It was open a crack.
He took another step—then heard from the inside of 909 a strange man’s voice say, “Hurry, goddammit!”
It made Koch’s skin crawl.
He instantly got low to the floor, then reached in his pocket, pulled out the Walther PPK semiautomatic pistol, and worked the slide to chamber one of the 9mm rounds.
He started moving toward the door, pistol up and ready.
He came to the doorframe of 909—the side where the door had its hinges—and stopped just shy of it.
He leaned forward, in the direction of the knob, and tried to get a look through the crack.
All he could see, though, was some furniture and a window with its curtain wide open.
He listened and heard a woman weeping, then the strange man asking, “Which pocket is it in?”
Pocket? Koch thought.
Then he heard another man’s voice grunt something. It was mostly unintelligible, but clearly it was Bayer’s—and he sounded under duress.
I have no idea how many people are in there…
He pushed on the door gently. It moved, opening another two inches.
He waited to see if there was any reaction to that from the inside.
There wasn’t, and so he took another look through the now-larger crack between the door and its frame.
What he saw horrified him.
It was Bayer’s hooker, standing naked—and brutally bruised from head to toe.
She held Bayer’s coat.
What the hell did Kurt do to her? And why?
And is that her pimp here to settle the score?
Bayer said he had a problem…said that we had a problem.
Stupid son of a whore!
I told him something like this could happen.
Koch took a deep breath, stayed low, and started pushing open the door very slowly.
[ THREE ]
Christopher “the Enforcer” Salerno took great pride in his street name, and in the fact that he had earned it by being good at what he did—“debt collection,” he called it.
The thirty-one-year-old had been settling scores for almost ten years, not counting his teenage years, when he had dropped out of high school in Hoboken and hustled on the streets for whoever would hire him to do whatever.
Having worked nearly a decade exclusively for Donnie “the Ape” Paselli, he considered himself not only a professional—but the professional. He trained to keep his skills sharp. He worked out daily to stay in top shape. And he never took anything for granted, particularly in the middle of a collection.
Right now, his adrenaline was rushing. He knew that he had to keep it under control while at the same time using it to get the job done quickly and efficiently.
So far, everything had gone pretty much as planned.
After Mary had not paid Paselli his cut and Salerno had had to have her beaten—during which she had babbled some nonsense that her trick, “Kurt,” claimed to be a German agent responsible for all the bombings that were in the news—they had tailed the stupid hooker right back to the hotel, right back to her stupid trick.
Then Paselli had waited down the hall to get an idea of what they were up against to get his money. Then he had sent Salerno to complete the transaction.
Salerno had his Colt Model 1908 .25 caliber semiautomatic pistol pointed at Bayer’s forehead. It was a small, cold-blue-steel vest-pocket model barely as big as his left hand that held it—but it got the job done. He had his right hand firmly squeezing Bayer’s throat.
A head taller and some thirty pounds heavier, Salerno had no trouble keeping control of the guy.
But that damned Mary is taking too long getting me that coat with the money.
“Hurry, goddammit!” Salerno said.
When Salerno looked over his shoulder at her, he saw that her one good eye had quickly looked to the door, then back at him.
Salerno looked at the door, too.
It was moving slowly open.
With his hand still squeezing Bayer’s throat, Salerno quickly pulled him from the wall and spun him so that he stood between him and the door. He put the muzzle of the pistol against Bayer’s skull, right behind his left earlobe.
“One sound,” Salerno said calmly, “and you’re—”
The door suddenly swung wide open and a man entered in a crouched position, his pistol sweeping the room.
Shit! Salerno thought.
Salerno squeezed the trigger of the tiny Colt. There was a crack, and then the slide of the pistol cycled rapidly, ejecting the spent casing—it landed on the bed—and feeding a fresh round into the breech.
Bayer started to crumple to the floor.
Mary screamed something unintelligible.
Salerno ignored it.
Using Bayer’s body as a shield, he shoved him toward the man who now was moving toward them, then dropped to the floor and rolled left.
The man fired one shot at him, then another.
Neither found their target.
Salerno quickly squeezed off four shots.
Two of them went wild, missing the man completely.
The third .25 caliber bullet hit him in the groin area—stopping him not at all.
The fourth found his right knee, however, and caused him to fall forward, over Bayer’s body and toward Salerno.
When the man hit the carpet, Salerno quickly put the muzzle of the tiny Colt to the base of the man’s skull and fired the last of the six rounds.
He then quickly reached into the front pocket of his trousers and brought out a full magazine of .25 caliber ACP ammo.
Salerno swapped the fresh magazine for the spent one, racked the slide, and aimed the muzzle right back at the man’s head.
The man did not move.
Salerno looked at Bayer. A steady trickle of blood ran from his left ear.
He was dead, too.
Neither had an exit wound; the small-caliber bullets clearly had bounced around inside their skulls, scrambling brains and bringing quick death.
As Salerno picked up the man’s pistol—Huh! A Walther. How about that?—and stuck it in his coat pocket, the man passed his last gas.
Salerno heard Mary sobbing uncontrollably.
He walked across the room looking for her, following the sobs.
He found her curled up on her left side on the tile floor of the bathroom. She had her arms wrapped over her head, her ears covered.
Salerno stepped closer and saw that there was blood coming from her neck.
One of my shots must have got her.
He shook his head.
What a waste. If only she’d done what she was supposed to…
He leaned over and put a round behind her right ear.
The crack echoed in the tiled room.
Her body quivered, then went limp.
Salerno went back into the main room.
He picked up the coat that Mary had tried to carry across the room, dug through its pockets, and found a pistol in the right one.
What the fuck? Another Walther, identical to the other.
He put the second pistol in the other outside pocket of his coat.
He dug in the coat some more but found no money.
“You lying sack of shit,” he said.
He went through Bayer’s pants pockets and found no money there, either.
He kicked the body.
Then he went to the second guy and picked through his pockets.
Bingo.
Salerno came out of the right pocket of the pants with a roll of cash. He pulled off the rubber band, flattened the bills, and counted the money. Five hundred and thirty-one dollars. He rolled it back up and wrapped the roll with the rubber band.
In the left pocket, he found a key to room 410.
Maybe there’s more where this came from…
Salerno went to the telephone, asked the operator to connect him to a number he provided, and after a moment said into the receiver, “I got the cash. But it got ugly. Need
to get rid of three—huh?—yeah, three. Had a surprise guest. Take care of it, okay?”
A moment later, he put the receiver back in its cradle.
When he did, he noticed the open Whitman’s Sampler box of chocolates next to the telephone.
He raised an eyebrow, then picked through the selection. He took out a chocolate-covered cherry and popped it in his mouth. He swallowed it after just two chews.
He licked his lips, looked again at the selection—then grabbed a fistful of the chocolates from the box, stuck them in his coat pocket, and went out the door.
[ FOUR ]
Algiers, Algeria
1625 12 March 1943
Major Richard M. Canidy, USAAF, awoke abruptly when he felt himself being bounced—bodily lifted a couple of inches, then dropped—and it took him a moment to get his bearings and figure out what the hell just happened.
Snug and warm in a lambskin flight suit, he quickly recalled that he had gone to sleep—a deep sleep, it turned out—while lying on the floor next to the bulkhead of the cockpit of the B-17.
He could have tried to sleep in one of the fabric sling seats that the aircraft had lining one side of the fuselage. But he knew that that would have been terribly uncomfortable, despite the fact that he could have strapped himself into the seat for security.
The alternative—lying on the floor, against the bulkhead—was somewhat riskier. If the plane, as it had just now done, dropped suddenly—the pressure in Canidy’s ears and sounds from the airstream told him they were rapidly descending—he would get bounced in the air.
The bouncing was a calculated risk, but it was a hell of a lot more comfortable than sleeping in the slings.
Canidy was in the last of a flight of four B-17s. Each was a mammoth marvel of aeronautical engineering. The B-17 had four twelve-hundred-horsepower Wright Cyclone engines. Its cruising speed of 182 miles per hour gave it a range of two thousand miles while carrying a bomb payload of three tons. (It could carry as much as three times that but with a reduced range.) And it was armed with thirteen .50 caliber machine guns mounted all around the aircraft.
The routing of the Flying Fortresses had taken them from England south over the Atlantic Ocean, down the western coast of Spain, then on an almost due east vector over Morocco and into Algeria.
Thankfully, the trip had been uneventful.
But Canidy knew that wasn’t always the case with the B-17.
Word had gotten around the USAAC that when General Eisenhower had flown pretty much the same routing a month ago to the Casablanca Conference to meet with President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and all of the other top generals, he had been in a Flying Fortress—and the aircraft had lost two of its engines.
On the growing chance that the B-17 would not make its destination and that they would have to ditch, Ike had wound up spending most of the trip wearing a parachute harness.
Canidy felt his big bird turn on final for the Maison Blanche Airport.
He got up, and went to one of the fabric seats and strapped himself in.
He sighed.
All signs suggested that they were going to get on the deck at Algiers just fine.
But that did not mean that he did not have much to worry about.
He was still sick to his stomach at the thought of Ann Chambers gone missing…and maybe gone forever.
I spent every possible second chasing down anyone who might know anything about her.
Small wonder I just now slept so hard….
As soon as Canidy had contacted Ed Stevens, Stevens had said he would immediately have people continue looking for Ann. He would message Canidy the minute he heard anything.
And when Canidy had spoken with Ann’s bureau chief at the London office of Chambers News Service, the editor—who also had not heard a word from her since the bombing—promised to honor Canidy’s request that he pass along any news to Lieutenant Colonel Stevens.
People disappear all the time in war…and then reappear.
Please, Lord, I never ask for anything, especially for me.
But I pray You let Ann reappear….
The scene outside of Base Operations, in the airport parking lot, bordered on comical. A crowd of some fifty or so natives swarmed in all directions. There appeared to be no logic as to where they went and why.
Canidy stood there for a moment with his suitcases and watched in amazement. He thought that it resembled what happened when you took your shoe and tapped the top of an ant mound—the ants suddenly appeared and swarmed every which way.
He felt a hand touch his right hand and then his suitcase being picked up.
“Hey!” he said, turning to see who it was.
There was a tall, thin, dark-skinned man in a well-worn, tan-colored suit and a collarless white shirt. He had a narrow, clean-shaven face with intense almond eyes.
“Taxi! Taxi!” he said in broken English with a faint French accent.
He nodded toward the parking lot.
Why the hell not? Canidy thought.
The man made a path through the crowd and Canidy followed, carrying the suitcase that contained some clothing and the Johnny gun.
The parking lot looked more like a junkyard. Not one of the vehicles appeared to be in sound operating condition. And when Canidy saw the man stop at a 1936 Peugeot 402, it made him long for the tiny Austin “Nippy.”
The black paint on the guy’s taxi was severely faded and much of it had been overtaken by rust. The sedan had no trunk lid, no front fenders, the rear bumper was crushed into the bodywork and the back window was broken out completely.
The man put the suitcase in the lidless trunk, then motioned for Canidy to give him the other case to put with it.
Like hell!
And have someone come along and steal them while we’re in traffic?
Canidy shook his head and pointed to the backseat.
The man looked, understood what Canidy meant, and moved the case out of the trunk and into the car. The second case went next to it. Then Canidy got in beside them.
“Villa de Vue de Mer,” Canidy said.
“Villa de Vue de Mer?” the driver repeated with some surprise.
What the hell is wrong with that?
Stevens said that’s where Fine was based, at the Sea View Villa.
“La Villa de Vue de Mer,” Canidy said again with conviction.
“La Villa de Vue de Mer,” the driver said, nodding repeatedly, “La Villa de Vue de Mer.”
It was a twenty-minute drive from the airport into downtown Algiers.
It wasn’t that long of a distance—twelve, maybe fifteen kilometers—but the narrow roads were in bad shape and they were packed with more of the craziness that was at the airport. It was a third-world mix of traffic that included not only cars and trucks but people on foot and horses pulling wagons.
Canidy, on a positive note, did notice that the weather was absolutely beautiful, the temperature mild, the late-afternoon sky cloudless and bright blue.
As the car crested a hill, the city and the naturally circular harbor—with the Mediterranean Sea just beyond—came into view.
At the port docks was a colorful fleet of wooden fishing boats. And anchored in the harbor were a half dozen or so United States Navy vessels and twice that many Liberty ships. Silver barrage balloons—beginning to reflect the early golden hues of the sunset—floated above the ships, their steel-cable tethers discouraging attacks on the ships by enemy aircraft.
The driver, tapping the horn occasionally, wound the taxi down the city’s narrow lanes.
The car made a right turn and drove past the luxurious Hotel St. George. It sat on the lush hillside overlooking the port.
Canidy knew from his research that the hotel had been built in 1889. It was of a French Colonial style—with a brilliant white masonry exterior—and it was surrounded by beautiful, well-kept gardens and rows of towering palm trees. The interior was said to be impeccable, with grand, gilded ceilings and walls adorned b
y thousands of multicolored, hand-painted tiles.
Canidy also knew that the supreme commander had made the St. George his Allied Forces Headquarters. And with Eisenhower’s AFHQ came all the brass, and all their aides.
Probably a good idea to keep clear of the place.
They drove on and came to an open market.
The cabbie slowed and rolled past, slow enough for Canidy to be able to get a good look at the tables of produce and dried fish for sale.
He studied the people waiting in lines and the ones at the front, haggling. A tall, olive-skinned man, with thick black hair cut close to the scalp, a rather large nose, and a black mustache, walked past his window—and Canidy did a double take.
They made eye contact, but then the man quickly looked away.
Damn! If that’s not Francisco Nola, it’s his genetic twin.
Canidy looked again, hard, but the guy had started walking away and then disappeared into the crowd.
Incredible…but then I guess maybe half of the people here could be part of Nola’s genetic pool.
The crowd cleared out from in front of the car and the driver picked up speed.
He turned on a narrow street that went uphill, drove another three blocks, and pulled to a stop in front of a large, French Colonial–style villa. It resembled the Hotel St. George, except that it was maybe half as large, and its masonry exterior was a faint pink color.
There was no signage to indicate the place was anything more than a private residence.
“La Villa de Vue de Mer,” the driver said with some finality.
He stepped out of the car.
Canidy got out of the backseat dragging one of the suitcases, then reached in and pulled out the other. He had no idea how much to pay the driver, who stood watching him.
He motioned to the driver with both hands, palms out and fingers spread, to wait right there.
The driver looked at him suspiciously, then nodded.
Canidy went to the large wooden door of the villa, looked at it, and noticed that it had a heavy brass knocker and, next to it at eye level, a smaller door about four inches square.
The Saboteurs Page 32