The British Lion

by Tony Schumacher

  “Good,” replied Koehler, still looking toward the park.

  “Price will probably come through the main gate, the one at the top of the park. It’s the widest, and gives her the best chance of escape. We’ll call that the west gate, yeah?”

  “Yes.”

  “This gate, where you are going in, this is south. I’ll come in the east. That way I can cover your flank and rear if you need to get out in a hurry.”

  “Okay.”

  “As you move toward Price, I’ll take up a position in the center of the park. From there I can see all the entrances.”

  “Great.”

  Rossett leaned out of the window slightly so he could speak quietly to Koehler over the throb of the old diesel engine up front.

  “Ernst, remember, Anja will be there. Focus on her. Get her back before you worry about King, okay?”

  “Anja comes first.” Koehler nodded, still looking toward the park.

  “Just remember that you and Anja need to get out of this together. She needs you to keep a clear mind.”

  For the first time since they had stopped, Koehler looked at Rossett.

  “Thank you, John.”

  “You don’t need to thank me.”

  “I do. You’re a good friend, and you’ve done more than I could ever ask for.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Koehler held up a finger, silencing Rossett.

  “I don’t deserve a friend like you. You’re a good man. Whatever happens today, however things turn out . . . I’m sorry . . . I . . .” Koehler looked toward the park and then back at his friend. “Anja, I have to make sure she is okay.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s important that we have a future together, you understand that?”

  “Of course I do.”

  Koehler looked at the ground and then back at Rossett.

  “Thank you.”

  Rossett went to speak, but Koehler stepped back from the window with the MP40 concealed under his coat. He beckoned to Ruth with a finger and she climbed out of the car, pausing on the pavement, listening to the sounds of a busy city for the first time in a long time.

  Rossett watched her; she met his gaze, smiled, a little sadly, and then took a step forward, taking the place Koehler had been moments before.

  “Thank you,” she said softly, placing her hand on Rossett’s arm.

  “Everyone is thanking me today.”

  “You’ve done a lot.”

  “There is a lot left to do.”

  Ruth smiled and looked over her shoulder at Koehler, then back at Rossett.

  “Be careful.”

  “I always am.”

  “You should remember something after today.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t have to keep trying; you’re already a better man.”

  “You look after that war machine of yours.” Rossett tapped his head.

  “Take care, John Rossett.”

  “Take care, Ruth Hartz.”

  Ruth stepped away from the window, leaving her hand resting on his arm a moment before finally letting go.

  Rossett checked over his shoulder, first the traffic, then Frank King, and then he pulled away from the curb.

  ROSSETT TOOK HIS time, slowly watching pedestrians and buildings as he drove around the park and eased the cab into the curb at the east gate.

  Rossett killed the engine and swiveled in his seat to look through the partition at King, who was still staring out the window.

  “I’ll make you a deal.”

  King turned to look at Rossett. “Which is?”

  “You don’t mess this up, the handover, you play it straight. If it goes as planned, and we get Anja back, I’ll let you go.”

  “Let me go?”

  “I’ll stop Koehler from killing you.”

  King’s mouth twitched and then he nodded.

  “He’s told you he is going to kill me?”

  “No.”

  “So how do you know he will?”

  “Because I know Koehler.”

  “You sure?”

  “Sure enough.”

  “And you think you can stop him.”

  “I can stop anyone.”

  King sat back in his seat, lifting his chin and then nodding.

  “Why do you care if I get away? Koehler is your boss.”

  “Because Ruth needs you, and because it is the right thing to do.”

  “So the man who catches Jews for a living expects me to believe he is suddenly doing the right thing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why should I?”

  Rossett sighed.

  “You’ll just have to trust me.”

  King smiled and shook his head.

  “I guess I don’t have a choice, do I?”

  “No.”

  “Can I have a gun?”

  “No.”

  King shook his head and then reached for the door handle. “You know, John, you might be a good cop, but you really need to work on your negotiating skills.”

  Rossett shook off his overcoat and draped it over the MP40 so that he could carry the gun one handed while still concealing it. He tucked his Webley into the back of his trousers, under his suit jacket, then joined King on the pavement.

  “Warm enough?” King smiled as Rossett pulled at the collar of his jacket, aware that he looked out of place, carrying an overcoat instead of wearing it in the freezing cold.

  Rossett gestured that King should lead the way into the park. As they passed through the gate, flanked by high privet hedges and rusted railings, King spoke.

  “You might want to think about your position in this, John.”

  Rossett didn’t reply, so King continued.

  “When this is over, you might be an embarrassment to Koehler.”

  The only sound from Rossett was the crunch of snow under his feet.

  “Being an embarrassment to Koehler makes you a danger. You’ll be a threat to his future with his daughter. I’ll guess Ernst is wondering how well you’d stand up to a Gestapo interrogation.”

  “Quiet,” Rossett finally said.

  “If you were to help me, I could get you out of London. You should think about that.”

  No reply.

  “Just think about it, that’s all, and remember, Koehler knows one thing for certain: dead men don’t tell tales.”

  “You know I said I’ll stop Koehler from killing you?” Rossett caught up with King, taking up position at his left shoulder.

  “Yeah?”

  “I might just kill you myself to get some peace and quiet.”

  THE PATH ON which Rossett and King were walking was buried in snow. Koehler and Ruth were to their left. A small clump of bushes sat in the center of the park, which was almost empty except for two old ladies walking together toward them, dragging a reluctant tiny dog, its belly brushing the snow.

  “I think we can handle them,” said King.

  Rossett shook his head and kept walking, checking out the old bandstand hidden behind a bank of trees, with more low bushes at its base. It was slightly ahead of Koehler and Ruth where they stood some one hundred yards away.

  The bare branches of the trees were bold and black against the gray sky, while the bushes were frosted by a thick layer of snow that pushed down their outlying branches and broke up their shadows, exposing their darkened insides and making the branches look like exposed ribs on a half-­butchered carcass.

  “Keep your eyes open,” Rossett said, as they walked toward the center of the park. They stopped next to the snow-­covered bowling green. At the far end of the green, to their rear, there was a small, weathered wooden clubhouse that was shuttered up for the winter.

  The wind was picking up again, less strong
than the storm the night before, but still able to whip occasional flurries of snow across the open areas of the park in dancing white whirls.

  Rossett saw another woman, pushing a pram with difficulty through the snow, slowly making her way toward them. The hood of the pram was up and Rossett couldn’t see if there was baby inside. It was an ideal way to carry weapons into a public area. He looked at King and saw that he, too, was watching her approach.

  Rossett could see Koehler and Ruth standing ahead and to the left of the bandstand. It was smaller than Rossett remembered. Its low roof had kept the snow off the stage, and the bright blue paint on its pillars seemed like the only color left in the world. Ruth turned and looked at Rossett as the wind whipped between them again. She held out one hand in a “there’s nobody here” manner that made Rossett groan.

  If he and King had had any cover, it had just been blown.

  “I hope she’s better at making bombs than she is at keeping a low profile,” King said quietly.

  “Watch the pram.”

  “I can hear the baby crying.”

  The old women with the dog strolled past. One nodded at Rossett, who ignored her.

  The old lady shook her head.

  “Anyone else worry you?” Rossett asked King.

  “Other than Koehler? No.”

  “Ma Price wouldn’t come here without laying the ground first.”

  “Maybe she isn’t coming?”

  Rossett chewed his lip and turned a slow 360 degrees, checking all the entrances and the dead ground between him and them.

  “Maybe she isn’t,” he said.

  All he could see were old women and dogs with frostbitten bellies. Even the clubhouse had thick padlocks on its windows and doors.

  “Rossett,” King said, and Rossett spun to face him. King nodded his head toward Koehler, who was talking to a small boy at the north entrance.

  “MISTER?”

  Koehler and Ruth turned in unison as the boy walked out of the bushes on their right.

  The child was maybe ten years old, and dressed poorly for the winter. He was wearing a tattered old lightweight brown raincoat, tied in the middle with string and torn at the top of the right sleeve, where a purple woolen shoulder poked out. Just below the bottom of the coat, the boy’s shorts ended above dirty knees, and he was wearing boots that looked two sizes too big.

  Despite this, he strode toward Koehler with a confidence well beyond his years.

  The boy stopped short, close enough for Koehler to see that his hands were dirty and that he had a thick smudge of something that looked like mud across his cheek.

  “Is you the German?”

  Koehler looked toward Rossett and then nodded.

  The boy smiled, showing he had a front tooth missing. He raised his right arm.

  “ ’eil ’itler!”

  Koehler almost reflexively raised his own arm, but then realized the boy was laughing at him.

  Koehler felt a flush.

  “Who sent you?”

  “Some geezer gave me a shilling and told me to tell you to look up there when you got ’ere.” The boy raised his hand and pointed to one of the buildings just outside the park entrance, just to the left.

  Koehler could barely understand the thick Cockney accent, but followed the boy’s gesture. He saw windows, all the same, dark against the granite building. He squinted into the wind, and then he saw it.

  One window not quite the same, on the fifth floor, a quarter raised. A ghostly face, just in the shadows of the room, a face looking out from maybe two hundred feet away.

  “Can you see it?” The boy looked at Koehler.

  “Yes.”

  Sniper.

  Shit.

  “Is that it?” Koehler asked the boy, who shrugged.

  “Not unless you want to give me a shilling as well?”

  “Get lost,” Koehler said, already turning to look at Rossett and King, who had walked halfway toward them along the path. Rossett stopped some fifty yards away, then looked up toward the window and then back to Koehler. Their eyes met, and Koehler gave a tiny shake of his head. He turned to Ruth, who was staring up at the window.

  “He’s gone,” she said.

  “He hasn’t. We know he’s there, so he’s moved back into the room so he can’t be seen from the street. He’s a sniper. He probably broke into a flat so as to keep us covered.”

  “But why tell us?”

  “So we know that if we try anything, we’re in his sights.”

  “What do we do?”

  “We wait. She is just letting us know we are covered. If she weren’t coming, she wouldn’t have bothered.”

  Off to his right Koehler saw three men in overalls approaching from the north gate. One was pushing a wheelbarrow full of garden tools across the snow.

  Garden tools, in the snow?

  It was starting.

  He looked toward the bandstand; it would provide cover from the sniper if needed, but it would expose them to the men in the park with the wheelbarrow, who were loitering around the same distance from him as Rossett, but across toward the north.

  Koehler looked at Rossett, who nodded back toward him.

  Rossett had them covered, which meant that Koehler could concentrate on the black taxi that had stopped at the west gate.

  The taxi from which he could see Anja staring back at him.

  Koehler’s heart thudded.

  “It’s them.”

  Ruth looked at him and then the cab. She saw a fat woman climbing out unsteadily onto the pavement before turning back to pull a young girl out behind her.

  “Is that your daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  The big man who had also been sitting on the backseat unfolded from the cab, a leather bag slung over his shoulder.

  “These ­people are dangerous. Be very careful. If anything happens, drop to the snow and stay there.” Koehler didn’t look at Ruth as he spoke; instead he kept eyes on Ma Price and Anja walking toward them.

  Anja was crying, wiping her cheek with the palm of her hand, fighting back sobs that sounded like half laughs.

  “Daddy!”

  Koehler heard her calling to him, and he took a step forward, his heart dragging him closer, before his brain made him stop.

  The big man adjusted his bag and put his hand inside.

  Ma Price still had Anja’s arm, and Koehler could see her whispering to the girl as Anja wiped her cheek again and nodded.

  “Major Koehler?”

  Koehler nodded as Ma Price smiled at him from twenty feet away. “And you must be our scientist?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right, then, that was easy enough.” Ma Price smiled at Koehler. “Off you go, my love, back to your old dad.”

  Ma Price let go of Anja’s arm.

  Anja ran toward her father and slammed into him like a magnet to metal. Koehler stroked her hair as she buried her face in his chest. Her arms reached fully around his waist, squeezing and holding on to him as if they would never let go again.

  “You are to come with me. I’m going to take you to the American,” Ma Price said to Ruth, holding out her hand as she spoke.

  Ruth blinked and rocked a little as a fresh gust of wind battered her body for a second or two.

  “The American is here.”

  Ma Price followed Ruth’s glance toward Rossett and King.

  “Not him, lovely. He doesn’t matter anymore. You can forget about him.” Ma Price gestured to Ruth to follow her.

  Koehler took a half step backward, still wrapped in Anja’s arms.

  “We need to move, child,” he whispered in German.

  Anja looked up at him as he took another step away from Price and Ruth.

  Ruth glanced at Koehler and then looked back toward Price,
a slow frown spreading across her face.

  “But the man over there, he has organized all this.” An element of doubt hung around the edge of Ruth’s voice.

  Ma Price frowned. “We need to get moving. He isn’t important now.” She held out her hand to Ruth.

  Ruth looked over her shoulder toward King, unsure what to do next.

  ROSSETT LOOKED AT the workmen to the side of him, and then back to Koehler and Price, then the sniper, and then Koehler and Price again.

  Things were moving fast. He knew they’d arrived at the tip of the needle and that they could fall either way if they weren’t careful.

  He shut down everything else but the group in front of him. They were what mattered. He tried to read Koehler’s body language, looking for signs of alarm, any signal that the handover wasn’t going according to plan.

  He tunneled his senses, blocking out the sound of the traffic, the cold, other ­people in the park, a distant dog yapping, the red London bus whose roof he could see above the hedges.

  All of it slipped away.

  He shut down everything that wasn’t a threat to Anja and Koehler and focused on them alone, his mission, his need to make sure father and daughter were united, to close the circle, have what he couldn’t have.

  He forgot about King.

  THE KNIFE SLAMMED into the front of Rossett’s shoulder through his suit jacket, so hard that King felt it punch through the muscle and scrape across bone.

  Reflex caused Rossett to dip to the left, then swivel to face the threat. King half dragged the blade out of Rossett’s shoulder before Rossett drove a solid punch into King’s forearm, hitting a nerve and forcing him to release the knife.

  King stumbled, went to cradle his arm, and then reached for the knife again.

  Rossett grabbed King’s wrist and pulled it toward and then past him as he pivoted in the snow, dropping the MP40 as he tried to wrestle King around and drop him to the ground.

  King didn’t resist. He allowed himself to be pulled forward, and then, using the whipcrack of momentum Rossett had generated, he swept his other arm up, using his elbow to strike Rossett hard on the left cheekbone.

  Rossett let go and dropped to one knee.

  King stumbled a few steps and then turned, advancing on the MP40 Rossett had dropped. Rossett was stunned but still dangerous. He reached around behind him, woozily drawing his Webley, struggling to free it from his belt.