Crossword (20 page)

When she was a few feet from him she smiled broadly, saying,
"I am so glad you could make it today," then slipped her arm in his
and guided him to the table. "Let me pay the check, then we shall go."
Kent hadn't said anything yet, he just stared, mesmerized by her beauty and
sexuality, even more striking from close up. When she opened her purse,
reaching in for money, he remembered his manners and quickly slid his hand into
his pocket.

"No, please, let me get that."

"Why, thank you."

After leaving money on the table, Kent looked up at Eva,
still smiling, and was about to say something when she again interlocked arms
and led him off, walking close to him so their bodies touched, occasionally
turning her torso to point out something or comment on the beauty of some
statue, a young couple in love. She turned and pointed across his body to a
narrow street that intersected the boulevard on which they walked, making sure
as she did so that he felt her breast pressed firmly against his arm.

"We go down here. It is a private club belonging to a
friend of the General. We won't be disturbed." As she said this she
squeezed his hand gently and Kent thought suddenly that this might just be a
tryst she had arranged, "a little extra on the side," and he could
not keep himself from picturing her naked body. The thought scared him, but
also excited him and he could not control the stirring in his loins.

"Will the General be there?"

"Of course, you silly boy. What kind of meeting would
it be without both of you?"

She was teasing him, playing her own little game. He
realized that now, but the thought had been there and he was still stimulated
by the possibility, however remote. Embarrassed now, he added, "I meant,
is the General already there."

Eva's expression indicated that she was not fooled by this,
although she simply replied, "I see. Yes, he is waiting for you."
They continued on for another minute, then she pointed ahead to a simple black
sign that had painted on it in white letters, "BEER AND WINE".
"That is it." Eva preceded him down three steps and through a heavy
wooden door into what appeared to be the storeroom of some café or bar, rather
than the main room used by the patrons. There were beer kegs lined up across
one wall and along most of the wall that held the alley door through which they
had just entered. Floor to ceiling racks of wine covered another wall and the
fourth was punctuated dead center by a passageway that Kent supposed led to the
main room, whatever that might be. It was flanked by two old metal filing
cabinets and assorted cleaning supplies including several large mops and
buckets. The room was not brightly lit, although it was not particularly dark,
either. Four conical metal fixtures hung from the ceiling, each casting a
circular of illumination on the concrete floor below. Four circular nightclub
style tables stood in the room, each placed between two of the overhanging
fixtures, out of the direct glare of the lights. A fifth was in the center of
the room, and at this table sat Gerhard Waldman, wearing dark brown trousers
and a tweed hunting jacket with leather at the elbows and right shoulder. He
turned his head and watched the approach of Kent, rising and inviting him to
sit as he was led to the table. After delivering him to Waldman, Eva retreated
to one of the other tables where she sat quietly. There were only the three of
them in the room.

"I am sorry you had to make this journey again,"
Waldman led off, "but it is not easy for me to get here either."

"Comes with the job. Don't worry about it."

"Well, we will not be meeting again. I imagine you are
glad of that."

"The train ride is getting kind of boring, but it's
been interesting talking with you. I think you must be a good General, smart. I
respect that."

Waldman nodded his thanks, then continued, "You have
the final plans for our mission, and I assume the picture I gave you has been
shown to your agent.'

"It has."

"And you also have the recognition code?"

"I do. Do you want me to write it down?"

"Better not written. Eva, can you hear us?"

"I can."

"Please, sir, just say it and that will suffice."

Kent stated the password and counter password, asking that
it be repeated back to him to satisfy his own obsessiveness. That done, he
began the litany of operational details that Julian had reviewed with him,
pausing occasionally to answer questions from Gerhard, who was particularly
probing when it came to the explanation of how Julian planned to spare the
field agent's life by deceiving him into thinking the plutonium had been
recovered some time in the past. It involved a rapid response by Waldman and
his associates, as well as close coordination. The General listened carefully,
nodding his head in apparent agreement, his eyes closed at times, which Kent
assumed was to better concentrate and analyze what was being said. But if the
eyes are the mirror of the soul, Gerhard did not want anyone to have access
into the labyrinth of his mind or to see into the dark crypts that lay within.
Kent completed his briefing while the man sitting across from him sat silently
rubbing his temples, eyes closed, for nearly a minute before speaking.
"Yes, we can make that plan work."

"Then, I guess our business is concluded,
General."

"Finished, yes, but there is one more thing." He
pushed back his chair and stood, taking a few steps around the little cocktail
table. Eva had come up on Kent's side and placed her hand on his shoulder, then
slid it up around his neck, pulling his face toward hers, mouth slightly opened,
tongue poised, and kissed him full on the lips, a deep and exploring kiss. Too
close to see his expression of surprise, she could sense it by the way his
mouth contorted as she held her lips firmly against his. After initial
astonishment, he felt excitement and fear, but alas, did not feel the end of
the small revolver pressed against his abdomen just below the lower end of his
breastbone, muzzle angled upward toward his heart. The noise and the pain
reached him at the same time although the ringing in his ears persisted for
longer, since after the bullet penetrated his heart it impacted on the spinal
column, shattering it and abolishing all pain below that point. His heart
continued pumping, not very effectively though, for a number of seconds and the
last words he heard before life and consciousness forever left him were those
of a familiar male voice snarling into his left ear, "Never insult a ...
"

Eva tried to hold onto the kiss, fascinated by the thought
of actually, so to speak, sucking the life and breath out of someone, but she
simply could not support his weight as he crumpled to the floor. Gerhard
cursed, followed by several choice invectives. He would have liked Kent to die
more slowly, have liked to make sure he knew why he was dying and who had killed
him, but the exigencies of the task before him, on which depended his safety as
Hitler's Germany collapsed around him, did not allow for the pleasure of so
personal a revenge. Prodding him with his foot for any sign of life, he spoke
to Eva, "Get the other two to take the body to the Italian end of the
lake. My men are waiting there and will dispose of it so there are no
identifiable remains." He considered kicking the body to help vent the
rage and contempt that hadn't yet dissipated, but felt it would not be
befitting for an officer and a gentleman. The incongruity of this latter
thought and the barbarous act that had just been committed did not phase him.
As a matter of fact the disparity between thought and action never even
registered in his conscious mind. Instead, Gerhard bent down and went through
Kent's pockets. There was nothing of any significance; he hadn't really
expected that there would be. A small sheaf of Swiss francs he handed to Eva.
It was becoming ever more difficult for her to dress in the stylish manner that
she liked. "Meet me at the hotel as soon as you take care of things here.
I must make arrangements for you to get to Munich and see to it that you are
safely ensconced in Maria's apartment." He nodded a goodbye that seemed
overly formal, and walked briskly down the passageway to the front of the café
and out the door.

Several hundred meters from the shore one of the partisans switched
off the outboard engine, and with muffled oar strokes they worked their way to
land; German soil. Larry unloaded his gear while one of the men quickly briefed
him on German troops in the area, their location, number and the usual routes
and duration of patrols. He also told him what he knew of foreign nationals in
the region. Larry's appearance was not that of the typical Teutonic, but in
this part of the country it was not unusual to see a mixture of races and
nationalities including Italians, and since he grew up speaking both English
and Italian, and had become fluent in German, he was well suited for work in
this area. Even as he moved closer to Munich, his appearance would be unlikely
to raise any alarms although it might raise some eyebrows. The man told Larry
where a bike had been hidden for him, wished him good luck, then returned to
the boat and pushed out onto the lake where they would spend some time fishing
to cover their absence and, if they were lucky, perhaps actually catch
something to supplement the meager food that was available. After thanking
them, Larry disappeared into the forest that bordered the lake in this area.

Moving at a fast clip, Larry was soon sweating. When he
began to cough he stopped to rest, thought about taking another one of the
pills the doctor had given him, then realized it had only been a few hours
since the last one and remembered that the doctor had warned him about taking
them too frequently or in more than the prescribed number. So he just sat
there, leaning against a pine tree, until his coughing subsided and his respiration
returned to normal. Checking his compass heading he resumed the trek, slowing
the pace a bit and trying to control his breathing. Once he found the bike he
would have to shed all his gear, anything that might identify him as a foreign
agent and continue on dead reckoning and the knowledge gained from weeks of
studying maps.

By the time the day was drawing to an end, the forest was
beginning to thin out, and Larry thought he must be approaching the location
where the bike had been hidden. It was then that he heard the voices and
realized they must be fairly close since sound did not travel far in the woods.
He quietly shed his pack, took a nondescript revolver which, along with a
substantial hunting knife, both of German manufacture, were his only weapons,
and proceeded softly, using the still plentiful trees as cover. Moving from
tree to tree he homed in on the sounds, which became more distinct and now
seemed to be several people arguing. He would have preferred to simply give
them a wide berth and move on except that they had to be quite close to the
hidden bike, a much needed asset if he was to make it to Munich on schedule.
Peering around a large oak, Larry saw three boys who all seemed to be about
nine or ten years old, each with a hand on an old and battered looking blue
bicycle partly covered by dirt and the detritus of the forest floor ——
obviously his intended transportation and now the object of the youthful
argument. It was not easy to divide a bike into three equal portions. He was
not sure what to do and so he retreated behind the oak to try to formulate some
kind of plan of action.

However, before anything came to mind, the boys began to
move away with the bike in tow, each securing their right of ownership by a
small hand holding firmly to some part of the battered, blue cycle. Larry
watched as they continued north in the direction of a road that he knew lay
some 200 meters away. From a safe distance he followed behind, harboring the
faint hope that they might leave the bike while they sought council on the
division of property, or perhaps would hide it again in some new place where
the person who first secreted it away couldn't reclaim it, while they decided
on the safest and most equitable course of action. Equitable at least for them
if not for the most recent owner. The boys emerged from the woods, which ended
rather abruptly less than 25 meters from the roadway, and they continued their
arguing as they walked, hampered in their bombast by the fact that they each
had only one available arm with which to gesticulate and advance their
position. Larry stayed behind and watched from behind the last large tree at
the very edge of the forest before it gave way to the meadow that bordered the
gray black macadam snaking its way through the countryside. His hopes were
fading rapidly, only to be dashed even further in the next minute. The three
youths had reached the road when they suddenly paused in their expostulation
and turned to the left, looking anxiously up the road. Approaching at a fast clip
was an open car with four German soldiers, returning, Larry surmised, from
patrol duty farther to the West.

The soldiers were singing some beer hall song, further
evidence that they had finished their patrol for the day and were also pretty
happy that they were among the few soldiers not at one of the fronts, sites
that were in near disarray and rapidly contracting as the Third Reich
shriveled. When they saw the boys, the singing stopped and the driver slowed,
then brought the car to a stop. The corporal in the front seat stepped out and
spoke to the three of them, and by their pointing and gesticulations it was
obvious they were relating the saga of the hidden bike.

"What is going on here, children?"

"It's my bike."

"No, it's not!"

"I found it; it's mine."

"
We
found it; it's ours."

"Stop this bickering, now. You," pointing to the
boy who had spoken first, "Tell me what happened. And it better be the
truth. Our jail is empty and there's plenty of room for all of you. As a matter
of fact, maybe I should take you there so we could do a proper
interrogation."