Crossword (42 page)

"At least we have a motive for Kent, but that's far
from proof." He paused before continuing. "You know, I've been
thinking about the journeys of Waldman and Schroeder. The only time they were
in the same locale and were likely to have contact, as a matter of fact, the
only time when it was actually necessary for them to have contact in order to
carry out their orders, was when they were both in Norway shipping the
plutonium to Germany. If this started out as some kind of joint endeavor by our
two Nazi generals, the gestation probably took place there. Norway is run from
London. Get word to them, tell them we need any information they have about the
two of them and the plutonium, and tell them it's urgent, that we have an
active operation in jeopardy."

Bill scooped up his papers and quickly retreated to his
desk, the gravity of the situation compelling him to work ever faster. Less
than a minute later, before Dulles had even decided on his next task, there was
a hasty knock and Bill reappeared. "Mr. Mettler is here. He says it's
important."

"Send him in." Hans hurried into the room, his
flushed complexion suggesting he might have run all the way over. "Hans,
sit down. You look like you need a brandy."

"Thank you, no, it's too early, even for me, and you
will want to hear this immediately." He practically flung the envelope in
his hand on Allen's desk. Dulles opened it and removed the two pictures he gave
him on his last visit, one of General Waldman and one of Templeton. "We
have seen them at the Schweizerhof, just like you thought." He sat back,
his breathing somewhat rapid, his mouth alternating between a sly smile and an
open portal for the air he had to inhale. Hans had found his first foray into
espionage rather exhilarating. Dulles could not hide his own smile, hoping his
friend thought he was pleased and not laughing at him, and let Hans have a
moment to catch his breath.

"Very good my friend. Tell me exactly what
happened." Dulles knew this would take longer than if he simply directed
pointed questions at his newest 'recruit', but he could not bring himself to
interrogate his old friend, a situation which Hans would probably find
demeaning, not realizing that debriefing was part of the great game. Besides,
Allen could see that he was chomping at the bit to tell his story.

"My young clerk, Lucas, was stationed at the hotel,
near the elevators as you suggested, and yesterday afternoon he saw the German
general at the registration desk, then took him in the lift to the fifth floor.
Then, in the early part of the evening he saw the other gentleman come in with
a lady and sit in the bar for a while, having drinks. After about an hour, they
both left." Dulles felt compelled to interrupt.

"Did either the man or the woman go anywhere before
they left the hotel? Were they always in sight of Lucas?"

"They sat there the entire time."

"Neither of them went to the toilette or into one of
the other rooms off the lobby?"

"The man carried their coats to the cloak room, then
walked back to the table."

"Did he talk to the girl at the counter?"

Hans beamed. "I asked him that. He was very clear. He
spoke only a few words to her then turned to look around the lobby while he
waited for her to give him a claim tag."

"So they just sat there for an hour and left."

"Yes. The man kept looking around every few minutes,
then after two drinks they walked out. But the gentleman came back fifteen or
twenty minutes later by himself."

Dulles, forcibly keeping the exasperation from his voice,
said, "Go on, Hans."

"When he returned, he went straight to the lift. He
asked Lucas how long he had worked at the hotel. Lucas told him that he just
started the job, then he was directed to take him to the third floor."

"You said the general went to the fifth."

"Correct, but the gentleman did not. Lucas let him out
on the third floor, then bent down, pretending to tie his shoelace, but the man
returned to the elevator and asked him if there was a problem, then stood and
watched until he closed the door and took the lift down."

"He didn't see where he went on the third floor."

"No. But, here again, we are in the luck, as you
say."

"Please, Hans, explain."

"Lucas is engaged to a girl who works as a chamber maid
at the hotel. She is a very nice young woman and comes from a good family, but
they have not been ... " He saw Allen's expression change, then
interrupted himself. "I digress. My apologies. She was working on the
fifth floor at the time, making up a room for a late arrival, when your
gentleman turned the corner and knocked on a room right next to where she
stood."

"How did she know it was the man I told you
about?"

"At the time she didn't, but after work Lucas confided
in her that he felt he had failed in a task I had given him. When she asked how
that was possible, he explained that he was unable to find out what room a
certain man had visited, and he was afraid I would be angry. His girl inquired
as to what the man looked like, and upon hearing the description, said she
might have seen him. Well, it was too late that night, but first thing this
morning he brought her to me and asked that I show her the picture, which I
did." Hans emphatically slapped his thigh and said, "And it was him.
That was the man she saw, the one in the picture, and, what's more, he went
into the room occupied by the German General."

"Is this certain?"

"Absolutely. She has seen him at the hotel before and
clearly saw the number of the room he entered. It was the same room to which
Lucas had taken the German."

"You've done very well, Hans." Dulles smiled,
mostly for the sake of his good friend, for he felt no joy at discovering a
traitor in his organization.

* *

The winter wheat brushed against their shoulders as Larry and Maria
strolled along the narrow path through one of the fields, Maria trailing her
arm out to the side and grabbing a handful of shoots from time to time, letting
the wheat slide through her closed fist until it escaped her grasp and her
empty hand sought something else to hold. These daily excursions were both
exercise and catharsis, for Larry had never had anyone to whom he could express
the feelings of anger and despair which he suffered after being told of his
impending demise and volunteering for duty that would put the final nail in his
coffin.

Maria had lived a solitary and lonely life since her parents
died, Heinrich at first worried that the Gestapo would come for her next, and
then, when months had passed with no further retribution, he was concerned that
her visible presence might rekindle some sadistic urge in a party member who
remembered her father and mother. Because of all these fears, Schroeder, as her
savior and guardian, had instructed her on how to lead an anonymous existence
and how to protect herself if needed. Her work at the hospital had been the one
foray into the community from which she could not be dissuaded, and Heinrich
had discovered in her an underlying strength and stubbornness of which he had
not been aware. Maria's spirit had been forged in adversity and, like so many
others who had experienced a similar coming of age, there lurked a core of
tempered steel under a shell of compliance and plasticity.

Each of them had found a safe harbor in the other, and if
not yet soul mates, the ebb and flow of life's exigencies were carrying them in
that direction. The burgeoning love between them was unmistakable, to them as
well as to those members of the farmer's family old enough to understand the
concept; but for Larry it was bittersweet since the clock hand that measured
out his life was near its endpoint. Growing up he had been fortunate to have a
high school English teacher who believed that literature was for everyone, and
Larry had immersed himself in the texts, thrilling at the accounts of
adventures, but also finding wisdom and solace in the pages. Now, however, what
he remembered were Napoleon's words to his aide: "You can ask me for
anything you like, except time." Wise words providing no succor for him.

The sun was still high in the sky and Maria was reminiscing
about a trip she had taken with her parents to Italy where they saw the leaning
tower of Pisa and she had spent the next hour trying to walk at an angle so the
edifice would appear straight up. She was doing the same thing now, denying
Larry's illness and the invisible damage from the plutonium, insisting that he
was in good health, as if her skewed point of view could make it so. Larry had
spent most of their walk the previous day telling his life story, and he was
surprised at how the years distilled down to only a few hours. Maria had
chronicled her short life in even less time this morning, crying as the hurts
resurfaced, but finding comfort in the presence of the man beside her, and
feeling a freedom she had not known since her parents were taken from her.

Larry's chronicles of the day before had been edited, at
least in regard to the one event that troubled him more than any other, and he
felt guilty about his reticence to open himself up to the woman he loved.
Taking a deep breath, he began the confession that had lain fallow, buried in
his soul since that day in Philadelphia when his brother was gunned down.
Tenuously at first, holding back the emotion, the words emerged in a
dispassionate monotone, as if the event in question had happened to someone
else. As Maria listened, holding tight to Larry, her compassion and support
were apparent, in her touch, in her face, in the way she held her body and in a
myriad of unspoken signals. And the succor she provided allowed him to reach
deep within and exhume the festering feelings and the guilt that had been
poisoning him. Exposed to the light of day, they shriveled and turned to ash,
to be blown away by the wind, like a vampire removed from his dank soil to face
the midday sun. In touch now with the emotions that he had suppressed for so
long, the story poured from him with all the anguish and melancholy with which
it had been robed. The release was almost explosive, and he embraced her
tightly, the tears flowing freely down his cheeks, the sound of prison doors
swinging open on rusty hinges, the demons banished.

Afterwards, they talked, then sat in comfortable silence,
each content to hold fast to the other. When the sun was lowering in the west,
they returned to the farmhouse, speaking in the intimate tones of lovers.

Once back, they busied themselves with preparations for their
journey the next morning, Maria preparing food and Larry sitting quietly in a
chair in the corner of the main room to run through the plan in his mind, to
review options and contingencies. Their possessions consisted mainly of the
clothes on their backs, almost everything given to them by the family, except
for a knife that Larry kept in his pocket, still there because of the
generosity of a young boy he had met on the road in a time and place that
seemed so far off.

Later that night at the dinner table, everyone seemed to
have long faces, but Larry also thought he saw a sense of relief in the faces
of the farmer and his wife, for every day that they harbored the couple
increased the risk that they would be discovered. Neither of them told the
farmer exactly what they had been doing in that staff car, and he never asked,
although it was obvious to him that in spite of Larry's fluent German he was a
foreigner, and whatever they had been involved in was something the Nazis would
no doubt find subversive.

Maria seemed to be merely moving her food around the plate,
not actually eating it, and Larry said to her, "You have to eat, Maria; we
have a ways to go tomorrow and it's better to have the food in your stomach
than in a pack." The farmer nodded his agreement, looking at Larry.
"We can walk the entire distance, it isn't necessary for you to take us
partway. You've done more than we can ever repay and far more than is
necessary."

"It is I who am beholden to you, and I always pay my
obligations. We leave just after first light."

While the women cleared the table, the farmer lit his pipe,
the strong smell of ersatz tobacco filling the room, and spoke softly with
Larry, giving him as much information as he could about troops and military
installations in the area, after which they said their good nights and retired
to their own rooms.

Larry nodded off quickly but slept lightly, and his eyes
snapped open at the sound of the door opening. He recognized Maria's silhouette
framed in the door, but remained silent as she glided in bare feet to the side
of his bed, her borrowed robe tightly around her. She stood at the bedside for
several minutes, listening to the deep even breathing of the man for whom she
felt so much, both love and sorrow. Love that seemed palpable in her very
being, an energy in her body wanting to burst out, straining at the muscle and
flesh that contained it, like a magnet seeking its opposite pole. She also felt
a deep sorrow that what was so recently found might so soon be taken from her.
Maria removed the robe and let it slide to the floor, revealing the body that
Larry had only thought of until now, then gently lifted the covers and eased
into bed beside him. There was no dissimulation possible now. Larry rolled
towards her, enfolding her in his arms as she held him tightly, the heat from
her body as intense as any flame he had felt. Then she began to cry. Not the
few casual tears that convention might dictate, but cascades of emotion flowing
from her eyes in great body shuddering sobs. She clung to him, awash in
emotions that she didn't completely understand, a storm tossed piece of human
flotsam not knowing if her one anchor would be torn from her hands. And she
cried. And cried. Cried.

His chest wet with Maria's tears, he held her close and said
nothing, at once not knowing what to say and knowing that no words were needed.
When the sobs subsided, and her breathing returned to normal, she lifted her
head and looked into his eyes, the palm of her hand against his cheek, and
kissed him, a soft gentle, touching of the lips, but one that in spite of its
tenderness, blazed with an intensity greater than any he had known. She pulled
apart, taking his hand and placing it on her breast, her eyes now closed, her
face still wet with tears as she guided his hand down her body, her
respirations faster and an occasional quiver rippling across her skin. Larry
started to say something, to protest what he thought might be construed as
un-chivalrous, when Maria, who understood much better than him the emotional
needs of the human body, held a finger to his lips and said, "Hush. Don't
say anything. I want you to make love to me. I need you inside of me, I need to
be a part of you." She pulled him onto her and kissed him once more, more
forceful than before, then laid her head back on the bed, eyes closed again and
caressed his shoulders before her arms floated back to her side and she
immersed herself in the rhythm that now started to pulsate between the two
lovers. When he entered her, slowly, almost hesitantly, Maria inhaled deeply,
and when he moved inside her, her breathing came more rapidly and a beatific
smile lit up her face. Tentative at first, her thrusts soon found their own
measure, in symmetry with Larry, who had shed his fear of hurting her as the
realization of just how much he loved this woman overcame him. Their damp
bodies collided with one another again and again, but always the feeling of
connection, both physical and spiritual, was paramount, and even the low sounds
of pleasure emanating from each of them sang in harmony of their newly
consummated love. The emotional explosion that ended their physical love making
left them panting, but not spent, for the intensity of their feelings filled
them with a symbiotic strength of mind and body. Entwined in each other's arms,
the mutually whispered "I love you" barely out of their mouths, they
fell asleep, to wake up in consort with the first rays of the morning sun.