DEATH ON WINTER'S EVE

by Doug Dollard

  What seemed like ages took only a few seconds and I was up on my feet instantly, heading toward the shadow I’d seen just outside. Somewhere in the distant reaches of my consciousness I heard Wellington rouse from her sleep and call out to me but I ignored it.

  Before I reached the French doors something big and heavy came crashing through them splintering the wood and sending shards of glass spraying in all directions. Our bodies collided with immense force born of that ultimate imperative to kill or be killed. The body I collided with was massive and seemed hardly phased by the collision. It continued on through the door and into the room, knocking me aside as if I were made of paper Mache.

  Instantly back on me feet I could see the big man had turned away from me and was heading for the bedroom and Wellington. I sprang forward coming up on his right side and slammed the side of my left foot hard into the side of his leg just where the femur meets the tibia. I felt it snap inwards as the ligaments tore loose from the bone. Whatever happened next the big man would never walk again without crutches and a brace.

  I heard a visceral grunt of pain but amazingly the big man did not go down. Instead he turned and fired two shots where my head would have been had I not moved immediately after crushing his knee joint. The mussel flash temporarily blinded us both but I kept moving toward the last thing I remembered seeing before the shots were fired.

  Those few seconds gave me an advantage I sorely needed. I could hear him breathing, smelled the stench of his sweat when I crashed into him, driving my shoulder hard into his solar plexus. It was like hitting a concrete block. I heard his gun go clattering across the floor but otherwise the big man hardly moved at all. Instead I bounced off him which put me in a direct line with a wild left hook aimed at the side of my head.

  I leaned back just in time to feel a ham sized fist flash past my nose. Had he connected it would certainly have killed me. Back on my heels I could feel him step forward to take advantage of my loss of balance. But he’d forgotten about his dislocated knee joint and he stumbled just long enough for me to regain my balance.

  As he lurched forward toward me I planted my feet a shoulder’s width apart and drove my knee into his groin at the same instant he slammed into me. Again he grunted in pain but did not stop. The man was a monster. Six feet four or more. Two hundred seventy or eighty pounds of bone and hard muscle I warranted.

  He grabbed my shoulders in his two massive hands and lifted me off the ground as if I were weightless. Suddenly I found myself hurtling through the air, crashing into a settee on the other side of the room and spilling out across the floor. No time to lick my wounds I was up again and moving toward the big man at full speed. He had turned away from me and was again heading toward the bedroom and Wellington. I could not let him reach her.

  We met in the center of the room. I was conscious that the very last thing I wanted to happen was for the big man to get his hands on me. He was literally strong enough to rip off one of my limbs. Everything I’d done to him so far would have incapacitated any normal man. Apparently it was going to take something extraordinary to put the big man down. Either that or he was going to kill me.

  The first thing I did when our bodies collided was to thrust the heel of my hand as hard as I could up against his nose, hoping to splinter the two small oblong bones forming the bridge of his nose and drive them back into his brain. In mortal combat you never do just one thing hoping it works.

  The human body takes time to react even to fatal wounds and it can take an enormous amount of punishment before it begins to falter. You don’t want to end up getting injured or killed because you were waiting for something you just did to take effect.

  I slammed the heel of my hand twice more into his nose at a near vertical angle and immediately jammed my fingers into his throat, pressing them as deeply on either side of his laryngeal prominence as I could before crushing it. Closing my fingers I attempted to rip what I held out of his throat. In the process the big man got his hands around my neck, the worst possible place for them to be.

  His hands were like to giant blocks of steel crushing my neck between them. It would only be seconds before I was unconscious and then dead. Already I could feel my brain going fuzzy. With the energy born of desperation I thrust my forearms up against his wrists hoping to break his grip. Nothing. I tried again and this time his grip actually loosened slightly. Encouraged I tried once more. This time, incredibly his hands popped away from my throat and I dropped to the floor, sucking in a lungful of air.

  The big man loomed over me like some malevolent beast over his prey. Still gasping for air I willed myself back on my feet. But before I could command my body to do anything else the big man grunted again and slipped to his knees, his immense hands clawing at his throat. Like a giant oak tree he leaned over toward his injured knee and hung there for a moment as if suspended by some magical spell. Even on his knees the big man’s head was nearly at my eye level.

  Ever so slowly he tipped over to his right and then fell with a crash onto the floor. Without hesitating I located his gun among the shards of broken glass from the French doors before approaching his body. Carefully, with the muzzle of the gun pressed against his temple I placed my fingers against his throat and held them there. No pulse. Good.

  I had that queasy sick feeling you get with a post adrenalin rush. I suddenly remembered Wellington. I went over to our bed and found her sitting up against the headboard, staring at me in utter disbelief.

  “Is he dead?” She asked in a hushed voice of someone reverentially observing the sanctity of a mausoleum.

  “Yes. He’s dead. They both are.” Wellington let out a lungful of air she had been holding and tore her gaze from the bodies where it had been held, mesmerized by the horror of what she had witnessed.

  The wind was driving rain in through the opening the big man had made when he crashed through the French doors. I took a blanket from the linen closet and hung it up in the opening. It kept most of the rain from getting in but did nothing to keep the room for getting colder. There was broken glass everywhere and I stepped gingerly around it.

  I had sustained a number of cuts and bruises but nothing life threatening. I knew from experience I’d feel the pain from every injury sometime later. The bodies of the two men lay sprawled out on the floor between our bedroom and the kitchen. In the dim light I could just make out their features. I recognized the big man from my time in the London Cage. Stretched out on the floor the big man’s massive bulk appeared even more intimidating.

  I searched each of them carefully, confiscating their guns, wallets, identification cards and everything else I found in their pockets. The smaller man held a black leather sap in his left hand. Had it hit me it would have scrambled my brains. Wellington had retreated to the kitchen, unwilling to witness the gruesome spectacle of my rifling through the dead men’s clothes. Once I was certain I hadn’t missed anything of value I set to the task of disposing of them. One at a time I dragged their bodies outside through the rain to the cistern behind the cottage. Moving the big man over rough terrain was particularly difficult, like trying to push a beached whale back into the water.

  Lifting the metal grate that covered the cistern’s opening I dropped them in, listening for the distant splashes they made as they hit bottom far below. Chandler would inevitably send more of his goons in search of these two. When he did I didn’t want it to be easy for the two I’d just killed to be found.

  I was still running instinctively on fear and adrenalin and hardly noticed I as barefoot and in my underwear. When I returned to the cottage Wellington was still seated at the kitchen table, staring vacantly into the burning embers of our dying fire. The temperature in the cottage had dropped precipitously so I tossed on a couple more logs and stirred the embers to get the fire going again. The fire flickered as the dry wood sizzled and popped before giving in to the heat and bursting into flames. Shivering from the cold I threw in a few more logs just for good measure before taking the blanket f
rom the bed and wrapping it around my shoulders.

  “Michael,” I heard Wellington call my name. I left the fire and went to her. She was seated on one of the two small chairs that accompanied our kitchen table set. Her eyes glistened with tears. I could see she was frightened, but I sensed something more than fear was troubling her.

  “What is it Mary. Are you alright?”

  “I’m pregnant Michael. I’m so sorry,” she said in a voice so soft I could barely make out her words. Her confession took me off guard. For a moment I could do nothing more than stand there like an oaf, staring down at her. She was looking up at me, staring directly into my eyes, seeking some sign of how this news affected me. I knelt down beside her and took her hands in mine.

  “It’s going to be okay Mary. You have absolutely nothing for which to be sorry. I will take you someplace where you and the baby will be safe, I promise you.” Her hands squeezed mine tightly, as if there were her lifeline to safety.

  “I love you Michael. I know this isn’t what you wanted, not now at least. Not when things are so unsettled. I don’t expect you to love me. I don’t mind if you don’t, but I want this baby and I need you to promise me you will do whatever is necessary to make us safe.”

  At that moment I knew exactly how I felt. I wanted to tell her how happy she had made me and how much I wanted her to have our child. But the words would not form on my tongue nor pass my lips. It was better that way. She and our baby were my only priority now and telling her how I felt would only make what I needed to do more difficult. There may be things I needed to do that would be more complicated if she knew how I felt. Better for her to believe I did not share her love. At least until she was safe. Right now we were in grave danger.

  I had no illusions we had escaped by sheer luck this time. Next time Chandler or some other clandestine service came hunting us we might not be as lucky. I realized I had foolishly, perhaps wishfully come to believe we had escaped the net Chandler had thrown out for us. But that was naive and had nearly cost us our lives. Now we had little choice.

  We must leave Cornwall before Chandler realized the two men he sent had failed. But leaving Cornwall would only sidestep the immediate threat. The British Secret Services would continue to pursue us and eventually we would fall prey to one of them. One thing at a time I cautioned myself. I dressed quickly intending to make a quick search of the area to make certain the men I had killed had come alone.

  “We need to leave here as soon as the sun comes up,” I warned her. “These men have a car somewhere and I need to go out to find it. It would be good if you could be ready by the time I return.”

  “I will,” she nodded. I handed her one of the pistols I had taken from the dead men.

  “Take this and use it if anyone but me comes into the cottage before I get back.” She looked at me and I could almost sense the sick feeling she was experiencing as the fear took hold of her.

  “I don’t think there will be anyone else, but keep the pistol with you at all times just in case.” It was the best I could do to comfort her without making it seem she could relax her guard. I hadn’t told her about the possibility others had accompanied the dead men. There was nothing she could do about it and giving her additional cause to worry would serve little purpose.

  The set of keys I found in the pockets of the man named Zhukov indicated they had come in a car, most likely parked somewhere nearby. It took me an hour to find it, longer than I wanted to be away from the cottage. I left the car where I found it and headed back to the cottage. I figured the two dead men wouldn’t be missed at least until dawn. When they failed to report in warning flares would go up and Chandler would have this part of Cornwall crawling with SIS operatives. We’d been lucky twice now. I didn’t think we’d be as lucky a third time.

  Wellington was ready to go by the time I got back. She had packed my knapsack and her small travel case with the essentials we would need. We didn’t have anything else we could use to pack the rest of our clothes so we had to leave most of our things behind. The rent was paid a month in advance and we had given false names to the old couple from whom we leased the cottage. I’d leave some money on the kitchen table for the wrecked French doors.

  Getting away from Cornwall wasn’t going to solve our dilemma. I think Wellington had figured that out as well. After I found a safe place for her and our baby I needed to resolve this once and for all. I’d have found a way to kill Chandler if I thought for a moment that would put an end to it. But Chandler was never the crux of my problem. Someone else would just step in and pick up where Chandler left off. Besides, the SIS wasn’t the only British agency looking for me. Whitley didn’t have the manpower at the CSDIC to initiate a full fledged search for us but he was tapped into the intelligence network. He’d be tracking our movements. He was also a whole lot smarter than Chandler and with a few good guesses might get out in front of the major.

  The next set of goons we ran into might be Whitley’s. I had to find a way to end this that would guarantee Mary and our baby would be safe. With the exception of turning myself over to the Secret Intelligence Service I hadn’t even a remote idea how I would accomplish that.

  Chapter 59

  RESURECTION

  As we drove north from Cornwall I kept thinking where I could take Mary to ensure her safety. She had told me she was three months into her pregnancy. I didn’t know what the contemporary mores were regarding unwed mothers. I had to figure there were more than a few unwed moms about given the number of American soldiers in England. I was proud of her and angry I couldn’t be there for her. But the war had separated thousands of young couples and we’d both just have to learn to live with it.

  I intended to keep heading north until we reached Scotland but just outside of London Mary put out her hand to touch my arm.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Take me to Queen Anne’s,” she said.

  I looked over at her, puzzled and a little dubious.

  “All my friends are there. They’ll take care of me and I’ll be safe. I don’t think your Major Chandler or even Commander Whitley ever really wanted me. It was you they were after and I was just a means to get to you. They won’t have any reason to bother me once you are gone. Please, Michael?”

  It didn’t feel right taking her to a place where she could easily be gotten to by either the SIS or the CSDIC. There would be nothing to prevent them from arresting and holding her incommunicado under the war powers act. Mary was the leverage they’d use to get at me. Maybe that was the point. Maybe I should bring this to an end by surrendering. I only held out because I didn’t want what I knew to influence the natural evolution of history. But perhaps that was too grandiose, too egocentric.

  I’d already left a trail of dead men in my wake and I had no idea how that would affect the natural evolution of history. Wellington could see I was struggling with her request. I knew she wanted to make this easy for me, but abandoning her to her fate was more than I was willing to consider.

  “I know what you’re thinking Michael. I watched you kill those men. I know you had no choice but I also realize you’re very good at that kind of thing. You said you were in the military so I know you have certain abilities, skills when it comes to----to protecting yourself. You can’t kill anyone else Michael. Not for me anyway. You can’t kill this Major Chandler. Those other men were killed in self-defense. If you hunt down and kill Major Chandler that would be murder. You could never come back from that Michael. I don’t want the father of our child to spend the rest of his life in prison.”

  I had to admit killing Chandler was something about which I’d given some thought. But it wouldn’t solve our problem so I had put it out of my mind.

  “I have no intention of killing anyone,” I assured her. She smiled then, relieved the killing had ended with the deaths of the two men back at the cottage. But it hadn’t. At least I couldn’t guarantee it had. It was clear Chandler was now willing to see us dead and we couldn’t possibly surv
ive repeated attempts on our lives. I had too much to loose now.

  Whitley was the catalyst for all that had happened to us and therefore he must also be the solution. I decided I needed to go back to Commander Whitley and work out deal that would save Wellington’s life and restore her former status. And the safest place for Wellington at least for the time being was Wilton Park. Queen Anne’s was a trap waiting to be sprung. The SIS would certainly have men watching the hospital for her return. Once they had her I’d have no options at all.

  “We’re going back to Wilton Park,” I told her. Wellington looked at me as if I’d lost my senses.

  “You can’t be serious,” she exclaimed. “We’ve been running from him since the very beginning. What was the purpose of any of it if you’re just going to turn yourself over to him now?”

  “Commander Whitely hasn’t been the one sending men to kill us,” I reminded her. “In fact as far as I know he hasn’t sent anyone in search of us. This all started with him and I can’t envision a way out that doesn’t include his help.”

  “Michael you know I’ve never asked you why Commander Whitley and the SIS want you so badly. But if we’re going to put our faith in him now don’t you think I deserve to know?”

  This had been the moment I had done my best to avoid all these months. I think I knew from the beginning I would eventually have to deal with the extraordinary circumstances that brought me to my current condition. But that was before I had someone besides myself to consider. Now with Wellington and our baby at risk I could no longer be so cavalier about my actions.

  Whatever happened to me I needed to ensure Mary would be spared. If I could exchange myself to guarantee her safety I would do so in a heartbeat. What I needed to establish was the extent to which I could compromise my knowledge of the future. It was the seventh of May and by now Whitley would know I’d been correct about the D-Day landings being delayed.