An officer approached but spared no pleasantries. “It’s about time you got here,” he said. “That’s your commander. Captain Walker Hancock.” He turned and walked into the encampment. Exchanging a brief glance, Dominic and Paul followed.
Even from a distance across the dreary camp, Dominic could see that Captain Hancock was as out of place as a mare among mules. Tall and lithe, his uniform draped elegantly over his lean frame. He looked like he should have been wearing a suit and swirling a glass of sherry instead. His piercing blue eyes were watchful as Dominic and Paul followed the officer over to him.
“Hancock’s not just a soldier,” the officer told them as they walked. “He’s some kind of famous sculptor, too.”
The educated, refined man seemed utterly incongruous here in this bitter and charred landscape, but with a shock, Dominic realized that he must have been commissioned as well.
The officer stopped and saluted; Dominic and Paul followed suit. “New men for the security detail, sir.”
Hancock turned and studied the men. Seeming to register the large white MP stamped on their helmets, he nodded. “Good,” he said. “We’ll need more of them as we move toward Aachen.” He drummed his fingers on the barrel of his weapon; Dominic could imagine them grasping a chisel. “Get them settled in.”
“Yes, sir.” The officer turned to lead the men away, but Dominic’s curiosity was getting the better of him.
“How will you go about finding these works of art, sir?” he blurted. He looked at the officer as he spoke, too nervous to meet Hancock’s eye, but the men all knew to whom the question was directed. Hancock merely quirked his other eyebrow and turned away.
The officer saved Dominic from his embarrassment. “A bunch of professionals in Europe and the US have been working on this thing ever since the war started,” he said. “Museum curators and such. They’ve been using their own research to make lists of these works and maps for where we might . . .”
The officer’s words were lost in a thunderous sound that electrified Dominic’s whole body. Bullets tore into the nearest tent, sending canvas flying in all directions. Shouts and gunfire filled the encampment and, in slow motion, Dominic saw Hancock turning, saw machine-gun fire tearing into the ground ever closer to him.
By sheer instinct, Dominic lunged forward and threw his short frame into Captain Hancock. He felt earth splatter on his boots from the spray of bullets, curled himself determinedly around the commander, and rolled behind the cover of the giant rubber tire of their two-and-a-half-ton. Bullets whined as they ricocheted off the hub. Dominic gripped his rifle, waited for a break in the thunder and returned fire, his gun kicking back against his shoulder. He emptied the magazine until he heard a scream and the gunfire abruptly ceased. A few long moments stretched, followed by the shuffle of boots, and then silence.
Panting, Dominic lowered his gun. As the smoke cleared, Dominic saw two German uniforms, bodies lying still at the edge of the encampment. Some Americans groaned among the tents, too, other men hurrying to their aid through the clearing smoke. Dominic was relieved to see Paul’s tall frame sprinting toward the injured soldiers.
Captain Hancock was sitting up, brushing dirt from his uniform. There was a smear of mud across his cheekbone. He studied Dominic, wide-eyed.
“Are you hurt, sir?” Dominic asked, reloading his rifle and stepping cautiously out from the cover of the tire. The encampment had the burnt, smoky smell of recently discharged guns, mixed with the salt tang of blood, a smell Dominic had come to know and hate. But both Americans who had been shot were stirring and swearing. Good news.
“No.” Hancock crawled out from behind the tire. Dominic extended a hand and pulled him to his feet. Hancock returned his grip and met his eyes, his face suddenly splitting into a dazzling smile. He squinted at the name on Dominic’s uniform.
“Bonelli, huh?” He pumped Dominic’s hand with a tight grip. “Welcome.”
14
Edith
Pełkinie, Poland
September 1939
THE HELMET ON EDITH’S HEAD HAD BEEN MADE FOR A man. It nearly covered her eyes, and the metal rattled against her skull along with the rumble of the Kübelwagen’s tires over the rocky terrain.
While she was compiling the facsimiles for the museum director and board, Edith had looked up Pełkinie in a dusty atlas pulled from the shelves of the museum library. She had never heard of it before, but she ran her finger across the map to a small village in far eastern Poland, near the Russian border. The Czartoryski family had had a country estate there for years, she had read. And now, Edith was pressed into the rear seat of the beige car along with two armed soldiers, heading straight for the Czartoryski estate itself.
She squeezed herself in as tightly as possible. She felt grateful to have claimed a seat by the deep sill of the vehicle, from which she could watch the Polish countryside unfold around her. The sun had risen around the time that the train arrived in the Kraków station, but Edith had yet to glimpse its rays. Instead, the landscape was cast in a gray haze, a combination of cloud cover and the dust from the rubble alongside the roads and the dirt kicked up by the Kübelwagen’s knobby tires. As they followed a bend in the road, Edith caught a glimpse of the rest of the long convoy of German vehicles behind theirs. She could not see the end of the line. She had heard that the Feldgendamerie had already secured the Czartoryski home. Did they need so many more soldiers?
For a while, the view flattened out into a series of fallow fields with a long, straight train track that ran parallel to the road. Edith heard a low train whistle, then turned her head to watch the train cars pass. The train should have easily overtaken the convoy, but for some reason, it was rolling slowly, a long chain of old, rusted-out cattle cars laboring along the track. When the train finally began to keep pace with the Kübelwagen, Edith caught sight of a small hand waving listlessly from one of the narrow, dusty windows in the side of the boxcar. After a few moments, the hand was replaced by the drawn face of a young woman, her eyes dark and sunken.
Edith felt a jolt slice through her as her heart sank. She recalled the Jewish families walking toward the train stations of Munich, their most precious possessions collected in pillowcases, small containers, and shopping bags. Was this train headed to a detention camp? The train finally picked up speed and the hand disappeared from the window. Edith dropped her eyes to her folded hands in her lap, knowing she would never forget the woman’s face, the haunted, sunken eyes.
The car finally turned into a long path lined with formal gardens and tall, manicured spruces. At the end of the path, Edith spied the grand, sand-colored palace. Pełkinie. Edith recognized its long, symmetrical façade of pilasters and windows from the books in the museum library.
It was a relief to step out of the car, where she had felt like a prisoner even though she was wearing the same uniform as the men in the vehicle. The men in the convoy proceeded to the palace in formation, squeezing Edith between them. She removed the bothersome helmet.
“Fräulein Becker.” An officer sliced his way into the formation, easily picking her out. “Lieutenant Fischer,” he said, his hands wound behind his back. “I am gratified to see that you have arrived safely. Come. They are waiting for you inside.”