The Last Survivor (A Wilde/Chase Short Story) Page 3

  Nina was halfway down the length of the festival, in no hurry as she took in the sights and sounds – and smells – around her. The mouth-watering aromas of numerous cheeses tempted her towards one particular stall, but before she could check out the wares on offer, sounds of excitement rose, people looking up with a collective ooh of wonder. She followed their gaze – as the sun was blotted out.

  The airship had arrived, and it was far more impressive in real life than on a television screen.

  The craft, an Airlander, was considerably smaller than the goliaths from the days when airships dominated the skies – it was less than half the length of the ill-fated Hindenburg, the largest aircraft ever to fly – but its design meant that it still dwarfed any contemporary airliner. Rather than the traditional cigar shape of a Zeppelin, it had two conjoined gas envelopes sitting side by side, making its hull enormously wider than the fuselage of a Boeing 747, as well as being considerably longer. Despite its bulk, though, it drifted overhead as leisurely as a cloud.

  Both flanks of the airship had been turned into giant screens. Nina wasn’t sure exactly how they worked – there seemed to be some kind of netting draped tightly around the hulls, which she guessed held countless coloured LEDs – but the end result was certainly impressive, bright and clear enough to be visible even against the daytime sky. Right now, they were displaying an animated flag, the tricolour of Italy waving over the homeland’s New York namesake. Whoops and cheers came from the crowd’s Italian-American contingent.

  Phones and cameras were raised to take pictures of the ambling colossus. Nina at first didn’t plan to follow suit, giant advertising platforms not being her thing, but then she remembered that Eddie had been keen to see it. She took out her phone and thumbed the home button. Nothing happened; she had turned it off. Normally her phone was permanently switched on, but she had been so annoyed with Eddie that she hadn’t even wanted the distraction of the device telling her that he was making a call for her to snub. With a huff, she pushed the power button and waited for it to boot up. She moved to one side of the street to let the gawking throng move past, standing beside a covered stall. At least the airship wouldn’t have flown off before she could take a photo.

  The screen lit up. ‘Finally,’ she said, about to open the camera app – only for a long list of notifications to drop down. Multiple missed calls, all from Eddie, and several texts—

  EMERGENCY!!!!! CALL ME RIGHT NOW!!!!

  That was the most recent, and the others were equally alarming. All manner of horrifying scenarios flashed through her mind. Had he been in an accident? Or had something happened to Natalia? She hurriedly brought up her contacts list to call him back—

  Two things happened at once.

  The first was that she heard her name being shouted. Even over the festival’s hubbub, she knew that it was Eddie.

  The second was someone thrusting a hard metal object against her spine.

  A gun.

  ‘Come with me,’ a voice hissed as her arm was grabbed. ‘If you resist, I will hurt you. Move!’

  She looked around in shock, seeing a large blond man right behind her. He jabbed the gun harder against her back and pushed her roughly into the crowd, heading south.

  ‘Nina!’ Eddie’s voice again. She twisted to look back. Everyone was watching the airship, all eyes turned towards the sky – except her husband’s. He was about fifty feet away, gaze sweeping rapidly from side to side as he scanned the crowd …

  And locking on to her.

  ‘Eddie!’ she cried. Worry filled his face, before being replaced in an instant by angry determination. He broke into a run, shoving through the festival-goers after her.

  The blond man reacted with anger to her call. The gun shifted down her back. For a moment she thought he was going to shoot her – then the pistol’s butt cracked painfully against her spine. She gasped. ‘Do not shout again!’ he barked. ‘I will kill you if you do.’ He ducked lower and changed direction, using the tourists for cover as he forced Nina onwards.

  Eddie ploughed through the crowd, ignoring the angry yells that followed him. He had lost sight of Nina, but a blond man had been right beside her, and he glimpsed someone with light hair cutting through the sea of people not far ahead. He moved faster, angling to intercept.

  His target stopped, looking from side to side as if searching for an escape route. The Englishman barged up behind him, grabbing his arm and raising a fist to strike—

  It wasn’t him. ‘Hey! What’re you doing?’ demanded a startled dusty-blond man – in an American accent. Nina was not with him.

  ‘Thought you were someone else,’ Eddie replied, pushing past and searching the crowd again. There – farther ahead. The kidnapper was moving considerably faster than those nearby. A brief flash of red hair with him. He ran in pursuit, Natalia struggling to keep up. ‘Nina!’

  Nina’s captor heard Eddie’s shout and forced her between two stalls, making his way along the shopfronts behind them before hauling her around a corner on to one of the side streets intersecting Mulberry.

  There were more stalls here, but the crowd was considerably thinner. The man pushed her on more quickly. Nina looked back, but couldn’t see Eddie. She heard him yell her name once more, though, and opened her mouth to respond—

  ‘Do not!’ the man snapped, pushing the gun against her side. A new fear, this time for the baby, and she fell silent.

  He drove her forward, weaving through the oblivious visitors towards the next intersection. They passed the last stall. A box van was parked ahead. Its rear roller door was half open, crates and boxes stacked inside as its driver made a delivery to a restaurant. ‘Get in,’ the man ordered.

  Nina tried to pull away. ‘I’m not—’

  ‘Get in!’ He shoved her against the truck and stepped back, pointing the pistol at her face. No choice. She reluctantly clambered into the back.

  A chunky middle-aged man scurried out of the restaurant. ‘Hey, the hell ya doin’?’ he cried. ‘Ya can’t—’ He halted abruptly as the blond man’s gun swung towards him. ‘Jeez!’

  ‘The keys!’ the kidnapper demanded. ‘Where are the keys?’

  The delivery man put up his hands. ‘In – in the cab.’

  The other man glowered at him, then slammed the roller door shut. ‘Eddie!’ Nina screamed, before she was cut off by a whump of metal and rattling chains.

  Eddie heard his name over the sound of the crowd. A glance to his right revealed a side street beyond the stalls. He shoved through the tourists and rounded the corner. Where was she? No sign of her – but something else caught his attention. ‘Hey, hey!’ cried a chubby man with thinning hair. ‘Someone call the cops!’

  A large white van pulled sharply away. Eddie saw the name LAZZARI BROTHERS stencilled across the rear door. ‘He took my truck!’ cried the driver. ‘Call nine-one-one!’

  ‘Was there a woman with him?’ Eddie demanded as he ran to him. ‘A redhead?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah! He put her in the back!’

  ‘Shit!’ The Yorkshireman raced past him after the truck. People screamed and leapt aside as it careered into the intersection, flattening a couple of traffic barriers and making a hard, skidding turn to head south.

  Eddie chased after it, but by the time he reached the next road, the truck had already gained too much of a lead. ‘Fuck!’ he roared, reversing direction.

  Natalia caught up with him outside the restaurant. ‘Eddie! What happened?’

  ‘The bastard’s got Nina,’ he told her, to her shock, before addressing the delivery man. ‘That your truck? You know the licence plate?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ the man replied. ‘You callin’ the cops?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He took out his phone and found a particular name in his contacts. The driver regarded the screen with confused concern as a cell phone number came up. ‘Ah, it’s nine-one-one you want,’ he reminded him. ‘Not whatever you’re callin’ there.’

  Eddie gave him a humourless smile. ‘I�
��ve got a friend on the force.’

  Nina was thrown to the floor when the truck took its first corner. She decided to stay on all fours for safety rather than risk being flung headlong into a wall. Even so, she still had to brace herself as the stolen vehicle made several more high-speed turns, kicking away any loose cartons of produce that slithered towards her. To her relief, the wild ride lasted only a few minutes.

  The feeling was short-lived. She got up as she heard her kidnapper jump from the cab and unlock the roller door, but any thoughts of catching his gun – or head – with a kick vanished as he raised the shutter just a fraction and aimed the pistol up at her from outside. ‘Lift the door,’ he ordered.

  Nina crouched and warily did as she was told. The truck was in a narrow alley. She didn’t recognise the street beyond, but from the Chinese signage on a nearby storefront, she guessed the neighbourhood was either southern Chinatown or Two Bridges.

  ‘Get out,’ he said.

  She hopped down. An Asian woman on the other side of the road reacted with alarm as she noticed the kidnapper’s gun. He realised he had been seen and pointed down the alley. ‘Move! Go!’ When Nina didn’t respond at once, he pushed her ahead of him.

  The alley was not long, Nina soon emerging on another short street. The man looked around. She could tell from his frustrated expression that he had no idea where he was. He glanced at a boarded-up building before switching his gaze to one under construction. ‘In there!’ he barked, forcing her towards it. The sidewalk was blocked by tall fencing around the site, but he shoved back a grillework barrier just far enough for them to squeeze through.

  She glanced up at the building. Most of the walls of what she guessed was going to be an apartment block were in place, though there were still gaps on the uppermost floors where the steel frame was visible. Windows had been fitted up to the fifth storey, empty black holes gaping above. The front doors were not yet in place either, the entrance blocked by ply boards; they were secured by a chain and padlock, but one kick from her abductor’s boot took care of that.

  ‘Go inside,’ he told her, jabbing the gun for emphasis. Nina entered the bare cinderblock-and-concrete lobby, looking back at the street in the hope that someone had seen them, but there was nobody in sight.

  She was alone with her kidnapper.

  Eddie’s phone rang. He checked the screen as he answered: Amy. ‘Have you found ’em?’

  Amy Martin, recently promoted from uniformed beat cop to detective third grade with the New York Police Department, did not have the news he was hoping for. ‘Eddie, hi. I’m sorry, we haven’t found Nina – but we found the stolen truck.’

  He felt some small relief – that meant the Nazi hadn’t simply killed her and dumped her with his getaway vehicle – but it did not lessen his fears for his wife’s safety. ‘Where is it?’

  She hesitated. ‘I’m … not sure I should tell you.’

  ‘What? Why not?’

  ‘Because I know you, Eddie – you’ll just hustle your ass down there and start doing what you do. Which usually results in massive property damage and bodies all over Times Square!’

  ‘That only happened that one time.’

  She was not reassured. ‘Leave it to us. We’ll find this guy, and Nina.’

  ‘And how long will that take?’ he demanded. ‘This guy isn’t planning to ransom her. He’s here for revenge.’

  ‘Revenge for what?’

  ‘Remember a few months back, those news stories about Nazi war criminals hiding out in Argentina?’

  Slight confusion in her voice. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘There were a lot more of ’em before me and Nina turned up.’

  Confusion turned to disbelief. ‘Wait – you found a gang of Nazi war criminals? And now one of them wants revenge on you?’

  ‘Bang on,’ Eddie told her. ‘Look, Amy, I know you and the rest of the cops’ll do what you can to find her, but I’ve dealt with these bastards before. Just tell me where he dumped the truck, and I’ll take it from there.’

  She let out a resigned sigh. ‘Okay, Eddie, okay – but on one condition. If you do find them, you call me, call the cops for backup. Don’t try to handle it yourself. You promise me?’

  ‘I promise,’ he said. ‘Where’s the truck?’

  Amy hesitated again, then, with some reluctance: ‘In Two Bridges.’

  He looked to the south. The unimaginatively named district was beyond Chinatown, sandwiched between the two great river crossings of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges. ‘That’s less than a mile from here. Which road?’

  She named a street; Eddie didn’t know it, but was certain his phone’s map app could locate it. ‘Okay, Amy, thanks – I owe you. And I’ll call you if I find this arsehole.’

  ‘You’d better. Just try not to kill anyone,’ Amy said, before disconnecting.

  Eddie pocketed the phone. ‘So what are we going to do?’ Natalia asked.

  ‘I’m going to Two Bridges.’ He gave her a warning look. ‘You don’t have to come with me. It won’t be safe.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, Eddie. I want to help. After everything that you have done for me? As you said to your friend: I owe you.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, though not without misgivings. ‘If we do find ’em, though, stay out of the way. You might get hurt.’

  ‘So might you,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Better me than you – or Nina,’ he said grimly. ‘Come on. We need to find a cab.’

  The blond man forced Nina upwards through the building at gunpoint. They ascended an emergency stairwell that lacked both guardrails and lights, dim daylight leaking in from the unfinished floors higher up. Once they had picked their way up to the fifth floor, he ordered her to leave the staircase and enter a hallway.

  She moved cautiously down the passage. Shells of apartments greeted her, empty doorways letting in light from the windows. She realised with alarm why he had brought her to this floor rather than going higher: the double-glazing would block any sounds from reaching the street five storeys below.

  He pointed into the last room. ‘Go in there,’ he said, with another jab of the gun.

  ‘Nice place,’ she muttered sarcastically as she entered. The room was all barren concrete and drywall, bare wires protruding through holes where electrical outlets would eventually be fitted. A narrow vertical gap the height of the room marked where the heating system was waiting to be installed, sections of metal ducting visible in the neighbouring apartment beyond the hole. A wooden crate held more of the sheet steel pieces.

  Nina looked towards the window, wondering if she could alert someone outside or in one of the buildings opposite—

  Her captor shoved her into a corner, hard. She almost stumbled, barely catching herself before whirling to face him. ‘Son of a bitch!’ she snarled, unleashing her anger in an attempt to cover her fear – for both herself and her unborn child. ‘Who the hell are you? What do you want with me?’

  The man kept his gun locked on her. ‘You do not remember me, Dr Wilde?’ he said. His accent was distinctly Germanic, instantly giving her a horrible answer to her first question. ‘I am surprised. We have met before … at the Enklave.’

  Even forewarned, the revelation still sent a chill of terror through her. ‘The … the Enklave,’ she echoed. Malignant satisfaction was clear on the man’s face at her fearful stammer. ‘You’re one of Kroll’s people.’

  ‘I am more than that,’ he snapped. ‘My name is Ulrich Kroll. I am a son of the Führer!’

  Nina knew he was speaking the truth even before he finished the sentence. In most physical respects, he was very different from the leader of the colony of escaped war criminals; after seventy years in hiding, even with the water from the Spring of Immortality to slow his ageing, Erich Kroll had become bald and morbidly obese, while his offspring was fit, with the honed body of a soldier. But their eyes were the same: intense, hard, cold. She had been shown a photograph of the older Kroll at the time of his brief capture by the
Allies after the war, and the more she looked at his son, the more she saw the resemblance.

  ‘Yes, now you know me,’ he said. ‘And I know you. I was there when you were sentenced to death by the Führer. And I was there when your friend was executed.’

  The words were like a hammer blow to her heart. For a moment she was incapable not merely of speech, of action, but even of thought as the nightmare that had tortured her played out in her waking mind as vividly as if it was happening for real. The bloated monster Kroll raising his gun, pointing it at the helpless Jared Zane – then whirling to aim at Macy’s chest and pulling the trigger. The young woman convulsing, squeezing Nina’s hand so hard that she could feel it all over again, staring at her with shocked disbelief and pain … before collapsing to the floor.

  Reality returned along with her horror and grief, the younger Kroll’s features replacing his father’s. Now she knew him, now she remembered him amongst the guards the Nazi leader had summoned. Some had dragged the surviving prisoners back to their cell, others taking Macy’s body away with no more respect or care than if they were removing garbage.

  Her kidnapper had been one of the latter. Her anger returned, this time accompanied by deep loathing. ‘You took her away. You dumped her in a pit.’

  ‘She was an enemy of the New Reich.’

  ‘She was an innocent young woman!’

  Kroll sneered. ‘She would not have died if you had obeyed the Führer. Her death was your fault.’

  ‘Fuck you!’ she roared, with such sudden fury that the Nazi was momentarily shocked. ‘I didn’t kill her – Kroll did! That fat psychopathic bag of shit pulled the trigger, not me!’ She glared at him, breathless – and only belatedly realising that she had just rejected responsibility for Macy’s death for the first time.

  But there was no opportunity to celebrate the psychological breakthrough. Kroll flushed with a rage of his own and thrust the gun at her. Nina flinched, but he caught himself before squeezing the trigger and instead lunged to backhand her across the face, sending her staggering. ‘Schlampe!’ he growled. ‘You will not insult my father!’