Striking the Balance

“I’m finding out,” Mordechai answered. “Come on, we go round this last corner and then we’re there.” He yanked the rifle from his shoulder, flipped off the safety, and chambered the first round from the clip. Jager nodded grimly. He also had his Schmeisser ready to fire. And Ludmila had been carrying her little automatic in her hand all along. It wasn’t much, but better than nothing.

At the last corner, they held up. If they went charging around it, they were liable to be walking straight into a buzz saw. Ever so cautiously, Mordechai looked down the street toward the dead factory. He didn’t see anyone, not with a quick glance, and he knew where to look. In the end, though, whether he saw anyone didn’t matter. They had to go forward. If Skorzeny was ahead of them… With luck, he’d be busy at the bomb. Without luck-

He glanced over to Jager. “Any better idea of how many little friends Skorzeny is liable to have with him?”

The panzer colonel’s lips skinned back from his teeth in a mirthless grin. “Only one way to find out, isn’t there? I’ll go first, then you, then Ludmila. We’ll leapfrog till we get to where we’re going.”

Mordechai resented his taking over like that, even if the tactic did make good sense. “No, I’ll go first,” he said, and then, to prove to himself and Jager both that it wasn’t bravado, he added, “You’ve got the weapon with the most firepower. Cover me as I move up.”

Jager frowned, but nodded after a moment. He slapped Anielewicz lightly on the shoulder. “Go on, then.” Anielewicz dashed forward, ready to dive behind a pile of rubble if anyone started shooting from inside the factory. No one did. He hurled himself into a doorway that gave him some cover. No sooner had he done so than Jager ran past him, bent double and dodging back and forth. He might have been a panzer man, but he’d learned somewhere to fight on foot, Anielewicz scratched his head. The German was old enough to have fought in the last war. And who but he could say what all he’d done in this one?

Ludmila ran by both of them. She chose a doorway on the opposite side of the street in which to shelter. While she paused there, she shifted the pistol to her left hand so she could shoot from that position without exposing much of her body to return fire. She knew her business, too, then.

Anielewicz sprinted past her, up to within ten or twelve meters of the hole in the wall that led into the ruined factory. He peered in, trying to pierce the gloom. Was that someone lying still, not far inside? He couldn’t be certain, but it looked that way.

Behind him, booted feet thumped on the pavement. He hissed and waved; Heinrich Jager saw him and ducked into the doorway where he was standing. “What’s wrong?” the German asked, breathing hard.

Anielewicz pointed. Jager narrowed his eyes, squinting ahead.

The lines that came out when he did that said he was indeed old enough to have fought in the First World War. “That’s a body,” he said, just as Ludmila came up to crowd the narrow niche in front of the door. “I’d bet anything you care to name it isn’t Skorzeny’ s body, either.”

“No, thanks,” Mordechai said. “I don’t have much, but what I’ve got, I’ll keep.” He drew in a deep breath. That took some effort.Nerves, he thought; he hadn’t run that far. He pointed again. “If we can make it up to that wall, we go in there and then head for the bomb along the clear path that leads into the middle of the building. Once we’re at the wall, nobody can shoot at us without giving us a clear shot back at him.”

“We go, then,” Ludmila said, and ran for the wall. She made it. Muttering under his breath, Jager followed. So did Anielewicz. Ever so cautiously, he peered into the factory. Yes, that was a sentry lying there-his rifle lay beside him. His chest wasn’t moving.

Mordechai tried to take another deep breath himself. His lungs didn’t seem to want to work. Inside his chest, his heart stumbled. He turned back toward Jager and Ludmila. It had been shadowy inside the wrecked factory. He’d expected that. But here, too, on a bright, sunny day, he saw his comrades only dimly. He looked up at the sun. Staring at it didn’t hurt his eyes. He looked back to Ludmila. Her eyes were very blue, he thought, and then realized why: her pupils had contracted so much, he could barely see them at all.

He fought for another hitching breath. “Something’s-wrong,” he gasped.

Heinrich Jager had watched the day go dark around him without thinking much of it till Anielewicz spoke. Then he swore loudly and foully, while fear raced through him. He was liable to have killed himself and the woman he loved and all of Lodz out of sheer stupidity. You couldn’t see nerve gas. You couldn’t smell it. You couldn’t taste it. It would kill you just the same.