The British Lion

by Tony Schumacher

  Even an English one.

  She looked up at the ceiling searching for a loft hatch or any other means of escape. The ceiling was stubbornly bare: nothing but yellowing paint and a damp patch.

  There was a creak on the stairs.

  Anja spun and pointed the gun out the bedroom doorway. Harris froze; Anja looked down at him with the gun held at her hip, pointing at his head.

  He blinked, half crouched, and then slowly held out the hand that wasn’t carrying his helmet.

  “There now, put that down.” He motioned with his hand.

  Anja didn’t reply.

  “Come on, I’m here to help you. Please put it down.”

  Anja swallowed and felt her finger tighten on the trigger.

  The bobby took another step up the stairs.

  “Go,” Anja said, barely a whisper.

  “Give me the gun, girl.”

  He took another step up.

  Anja pulled the trigger.

  Click.

  Empty.

  Neither Anja nor Harris moved or made a sound.

  A second seemed like a lifetime, then Harris exhaled and sprinted up toward Anja like a cork out of a bottle.

  He caught the barrel of the gun with one hand and Anja round the throat with the other.

  His helmet tumbled down the stairs and into the street, and they in turn tumbled into the bedroom, landing hard, Harris on top of Anja on the hard wooden floor. Anja tried to scream, but Harris’s grip on her throat was too tight.

  Harris shifted so that he was completely smothering Anja with his body. She felt an overpowering rush of panic flood through her as she realized that she couldn’t move or break free of the weight on her.

  Anja felt his hot breath gasping next to her ear. She smelled cigarettes. She struggled to release her arms from where they were pressed against her chest and tried again to scream, but his hand was still choking her. Harris’s cheek rubbed against hers and sharp bristles caught and dug at her skin. She screwed up her eyes in frustration, wriggling underneath the great weight pressing down on her. The sound of Harris’s breathing bellowed next to her ear; he was blowing hard through his nose.

  Anja’s panic eased. She turned her head and watched the candle, which seemed to dance slower and slower. She forgot she couldn’t breathe.

  Harris released his grip.

  She gasped back to life, her hearing and vision returned, and the candle lit the room. She looked up into the eyes of the policeman, who blinked and then laughed loudly.

  Anja saw he had a black tooth, left incisor. His breath smelled, and she turned her head as far as she could manage.

  “I thought you’d bleedin’ killed me then.” Harris seemed to grab at the words as they fell out of his mouth, almost too fast to catch. He panted, another quick breath, still smiling. “When you pulled that trigger I thought, Hey up. You’re a goner here, Alf.” Harris laughed again; Anja looked at him and saw more rotten teeth in his mouth near the back.

  He blew out his cheeks and then dragged Anja up with him as he stood. He gripped her harshly by the collar, almost lifting her off the floor as he held her at arm’s length.

  “You scared the shit out of me,” he carried on talking as he roughly rummaged in the pockets of her coat and then quickly searched her for any other weapons, twisting her and pushing her face first against the wall, still holding on to her collar and keeping her on tiptoes.

  Anja allowed herself to be searched without making a sound; she neither resisted nor assisted. She simply stood silently, aware that she was held firm by Harris and that any chance of escape was gone.

  For now.

  He dragged her across to the mattress and pushed her down so that she was sitting on its edge. He let go and slowly withdrew his hand, holding it palm down close to her face.

  “Don’t try and run away. I’m here to help you, understand?”

  Anja nodded.

  “Good girl.” Harris took a few steps back and picked up the Thompson. He looked at the gun, then tried and failed to remove the magazine before looking back at Anja.

  “What was going on here? I heard the shooting from a ­couple of streets away. Who was it?”

  Anja didn’t reply.

  “Come on now, I saw the bullet holes all over the front of this place and I heard enough shooting to start a war. Was it resistance? I didn’t see no Germans around.”

  Anja stared at him.

  “Where are your papers?” Harris tried to free the magazine again, but he clearly had no idea how to operate the Thompson.

  Anja didn’t reply.

  “Don’t make me look for them, girl. Where are they?” He lowered the gun to his side, finally admitting he didn’t know how to operate it.

  Anja pointed to the inside pocket of her coat.

  “Open your coat and take them out slowly.” Harris took a step closer and held out his hand cautiously, ready to strike her if she tried to trick him.

  She reached into her inside coat pocket very slowly, removed her identity card, and held it close to her chest.

  Harris flicked with his fingers, looking into Anja’s eyes.

  “I’m the police, love, you can trust me. Come on . . . give it here.”

  Anja gently put her identity card into Harris’s outstretched hand; he smiled at her and then looked down at it.

  Harris whistled through his teeth. “You’re a bleedin’ Kraut.”

  CHAPTER 15

  KING WAS OUT of breath. He stopped at the end of the alleyway and looked out onto the street beyond.

  It was deserted.

  He checked back along the alley he’d just run along, then back to the street.

  He was lost.

  “Fuck.”

  He breathed deeply a few times and tried to slow down his heart, then took a few steps back into the darkness.

  “Where are we?” Cook caught up to him, gasping for breath.

  “I don’t know, we’ve run too far. This place is a maze. Everywhere looks the same.”

  “Can’t we just call the embassy? Have someone come and get us?”

  “Nobody needs to know we are out here, Eric. We’re on our own for now, just a little longer, okay?”

  Cook slid down the wall and sat in the snow. King crossed the alley and knelt next to him, laying the Thompson down.

  “I’m shot, Frank. It hurts.”

  “I know; you’ve told me. Lean forward and let me look again.”

  Cook rolled forward slightly. King reached around and ran his hand across the younger man’s back. Cook stiffened when King found the wound, then lifted his hand to check for blood.

  “Is it bad?”

  “It can’t be that bad; you’ve run half a mile. Just keep going a little farther and then I can fix you up. It might be just a graze.”

  “It stings like crazy, really bad, and I’m cold.” Cook’s voice sounded weak, and for a moment King thought he was going to cry.

  “Of course you’re cold, it’s below freezing out here.”

  Cook shook his head. “I’m scared.”

  “You really aren’t cut out for this sort of thing, are you?” King rested his hand on Cook’s shoulder and looked back out to the street. “Wait here. I’ll get us transport and come back for you.” King stood up and walked back to the head of the alleyway. He looked left and right and then back at Cook. “I won’t be long. Stay here. Keep hold of the Thompson just in case.”

  “I’ll come . . .” Cook stopped. King was already gone, head down, into the night.

  Cook shifted in the snow. His coat was damp and he was regretting sitting down. He tried to push himself to one side, so that he could get up to his knees, but the pain in his back caused him to give up and sink back down the wall.

  He closed his eyes.

  I
t wasn’t meant to be like this. Frank had told him it would be easy: “A simple job for Dulles. We do this and we’ll be made for life, part of the new security ser­vice they’ve set up to keep an eye on the Nazis back in Washington.”

  Eric Cook didn’t feel made for life right now. He just felt scared.

  Scared of dying, scared of being alone, scared of the bullet wound in his back, and scared of being caught.

  King was right; he wasn’t cut out for this sort of thing. He was a clerk, an intellectual, working his way up the diplomatic ser­vice and happy with his life.

  Sort of.

  Sure, he didn’t like Ambassador Kennedy and President Lindbergh’s policy of working with the Germans, but he could have lived with it. He had his career to think of. He’d read the interviews with Churchill in the papers, demanding weapons, money, and action against the Nazis. He read them all, and while he quite liked Churchill as a guy, he also quite liked Hitler.

  At least Hitler had seen off Stalin—­communism was as good as dead thanks to him. Cook doubted whether Churchill would have done that. He guessed Churchill would have run to Uncle Joe for help just the same as he had run to Uncle Sam.

  Plus Churchill was happy for his own ­people to die. He was always being asked in the press to condemn the bombs that went off all over Britain, especially straight after the invasion, and not once had he done so.

  No, Churchill was the kind of guy you’d go for a beer with; Hitler was the kind of guy who owned the bar.

  Hitler was the winner, and the USA liked winners, so the USA liked Hitler.

  Eric had been excited to get Great Britain as his first posting overseas. It had seemed glamorous until he got here and saw the fog, the queues, the checkpoints, and the squads of soldiers lining ­people up against walls with their hands on their heads.

  One night in a restaurant, four of the English fascist Home Defense Troops had dragged a guy out, just like that. One minute the guy was drinking soup, the next minute he was on the floor being pulled by his hair to the door.

  The strangest part of it was the way the band just started playing again when he was gone, as if it had never happened, as if he’d never been there, as if the whole thing were a dream.

  That was when Eric decided that he wanted to go home.

  He’d found himself staying in the embassy more and more of a night, instead of getting the tube back to his flat. The way ­people ignored each other on the underground spooked him; they were like ghosts, lost in their own heads, dodging around each other silently looking away.

  Just as everyone had done in the restaurant.

  And then along came Frank King, the new military attaché, a uniform packed full of charisma and a bright light in a city in darkness. They’d fast become friends. Eric didn’t really know what a military attaché did for certain, but it seemed to involve a lot of drinking and a lot of laughing.

  Oh, and English girls. It involved an awful lot of English girls.

  Frank King had changed Eric Cook’s life in many ways.

  Especially seeing as a few months after meeting him Eric was sitting in an alleyway, shot and bleeding, after kidnapping a mother and daughter.

  Shot and bleeding, and on his own.

  He still wasn’t certain what a military attaché did, but whatever it was, he didn’t like it.

  He opened his eyes and looked up at the sky. Fat, heavy, pink clouds, which looked ready to let go of the snow they were barely clinging to, pressed down on him, and he shivered with the cold.

  His back hurt, but the damp of the ground finally made him struggle onto all fours, in a preamble to getting up.

  He paused, lifted his head, and saw them.

  Two men stood at the end of the alley watching him.

  Nobody moved.

  Somewhere a dog barked as Cook’s hands began to hurt from being half buried in the snow.

  “I’m an American,” he finally said, although he didn’t know why.

  One of the men took out an automatic pistol and walked toward him, feet crunching in the snow.

  “Please, no. I’m an American.” Eric raised one hand out of the snow.

  “I don’t care,” replied the man as he lifted the pistol level with Eric’s temple.

  Eric Cook shut his eyes and lowered his head.

  He wasn’t going to cry.

  Everything went black.

  FROM THE CORNER at the end of the street, King watched them carry Cook out of the alleyway and put him in the back of the van. He hadn’t heard a shot, but he’d only just arrived, after trekking a quarter of a mile across Whitechapel toward Bethnal Green. By the time he had flagged down the car, struggled with the driver, and eventually dragged him out, he’d been gone for over twenty minutes.

  It was turning into one hell of a night.

  King squinted; Cook could be dead, but there was no way of telling from this distance.

  He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, then chewed his thumbnail.

  One of the men at the far end of the street climbed into the back of the van, where they had just put Cook; the other two closed the doors and got into the cab.

  Why would you climb into the back with a corpse? If he’s dead, there’s no point.

  He saw a puff of white smoke at the rear of the van, so he in turn started the car. He watched the van move off, then slowly followed it out of the street with his headlamps off.

  They didn’t travel far. King guessed they were heading back in the direction he and Cook had run from. They crabbed across Whitechapel through smoggy streets that seemed to suck the air out of your lungs.

  His suspicions were confirmed when he saw the saw the sign for Stuffield Street pass by on his left-­hand side.

  They were passing the street where King and Cook had held Anja.

  He craned his neck to look for signs of police activity after the shooting, but the street was silent. The only indication that anything untoward had taken place was the Opel, lopsidedly sitting on two flat tires, smoke drifting through the smashed windows, waiting for the local kids to pick it clean in the morning like buzzards would a carcass.

  The van hadn’t slowed at Stuffield Street; it continued another fifty yards before turning left, and then sharp right onto Providence Street.

  King breathed a sigh of relief that he was traveling slowly enough to glide to a halt at the head of the street before he was seen. He watched the van pull over to the curb, halfway down the short street of terraced houses.

  Before the occupants of the van had a chance to get out and go to the back doors, King was out of his own vehicle and crouching by the street corner. He watched as one of the men, carrying a Thompson submachine gun, climbed up into the box on the rear of the van and disappeared into the shadows.

  A moment passed before Cook emerged, supported on either side by the men. King watched as Cook managed to climb down, slowly and gingerly, half lowered, half dropping the two feet to the floor, into the arms of the van driver.

  They hadn’t killed him; he was still alive, waiting to be saved.

  Cook seemed to swoon slightly and the driver struggled to hold him up. The two men from the back of the van dropped down, then all three dragged Cook into the open door of the house next to the van.

  Cook seemed to stiffen as he crossed the threshold; he turned his head and for a moment King thought he was looking right at him.

  King pulled back from the corner and stood flat against the wall. He waited and then snuck another look along the street.

  Except for the tracks in the snow at the back of the van, there was no sign anyone had been there. Every house was in darkness.

  The one Cook had been taken into was tiny, one window downstairs, one window up, and barely big enough for a cat to fit into, let alone be swung around.

  King wiped his nose with the back of
his hand and looked back the way they had come. He realized that after all his circuitous traveling on foot and then driving, he was less than five minutes’ walk from where they had held Anja.

  He leaned back against the wall and cursed.

  If the resistance had a safe house here, they would have noticed his Opel parked nearby.

  “Fuck,” he breathed. A simple mistake had ruined everything. He kicked his heel against the wall behind him and looked again at the house where Cook was.

  The front door opened and the driver appeared. He’d barely stepped through before it closed again behind him. The driver went to his vehicle and King listened as it coughed into life, belching oily blue smoke as it did.

  The van revved once or twice, then slowly pulled away from the curb and headed off into the darkness. King watched as brake lights shone dirty red at the end of the street, then the van disappeared as it turned left.

  The exhaust smoke drifted toward him, irritating his nose with the sweet smell of burned oil. King looked at his own vehicle, ten feet away, and thought about his options.

  Run or stay?

  Fight or flight?

  He looked back around the corner at the darkened house.

  Dulles would want him to drop Eric, put distance between them and him. If the poor kid turned up dead in an alley in a week’s time there was nothing that could connect them. Frank King had been careful of that; he’d taken a few weeks to spread rumors about Eric being a party boy, always on the arm of some young English broad. If the kid turned up dead in an alley, ­people would most likely think he’d just crossed to the wrong side of the tracks chasing a bit of skirt.

  London was a dirty town with a dirty police force; violent crime was rife in certain quarters. King could be back in Washington before ­people started to ask questions, assuming they bothered to.

  “Fuck,” he said again before sighing and crossing to the car.

  Frank King wasn’t that kind of guy.

  He should never have used the kid. He should have known he wasn’t up to it. He was a clerk, for God’s sake; he barely knew how to carry a gun. King silently damned Dulles for pushing the operation through. He knew he should have stuck to his guns, demanded proper backup, a chain of command, and an exit plan.