The guard staggered backward, crumpled to the ground—his neck, his chest a mess of red.
“No...” Gerrit lurched down the tunnel. His ears rang.
Marchenko turned Gerrit’s way, his face wide with disbelief and devastation. Then terror contorted his features. He would be executed. No trial. No defense. No mercy.
“Get him!” Schmeling yelled, and footsteps thumped behind him. “Get him!”
Marchenko startled, and he bolted for the entrance.
“Halt!” At the corner, Schmeling shoved past Gerrit and leveled his pistol.
“No.” Gerrit’s voice strangled in his throat. Another shot pummeled his ears.
Marchenko grabbed at his arm, bounced off the wall, and turned down the tunnel toward the exit.
Schmeling followed.
“Herr Oberbauführer!” Bernardus waved him down, running hard. “Wait! We’ll catch him, van der Zee and I. We’ll catch him, bring him back. You can make an example of him.”
“Yes!” Fire crackled in Schmeling’s eyes. “Go! Quickly!”
Bernardus had already rounded the corner.
Gerrit shook his head, tried to shake off the ringing, forced his feet to move, to walk, to run.
What was Bernardus thinking? They couldn’t bring Marchenko back to be executed. They had to let him escape.
Yes, that was Bernardus’s plan—hold Schmeling back, put up a good show, let Marchenko slip away, stall the manhunt.
Gerrit raced down the tunnel.
Outside in drizzly daylight, Marchenko careened up the road to the left, with Bernardus sprinting after him.
Gerrit willed himself to catch up, but why? Gerrit might have been blessed with longer legs than his friend, but Bernardus knew what to do with what the Lord had given him.
Put on a good show. Gerrit drew his pistol from the holster for Schmeling to see.
The road made a sharp right hand turn uphill through dense woodland.
Up ahead, Bernardus gained on Marchenko.
“Let me go!” Marchenko yelled in English. “I’ll fight you. I won’t go back.”
“We want to help,” Bernardus said, just loud enough for Marchenko to hear. “Keep going, around the next bend.”
Gerrit’s breath came hard, and his feet pounded the damp road. Through a break in the trees, he scanned downhill toward the construction site. In a haze of mist, Schmeling and a few others stood in the tunnel entrance. No running, no vehicles.
The road bent to the left.
“Stop,” Bernardus said. “We want to help.”
“I won’t go back.” Marchenko gripped his arm, the sleeve tinged deep red, but he slowed to a walk. A halting walk.
Bernardus thumped to a stop and held up both hands. “We want to help.”
Help—yes. Gerrit pointed his pistol at the hedgerow. “I’ll fire a shot, make them think we’re chasing you.”
“Good idea,” Bernardus said.
