He switched off the light and pulled the door open-to see the corporal of the guard about to pass as he made his riodic round of the guard posts. The sight of the colonel’s oor opening jerked his gaze toward it-and reflexively, Macurdy’s empty hand pumped a plasma charge into the corporal’s head. The skull popped as if the contents had boiled, and the corporal fell bonelessly to the floor. From the south ell, the guard called, “What is wrong? What happened?”
Macurdy ste ped into the hall at once; the corridors would soon be crowed, and it wouldn’t do to be cornered in Landgrafs office. He slipped silently but quickly to the foyer, going under instead of around the staircase, avoiding the view of the guard on the second-floor landing. But the man on guard at the cellar stairway stepped away from his post to look toward the disturbance, and seeing a body in front of Landgraf’s door, hurried toward it. Macurdy barely got out of his way, then grasping the opportunity, stepped quickly to the cellar stairs and down them.
Moments later he was in the room with his TNT stash. There he cut off a long length of fuse, inserted it into a blasting cap, pressed the cap into a block of TNT, willed a bright bead of hot plasma at a fingertip-then stopped. If he blew the stack now, Edouard and Berta would die, and the child. If he didn’t, the building would surely be searched, but …
So far his concealment spell had worked better than he’d ever expected. He would, he decided, sit on the TNT and wait. If they came in and looked, hopefully, probably, they’d see neither him nor the evidence. If they did see him, he’d pump a plasma charge into the stack.
The decision left him calm, even serene. Sitting on a ton of TNT, he assumed the meditation posture Varia had taught him, and began to meditate. Seldom had it gone so well. Remarkably, not even his ankles complained. After 20 minutes the door opened, the light turned on, soldiers peered behind the table, then the light went off again, the door closed, and they were gone.
Macurdy sat calmly through the hours, aware when midnight came and passed, and after a bit stood up without stiffness in knees or ankles. Using his penlight, he went to the switch and turned on the light, then put the towel in place. Next he cut a TNT block into four cubes, cut four short lengths of fuse and capped them with detonators, pressed a detonator into each cube, and put all four quarter-pound bombs inside his tunic. His remaining K rations he distributed in pockets.
Finally he lit the long fuse, turned out the light and left the room. He had only one thing more to accomplish-blow the magazines as quickly as possible, before something went irretrievably wrong.
At the north ell he paused a moment, peering around the corner at the guards outside the magazines. No longer bored or heedless, they were looking in his direction, submachine guns ready. He drew his .45. If he stepped out and snapped off two quick shots on target … But only one of the two needed to fire a burst in his direction, and even unaimed … Any significant wound would be deadly. So he compromised: His .45 ready but silent, he stepped out and started toward them.
It was obvious at once they didn’t see him, but every step of the way he half-expected at least one of them to start firing. Both stood in mid-corridor, so he moved along one wall, and when he reached them, slipped by slowly, to avoid making an eddy of air. His senses were preternaturally sharp; he smelled his own stale sweat, with a lingering trace of cow manure, and wondered that the two Germans didn’t. Ten feet past them he speeded up, and at the end of the corridor, opened the door to the room nearest the entryway. Then, quiet he lifted the bar from the exit door, took it into the room, laid it by the wall, and stepped back into the corridor.
A hundred feet away, the magazine guards still stood with their backs to him. His .45 boomed twice, the shots so close together, the second man had hardly started to turn before a heavy slug smashed through a rib into the heart. Both men fell without firing.