“What will you do?”
She took her eyes away from him and returned to the window. She answered him quietly, dreamily—out of contact. “Live, if I can. It’s not up to me. It’s up to you.”
In the aisle the flight attendant stirred. He shook his head and got to his knees. Before he could focus, Lübok was in front of him, his gun at the attendant’s head.
“If you want to stay alive, you’ll do exactly as I say at Müllheim.”
Obedience was in the soldier’s eyes.
Fontine got up. “What about the girl?” he whispered.
“What about her?” countered Lübok.
“I’d like to bring her out with us.”
The Czech ran an exasperated hand through his hair. “Oh, Christ! Well, it’s that or killing her. She’d identify me for a drop of morphine.” He looked down at the girl. “Get her to clean up. There’s a raincoat in the back. She can put it on.”
“Thanks,” said Victor.
“Don’t,” replied Lübok. “I’d kill her in a second if I thought it was a better solution. But she could be valuable; she’s been with a Kommando unit where we didn’t know one existed.”
The Resistance fighters met the automobile on a back road of Lörrach, near the Franco-Swiss border. Victor was given clean but ragged clothes to replace the German uniform. They crossed the Rhine at nightfall. The girl was taken west to a Resistance camp in the hills; she was too drugged, too erratic to make the trip south to Montbéliard.
The flight attendant was simply taken away. Fontine kept his own counsel. There’d been another corporal from another army on a pier in Celle Ligure.
“I leave you now,” said Lübok, crossing to him on the riverbank. The Czech’s hand was extended.
Fontine was surprised. The plan had been for Lübok to go with him to Montbéliard; London might have new instructions for him. He took Lübok’s hand, protesting.
“Why? I thought—”
“I know. But things change. There are problems in Wiesbaden.”
Victor held the Czech’s right hand with his own, covering it with his left. “It’s difficult to know what to say. I owe you my life.”
“Whatever I did, you would have done the same. I never doubted that.”
“You’re generous as well as brave.”
“That Greek priest said I was a degenerate who could blackmail half of Berlin.”
“Could you?”
“Probably,” answered Lübok quickly, looking over at a Frenchman who was beckoning him to the boat. He acknowledged with a nod of his head. He turned back to Victor. “Listen to me,” he said softly, removing his hand. “That priest told you something else. That I worked for Rome. You said you didn’t know what that meant.”
“I don’t, specifically. But I’m not blind; it has to do with the train from Salonika.”
“It has everything to do with it.”
“You do work for Rome, then? For the church?”
“The church is not your enemy. Believe that.”
“The Order of Xenope claims it is not my enemy. Yet certainly I have one. But you don’t answer my question. Do you work for Rome?”
“Yes. But not in the way you think.”
“Lübok!” Fontine grabbed the middle-aged Czech by the shoulders. “I have no thoughts! I don’t know! Can’t you understand that?”
Lübok stared at Victor; in the dim night light his eyes were searching. “I believe you. I gave you a dozen opportunities; you seized none of them.”
“Opportunities? What opportunities?”
The Frenchman by the boat called again, this time harshly. “You! Peacock! Let’s get out of here.”
“Right away,” replied Lübok, his eyes still on Fontine. “For the last time. There are men—on both sides—who think this war is insignificant compared to the information they believe you have. In some ways I agree with them. But you don’t have it, you never did. And this war must be fought. And won. In fact, your father was wiser than all of them.”
“Savarone? What do you-?”
“I go now.” Lübok raised his hands, with strength but no hostility, and removed Victor’s arms. “For these reasons, I did what I did. You’ll know soon enough. That priest in the Casimir was right: there are monsters. He was one of them. There are others. But don’t blame churches; they are innocent. They harbor the fanatics, but they’re innocent.”
“Peacock! No more delay!”
“Coming!” said Lübok in a shouted whisper. “Good-bye, Fontine. If for one minute I thought you were not what you say you are, I would have wracked you myself for the information. Or killed you. But you are what you are, caught in the middle. They’ll leave you alone now. For a while.”
The Czech touched Victor’s face briefly, gently, and ran down to the boat.
The blue lights flashed above the Montbéliard field at precisely five minutes past midnight. Instantly two rows of small flares were ignited; the runway was marked, the plane circled and made its approach.
Fontine ran across the field carrying his briefcase. By the time he reached the side of the rolling plane, the hatch was open; two men were standing in the frame, gripping the sides, their arms extended. Victor heaved the briefcase inside and reached up, making contact with the arm on his right. He ran faster, jumped, and was pulled in through the opening; he lay face down on the deck. The hatch was slammed shut, a command shouted out to the pilot, and the engines roared. The plane sprang forward, the tail of the fuselage rising in seconds, and seconds later they were airborne.
Fontine raised his head and crawled to the ribbed wall outside the hatch. He pulled the briefcase to his side and breathed deeply, letting his head fall back against the metal.
“Oh, my God!” came the words spoken in shock out of the darkness. “It’s you!”
Victor snapped his head to the left, in the direction of the indistinguishable figure who spoke with such alarm in his voice. The first shafts of moonlight came from the windows of the open pilot area. Fontine’s eyes were drawn to the right hand of the speaker. It was encased in a black glove.
“Stone? What are you doing here?”
But Geoffrey Stone was incapable of answering. The moonlight grew brighter, illuminating the hollow shell that was the aircraft’s fuselage. Stone’s eyes were wide, his lips parted, immobile.
“Stone? It is you?”
“Oh, Jesus! We’ve been tricked. They’ve done it!”
“What are you talking about?”
The English continued in a monotone. “You were reported killed. Captured and executed in the Casimir. We were told that only one man escaped. With your papers—”
“Who?”
“The courier, Lübok.”
Victor got to his feet unsteadily, holding on to a metal brace that protruded from the wall of the vibrating aircraft. The geometric pieces were coming together. “Where did you get this information?”
“It was relayed to us this morning.”
“By whom? Who picked it up? Who relayed it?”
“The Greek embassy,” replied Stone barely above a whisper.
Fontine sank back down to the deck of the plane. Lübok had said the words.
I gave you a dozen opportunities; you seized none. There are men who think this war is insignificant.… For these reasons I did what I did. You’ll know soon enough.… They’ll leave you alone now. For a while.
Lübok had made his move. He had checked an airfield in Warsaw before daybreak and sent a false message to London.
It did not take a great deal of imagination to know what that message accomplished.
“We’re immobilized. We’ve exposed ourselves and been taken out. We all watch each other now, but no one can make a move, or admit what we’re looking for. No one can afford that.” Brevourt spoke as he stood by the leaded window overlooking the courtyard in Alien Operations. “Checkmate.”
Across the room, standing by the long conference table, was a furious Alec Teague. They were alone.
“I don’t give a damn. What concerns me is your blatant manipulation of Military Intelligence! You’ve placed an entire network in jeopardy. Loch Torridon may well have been crippled!”
“Create another strategy,” said Brevourt absently, looking out the window. “It’s your job, isn’t it?”
“Damn you!”
“For God’s sake, Teague, stop it!” Brevourt reeled from the window. “Do you for one minute think I was the final authority?”
“I think you compromised that authority! I should have been consulted!”
Brevourt started to reply, then stopped. He nodded his head as he walked slowly across the room to the table opposite Teague. “You may be right, general. Tell me, you’re the expert. What was our mistake?”
“Lübok,” said the brigadier coldly. “He faded you. He took your money and turned to Rome, then made up his own mind. He was the wrong man.”
“He was your man. From your files.”
“Not for that job. You interfered.”
“He can go anywhere in Europe,” continued Brevourt almost plaintively, as if Teague had not interrupted. “He’s untouchable. If Fontini-Cristi broke away, Lübok could have followed him anywhere. Even into Switzerland.”
“You expected that, didn’t you?”
“Frankly, yes. You’re too good a salesman, general. I believed you. I thought Loch Torridon was Fontini-Cristi’s brainchild. How logical it all seemed. The Italian goes back under perfect cover to make his own arrangements.” Brevourt sat down wearily, clasping his hands in front of him on the table.
“Didn’t it occur to you that if such was the case, he would have come to us? To you?”
“No. We couldn’t return his lands or his factories.”
“You don’t know him,” concluded Teague with finality. “You never took the trouble. That was your first mistake.”
“Yes, I expect it was. I’ve lived most of my life with liars. The corridors of mendacity. The simple truth is elusive.” Brevourt suddenly looked up at the Intelligence man. His face was pathetic, his pallid skin taut, the hollows of his eyes proof of exhaustion. “You didn’t believe it, did you? You didn’t believe he was dead.”
“No.”
“I couldn’t take the chance, you see. I accepted what you said, that the Germans wouldn’t execute him, that they’d put a trace on him, find out who he was, use him. But the report said otherwise. So, if he was dead, it meant the fanatics in Rome or Xenope had killed him. They wouldn’t do that unless—unless—they’d learned his secret.”
“And if they had, the vault would be theirs. Not yours. Not England’s. It was never yours to begin with.”
The ambassador looked away from Teague and sank back in the chair, closing his eyes. “Nor could it be allowed to fall into the hands of maniacs. Not now. We know who the maniac is in Rome. The Vatican will watch Donatti now. The Patriarchate will suspend activities; we’ve been given assurance.”
“Which was Lübok’s objective, of course.”
Brevourt opened his eyes. “Was it really?”
“In my judgment, yes, Lübok’s a Jew.”
Brevourt turned his head and stared at Teague. “There’ll be no more interference, general. Get on with your war. Mine is at a standoff.”
Anton Lübok crossed Prague’s Wenceslaus Square and walked up the steps of the bombed-out cathedral. Inside, the late afternoon sun streaked through the huge gaps of stone where Luftwaffe bombs had exploded. Whole sections of the left wall were destroyed; primitive scaffolds had been erected everywhere for support.
He stood in the far right aisle and checked his watch. It was time.
An old priest came out of the curtained apse and crossed in front of the confessional booths. He paused briefly at the fourth. It was Lübok’s signal.
He walked down the aisle cautiously, his attention on the dozen or so worshipers in the church. None was watching him. He parted the curtains and walked inside the confessional. He knelt before the tiny Bohemian crucifix, the flickering light of the prayer candle throwing shadows on the draped walls.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” Lübok began softly. “I have sinned in excess. I have debased the body and blood of Christ.”
“One cannot debase the Son of God,” came the proper reply from behind the drapes. “One can only debase oneself.”
“But we are in the image of God. As was Himself.”
“A poor and imperfect image,” was the correct response.
Lübok exhaled slowly, the exercise was completed. “You are Rome?”
“I am the conduit,” said the voice in quiet arrogance.
“I didn’t think you were the city, you damn fool.”
“This is the house of God. Watch your tongue.”
“And you revile this house,” whispered Lübok. “All who work for Donatti revile it!”
“Silence. We are the way of Christ!”
“You’re dirt! Your Christ would spit on you.”
The breathing beyond the drapes was filled with controlled loathing. “I shall pray for your soul,” came the forced words. “What of Fontini-Cristi?”
“He had no other purpose but Loch Torridon. Your projections were wrong.”
“That won’t do!” The priest’s whisper was strident. “He had to have other objectives! We’re positive!”
“He never left my side from the moment we met in Montbéliard. There were no additional contacts other than those we knew about.”
“No! We don’t believe that!”
“In a matter of days it won’t make any difference what you believe. You’re finished. All of you. Good men will see to it.”
“What have you done, Jew?” The voice behind the drapes was low now, the loathing absolute.
“What had to be done, priest.” Lübok rose to his feet and put his left hand into his pocket. With his right he suddenly ripped the drapes in front of him.
The priest was revealed. He was huge, the black robes giving him the appearance of immensity. His face was the face of a man who hated deeply; the eyes were the eyes of a predator.
Lübok withdrew an envelope from his pocket and dropped it on the prayer stall in front of the stunned priest. “Here’s your money. Give it back to Donatti. I wanted to see what you looked like.”
The priest answered quietly. “You’d better know the rest. My name is Gaetamo. Enrici Gaetamo. And I’ll come back for you.”
“I doubt it,” replied Lübok.
“Don’t,” said Enrici Gaetamo.
Lübok stood for a moment looking down at the priest. When their eyes were locked, the blond-haired Czech wet the fingers of his right hand and reached for the prayer candle, extinguishing its flame. All was darkness. He parted the drapes and walked out of the confessional.
PART
FOUR
12
The cottage was on the grounds of a large estate west of Aylesbury in Oxfordshire. Tall metal poles strung with electrified barbed wire surrounded the area. Killer dogs guarded the enormous compound.
There was only one entrance, a gate at the base of a long, straight driveway flanked by open lawns. At the main house, a quarter of a mile from the gate, the drive split off right and left, then split again with several smaller roads leading to the various cottages.
There were fourteen cottages in all, houses built in and around the woods of the estate. The residents were men and women who needed the security: defectors and their families, double agents, couriers who’d been exposed—targets who’d been marked for an assassin’s bullet.
Jane’s cottage became their home and Victor was grateful for its remoteness. For nightly the Luftwaffe streaked through the skies, the fires of London grew, the battle for Britain had begun.
And so had Loch Torridon.
For weeks at a time, Victor was away from their miniature house in Oxfordshire, away from Jane, his mind at rest because she was safe. Teague moved the Loch Torridon headquarters into the cellars of MI6. Day a
nd night had no essential meaning. Men worked around the clock with files and shortwave radios, and with complicated equipment that reproduced perfectly the documents required in the occupied lands: work papers, travel permits, clearances from the Reichsministerium of Armaments and Industry. Other men were called into the cellars and given their instructions by Captains Fontine and Stone. And they were sent to Lakenheath and beyond.
As was Victor on a growing number of occasions. At such times, he knew Alec Teague was right: Your wife’s safety is directly related to your state of mind. You have a job to do; I’ll do mine.
Jane could not be touched by the maniacs of Rome or Xenope. It was all that mattered. The freight from Salonika became a strange, painful memory. And the war went on.
AUGUST 24, 1940
ANTWERP, BELGIUM
(Intercepted dispatch—duplicate—Commandant: Occupation Forces, Antwerp, to Reichsminister Speer, Armaments.)
The railroad yards at Antwerp are chaos! Supply trains crossing Schelde River are overloaded through carelessness in shipping orders, causing cracks throughout bridge structure. Schedules and signaling codes altered without proper notice. From offices managed by German personnel! Reprisals ludicrous. No alien responsibility. Trains meet one another from opposing directions on the same tracks! Freights pull up for loading at sidings and depots where there are no trucks! No shipments! The situation is intolerable and I must insist that the Reichsministerium coordinate more thoroughly.…
SEPTEMBER 19, 1940
VERDUN-SUR-MEUSE, FRANCE
(Excerpts from letter received by the second command legal office of Gesetzbuch Besitzergreifung—from a Colonel Grepschedit, Verdun-Meuse.)
… It was agreed that we prepare specific rules of occupation to adjudicate disputes between ourselves and the conquered who laid down their arms. The regulations were circulated. We now find additional regulations—circulated by your offices—that contradict whole sections of the previous codes. We are in constant debate with even those who welcome us! Entire days are taken up with occupation hearings. Our own officers are faced with conflicting orders from your couriers—all under proper signatures and validated by your seals. We are at a boiling point over inconse-quentials. We are going out of our minds.…
The Gemini Contenders: A Novel Page 17