Behind Enemy Lines by Jennifer A. Nielsen
He scrubbed decks for nearly the entire day at sea, but was given a warm meal with the other crewmen that evening, shortly before the captain announced that the ship would soon be docking in Germany.
When the boat came into port, Dak ditched his mop and went down to ask if there were any boxes he could unload.
A crewman pointed to a small crate in the corner. "Those are goblets specially ordered in for Hitler," he said. "Carry them if you dare, but if you drop them, it'll be your head. Someone will be waiting for them on the dock."
Dak picked up the wood crate, which was heavier than it looked. Why couldn't people have discovered shipping in cardboard yet? That would've saved him a few pounds. But he kept it balanced in his arms as he walked across the gangplank and onto the docks.
"Are those the goblets?" The woman who asked was older, with stooped shoulders and graying hair. The wrinkles on her face were long and deep, but when she smiled, her eyes seemed warm and energetic.
"Yes." Dak felt relieved to hear his translator pick up the German language. It was the first time since he'd landed in 1943 that he'd needed to speak in a language other than his own.
"None of them had better be broken. They're for the Fuhrer, you know."
"You work for Hitler, then?" Dak asked.
"I do kitchen work at a bunker in Berlin. Nothing more." She held out her arms. "Well, hand them over."
"The box is heavier than it looks," Dak said. "I'm worried you might drop them."
"And if I let you carry them for me, what would you want in return?" the woman asked.
"Just a ride to Berlin," Dak said.
She smiled. "It's a long drive. I'd enjoy the company. But you'll have to do more than carry this box to my car. I'll also expect you to do all the unloading once we've arrived. If you work hard enough, maybe I can hire you. We need a good kitchen boy."
"It's a deal." Dak was quick to agree before this opportunity passed him by. He wouldn't be anywhere near a phone tonight to call Riq, but this was more important. For better or worse, he had just found his way into the heart of enemy territory.
SERA ARRIVED at her coordinates in Spain with a pulsing migraine and with her body feeling as if it had not quite come back together. She wiggled her fingers to make sure they were still there, and was rewarded with sensations of hot electrical currents traveling from them along her arms and into her chest. Forget the Cataclysm, she thought. Time travel would destroy them much sooner.
Remembering the ways she had managed these feelings before, Sera backed against the nearest wall and forced herself to breathe, to just draw in a full gulp of air, and release it again. Slowly, the pain faded, but she promised herself that she would not use the Infinity Ring again until she absolutely had to. She doubted her body could take much more.
It turned out she had unknowingly backed up against just the right wall. The morgue entrance was only a few yards to one side, and from the other direction and around the corner, she could hear two men arguing. She flattened herself against the plaster and listened. With any luck, nobody would notice her there.
"You must let me see that body!" a man said. Even without the translator, Sera knew he was speaking in Spanish, but his accent was German. She hadn't realized there would be any Nazis here, but it seemed like a safe bet now.
The person who answered had a Spanish accent. "Clauss, the man inside this morgue is a dead British officer. You are a German -- an enemy to that man. Why would I let you see him?"
Clauss lowered his voice and his tone became more desperate. "Doctor, you don't understand. I am quite well connected in Germany. There are people in my country who would do anything . . . anything . . . to get their hands on the dead officer's briefcase. I will pay you well if you only let me see what it contains!"
"I don't want your money, Clauss," the doctor replied. "Now you must excuse me. There are people inside who are waiting to begin." He rounded the corner with Clauss on his heels, then they both stopped when they saw Sera.
"Are you all right?" The doctor put the back of his hand against her forehead to check her temperature. Little did he know the reason for the sweat on her brow and flushed checks was worse than a simple flu.
Sera nodded calmly, but on the inside her pulse was racing. She had heard enough of their conversation to know that her real mission was more than just convincing Spain to accept Major Martin's fake cause of death. She had to convince Clauss, too.
"I couldn't help but overhear you just now. And I can help with the postmortem," she said.
"How?" The doctor's eyes narrowed. "A girl of your age has done a postmortem examination before?"
"Well . . . no." But Sera had read about them, and even sat in once on an autopsy performed at a local hospital, just for fun. But she hadn't gotten that close to the body and half the time her view was blocked by the doctors doing the procedure. "My name is Sera, and I'm very good with science. I can hand you tools, and record your observations. I know anatomy and chemistry, and I'm a quick learner."
The doctor nodded. "All right. I could use another set of hands, if you know when to stay out of our way. Come on in."
The doctor went inside, but Clauss grabbed Sera's arm and pulled her back. He was so thin he almost looked unhealthy, and had a high forehead and a face that looked as if it had been cut from stone. Not a single hair on his head moved in the light breeze. Either he used gallons of gel each day, or else his hair was cut from stone, too.
"Tell me everything you see in there," he said. "I'll pay you well for any information."
Sera shook him off. "How much?" Clauss wasn't likely to trust her as a spy. But he obviously trusted in the power of a good bribe.
He withdrew a thick wad of money from his pocket and flipped through it. "That depends on what you tell me."
Sera felt like running away, or yelling, or doing nearly anything other than helping this man. But she was a spy now, and this was her one chance to convince Clauss she was on his side. She whispered, "If you meet me after the examination, I'll tell you everything I see."
Clauss studied her a moment, then leaned in and pinched her cheeks. "I'll pay you for information I can use," he said. "But if I find out you are lying, or holding back a single detail, then you are the one who will pay."
Sera wormed from his grip, then backed away from his threats and into the morgue. There were others in the room besides the doctor. A man in a British uniform stood there looking bored -- did he know about Mincemeat Man, or was he just as confused as everyone else? Next to him was a man in a Spanish uniform who was holding a wet briefcase -- Martin's, no doubt. He asked if they could hurry up, because he had already missed lunch. The doctor was working with a young attendant, and Sera thought she saw a resemblance between them -- his son, perhaps? There was an American soldier, too, sitting in the corner and looking like he was about to be sick from the horrid smell in the room. None of them paid Sera much attention, except the doctor who handed her a clipboard and told her to write down everything he dictated.
And, of course, lying flat on a table was the guest of honor: Major Martin. Mincemeat Man, who was worse than dead. He looked like a full-on zombie, with sunken eyes, yellow skin, and knotted hands. Right then and there, Sera decided that she would grow up to be a physicist or a botanist or any scientist that didn't deal with dead bodies. Because this was just gross!
The attendant started by emptying Martin's pockets. Most of what he found was useless -- just soggy old receipts, some cash, stamps, and two ticket stubs from a theater. Sera wondered why anyone had bothered to put all that into his pockets -- none of it had anything to do with the fake plans.
But then she realized it wasn't about convincing the Germans that the plans were real. It was about making the Germans believe Major Martin was real. If they thought Martin was a real British officer, they'd automatically believe his plans. Major Martin wasn't supposed to be some unfortunate homeless person who'd been holed up in a freezer for the past three months. He was suppos
Next, the Spanish officer placed the briefcase on a table and unlocked it with an attached set of keys. Seawater dripped back onto the papers inside as it was opened, but that didn't matter -- they were already plenty wet. On top of everything were a handful of envelopes with red wax seals over them. They looked very official, like secret military plans. Sera pictured Clauss outside, drooling in his desperation to know what was in those envelopes.
After loosely sifting through the contents, the Spanish officer shut the briefcase and held it out to the British man. "You'll be wanting this back, no doubt."
Sera looked at the two of them, wondering what would happen next. Of course he should take the briefcase. It came from a British soldier and should be returned to one, especially if it contained top secret information. The British officer's eyes widened, as if he wasn't sure what to say. Only a bumbling fool would refuse to take his country's top secret information back, but if he did, Mincemeat Man was finished.
The British officer decided to play the role of bumbling fool. "Well, your superior might not like that," he finally said. "So perhaps you should deliver it to him, and then bring it back to me, following the official route."
The Spanish officer only shrugged, gathered up the items that had been in Martin's pockets, and left. The American followed. His face had gotten greener and greener with the smell, and once outside, he'd probably run for the nearest bush.
With that, the doctor requested tools to begin the autopsy. Sera pressed in closer and reminded herself again that she was here not only as a scientist, but also as a spy. And spies could not get sick, no matter how disgusting this was.
But when he cut into the body, her understanding of gross went to an entirely new level. The insides were rotted and watery. Sera knew how long this body had been frozen, and how far the body would decompose in that time. But she couldn't let the doctor think it had been more than a few days.
"So much decomposition?" he wondered aloud. "Strange."
"Maybe it's the seawater," Sera offered. If Martin had drowned at sea, the doctor would expect to find seawater in his lungs. And seawater was hard on a human body. "The seawater and the heat," she added.
"And the skin is quite discolored," he said.
"Probably the effects from lack of air underwater," Sera said. It wasn't that. The man had actually died from eating rat poison, which contained high levels of phosphorous. That's what had turned his skin yellow. But she hoped the doctor wouldn't think too long or hard about it.
To her, the signs that Martin hadn't died at sea were so obvious. But the doctor had no reason to suspect it was anything else, so she hoped he'd keep trying to find ways to explain Martin's condition that were consistent for a drowning.
Finally, the doctor wiped his brow with the back of his arm. "It's quite warm for an autopsy, don't you agree?"
"The smell is . . . a bit much," the British officer replied.
"To be thorough, I need more time."
The doctor wasn't stupid, and that worried Sera. With more time, he was bound to realize Martin had been dead long before he was dumped into the sea. And if he figured that out, word would get back to the Nazis no matter what Sera told Clauss. She spoke quickly. "Of course, this heat will continue to degrade the body, even worse than what's already happened since he was pulled ashore. Very soon, it will be hard to know anything for sure."
"True. You are a bright girl." The doctor pursed his lips, then ordered his assistant to help him move the body into a wood coffin behind them. "Let the death certificate state that this is a drowning victim, in the water for eight to ten days."
"Very good," the British officer said, probably too quickly. He must know about the plan, Sera thought, or at least, enough to know his role in this morgue today.
Before the lid went on, the doctor placed a hand on the coffin. "Still, there are questions that should be answered. A drowning victim is always, er, nibbled on by the fish. I see none of that here. Seawater should have made his hair brittle and stiff. But it is not. Even his clothes are in better condition than I would have expected for a man floating this long in the water."
As if sensing she was on his side, the British officer locked eyes with Sera. She looked up at the doctor. "These are good questions. I'm sure you'll want others to come and check your work. The Germans, perhaps."
The doctor frowned down at her. No, he didn't want the Germans checking his work any more than he wanted to be hung upside down and subjected to tickle torture. "It is death by drowning," the doctor said firmly. "That is my final conclusion. His body will be returned immediately to the British for burial."
Sera nodded and recorded his findings on her clipboard, but inside she was beaming. Operation Fix Mincemeat Man had just cleared its first hurdle.
THE FOLLOWING day, after Riq had finished his assigned work, he ate his lunch near a telegraph machine so he could watch the messages being sent from Britain to various government officials in Spain. He only saw a few of them, but he could tell how carefully worded the messages were. They had to sound eager to get the body back, but not too eager. And of course, they couldn't actually get the body back until Spain had control of the documents. Everyone who seemed to know about the plan was playing it cool, but he knew better. If this went badly, the Allies wouldn't recover during this war. Or ever recover, for that matter.
But that night at nine o'clock, he settled in near the pay phone, waiting for calls from Dak and Sera. Riq stared harder at the phone as if that would somehow make it ring. He hadn't heard from either of them their first night apart, but he hoped to hear something soon. Sera's part of the plan was crucial and he was going crazy wondering if she'd had any luck. Even worse was knowing that Dak was somewhere behind enemy lines.
Finally, the phone rang once and stopped. After a few seconds, it rang again. That was the signal. It was either Dak or Sera calling him.
Footsteps echoed on the quiet street behind him and Riq kept his head down. There were many officers in this area and he didn't need to get their attention now. All he wanted was to answer the phone.
"You there," a man said, addressing Riq. "Why are you out so late? Causing trouble?"
"No, sir," Riq answered.
"That's too bad," a woman's voice said. "Because we are."
Even before he turned around, Riq knew who had come. That was Tilda's voice, cold and harsh. She made porcupines seem cuddly. Riq's legs turned to mush, and he had to force himself to turn. Tilda stood between two sloppy and unshaven men who were roughly the size of small mountains. Aside from their British uniforms, they looked nothing like soldiers. Although he couldn't see weapons in their hands, he didn't doubt for a minute that they had them.
"Answer that phone," Tilda ordered. "It's for you, right?"
Riq had almost forgotten it was still ringing, and couldn't understand why the caller hadn't given up already. Maybe they were in trouble, or needed help. But as he stared into the black eyes of Tilda and her friends, Riq began to think nobody needed more help at the moment than him.
"Pick up the phone," Tilda repeated. "And if you say anything I don't like, you're going to regret it."
Riq picked up the phone and, instantly, Tilda was in the phone box at his side, her ear pressed to the outside of the receiver for whatever she could hear.
"Riq!" Dak's voice came through with a lot of static and sounded far away. "Riq, is that you?"
"Y-yes," Riq stammered.
"What took you so long to answer? Were you napping while Sera and I had the dangerous jobs?"
Riq gritted his teeth. Sometimes he really hated that kid. "I've got problems here, too, you know."
"Well, unless your problem is that wicked witch of the future, it's not worse than mine," Dak said, unknowingly earning Riq a jab in the ribs with Tilda's pointy elbow. "You won't believe where I am."
"I'm sure I won't," Riq s
Beside him, Tilda motioned that Riq should keep Dak talking. Maybe she didn't know that kid never needed any encouragement to run his mouth.
"Are you okay?" Dak asked. "You sound --"
"Tired," Riq finished. "And I bet you are, too, since you had to travel all the way to Switzerland today."
"What? No, I'm not in Switzerland. You know I went to --"
"Quietville." If Dak couldn't catch the subtle cues, Riq would try a more obvious one. "You're at the Keep Your Mouth Closed for Once Hotel."
"Hitler's headquarters in Berlin. They gave me a job -- oh!" Then Dak realized what Riq had just said. "Oh, uh, I mean --"
Finally, it seemed that Tilda had heard enough. She ducked out of the phone box and motioned at her thugs, who grabbed Riq's arms and ripped him away from the phone. One of them clamped a hand over his mouth while the other pulled his arms behind his back and held them there.
"Hello?" Dak's voice could be heard coming from the receiver, dangling by its cord. "Hel-lo!"
Tilda returned to the booth, picked up the phone, and glared at Riq for a moment before she spoke into the receiver. "You know my voice, don't you, Dak?" Her oily grin widened. "Good. Now, do you want your friend to die?"
It would be okay if I did, Riq thought, and he hoped Dak would refuse to bargain for his life. Riq knew he was running out of his own time line pretty fast -- and missing the last few slides through history wouldn't make that much of a difference.
But Dak must've answered no, because Tilda's smirk widened again and she said, "Then you will tell me where the Infinity Ring is."
Riq tried to yell out for Dak not to say anything, but the hand was still covering his mouth. He sat helplessly as Tilda listened to whatever Dak said.
"You have the time-travel device?" Tilda's tone was doubtful. "An object that could literally hand control of the entire world to Adolf Hitler, and you brought it with you to Germany?"
Whatever Dak said in answer, Tilda wasn't buying it. "I think you're lying," she said. "I think you're trying to protect your friends. Who has it, Riq or Sera?"