The Killing Scar Read online

  The Killing Scar

  Brian K. Lowe

  Copyright © 2018 by Brian K. Lowe.

  Cover by mia jacob.

  http://www.brianklowe.wordpress.com

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you.

  The Killing Scar

  table of contents

  1. The Ruined Man

  2. The Man Who Wasn't

  3. A Change in Circumstances

  4. The Dead Return

  5. Danger by the Bay

  6. The Men Behind the Machines

  7. Aloft

  8. Travel and Arrival

  9. Shop Till You Drop Out of Sight

  10. A Beautiful Accident

  11. Nemesis

  12. Scorched Earth

  13. Champagne and Espionage

  14. The Recent Past

  15. The Immediate Future

  16. Nemesis Strikes!

  17. The Physicist

  18. The Engineer

  19. Why We Fight

  20. Karst Frowns

  21. Champagne and Intrigue

  22. Dinner and a Tailoring

  23. The Mark of Nemesis

  24. A Sinister Conference

  25. Trapped in Berlin

  26. In Enemy Territory

  27. A Rash Decision

  28. A Puzzling Discovery

  29. Bad Plans Go Worse

  30. Wanted: Nemesis!

  31. Of Secret Weapons

  32. Unexpected Visitors

  33. Turning the Tables

  34. At the Mercy of Nemesis!

  35. Flight into Danger

  36. Face-to-Face

  37. Battle on the Farm

  38. The Invisible Airship

  39. Death-duel in the Sky

  40. Retreat

  Prologue

  Austria - October, 1920

  Someone was holding a pistol to the side of his head.

  In the presence of Death, time seemed to expand. He had an opportunity to reflect that this explained rather well why his orders had been to hide and stay out of sight, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness, rather than stand under a lamp where he could be spotted from a mile away. It was no excuse that the heat from the overhanging lamp gave some feeble comfort in the sharp, cold night air. His disobedience looked likely to cost him his life.

  "Johann, Johann…" a guttural voice chuckled in his ear. "I could have shot you, you know?" The gun was removed. "I probably would have earned myself a bonus. You make a terrible sentry."

  Johann let out his breath, and gave his friend a smile. "Then I owe you a favor, Henry. Or at least a beer." He gave Henry a companionable shove. "Let's get out of the light, then. Now that you're here, I don't need it any more."

  Henry allowed himself to be led a few steps before he stumbled to a halt, his brows furrowing as he turned to question the meaning of that odd remark. But before he could speak, Johann had rammed his fingers into Henry's solar plexus, knocking the air out of him and preventing an alarm. Before he could recover, Johann spun him around and applied a chokehold. In a few seconds, he was dragging Henry's unconscious form into the deep shadows next to the building they had been guarding, where he quickly secured his unfortunate comrade.

  "I'm sorry, my friend, but I have things to do, and the easiest way to get past you was to let you find me."

  Johann liberated Henry's Luger and stuck it in his belt, keeping his own pistol in his hand. Moving through the moonless night like a shadow, he reached the spot under a window he had selected earlier and swiftly made a makeshift ladder with the pieces of junk he had left lying in artful randomness around the area. Scrambling up the mound, he eased open the window and peeked inside.

  At this end, where the windows were located, it looked simply like another abandoned warehouse, with junk piled in the middle almost to the ceiling. Johann allowed himself a tiny smile. He was not the only one who could arrange old boxes and machinery parts to look like nothing but debris. Anyone looking at the warehouse from this angle could see light coming from the far side, and hear intermittent sounds of machinery, but the details of the work going on there were hidden. And why would anyone climb down just to take a look on the other side of that improvised wall?

  But walls work both ways. Johann slipped through the window and crawled along a ceiling beam until he reached a vertical post where he could swing down and shimmy to the floor. He checked his Luger, made sure Henry's was still in place. The word was that "Doktor" Skorzos preferred to work alone, but there was no guarantee…

  A sudden loud whine advertised that whoever was in there was hard at work, so Johann took a chance and grabbed a glimpse. A moment was all he needed. The doktor was alone, bent over a workbench from which sparks were flying. Even better; he would be wearing safety glasses that would hinder his vision. Between that and the noise of his work, Johann could be on him before he had a clue he was not alone.

  With the next shower of sparks and cry of tortured metal, Johann bolted from his hiding place, gun ready, aiming like an arrow at his quarry's unprotected back. Five more yards…

  And he was seized by giant hands that yanked him off his feet and held him spread-eagled in mid-air!

  The work at the bench stopped, the sparks dying away and the machine sounds fading.

  "Really, you must not have any respect for me at all," the doktor said without turning around. "If you think I would put my trust in human guards and a little camouflage…" He came about to face Johann, shaking his head. "After everything it took to find me, I expected better of you."

  He was a tall man, the doktor, standing straight like a soldier, with a square jaw, a large nose, and icy pale blue eyes. He affected a white coat, like a real laboratory scientist.

  Johann might have ridiculed him for that, but he was too busy struggling to loosen himself from the two giant bronze hands that held him fast. It was hard to see, but they seemed to be connected by long tubes to a mechanism on the ceiling. Incredibly, they were not simply pincers, or even claws, but man-like hands, each nearly half the size of Johann himself.

  The doktor calmly walked up to the dangling prisoner and plucked the Luger out of his belt. He held it with familiarity. Johann ceased to fight and stared back at him.

  "I supposed I could ask you who you were, and who sent you--the French, the British? But I doubt you would tell me, and frankly, I don't care. I have work to do." He leveled the gun at Johann--and then he stopped, staring at something just above Johann's head, with the expression of a man who has just realized the solution to a problem that has been bothering him for a long time.

  "Interesting," he muttered. "Yes, that would be interesting." Abruptly he lowered the Luger, spun on his heel, and returned to the bench where he had been working.

  "I know I'll probably regret asking," Johann called after him, "but what did you see that was so interesting?"

  The doktor stopped. "Oh! An American! That is also interesting." He looked back over his shoulder. "But I probably should have known. Who else would have had the energy to pursue me for almost two years?" He rounded the bench so he faced Johann as he worked, putting Henry's Luger aside. "A pity. Your German is very good, but your accent gives you away."

  "What accent? Nobody else has noticed it."

  The doctor did not look around. "But I am not anybody else, am I?"

  His work surface seemed to be studded with several dials and a pair of levers. He pushed one
forward gently and the arm holding Johann's right hand began to move. Johann screamed as it tugged in a direction it did not want to go.

  "Oh, forgive me! That won't do." The doktor eased the lever back and Johan caught his breath.

  "What are you trying to do? Maybe if you let me down, I can help."

  The doktor chuckled. "Don't worry, you'll help. You might not have noticed, because your arms are going numb, but you are still holding your other Luger." He nodded toward Johann's right hand, and Johann could see, by straining his neck, that this was true. The metal hand had imprisoned both his own hand and the gun. "Now, I could simply shoot you myself, but I am trying to refine my skill with my pneumatic arms, and it struck me that it would be a good test to see if I could manipulate you into shooting yourself. Unfortunately, had I torn your arm off, I would have to consider that a failure. So I will be more careful from now on."

  Johann cast a desperate glance at his own arm, helpless in the mechanical grip, up the bronzed tubes to the complicated piping system he could see in the ceiling, now that he knew what he was looking at. Suddenly he felt himself being pushed again as the arms began to move to the doktor's delicate manipulations. His hand began to move forward.

  "Oh, that's no good. I don't want you shooting me instead." His hand was eased back and up. "That's better. Slowly and surely. For this, I have time."

  The doktor moved his mechanical arms in a careful arc so that the Luger was at no time aimed near him. Johann cursed silently. He could still have moved his finger enough to pull the trigger! He would not get another chance, and when the gun was in line with his own head, the doktor could simply squeeze until his fingers did his work, and if that failed, the giant hands were more than capable of taking a man apart limb by limb.

  His hand was pointing almost straight upward now. All the doktor had to do was bend it enough to bring it to bear on his target. But Johann pulled the trigger now, again and again, the reports sharp and echoing in the large space.

  The doktor jerked upright. "What are you doing--oh, you are cleverer than I thought, American! Wasting all your bullets before I can use them on you!" He shrugged. "As you wish. I have another gun." And he returned to his work.

  Johann cast another agonized look at the ceiling. By his count he had one round left. The hands were still bending his arm inexorably toward him… He fired his last!

  There was a sudden hissing form the ceiling, and the hands opened! As the doktor looked up in shock, Johann was already on the floor and barreling toward him! The doktor made a grab for the pistol but Johann beat him to it and swept the gun away.

  The doktor came around the bench, arms spread. He was a powerfully-built man, and he came from the right, where Johann's arm had been so recently tortured. He moved like a soldier, implacable and overwhelming, but Johann moved like a dancer, ducking inside the doktor's guard to smash him in the nose.

  The doktor cried out and retreated, and Johann leaped for the discarded Luger. The doktor ducked behind the workbench as Johann fired, and the shot careened away. The hissing from the ceiling was growing louder.

  The two men darted and feinted, one unable to get a clear shot, the other unable to find better cover. The hissing overhead became a whistle.

  "You've damaged the steam engine, you fool!" the doktor shouted. "It's going to explode!"

  "Serves you right, Skorzos! It'll be a good taste of hell!"

  Somewhere a door banged open. "Doktor! What's going on? Are you all right?"

  "In here!" Skorzos shouted. "Help me!" He feinted to the right and tried to run to his left, but Johann was not fooled and fired again. The doktor jerked and fell.

  Johann dropped his gun, turned and ran toward the other end of the warehouse where the voices were coming from.

  "In here!" he called. "It's Johann! He's in here!" He began to stagger.

  Several of the guards ran up and Johann pointed frantically back the way he had come. "I heard him calling but I couldn't find him! Hurry! I'll get help!"

  As soon as they were past him, Johann abandoned the stagger and sprinted for the open door. He shut it behind him, bracing it with a piece of pipe lying on the ground. Then he ran.

  Twelve seconds later, the world gave a lurch and he was thrown from his feet. When he regained them, the warehouse was nothing but a jagged low wall. Debris rained from the sky as he jogged away.

  He stripped bits of his disguise from his face as he went, and Johann the sentry ceased to exist. Tomorrow, he would make his way to the next town down the road, whence he could catch a train to take him to Vienna.

  After three years, Eric Reinhold was going home.

  Chapter One

  The Ruined Man - May, 1932

  His name was Gerhardt Hentel, but all his neighbors called him "beknackt," which means "looney." Sadly, Gerhardt had once been a pillar of the community, a solid and dependable farmer from a long line of solid and dependable farmers. In the Great War, his farm had been a model of production and efficiency, and one of the main reasons his little town of Meyerberg had not succumbed to the starvation that ravaged so many others. Gerhardt, they had said, could coax lettuce out of a stone, and grow apples in a desert. His hogs had been fat, and his chickens were widely claimed to lay two eggs in a day.

  But that had been before. Now he was beknackt, and spent his days sprawled on a bench in the small public park, or on a sidewalk if someone else had claimed the bench. To anyone who would listen, Gerhardt would rave for hours about the "lightning from a cloudless sky" that had massacred his livestock and burned his land until even he could grow nothing more.

  At first the villagers, who had known Gerhardt all his life, had blamed his downfall on the death of his beloved Margit, his wife of forty years, gone these two years now. Gerhardt and Margit had worked the farm together from the day they married, and none could be found who had ever heard them exchange a cross word. Was it any wonder that Gerhardt should take her loss so terribly hard?

  But eventually the decline of the farm was so great, so noticeable, that people began to gossip. They told stories of drunken nights and days spent lying in bed while the chickens scratched at the hard dirt and the hogs bellowed their hunger. That there were no witnesses to these events did nothing to dispel their falsehood. How else to explain it?

  Gerhardt had an explanation, though none could credit it. He raved that lighting had come down to strike his farm, flash-burning his crops and killing his animals, dropping them in their tracks without so much as a squeal of protest. The fact that there were no witnesses to these events did everything to dispel their truth.

  The only possible answer was that Gerhardt had run afoul of God, with Margit's death being only the first of the dominoes to fall, culminating with the collapse of his farm and his failing the legacy of four generations. In the face of such enmity, no man could stand, so Gerhardt had abandoned his ancestral home to stagger through the streets of Meyerberg, a drunken self-fulfilling prophecy. The good citizens of Meyerberg shook their heads sadly, but the entire world was in a Depression, and Germany was harder hit than most, so they had nothing to spare for him but sorrowful looks and a secret hope that his inevitable joining with Margit would come sooner rather than later.

  And one bright, clear morning, it did. They found him on his favorite bench, head back as if he had been watching the stars, not a mark on him but a tiny hole burned through his shirt that left a black mark over his heart.

  As if he had been struck by lightning from a cloudless sky.

  Chapter Two

  The Man who Wasn't

  For a man who did not exist, Herb Young sure read a lot of newspapers.

  Of the roughly 1,000 residents of Reseda, California, in the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles, only one would read as many as a half-dozen newspapers in a day. This gentleman was notable in that he was not a journalist, a scientist, or a writer--he was a caretaker. A millionaire in the city had bought a 500-acre orange ranch, and Herb Young lived there and wat
ched over the place. Herb was new to the neighborhood, but he had gone out of his way to join in the life of the little town. He was glad to share his boss's bounty of citrus with the local families, a significant boost in these hard times, even if fruit trees grew at almost every house that boasted a patch of dirt. What you could not eat yourself, you could sell, and Herb had no objection if you did.

  Of the millionaire who owned the property, no one had ever seen hide nor hair, but that was hardly unusual, since out here the roads were dirt, the summers were roasting and the winters frosty. But the house got plenty of visitors: friends of the owner, according to Herb, people who liked to get away from the city. These folks seldom had anything to do with the townspeople, but no one minded; they weren't local. Herb, he was salt of the earth, and they quickly accepted him as one of them.

  Not a soul among those thousand neighbors dreamt that Herb Young had a secret--or two, actually. The first secret was that he read up to six newspapers a day, because he did not have them delivered by the usual route. He did this on account of his second secret:

  Herb Young did not exist.

  "Whoever knew that newspapers were so heavy?"

  "Any boy who's ever delivered newspapers," replied the red-bearded gent carrying the second load of dailies from the trunk of his car into the house. "Hey, boss, where do you want them?"

  The young man who wore Herb Young's clothes but looked nothing like what his neighbors thought Herb looked like pointed to a side table.

  "Put them down there for the moment. I'll sort them out later."

  The first man, a wiry fellow with light blond hair, set his stack down with a woof. His red-haired friend followed suit, without the theatrics.

  "C'mon, Professor, they aren't that heavy."

  The blond man wiped his brow. "It's hot out there, Damien. It's only May. It's not supposed to be that hot yet."

  "Welcome to the Valley, brothers," the man who was not Herb said, beginning to scan the papers. "There's lemonade in the icebox."