Highlander - Donna Lettow [88]
“No one should have to die with this on his head, MacLeod. No one.” Avram’s voice was tight.
“Be strong,” MacLeod whispered, and stepped back. He closed his eyes and nodded for Avram to proceed. He heard the gun fire …
Chapter Seventeen
Warsaw: May 8, 1943
Slowly, awareness came back to MacLeod. He knew nothing at first but the burning in his chest, the throbbing pain that was the center of his existence. He could not see or hear or even feel, but he knew the pain. As it began to subside, he became aware of the rest of his body—head, arms, legs—and he became aware of himself. He knew he was Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod.
Suddenly, his body shuddered, and, with a choked gasp, air seared deep into his lungs. He was alive again. His eyes opened and hearing returned, and he instinctively started to move. Then he remembered the Ghetto, the Nazis, the suicide pact, it all flooded back. He feigned death once more, looking around the room as best he could through eyes mostly closed.
There were Nazis no more than ten feet away from him. Gas masks hung at their belts, but the air was clear of their noxious gas. All around MacLeod, the floor was awash in a tide of blood that pooled around the contorted bodies of his fallen comrades. He stilled his breathing as best he could, realizing how lucky he was the Germans hadn’t noticed his first gasp for life. There were three of them in the room, walking through the blood to search the bodies of the Jews for weapons and valuables, kicking them to ensure they were dead. Out in the hallway and in the rooms beyond, he could hear others, laughing and joking in German.
“Feige Juden,” one soldier remarked to the other two in the room as he cut off a finger from the cold hand of Arieh Linder and pried his wedding ring free. “Cowardly Jews, not even a proper fight,” the Nazi groused.
As he lay on the floor amid the other bodies, using the discipline and skills he’d once learned in the East to try to keep his breathing to a minimum, MacLeod realized he couldn’t sense Avram. Either he was gone from the room or had not yet come back to life. From his position, he couldn’t make out the identities of most of the victims in the room. Avram could be any one of them.
Then he felt it. Very weak, but getting stronger. Coming from across the room. Coming from just beyond where the Nazis were looting the bodies of his friends. MacLeod knew that at any moment Avram would breathe the gasp of life, that there was no way to stop it, no way to control it. And the Germans would be right on top of him when he did.
A distraction. He needed a distraction. Cautiously, he lifted his head, looked around. The Germans had their backs to MacLeod as they busied themselves collecting their petty spoils of war. MacLeod quickly searched his pockets. The bastards had taken his knife and his watch, but he’d been lying on his lighter. He pulled it out and, checking to make sure the Germans were still otherwise engaged, rolled to his side and threw it as hard as he could into the hallway, where it bounced off the far wall and clattered to the floor.
MacLeod dropped back to the ground and watched the startled Germans hurry toward the door. Almost simultaneously, he thought he could hear the soft intake of breath that signaled that Avram was back among the living. Now if they could just play dead until the Germans left, they might still get out of this place.
But it was hours before the Germans finally left the malina at Mila 18. Hours of lying among the ranks of the dead, wondering what went wrong, what he could have done differently, replaying in his head how he’d failed his people once again—Avram was merciless on himself.
When they were finally truly alone, MacLeod got up and moved to Avram. Avram’s eyes were tightly closed. MacLeod touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Avram?”
At his touch, Avram opened his eyes and MacLeod could see the tears he’d trapped inside. “Why does this keep happening?” Avram sat up. “Everyone dies, and I keep living on.