Eva (45 page)

“Arrange it.”

The Italian bobbed his head. “
Si, volentieri!”
His eager face suddenly fell. “But,” he sighed, “it would be necessary for me first to give money to my cousin with the boat. He will need it.”

Strelitz observed the innkeeper scornfully. A slimy little lout, he thought. It was degrading for the
Brüderschaft
to have to deal with the likes of him.

“You will get your money,” he said disdainfully.

The Italian licked his lips. “I shall also need to know where in Bari is the
Anlaufstelle.
I only know the next one on the route. In Bolzano.”

“I will get the necessary information, and your money, for you,” Strelitz said shortly. “By 0800 hours. Be ready to leave by then.”

He stood up. “You will take the young woman and her escort to your cousin and instruct him to transport them to Bari on his boat. Understood?”

“Understood,
Signor ufficiale.”

“And you know your orders regarding the man and the woman in the basement?”

Bazzano nodded. “I do.”

“Including the travel papers?”

“
Si,”
Bazzano said. He spread his hands. “But why?” It is much work. And it is not necessary to . . . ”

“Just do it!” Strelitz snapped. He smiled nastily at the Italian. “Consider it a safety valve. In case your cousin, Pietro, should happen to bungle the job.”

Indignantly Bazzano drew himself up. “Never!” he declared. “Never,
Signor ufficiale. My
cousin would never bungle.”

“Good,” Strelitz said crisply. “Then you will have no trouble in carrying out my orders without fail.” It was dismissal. “I, myself, shall leave here shortly before you do.”

“And I, Luigi Bazzano, will obey your commands,
Signor ufficiale.
You may trust me. Implicitly!”

Strelitz regarded the Italian, his lips stretched thin in a little smile of contempt. It was insufferable, he thought, that he and his vital mission had to be degraded by having to rely on such pitiful inferiors. But he had no other recourse. Not in the matter of the Diehl nuisance.

But there were other matters. Matters he would deal with himself. The safety of Eva Braun Hitler and her unborn child.

And Operation Future.

Ilse stirred fitfully as Woody gently disengaged himself, but she did not wake up. She had fallen asleep in his arms as he sat on one of the cots, leaning against the wall. He had always considered it the greatest expression of trust when a dog or a cat fell asleep in his lap, rendering themselves totally vulnerable to him. He looked down at Ilse. Or a girl, he thought. Carefully he lowered her to the cot and stood up. He was stiff. He’d been sitting, holding the exhausted girl, for a long time. He hadn’t had the heart to wake her.

The light, coming from a single feeble bulb in the ceiling had been left on. He looked toward the door. The heavy dead bolt was still in place. There was one other door in the room, a smaller one. He hoped it led to where he thought it would. He opened it.

The cubicle behind it was about the size of a shower stall. It was the kind of crude indoor toilet he’d run across occasionally in Europe, especially in France. A cement floor slanted toward a hole in the middle and with two small raised platforms, like tile footprints, to stand on. And a spigot low on the wall. It would do.

Only a trickle of water flowed from the spigot when he turned the handle. He opened it all the way. The performance was not improved. He gave up.

He glanced at his watch. He frowned. It was well past 0730 hours. Where the hell was the damned innkeeper?

He walked to the door. He slid the bolt from its clasp. He tried to open the door.

It was locked.

Someone had locked it while they were resting.

He stared at it. They were locked in. He’d half expected it. The Italian agent seemed about as trustworthy as a nearsighted cobra. He was about to bang on it, when he stopped himself. It would do no good. And he wouldn’t give the bastards the satisfaction.

He glared at the closed door.

In time it would open.

To what?

T
HE BACK OF THE BATTERED LITTLE TRUCK
smelled musty and sour with a faint hint of carbolic acid. Pietro, the driver, an acnescarred young man with two front teeth missing and unkempt black hair, drove like a madman, and the truck bounced and swayed, tossing them around in the empty cargo space.

Woody was furious. For more than twenty-four hours he and Ilse had been cooped up in the damned basement at the Merano inn.
Signora
Bazzano had fed them personally, always accompanied by two silent gorillas with ham-sized fists and no brows. The food had been ample and tasty, and there had been plenty of wine, but the door had been kept locked. The
Signora
had chirped something about emergency measures and her husband being away on some urgent mission or other, all because of a disturbing and unsolved attack on a guest at the inn. All activities related to the
Achse
had therefore come to a standstill, she’d proclaimed.

When Woody complained about being locked in, she’d thrown up her hands melodramatically and cried it was her husband’s strict instructions and was all to ensure their own safety. How that worked, she had not explained.

The only good thing about the whole damned mess, he thought, was the fact that both he and Ilse had been able to get more than enough rest, and the rich food had restored their strength. He only wished he could keep such phrases as “fatted calf” and “last meal” from entering his mind.

It was now Wednesday, June 13. He had lost a full day, and had had no chance to learn anything about Eva and her companion, or try to find out if they were at the inn. His only consolation was, that according to
Signora
Bazzano, no one else had left the inn during the last twenty-four hours.

Finally, that morning, Bazzano had shown up, all apologies and unintelligible explanations. They would be leaving immediately, he’d announced. For the
Anlaufstelle
in Bolzano. His cousin, a clever boy who could be trusted as if he were Luigi Bazzano himself, would drive them there on his way to pick up supplies for the inn, which he always did on Wednesday mornings. Hurriedly he’d given them the address of the stop in Bolzano and the passwords to use, and he’d stuffed their new travel papers in Woody’s breast pocket.

He felt for them. He’d not even had a chance to examine them.

He fished them out. He held them to one of the streaks of yellow light that lanced into the truck through numerous cracks.

He froze.

The travel permit, for him and Ilse, gave them permission to travel by whatever means at their disposal, private or public, to the city of Rome.

Rome.
Not Bari!

He stared at it. Was it a mistake? Deliberate? To keep him from getting to Bari? If so, why? Who had issued the orders? Why Rome? He cursed. He should have realized there would be other escape route branches fanning out once the
B-B Achse
line reached Italy. But, even if he had, how could he have insisted that
he
be sent to Bari? He had been lulled into a false sense of security, he realized, by the name
B-B Achse.
Bremen–
Bari,
dammit! Not Bremen-Bari-Genoa-Leghorn-Naples or whatever other damned Italian seaports the bastards could think of.

He calmed down. Excuses weren’t going to get him anywhere. He took stock. He had lost a full day—and he was on his way to a totally different place from where he wanted to go. If he hoped ever to catch up with Eva.

Eva? Wait a minute. Had she, in fact, been sent to Bari? Or to Rome? Or to some other Godforsaken place? Who the hell knew? He suddenly felt utterly defeated. He had no possible way of knowing. Or finding out.

Even if he in some way could change his destination once he arrived in Bolzano—and he had not the foggiest notion of how to pull off that little trick—but even if he could, how could he know he wasn’t just scratching his ass on the wrong cheek? The damned mission was closer to coming to a head in time than ever before—and further away in realization than when he started.

If he could change his route; if he selected the correct seaport; if he could get there in time; and if he could spot Eva before she boarded her ship for Africa or for South America or wherever she was headed. If . . .

Dammit! The whole mission had become a forest of
ifs.

For a moment he toyed with the idea of going for assistance to the local CIC in Bolzano. If there was a CIC office in the town. Another damned if! But what could they do? Trample around in the forest of
ifs,
and drive his quarry deeper underground than ever. Apparently the slightest sign of anything unusual sent the
Achse
operatives into a flurry of security measures. Look at what had happened at the Merano inn. All because he’d tapped some stupid bastard on the head.

No. There was nothing to be gained by involving the local CIC. Not now.

He was on his own. He’d have to stay that way.

With a problem that had just grown tenfold larger.

They had been driving for about half an hour when Woody felt the truck slow down. It made a sharp turn to the right, obviously on to a rutted dirt path off the main road. He was at once on the alert.

After a few minutes the truck came to a stop, and he heard Pietro get out of the cab. What was up? Rest stop? Hardly. Not after only half an hour.

He heard Pietro pull the latch on the back door to the truck. The door opened a crack and stopped, standing ajar.

Woody stepped up to the partly open door. He pushed it.

The truck was parked on a dirt path in a forest. A few feet behind it stood Pietro, a thin, unpleasant grin on his acne-scarred face—and an old Glisenti 1910, 9 mm pistol in his hand stretched out before him. It was aimed carefully at Woody.

“You will come down from the truck,” the Italian ordered. “You,
Signore,
and the
Signorina.”

Woody at once grasped the situation. Somewhere along the line he’d been blown, and his elimination ordered. His—and Ilse’s. How? How had they penetrated his cover? What mistake had he made? Never mind. It was immaterial. Now. Everything was, except staying alive. Within the span of a few heartbeats a plan swept into his mind. Instantly he decided to act upon it. Adrenalin surged to support it.

“Stay back in the truck!” he whispered over his shoulder to Ilse. “As far as you can. Do not move until I tell you!” He heard the girl scramble to obey, then turned his full attention to the Italian. Fearfully he stared at him. The man held the pistol at arm’s length in one hand pointing it at him as if pointing with a finger. Good. He was not a professional. He could be rattled.

“Please,” he cried in his best Italian, his voice unsteady with apprehension, “please do not shoot!”

He surveyed the Italian. The man stood ten to twelve feet behind the truck. It might work. With a little luck. Anyway, whether it would or not, it was the only game in town.

“I will do as you say,” he croaked. “Please do not kill me!”

Pietro shrugged. He seemed to enjoy the feeling of being in complete command. “I have my orders,
Signore,”
he said. “I must follow them. As a soldier, you will understand.”

Woody jumped down from the back of the truck, clumsy in his apparent fear. He landed off balance and struggled to catch himself. He reached a half-crouched position—when he suddenly let out a bloodcurdling scream. In the same instant he made a quick feint to his right, immediately reversing himself and, still roaring in fury, has face fiercely distorted in raging frenzy, he catapulted himself at the Italian.

Pietro started violently, shocked at the sudden, unexpected scream. With instinctive reflex he fired in the direction of Woody’s feint, just missing him, as Woody made his countermove. At once he swung the pistol back but it was impossible for him to check the swing of the gun held in one hand and the second shot went wild. Before he was able to bring the pistol back and fire point-blank, Woody hit him in a hard, low tackle which knocked the wind out of him and sent his Glisenti pistol flying.

When he picked himself up, he found himself staring into Woody’s Walther.

“Don’t bother to get up, Pietro, my boy.” Woody grinned at him, his bantering tone of voice and choice of words somehow more menacing than cold threats. “Just stay right where you are. Make yourself comfortable. You’ll stay there for a while. Perhaps—forever.”

He planted himself solidly before the frightened Italian, sprawled awkwardly on the ground. “Now,” he said pleasantly, “you and I are going to have a little talk.” His voice suddenly grew hard. “Who told you to kill us?” he barked.

Pietro stared at him, his eyes dark with terror. He made no reply.

“Why?” Woody shot at him.

Pietro just stared. Woody sighed audibly. “Do you have a knife, Pietro?” he asked. “All good little Italians seem to have one. At least a penknife. Do you?”