Drakas! Read online

Late September 1944

  St. Peter Port, Guernsey Island

  Channel Islands

  It was soon after that Verwoerd found himself face down on the flagstone of Castle Cornet's courtyard.

  He was surrounded by gremlins, all right. Gremlins wearing the dark green uniforms of Security and the cobra badges of the Intervention Squads.

  Somehow, being surrounded by gremlins didn't seem to give him courage.

  But then, he wasn't safe in the Swiss Alps sitting at a desk writing aphorisms.

  "Hello, Hans, ol' buddy."

  Brekenridge leaned lazily on the front fender of Verwoerd's own staff autosteamer. He was paring his nails with an SS ceremonial dagger, undoubtedly a souvenir from one of his Alderney playthings.

  He clucked as he looked over the squad he'd sent to fetch Verwoerd. "That's shore a purty shiner you got yourself there, Yancy," he said.

  She started to explain.

  Brekenridge cut her off with a snort. "Didn't I warn you sweetlin's ol' Hans was pretty spry for a man pushing sixty?" He stuck his ring finger in his mouth and daintily bit off a cuticle. "An' what else do I see? Couple lips busted open? Bloodied noses? My, my."

  He spat out the cuticle. "Let that be a lesson t'y'all—stick to yo' regimen, and when you git to be as old a crock as Hans, you'll be in just as good a' shape."

  The SS dagger went back in its sheath. He walked over and crouched down on his haunches to peer at Verwoerd. " 'Course, this mo'ning Hans looks a bit worse for wear. Right disappointed in you, Hans. Usually you's so impeccable. Shore waited long enough for you to roust yourself up outa yo' bed an' git shaved, showered, an' sissyfied 'fore we came knocking. Then you go an' almost fall in the mud."

  Brekenridge got back to his feet. "Pick him up 'fore he gits all dirty."

  Verwoerd was hauled roughly to a standing position. He shook himself free. He smoothed his hair back into place, then brushed at the front of his tailored Savile Row English-cut suit.

  The courtyard was empty save for Security troops.

  "What have you done with my men?"

  "Shush now, don't you fret none. Your cute lil' old sailors are lazin' about their barracks in their purty lil' sailor suits, havin' a fine ol' time. Not like they's much use anyhow. My boys worked up a harder sweat fighting the Eyeties."

  "Where's my staff?"

  "Playin' cards with yo' sailors, I 'spect."

  "Am I under arrest as well?"

  "Now who said anything 'bout arrest? My boys just helping an old man down some stairs so'n we two can have a visit." Verwoerd chucked his dropped hat. "We gonna take a ourselves a little drive, Hans."

  Verwoerd looked around at all the Tolgren machine pistols pointed his direction. "I suppose this is the part where I'm supposed to make a desperate leap like some Hollywood hero?"

  "I'd shore like it if'n you was to try, old man. Less fuss for me in the long run."

  Verwoerd calmly put his hat on. "Sorry if I disappoint you; I'm a little too old for Hollywood derring-do. Besides, I prefer the more cerebral approach." He nodded at one of the slogan banners. "After all, `victory is the best remedy.' " He got into the staff car.

  Brekenridge unsnapped his pistol holster and walked around to the other side. "I 'spect I'm going to enjoy this. Yes, indeedy."

  * * *

  The leather dispatch pouch lay on the seat beside him. The typed orders with the Archon's signature lay neatly tucked back inside the pouch.

  "So. It isn't entirely a coup. The Navy remains in charge here—but only as long as I do things your way."

  Brekenridge ran his finger across the edge of his dagger and smiled. "That's 'bout the gist of it."

  Verwoerd leaned back in his seat. "It still looks like a coup to me."

  "Not at all. You're still baas around here—as long as you play the game. And the word's not `koo,' it's `koop,' " he said, giving the Draka pronunciation. "You know what yo' problem is, Hans? You dress like a limey," he flicked his dagger point at Verwoerd's suit, "you tahk like a limey—rawhthawh—" he mimicked Verwoerd's accent, "and some say you even think like a limey. Dangerous habits, Hans. Start dabblin' in dragons, better take care les'n you want to turn into one.

  "An' they be dragons here, yes indeedy." They passed a store with a faded picture of the British monarch taped in the display window. "St. Georges a'plenty, too. Question is, which'n are you?"

  The autosteamer slowly wound its way through the narrow streets of St. Peter Port.

  Little bits of England flashed past the windows—a Toby The Chemist shop, a Lloyd's Bank, even billboards for Guinness beer and Players tobacco. A glimpse of England that now would soon vanish.

  Out in the harbor, Verwoerd could see the hazy smudge of the French coastline scant miles away. He could see the fires from the looting still going on there. That was St. Peter Port's future now, too.

  The autosteamer hissed on. The city streets were deserted.

  Verwoerd was just about to ask Brekenridge what he'd done with the locals, when suddenly he knew.

  He saw rows of open lorries parked along Candie Park, packed full of people. Security troops were yelling for the dazed, frightened Channel Islanders to get out of the truck, herding them by gunpoint into the park where bunting and Union Jacks still hung. The pigeon-stained statue of Victor Hugo looked down at the tangled curls of concertina wire beneath its feet.

  Holding pens.

  Blood roared in his ears and he turned.

  "I wouldn't try it, Hans."

  The point of Brekenridge's dagger pressed against Verwoerd's Adam's apple. Verwoerd realized he'd been tensing himself to leap at the security man.

  The dagger point pressed harder. "G'wan—live dangerously, like yo' precious Neechee says."

  With an effort, Verwoerd relaxed and sank back into his seat. Brekenridge lowered the dagger. "Tsk. I thought we were goin' to use the more c'rebral approach."

  "The Archon said nothing about rounding up locals into serf pens."

  "But Skull House shore did." He pulled a slim leather wallet from his jacket pocket and wiggled it.

  "We wuz only grudgin'ly allowing yo' lil' pet experiment—providin' you started t'show the results you promised. An' providin' it don't endanger the state."

  Brekenridge leaned back. "The other day your pet limeys nudged up agin that line in the sand, if'n they didn't jump right over it with both feets. Time now to pay the piper."

  "The yoke?"

  Verwoerd's voice was barely audible. Courage did create its own gremlins: the courage to hope.

  Brekenridge shook his head sadly. "Not the yoke. 'Least, not yet."

  The car slowed in the middle of the block, then pulled over to the curb and parked outside the Gaumont Palace cinema.

  "Jus' the next best thing."

  * * *

  A circle of Security troops waited outside the Gaumont.

  They pulled Verwoerd out of the car. Brekenridge slid out behind him, hand resting lightly on his holstered pistol. His eyes, however, were on the Gaumont.

  The Gaumont was a tiny thing, not even as big as the lobby of the average London cinema, not even big enough to have a lighted marquee above its entrance.

  "Imagine this dinky ol' island having a palace like this. This is bigger than any showhouse in Alexandria."

  Letting serfs watch movies or even run the projector was dangerous. The might get ideas of the outside world. Most Draka theatres were really small private screening rooms in plantation homes—one of the many reasons Virconium studios lagged far behind Hollywood.

  Verwoerd looked at him and clucked his tongue. "See what you're missing? You need to travel more, Brekenridge. Broaden your horizons."

  "The only horizons I'm interested in broadenin' are the Domination's. An' when I visit a foreign country, it ain't foreign no more; it's conquered." He waved a hand at the cinema. "Serf nations squanderin' their resources on frippery like this, that just makes the job easier."

  "I wouldn't discount it too fas
t. That's the stuff dreams are made of. And serf dreams are dangerous things."

  Brekenridge snorted. "You'd know, wouldn't you? Dreams of rulin' the waves an' escapin' the neck collar—and boastin' about it in song! That's the reason all your limey friends got one foot on the auction block today: dreams like that. Well, we're just going have to give them some nightmares instead."

  He turned. "G'wan, paste it up there, Benning," he snapped.

  A security trooper smashed the glass door of the poster box with the butt of her Tolgren's collapsible stock. She ripped out the poster for The Dancing Cavalier and slapped up in its place a plain white sheet of paper with Initial Orientation Film printed in plain block letters.

  "Little training movie Security whipped up in Denmark," Brekenridge explained. "Seems to have worked wonders up there preventin' any uprisin'." He squinted at the stenciled movie title. "Hmm. Do believe the title lost sumthin' in the translation. In Danish it's Slaves' First Day." He chuckled.

  "I'm to round up every limey on this island and show them this lil' cinematic masterpiece. Some of 'em are hiding yet, like that girlfrien' of yours, but we'll find 'em, never fear."

  He plucked a bit of lint off his shirt. " 'Long as your limeys behave themselves, this is as close as they git to going under the yoke, an' you kin continue with what's left of Project Hedgehog. They misbehave, though," his white teeth flashed a shark's smile, "they's mine."

  "But that will kill whatever chance . . ." Verwoerd shook his head. "You can't be serious!"

  "Serious as a shockstick, `old bean'—an' it just keeps gittin' better. It's you who's gonna stand here taking their tickets personally, letting 'em know their preciously nice, humane, decent Hans Verwoerd is a part of all this. They'll remember you as the one forcin' this film upon their poor unsullied sensibilities."

  A security detail began unloading sandbags out the back of a lorry. They starting stacking them into the beginnings of a machine gun nest.

  "Jus' in case the natives git restless."

  "Vieslik—!" Verwoerd spat in his birth tongue. "I want no part of this."

  "Oh, but you's already a part of this, whether you like it or not, Hans: you's Draka and this is what bein' Draka means. We's Draka. They's serfs. Ain't nothin' in between. Yo' ain't gonna change that, don't care what the Archon said you could try here."

  A heavy machine gun, its tripod, and several boxes of ammo were placed behind the sandbags. Another lorry with a squad of Security troops arrived.

  Brekenridge's face almost softened into something human. "I'm just speedin' up the process, Hans. Kindlier in the long run, not givin' these po' souls any hope."

  Brekenridge's men began stringing barbed wire.

  "Pity's the greatest danger, Hans. That's what Neechee says, an' it's true. Dangerous for them. Dangerous for us."

  * * *

  "Reckon they don't like our trainin' film none." Brekenridge said. He was sitting with Verwoerd in the back of the theater, watching the audience more than he was watching the movie.

  The sour stench of vomit and urine fouled the air in the cramped theatre until Verwoerd choked on it.

  Security troops stood in the aisles and at the exits. Levelled weapons kept the locals in their seats.

  "But," Brekenridge went on, "I reckon they'd like it a whole lot less findin' themselves in it rather than just watchin' it," he said for effect, his voice carrying across the theatre.

  Stark images of black and white danced across the screen. The screams from the original Danish soundtrack and the sobbing and retching from the audience at times drowned out the dubbed English narration.

  The narrator was obviously a fresh-caught Danish serf. She stumbled through the script in clear, but highly accented English. She was also clearly frightened out of her wits. A terse Draka voice prodded her on when she faltered.

  At one point, the scene shifted to a expensively furnished stable. A group of people were dragged in by their collar chains. They were bruised and bloody, their clothing nothing but shreds.

  The narrator's voice started sobbing, then pled rapidly in Danish. The Draka voice barked once, twice. The Danish voice only grew more desperate. The audience heard the meaty sound of a slap. The narrator sobbed hysterically.

  A gunshot, then the thud of a heavy object hitting the ground. The clank of chains, and a new voice—male this time—identified the people on the screen: "L-ladies and gentlemen, the Danish Royal F-family."

  The camera zoomed in on the once proud faces, then panned to what awaited them in the stalls.

  "Enough," Verwoerd growled. He stormed out the back of the theatre into the lobby. Brekenridge sauntered behind him, smiling.

  "Bit squeamish are we?" he asked. "From the film? Or just from the aroma of eau de serf?"

  Brekenridge ran his fingers over the lobby's faded wallpaper. The wallpaper had started to peel from neglect in the four years of Nazi occupation. He poked his finger into a fresh bullet hole, one of several peppering the walls from the four hours of Draka Security occupation. Security called firing automatic weapons over prisoner's heads to get them to take their seats "gentle persuasion."

  "You might be able to walk away, Hans, but them poor souls in there can't." He dug deeper. The plaster crumbled until his whole fist punched through.

  "These past few weeks, you've been the carrot. T'day, I'm the stick." He pulled out his fist. "Never did put much stock in carrots. Seein's is, there ain't an animal in the world who remembers they're a vegetarian when they're pushed into a corner."

  They waited in the lobby until the movie ended. The guard started herding the audience out of the theatre, back through the lobby.

  The faces of some of the islanders were sullen, others terrified. A few were white with rage. Those were the faces Verwoerd could feel Brekenridge memorizing.

  A number of them had voided themselves, or had vomited on themselves, or both. That only made Brekenridge laugh.

  "Don't bother breakin' out the mops, sweetlin's," he called after them. "Havin' each of yo' groups muck in through the swill of previous ones adds a certain . . . ambiance to the film."

  As the last of them filed out, Brekenridge called one of his men over and told them to distribute handfuls of each group that had seen the film into the holding pens of those groups they wouldn't get to until tomorrow or the next day.

  "That should have the desired effect," he told Verwoerd.

  Yes, thought Verwoerd. It will indeed.

  * * *

  Brekenridge had made a mistake. Actually, he had made several, but this particular mistake could prove fatal. Verwoerd would see to that.

  Verwoerd was locked in his own office. The office had been stripped bare. Everything was gone—desk, chairs, books, files—everything down to the paperclips. Everything in the room had been taken, every possible hiding place searched.

  Except one.

  Verwoerd cradled the tiny pistol he'd retrieved from its hiding place. It was hardly larger than a cigarette lighter. It held but a single bullet.

  Sometimes, a single bullet was all you needed.

  He slipped the pistol up his sleeve.

  Verwoerd was curled up on the hard wooden floor asleep when he was awakened by the chatter of machine guns.

  Screams and the sounds of boots running across the flagstones below echoed in the once quiet night.

  Footsteps pounded up the staircase.

  Sally Perkins, her face blackened with burnt cork, dressed in a black sweater, slacks, and stocking cap, and carrying a Sten gun, burst into his room.

  "I was afraid you weren't coming," Verwoerd said calmly.

  She stared at him. "You knew—?"

  "That you were an SOE agent? Of course." His smile was thin. "Who do you think your `Agent Fox' was?" He gave the code phrase that confirmed it.

  Two more commandos entered into the room. One of them was Captain Norway.

  "Area's secured. They're starting to load up the islanders now."

  Verwoerd
cocked his eyebrow at Norway. "I was wondering how you were going to evacuate them."

  Norway snorted. "On the old R 100? You've gone potty, old man. Hardly room for sixteen thousand. Besides, the old girl crashed on the way back from here. She wasn't a very good ship after all." He looked down at his commando uniform. "That's why I had to look for another line of work."

  Sally tilted her head at the window. "The Americans loaned us some troop carrier subs from the Pacific. They're in the bay now." She pulled off her stocking cap and shook her hair. "You know, I really must get around to thanking Brekenridge. We couldn't have pulled it off without his unwitting help—stripping your men off the defenses, rounding up all the locals in one place."

  Verwoerd shrugged. "Security's first instinct is to shoot anything that moves. Anything that survives afterwards gets herded behind barbed wire."

  "We've got him downstairs. All trussed up like a Christmas goose."

  Verwoerd got to his feet. His muscles were stiff from the hard floor. "Would you mind taking me to him? I've my own thanks I'd like to deliver."

  * * *

  Verwoerd almost didn't recognize him. Brekenridge's face was crisscrossed with white surgical tape. The tape was holding in place a specially-designed gag. The device prevented any nasty episodes with cyanide pills, hollowed teeth, and other assorted Skull House toys.

  "Hmgghf! Ggmmphrnnf!" Brekenridge mumbled through the gag, thrashing on the floor in his straight jacket.

  Verwoerd squatted down beside him. "This seems to violate the Geneva convention, somehow. Get up off the floor. I'd like to have a little chat."

  Brekenridge was lifted up and set in the chair.

  "Much better," Verwoerd said. He stood inches in front of the chair. "I don't think he's enjoyin' our little trainin' restraints," he said in the same Draka drawl Brekenridge had used that day at the Gaumont. Verwoerd tapped his finger on the gag. "This is special equipment we got from all the way up in Denmark. We call it `Slave's First Gag.' " Before the British could stop him, he backhanded Brekenrdige in the face. The security man toppled to the floor.

  "Get him up!" Verwoerd's voice was hard, not to be disobeyed.

  They sat Brekenridge up. The man was crying, almost hysterical.