by John Altman
Unless, of course, they’d already had some men at Northampton.
The nervousness was beginning to curdle into panic.
She looked at the man across from her again.
They shared another smile.
Katarina crossed her legs, and the cotton dress inched up on her thigh.
The conductor came up to the two men standing between cars. Both men were holding tightly on to whatever handholds they could find, feet spread, trying to maintain their balance as the train rocked along.
“Gentlemen,” the conductor said, “if all compartments are occupied, then make some space in the corridor; but you can’t stand here.”
One of the men flashed his ID. “Knox,” he said. “Boyle. Military Intelligence.”
The second man held up a photograph. “Seen this woman on the train?”
The conductor leaned forward. He peered at the picture, scowling because Boyle was not doing a very good job of holding it still as the train lurched around.
“A pretty little bird,” Boyle said, “around thirty. Traveling alone. Her hair may be dark now, just above shoulder-length. She would have gotten on at Liverpool Station. Ticket to Leicester.”
“Yes,” the conductor said. “She’s on the train, in the next car. Shall I show you?”
Knox and Boyle exchanged a glance.
Knox shook his head. “She’s dangerous, mate—more dangerous than you’d imagine. We’re just here to keep an eye on her until we reach Leicester.”
“Let us know if she goes anywhere,” Boyle said. “And for God’s sake, man, don’t let on that she’s caught your interest.”
“Right, sir. I understand.”
“Good,” Knox said, and nodded to Boyle. “We’ve got her now,” he said.
Katarina was on the verge of addressing the thickly set young man—she would compliment his youthful appearance and wonder aloud why he was not in the service—when she noticed the conductor staring at her.
He was making a pretense of moving down the corridor outside her compartment, picking his way carefully over the scattered kit bags. But his eyes were locked directly on her face. When Katarina glanced up, he looked away quickly, flushing, and hurried past.
A chill ran through her. She stood, stepped over the elderly man’s legs, and reached for the compartment door.
“Leaving us?” the thickly set man asked brightly.
She smiled back at him. “Just for a moment,” she said.
She stepped out into the narrow corridor, walked calmly to the end, and pushed open the door leading to the space between cars. There was nobody standing in the drafty chamber; only hot air and the stink of burning coal. A loud chuff-chuff-chuff filled her ears as she stepped onto the swaying, precarious tongue of metal that served as a floor.
She looked around. The vestibule was flimsy, so that it could flex as the train went around a turn, with a door set on either side. Both doors were secured with padlocks. Katarina raised her hand and hammered it down onto the handle of the door on her right. The lock held. She repeated the motion, and the lock sprung open with a tiny pop. She hit the handle once more, and the door swung open and she found herself staring at watery green earth rushing past at thirty miles per hour.
It would ruin the dress, no doubt about that.
But beggars couldn’t be choosers. She drew a breath and then jumped, tucking and rolling as she came out of the train, pinwheeling over the rushing earth.
Knox was whistling “South of the Border.”
Boyle, who had heard Knox whistle “South of the Border” more times than he cared to count, was trying to ignore him. He lit a cigarette, looking out the foggy window at the passing landscape. He saw—or thought he saw—some kind of colorful tumbleweed moving past the train.
He blinked, staring. That was exactly what it had looked like: a tumbleweed, straight out of a Gene Autry flick, except that this one had been an unnaturally lively yellow.
“Did you see that?” he asked after a moment.
“What?”
“It looked like …” He kept staring out the window. “Bollocks,” he said. “I think my eyes are going in my old age.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Knox said. “Give me one of those fags.”
Boyle gave him a cigarette.
“I’m going to stroll down to the other end of the car,” Knox said, tucking the cigarette behind one ear. “Take a peek and make sure our bird’s still in her nest.”
Boyle watched as Knox opened the door, stepped over the threshold, and began to make his way down the corridor. The train was coming out of a turn; Knox kept one hand pressed against the wall as he moved, to maintain his balance. He passed the first compartment, then the second, then the third. At the end of the car, he turned around and started to come back.
Boyle frowned. The fool was going to give them away, he thought, if he kept walking back and forth past the compartment. And not only was he walking past the compartment again, he was gazing into it, directly into it, without even trying to conceal his interest.
Now he was opening the door. He was saying something to whoever was inside.
Boyle swore, pushed his way into the car, and went to join him.
“Don’t tell me,” he said.
Knox looked at him, tight-lipped, and drew his gun.
10
HUNTINGDON, SUFFOLK
Katarina invested five minutes by a shallow pond, stripping off her dress, soaking it, then spreading it on a rock to catch the sun while she soaked and scrubbed herself.
She would have liked to dawdle a bit by the cool water in the late-afternoon sun, but of course she could not afford the delay. She struck off again, heading in a direction that she considered to be north-northeast, walking through fields of heather, keeping her eyes and her ears open, wondering how many men were looking for her and whether they had dogs, whether she might find a weapon or food or shelter in the near future, whether she had any realistic chance of staying free to see the nightfall.
In a peculiar way, she felt wonderful.
She was tired and she was hungry; her nerves were on edge, and she was, or at least she should have been, afraid. But she was also alive, engaged in a mighty challenge, dependent once again on nothing but her own resources. She was bringing the secret of atomic fire to her people, who would value it and celebrate her for her accomplishment. She was on a mission to change the course of history. Chance was against her, but she had known that when she started on this—she had already gotten farther than she had ever expected.
And as an added bonus, Richard would never touch her again.
She had been walking for more than an hour when she saw a man standing at the edge of a field. The man, several hundred yards away, was facing the opposite direction, looking out across the waist-high grass. Katarina moved quickly but calmly into a shadowed copse of pale-blossomed trees. Then she stood and watched for nearly thirty minutes, stock-still, as the man made his slow and methodical way across the field.
When he had disappeared from view, she waited another five minutes and then recommenced walking.
As she walked, she pondered the significance of the man in the field. He had been heading in the direction from which she had come. It was a squeeze, then. And she had just slipped through it. She would be able to continue in her direction, now, and remain unmolested—unless they had set up a second perimeter farther out.
She wondered if a description of her had been circulated to the locals. It could prove a crucial question. After all, she could not walk all the way to the arranged place of rendezvous. Even if she made it in time, which she doubted was possible, she would remain too exposed in the open countryside, for too long. No, she required transportation. Perhaps if she could change her appearance again, she could board another train. Or perhaps she would be forced to settle for a stolen car, or even a bicycle. Whichever; the priority was getting off her feet, getting out of this immediate area, and getting through the second perimeter, if the
re was such a thing.
She kept walking. When the sun was just beginning to sink behind the horizon, she spied a scatter of low houses less than a mile away.
She turned toward them.
Taylor spread the map on the hood of the Bentley. The men clustered around in the dimming light to follow the cigarette in his hand as he pointed with it.
“She left the train here,” Taylor said, stabbing at the map, “or somewhere near it. She’s heading to Whitley Bay—here. Unfortunately, we’ve no guarantee she’ll go directly from point A to point B.”
He used the cigarette to describe a circle in the air above the map.
“She seems to have evaded our squeeze, gentlemen, but she doesn’t know about the second perimeter set up by Special Forces. So our task is simple. We must find her, and eliminate her, before she stumbles into that perimeter. We can’t have SF taking credit for catching our bird, now, can we?”
Several men snickered.
“We have two dozen agents at our disposal. The area within the second perimeter is approximately ten miles in diameter. That means every group of two men will cover a space of less than one square mile. Each third team will have a bloodhound. We have a strong scent from the luggage she left on the train. The odds are fantastically in our favor, gentlemen. I will brook no excuses for failure.”
A rustle moved through the men. The dogs, straining at their leashes, whimpered quietly.
“You will notice that quadrant one is mostly farmland; quadrant two is a lovely stretch of countryside consisting almost entirely of bogs; quadrant three contains the oil refinery and the railroad tracks; and quadrant four contains A Three-eighty, the edge of the forest, and a few holiday houses. Shoot to kill. Any questions?”
A young man cleared his throat.
“Yes, Kendall?”
“Sir,” the young man said, “begging your pardon, sir, but … a couple of the lads are wondering, sir—”
“Speak your mind, lad.”
“Well—it’s Highgate, sir. If she was able to kill eight …”
Winterbotham stepped forward. “Go on,” he said.
Kendall looked at him with huge eyes.
“Go on,” Winterbotham said again.
“Sir, the lads are thinking that if she was able to kill eight, sir, and we’re moving in groups of two—”
“In Highgate she had conducted surveillance of the target area, gentlemen; but here she is stranded in countryside she has never seen before. On the other hand, this is our country. We outnumber her twenty-four to one, without counting the Special Forces patrols at the perimeter. So what, precisely, frightens you?”
Now the young man was blushing. “Nothing, sir.”
“Do you not feel comfortable with groups of two?”
“No, sir. I mean, yes, sir.”
“You’ll be with me, Kendall. I’ll hold your hand, if you like.”
More snickers, nervous laughter.
“Well, then,” Taylor said, “if that’s settled. Quadrant one: Lee, Weaver, Davis, Cooper, Bennett, Nuffield. Quadrant two: Hardwicke, Lipton, Lewis, Sayers, Kemsley, Benson. Quadrant three …”
Katarina approached the houses carefully, staying as much as possible in the shadows of the encroaching dusk, listening.
There were six houses, cheaply made from plain wood, arranged in a loose semicircle. They were not farms, although all possessed large, if scrubby, gardens. They reminded her of houses she had seen while driving from Los Alamos to Ohio. Poverty was not there, not at the moment—but it was close. She could see it lurking in the rows of yellowish unhealthy tomatoes, in the dilapidated roofs, in the homemade blackout shades on the windows, black paint on cardboard. What could they have here that would possibly help her? She would do better to move on.
Then she saw the lorry.
It was sitting on a patch of grass in the center of the semicircle, looking forlorn. She approached it warily. From somewhere not so far away, over the murmur of summer insects, she could hear a voice singing “Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major.”
The bed contained empty buckets, a coiled hose, a cork helmet. It was a makeshift fire-fighting vehicle, manned, no doubt, by volunteers from the small village around her. Pitching in and doing their part for the war effort, just like everybody else—when they were sober enough. These were the “heroes with grimy faces” whom Churchill had praised so vocally when the London Fire Brigade had been absorbed into the National Fire Service in 1941.
Katarina looked around. A chicken was strutting importantly across the dusty yard in front of a nearby house; otherwise there seemed to be nobody watching.
She opened the lorry’s door, slipped inside, and bent down to have a look at the ignition.
Winterbotham drove.
Kendall sat beside him up front, drumming his fingers on the windowsill. They dropped off agents in groups of two: Lewis and Hobbs at the fringe of the forest; Richards, Temple, and a bloodhound named Sad Sack near A380. Then they headed back toward the center of the quadrant, and the holiday homes.
“Try to relax,” Winterbotham said.
Kendall’s fingers immediately stopped drumming. “Sorry, sir.”
“I hope you don’t think I came down on you too hard back there, Kendall. I was hoping to make a point in front of the men.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Between you and me,” Winterbotham said, “you’re absolutely right. There’s no reason at all to believe that two-man teams will suffice.”
Kendall stared at him.
“Can you reach in the glove, Kendall, and hand me the pistol there?”
“Um … yes, sir.”
The Bentley drifted to a stop fifty feet away from the nearest house.
Winterbotham counted six of the little hovels arranged in a loose cluster—hardly more than shacks, really, with their two rooms and their scrubby gardens. The irony was that these pathetic houses would be inhabited, for the most part, by exiles from the tonier neighborhoods of London. When the bombing had grown thick, in the midst of the Blitz, those who could afford to buy a plot of land and leave the city had done so. But their new “holiday houses” had been necessarily modest. First had come a lack of supplies—metals, rubber, textiles, woods, paint—and then, as time wore on, a lack of even the most basic amenities.
“We’ll stay together,” Winterbotham said softly. “Sweep from one house to the next, starting with the closest one.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Nervous, Kendall?”
“No, sir.”
“Hm,” Winterbotham said, and threw open his door.
They began to stalk toward the nearest house, side by side, pistols in hand. As they drew close, Winterbotham heard the sudden cough of an engine turning over. He frowned. Where was that coming from? Now it was revving, spiraling up and down. Close by, he thought. Out of sight—but very close by. In fact …
He caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He grabbed Kendall and pushed him down, flinging himself after in the same motion.
The lorry swept past within inches, headlamps off, the stench of oil following in a thick cloud.
Winterbotham gained his feet, brushing at himself.
Kendall, beside him, stood more slowly.
“Check the houses,” Winterbotham said. “Somebody may need help.”
Kendall showed no sign of having heard him. He was looking off after the lorry, dazed.
“Check the houses, Kendall, God damn it!”
Winterbotham gave him a push in the direction of the nearest house, then turned and hurried back toward the Bentley, cursing under his breath.
The engine labored audibly, sending up clouds of sooty black smoke.
Katarina blocked out the noise. She needed to think.
Should she try to keep the lorry? Or should she make a go for it on foot?
Keep the lorry, she decided, at least for the time being. They would be closing in. If she was on foot, they would nab her immediately.
She
turned right—north—and opened up the engine. The lorry bumped along the old road under the deepening twilight, sounding pained. Twice she nearly slipped off into a ditch that paced the road on the right. Both times she dragged the lorry back onto the road with clenched teeth, amid tremendous gouts of dust. If she dared turn on the headlamps she would have felt a bit safer—but even with the blackout hoods, she couldn’t risk it.
Don’t panic, she thought. Think!
Maybe she should dump the lorry, hide in the countryside. But what if they had dogs? She was afraid of dogs. Hagen had trained her to handle them anyway—but no, the wind was shifting too frequently for her to be confident of keeping the correct orientation. The best thing to do …
Who knew the best thing to do? Not she.
She was finished.
“Damn it,” she said aloud. “Think, God damn it!”
She wanted a cigarette. But her purse had been left behind, on the train, with the suitcase.
She moaned low in her throat and kept driving.
She was better than they were, she could handle any given dozen of them. But they would overwhelm her with sheer numbers. They would pile on, tear her apart like dogs fighting over a bone.
She wiped her hand across her nose.
Don’t panic, for Christ’s sake. Think, for Christ’s sake.
No. It’s over.
It’s never over, she thought.
Roadblocks? Most definitely. And sooner rather than later. And even if she could barrel through the roadblocks—not that she could, but even if she could—there were thousands of troops assembling in this part of England. Along with the thousands of troops came hundreds of tanks and half-tracks and Jeeps. They would block the road with something that couldn’t be rammed.
Leave the lorry and you’ll get the dogs. Keep the lorry and you’ll hit a wall.
Take the lorry off the road?
The going would be even slower driving over fields. The trick might buy her a minute or two as they tried to figure out where she had gone, but she’d be no closer to breaking through the second perimeter.