Beside it a deep pit yawned black, broken with macabre shadows from the moon’s pale light. He got out and stood beside the wide mouth of the mass grave. Not even the thick layer of dirt over them could keep away the foul stench from the rotting corpses that had already been dumped here. He turned away, walked a few paces into the woods, and lit a cigarette.

He watched silently as his men dragged their evening’s quarry out of the back of the canvas-covered truck. He took a long drag on his cigarette, the glowing tip shining orange in the night, casting but faint illumination against the menacing, deep-set black eyes and angular features that watched over the cruel proceedings.

A moment or two later the screaming began again.

Let them scream, he thought. No one can hear them here. It will all be over in a minute or two.

“Please… please, in the name of God—”

The words were cut short by the sound of a club against the side of a skull, followed by a thudding of the unconscious body into the pit. Sighs and screams and prayers began now in earnest. But they were immediately replaced by cries of pain and anguish as the guards rudely shoved and kicked the small assembly tumbling down into the hole. A bright light was directed downward. The next instant the night exploded with machine-gun fire.

Five or ten seconds was all it took.

The echoes slowly died away. There was no more screaming or wailing. No voices could be heard in Rama, no weeping nor lamentation nor mourning. Neither could Rachel be heard weeping for her children, for she and they were no more.

He dismissed his men.

He would watch himself to make sure the job was to the Führer’s satisfaction. In the darkness, sometimes it was difficult to tell.

He took out his own rifle and poised his lantern on the hood of his car, while his men drove away.

He detected a movement below him, a twitching of one of the bodies. Several rapid rounds burst from his gun. Blood splattered about. The body slumped and fell still.

Again he waited, thinking once more of the rabbi he had hoped to find tonight, growing angry all over again at his failure.

What was that sound he heard?

He listened intently.

It was the whimpering of a child! Those fools of his! Couldn’t they even get them all thoroughly disposed of!

He squinted into the pit. He had noticed that most men facing death had the preposterous predilection to throw themselves on top of women and children, as if such an absurd gesture could save them from the spray of bullets. That had probably happened this time.

He could see nothing, but something was still alive in there.

He squeezed the trigger and sent five seconds of gunfire throughout the entire pit. He would make sure there were no more sounds.