by Paul Moomaw
“Plastique,” he said, and vaulted across to the Sea Gull. He vanished into the hatch where the plutonium had been stored. A few minutes later his head reappeared, and then the rest of him. He raced across the deck and back to the motor launch, then squatted and waited, his eyes fixed intently on the Sea Gull.
For a long moment only the wind and the slap of waves against the hull of the motor launch broke the silence. Then a muffled thump reached Peter’s ears. Orsine stood up. He nodded his head emphatically up and down, and turned to the two brothers with a wide grin. He gave a high sign with his thumb up, then turned the thumb down and lowered it toward the water.
“Ca va,” he said, and ducked through the passageway. Hannes followed, but Peter stayed on deck, watching the Sea Gull, which was beginning already to settle into the water. It sank evenly at first, then, as the sea reached its deck, it tilted, stern down, and began to slide. At the end, the moon appeared through a hole in the clouds, lighting up the scene, and Peter could see that a live sea gull perched on the bow of the sinking steamer. The bird clung to the metal until the last moment, then sprang into the air just as the bow slipped beneath the water. It circled briefly, as if puzzled by the disappearance of its perch, and then flew off.
Chapter 32
The elevator door slid closed with a soft whoosh, and Pray sagged in relief. His wounded leg had begun to tighten up on the ride back to the hotel, but he had managed to walk across the lobby without a limp, tossing a cheery grin and “Guten Tag” to the desk clerk as he and Gabriela passed. The clerk, for his part, had returned the smile and the greeting, ignoring Pray’s bloody trousers and pasty face with true Salzburger eclat.
Gabriela moved to support Pray as he sagged against the elevator wall. “Why do men always have to pretend nothing hurts?”
Pray managed a strained laugh. “My mother always called me her good little soldier. It was one way I could always count on praise from her, pretending things didn’t hurt when they did.”
Gabriela shook her head, and ran her knuckles lightly across Pray’s cheek. “You learned it well enough,” she said.
“I got lots of practice.”
The elevator door slid open, and Pray stumbled out, glad to stop pretending. The leg was beginning to hurt like hell, a combination of traumatized flesh, spasming muscle, and the growing fire of inflammation. He fought back the urge to pull up his trouser leg and look at the wound. No sense in freaking myself out before I have to, he thought.
They stood at the door while Gabriela fumbled for the room key.
“Let’s get you inside and see what’s what,” she said. “And if I think you need a doctor, you’re by God going to have one, no matter what.”
“Come on, Gabriela. We can’t blow the entire job because of one small hole in my leg.”
“We can decide that when we see the hole.” She started to put the key into the keyhole, and the door opened. Larry Biven stood in the entrance, a smug grin on his face.
“You guys are way too noisy for spooks,” he said, and stepped to one side as Pray pushed his way past.
“You’re limping,” Biven said. “And you have funny red stuff all over you.”
“How the hell did you get in here?” Gabriela grabbed Pray’s arm and steered him toward the sofa.
“Picked the lock,” Biven said. “One of my many talents. I do it whenever I get a chance, just to keep my chops up.” He pulled a chair opposite Pray and sat down in it. “What happened?”
“I got shot,” Pray said.
Biven nodded gravely. “I wouldn’t have noticed.”
“He’s his momma’s brave little soldier,” Gabriela said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing, Larry,” Pray said. “Nothing at all.” He shot Gabriela a dirty look, and resolved to have a talk about invasion of privacy. He shifted his leg carefully. It was hurting more, and he wished Biven would go away for a while.
Gabriela looked at him. “Are you still bleeding?” she asked. “You’re face is getting whiter all the time.”
“If I am, I think I’d like to replace the blood with brandy.” He grinned weakly.
“Anything for my brave little soldier,” she said, jumping up and heading for the wet bar that stood next to the room’s French doors.
“What’s the brave little soldier stuff?” Biven asked.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yes he does.” Gabriela leaned over Pray and handed him a glass with three fingers of straight brandy in it. “But we won’t tell him, will we?” She made a face at Biven. “Larry’s too big a smartass already.”
Biven rolled his eyes theatrically. “See if I ever compliment you on your tits again, lady.” He knelt next to Pray’s leg. “Let’s get a look.”
“I don’t wanna.”
“Close your eyes, then,” Biven said, gently tugging up on the trousers. He poked at the leg, and Pray gasped with the pain.
“Lucky fellow,” Biven said, standing up. He turned to Gabriela. “Can you find a bandage, or make one?” Gabriela nodded and headed toward the bathroom.
“You have a trench in your calf, about an inch long, but very shallow. The bullet kissed you on its way to somewhere else. Amazing how much such a little thing can bleed.” He returned to his chair. “How did it happen?”
“I was at St. Gilgens, taking the air with a man called Facundo Hesse, and somebody on a boat used me for rifle practice.”
Biven raised an eyebrow and nodded. “Facundo Hesse is here? He’s Meissner’s American sales rep, so to speak. Has a house on Lake Coeur d’Alene, did you know that?”
“He said he had seen me there. With Gabriela. And with you.”
“Oh, shit. How did you handle that one?”
“Lied like a good bureaucrat.”
“A little more creatively, I hope.”
“I do, too.” Pray gave a quick synopsis of his discussion with Hesse.
“Who else knows you’re here?”
“Nobody. No, wait. That’s not true. Chet Tarbell knows.”
“How the hell did he find out?”
“Dumb luck. He was at the airport when we flew into Vienna, meeting his family.”
“Is that all?” Biven leaned forward. “Just at the airport?”
Pray brushed at the voice the way he might brush at a wasp. He wished again Biven would take his neatly pressed slacks and just-tweedy-enough sports coat and go somewhere else. He was beginning to feel a little sick, he supposed from loss of blood.
“No,” he said. “I visited him at the embassy the next day. It seemed like the thing to do. Less suspicious, you know?”
“Christ! Couldn’t you have just told him you were passing through on your way to Budapest, or something?”
“My apologies.” Pray was getting woozy. “I’ll try to think faster next time.” He slumped deeper into his seat, spilling a little of the brandy.
Gabriela returned to the room, her hands full of cloth.. “Get off your goddamn high horse, Larry,” she said.
Biven grinned sheepishly. “You’re right. Sorry.” He rose from his chair and walked to the windows. “Shit,” he muttered, staring down at the city.
“Maybe it’s time we knew what the hell is going on, Larry,” Pray said. Too many things have been happening, right from the start, with Chet sort of ‘accidentally’ bumping into us, except he didn’t really seem that surprised. Then somebody blows our car all to hell . . .”
“Somebody what?” Biven turned around and stared at Pray.
“Our car,” Gabriela said. “Someone wired a bomb to it. Fortunately for us, someone else tried to steal it right after that. Unfortunate timing for the thief, of course.”
“Jesus Christ,” Biven said. He went to the bar and made himself a drink, then settled into a chair. “I’m afraid there are a few things I didn’t quite fill you in on.”
“We’re all ears.”
“You have to understand that my motives are good.”
“
Wonderful,” Gabriela said.
“Really. I’ve told you about Terry Parker, the problems he’s causing. We were hoping to draw him out with this little operation, get him to show his hand.”
Pray felt his anger begin to flare. “You mean the whole Meissner thing was bullshit?”
Biven shook his head rapidly from side to side. “No. We want Meissner bad. At least, I want him.” He grinned slightly. “We just thought we’d try to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. Hoped Parker would think you were enough of a threat to him that he’d go after you.”
“How the hell was Parker going to know anything?”
Biven had the grace to look at his feet and squirm a little.
“Actually,” he said, “We made sure Chet Tarbell knew you were coming, with some strong hints that Parker was your real target.”
Pray slouched tiredly into his chair. “Just a couple of sitting ducks, Larry? Couldn’t you have been a little straighter with us?”
Biven shook his head again. “Sorry. But we had you covered—two good men on you every minute.”
“The guy with the glasses,” Gabriela said.
Biven nodded. “Charlie Oates.”
“He wasn’t that good,” she said. “I made him right away. You tell him he needs to improve.”
Biven looked embarrassed again, and sadly angry.
“I wish I could,” he said. “He’s been terminally retired. Somebody else made him, too, and put a knife in him.”
Pray stared at Biven for long moments. The anger flared briefly again, then faded away, overwhelmed by fatigue and pain.
“Jesus, Larry,” he said finally. “You’re as cold-blooded as Parker, aren’t you?”
Biven gazed back at him and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. Then he grinned. “But you knew that when you got into bed with me.” The grin faded. “Look, I’ll understand if you want to back out at this point. The fact is, if you keep pushing, Parker will, too. It could get dangerous.”
Pray burst into laughter. “It could get dangerous? No shit, Larry, I just bet it could.” He saluted with his glass. “But I always wanted to be a hero.”
Gabriela snorted. “Men! But if he stays, I stay. Are you sure you’ve told us everything, Larry?”
Biven spread his palms placatingly. “Absolutely.”
“And after this, the debt is paid?”
Biven grinned broadly. “In full,” he said.
“Anyway” Pray said. “Meissner has something I want.”
“What’s that?” Biven asked.
“It’s a long story. Tell you some day.”
Biven shrugged and started to rise.
The telephone rang. Gabriela crossed to the table and picked it up.
“Yes?” she said. She glanced over at Pray, shook her head slightly. “I’m taking his calls. What is it?” She listened, nodding occasionally. “Tomorrow?” She looked over at Pray again. “Make that the day after.” She hung up, and walked to the door.
“That was your friend Mr. Hesse. He’ll be expecting us, with the sample goods, day after tomorrow at Meissner’s.” She opened the door wider and gave Biven a meaningful look.
“I’ll be in touch,” Biven said, as Gabriela pushed him through the door and closed it. She turned and stood, hands on hips, gazing across the room at Pray with a quirky smile.
“You look so cute when you’re hurt,” she said.
Pray held out his glass. “Fix me another?”
Gabriela took the glass, mixed a brandy and soda, and carried it to Pray. She settled herself on the arm of his chair. “How do you feel?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Touch me and see.”
Gabriela leaned over and nuzzled his ear with her lips. “Show me your wound,” she whispered, and unbuckled his belt.
“No wound there, lady.”
“It’ll do.” She unzipped his fly and twirled her fingers in the hair that curled around his navel.
Pray felt himself responding. He pulled Gabriela into his lap, and they kissed, lightly and gently, at first, then with growing passion. At length, Gabriela pulled back, blinking.
“Can the wounded warrior disrobe himself?” She unbuttoned her blouse as she spoke.
In answer, Pray bent, untied his shoes, and slipped them and his socks off. By the time he looked up again, Gabriela was nude, and for a moment he simply stared, slackjawed, at her body.
“My God,” he said at length. “I had my fantasies, but they never approached the reality.”
“It isn’t polite to stare,” Gabriela said. She unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off, while Pray busied himself with his trousers. Then she settled onto the carpet and tugged Pray toward her.
“Do you want the lights out?” He asked.
“Heroes don’t do it in the dark, Adam. And I want to see everything we do.”
“Hide me from day’s garish eye, while the bee with honeyed thigh at her flowery work doth sing,” Pray said, and grinned. “Milton.”
“Jesus, Adam, can’t you ever just say something?”
“By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote,” he said, and cupped his hand around her knee. “Ralph Waldo Emerson,” he added, and ducked as she picked up a shoe and swung it as his head.
Then she pulled him the rest of the way down to her, and he forgot to notice anything but her ivory skin, and her perfume, and the triangle of incredibly red hair below her belly button.
Chapter 33
The wake of an outgoing tanker pushed against the hull of Le Sylphide, and the motor launch rocked sharply. The tanker ran empty, its hull towering above the water. Laughter and the loud, harsh wailing of Arabic music floated down out of the darkness. The thrumming vibration of its engines seemed to penetrate to the middle of Peter’s brain.
The launch had arrived as dawn had begun to lighten the hills above the harbor at Trieste, and had been sitting dead in the water ever since, a hundred yards from the breakwater that protected the Porto Vecchio, the Old Port, and its four long piers at the north end of the city. Peter squatted on the deck and stared across the water at the lights of the city, wishing he were there instead of on the motor launch. It looked like a pleasant enough town, even if it was full of Italians. He didn’t like boats that much, anyway, and had been half seasick every since boarding the Sea Gull at Alexandria. Sadness touched him as he thought of the Sea Gull, a sadness mixed with anger that caused a pressure behind his eyes. There had been no reason for the killing. The French were pigs, and like their !pigs, they cared more for truffles than human life. They had no respect for themselves, either—they had demonstrated that in World War Two. He had learned that much from the history teachers in his village, how the French had collapsed before the onslaught of the Germans, and then lain supinely waiting for rescue, except when they were running around kissing their conquerors’ asses. That explained their arrogance these days, he thought. They had to make up for their shame.
Peter rose to his feet and swung through the hatchway, which led to a long salon at the forward end of the launch, lined with rows of oval portholes on each side, glistening in mahogany and brass, which served as the dining area. Hannes and Delon sat at a round table, neither speaking, but glaring with tight faces at each other, as if they had been arguing. The man called Orsine sat at an adjoining table, his face a mask of boredom, digging at grimy fingernails with a wicked looking switchblade. A half-empty carafe of red wine sat at his elbow. No one looked up looked up as Peter walked toward the tables.
“How much longer do we have to squat here in the water like a toad on a lily pad?” he asked.
“Until I say it’s time to do something different,” Delon said. He kept his eyes on Hannes. Peter stood over the two men, looking first at one, then the other. No one said anything. Peter counted his breaths, as his older brother had taught him to do years before, to teach him patience hunting rabbits. He counted to six, and still no one spoke, so finally he broke the silence himself.
“What’s goin
g on here, then?”
“A small disagreement,” Delon said.
“What kind of disagreement?”
No one answered at first.
“What’s going on, Hannes?”
“There’s a problem about the pay,” Hannes said.
“What kind of problem. What is the Frenchman up to now? I told you we couldn’t trust these frogs.”
“Watch your mouth, potato head,” Orsine said, slurring the words a little. He raised the knife, dipped the point of the blade menacingly toward Peter, and grinned.
Peter sneered at the man and his knife.
“Take your toy and stick it up your French candy ass.”
“I’m not surprised you know what a French ass tastes like, you skinny little fairy.”
The pressure behind Peter’s eyes, ballooned. “French pig!” he yelled, and launched himself at the seated crewman, knocking him out of his chair. The knife skittered across the deck. Orsine picked himself up with a curse and scrambled toward the knife. Peter dove after him, trying to beat him to the weapon. He landed on top of Orsine, hard. He could hear the air go out of the Frenchman with a whoof. The knife spun farther away and came to rest against a bulkhead. Peter grabbed Orsine by the hair, tried to smash his face into the deck.
Hannes sprang from his chair and grabbed his brother.
“Enough,” he yelled. “He’s not worth it.” He tugged at Peter. Orsine took advantage of the distraction to break out of Peter’s grip and roll away. He went for his knife, but Hannes was quicker, releasing his brother and stepping into the Frenchman. He snapped a kick into Orsine’s elbow. The Frenchman yelped in pain and the knife flew against the bulkhead and clattered to the deck.
Delon remained at the table, a tight smile on his face. He grabbed the wine carafe and filled his glass. He took a swallow of wine, then put his feet up onto a chair, leaned back and yawned noisily.