A Century of Progress (23 page)

He lay still until the train he had been riding on was past, then dodged across the tracks toward the lights. A fence presented no very serious problem. All was quiet.

Five minutes later, Norlund was walking up the dusty main street of another southwestern town whose name he did not know. He had brushed off his clothes as well as possible as he walked into town, wondering how close he could still come to an appearance of respectability. Not very, he had been forced to admit. His suit had been new-looking when he’d put it on in Hollywood, but after almost a week of continuous wear in hobo jungles and atop freight cars it was in bad shape. And Norlund himself was unwashed and unshaven. He had a necktie in his pocket if he wanted to put it on, but under the circumstances it was not going to help.

Any decent-looking eatery had to be considered off limits. Fortunately the sign of the soup kitchen was visible for a block away, with a dim light shining on it like some fading hope for salvation. The Mission for Unfortunates, or some such name. Norlund drew no attention as he entered and took his place amid a handful of other clients, most of them looking worse off than he did. He spent a dime for a bowl of soup and a chunk of bread, and in a couple of minutes was back to spend another dime for seconds.

Sitting down to savor this second helping, Norlund found himself alone at a converted picnic table lit by a bare bulb that hung overhead on its own wire. A sign on the wall across from him assured him that JESUS SAVES.

To keep himself from reading this over and over infinitely, he looked about for something else. There was old newspaper, spread on the other end of the table, where some messy project had evidently been carried out. Norlund grabbed what looked like a front page and pulled it nearer. It ought to be part of his job to keep up with the news, ready to cope with unscheduled and unforeseen events.

The first item, on the bottom half of the page, was reassuring.

HITLER TRIP ON SCHEDULE

Frankfurt, Ger, July 1–Final preparations were in progress today for the state visit of Chancellor Adolf Hitler to the United States. Crews of men labored day and night to ready the
Graf Zeppelin
for the trans-Atlantic voyage, the most important of its successful career . . .

This demonstration of German progress and aerial superiority, viewed by some in the United States as threatening, and by others as an encouraging sign of friendship . . .

Norlund sighed faintly, wishing for a more recent newspaper as a source of information about possible changes of plan during the past few days.

He flipped over the folded page, bringing its top half into view on the stained table. Here the headlines, also expected by Norlund, were bigger.

HITLER CRUSHES REVOLT BY NAZI RADICALS

STORM TROOP CHIEFS DIE

Killed Or Take Own Lives

As Chancellor and Goering Strike

REACTIONARIES ALSO HIT

Wife Shot With Schleicher

as He Resists Police

Head of Catholic Action Slain

LOYAL FORCES HOLD BERLIN

IN AN IRON GRIP

The famous purge of Ernst Roehm and his troublesome Brownshirts. According to
the
plan, it should not result in Hitler’s visit to America being called off.

Looking for more information, looking for he knew not what, Norlund flipped the paper over to page two.

DILLINGER RAIDS BANK IN SOUTH BEND

Officer Slain, Loot $28,000

Even the nation’s most wanted criminal had been pushed to page two by Hitler’s news. Even . . .

FLYER RUDEL DEAD IN CRASH

Berlin, July 2—Willy Rudel, 37, well-known aviator known also as the son-in-law of the famous designer Geoffrey Holborn, died Saturday in the crash of his small plane in the Bavarian Alps, it was announced today. Rudel’s son, Wilhelm Jr., 9, also perished in the crash. The aviator’s estranged wife, Holly, was reported in New York . . .

There was a very little more.

The phone available in the mission was the kind you had to feed with coins for a long-distance call. The people behind the soup-kitchen counter had plenty of small coins with which to make change, when Norlund thrust dollar bills at them. If his manner was somewhat wild when he approached them, they had doubtless seen wilder, and made no comment.

Now, Norlund told himself, it was necessary for him to contact Jeff at once instead of waiting until he got closer to New York. Jeff was to be his prime contact on this mission, and anything likely to affect Jeff’s capacity to function was something that he, Norlund, had to check up on as soon as possible. And a disaster
like this striking at
Jeff’s daughter was certainly going to take a toll on Jeff.

To hell with all this justification, Norlund told himself. His fingers were busy clipping a small dull jewel—his bug-detector, part of his small store of secret equipment—on the receiver cord where it clung like a dark bug itself. The truth was he didn’t know if it would be a mistake to make this call or not, but he was going to call her anyway.

He told the operator what number he wanted to reach, and fed in coins. Eventually there were two rings at the far end. And then Norlund recognized the voice of the butler answering.

“Rupert, this is Alan Norlund. Is Holly available? It’s very important that I speak with her.”

There was a pause. “Mr. Norlund, sir?”

“Yes, it’s me.” At least he had not been totally forgotten.

“Very glad to hear your voice, sir. We were all worried . . . I’ll fetch Miss Holly to the phone immediately.”

Long seconds passed. Norlund watched his bug-detector. So far the line appeared to be safe. He rearranged his little piles of coins on the little shelf before the phone, ready to feed in more money when the operator should break in to ask for it. He thought that he could feel the proprietors of the mission staring at his back.

Again someone picked up the receiver at the other end. “Hello?” said Holly’s voice. The unbearable grief that Norlund had been bracing himself to hear in her voice was not evident. What he heard sounded to him more like simple suspense.

“Holly, it’s Alan Norlund. I’ve just now heard. God, I’m so sorry for you.”

“They killed them, Alan.” Maybe the feeling that tightened her voice was not suspense either, but rage compressed and waiting. She’d had days now to get it under control, but still it seemed to leave no room for surprise at hearing from him so suddenly. “Those bastards killed them. It wasn’t any crash, at least not accidental. The big purge was on, gangsters settling scores among themselves. And I know Willy had enemies, Goering and others. I’ve had word from people who got out.” At last her voice did soften. “Alan, where are you, how are you?”

“At the moment, in Texas. And I’m in good shape.” And still the bug-detector remained inert; Norlund supposed that Brandi’s people were having their problems too, trying to defend in a dozen or a hundred places against the attack that they must know was coming, trying to avoid the crushing paradoxes that could make some regions inaccessible to time travel. “Could you find out anything through the State Department? If Jeff—”

“None of Jeff’s friends were able to do anything. If the German government says it was an accident, then officially that’s what it was. Even if we all know better. With that son of a bitch coming on his airship, nobody wants to stir things up.”

“How’s Jeff doing?”

“About as usual. He’s out working, even if it is almost midnight. But you. Was that a heart attack? Jeff tells me that you . . . that you got the best medical care available anywhere.”

It sounded like maybe Jeff had told her more. Norlund sighed. “Better than you’d believe. You won’t know me when you see me again. That’s going to be soon, I hope.”

“Are you coming here?”

“Holly, I want you to tell Jeff something for me. Something very important.” The detector still indicated that no one was listening in, but there was no telling how long it would stay that way. “Tell him rendezvous Jupiter, a couple of days from now. Will you do that?”

“Of course. Jupiter, in a couple of days. Is that all? What does it mean?”

“No, goddamn it, that’s not all. That’s very far from all. I want to see you, I’ve got to see you, but I can’t see you just yet.” And the device on the line sparked suddenly, emitting a sharp gem-flash of light directed at Norlund’s eyes. He tried to change his voice. “I’ll be talking to you, Mrs. Rudel. Good-bye.”

The abrupt closing of that phone conversation was probably not the strangest thing about it, Holly thought, nor was it perhaps even the most alarming.

She knew where to look for her father. It was very doubtful that she would be able to reach him there by phone, and anyway in this case she preferred a face-to-face confrontation.

Griffith drove her to the Empire State, and waited at the curb. With a judicious combination of brass and cash, Holly got herself first into the building lobby and then into an elevator.

In a narrow service passage on the level of the observation deck she encountered Jeff, who was just coming down from a climb on stairs and ladders to even greater heights. He was coming through a door, with the sprawl of the city’s midnight lights behind him.

Holly stepped forward. “Jeff, I . . .” The rest of the sentence was never said. Descending immediately behind Jeff was the man she had encountered in the elevator on New Year’s morning. Like Jeff, he was now wearing engineer’s coveralls over his suit.

Holly’s father, though startled for a moment, did not appear enormously surprised to see her there. Instead he became—not exactly embarrassed, Holly thought, he never really did that, but he got the look he usually wore when dealing with some social difficulty. “Holly, what’s up?” he asked.

She grinned. “Just an impulse.” She knew that from her such an explanation was likely to be accepted readily. “I timed it well, I see.”

As the man behind him stepped forward smiling lightly at Holly, Jeff turned to him. “Ah, Mr. Brandi, this is my daughter.”

For a moment Holly had the idea that Brandi might click his heels, Prussian-style, and bow. But he only grinned and put out his hand in an open, quite American way. “We’ve met once,” he said.

Jeff was surprised. “Oh? Where was that?”

Holly told him briefly, not mentioning what had been said that time in the elevator. “I just didn’t want to bother you with it, Dad; I didn’t think it would turn out to have any importance. But what . . . ?”

Brandi cleared his throat. “A mutual friend introduced me to your father. I have been helping him on some matters connected with the mooring mast. We are making sure that it is safe.”

Holly got the impression that when Brandi said those last words he was watching her closely for a reaction. “Good idea,” she acknowledged, while wondering all the more what was going on.

Brandi had turned to Jeff. “At our earlier meeting, I told your daughter that I represented the law—but then I had no formal credentials to present. So she sent me off about my business, for which I can scarcely blame her.”

Jeff nodded, as if he already understood why Brandi would have introduced himself in such a way. Meanwhile Holly, looking at the pale man, decided in her own mind that he was really not German at all, though that had been her first impression. Brandi didn’t sound like a German name—at least she didn’t think it did—and his faint accent seemed to be from somewhere else, she was not sure where.

“Then you do represent the law?” she asked him now. “Or don’t you?”

“Holly.” Her father’s voice, to her surprise, was actually reproachful. “There are times when real life is not that simple. Washington and Jefferson had to take existing law into their own hands, in order to create this country. There were days when Lincoln himself had to suspend civil rights.”

“And now you and Mr. Brandi—?”

“Don’t worry about it, dear.” Then Jeff caught himself, hearing in what he had just said the overtones of don’t-bother-your-pretty-head-about-it. As he knew very well, that was about the worst imaginable way to go about enlisting his daughter’s co-operation in anything.

He tried again. “There are times, yes, when good citizens have to act, even without formal credentials. Times when their country is in peril. Right now the Jews and the Reds between them have such a grip on

Washington . . .” Jeff’s eyes were moist, and he almost choked on the last words. For a moment Holly was able to see the depth of his emotion.

“On George, that is?” Holly asked lightly. “Or on the city?” She turned to Brandi then, fluttering her eyelashes sarcastically. “I really don’t understand a thing about politics. But I hope that at least the mooring mast is safe. Is there political significance to that?”

And only then, only in the moment after that last line had been delivered in perfect innocence, did she connect the day’s largest headlines about the
Graf’s
imminent departure from Europe and who would be on it and when and where it was scheduled to land, with what was going on before her eyes.

“There is now,” said her father brusquely, bumping past her in the narrow passage, perhaps in an effort to conceal from her his own emotion. In the process he incidentally blocked Brandi’s view of her face at what might have been her crucial moment of realization.

Then the moment was over. Brandi was saying: “Allow me to offer my sympathy, Mrs. Rudel, for your recent bereavement.”

Holly had herself well in control now. “Thank you. I suppose no one could have prevented the crash. It’s just one of the things that aviators live with.” She paused. “Sorry if I was nasty just now. I’m afraid I’m still rather wrapped up in my own affairs.”

“Of course.” Brandi looked and sounded quite naturally decent and sympathetic. “I’m no pilot myself, but I am interested. Maybe some day when you feel like it, we could talk about flying.”