Second Contact (59 page)

Dutourd caught the shade of meaning and grimaced at it. “They do not treat me quite so badly as that,” he said, then paused and shook his head. “They say they will not treat me so badly as that. Whether it proves true remains to be seen.”

“Anyone who trusts the Germans—” Goldfarb began.

“Trust them? Do I look like such a fool as that?” Pierre Dutourd sounded offended. “But I did and do trust the Race to kill me if I did not have the
Reich
protecting me. And so . . .” He shrugged. Still aiming the pistol in David’s general direction, he pointed with his free hand. “What can your English friends do to keep me going without the Germans and without getting myself killed?”

Goldfarb would have asked exactly that question had he worn Dutourd’s shoes. It was a question for which he had no good answer. He did his best to disguise that, saying, “They will do whatever proves necessary to keep you afloat.”

Dutourd’s lip curled. “As the Royal Navy did at Oran, when your ships opened fire on and sank so many of the ships of France? Why should I trust Englishmen? With the Germans and with the Race, one is always sure of what one gets. With the English, who can say? I sometimes think you do not know that yourselves.”

“We can give you money,” Goldfarb said. “We also have good connections with the Lizards. They can help take the pressure off you.”

“A likely story,” Dutourd said, unconvinced. “Next you will tell me of a tunnel from London to Marseille, so the Germans will not be able to tell what ginger you bring me. If these are the best stories you can tell, better you should go back to England.”

“These are not just stories,” Goldfarb said.
Miserable frog,
he thought.
He’s lived under the Nazis so long, he’s used to it.
Aloud, he went on, “My cousin in Jerusalem is Moishe Russie, of whom you may have heard. Did Monique tell you that?”

“Yes, she told me. And my cousin is Marie Antoinette, of whom you may have heard,” Dutourd answered. “More lies. Nothing else.”

Goldfarb pulled out his wallet and displayed a picture he carried in it. “Here is a photograph of Cousin Moishe and me. I should very much like to see a photograph of you and Cousin Marie.”

Pierre Dutourd bared his teeth in something close to a smile. “I must say that I have not got one with me. If you are a liar, you are a thoroughgoing liar. I know of this Moishe Russie, as who with a hearing diaphragm”—using the Lizards’ language could produce some odd images—“does not? I am surprised to find his cousin, if you are his cousin, working with the ginger smugglers, I must also say.”

“Why?” Goldfarb asked. “If you think I love the Race, you are mistaken. My empire might have beaten Hitler. Thanks to the Race, that did not happen. And Britain is not a friendly home for Jews any more.”

“It could be,” Dutourd said, “that you are telling the truth after all. Whether this matters in the slightest, however, remains to be seen.”

“How can I do more to convince you?” Goldfarb asked, though he had already come closer to convincing the Frenchman than he’d thought he would.

“By showing me that—” The ginger smuggler abruptly broke off, for the device on his belt let out a warning hiss. With surprising speed and silence, he disappeared back into the weeds.

That left David Goldfarb out in the open by himself as he listened to someone crunching through the plants by the side of the synagogue as he had done. He wished for a pistol more than ever. His hand darted into his pocket. It closed on the best single protection he did have: his British passport. Against certain kinds of danger, it was sovereign. Against others, though . . .

“Jesus!” a woman said in American English, “why in hell would anybody want to set up a meeting in this goddamn place?”

A man laughed hoarsely. “You just covered the waterfront there, Penny,” he said, pausing for breath every few words. “But I don’t reckon the Jews’d reckon you got ’em wet once.”

“Am I supposed to care?” the woman—Penny—asked. “The tracer gadget says that Frenchman’s in there, so we’ve got to keep going.”

“You’ll get yourself killed if you charge ahead like that,” the man remarked. His accent, while still from the other side of the Atlantic, was different from Penny’s. “Let me get out in front of you.”

He came out from around the corner with a soldier’s caution—and with a pistol in his hand. None of that would have kept Dutourd from spotting him, as David Goldfarb knew very well. Before any fireworks started, Goldfarb said, “Good day, there. Lovely weather we’re having, eh?”

“You must be the limey. We’ve heard something about you.” The man leaned on a stick, but the gun in his other hand remained very steady. “Don’t tell me you don’t have that Frenchman around here somewhere.”

The woman, a brassy blond, came into sight behind him. She also carried a pistol. Goldfarb didn’t think either of their weapons would do them much good if Pierre Dutourd opened up: he’d be able to get off at least a couple of shots before they realized just where he was.

For the moment, Dutourd stayed hidden. Goldfarb asked, “What do you want with him? And who are you, anyway?”

“Name’s Rance Auerbach—U.S. Army, retired,” the man answered. “This here’s Penny Summers. We’ll talk about what we want when we see Dutourd. And just whose side are you on, buddy? Come on, speak up.” He gestured with the pistol, a large, heavy weapon.

Goldfarb gave his name. “As for whose side I’m on,
my own
is the answer that springs to mind.”

“You can tell whose side he’s on, Rance,” Penny said. “He’s got to be hooked up with those British smugglers—probably that Roundbush fellow, the guy you wrote a letter to for me. Only thing they ever wanted was to keep more ginger going through to the Lizards.”

“You know Group Captain Roundbush?” Goldfarb asked in surprise.

“Yeah,” the American named Rance answered. “We used to do some business together, a long time ago. I haven’t been in that business for a while—I haven’t been much in the way of any business for a while—but we’ve sorta stayed in touch. I suppose he reckoned he could get some use out of me sooner or later.”

That sounded very much like Basil Roundbush, damned if it didn’t. “And what’s wrong with getting more ginger through to the Lizards?” David asked. He could think of several things offhand, but, much against his will, felt compelled to take the side of those from whom he was also compelled to take orders. He wondered if Dutourd spoke English. The Frenchman had given no sign of it, but that didn’t necessarily signify.

“Not a damn thing as far as we’re concerned—not personally, anyhow,” Auerbach said. “But we’ve got to do what those little scaly bastards tell us to do. And so . . .” He took a step forward.

Knowing the Lizards would oppose anything that had to do with ginger, Goldfarb got ready to throw himself to one side, with luck escaping the firefight bound to break out in a moment. Before anyone could start shooting, the back door to the synagogue burst open. Germans in SS uniforms with submachine guns stormed out and covered Goldfarb and the two Americans. Others aimed into the undergrowth. The officer who emerged behind them spoke in the language of the Race: “Come forth, Dutourd. If you do not, we will have to kill you.” Sullenly, Pierre Dutourd stood up and raised his hands high. The SS
Sturmbannführer
nodded. “Very good. In the name of the Greater German
Reich
, you are all under arrest.”

Pshing came into Atvar’s private office. “Excuse me for interrupting, Exalted Fleetlord, but the Tosevite Moishe Russie is attempting to reach you by telephone. Shall I put him off?”

“No, I will speak to him,” Atvar answered. “The situation in India remains too muddled to offer any easy or quick solution. I am willing to put aside consideration of it for the time being.” He was, in fact, eager to put aside consideration of it for the time being, but Pshing did not have to know that. “Transfer the call to my terminal,” he told his adjutant.

“It shall be done,” Pshing said, and went out to do it.

Moishe Russie’s image appeared on the screen in front of Atvar. “I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” the Tosevite said. “I thank you for agreeing to hear of my troubles.”

“I greet you,” Atvar said. “Do note that I have agreed to nothing of the sort. If you prove wearisome, I shall return to the work in which I was previously engaged. Keeping that warning in mind at all times, you may proceed.”

“For your generosity, I thank you,” Russie said. Was that irony? Would the Big Ugly be so presumptuous while seeking a favor? Atvar could not be sure, even after long acquaintance with him. With a sigh that might have come from the throat of a male of the Race, Russie went on, “I have just learned that a relative of mine, a certain David Goldfarb, is a prisoner in the Greater German
Reich
. If you can use your good offices to help obtain his release, I shall be forever in your debt.”

“You are already in my debt,” Atvar pointed out, in case the Tosevite had forgotten. “And how did this relative of yours become a prisoner inside the
Reich
?”

While asking the question, he checked the computer. As he’d thought, Russie had no relatives living inside the
Reich
: only in Palestine and Poland, both of which the Race held, and in Britain, which retained a tenuous independence from both the Race and the
Reich
. Meanwhile, he turned his other eye turret toward the part of the screen on which Russie was saying, “The Germans arrested him in the company of two Americans named Auerbach and Summers. You will please recall, Exalted Fleetlord, that my cousin is also a Jew.”

“Then he was unwise to enter the
Reich
,” Atvar said. Yet Moishe Russie’s shot struck home. The Race remained appalled at the savage campaign the Deutsche waged against the Jews. And any opportunity to irritate this particular lot of Big Uglies was sweet to Atvar.

Furthermore, the names of the other two Big Uglies Russie had mentioned were somehow familiar. Not wanting to say them aloud, the fleetlord keyed them into the computer. Sure enough, a report about those two had come to his notice not long before. Officials over on the lesser continental mass had recruited them to help suppress the trade in smuggled ginger coming out of the
Reich
.

“Your relative was cooperating with these Tosevites, then?” Atvar asked. That would give him another reason for demanding this Goldfarb’s release and infuriating whatever Deutsch officials had to arrange it.

“He was caught with them, so how could he have been doing anything different?” Russie asked reasonably. “But they are not Jews, and so do not face the immediate danger in which he finds himself.”

“I understand,” Atvar said. “Very well: I will see what can be done. And what can be done, Dr. Russie, shall be done.”

“I thank you, Exalted Fleetlord,” Moishe Russie said. “These Tosevites, for your information, were seized in the city of Marseille.”

“Yes, yes,” Atvar said impatiently. Russie didn’t know he already knew that: it was, at any rate, the city in which Summers and Auerbach (he gathered the female was more important, or at least more deeply involved in the ginger trade, than the male) had been sent. “I shall investigate, and I shall do what I think best in this regard.”

Russie thanked him again, then broke the connection. Atvar looked at the square on the screen, now blank, where the Big Ugly’s image had appeared. He hissed in slow, almost reluctant approval. A male of the Race could not have begged for a favor any more effectively than Russie had done. And Russie had known Atvar would be likely to give him what he wanted for the sake of irking the Deutsche.

After replaying his conversation with Moishe Russie to remind himself of the name of the doctor’s relatives, Atvar telephoned the Deutsch Foreign Ministry in Nuremberg. The image of the Big Ugly on the screen was less sharp than Moishe Russie’s had been; Tosevite video equipment did not measure up to that which the Race manufactured.

Despite the poor quality of the image, Atvar thought he saw surprise on the Big Ugly’s mobile features when the fellow got a good look at his body paint. “Are you familiar with the matter of David Goldfarb?” the fleetlord demanded, as if to a subordinate he knew to be none too bright.

Rather to his surprise, the Tosevite answered, “I am. In what way does this case interest the Race?”

“I want this Tosevite released—and,” Atvar added, “the other two Tosevites, the Americans, seized with him.”

“Three other Tosevites were seized with him,” the Deutsch male replied. “One of them was Pierre Dutourd, the notorious ginger smuggler. Do you want him released, too? He and the other three were, I repeat, all seized together.”

Moishe Russie hadn’t said anything about that. Atvar suddenly wondered whether this Goldfarb had been helping Auerbach and Summers or whether he’d been on the smuggler’s side. Still, the Tosevite’s question had an obvious answer: “Yes, give us this Pierre Dutourd, too. Ginger-smuggling is a wicked business; we will punish him.”

“Ginger-smuggling is not a crime under the laws of the
Reich
,” the Deutsch functionary observed.

“If it is not a crime, why is this Dutourd”—Atvar pronounced the Big Ugly’s name as best he could—“in a Deutsch prison?”

“Why?” The official’s face twisted into the expression that showed amusement. “He is in our prison because we say he ought to be there. We need no more reason than that. The
Reich
does not propose to let anyone who might be dangerous to it run around loose causing trouble.”

That made a certain amount of sense to Atvar: more sense than the bizarre and self-destructive policies of the snoutcounting Americans, at any rate. The fleetlord let out an angry hiss, anger directed at himself. If a Deutsch policy made sense to him, something had to be wrong with the policy or with him or with both.

He said, “I assure you, the Race will punish this smuggler as he deserves. You need have no doubts on that score.”

“You of the Race hardly know what punishment is,” the Big Ugly replied. “We will keep this male for ourselves. We do know these things. We know them in detail.” Though he spoke the language of the Race, gloating anticipation that seemed unique to the Tosevites filled his voice.