Crossword (33 page)

"Lorenz, time is rushing by. We must get going."

"I said to keep quiet."

He continued his pacing and thinking, the warmth inside the
barn making his skin moist and adding to the discomfort he already felt.
Larry's head throbbed and he massaged his forehead as he ambled to and fro
behind the seated women.

"Sir, please, my arms hurt so and it's hot in here;
could you untie my hands? I promise I won't move."

"She's trying to trick us, don't let her loose,"
Eva interjected.

"Silence!"

Ignoring his command, Eva continued, "You were shown my
picture, I know that, and we exchanged the proper codes. This other woman is an
imposter."

"Heinrich sent word to me that a foreign visitor would
call on me with special instructions," Maria said. "He was also to
send a password, some kind of code so I would know that this visitor was the
proper one, but it never arrived. Are you that man?"

"Ha! An imposter," yelled Eva.

She was right and he knew it. But he also knew that
operations could be compromised at any point, from inception to denouement, and
in the world of espionage nothing is as it seems. He stood behind Maria and
held the barrel of the gun to the back of her head, his sweaty hand tensed
around the butt, index finger curled through the trigger guard, then cautiously
reached down and loosened the short segment of rope binding her hands. Stepping
back, he watched as she disentangled her hands, brought them forward, massaging
her wrists while she shrugged and rotated her shoulders in an effort to ease the
pain of hours spent trussed. She alternately flexed and extended her neck,
rotated it right, then left, and finally reached slowly behind her and wiped
the back of her neck, lifting damp hair and leaving the skin exposed to cool as
the moisture evaporated. Larry watched all this as he continued to roll the
conundrum around in his mind, looking at it from various angles, trying to find
the perspective that would reveal the solution. Suddenly his eyes widened as
recognition dawned, the sound of mental tumblers falling into place as the lock
sprung open. "Maria."

"Yes," they both responded, turning to him as he
spoke.

"You," turning his head to Eva, "go out to
the car and get the rope that's in the trunk. There's several pieces, bring
them all."

"I knew you would figure it out. But why don't we just
shoot her? I'm sure she would do the same to us if she had the chance."

"Please, just do what I ask."

"Yes, Lorenz." She hurried out to the car.

"But Lorenz, sir, please do not believe that woman. She
is evil and means us both harm."

"Stay where you are and don't say anything else."

Barely a minute later Eva returned, almost sashaying into
the barn, three pieces of medium hemp swinging from her hand. All she needed,
Larry thought, was a cowboy hat and boots to look like someone from a western
movie, Tom Mix sauntering in after her. She came around behind Maria, glanced
over her shoulder where Larry stood, then turned back to the frightened young
woman sitting nervously on the bale of hay and began to play the ropes through
her hands. It happened so quickly that Eva was unaware of anything until she
was face down on the dirt floor, several pieces of straw protruding from her
gaping mouth. In one swift motion Larry had swung one leg across hers and sent
a powerful elbow into her upper back, taking her down instantly. He dropped
down, his knee planted on her back, knocking the wind out of her, the forceful
exhalation stirring up a small puff of dirt and straw. Pressing down firmly
with one hand on the back of her neck, her face turned to one side, he shoved
the gun to her temple and cocked the hammer just inches from her ear, an
ominous and intimidating sound.

The rope had slipped from her grasp as she fell, and it lay
at the feet of the now astonished Maria who had jumped up at the sound of the
fracas behind her and stood, mouth agape, a confused although not unhappy
expression on her face.

"Maria, take the rope and tie her hands behind her,
then bring her feet up and tie them. Do the best you can, I'll adjust things
later."

She hastened to do his bidding, looking at him as she
worked. "Who is this woman? Do you know?"

With venom in her voice, Eva spat out, "I am the woman
who will see you dead. My face will be the final image burnt into your eyes for
all eternity as you drop into the grave."

"I don't even know her name and I don't care at this
point", he replied. Maria started to say something but Larry silenced her
with a hand signal; no sense in providing the snake in their midst with any
more information than she already had.

"Lorenz, why do you persist in this mistaken identity.
Untie me and you and I can both be wealthy and away from this cesspool of a
country."

"Save it, sister, it's over for you."

"You stupid, arrogant, foreign piece of shit. I will
personally make you suffer before you die. Cut off your balls and stuff them in
your mouth to stifle the screams. Then I'll slice ... "

Ignoring the rest of her sadistic anatomic diatribe, he
turned to Maria, slowly released the hammer, and handed her the gun, butt
forward. "Do you know how to use this?"

"The General trained me in the use of handguns as well
as rifles. I don't like them but I know how to fire all of them." She
accepted the weapon, balancing the weight in her hand, her fingers remembering
the hours of practicing, and instinctively finding the proper position.
"And he said that my aim was excellent."

Larry smiled.
How the worm has turned.
"Stay
back another meter so you're well out of her reach while I check the knots. If
she tries anything, shoot her, but try not to hit me."

"Just tell me where you want the bullet to hit
her." And for emphasis, she pulled back the hammer and leveled the
revolver at the back of Eva's head.

Larry cinched in the rope a bit, but found the ties to be
fairly secure. He removed his knife from his pocket and cut off a portion of
the rope, using this remaining length to wrap around her waist and then her
shoulders, bringing the ends up above her head and tying them off in a loop.
Satisfied with his work, he stood, motioned for Maria to stay where she was,
and hurried outside to the car, where he grabbed the dead soldier by the belt
and dragged him into the barn. He rummaged through his pockets for anything
that might be of use, pocketing a small amount of money and quickly looking through
his papers. None of those would serve any purpose since there was no way he
could pass for a German soldier if stopped. The jacket though, might prove
useful; viewed from a distance, the coat, the hat he had seen on the seat and
the car itself might suffice to improve his chances of safe passage, so he
removed this along with the aide's holster and sidearm. Finished, he tugged him
the remaining distance to the cellar and pushed him down the opening, the body
banging against the ladder on the way and taking out another of the weakened
rungs before impacting on the floor with a thud. He caught a glimpse of Maria
as he looked up and knew from her expression that she didn't particularly like
what he had done to the corpse, although she said nothing, her lips taught, gun
unwavering from its target.

Dead is dead. Larry knew this, but he, too, didn't like the
idea of desecrating a fellow soldier and that's what he had done. At least
that's what a part of his brain said to him. But he was strictly in operational
mode and he would do that and more to accomplish his objective. Commitment,
loyalty, patriotism. His father had been fiercely and unashamedly patriotic to
his adopted homeland in a way that was only possible in an immigrant in the
early part of the twentieth century, and these values had been impressed on his
son practically from the first moment his head crowned in the back bedroom of
the small row house in South Philadelphia, and his screams were added to the
cacophony of the bustling ethnic neighborhood. Larry believed what his father
taught him, still believed it and would go on believing it, sacrificing his
life if necessary, in the service of his country. The willingness to offer up
his own life for the safety of the United States of America was relatively easy
compared to the rest of the things he might have to do. His father had provided
him with the moral courage for the former, but the OSS had given him the
stomach for the latter.

In each of us there is a depth, unplumbed by all but a few
psychopaths and miscreants, where lurks the capability to commit acts abhorrent
to members of any civilized society. Into this desolate dungeon of the soul he
had been given entrée, to see things there he would rather not have seen, to
know things he would rather have remained cryptic, to find things he would
rather have remained hidden. It was a descent to a place from which some never
returned; but they had given him a key and a moral compass and he had found his
way, one of the fit, one of the lucky. The compass, though, did not always
point true North and the boundary between the acceptable and the unspeakable
was fluid, almost as if was a living creature, moving with the exigencies of
the situation. In the end he had come to realize that each action was a conscious
choice, a decision filtered through his upbringing, personal beliefs, training
and a myriad of other factors operating at unconscious levels, and that he just
had to trust that he would make the right judgment, knowing in a Kafkaesque way
that there was no right or wrong when it came to what he did. The door to that
dark realm remained closed, although not locked, and he knew that the time
might come when he had to descend far, to lower himself to the depths.

Larry stirred from his brief reverie to see Maria looking
worried, so he gave her a thumbs up, not sure what else to do, then said,
"Almost done. We're out of here in a few minutes." He took the gun
from her and continued, "Go out and drive the car you came in around to
the back. The keys are in the ignition." With great alacrity she hurried
out, eager to get away from what seemed to be unfolding in the increasing
dimness of the barn. He dragged Eva to the opening, the short haul eliciting
another diatribe of shouted invectives.
I should kill you outright, you
bitch, but all we need is twenty-four hours, forty-eight at the most, to make
it to our lines.
We all make mistakes, most unknown at the time, many of
little import, but some spawn disaster, the consequences hurtling unseen out of
left field at breakneck speed. For Larry, ignorance would not be bliss.

Working quickly, he hooked Eva to the pulley system and
lowered her into the cellar, her rotating form nudging against the rail at
intervals during its descent. She ended up lying partly on top of the soldier
she had killed, and he thought that to be somehow appropriate. He tossed the
rope down after her, then reached in with his leg and kicked out the top rung
of the ladder, using a nearby piece of wood to break through the one below
that, and was in the process of covering the now closed trap door with dirt and
straw, when Maria returned.

"The car is out back. Here are the keys."

"Hold on to them. You're going to have to help me drag
the plutonium out to the other car and help get it into the trunk." Passage
over the floor of the barn was not that difficult, but it became arduous when
they reached the rougher, more uneven ground outside. Nonetheless, in a
relatively short time the heavy crate was at the rear of the remaining car, and
by angling one end up and then both lifting up the other, they managed to seat
it securely in the trunk, the heavy duty military suspension taking the weight
with relative ease. Next to the vehicle was a small pile of supplies he had
removed from the other car, including a spare can of gasoline, and these were
also placed into the trunk. He had chosen this car because, although it was
obviously a military staff car, unlike the one behind the barn, it lacked
specific markings and was unlikely to be reported as missing since it had been
given to Eva to be at her disposal. "You can get in now, I just have one
more thing to do." He trotted around to where she had left the aide's car,
lifted the hood and removed the distributor, then unfolded his knife and
slashed each of the tires. Walking back, he heard the hiss of escaping air, the
anthropomorphic sigh of a Mercedes staff car that knew, for it at least, the
war was over and now there would be rest.

Larry slid behind the wheel, tossed the distributor on the
floor in front of Maria, and turned over the engine, letting the powerful motor
throb to full life before putting it in gear and pulling back onto the road.
"The next stream or ditch we come to, we'll dump your keys and that gizmo
on the floor in front of you."

"You mean the distributor?"

"First guns, now cars?"

"Actually, cars were first. It wasn't until things
started to look bad that Heinrich trained me in the use of firearms." She
let a moment of silence pass before she went on. "What did you do with
that awful woman back there?"

"I didn't kill her." Maria looked dubious.
"But she might die anyway. Depends. There's enough air down there for
several days and she can get by without food or water for a time. Once she
dehydrates a bit, the ropes will loosen and she can untie herself ... maybe.
The ladder's trashed but she should be able to shinny up."

"Weakened and dehydrated?"

"Like I said, she might not make it."

No response, then, "What is going on? Why was I
kidnapped and tortured? What was she trying to do?"

"Damned if I know."

"You don't seem to know an awful lot, but you've done a
great deal to get this crate that the General hid. The war's almost over. Is it
really that important?"

"Damn right."

Darkness settled over the countryside, and a small cloud of
dust, kicked up from the dirt of the road, swirled in the vortex created by the
passage of the car, and followed them down the highway in silence.