A Spy in the Shadows (Spy Noir Series Book 1) (30 page)

He glanced at his watch.  2:58. Two minutes until he was to receive a call from Schellenberg, as per instructions delivered by personal messenger over an hour ago.  In all probability the general would be speaking from another random phone just like this one within the city.  Richter contemplated the confusing labyrinth containing what the general knew, and what he couldn’t possibly know.  Unless—

The telephone rang.

“Richter.”

“Colonel,” the general’s voice was thick. 
Guarded.  “And so we reach the end of our adventure.  I apologize for getting you out on an afternoon such as this, but we have to be discrete with our discussions.  What is the latest from Persia?”

“Traveler is on the move, sir.  Whatever she had uncovered demands that she leave Iran with it personally.”

“No radio communications?”

“None.”

“That makes it very sensitive matter, Richter.”

“And rewarding.
  All possible because we were able to conceal her movements within Long Jump,” Richter said.  “That and the sacrifice of some good men like Paul Heuss.”

“The blood of those men sacrificed isn’t on our hands, Richter.  Himmler and Skorzeny can answer for that at some point,” Schellenberg hesitated.  “I want you to be aware that all records—which are few—concerning the operation have been destroyed,” he said.  “I wanted to take such actions no matter the outcome of your adventure in Tehran.  Records destroyed before either the Allies or Gestapo arrives.  In my office no one will find anything more incriminating than the telephone directory.”

Richter remained guarded.  “Discretions appreciated, general.”

There was only the general’s breathing on the other end.  “Our chances—how do they appear to you at this hour?”

Richter knew anything he told Schellenberg would simply be a presumption.  It was all out of his hands now.  Every pawn in place.  The game board arranged.  Still that wasn’t what the general wanted to hear.  “We will know by tomorrow night, general.”

Another silence.
  “Very well, then.  Richter, I know you’ve tried your finest, and that’s the best I could ask of you.  An admirable scheme that you set up.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And Richter.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We have done all of this for the fatherland.  Any other causes are a myth.”

The line went dead.

Richter stepped out of the phone box onto the street and watched the snow and the traffic.  He turned his coat collar up and shivered. 

Suddenly he was very cold.

----

Leni could hear the children’s laughter echoing as she sprinted toward the train.  Tears welled in her eyes.

The Tehran children.

The final piece of her deception—the last ruse to divert her enemy from her escape.
  The last act playing out that even poor William didn’t know about.  In a way it wasn’t fair to Hance after all he had sacrificed.  Why he had even given up his beloved Simca Cinq . . . and finally his life for the Cause.  But in the end Leni had decided the papers too valuable that she would have trusted anyone in these moments of escape.

She was twenty meters away when the train crept forward.

One last burst of speed and she grabbed the rail.  Several of the larger children took her arm, tugged at her, helping her onboard.  They laughed, squeezing in around Leni as she hugged them.

She looked back toward the embassy.  The sight took her breath away.

A lone man was running toward the train.

----

Everything happened so quickly.  A rapid distortion of time.

Salinger ran toward the train.  He saw Leni as she came around the back of the train, leaning over the rail.  Her face was one of disbelief as she stood in the crowd of children staring back at him.

A burning sense of failure flooded him.  She was going to get away.

With all the energy he could gather, Salinger made an all-out sprint at the back of the train.  His lungs felt like they were going to burst. 
Legs stinging.  But still he ran.

If only . . .

The train lunged and slowed to maneuver the sharp turn out of the station allowing Salinger to
draw within yards.

A woman came out of the train car and looked at Leni and she returned her smile.  Then the woman began to gather the children and herd them into the doorway back into the train car.  Leni stared back at him over her shoulder.

The children turned to follow her in.  Leni made certain to stay in the middle using them as human shields.  Except for one.

A small girl, leaning dangerously close to the rail.

She stumbled.

In that instant, Leni lunged for the girl, grabbed her by the collar and dragged her back from the rail.

A clear shot.

Salinger stopped on the tracks.  He took his time . . . breathing in deeply, his lungs surging for air . . . time for one shot . . . she was at the rail . . . no children close . . . when he squeezed the trigger.

Leni Boland froze for an instant, stiffened. . . and fell against the closed doorway.  After a long moment, she spun away from the wall . . . her back against the rear rail . . . then fell onto the tracks and out of Salinger’s sight.

For a long moment Salinger stood suspended in time.  He was in no particular place at all . . . but . . .  in a dream, surreal wind blowing on his face.

Another train approached from the other direction coming into the station and it was between them.  Precious seconds became an eternity as Salinger waited for the train to get pass.

At last.

Salinger ran around the rear of the train to try and gain seconds, then back toward where he saw her fall.

Nothing.
  Children yelled from the back of the train as it drifted away in the distance.

She was gone. 
But how?

Salinger ran toward the streets.

Mayfield’s men—two of them—stood outside a sedan parked haphazardly on the sidewalk.  One of the men cleared his pistol from his waistband, stepped onto the sidewalk and blocked the sidewalk. 

----

Leni turned toward the street and saw the two men staring at her from the Chevrolet.  She only had one option, the alleyway.  Suddenly she spun and fired.  One of Mayfield’s men fell.  The other agent returned fire, the bullets tearing at the brick above Leni’s head.

She disappeared into the alleyway.

----

Salinger ran up to the corner leading into the alleyway. 

A shopkeeper squatted at his feet, thin arms weathered like worn leather, selling scissors lined out on the curb as he cautiously watched.

Salinger motioned for the men to hold their positions.  There was no hurry so they could wait on Mayfield to catch up.  They had her now.  The alleyway was a dead end.

Mayfield finally did catch up to them, red faced and gasping for breath.

“She’s in there,” Salinger pointed with his pistol.  She’s badly injured, major.  I got one shot off at the train and hit her in the side.”

Mayfield glanced in.  “A dead end, we have her, don’t we, Booth?”

“It appears that way.” 
             

“It’s Traveler.  She’s not done yet.”  Mayfield’s voice was proud, almost as if her were discussing a daughter who had won a high school spelling bee.

“Do we go in after her?”

“Yes,” he said.  “We go in.  Split up and you go in on the far side and I’ll go in here.”

Salinger took a step and Mayfield took him by the arm.  “I’d like to interrogate her if possible.”

Salinger crossed over to the other side and worked his way down the wall until he squatted behind a drainpipe running down the wall.  When he glanced back, two of Mayfield’s men had moved closer and ran across the alleyway.  Mayfield had worked his way down the wall until he was even with Salinger.

Salinger spotted her squatting behind several wooden crates at the end of the alley.

Leveling his pistol, Salinger glanced from Leni back to Mayfield.  Their eyes met and Salinger nodded.  Then he raised and began firing quickly.  Mayfield did the same, and his second shot struck the German in the leg.  She yelped out loudly and fell against the wall.  Mayfield’s shot had apparently broken her leg and Salinger could she was bleeding badly.

Salinger ran forward, taking cover behind a rainwater barrel against the wall.  The German sat against the brick wall and slowly raised her head.  Her pistol lay on the ground two feet away.  She stared at Salinger for a long moment.  Then at Mayfield.  Then back at the pistol.

Salinger’s heart raced.  Time slowed.

----

Pain shot down Leni’s leg like cold ice.  But the tears welling in her eyes weren’t from the pain . . . but because of the realization that had slammed at her like icy steel—she knew without a doubt Richter had betrayed her.  It was the only way they could have gotten onto her.  Why?  Why hadn’t he let her take the plane out of the archaeological site?  And with that understanding,
Leni drew another conclusion.

Of how she must end it all.
  Without the success she had dreamed of . . . without the glorious homecoming she had imagined during so many lonely nights among the enemy. 

Her mind fogged against the pain as her brain dulled.  Fever swept over her . . . she lay back against the wall . . . for a moment she closed her eyes.

Berlin . . . the massive torchlight parade of the storm troopers marching from the Tiergarten, past the Brandenburg Gate and down the Wilhemstrasse.  The crowd and the troops, singing the old German songs and the Horst Wessel.  The sounds of their thick boots on the street as the soldiers led them to the chancellery, the hoarse voices, and the wide eyes of the people around her  . . . Finally the Fuhrer appeared, posing at an open window, waving to the crowd as the cheering mounted to a deafening roar.  Leni could see his stern face, the dark mustache, his hair combed to one side . . . and Georgi, poor little Georgi, was at her side tightly gripping her hand . . .

Leni shook her head trying to clear her thoughts.  She had never imagined that it would end like this.  Somehow . . . maybe . . . no, there was no sense in going on.

They moved closer toward her in the alley, brave now that she was badly wounded.  They wanted her alive so they could question her . . . gather information from her . . . that was the way it worked . . .

They would be disappointed.

The image of her son in that hospital . . . only she and Richter had probably known how ill he really was . . . all a setup . . . but why?  She had given everything to Richter, the cause . . .

Bitterness stung at her heart.  She would never see Georgi or the fatherland again.

----

“Give it up,” Mayfield yelled out in broken German. 

For the longest time there was no movement.  The three of them locked in solid time.  Then she reached for the pistol.

Unbelievable!  Salinger thought.  She has no chance!  There were four men within twenty yards—their weapons aimed directly at her.

She brought the pistol to rest in her lap.  Her head slumped loosely from side to side, like a damaged doll.

She looked up at Salinger, her eyes focused on him and she smiled—she raised the pistol to her temple and pulled the trigger.

Her body flopped over.

Salinger walked down the alley to where she lay on her stomach with both arms pulled under her.  The legs were curled at an odd angle, the right leg twisted beneath her body.  The left side of her face was gone, blood draining out into the dirt.  A handbag lay at her shoulder.

Salinger suddenly felt empty inside.  She would have gotten away except for that one act of kindness saving the little girl from falling off the back of the train. 

Then Mayfield pushed past him and knelt beside her. 
A long moment.  What could it possibly mean to him, Salinger thought?  Traveler.  At long last.

Mayfield
stood his voice calculated, respectful.  “Well, it’s over, Booth.  Isn’t it? Finally finished, I’d say.”

DECEMBER 1.  WEDNESDAY

-Thirty-One-

The Tehran Conference concluded with far-reaching political implications.  Stalin was given assurance that Overlord, the invasion of France, would occur in May 1944, only six months away.  This meant that Roosevelt was forced to soon decide in naming a Supreme Commander.  Many decisions, once considered the purpose of the conference, disappointingly weren’t resolved by the end of the meeting.  Poland’s postwar borders were not agreed upon, and the Turks were not lured into the war.

There was no record of any statements being issued by the leaders while in Tehran concerning the assassination plot.  As for Salinger’s investigation, Mayfield considered the matter closed other than wrapping up a few loose ends.