Krysalis: Krysalis (52 page)
David stepped back a pace, raised the candlestick above his head, and axed downward with all his might.
The sound of brass clanging on stone revealed his mistake. Too late: he was already toppling forward, unbalanced by the force of his own blow. A foot lashed out of the darkness, entangling his legs, and he fell.
Somewhere close he could hear panting. His opponent was still on the floor, it was a kick that had laid David low, not a punch.
So don’t let him get up again.
David rolled as far as he could, hugging the candlestick to his chest. The wall stopped him. He managed to stagger up to a kneeling position before hands met around his throat and began to squeeze.
The enemy was behind him, also kneeling. Not a good position, but he was as strong as an ox and clever, too: anticipating the likely reaction he kept his body arched left, away from David’s increasingly weakened blows with the weapon still clutched in his right hand.
David’s strength was going. Each breath became a nightmare. Purple blotches marred his vision; from the pain in his throat he felt his head must be coming off. Suddenly the right hand on his windpipe fell away and he sensed that the man had made a grab for the candlestick. He missed. Instead of trying again, he moved his left hand from David’s throat to his hair, and started to bang his head against the wall.
David cried out. His adversary immediately let go of David’s hair and clamped his left palm across his mouth instead. In the darkness, the move was clumsy; his forefinger landed between David’s teeth. With whatever strength he had left, David clenched his jaws together and shook his head from side to side.
Until then, the other man had been fighting in near silence—which made his roar of pain all the more gratifying.
David managed a half turn, still keeping his teeth closed around his attacker’s finger. Through a blur of weakness he realized that his right hand was free. He stabbed to his left with the candlestick and made soft contact. He thrust again—but this time hands stronger than his own managed to grasp his makeshift club, and the next second David was defenseless.
A whoosh of air, frighteningly close, told him that his assailant was trying to duplicate his own move of a moment ago and lay him out cold. He ducked to one side. The next swing caught him on the shoulder, making him howl. That meant the end, his voice would have given away his position.
David fumbled desperately on the floor, seeking purchase. His fingers brushed something spiky and spasmodically closed around it. In the same instant, he heard a clang as the other man threw down the candlestick and launched himself downward. David found himself crouching with his back against the wall, those terrible hands once more around his throat.
This time his opponent was in front of him.
Light going now, can’t breathe. Last chance. Go limp. Sink …
As the other man was pulled forward under the weight of the inert body he was holding, David tightened his grip on the spiky thing and drove it with all his force at the two glittering points of light in front of him.
He missed the eyes, but a squeal reassured David that his thrust had done good work. The vice around his throat relaxed, he was free, he was running. As he hurtled through the church’s outer door, something made him look down and see that he was holding Juliet’s corn dolly. He raised Miss Cuppidge to the
light. His hands were shaking. Anna … Don’t think of that, don’t stop, to the right, trees, ahead, a path leading up the hill, on his left, a short drop, then rocks and the sea. A bay.
For a split second he found himself looking across the cove to a house on the hillside opposite. Light streamed out of its downstairs rooms to illuminate a terrace, where two men were standing with their backs to him. David had eyes only for a third figure, seated just inside, but nevertheless clearly visible through the open doorway. A woman. Her pale green V-neck dress with short, white-cuffed sleeves stood out boldly in the artificial light. The dress was Italian, made of cotton, and it zipped up the back. David knew these things because he had bought it for Anna last year on her thirty-eighth birthday, one of his rare and outrageously extravagant declarations of love.
His mission still had a long way to go; all he had done was find Anna, not rescue her. But as David raced up the path, into the trees, his heart sang for sheer joy.
42
While Stange remained at the house, fitting up his radio set, the others moved fast through the night, Gerhard riding next to Yorgos, who drove, with Anna and Barzel in the back seat.
Yorgos was happy, he explained to anyone who would listen. The olive crop looked to be a good one, there was much to be done. His son would be coming home on Monday, early, thanks be to God.
Somehow Gerhard didn’t think so. He wasn’t expecting Iannis to show up again. Perhaps his expression hinted at more than Yorgos cared to know, for after a while he trailed off into silence. The atmosphere hardly encouraged social chitchat.
Gerhard knew why Barzel had chosen to ride in the back. That way he could more easily cover him and Anna, because by now both of them were prisoners.
He had tried to hypnotize Anna, with her consent, but his skill had dwindled almost to nothing. The best he could manage was a patient explanation of the arrangements,
hoping that would calm her. They were going to a place called Avlaki, there a boat would be waiting to take them on to the small island where they had swum, they would be in the car for so many minutes, on the sea for so many minutes more—but it was useless. The first night on the island, he had told her that David wanted her to be here, so she must stay; now he could not unscramble those instructions. He was afraid to contemplate what the effect might be.
He turned his head slightly. At the start, Anna lay huddled against the door, as far away from Barzel as she could manage within the confines of the car. They had untied her legs but her hands were still bound. She was shivering, sometimes violently, sometimes a mere murmur of the body, reminding him of a very sick animal.
“The submarine,” she cried suddenly, and seemed on the point of speaking again but was silent.
“What about—”
“Steel trap. Don’t let them.” She raised her voice in desperation. “Don’t let them do it!”
Barzel shifted onto the edge of his seat. “Can’t you shut her up?” he snarled. When Gerhard snapped a refusal, he tossed his head like a man who doubts, but made no reply.
“Don’t deserve this. Leaving Juliet. Everyone. Poor David …”
Gerhard leaned over to stroke her cheek. It felt wet beneath his palm.
Anna was silent for a long time; she seemed to have fallen asleep. Barzel’s short-wave handset crackled into life, making Gerhard jump. Stange’s voice emerged over the static. Barzel murmured a few words to test the hookup.
Anna stirred, evidently awakened by the interruption.
She looked around, as if surprised to find herself inside a car.
“Herr
Barzel,” she said suddenly. “You really must come around for dinner when we’re all living in Berlin. We’ll have a laugh about old times, a few drinks.
Lots
of drinks …”
No one said anything. Barzel continued to gaze through the windshield as if Anna had not spoken, but Gerhard’s professional intuition was already mapping the catastrophe before him.
“You must bring your gun. I want to see you shoot. Can you knock hearts out of playing cards, and things like that? Bet you can.”
She was sitting up now, taking interest in her surroundings. When Barzel still did not answer, she bent forward to rest her wrists on the top of the driver’s seat—“Sorry, Yorgos, did I bump you? It’s this rope”—and say, “Out-of-the-run jobs like yours can be so fascinating.”
Her giggle was childlike.
“Anna.” Gerhard reached out to touch her arm. “Anna, stop it.”
“Mm?” She glanced at him. “Something bothering you?”
“Anna!”
She swayed. Her eyes, so intent and alert a second ago, unfocused, and in the same instant her face underwent a subtle change. It was a question of millimeters, nothing more, a sagging of the chin, drooping eyelids, slack mouth … countless details emerged to suggest a change of personality, along with the outward show.
“What? Did you say something?” she asked.
“I … you weren’t quite yourself.”
“No. No. What … was I saying?”
Barzel broke the barbed silence. “You were inviting me to dinner, Anna; you wanted me to bring my gun and show you tricks.”
Gerhard examined her face, what he could see of it in the car’s dim interior. No point in asking if she remembered any of that, because plainly she did not. She was tearing apart, severing, in front of him. His dreadful, guilt-ridden handiwork, brought to its logical conclusion at last… two Annas. Two separate people. He stared out the window, as if darkness held a peculiar fascination for him.
Anna fell back in her seat. The car cornered sharply. When she lurched against Barzel some hard object ground against her thigh. She knew what it must be. His gun.
Kleist had a gun too, though, she had seen him furtively pocket his Luger while Barzel was still preoccupied with Stange, who had staggered into the house with blood on his face and a long story to tell. But since he told it in German she did not know what was the matter with him.
A tic started at the side of her mouth. She had a sore throat. All her nerves seemed to be at war with one another, right up against her epidermis, suddenly making it impossible to sit still.
You must not leave this place!
They’re taking you away. Can’t fight them.
David is here. He’s come for you. He wants to rescue you.
No, he can’t do that. Can’t. David’s dead.
But it
was
David she had seen, outside the church, a few hours before. They’d left her facing the cove while they argued in German across the top of her head, as if
she didn’t exist. She did exist, however, and she had seen her husband.
He isn’t real. Couldn’t be. He’s dead.
Before they tied her up again, she had somehow managed to slip his photograph out of her handbag and leave it under a vase of flowers on the windowsill. If he found it he would know she’d been there.
Her last message of love.
Fight it!
I can’t.
Can’t.
Can’t.
Do.
This.
Barzel turned toward her. “We are nearly there. Get ready, please.”
43
Albert had told Vassili, “I don’t care what color it is as long as it’s black.” And the Greek replied, “Black is impossible. Gray.”
Lindos P.269
was gray, and against a background of mainland mountains the coastal patrol craft became almost invisible, moving soundlessly through the water at twenty-seven knots. But there was a moon, three days off full, and more stars than Albert thought the cosmos capable of holding, so he cursed his luck and prayed for rain.
The worst scenario had, after all and with dreary inevitability, materialized: a sea-borne operation, with one soaking already under his belt and God knew what else in prospect. No matter how often he made an effort to control his shallow breathing, he was left with this unacceptable truth: despite his ability to exercise control over his fear (he had frequently done it before), tonight he was rattled.
No, he told himself for the hundredth time, you are
in charge. You are not afraid. You are not
affected.
Fear is not on the list of problems facing you.
Many people now seemed to be involved in the tracking of Anna Lescombe, which gave Albert no pleasure. Half-a-dozen taciturn men clad in black track suits had joined the party before the
Lindos
left Corfu. No one introduced them, they just materialized and stayed. Albert looked at them, raising one eyebrow for Vassili to see, but the Greek merely lifted his shoulders in one of those thespian shrugs.
Competition,
Albert thought to himself. Careful …
When they reached the island where Kleist had his villa, they found the local policeman waiting on the quay. Albert forced himself to stand with a patient look on his face throughout the involved colloquy that followed. At last Vassili turned to him and said, “He’s sure he knows the person you mean. A doctor who sometimes brings his patients to the island for treatment, always beautiful women, never men.”