bed. He thought for a long time about his capture, his arrival on the boat, and where he must be now given the slap of gentle waves against the hull and what little Bette had told him. He thought about who Bette was, and Dieter, and how they had come to be in America. He was certain that everything that had transpired since the day of Doc's wedding had been the handiwork of this Dieter, and men like him, intent on exacting revenge, and freeing what they called "German patriots."
When the bottle attached to his IV had emptied, Hanley removed the needle himself. He used the lavatory near the cabin. He pulled the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around his shoulders, then braced himself by the door and tried to open it. To his surprise the door was unlocked. Hanley stepped out onto the main deck, expecting to find men waiting for him, but there was no one. The bow of the ship was deserted. The bow line was tied to a cleat on a dock, one of twelve such docks spanning a length of shoreline. He could see the glow of a city beyond the trees. The boats around him were still and dark.
With no one and nothing to stop him Hanley stepped out onto the dock. He heard a gun being cocked behind him and spun around, then looked up. Leaning from the open windows of the pilot house, Bette held a Luger in one hand and a smoking cigarette in the other.
Hanley glanced around the docks again, spotted a few lowlights in some of the cabins and said, "If you shoot me, you'll have more trouble than you can handle."
Bette studied him without flinching, dropping the still burning cigarette into the water below.
"Your brother won't succeed. The army won't care about me. They won't budge an inch for my sake."
"You have a very low opinion of yourself." She said.
"I have an honest opinion of myself." Hanley countered. He studied the abandoned, swaying boards of the floating docks, then took a few steps along their length.
"Don't." Bette said. "Please."
The "please" surprised him. Hanley looked up at her, regretting that he was now committed. She hadn't shot when she could have. If pushed she might pull the trigger but he was certain she wouldn't good enough aim to hit him the first time. It would give him time to cross the narrow dock and dive into the empty berth opposite where he stood. He could swim under the dock, or between the boats, and if Bette was alone on board, as she seemed to be, she would be forced to pursue him on foot, or with the yacht. Either way, barring freezing to death in the water, Hanley was certain he could get away from her.
He threw the blanket up toward the yacht to disrupt her line of sight and charged across the dock. He heard multiple shots behind him then dove into the water. The cold shocked him, and the bottom came up faster than he thought it would, but the bottom of the bay was muddy and soft, and he turned and began swimming for the darker water under the dock. He surfaced as quietly as he could, biting down on the pains visiting him. He waited and listened.
He oriented on the position of the yacht when the engine started, and heard pounding feet charging down the dock toward the boat. He swam around behind the sailboat a few berths down from the yacht, and clung to the aft line, watching the men free the lines from both ends of the yacht before the boat backed out of the berth and started out to sea.
Once they cleared the buoys the yacht slowed, then stopped, drifting in the darkness. Whoever was piloting killed the running lights and the engines, and Hanley worked his way to shore, checking the dim, dark spot on the horizon as the docks slowly woke to the disruption of the gunshots.
The dock master had stomped out of his cabin and onto the docks by the time Hanley dragged himself onto shore. He was hidden in the shadows of some pines, too exhausted to move and no longer shivering. The false warmth that overwhelmed him while he rested was plagued by noises. Men shouting and asking questions. Boat engines starting. Someone shouted for someone else to call the coast guard.
He didn't know what time it was, where he was, and could easily forget who he was with little effort. When he began to shiver again it was time to move. Hanley crawled through the low hanging branches of the pines until he found a chain-link fence. He followed the fence to the gate for the docking area. The door wasn't secured, and he stepped through it, stumbling along the berm of a gravel drive until he encountered a sign.
Matapeake Ferry. He was in Annapolis. Likely across the bay from the Naval base. Hanley forced himself into a shambling run and into the lights of the ferry landing. The boats were shut down for the night but there was always a man on the dock in case of an emergency need for the boats. Hanley stumbled to the shack that housed the ferry captain and started beating on the door.
The lights came on, the man shoved the curtain to the side and peered at him through the brace of windows, then opened the door and let the soaking wet, bloodied Army captain collapse into the breezeway.
The ferry pilot was an old Navy man. He shuffled into the small sitting room of his home and picked up a rough, woolen blanket. Hanley stiffened, stifling a cry when the weight settled on his back. The ferry pilot called his son. A recent graduate of medical school, Lieutenant Davis was serving at Annapolis proudly, in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. He was skilled, intelligent, handsome, and his father knew, likely to be awake with a brand new son of his own.
Davis answered the phone, groggily, listened to his father's hasty request, then agreed to drive to the opposing ferry dock, if his father would wake the captain and arrange for a ferry ride. George Davis, retired captain, agreed. While Jonathan Davis gathered equipment and supplies, George made the phone call to his long time partner and best friend Harrison. The older man (by one year) on the opposite side of the bay, was delighted to have the chance to gab with his adopted nephew, and promised to bring breakfast for George and his mysterious guest.
By the time George was able to return to the soaking wet man on his floor, the captain had not only come around, but was sitting up, staring woozy around the room.
"That's a good sign, young man." George said, hunching at the waist to feel the man's forehead. "How about your name, then?"
"Hanley."
"First or last?"
"Last."
"You a Navy man?" George asked.
Hanley smirked a little then admitted, "No. Sorry, sir."
George barked a laugh, and straightened with a grunt. "I've got better beds than what you've got there, son. How do you feel about standing?"
Hanley nodded after a moment, then lifted his left hand up, sodden bandages and all. George supported his arm at the wrist and elbow and together they got the Army captain to his feet. Hanley was led to yet another bathroom. He balked at the entrance, his mind wavering between the past and the present but George urged him onward, a warm palm coming to rest at the small of Hanley's back, pressing through the warmth of the blanket.
"If I can leave you to doing this bit by yourself I can make up some coffee, and fetch dry clothes." George said, turning on the shower and running the water hot as he could stand it. He turned to the younger man, staring at the stream of water like it was acid.
"Whatever you've been through, Hanley…I promise you it's over. Starting right now."
The young man's eyes latched onto his and he saw a strange sort of mirror of himself. Hanley might not have stood on the flaming deck of a ship while it was being bombarded by shells, watching men die in flames while others plunged into the sea. He might not know what it was to have his home slip out from under his feet, lost forever to the ocean, but he'd seen the equivalent. Long before this night, George knew that Hanley had seen his own version of hell, and weathered it. He watched Hanley rally and looked down to see a pale hand appear just beyond the edge of the blanket.
George took the hand, felt the shadow of a powerful grip close around his palm, and heard Hanley say, "Thank you, sir."
George closed his other hand over the shaking palm, and nodded. "Get cleaned up, son. We'll talk when you're ready."
Hanley's relationship with his father had never been close. His father had used the word "son" as a label, not as an endearment. Hanley didn't even know the old man's name but he felt more like he could have been born to the ferry pilot, than he ever had with his own parent. The thought shook him, delved into his brain like a worm into an apple, and stuck with him as he thawed under the shower, dried, dressed in oversized slacks and emerged, holding the sweater he'd been given in his hands.
When he left the bathroom there was a second man in the house, a younger, narrower version of the old man. He was introduced to Lt. Jonathan Davis and guided to sit. The naval doctor checked the wound, covered it with bandages and gave him an injection of penicillin, then checked the swollen joints in Hanley's hand, and the other bruises and scrapes. He got Hanley a cotton t-shirt to cover the majority of the burns, then recommended rest.
"When was the last time you had a hot meal?" Jonathan asked, only to jolt to his feet when Hanley said he hadn't eaten at all in over two days. While Jonathan tore around his father's small kitchen, preparing the food that Harrison had sent with him, Hanley gave a truncated version of how he happened to be on George's doorstep.
Much as he wanted to give out details he knew it was foolish. George seemed suspicious of most of it, but willing to accept the story for the time being. Hanley was grateful. He was given soup and a few sandwiches, and he ate slowly, already knowing what a heavy meal could do to an empty and abused stomach. He ate half of one sandwich and most of the soup before nausea warned him to stop. George and Jonathan made him comfortable on the old cot George had pulled out of the closet, then stepped into the kitchen to talk quietly.
Hanley drifted, struggling to convince himself that he was finally safe, his mind returning to the fact that Dieter had left him in Bette's care, with only two of the six or seven men, certain that it would be enough. Or perhaps because he didn't have a choice. And if that were the case, where had the other men gone? Why had Dieter needed so many? The questions plagued him, and followed him into sleep in the form of dreams and nightmares.
Hanley woke frequently to find either Jonathan or George Davis holding his arms, and gently reassuring him. He would struggle to stay awake, desperate to avoid the clawing fear and immobility of sleep but his body demanded he rest. He was awake briefly during daylight, watched closely by a young woman who sometimes had a baby in her arms. She brought him food, helped him use the toilet, then returned him to his bed. He fell asleep to a lullaby that wasn't meant for him, but was soothing nonetheless.
When night again came, Hanley felt like he'd been walloped by the worst case of the flu he'd ever experienced. He was feverish and chilled, his sinuses were packed, his stomach and body ached, and the combination of miseries convinced him that he was on his deathbed. Yet when George propped him up and spooned hot tea into his mouth, Hanley rallied. He was on his third cup of tea and able to hold the cup on his own when Jonathan Davis entered the house.
He looked worn, but relieved to see his patient sitting upright. Jonathan turned to someone standing behind him and quietly said, "He's awake."
The second man stepped out of the shadows and pulled the cap from his head, running a hand through his hair. Caje drew a shaking breath into his lungs and collapsed sideways against the doorframe, nodding his head. His hand went out and clutched the arm of the young doctor, in a gesture of thanks.
"That's our wayward captain." The sergeant said.
Hanley leaned back against the pillows and drank in the sight of a familiar face. "Hey, Caje." He said finally.
Caje had to take several deep breaths, pushing air through pursed lips and swiping at his nose. A second later he remembered his manners and introduced himself to George Davis. Jonathan got an update from his father before he did a cursory examination of his patient. Caje was invited to sit, and even though George had pointed to a chair, the Cajun perched on the end of the cot, where Hanley had automatically made a space for him.
Jonathan disappeared into the kitchen with a lunch pail in hand promising to heat up some broth from his wife.
"How'd you find me?" Hanley asked, voice heavy with the congestion in his nose.
"Jonathan's wife. You were talking a lot in your sleep. You said my name, Saunders, Kirby. She told her husband. Twenty-four hours ago we were told that you were in a hospital, following a carjacking attempt."
"We?"
Caje explained about what had happened at Saunders' home, the conversation that followed, and the police report Caje had found that led him to the DC hospital where he expected to find his former CO on his deathbed.
"They had your ID, and the man had been admitted in an officer's uniform, but it clearly wasn't you. I waited for Saunders until morning, but he never showed up. Neither him, nor Kirby. I went back to the base and started asking around again. I started looking for reports of unidentified males matching your description at hospitals or morgues. It was a fluke that I called the Naval base. Jonathan told me about you and invited me to join him."
"If he hadn't told me he went by Caje, I wouldn't have given him the time of day." Jonathan said from the doorway. "I asked him the names of some of the other guys he'd served with and there were too many coincidences to ignore." Jonathan gave a cup of broth to his father, and set another down in Hanley's reach. Already his patient was calmer and more relaxed. "Seems I made the right decision."
"Have you heard from Saunders or Kirby?" Hanley asked.
Caje shared the same worried look, shaking his head.
There was more that needed to be said but Hanley was hesitant to involve the two navy men. To have arranged jail breaks, yachts, bombs and worse, Hanley knew that Dieter and his organization had to have a hundred hands in a million pots. There was no way to know who was on their side, and Hanley was determined that no one else should be hurt. Knowing that Saunders and Kirby were once more in danger, and doubtless in the hands of Dieter and his cronies, was bad enough. The trouble was, Hanley hardly had the strength to get out of bed, let alone track down international criminals.
Stuck in the home of a ferry pilot, reliant on the doctoring services of a naval lieutenant, and being baby sat by the lieutenant's wife during the day was a temporary fix to the problem. Hanley was struck with the knowledge that the longer he remained in one place, the greater a threat he would be to those around him. He owed too much to the young doctor and his family to let them come to harm.
Over the ensuing evening hours Hanley and Caje arranged a way to return to Caje's small apartment. They were given the supplies that Jonathan could spare, and the sincere promise that both Davis men would keep a watchful eye out.
They arrived at Caje's apartment well after midnight, and after sweeping the rooms and providing Hanley with a change of clothes, Caje took a position in the living room, watching as rain moved in, drenching the streets below. Rather than sleep alone, Hanley settled on the loveseat in Caje's front room. He was comically too long for it, but rested more peacefully in the presence of his brother in arms than he would have in Caje's bed.
By morning Caje had called in to his CO arranging for time off. He was told that the man who had been admitted to the hospital under Hanley's name had since died, and that Hanley was now listed as missing, presumed dead. The police were trying to identify the dead man in the morgue, and track down the missing captain. Annapolis coast guard and police men were trying to solve the mystery of shots fired, and the disappearance of a yacht registered to a D. Minnow. And a third mystery, the disappearance of Kirby and Saunders, plagued the two men having a sparse breakfast in a small Delaware apartment.
Hanley had been offered baguettes, fresh fruit and coffee, but had turned it all down. Caje dug some tea out of his cupboard and dosed it with sugar and whiskey. Hanley had already slowly sipped his way through two cups of the concoction, and was working on a third when he straightened in his chair. Compared to the dressing mannequin he'd been tending to all morning, the sudden change in demeanor made Caje think Hanley was having a stroke.
"What?"
"It was too easy." Hanley said. "They wanted me to escape." Bloodshot eyes drifted to Caje. "Tell me about the coast guard report."
Caje shook his head. "Shots fired, no casualties. Other boat owners reported seeing men running toward the yacht before they tossed the mooring lines and pulled out to sea."
"No kidnapping?"
Caje shook his head.
"The calls were faked." Hanley said, easing back in his chair and letting his head fall back.
"What are you talking about?"
Hanley closed eyes, winced around a still sore throat and said, "The whole time I was with Dieter he went on and on about this Liberation Group he was part of. Their ultimate goal was supposed to be to convince the US Army to release German prisoners by claiming that they had me in their custody. He acted like everything had been about grabbing me, holding me hostage. But I'm a nobody. Even if he had hoped that holding me would bring a higher profile target into his reach, I knew he was barking up the wrong tree. He made a couple of calls, claiming he was talking to the coast guard. If he really had contacted them, claiming to be holding hostages on a boat, wouldn't there be something in the report?"
Caje nodded softly but didn't interrupt.
"Then there was this..power struggle between him and his sister. Bette, the nurse that tended me on the boat. She jumped down his throat when she found out how bad the infection had gotten. She insisted on taking me to the cabin she was sharing with the other girl. They had tons of supplies.." Hanley trailed off, feeling sick to his stomach again. "They expected to collect me with their fake cop trick, run my car off the road with a decoy inside, and hold me until someone else showed up."
"Saunders." Caje said.
"Exactly." Hanley said. "With me as bait, supposedly dying in a hospital, Saunders would inevitably head for DC. Dieter couldn't care less about actually holding me in custody once he knew Saunders was on the way, so he left me with Bette and a token group of men, either to die or escape. If he has Saunders, he has what he wants now. He's…as good as gone."
"Saunders will fight. Kirby will fight." Caje said.
Hanley nodded. "Dieter was absolutely confident he could keep me alive. He had a good nurse with him, and plenty of medical supplies on board. He planned to have someone on that boat who needed medical care."
Caje finally got it. Hanley watched the color drain from his face, and reached for the last of the tea in his cup, but his stomach lurched, and he left the cup on the table.
"How do we stop him?" Caje asked.
"We don't." Hanley said. "We can alert the Coast Guard and the Navy, get the dock master to give us the registration and boat name, give them a description of the yacht and hope they find her before Dieter tries something slick."
"Or we could get our own boat and just wait for the explosion." Caje said.
"Explosion?"
"Has anyone ever held Saunders prisoner without suffering an explosion?" Caje asked, smirking despite the worry.
Hanley snorted, and realized just how right Caje was.
