Cry Havoc!
September 18, 1939
Libby Lawrence was surprised every day she woke up alive. Every day that she wasn't crushed by the roof caving in or incinerated in a blaze of all-consuming flame. She wondered if death came in her sleep if she would sense it at all or if she would merely slide past the barrier, from one world to the next, as easy as breathing. The window frames rattled as Libby got dressed, the murmur of artillery.
Warsaw was falling and fast.
Her father was not in the bare apartment. He must have left for his post, the remnants of the American embassy. The building had been partially destroyed a week ago, only spared by a faulty bomb, which still managed to plow through three stories of material before coming to a halt wedged awkwardly into a closet. Even with that hazard in place, her father continued to work as the walls closed in around them.
Libby made haste through the streets. Those who passed her shared a common expression, a scrunched look of constant anxiety, their nerves ground to nubs by the unceasing proliferation of bombs and shells on their homes. Gone were the days when life and limb were a certainty. Here were the times of hardship and strife.
She had been in Poland for nearly a year at this point, her grasp of the language growing, but imperfect. Soldiers hustled about, barking orders at one another and civilians. Rows of people dug makeshift fortifications out of the mounds of dirt and sandbags. Libby saw old men with white beards shovel alongside newly orphaned teenagers. Some were conscripted, many volunteered. They would live or die together.
The odds had shifted towards the latter option in the twenty-four hours. The German advance was unrelenting on its own, but now they had a new threat. The Soviets spilled across the eastern borders, damning any hope of the Polish army making a stand. Caught between their two enemies, the defense forces were folding. Many continued to press towards the Romanian border, but chances were slim that they could escape.
The Germans were already prodding the outskirts of the city at this point. Though the Polish forces had made them pay for their aggression, there was little mystery to who had the upper hand. Libby was not in a position to avoid considering the consequences of remaining in the city when the curtain finally fell.
She passed the smoking hulk of the Royal Castle, which had been lit on fire during the bombings the day before. Dozens of locals had watched as the fire brigade rushed to save it, extinguishing the flames. The whole of the building was preserved, but it was scarred, as they all would be soon enough.
Major James Lawrence was not the type of man who was imposing on first blush. He was fit and neatly groomed, but he wasn't tall, with Libby nearly surpassing him in height. No, it wasn't his physicality that commanded respect, it was his mind, his demeanor. The way a single inflection in his speech could drive a point home more than any overbearing display might. Libby knew that better than most, growing up under his watch. Her athleticism may have been passed on naturally, but it was her father that instilled in her real discipline.
She found him deep in conversation with a pair of Polish officers. She recognized one as Captain Prokop, a frequent colleague of her fathers. He was friendly with Libby, asking her about America and informing her of the superiority of the local food. In the previous months, he had accompanied her and her father to a few restaurants to enjoy the city's delicacies. They spoke in hushed voices around a table covered in a street map of Warsaw, with a smattering of papers on the edges.
Libby paused outside the room, trying to get a read on what they were discussing. Libby's rudimentary Polish only picked up on the idea of "secrets" and the need to "tell someone." Her father seemed to be arguing with the third man, while Captain Prokop mostly listened.
"Libby. Please join us," said her father.
Hiding her embarrassment as best she could, Libby entered the room, greeting the officers. Her father asked the others for a moment of privacy.
"I thought I told you it would be better to stay at the apartment. Or in one of the shelters," her father said, as he leaned on the table.
"I couldn't bear the thought of you being here by yourself. In danger, maybe," said Libby.
"I'm in no more danger than anyone else here. I have a job to finish."
"My work is here too. You need your secretary.."
"That was before there was a war going on. The situation has changed," said her father. He shifted his full attention to Libby. She shied from his gaze.
"I don't want to be useless. Not now. Not here," said Libby.
"Then you could help at the hospital I told you about. They're in desperate need."
"But I want to help you."
"What you want and what is needed of you are too separate things. If ever that lesson was vital, it is now.
If you truly want to help, give your aid there."
Libby began to protest, but she knew that tone. There was no outmaneuvering her father at this point.
As she began to leave, her father said, "Preparations are being made. For us to leave here. We just need to hang on for a few days more."
Libby left him to his plans.
The hospitals had stopped flying their flags once they realized the German Stukas were going out of their way to target them. The First Lady of Salvation had not been spared the ravages of the neighborhood, the courtyard marked with craters. The entryway was blown open, a hole in the roof letting in hazy light. Even marred, the hospital bustled with activity, as medics and volunteers ferried the wounded into the building. Libby could hear the groans of pain mix with fast clips of speech.
She was led by a haggard nurse through the halls to fetch food, water and fresh bandages for the wards. Libby stepped gingerly through the cramped floors, avoiding the patients on makeshift bedrolls. They were of all ages and walks of life. A large portion bore injuries obviously delivered from their oppressors. Broken and missing limbs, bandaged heads and torsos, bruised skin. Others had the misfortune to suffer comparatively pedestrian ailments during a siege. Heart attacks, strokes, common illnesses, pregnancies. The most heartbreaking sight was that of the maternity ward, freshly relocated to the cellar, where newborns mewled in the twilight of their proud city.
The situation was grim, but Libby was glad for the distraction. It allowed her to avoid thinking about what would transpire in the coming days. To remain in Warsaw was almost unthinkable, but the prospects involved with leaving were too arduous to contemplate. This was where she was glad for her father's taciturn nature. He would handle the painstaking details of their flight.
In the midst of her rounds, Libby heard the familiar, yet uncommon, pattern of English speech. She pinpointed the source as a doctor standing on the threshold of one of the operating theaters. He spoke in an even clip, his commands directed at a Polish nurse who understood him. His smock was spattered with blood. The odd element of his appearance was a pair of thick, red tinted goggles that he wore, with a bandana tied around his head. Libby followed the surgeon as he stripped off his gloves and washed his hands.
"May I help you?" said the doctor, his back turned to Libby.
"Please don't let this come across as rude, but I was curious about you. Rare to find another American in a place like this."
"Who says I'm American? I could be from Canada," said the man, as he scrubbed meticulously. "I kid. To whom do I owe the pleasure?"
"Elizabeth Lawrence. Or Libby."
"Libby. Libby Lawrence. There's a memory to that name."
Libby was not entirely unused to this exchange, though it was becoming less frequent.
"This might jar your memory. 1936."
"Of course," said the doctor. He was finished with his hands. The man faced her. "You're the swimmer. The one who won those medals at the Olympics."
"That was me. Though it all feels inconsequential. Compared to this."
"War does have a way of dwarfing everything around it." He offered his hand. "I'm Charles McNider."
"A pleasure, Doctor McNider."
The doctor gestured for her to sit with him at a nearby bench, out of the way of the flow of staff.
"I don't have much time, but you've piqued my curiosity. What brings you to Warsaw, Ms. Lawrence?"
"My father worked at the embassy. I've been his secretary, though that's not of much use these days."
"I didn't know anyone from the embassy was left."
"Most of the staff evacuated over a week ago. My father's work requires more time."
"Time appears to be the one component we're running out of. That and supplies."
Before Libby could ask him another question, the Polish nurse returned, frantically informing Doctor McNider of a new influx of patients. He took a deep breath and lunged upright, hastily calling over his shoulder, "Best of luck, Ms. Lawrence. I hope we meet on the other side of this mess."
Libby watched him round the corner, back into the operating theater, then went back to her own duties. The wobble of the building told her that a fresh round of artillery was making its presence felt.
Giovanni Zatara entered the crumbling apartment building with a sense of mounting trepidation. He was to meet a woman, one that enjoyed the same insight into the inner workings of reality that he possessed. One that had need of him as options became few and far between.
Zatara had never planned to be trapped in a war zone. His tour hadn't even involved Warsaw. Yet, the whims of fate were fickle and he took an impromptu invitation to visit the city from fans of his show. The European tour had been a success, even with the constant premonitions of war. It was too late to simmer with regret. He was here.
An old man on the stairs pointed Zatara in the right direction, puffing rings of smoke. This place was decrepit even before the city fell down around it. There was something old in its bones, the alchemy of living history and belief that provided fertile ground for the mystical to take root. Zatara would have been drawn here with or without his summons.
The woman was younger than he expected, only in her forties by his estimate. She sat crosslegged on the floor, surrounded by carved lines, marked in notches with a white powder. She hummed, from deep in her throat, her eyes shut. Upon his entry, she spoke in Polish.
"Kaeps dna eb dootsrednu," Zatara commanded.
"You do not have long, magician," the woman said, her words still in Polish, but comprehensible to him.
"The city will fall, it is true. There are relics within that must remain untouched. Those that besiege us would claim them, pervert their purpose."
"Why me?"
"The wards that protect them are ancient. But they require concentration to maintain. A focused effort by the practitioners that remain. Such as myself."
Zatara examined the full pattern of the carvings on the floor. The lines converged around her, then split off in a myriad of directions.
"We who know this city are in the midst of its defense. One component remains missing. A catalyst to fuel our wards. He who rightfully serves that role lies dead, slain by the violence wrought from above. You are here to replace him."
"What would you have me do?"
"In three days time, go to the place below the earth, where the sunlight never reaches and find the final circle. It lays beneath the castle. Speak your magic to the world and grant us the power to protect our city in its darkest hour."
It was absurd, but Zatara's life was absurd. There was only the task ahead. Such was the price for dabbling in powers beyond the grasp of ordinary men.
"Consider it done."
September 20, 1939
"It's almost time for us to leave," said Libby's father.
Libby looked up from her meal. This was their first time having dinner together in the past two days. He had worked late at the embassy, remaining overnight. Libby kept herself busy with her volunteer work at the hospital. She came back to their apartment exhausted each day.
"That's good to hear. How are we getting out?"
The surface of Libby's soup rippled slightly, a measure of how much death was falling on the city at any given moment. She broke the tension with her spoon, stirring it as she listened.
"There is a plan in place. I'll share more when the time comes."
"Oh. Alright, then."
Her father seemed content to eat in silence.
"I never got the chance to tell you. There's an American doctor at the hospital."
"Here? Now?"
"His name is Charles McNider. He's a surgeon of sorts."
Her father creased his brow.
"Ah. Doctor McNider. I recall seeing that name on the lists of expatriates in Warsaw."
"Do you know why he's here?"
"To attend a medical symposium."
"I imagine that's cancelled."
"Correct."
"Well, the man is doing good work at the hospital. I've heard the nurses talk about him. They say he's saved dozens of lives."
"I'm sure."
He returned his focus to the soup. Her father had a way of deflecting conversation. He was not a believer in idle chatter. Libby knew this, but she wished he had more to say. Anything to say. Idle chatter was a way of ignoring the madness that reigned outside the apartment.
"Why didn't we leave with the others?" said Libby. Her father set his spoon down, wiping his face with the napkin.
"You know why. There remains work to be done."
"You've said that. But, what could be so important that we stay here for this long?"
"That's not information I'm at liberty to share."
"Even to me?"
"Even to you."
Libby leaned forward, her voice more forceful.
"I'm in as much danger as you. I think I deserve to understand what's worth risking our lives over."
"No. You don't. This is beyond the two of us."
From downstairs, there was a pounding at the door, which cut off their dispute. Her father gave her a disappointed look that told her there would be no follow-up conversation. He went to answer the door. She glowered at the table.
"Libby! Libby, come here!" he shouted. She bolted upright. There was another set of voices coming from the entryway.
At the foot of the stairs, Libby's father and Captain Prokop held a wounded man under each of his arms. Grunting with the exertion they dragged the man up the stairs, as he cried out in pain with each step. They set the man down on the dining room table, hastily cleared by Libby.
Captain Prokop applied pressure to the man's wounded side, while her father clutched his hand. The wounded man spewed forth a slurry of speech in Polish, as if he were trying to get out everything he had never said before he died. Libby thought she saw an object pass between him and her father.
"Libby. Get to the hospital. Get us a doctor. A surgeon. Anyone. If we move him he's sure to die.
Go! Now!" her father shouted.
Libby raced to the hospital. As luck would have it, she found Doctor McNider and informed him of the situation. The doctor grabbed his tools and went back to the apartment, commandeering a vehicle to make the trip faster.
She watched from the corner of the room as Doctor McNider performed his work on the dying man. Captain Prokop sat on the stairs smoking, a pale expression fixed to him. Her father sat in a chair across from the doctor, his hands under his chin, his gaze unyielding. The dying man slipped into unconsciousness, his face contorted into a grimace. His breathing became shallow, then imperceptible. At last, with a sigh, and a shake of his head. Doctor McNider ceased his task. He took the tablecloth, pulling it over the man's still body.
Her father thanked the doctor. Captain Prokop remained silent. He left to get a soldiers to move the body Libby accompanied him to his car.
"I must thank you, Doctor McNider. It was a noble thing to have tried."
"We cannot save everyone. But, we must make the effort all the same." The doctor looked tired.
As he climbed into the car, he glanced back at Libby.
"Make sure that you do not neglect your own safety, my dear."
"The same could be said for you, doctor."
"I have little fear for myself. I will be at the hospital to the end."
"I should be leaving here soon. At least, that's what my father says."
"Good, Ms Lawrence. The sooner the better."
The doctor drove off into the night, back to the halls of injury and illness. A pair of soldiers left the apartment, the covered body on a stretcher. Inside, Libby heard her father discussing a matter in Polish with the captain. The latter sounded desperate. Even her father was strained.
Captain Prokop stomped down the stairs, giving her a brusque nod. She found her father standing by the window, his back to her.
"I'm not getting an answer about this, am I?"
The lack of a response confirmed it. Libby left him to brood, as she went to bed. In that space between wakefulness and sleep, she thought about what the dying man had slipped her father. A cylinder, black with silver on each end.
To what end?
September 21, 1939
Near the middle of the night, as the only lights left in the city were the fires set by the bombings and the floodlights that hunted for planes, Zatara set out to complete his task. On the southern end of the palace grounds he found a sealed drainage pipe carved with the same symbols as the wise woman's flat.
"Trap eht htrae."
The stone glowed teal and slid apart, as Zatara entered into the underground. Zatara lit the lantern he brought for this part of the journey, one he had been careful to keep dark while walking the streets. No reason to give the bombers a target.
The tunnels smelled of roots and mud, with brackish water that seeped through the stones. It was damp inside. He followed the low glimmer of teal light that slunk along the sides of the tunnel, just ahead of him. The air almost echoed with the woman's voice.
His path ended in a large circular room, carved out of stone. Glyphs covered the floor, with successively smaller circular patterns honing in on the center. Zatara sensed ancient magic here, cultivated over hundreds of years, if not longer. It yearned to be activated, for the entire network of wards to ignite once again. He entered the smallest circle.
"Tel eht sdraw evil, tel eht sdaw evil, tel eht, sdraw evil," Zatara spoke.
The room hummed with power, as the glyphs sprung to life. He was no longer only standing in this chamber, below the broken palace of a besieged city. Zatara closed his eyes and he was a part of Warsaw. He was the well-trod streets. The buildings where people lived, worked, and died. The earth upon which the city sat. He saw its past, its present and the possibility of its future. Crisscrossed though out Warsaw, other wards lit up, their power invoked by this central chamber.
"A clever plan. Unfortunate that it will not come to fruition," spoke a voice from the tunnels. The atmosphere changed immediately. Zatara could see the glyphs waver.
The woman who entered was smiling, but she still sent a chill down his spine. She was tall, much taller than he, with a poise befitting a queen. Her hair was the purest blond he had ever seen, her eyes icy blue. She wore a crisp white top, with black leather pants and boots that extended all the way up her thighs. Around her arm was a swastika band. In her hands was a whip.
"You are entitled to one chance to surrender, though I must admit I prefer the alternative," said the woman. She had a thick German accent, though there was something strange about even that.
"It's too late. The wards have been activated," said Zatara. "And you shall find that Zatara the Magician is no pushover." He held his wand towards her.
"How precious," said the woman.
Her whip snapped out with blinding speed. The tip struck the boundary of the wards, sending vibrations through the barrier. Zatara could see gaps forming in it.
"Riaper eht sdraw," he commanded. The gaps sealed.
His opponent responded with another salvo of flicks from the whip, each one faster than the last. The gaps returned, more than Zatara could keep up with.
"Please carry on," she said, advancing. "I am curious to see what your plan is."
Maintaining the wards was useless with her around. He would have to incapacitate the woman first.
"Ezeerf!"
Ice climbed her legs, swallowing her body. She was encased in a frozen prison, the confident smirk still splayed out on her face.
A finger flexed within the icy container.
Zatara was forced to shield his face with his forearm as shards of ice flew across the chamber. Cold mist descended to the floor as his adversary chuckled at his plight.
"There must be more than that."
The whip caught his leg. Zatara felt the ground leave him as he was thrown across the room, coming down painfully on the carved stone. His wand clattered out of his grasp.
"It appears you should have stuck to the stage, darling. You're simply not cut out for the real thing."
The woman was now in the center of the glyphs, already struggling to remain. He could see the wards straining in the air, their energy shifting without direction. She raised her hand to the air and spoke out her own words of power. With a dramatic flourish, the woman brought her palm to the ground. A churning black cloud blossomed from it. The wards exploded upon contact with this miasma. He could feel the entire network unfurl.
Her blue eyes locked onto Zatara's, her face wicked with delight.
"When you speak of this defeat, tell them it was Baroness Paula von Gunther who broke you."
The black cloud raced towards him.
"Yawa morf ereh," he yelled.
Gone was the subterranean chamber, the Baroness and the hungry cloud. Zatara lay on his hands and knees in a stream. He was outside of the city. Zatara could feel the wards fall, the barriers collapsing beneath the weight of the evil that confronted them.
He had failed.
September 23, 1939
Libby awoke to the sound of the world collapsing. The windows did not merely rattle, they exploded inwards, fragments of glass showering the room. Instinctively, she rolled out of bed, as she protected her face. The ground rocked with impact after impact. Mixed in with the clamor of the explosions was the drone of planes, impossibly dense in the air. It was as if the entire German air force was above her. Keeping low, Libby crawled out of her room, ignoring the cuts she received from the bits of glass and debris. She snatched a coat and a pair of shoes on the way out.
Her apartment wouldn't remain safe. Nowhere was safe, not from this kind of bombardment, the sheer weight of annihilation leveled at the city. To find shelter below ground was the only sensible choice. But, Libby could not ignore the idea of her father being struck down by the bombs. She made way towards the embassy.
The geography of the city was alien once more, familiar vistas demolished by the bombs. She was forced to take a longer route, as one of the bridges over the Vistula River had collapsed. The bombers trawled overhead, casting a net of death wherever they flew. The chatter of flak guns responded to the aerial aggressors, a paltry response to the armada that besieged them. The air was thick with dust and debris.
People came through the haze like phantoms. Libby saw families trying to dig lost members out of collapsed buildings, tearing away at rubble with tools or their bare hands, crying out frantically for help. A girl no older than eight carried the limp body of what must have been her twin, her eyes soaked with tears. She narrowly avoided being trampled by a panicked carriage driver, cursing in Polish. The man maneuvered his ride scarcely fifty feet away when a bomb struck the carriage. The man and his horse were gone, only raining shards of debris left to signify he had been there at all.
She ignored the pounding in her ears and the tightness of her chest, forcing one step after another. Miraculously, the embassy was intact when she arrived. Her father was on the second floor, standing over his desk with deep in concentration. Libby noticed a fire burning in a waste bin, into which he threw stacks of papers.
"Father. Father, we have to go!" she shouted.
He looked at her wild eyed and for the first time, Libby could see that he was scrambling for a plan.
"Libby! I feared you wouldn't make it." He looked out the window, towards the clamor of the bombers. "They're driving the sword to the hilt. No mercy it appears."
"We need to leave now," she said again.
"Soon, soon. There's one more thing to take care of."
He scooped up the last stack of papers and cast them into the fire. Her father opened a cabinet underneath his desk, where a safe lay. Upon opening it, he produced the same cylinder she saw the dying man pass off to him a few days earlier. He set the cylinder down, before ripping a may of the city off of a nearby wall, laying it out on his desk.
"What are you doing?" she said.
"You see this street? It's only a short walk from here, even now. And the side path it connects to?" he said, gesturing to the map.
"We don't have time for this," Libby said. Down the street, a bomb landed, its report thundering through the area.
"Listen. We only have time for this.
You're going down this path, till it reaches the trees." He tapped his finger on a patch that marked vegetation. "There's an old hiking path. You'll follow it till you're out of Warsaw. There will be a clearing at its end."
"What?"
"Libby. Pay attention. You have to memorize this route."
"No, no. We're leaving together. Now."
"No Libby. You're leaving."
His voice bordered on gentle, his face solemn.
"We have to go together…"
He raised the cylinder.
"This is the answer to all your questions. The reason we stayed. The reason I still have to stay.
There's information on this that has to reach America. I had a plan, an operative to take it. We were going to leave. That plan doesn't work anymore."
Libby continued to mutter "No, no," under her breath.
"You're the only option I have now."
"Why not together? I can't do it without you."
"They're coming for this. They know I have it. If we go together, we both die. And there are things I have to wrap up here."
"I can't.."
"Libby. Libby," he said, his voice strained. "Look around you. This is not an isolated event. You know as well as I do that this war doesn't end here. It's going to grow. And if what's in this cylinder goes unchecked, then we don't stand a chance."
Libby opened her mouth, but the fight was gone. She had seen a great deal out of her father, but never that pleading look in his eyes, not even when mom died. He was truly scared.
"You have to take this. Follow the route. Captain Prokop will be waiting to show you what the next leg of the journey is.
Don't open the container. It's sealed and waterproof so it can take some wear and tear. Only deliver it to an American military official on U.S. soil. Be wary of everyone."
Libby took the smooth cylinder in her hands. It was too light for the magnitude of weight it clearly pressed upon her father.
"And…and take this." He slipped a small, white pill into her palm and closed her fingers around it. "A last resort."
"I still don't think I can make it."
"Libby. I trust you. You're the only person I trust to see this through."
The tears snuck up on her. Her body shook lightly as her father pulled her into a powerful embrace.
"I love you," she said.
"And I love you."
He wiped the tears from her cheeks.
"My champion."
The woods had not been spared the onslaught, devoid as they were of any viable targets. Libby guessed that the debris cloud made it difficult for the planes to target any one part of the city with precision. Explosions occurred just close enough that there was no relaxing. There were no birds singing, only the cry of the wind as it threaded through the leaves.
The trail was not well maintained, swallowed as it was by the underbrush. The low-hanging cloud of dust kicked up by the bombing further complicated her task. It took all Libby's concentration to follow it deeper into the cover of the forest. The backpack was uncomfortable, packed with supplies, a map and the few tools her father could find in their final minutes together. She strained to avoid looking back at the city. She knew that if she did, the impulse to run back for her father would overpower her. The bombs rapport made her flinch, but she kept her eyes fixed ahead.
She trudged along the path for nearly an hour, as it traced its way through the forest, further and further from the streets of Warsaw. Eventually, the trees thinned as she found the clearing. Libby remained within the treeline, surveying the area before her. Captain Prokop was nowhere to be seen. Libby waited long enough that panic became a real option. Without the captain, there was no telling what was the next phase of her escape. Consulting the map did little to alleviate her concern. She was headed in the vague direction of safety, at least from the siege. Dusk encroached, which would mean both cover and confusion.
The snap of a twig sent Libby onto the ground. She pressed her body to a nearby stump. Voices carried from only a few dozen feet away. German voices.
She made herself small against her cover. The rustling of the underbrush told her that the men were getting closer. Libby took a risky look from her hiding spot. A trio of men in drab, green uniforms walked lazily through the forest. They held guns casually, chatting amongst themselves. Their trajectory placed them closer and closer to Libby.
Libby stayed rooted in place, her mouth covered by her shaking hands. Her heart rocked so loud in her chest, she was sure they would find her by its sound alone. The soldiers drifted by her stump, leaving her unnoticed in the brush. She waited a few moments, before releasing her mouth and taking a breath.
Her relief was short-lived as one of the men turned around and walked back in her direction. The lone soldier came right next to her stump. He stopped at a tree, where he relieved himself, whistling a tune. She painstakingly skirted around her cover, to put more of the stump between her and the man.
The man zipped up. His whistling stopped, interrupted by a murmur of curiosity. Libby listened as his steps drew near. Her hand searched along the ground, finding the rough surface of a rock. She could tell he was almost above her.
The soldier kneeled down by the stump, then called out to his comrades. No time for hesitation. Libby smashed the rock into the man's face. He fell onto his back, blood streaming from his nose. His companions were running from the clamor of their approach. Libby shot up into a sprint, exiting the treeline, the far side of the clearing her goal.
A gunshot brought her to a halt. A man shouted at her in German from behind. Another gunshot struck near her. Poor aim? Or warning shots? She couldn't avoid being hit in the open. Surrender was her only choice. She raised her hands high.
The man continued to shout at her as he approached.
"I don't speak German," she said. Even if they didn't know English, they might recognize the language and understand why she had trouble following their orders.
Libby stifled a cry as the barrel of his gun met her back. It remained there as the other two soldiers approached. They sounded like they were debating. The man with the broken nose and the other soldier entered her field of view. The former gave her an ugly look.
"I'm sorry I hit you," she said.
The one behind her shouted at her, the message clear. She shut up. The three of them spoke rapidly, the man with the smashed nose arguing most passionately. Libby decided they were considering what to do with her. At least no one was looking for her specifically, not yet. But, they would know soon if she was captured. The grim thought of the cyanide capsule entered her mind.
The injured soldier got close to Libby. He slapped her on the cheek, so hard that she fell to the ground. The taste of iron flooded her mouth. The man behind her shouted in surprise. Her aggressor drew a pistol.
Libby remained down. She could tell the flow of the debate was not in her favor. Whatever hesitation the other two soldiers had against an impromptu execution was losing to the anger of the one she struck. The man with the broken nose shoved past his companion, as the barrel of the pistol leveled against her face. There was no way out.
Something landed next to the other two soldiers. A hiss, like air escaping a tire. A plume of darkness swallowed them all. It was so black it seemed to cling to Libby like a shroud. She flattened on the ground, as a sequence of gunshots erupted. The men yelled in bewilderment, then fear, as she heard the sounds of struggle. A few yelps of pain, another gunshot and a loud crack later and silence resumed.
"I'm going to help you up. Don't be afraid," said a voice through the darkness.
A gloved hand grabbed her arm, bringing Libby to her feet. Her shrouded savior guided her out of the murk. She exited into the dimming light of twilight, even that far more clear than the cloud of shadow behind her.
In the open air, Libby saw her benefactor. A man in a red and black costume, with a green cloak and a yellow crescent moon on the forehead of his cowl. Thick goggles gave her a name.
"Doctor McNider?"
"Heh. Perceptive as ever, Ms. Lawrence."
"How did you find me? What are you wearing?"
"Answers can come later. That isn't the only patrol in this area. Those gunshots will call attention."
The doctor got near the edge of the clearing. He looked back at Libby, her nervous face reflected in his goggles.
"We must be on our way."
Sense had left the world. It had left it when the bombs began to fall, when Libby knew that there was no simple solution to the problems that beset her, problems that encompassed everyone around her. This was the threshold, the moment where if she pressed on, her life would never go back to normalcy. A glance back at the fires that rose from Warsaw's skyline told her there was no normalcy left.
Libby entered the woods, following the masked doctor into the dying light.
The major had been thorough with covering his trail. The ashes in his waste bin contained countless secrets. The two safes were empty, as was the hidden one, concealed behind a painting. The radio equipment was destroyed, smashed to bits by a fall from the third story of the embassy.
The major would tell no secrets either, seeing as he was dead on the rug, his head twisted the wrong direction.
His killer loomed over the desk, looking over the few papers and personal items that had escaped destruction.
The major had not begged for mercy as so many do. He had not tried to bargain for his life. His killer could have captured him, interrogated him to wring out all that he could, but the glint of steel in the major's eyes had demanded a small token of respect. When the major told his killer that he would not give up any information, the killer had decided to honor that declaration.
Still, the information that the killer needed was too vital to let slip. If it was still in Warsaw, it would be in German hands soon. Its leaders were soft enough that the prospect of the people being massacred would motivate them to surrender. The killer had seen such weaknesses play out countless times.
There was the possibility that the information had been smuggled out already. In the care of an operative of the major. The thief who brought it to the city was dead, that had been confirmed. No American agents were in the area at this point, having evacuated or been killed by the killer's associates. The major was not a trusting man. He would not have handed it off to just anyone.
Firm hands settled on a picture frame. Saved by sentimentality or being a low priority to dispose of. Within the frame, sat a photo of the major, smiling, his arm around the shoulder of a young woman with light hair. The killer removed the photograph. The backside told him more.
"Libby Lawrence."
A daughter. A quick search through the remaining papers confirmed his suspicion. Her signature was on several forms, in a clerical capacity. The major had her working for him. She was still working for him.
The killer smiled. Libby may be out of Warsaw, but there was a long way between her and safety. The plans would not reach their enemies' hands, no matter how much time it took to find her.
Time was one thing Vandal Savage had plenty of.