by Eddy Shah
But he had it by the throat, its head firmly trapped in his hand.
The others fell back and watched him with the reptile, watched the battle at a safe distance.
The snake, its head now in strange hands, the smell not one it was used to, sensed it was in danger and quickly wrapped itself round Adam's forearm.
Adam held it tight by the neck, yet felt the reptile squeezing hard, starting to cut off his blood supply. He squeezed back, but it had little effect. He wished he had its head in his hand where he could have crushed it with his fingers. He tried to claw its head down into his palm, but the skin, dry under his touch, presented nothing he could grip on. He brought his left hand over and tried to catch the snake's head, but it was too fast for him, he knew it would sink its fangs into him before he could trap the head in his free hand. After a few moments he felt his grip begin to weaken, the tourniquet pressure of the entangled snake taking effect. He knew he couldn't let go of its head, knew that it would strike at him immediately. He tried to reach into his inside top coat pocket for his gun, but it was impossible, his left hand couldn't get into the pocket as the jacket flapped uselessly.
He heard Fruit Juice laughing, then the fat boy and the others joined in the merriment.
He dropped to his knees and tried to smash the snake's head against the base of the tomb, but it had no effect.
'Heya, what you doing?' he heard Fruit Juice shout.
He turned sharply and saw the machete glint, saw it come down towards his hand then veer off and slice into the snake's head.
He looked up at Billie, the machete in her hand, pushing down with all her strength and pinning the snake's head to the stone.
The grip round his arm began to weaken as he heard Fruit Juice shouting. He saw Fruit Juice try to wrench the machete from Billie. Adam managed to shake the snake free and finally let go of its head as he stepped back.
By the time Fruit Juice had taken the machete off Billie, the near dead snake had wriggled off the stone and into the undergrowth.
'What the fuck you do that for?' yelled Fruit Juice, his young face suddenly looking very old and tired. 'That fucker cost me a hundred dollars. You owe me a hundred.'
Behind him the others were still laughing.
'It was going to kill....' said a startled Billie.
'Gonna kill nobody. Shit, we already drained its poison. Capped its fucking fangs also. Couldn't kill a butterfly.'
'That's not....' she was beside herself with fury.
'Mebbe woulda scratched him. Mebbe just tore a little skin. Shit. That was a good snake.'
Adam put his arm round Billie. 'Relax,' he said. 'And thank you.' He turned to Fruit Juice. 'Any more? Or is that it?'
'You owe me five hundred bucks.'
Adam reached in his pocket and took out the notes. He added another note to the pile and handed them to Fruit Juice.
'A hundred more for the snake.'
Fruit Juice didn't bother counting the notes and simply put them in his coat pocket.
'Trust me?' asked Adam.
'You ain't a shyster. But you sure gotta death wish, boy.'
'He got that,' said the wobbling fat boy. 'He sure got that.'
'I ain't seen no one like that before. You woulda let that snake bite you. Fuck me, you woulda done that.'
'I never seen that either. A real fucking death wish.'
'Why you wanna die, boy?'
'Nobody wants to die,' replied Adam quietly.
'Mebbe you don't wanna die, but you sure don't care if you live.'
'Interesting show,' said Adam changing the subject. He took Billie's arm. 'It was quite an experience. I think it’s time to go.'
'You okay?' Adam asked her as they walked towards the entrance.
'I am now. God, what were we doing there?'
'Thanks for helping out.'
'I couldn't believe it. That snake...yech...I thought you'd had it.'
'I wondered why they were all laughing. The bastards had drained its poison sac.'
'Some performance.'
'Wasn't it? Showtime in New Orleans.'
'Was it all just a show?'
'Who knows?'
'What did he mean? Two of you? Two spirits in one body.'
'I don't know,' he lied. But it was the one part of the ceremony that had shaken him. How the hell did they know?
'It shook you up. You went crazy.'
'Of course. The snake was about to have a snack, and I was it,' he joked.
'You holding something back?'
'No. You see that sex thing between them?'
'I couldn't believe it.'
'Clever. Clever. I wonder how they pulled that trick. Just like getting that snake out of his mouth.'
'Wasn't up his sleeve. He was bare naked.'
'In his fat. In the rolls of fat round his belly.' He relaxed as he joked, pleased that he had got her off the subject of Marcus.
Marcus, Marcus. So someone else had finally seen you. And who was good and who was bad. Am I bad, Marcus? Me? The one with blood on my hands. That fat bastard saw me for what I am. Bad. At least you're there. At least you're the one who keeps me straight.
Ch. 39
Sverdlova Prospect
Moscow.
The big Zil limousine was stuck in a traffic jam, not uncommon in these days of cheap imported cars and unrestricted travel across the Soviet Union.
'It gets more like the West everyday. The people are starving, but they'll give up everything to be seen in a new car,' remarked Rostov to his deputy as he looked out on the motionless traffic.
'Keeping up with Boris is how Time magazine reported it. The new snobbery,' replied the number two, a younger man in his early thirties. Like Rostov, he was a practicing Christian and both men felt comfortable in each other's company. It was a trust they had shared since the early days when their practice of religion had been a secret thing. 'Those journalists are quick to criticise. They should try and live in a revolutionary society that is changing day by day. I'd like to see how well they would cope if their beloved capitalism had been taken over by our system.'
'It never happened. Which is why we're stuck in this jam. We should never have closed the central lanes. It's not dignified to be sitting here in this big car with nowhere to go.' Rostov referred to the central lane on the major routes into the city that had once been reserved for party officials and official motorcades, now another casualty of the old regime. 'Is New Orleans in place?' he asked, his voice suddenly lowered.
'It is. Nobody expected us to move so fast.'
'An opportunity not to be missed.'
'One problem has arisen.'
'Only one?' came the laconic reply.
'The person we are dealing with is a double.'
'Damn. I don't want the Americans to know.'
'It's our only contact in the city.'
'Then we must proceed and take a chance.'
'I've already actioned it.' The Deputy noticed Rostov's quizzical look. 'I took your order of immediate response to mean just that.'
'And the rest?'
'The plans are coming together.’
'What about the old woman?'
'Pensioned off and sent to a state home in Perm.'
'Under surveillance?'
'Like a hawk. Including the phone she has access to.'
'Good. If you use the German station, be careful. Trust no-one. Especially the Germans. They're either at your throat or up your arse. ‘
Rostov settled back. Actions had been put into motion. Hopefully they would force a reaction that would open up the way to a satisfactory conclusion. A little bit of pressure here, a little there. Push down in one place and it pops up somewhere else. That was the only way.
Ch. 40
Hilton Hotel
New Orleans
Louisiana.
'They went to their room early,' said Tucker. 'As soon as the speeches finished.'
Adam and Billie had met him in the corridor outside Trimm
ler's suite. He had pulled a chair from his room and sat near the scientist's door.
'Bit obvious, isn't it?' commented Adam.
'Listen, wise guy, I was told to watch them. And that's what I'm doing.'
'And what if someone had come down here with a gun?' Adam held up his hand, his forefinger pointed at Tucker's head as one would a gun, and clicked his thumb. 'Bang. You should know better.'
'Why? I'm just a fucking clerk.' The other two joined in the laughter with Tucker. 'So what should I do?'
'Keep out of sight. If they don't think you're there, then they won't expect you.'
Tucker stood up. 'Well, it's your watch now.'
Adam turned to Billie. 'I'll take it.' He could see she was tired, that the evening's events had exhausted her.
'You were on watch all last night,' she replied.
'I can handle it. Bed.'
'Thanks. Goodnight, tough guy.'
'Goodnight. And thanks for the help.'
'What help?'
'With the snake. I owe you.'
Tucker picked up his chair as Billie went to her room. 'What snake?'
'Nothing. Just a joke.'
'You two obviously enjoyed yourselves.'
'New Orleans. What a town!'
'That's it. Some chance I got of seeing New Orleans. Goodnight, Adam.'
'Goodnight, Phil.'
Adam watched Tucker let himself into his room dragging his chair behind him. He decided on the same watching place he had used the night before.
Trimmler came out an hour later, first opening his suite door carefully and checking there was no-one outside. Satisfied he was on his own, he set off for the fire stairs.
Adam slipped out of the closet and followed at a distance and saw him go through the fire escape doors. Adam listened until he heard a door close below him. He descended the stairs quickly and came out three floors lower, just in time to see Trimmler disappear down the corridor.
He already knew where he was going. Room 1589. Adam had already checked the grey haired man’s registration.
Inside the two men embraced once again.
'My dearest Albert.'
'My dearest Heinrich.
'Schnapps,' said Goodenache, holding out two glasses.
The two men drank together.
'A day I sometimes thought would never come,' said Trimmler.
'I never doubted,' replied Goodenache.
They talked for a while of their families, of old friends. Goodenache had never married, his work and the dream of a return to Germany had been his only preoccupation. He explained how he had been found by a Russian platoon who had an English speaking political commissar with them. He had told them he was a rocket scientist, just as Mitzer had instructed. Realising the importance of his discovery, the commissar commandeered a doctor from another unit to fix Goodenache's smashed knee. It had been a field medical unit and they had operated with the most rudimentary instruments. After that he had been taken back to Moscow and ridden on trains where he shared his compartment with wounded soldiers, German prisoners and even a sheep. Once in Moscow, the War was finally won, and he had joined other captured German scientists and worked with them on rebuilding V2 rockets. It was an ironic situation, but one in which they had little choice. Their living quarters were sparse, their food simple, but they had the best Russia could offer. Not much by western standards, but enough for scientists who were hiding the shame of the war in the efforts of their work.
'How did you get up there before us?' asked Trimmler.
'Surprising, wasn't it? Sputnik, eh.' Albert laughed. 'There was Werner telling the world the Americans would be the first into space, you know, with that smug little smile he has, and we decided we would beat him. While he talked, we worked. And we had nothing to work with. Only our hands, our hearts and our ingenuity.’ He tapped his forehead as he spoke. ‘It was just like the end of the War, when Berlin gave us nothing.'
'Berlin had nothing left to give.'
'Neither did the Soviets. But when we heard about Project Vanguard we thought you would beat us. What with your WAC Corporal and Viking rockets, you had such an advantage.'
'Damn thing. We used a Redstone rocket, an advanced V2. Werner jumped the gun when he announced we were ready for space. Just like when everybody promised Hitler we'd be ready. The press, the television, film cameras, all the world is on our doorstep waiting for it to happen, and you go and put Sputnik into space.'
Goodenache laughed mischievously. 'We knew you weren't ready. Your rockets weren't up to seven miles per second. They weren't reliable enough. Ours were only if the satellite weighed under one hundred kilos. But it was a Russian who led the project. A quiet man. Not like Werner and his publicity machine. Sergei Korolev. He fought for us, for every little thing that we needed. We got into space in spite of the Kremlin and all those aparatchiks who thought we were wasting our time. And their money.'
'I cursed you when they told me of Sputnik. Then you put that little dog...' Trimmler paused, trying to recollect.
'Laika. Sweet little animal.'
'Barbarians. That's what the western media called you. To stick a little dog like that into space and then leave it to die.'
'Ahh! Your people would have put up a pedigree dog and spent millions to bring it home again. So different to the war, eh? We didn't need to mess around with animals, not when we had people.'
'I swore even more in '61, when Gagarin went up.'
Goodenache continued to chuckle.
'But we passed you when we got to the moon.' Trimmler finally scored a point.
'We had to let you win something,' Goodenache shrugged it off. He reached over for the bottle and offered it to his friend who held out his glass.
'It should have been for the Fatherland,' Goodenache said.
'It was for the Fatherland. And they never knew. They never understood why one side never went too far ahead of the other. But now it can be for Germany.'
'It's too late. We're old. Yesterday's men.'
'We have knowledge.'
'All kids these days have that. Our knowledge is what they learn in their elementary school books. The young ones, like we once were, they're the ones who will break new horizons. Most of us were only twenty when we were at Peenemünde.'
'Germany will need us. That's why it is being cleared for us to go home.'
'No more. They say they don’t need us now.'
'Then why have we waited all these years? To get those bloody records off our files so that we could go home without the shame of being called Nazis. Damn it. Once we were proud of being called Nazis. And now, because they've re-written history, we're ashamed of what it was that made us great.'
'You were wrong to go to Cannes,’ admonished Goodenache.
'We always go. Every year. Kushmann and Grob were also there.'
'But it made the Americans watch you.'
'Damn it, the assassin aimed his gun at me. Pulled the trigger. It was me he was after.'
'Are you sure?'
'Of course. If it hadn't jammed, I wouldn't be here now.'
'Why should someone want to kill you ?'
'I don't know. Ach! Maybe, it is just my imagination. Maybe he just wanted to rob us. And then it all went wrong.'
'It doesn't matter now. With Willi gone, they don't want us any more.'
'Who says?'
'Frick.'
'What about Grob?'
'He was the one who told me.'
'But he's one of us.'
'He's frightened. For himself.'
'The Lucy Ghosts. That was the dream. The way back.'
'Frick isn't interested. If we come back, we do it on our own.'
'Bastards.'
'It's a new order, Heinrich. Maybe we waited too long and now we're paying the price. We should've gone home before, in the early days when Germany was recovering from the war.'
'They wouldn't have let us.'
'We should have tried.'
'I don't care.
I still want to go home.'
'So do I, Heinrich. So do I.'
'Then let's do it.'
'If they use our past against us, which they well might, then the Israelis and others could come and hunt us down. Do you want to stand in a glass box like Eichmann?'
'He was a murderer. We're scientists.'
'To them, there's no difference.'
Trimmler thought for a while before answering. 'If we're on our own, then we need to go home and see for ourselves. Talk to Grob, talk to Frick. Face to face. Damn it, Albert, I want to be home. Did you ever go back to Peenemünde, or to Nordhausen?'
'Once. To Peenemünde. It's all still there. The buildings, even the rocket ramps. Rotten and rusty but still there.'
'I would love to see it. Look, when this conference is over, let's meet there. I have some time off. I will go to Germany. To Nordhausen first.'
'I don't have your western freedom yet.'
'Don't tell me you can't go back to Russia through Germany. In these days?'
'And if I could?'
'Meet me there. In Nordhausen. Near the Metelwerk. At the Kurhotel.'
'It's not that easy.'
'In...' Trimmler thought for a while. '...seven days' time. The conference is over in three days, then we'll have enough time to settle our affairs and meet there.'
'I don't know. What about Grob?'
'What about him. We'll ring and tell him to meet us there. If he wants to. Damn it, he's already in Germany. We're the ones who are on the outside. Albert! Let's stop talking and wishing about what we're going to do. Let's do it. Damn it, if we don't do it now...'
'All right. Let's see. We'll decide tomorrow.'
'In seven days. That's where I'll wait for you.'
'We'll see.'
The two men drowned their sorrows together, the schnapps bottle rapidly emptying.
'Frick and the others,' said Trimmler. 'We made it possible and he wants to discard us.'
'That's the way of the world, my friend.'
'No. It's wrong. It was never planned this way. It was for our return. The money, everything. It's wrong and it must be righted.'
Trimmler left Room 1589 half an hour later. He was unsteady on his feet and this time he took the lift to the eighteenth floor.