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"You come up with anything yet?" Casino watched Actor as he paced the cell floor.
"I'm afraid there's very little we can do from inside this cell." The confidence artist glanced down as he moved past the man sitting on the floor. There had to be some way he could get them out of this. But he'd already tried getting the Captain of the guards to believe he was Gestapo working undercover, and that had met with no success. Demanding the officer summon his superior had fallen on deaf ears, and when he'd threatened him with what would happen when the interrogator finally arrived and found out about his error, the man had actually laughed in his face. The guards had been instructed to ignore his ultimatums now.
"Where d'you think they took that other guy?" Chief watched their second in command pace. He could usually bluff or bully his way through in spots like this, the young man thought their current situation was probably eatin' at the big man.
"Toma? They have him down the corridor." Actor stopped near the bars and gestured. "The guards have been taunting him with their stories of the interrogator." Then he started pacing again. "There's another man down there too. I can hear a different voice."
"The guy we were s'pose t'be after?"
"Iagar? I believe so."
"Too bad they didn't put us all in the same cell."
When first brought in each man had been shoved in a different cell, kept in solitary, until the initial interview with the camp commandant. They'd been herded into the hallway a bare half hour ago and sorted into the cells they waited in now. The show was about to start but there was no way for them to know how it would end.
"Sure! That'd make it easier." Casino snorted. "That way when we pulled somethin' and the Kraut's started shootin' they'd get all of us at once. Save 'em a little time and effort!"
"Casino, why don't you shut up?" Chief smiled to himself. Casino'd hit the bait just like he knew he would.
"You shut up, Indian!" The east coast thief shot a grateful, irritated look at their scout. If they were arguin' at least he didn't have to worry about what was gonna to happen next.
"Quiet! Both of you!" Actor leaned into the bars and strained to hear the man who'd just picked up the phone.
"What's up?"
"The interrogator, a Major Todeskopf, has finally arrived. He's being taken to the commandant now." It wouldn't be long now, he thought as he followed the path he'd set himself around the cell.
After a delay of nearly two days the German officers would meet, the man would present his papers and then he would set to work. Actor knew they would be questioned, the captain had promised as much after his session with the commandant, told him they were saving the pleasure of it for the specialist, but he had no way of knowing when it would happen. If he were running this operation he would save the main target, the resistance leader, for last, using the questioning of the other prisoners to intimidate him. Assembling them here where Iagar would know when each man was removed from the cell block seemed to follow that pattern. He didn't have much time to come up with something. If he couldn't convince Todeskopf he was part of the secret German intelligence service then he'd have to get him to believe that they were important enough as prisoners to take back with him when he left to return to Berlin. That would probably mean they would each have to face an interrogation, and it could get rough…but they would certainly have a better chance of getting away somewhere out on the road.
"What d'you think happened to 'em?" Chief settled in a corner of the cell where he could see through the bars and keep an eye on the activity in the corridor.
"Well, if they'd been caught they would have been brought here." Actor had finally given up pacing and leaned against the wall. "They are probably out there somewhere developing a plan to get inside to us."
Casino just stared at the man, there was no need for him to say it, they were all thinking that if the Warden had been alright he'd have already found a way inside to them. The fact that he hadn't, and that he and the limey had been weren't sittin' in their own cell probably just meant they'd been killed out there somewhere and left to rot. He turned and watched as three of the guards gathered together and started whispering again. "What'n the hell's that all about, anyway?"
The con man moved to the bars and watched the group, straining to catch what he could of the conversation. "They seem to be worried about the officer that is on his way."
"That interrogator guy?" Chief got to his feet and moved to the front of the cell. "Why?"
"They appear to be frightened of him. They are trading rumors about him."
The safe cracker came and stood with the other two. "What kind a rumors?" and waited as Actor listened again.
The big Italian shook his head a moment later and smiled. "The same sort of thing you teased Goniff with… They say he's a ghoul,,, the local word is strigoi,,, a vampire." And after another pause he gave a short laugh. "The sergeant has just told them he heard that the man eats his subjects. That's how he gets them to talk."
"Oh, swell! Sounds like somethin' I'm really gonna look forward to." Casino walked back into the back of the cell and slid down the wall to sit on the floor again.
Actor shrugged as he followed the explosives expert into the back of the cell. "It might help us."
"Yeah? How?"
"If they are really as nervous about him as they appear it could distract them…."
"Oh come on! You don't believe that anymore than I do." Casino scoffed.
Actor considered it. "It's certainly a slim chance, but look at them." The men in the cell turned to watch the guards, they seemed nervous, tense. "Even the man's name feeds into their rumors and fears." To the other's questioning looks he explained. "Todeskopf, it means 'death head'"
"Quiet" Chief hissed. "You hear that?"
Something was moving along the corridor towards them, the sound echoed off the stone walls. It sounded like someone was shoving a box or sack along the floor, taking a step and then shoving it on ahead. Actor watched the reaction of the soldiers in the corridor. They'd come to attention around the desk but seemed to be shrinking back a bit as the sound grew louder. Actor stepped close to the bars of the cell and peered down the hallway, the way the guards were staring. His poise was shaken by the sight that greeted him and he moved back to stand with his fellows as the figure moved past.
"Jeeze!" Casino turned wide eyes on the other two. "D'you see that!?"
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"What'n the Hell was that!"
Actor put his hand up for silence and moved back up to the bars and tried to catch the conversation at the desk. Major Todeskopf, he was aptly named the con man thought with a shudder, was giving his orders in a strangled whisper but with the amplification of the stone his sibilant tones easily reached them in their cell. The others watched as he turned back to them. The color had drained from the elegant con artists face.
"What d'you hear, man?"
Casino prodded him when he hesitated. "C'mon, give."
"He's going to question us first."
"Yeah? Go on."
"We are to be given one chance to cooperate with him. If we don't answer his questions, if we don't give him something he believes, we are to be shot."
"We got anything to give him?"
Actor shook his head. "Only the location of the group we met with."
"But some of 'em got away." Chief stared at the other men. "I ain't given nobody up." Besides, he thought, the Warden and Goniff might be with them.., if they were still alive.
A sharp rap on the bars stopped any further conversation. The three of them turned to stare at the man who waited on the other side of the cell door. He pointed at Actor. "Dieser Gefangene." and then lurched back to let the guard unlock the door. The guard gave him a wide berth, trying to avoiding even the touch of the Major's uniform. The two soldiers that flanked Todeskopf trained their weapons on the captives as the door swung open. The guard leaned and reached in and grabbed a handful of Actor's jacket, jerking him out into the corridor, slamming the door before the others had a chance to move.
They watched as his hands were cuffed in front of him and cord looped around his ankle and handed to the Major. Actor was turned roughly and prodded into motion by the larger guard's rifle barrel. He only had a moment to turn and look at his friends before they'd shoved him again and started him moving down the corridor.
Casino moved to the bars, gripping them tightly in his hands he shouted after his teammate. "Tell 'em to go to Hell!" and got a solid rap on his knuckles for his trouble. Chief caught him and pulled him back into the back of the cell, pulling his handkerchief out of his pocket to dress the bleeding knuckles.
"Your fingers? They broken?"
The safe cracker watched the blood seep into the cloth Chief had twisted around his hand. He flexed the fingers and glanced up. "Nah. They're alright… but I don't think it matters much now."
"What's wrong with that guy?" Chief asked quietly "Why's he look like that?" There wasn't much that could shake the young man, not after all the stuff they'd seen and heard over here, but one look at that Major'd done it.
"I don't know. Probably got caught in a fire somewhere." Casino's mouth had gone dry. "Maybe acid…. I worked with a guy that got himself splashed with some acid. He had scars like that on his arms."
Chief closed his eyes a moment and the vision of the man standing outside the bars came back to haunt him. His left shoulder was hunched up and rolled forward, his arm hung useless by his side. His head had twisted down so the side of it almost laid on that raised hump of a shoulder, the ruined face turned so he could try and see out of what was left of his eyes. The glare that had turned on them as the man picked out his victim was blood red. The mouth, twisted into a cruel line, barely moved as he whispered his orders.
The hand Chief rubbed across his forehead trembled slightly as he opened his eyes, and he had to take a long slow breath and swallow hard to get the bile to stop its climb up into his throat. "Didn't think anyone'd live through somethin' like that."
Casino shared a long look with him. "Probably wishes he hadn't."
The sharp report of a rifle shot reached them through the window that sat high on the back wall of the cell. It seemed to take a long time for the echoes to die away.
"Guess he told 'em"
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They sat silently together, their backs against the back wall of the cell. They hadn't uttered a word, either of them. There wasn't anything to say. It took a quarter hour before they heard the sound again, and knew the monster was on his way back for one of them. Both of them got slowly to their feet. They weren't gonna meet that creep sittin' on their backsides. The sound as the Major pulled his ruined leg after him down the hall got closer and closer…
"Listen, kid…"
"Yeah, Pappy, I know."
They could hear the wheeze and rattle of breath as the man came into view and turned to stare in the door of their cell. Casino moved forward a step, shrugging Chief's hand off when he tried to stop him. He'd give the kid a little more time, even if it was only a handful of minutes. The man on the other side of the bars considered him, if his face had worked right Casino thought he might have been smilin' at him. The guard slipped the key in the lock and turned it.
Casino didn't wait to be hauled out. He gave the group in the corridor a defiant glare and stepped out, turning his back on the Major as the guard cuffed him and tied the cord around his ankle. His tough act slipped a little when he looked down and saw blood on the cuffs, but he recovered and straightened his shoulders. When the order to move came he stepped out with his head held high and swung his leg forward with enough speed that he felt the cord jerk in the Major's hand. 'This won't take long', he thought…. 'I can hold it together for another five or ten minutes.'
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Chief press his face against the bars and strained to keep the procession in sight as long as he could. He moved over against the back wall when he couldn't see them any longer and stretched his ears to catch the sound of them as they made their way outside. The dull thump of a heavy wooden door closing reached him, and then the almost imperceptible crunch of gravel as the party paced along a path. That didn't last long. Hard as he tired he couldn't hear any more, and didn't know if they'd left the path somewhere, or stopped.
The guards in the corridor gathered in a knot and started whispering again. The young man started pacing back and forth along the back wall. 'Well', he thought, 'it'll be fast.' He stopped and looked around him, reached out and ran his hand down the stone of the wall. 'And it'll be outside.'
It wouldn't take long this time. 'Actor probably tried to talk the guy into believin' that story he'd cooked up about bein' with the Gestapo. Too bad,' Chief thought, 'that one usually worked.' Casino wouldn't have anything like that goin' for him, and he wouldn't turn stool pigeon. 'He'll probably spit in the guy's eye,,, if he can find it.'
The sound of gunfire still caused him to jump, even though he thought he was ready for it.