Mila 18 - Leon Uris [211]
Andrei hit his sledge against the bricks for a sounding. Hollow ring! It was not solid on the other side. There was a room!
He picked at the bricks. They came out easily.
It was hollow on the other side. Andrei shone the light in.
He crawled in and moved his fight in a complete circle.
“Holy God!” he muttered, and whistled with disbelief. He stood at his full height in a huge subterranean room. It was the most magnificent underground structure he had ever seen. Along one wall were sacks of rice, flour, sugar, salt. There were crates of medicine. Salted meats. Cases of tins of food. A bin of dried vegetables. Beautiful couches, easy chairs, furniture, bed.
“Holy God!”
He found the exit into a corridor and inched down it. Five more large rooms were on either side of the corridor, and each as big as the first one and each held stores. Overhead an electric line with light bulbs.
Andrei came to the end of the corridor. It turned into a smaller tunnel holding a series of cells.
“Don’t move,” a voice behind him commanded. “Hands over your head. High!”
Andrei lifted his arms. It had all been too good to be true. He cursed himself for forgetting to unstrap his weapon in the excitement of locating the bunker.
“Put both your hands on the wall,” the voice commanded. Andrei did as he was told. “Now turn your face.”
He looked into a blinding light.
“Andrei Androfski?”
“Is that you, Moritz?”
“How in the hell did you figure out where this bunker was?”
“We added two and two. Put that goddamned gun away and take the light out of my eyes.”
“Don’t rush me into any decisions. I’m not sure whether I have to kill you or not.” He shifted the light toward one of the cells. “Step into my office. What I’m holding on you, for your information, is a shotgun.”
Moritz lit a lantern and settled in back of his desk. He had a grizzly beard and an anemic color. Much of his chubbiness had shrunk away. Underground living had been hard on him. Moritz kept the shotgun leveled at Andrei’s chest Andrei was too busy being awed by the office. In addition to electrical wiring, there was a phone on the desk and a low-wattage radio transmitter.
“What a setup.”
Moritz shrugged modestly at the compliment “We tried to give our customers good service. Only trouble is that we’ve got no more customers. We got no one. Most my boys were grabbed on a haul. Just me and my wife Sheina and a few others. You’ve met Sheina? She’s asleep in the other room. She sleeps through anything, that woman. Even your banging holes into my bunker. She’s sick. She needs a doctor. Change of life.”
“How in hell do you run the lights—the radio?”
“Generator, what else? Used to be able to send messages to my contacts on the Aryan side. Simple code.”
Telephone?”
“One of my boys worked for the phone company. There’s a million ways to screw the phone company. We tied in on a Ukrainian line from the guards at the Brushmaker’s and we speak Yiddish. They’ve never been able to figure it. No, Andrei. I’m sorry you had to find this place because I’ve always held you in high esteem. You were a very smart man to locate my bunker, but naturally I’ve got to kill you.”
“Not so fast, Moritz. Obviously I wouldn’t pull a move like this without a cover. You’ve heard of Joint Jewish Forces?”
Moritz screwed up his face. He suspected he was about to be taken. “I still get around.”
“They know I’m here and what I’m looking for.”
“Oh crap!” Moritz the Nasher said. He lay the shotgun on the desk in disgust. “Minute I saw you barreling through the sewer into the bunker I said to myself that this bastard is too smart to come in exposed. Now you talk to Alexander Brandel. He’ll tell you I’ve been right down the line with his Orphans setup. I always did business on the square with him.”
“Moritz, for God’s sake, stop apologizing. Do you hear me pushing you around?”
Moritz the Nasher was hungry. He opened the top desk drawer and took out a packet of German chocolate, unwrapped it, nibbled, and decried the lack of fresh fruit. “You want my bunker, no doubt.”
“No doubt.”
“And seven hundred