The Count’s men closed in around the Artist. Everyone knew what came next. Card cheats caught in the act weren’t merely beaten. They were punished in ways that made sure they never held a deck again.
Solomon slowly gathered up the debt notes from the table. He looked at Alex, and there was a spark of amusement in the old man’s eyes.
“Debt cleared, student,” he mouthed. But Alex felt no relief. He was watching Carl.
The crew boss stood off to the side, and disappointment was written all over his face. Once again, his prey had slipped away. But now Alex was no longer just a smart physics student.
He had openly stepped into the affairs of the camp bosses. He was now a piece on their board. And the Count, the most dangerous man in the camp, was looking at him with interest.
“You’re a sharp one,” the Count said, walking over to Alex. “Physics, huh? Come with me. I’ve got a little problem involving a safe.”
Alex felt a chill go through him. He had just survived the second circle of hell.
He was alive, but the price of staying alive kept rising. Now he was useful to the most dangerous man in the camp. And a “problem involving a safe” smelled less like another job and more like a firing squad. The boss’s corner of the barracks was as different from the rest of the room as a parlor is from a shed.
The Count’s space was partitioned off with thick plywood panels draped in rugs, a luxury beyond imagination in a place like this. No drafts came through the cracks. A kerosene lamp with a glass chimney burned on the table. The air smelled of real Indian tea, not burnt grain. Alex sat stiffly on a stool across from the man who ruled that corner.
The Count, a man with the face of a Roman senator and the eyes of a killer, slowly poured tea into porcelain cups. The contrast—fine china in the hands of a convict—was more unsettling than any shouted threat. “Help yourself, student.”
The Count slid a cup toward him. “Real sugar too. A little taste of freedom.” Alex took the cup with a hand that still trembled.
His fingers still remembered the cold steel in the fuel shed, but here it was warm. Too warm. Like a furnace before the door closes. “You saved our common fund,” the Count said, studying Alex over the rim of his cup.
“That was a man’s move. But old Solomon is right. Carl won’t forgive the humiliation. Tomorrow at lineup, a log might just happen to fall on your head. Or there may be glass in your soup. Either way, you end up dead. Only question is when.”
“I understand that,” Alex said quietly. “What’s the offer?” The Count smiled. He liked the directness.
“I’m offering you your life. In return, you do one job for me. A job that needs your brain and your hands.”
The boss leaned forward, lowering his voice. “In the camp commander’s office, Major Bailey keeps a safe. Imported. Thick steel. Three-dial combination lock.”
“Inside that safe is property that belongs to us: gold, rings, crosses. Things the guards took off prisoners over the last two years. The major is getting ready to retire and carry it all out with him. We can’t allow that.”
Alex felt the cold settle inside him. Breaking into the administration building, into the office of the camp commander himself, was a straight path to an armed charge and a bullet.
“That’s suicide,” he said, setting the cup down. “I’m a physicist, not a safecracker. I don’t know how to open safes.” “You know how to think,” the Count said sharply.
“You saw the reflection in the cigarette case. You calculated the fall of a tree. A safe is physics too. Mechanics. Gears, springs, pins.”
“You have one day to figure out how to open it without explosives or a crowbar. Quietly. In five minutes.” Alex closed his eyes.
In his memory rose diagrams of lock mechanisms he had seen in old technical journals. Cylinder systems. Lever locks. A combination lock was a set of disks, each with a gate.
When the gates lined up, the bolt could slide free. “I need a stethoscope,” he said slowly. “Or anything that can amplify sound.”
“Why?” the Count asked, narrowing his eyes. “Friction,” Alex answered, relieved to be back in the world of formulas. “When a disk passes the right point, the click is almost inaudible, but the vibration changes.”
“A metal pin brushes the edge of the gate and creates a tiny resonance. If I can hear that, I can find the code.” The Count leaned back, and something like respect flickered in his eyes.
“No stethoscope here. But the infirmary has an old listening horn. We’ll get it.” “And one more thing,” Alex said, looking up. “How do we get into the office? The building is guarded, and the yard is lit.”
“Tomorrow night,” the Count said, “there’ll be a power failure at the substation. The whole camp will go dark for fifteen minutes. My men in the maintenance crew will arrange it.”
“The guards will be scrambling. Phones will be down. You’ll have a clear path and seven minutes at the safe.” “And if I don’t make it?”
The Count pulled a heavy revolver from his pocket. He didn’t point it at Alex. He simply laid it on the table. “If you don’t make it, the lights come back on and they find you in the major’s office. You know what happens after that. The state’s basement rooms are worse than any knife, believe me.”
“But if you open it, I give you my word. No one will lay a hand on you for the rest of your sentence. You’ll live easy.” Alex had no choice…
