Unhinge the Universe Read online

  Morris’s head tilted slightly. “Do you even know where here is, Captain?”

  “I . . .”

  “Aren’t you even a little curious?” Suspicion laced Morris’s tone. “About where you are?”

  John moistened his lips. “Of course I am. Where am—”

  “You’ve come around a few times,” he said. “Since you arrived. You were touch-and-go there for a while.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Morris shook his head. “No, I don’t imagine you do.”

  “And how long is ‘a while,’ anyway?” John turned his head toward a window on the far wall. Daylight. Hadn’t it been daylight when he . . .

  The Jeep. He remembered the Jeep lodged in a snowbank. And then he remembered tumbling, crashing, breaking. Gunshots and German.

  “Captain?”

  John cleared his throat and turned back to Morris. “How long have I been here? Wherever here is?”

  “Almost twenty-four hours.” He unfolded and refolded his hands. “And you’re safe. This is an American installation.”

  John blinked. “How the hell did I get here?”

  “Well, that’s where things get interesting, son.” Morris reached up and scratched his neck above his starched collar, his insignia catching the light. “It’s not very often a Nazi drives straight up to men who are itching to kill him, and tells them to treat a wounded GI.”

  John’s lungs shrank. So Hagen was alive. Or had been alive long enough to get him here. “The . . . my prisoner. He brought me here?”

  “He did.” Morris eyed him. “Unshackled, heavily armed, and virtually uninjured except for a few scrapes and bruises, and he drags your unconscious carcass right into a line of sentries.”

  John wanted to gulp, if only to force back the nausea trying to climb up his throat, but he didn’t. His mouth went dry.

  “He’s SS, sir. They’re goddamned murderers, every last one of them, and should be shot like the dogs they are.”

  Oh, God . . .

  “It’s all the men can talk about,” Morris said. “An American Jeep with an American GI in the backseat on death’s doorstep”—he reached into his cover—“driven right up to the base by the last man any of them expected.” He withdrew his hand, and if John could have breathed at all, he might have made some incriminating sound.

  Between Morris’s fingers was an Iron Cross.

  It could have come from anywhere. There were thousands of these all over the war zones, and plenty of corpses and prisoners alike who didn’t need them anymore. But John knew. Deep down, he just knew. This was the medal Hagen had tugged at with disgust this morning. Yesterday morning. The same one that’d had John’s semen on it in Hagen’s cell a lifetime ago, just before John had knelt and carefully wiped it clean.

  Morris released the medal, and it dropped back into his cover with a tiny sound that made John jump out of his skin. A reaction he might have been able to hide if it hadn’t sent pain ripping through his battered left side.

  “Fuck . . .” He pressed the back of his head into the pillow, arching his back and writhing.

  “Why go to all the trouble for this one?” Morris asked with a hard voice. “Considering what they’ve done?”

  “All I’d heard were rumors.” John took as deep a breath as his shoulder would allow, then let it out slowly.

  “I see.”

  The silence dragged on too long for John’s comfort, so he filled it the best way he could think of: “What happened? I thought . . . I thought officers were considered valuable intel assets, SS or not.”

  “They were.” Two words, coated in enough disgust that John regretted asking, but the man went on anyway. “Until the SS killed ninety unarmed Americans in Malmedy last week.”

  So it was true. Or at least the rumor had spread far and wide and wasn’t disputed even by the higher-ups, and with it, the desire to see every SS executed for the crime.

  “Ninety unarmed American prisoners, Captain. Unarmed, fully surrendered, and slaughtered in cold blood.”

  “My God.”

  “In response,” Morris continued, “the order was issued to shoot all SS on sight. No questions asked.”

  John rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, exhaling hard and hoping to God Morris thought he was still reeling from the news of the massacre. He was, of course—the brutality of war never ceased to horrify him—but it was the second part and the callous, casual delivery of it that twisted his guts and stung his eyes.

  Shoot all SS on sight. No questions asked.

  “I understand only the 328th Regiment was given that order,” John said.

  “Officially.” Morris shrugged. “But after what happened in Malmedy, I see no reason to keep SS around because of . . . formalities.”

  John forced back some nausea.

  “Why the concern with your prisoner?” Morris shrugged again, this time with one shoulder. “One less Nazi on the battlefield is hardly worth mourning.”

  “Mourning?” John dropped his hand into his lap and gave a single bark of laughter to mask the “fuck you, you son of a bitch” that wanted to come out. “No. But he did cooperate, and provided me with information. Valuable information.”

  “About?”

  John waved a hand. “It doesn’t matter now, does it? The point is, I gave my word I’d see him safely to a POW camp in exchange for his cooperation.” He gestured at his leg. “And I think bringing me here, at his own risk, warranted at least some amnesty, don’t you?”

  Morris idly ran a fingertip back and forth along his lower lip. “You’re talking about a Nazi, Captain. A goddamned SS dog, for that matter.” He lowered his hand and shook his head. “We’re here to obey orders. If Nazis deserve any amnesty, that’s for the Devil to decide.”

  A week ago, I didn’t think I’d fuck a damn Nazi and now—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—

  Go to hell.

  John shuddered, which, appropriately enough, hurt like hell.

  “What happened to you, Captain?” Morris asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do I mean?” He threw his head back and laughed. “Nicholls, look at yourself.” He waved a hand over John’s fucked-up body.

  “Sorry, sorry.” John rubbed his forehead. “I think . . . they might have . . .”

  “Must be the drugs.” Morris grunted as he pushed himself to his feet, keeping the cover containing Hagen’s Iron Cross close to his chest. “I’ll come back. Get some rest.”

  “Yes, sir,” John murmured.

  He listened until the colonel’s boot steps had faded into silence.

  Get some rest. Right. Suddenly he understood why Hagen had been so concerned with Siegfried’s body. Let me see my brother. Last wish. I don’t care what you do to me after that. You can shoot me after that.

  But how the hell was he supposed to ask to see the body of an enemy, one every Allied troop in Europe seemed ready to shoot on sight, without raising suspicion? And even if he could find the words, did he really want to see Hagen now? See how many bullets it had taken to bring him down?

  An image flickered through his mind of Morris ripping the Iron Cross off Hagen’s uniform. Wiping it like John once had, except this time to clear away smears of blood. Hagen’s blood.

  Get some rest.

  Rest in peace.

  John dozed. Not quite deep enough to dream—he refused to let himself slip that far because he was afraid of what he’d find—but enough to disorient him. When Morris again pulled up the chair beside his bed, the light outside the window had changed. Darker? Brighter? Fuck, he didn’t know.

  “What time is it?” His mouth was dry. Parched. “Can I . . . water?”

  “I’ll bring you some water,” a woman’s voice said, and soft footsteps hurried away.

  Something clinked quietly. A pocket watch closing? Maybe. “It’s quarter past six, Captain.”

  0600? Or 1800? Is he fucking with me?

  John looked at the window again. Def
initely dimmer out now than it was last time he was fully awake. “Quarter past which six?”

  Morris laughed. “In the evening, son.” His humor evaporated quickly. He rested his elbows on his knees and looked straight at John. “Did you rest, Captain?”

  “I think so.”

  Soft footsteps turned John’s head, and the nurse appeared with a tin cup. He thanked her and sipped it cautiously. It was cold enough to make his teeth ache. He swallowed half the contents of the cup. The rest was tempting, but he didn’t want to waste it. For a moment, he looked into the cup, swirling it like he might a fine wine, and finally decided he could spare just one more sip, and brought it up to his mouth.

  “Hagen Friedrich.”

  John choked on the water. Coughing hurt like hell, sending lightning bolts of pain through his entire fucked-up side. He set the cup aside so he wouldn’t knock it over, and wiped his eyes before he glared at Morris. “What?”

  A knowing grin spread across the man’s lips. “That name rings a bell, yes?”

  “Of course it does.” John cleared his throat a few more times. “He was the man who brought me here.”

  “Your prisoner.”

  “Yes. We’ve been through this.”

  “We have.” Morris sat back and crossed his legs. His cover was again on his lap, and John eyed it warily, wondering if it held Hagen’s medal. If that would suddenly come out to screw with his pain-addled mind.

  And Morris was watching him.

  John licked his lips. “Why the interest in him?”

  “You tell me.”

  Silence.

  John reached for the water cup again. He traced the rim with his fingertip just for something to do. “I’m not following, sir.”

  “You were barely conscious when you arrived yesterday, Captain.” Morris thumbed the edge of his cover. “Thought a few times we might lose you.”

  “Guess it wasn’t my day to die.” John barely kept himself from flinching at his own words.

  “You married, Captain?”

  John eyed the colonel. “Sir?”

  “Are you married, Captain Nicholls?”

  John shook his head.

  “I am.” Morris gestured at the weathered band on his left hand. “Going on fourteen years now.”

  Puzzled and at a loss for words, John muttered, “Congratulations, sir.”

  “When my wife and I got married,” Morris said, leaning back like he was about to launch into a lengthy tale, “we weren’t even back from our honeymoon before she’d decided what she hated most about me.” His laugh was soft, his eyes distant and nostalgic but still somehow sharp and cunning. “Funny thing is, every letter I get from her now, she says she misses it.”

  John swallowed. Playing mind games with people was his expertise, his endgame advantage over every man who’d ever been bound on a chair in front of him, assuming Death didn’t beat him to the punch. But playing wasn’t the same as being played. All he knew was that a game was underway, but not the rules and certainly not the objective.

  All he could do was take the bait laid before him: “What is it, sir? That your wife hates about you?”

  Morris slowly drew the tip of his tongue along his lower lip. Amazing how that gesture could be arousing or menacing depending on the eyes that accompanied it.

  “She insists,” he said, “that I talk in my sleep.”

  The blood in John’s veins felt colder than the water in his cup. “Do you?”

  Morris shrugged. “Hard to say. But I can’t imagine how else she found out I was planning to surprise her with a trip to Niagara Falls or that I’d broken her mother’s china serving platter.”

  Colder. Even fucking colder.

  Morris leaned forward again. “Has anyone ever told you that you talk in your sleep, Captain?”

  Oh . . . fuck.

  “No, sir.” John’s mouth was suddenly dry again. “No, sir, they haven’t.”

  “Well, you do.” Morris inclined his head. “And I’m assuming you weren’t calling out to your dog back home in Indiana. I mean, unless you do have a dog named Hagen.”

  “I don’t, sir,” John whispered.

  “Then I’m going to ask you again.” Morris knew just how to use his body language to unsettle someone, and he inched his chair closer, taking away as much of John’s breathing room as he could without touching him. “Why the concern with your prisoner?”

  It took John too long to answer. He knew damn well every second of silence was more incriminating than the last, and used the need for a drink to acquit himself for at least a few of them. He rolled the water around on his tongue, swallowed it, and finally said, “He saved my life. Felt like . . . like I owed him one.”

  “I see.” Morris played with the edge of his cover again. “Any other reason?”

  “I told you.” John looked him in the eyes. “I gave him my word he’d be safely transferred to a POW camp for his cooperation.” He paused, narrowing his eyes. “Sir.”

  Morris considered him for a long, long moment. Silent. Thoughtful. Suspicious. John didn’t dare break eye contact, but he was sure Morris’s glare was seconds away from shattering bones. Or at least drawing whatever truth John hadn’t already revealed while he was asleep.

  He was guilty. Morris knew it, he knew it, and the longer he played games, the worse it would get. Might as well lay out the confession, admit what he’d done, and accept the consequences. The sooner he cooperated, the sooner he might be able to bargain for a concession or two.

  Let me see my lover. Last wish. I don’t care what you do to me after that. You can shoot me after that.

  “Well.” Abruptly, Morris sat up. Then he rose and offered John’s good arm a fraternal—paternal?—squeeze. “Rest up, Captain. If you’re up and moving in time, you can have a chat with him before he’s shipped to the camp.”

  All the breath left John’s lungs. “Sir?”

  Morris scowled. “Didn’t seem right, shooting a man who’d brought one of our own back to us in”—he paused, eyeing John’s leg—“more or less one piece.”

  Somehow, John found some air. “How long? Before he’s transferred?”

  “He’ll be on the way to a ship tomorrow.” Morris turned to go, adding over his shoulder, “Get some rest, Captain.”

  The colonel left. John closed his eyes and pressed the back of his head deeper into his pillow. Hagen was alive. He could breathe again. Breathing hurt. Everything hurt. In fact, for the first time since he’d regained consciousness, John was aware of every inch of damaged flesh. He thought he even felt the cracks and breaks beneath the heavy dressings and splints. Nerves that had glowed unobtrusively in the background flared fully to life, like a quiet radio turned up to full volume, drawing his attention to everything from his damaged leg and sewn-up shoulder to some cuts and scrapes on the back of his hand. Stinging, burning, aching, stabbing; it was all there. Now that he didn’t have that heavy veil of cool, numb grief separating him from his own body, from everything, it all hurt like hell.

  John closed his eyes and rode the red-hot waves of pain without complaint.

  When Morris returned the next time, he brought more chains. And two guards. He dropped the chains on the table and stood straight, yet calm, in Hagen’s cell. Hagen looked up. He had an odd impulse to be at attention, but they’d made it amply clear he was no longer considered a combatant. While he’d retained his uniform, the Iron Cross was gone. Pulling it off had actually hurt, but he’d figured it was the last thing a German soldier would do. A way to debase himself even further.

  It had worked. They’d been too stunned to do much more than gather him up, put him in chains, and lock him away. And a case could be made that giving himself up was like desertion; not dying as ordered surely was cowardice, selfishness—and in direct violation of the core virtues of the Waffen-SS. If it was desertion, he’d have lost the right to the Iron Cross anyway.

  Every now and then, people came to gawk at him through the bars in the door, and they whi
spered it’s him, and that weird Nazi bastard, and the one who’d handed himself over. He was just lucky they were so surprised that they clearly didn’t know what to do with him, so instead they stared at him like at a calf born with two heads. No doubt this was so odd to them that he was making it into the letters sent to sweethearts and family.

  “Ready for a little walk, Friedrich?”

  Hagen stood and glanced at the chains. This was a new game, different, but he didn’t point out that he’d rather not walk, cuffed hand and foot, in front of the whole camp. And two guards? Both were large men, and everybody was armed.

  “I assume so.”

  Morris nodded to the guard, who put the chains on Hagen. Hagen forced himself not to look and to ignore the humiliation of it. He might be a junior officer, but he was an officer regardless, and if he never heard the clink of chains again in his life, it would be too soon.

  “Let’s go.”

  They marched him outside, and Hagen disliked how people stopped and stared at him; one soldier tossed his cigarette in a dismissive motion that could just as well have been spitting. Hagen kept his gaze down and didn’t look at anybody, trying to steel himself for another round of interrogations.

  He’d told them everything—everything but what had happened between him and John. He’d mentioned the attack, the first interrogation, even his brother (though it had hurt like a blade to the heart), said he’d told them everything he knew—which was very little—and that John had been taking him to the nearest POW transport. The confrontation in the château, the ambush on the mountainside, and at first Hagen felt they didn’t believe him, but they’d never put a hand on him, didn’t so much as threaten him, just calmly asked the same questions a few times and then stopped, so he assumed they’d found the bodies and maybe talked to the butler back at the château.

  But his heart jumped when he realized they were bringing him to the infirmary. Surely not . . .?

  Morris watched him carefully, and Hagen schooled his features into an impassive mask while his pulse raced in his throat.

  “Captain Nicholls requested to see you, Friedrich,” Morris said. “Any idea why?”