Sleeper Agent (3 page)

Before the two SS guards turned him away, he glanced at the big round lighted clock on the wall. But he couldn’t make it out. The numerals, the clock hands, the second sweep swam together in a jumble of imagery. All he knew was, it showed eternity.

And they marched him away.

They had shoved him roughly through the door. He’d heard it slam shut behind him, and a heavy bolt being rammed home.

For a moment he stood, swaying slightly, waiting. There was not a sound to be heard. He took stock. He was alone.

The room was not large, more like a big cell. There were no windows, but two doors. The one he had just come through and another in the opposite wall. The room was so dimly lit from a single light source in the unusually high ceiling that he could barely make it out. In the middle of the place stood a wooden table.

He turned back to the door that had been bolted behind him. No use even trying it. On the wall next to it was a sign. He walked to it In German it proclaimed,
IT
IS

STWCTLY FORBIDDEN TO URINATE ON THE FLOOR!

The swollen pain in his gut suddenly stabbed through him. Urgently he fumbled his pants open. For a brief moment he was unable to do anything. He had a flash of panic.
He’d gone too long!
Somehow he couldn’t—And then he let go.

He relieved himself against the wall under the sign, totally emptying his distended bladder. It was one of the greatest satisfactions he’d ever had—almost a sexual experience. He felt enormously disburdened.

Again he looked around. His eyes were gradually getting used to the gloom. He walked to the table—and froze. On it lay a gun. A Walther 7.65. And six rounds.

He picked up the gun. He examined it carefully. It was in perfect working order. At once he loaded it.

Why? Were they “testing” him? Again? What did they expect him to do? Kill his guards when they came for him?
if
they came for him. They might not come at all. Kill himself? Hardly. Not with six rounds—unless they expected him to miss the first five times.

He grinned mirthlessly. He was still exhausted beyond comprehension, but this new challenge had rekindled some of his stamina. And he could at least move again. He walked toward the door on the opposite side. He studied it If there was a way out of the cell, this had to be it.

He looked closer at it. It seemed like an ordinary door. There was no keyhole. A bolt on the other side? The door hinges didn’t show. Good. The door would open outward.

Once again he let his eyes search the room. The door in front of him was the only possible way out He knew it. So did they.

What was on the other side?

He cocked the Walther. Suddenly he gave the door a violent kick. It crashed open. Immediately he flung himself through, hitting the floor on his gut, the gun held in both hands stretched out before him. In the same instant there was a volley of shots from the Stygian darkness in front of him. He thought he could “feel” the bullets whiz over him. He heard them slam into the imperious sign on the wall behind him.

He did not fire. He had no target. Only blackness.

He was shocked. He had not really expected to be shot at. It
was
only a test, wasn’t it? He felt suddenly drained. They
were
shots? His mind began to lose itself in confusion, doubts, uncertainties.

He lay still, gathering his thoughts, his strength. The blackness before him was not absolute after all. A long narrow corridor stretched ahead of him. Weak dim lights studded the high, inaccessible ceiling.

He listened. He watched. There was no sound. No movement. He waited. He was in no hurry. This time, whatever “games” they wanted him to play would be played at
his
discretion. He needed all the trump cards he could get

It
was
a test. Had to be. A test subjecting him to the greatest enemy of all. The unknown. He had to keep his mind as alert, as rational as possible, even though he was exhausted to the point of impotence. That, of course, was part of their game—a game designed to weaken him, to torment him, to break him, but not to destroy him. It would not make sense to kill him. Not this way.

He stood up. He locked the gun firmly against his abdomen. All right. He’d play their damned game. He wished he could obliterate the last vestige of doubt gnawing at the edge of his mind.

Slowly he started down the corridor. He moved with incredible stealth and silence, his every sense stretched to its ultimate alertness. The last superbright blaze of a light bulb—before it burns out

The corridor made a turn, widening into a more spacious area. Cautiously he entered. The gloom seemed to deepen.

Suddenly there was a small noise. He whirled toward it. In the same instant he saw a dim figure leap at him. Instinctively—without the time loss of thought—he sprang aside, and still clutching his gun locked in firing position, he faced the lurching figure and fired two rounds.

He heard the dull thuds as they hit. The figure swept by him. It turned and came for him again.

His mind whirled. He nearly pumped two more of his precious rounds into the attacker. He stopped himself in the last split second. No. It was not possible. He
knew
he’d hit the man. Two rounds. As he’d been trained to do. Always two rounds. For stopping power. He held his fire as the figure came at him and once again brushed past. It stopped and swung back toward him. He grabbed it.

A dummy. With two bullet holes squarely in its chest, hanging from a wire in the ceiling.

He let it go. It hung there, slowly spinning in the gloom.

A game. He had been right. He felt enormously gratified. His analysis had been correct

He gave the mutilated dummy a contemptuous push. It dangled lifelessly from its noose.

He felt confident He had it made. Slowly he crossed the open area. On the other side the narrow corridor continued. He peered into it. It was without any light at all. He entered. He made his way slowly, walking close to the wall. At any moment he expected something to happen.

Nothing did.

He kept himself at maximum alertness. Something
had
to happen. He was so tense the muscles in his shoulders started to cramp. With an extortionate effort he forced himself to relax. It lasted only a few seconds. He was too keyed up; his suspense had mounted to unbearable proportions.

And—nothing—happened.

Every fiber in his aching body screamed for action. Any action. He was fully aware that he was spending himself at a breakdown rate. He knew he could not sustain it for long. But he could not help it.

The pitch-black corridor seemed to go on forever. Was there no end to it?

Suddenly his foot slipped on the floor. He caught himself against the wall—and froze. Cautiously he bent down. On the floor was a small pool of a slippery, viscous ooze. He tested it with his fingers. It felt familiar.

An icy chill knifed through him. He knew what it was. Overcoming his revulsion, he brought his slimy-moist fingers up to his nose. He gagged. It was blood.

A . . . game?

He was aware of his heart beating wildly. His imagination shrieked and howled with myriad nightmare thoughts.
A game?

He stood up. Edging along the wall, he stepped over the fetid puddle and sidled away as quickly as he dared. Too quickly. Suddenly his foot hit an obstacle on the floor. A soft, unyielding obstacle. He knew at once what it was. He saw it more clearly in his mind than if the corridor had been flooded in a blaze of light. He did not have to stoop down, stretch out his hand . . . and touch. But he did.

It was a man. He seemed to be clad in the same prisoner clothing as he himself was. He was cold. He was dead.

The lieutenant straightened up. He flattened himself against the wall, instinctively seeking its solid protection. His heart beat wildly. He had a twinge of annoyance that he couldn’t control it. He felt profoundly threatened. It wasn’t the shock of finding the dead body. He could cope with that. It was the disturbing frustration of not knowing what it meant. Why?

What were they doing to him? Who was this . . . man?

Things were happening that he no longer could explain rationally. Totally unexpected things. He’d thought he knew exactly what would happen to him, step by step. But he’d been wrong. He hadn’t anticipated . . . this.

Was he wrong in everything else? He’d been so sure. He no longer was. He felt a desperate urge to get away from the corpse on the floor. Go back?

For a split second he had an overwhelming impulse to run back the way he came. The way he knew. Back to the cell. Back to the bolted door, to hammer on it, call out to his guards, plead for an end to his ordeal. Rather than go on into the unknown darkness. Not knowing. . . . He hated himself for it.

He went on. In the distance the corridor seemed to get lighter; he could make out a faint glow coming from the side, as if the passage made a bend. He deliberately stepped out into the middle of the corridor away from the deceptively protecting walls. Slowly he walked toward the dim light

Suddenly there was a quick rustling sound directly behind him. Keeping his gun locked against his abdomen, he at once fell to one knee, twisting around to face back. In the same instant that he heard the dull thud as something—or someone—hit the floor from above, he fired. Two rounds. He heard them slam into their target. He didn’t move. There was dead silence all around him.

Without rising from his crouch, he slowly inched himself toward the huddled form he could glimpse lying in a crumbled heap on the floor.

Had he killed someone? He
had
to know. He reached out. The skin crawled on his hand. He touched.

He fought down a scream erupting in his throat—and suddenly realized that the form on which his hand was resting was not human. It was a large sandbag.

Absent-mindedly he fingered the two holes in it from which the sand trickled in steady silence. He shivered. He knew he had reached his breaking point. The seesaw turmoil created in his mind would snap whatever control his exhaustion had left him.

He had lost.

From the depths of his mind a cold, savage fury began to build, sweeping away his dark fears, his fatigue, his doubts. Only one driving thought remained:
Win!
However brutal, however maddening or merciless the game, WIN!

He stood up. He still had two rounds left in his gun. He turned back toward the faint light in front of him. Resolutely he began to walk toward it

The corridor made a sharp turn. Once again a single weak light source from above cast a dim light. Coming from the deeper darkness, it was enough for him. He could see. In the distance, ahead of him, the passage came to an end at a door. It was closed.

He began to walk toward it. His mind seemed incredibly clear. With lightning speed it retraced every move that had brought him here, it ticked off distances, directions, calculations like a built-in compass—as it had been trained to do.

He
knew
where that door in front of him led!

With grim anticipation he moved toward it, gun ready. He was vaguely aware of another closed door to his right As he came abreast of it, it suddenly flew open. Instantly he whirled toward it. In the shadows in the room beyond he saw the figure of a man, crouched menacingly, a gun locked before him—aimed directly at his guts!

His finger instinctively tightened on the trigger, but in the same split second his mind countermanded his instinctive action. He froze. For a full moment he crouched immobile before the open door, his eyes never wavering from the figure facing him. Then he slowly sank to one knee.

His opponent made exactly the same move.

He was looking at his own reflection in a giant mirror!

He stood up. His mind was coldly, dangerously clear. Quickly he glanced toward the door at the end of the corridor. He knew what he had to do.

There were still two rounds left in his gun. He had not wasted them shooting at his own harmless mirror image. Quickly he removed them. Then carefully he reloaded the gun, keeping one round in his clenched fist

Then, abruptly, he fired, shooting the bullet into the floor; and immediately after the shot rang out he hurled the gun itself at the huge mirror. With a sharp report it cracked, shattered and crashed to the floor in myriad pieces.

At once he strode to the heap of glass shards. Impatiently he kicked them aside and picked up the gun. With his one remaining round he loaded it

He was ready. He walked to the door at the end of the corridor. He looked down at the gun in his hand. It trembled. With an angry force of will he made it stop.

One bullet. He’d make it count

Exploding into action, he aimed a savage kick at the door. With an ear-splitting crash it flew open. He was through, into the room beyond, even as the door slammed into the wall.

Instantaneously the scene before him etched itself on his burning mind. The big round clock with its lighted face on the wall. Four men standing like grotesque statues around the table: the two Gestapo interrogators, one with steel-rimmed glasses, one older, and the two men from the shadows, one in the uniform of an SS colonel, the other a civilian. All four staring at him in frozen shock.

He lifted his gun from its locked position in front of him and aimed it with slow deliberation directly at the SS colonel.

The officer’s face grew ashen. The tension in the room was a tangible thing. Not a word was spoken.

The older Gestapo officer was the first one to regain his composure. He straightened up. “I congratulate you,” he said. “You are very clever. You determined exactly where you were. Admirable.” He smiled thinly. “But . . . now you are bluffing.”

The gun pointed at the SS colonel never faltered.

“Come now. We know you are bluffing.” The officer was obviously becoming impatient. “We have been listening. Six rounds. Two in the swinging dummy, both hits. Two in the deadfall. Hits. Two at the mirror"—he smiled his thin, unpleasant smile once again—"one hit, one miss! Six rounds.” He stepped from behind the table and held out his hand. “Give me the gun!” His voice was sharp with absolute authority.