Billy Boyle (40 page)

“Why are you here?”

“It’s a long story, Anders—”

“Who is with you?”

“I’m alone.”

He looked skeptical. He also looked all around, resting his darting eyes on me every couple of seconds. I didn’t move a muscle.

“All right, you’re alone. Are you armed?”

Funny question, I thought.

“Not enough to suit me. Just my .45.” I opened my jacket to show him. The gun stayed aimed at my chest.

“Let’s go inside.” He casually pointed at the hut with the revolver. It wasn’t aimed at me anymore, but it wasn’t back in his holster either. He let me precede him, opened the door and motioned for me to enter first. I didn’t think he was being polite. The hut was one open room, with a table and chairs, a bench in front of the hearth on the left where a woodstove served for cooking and heating, and a couple of beds along the other wall. There were windows on either side of the door and one at the back. It was a nice place in the mountains, except for the gun in my back.

“Have a seat, Billy.” I sat at one end of the table and he poured a glass of water from a wooden jug and placed it in front of me. One-handed, since the revolver dangled from his right hand. He walked to the other end of the table and sat down, placing the gun on the table. Within easy reach. I took a drink and put my glass down, within easy reach. It wasn’t as comforting as a gun. The cabin smelled of pine and ashes.

“Don’t get much company up here, Anders?”

He smiled. “I’m very careful about who gets invited here. And you are not on the guest list, Billy. Tell me why you are here, and how you know about this place.” Anders leaned forward, locking his gaze on to me. His arms were folded, his right hand just inches from the revolver.

I didn’t like the way this was going. I knew it would be tricky, coming up on Anders unexpectedly, but I thought that after he saw it was me, there’d be slaps on the back and old home week. Not the third degree, with a gun on the table.

“You could’ve killed me out there, you know.”

“Or you me. In my business, a man sneaking up on a secret location usually means trouble. For me, unless I make it trouble for him.”

“I can explain that. Rolf Kayser is due here tomorrow, right?”

“Yes,” Anders answered. “Why, and how do you know that?”

I relaxed a bit. He was curious—that was better than suspicious. “Jens told me. He told me about this place and how to get to it, and that Rolf Kayser was due to meet you here tomorrow.”

“Yes. The underground brought the message several days ago. I was surprised to learn Rolf himself was meeting me. I didn’t know he was in on this mission. What are you doing here, Billy?” His hand went up to rub his chin. Away from the revolver, a good sign.

“I’ve come because of the murder of Knut Birkeland. And the murder of Daphne Seaton.”

“What! Daphne? Who killed them? Was it Rolf?” Shock and surprise showed on his face, his mouth hanging half open as he tried to take in what I’d told him. Now he was hooked.

“Yes. He also tried to kill Kaz.”

“My God! But Kaz is alive?”

“Barely. Do you know much about the Kayser family?”

“No. What do they have to do with this? Slow down, please, and explain.”

I told him. About the pictures, the explosion, the family fish-oil business. I left out the part about Victoria Brey and how she had seen Anders early on the morning Birkeland had been killed. It didn’t seem necessary, especially with a loaded gun on the table.

“So you must have suspected me also?” Anders asked.

“I did, but I couldn’t see a motive for you. But Kaz found out about Kayser’s property from those propaganda photos.”

“Billy, propaganda is what the other side does. We do public relations. But what about the timing of the murder? Didn’t you say that it took place while Rolf was out shooting with the king?”

I told him my theory. He sat back and thought a while.

“Yes, it all fits, except for the note. How could Rolf have gotten Knut to write such a note? He was hardly the type of man to give in to intimidation.”

“I don’t know for sure, but I got an idea when Jens doctored my orders.”

I told him about how we had concocted a new set of orders authorizing this trip.

“So you are not here officially? Only Jens knows you are here, and he could be court-martialed if his collusion became known?”

I hadn’t looked at it that way before. I didn’t like the direction the conversation had taken.

“I’m sure he’s told Harding by now. Both he and Major Cosgrove must be aware of it.”

Anders spread his fingers on the rough wood table. It was marked with cigarette burns around the edges; a thin layer of varnish had long ago faded into the grain. He looked at the tabletop, as if it held an answer to a question. Then he looked up at me.

“Billy, you are playing a dangerous game. You are on a secret mission within a secret mission. You could be betrayed and no one would ever know.”

“Except my betrayer.”

“Yes. For some, that would be a burden. For others, a relief. Tell me, why have you come?”

“For Rolf Kayser.”

“I didn’t ask for whom. Why?”

“He’s a killer. A murderer. He killed for his own gain first, and then to cover it up, he killed Daphne. He’ll probably escape into a new identity and never be brought to justice if I don’t stop him.”

“Billy, people are being killed every day. Innocent or not. By accident or design. Bombs fall from the sky on cities all across Europe. Ships sink. Soldiers are shot, blown apart, maimed. Think how meaningless those two deaths are in the midst of all this killing.”

“They’re not meaningless to me. I knew Daphne. I know what she wanted out of life. What she’ll never have. What Kaz has lost. I don’t know all those other people. There’s nothing I can do about that. That’s war.”

“But justice for one person, that you can do something about?”

“Yes, I can. I have to.”

“Why? Why you?”

Fair question. One night, long enough after his shooting that we didn’t think about it all the time, I was having a beer with Dad down at Kirby’s. We were finishing up, about to head home for supper, when I blurted it out. I asked him what Basher had given him that day when they argued and he had thrown the package away. He knew I was asking a bigger question, but those were the only words I could get my mouth to utter.

“Too much,” Dad had said, as he started to slide out of the booth. Then he stopped and moved back.

“There’s a balance in life, Billy. There’s the law, and then there’s what people do every day, the rules that they live by. The two aren’t always the same, but they can’t run head-on into each other, or else everything falls apart. We enforce the law, and do a good job at it. We also do what we have to do to take care of our families and each other. In this world, son, no one else will. Basher didn’t understand that. He wanted everything, more than he needed. But he couldn’t do it alone. He needed others, and he was working his way through the force, looking for the right kind of partners. It was too much, Billy, it was pulling everything out of balance.”

“What was it in that package?” I’d asked. Dad had looked down at the table, drawing the flat of his hand across it, clearing something off that I couldn’t see.

“The truth is, Billy boy, I don’t know. He told me it was worth a fortune. I’m no angel, I know that. But I also know I wasn’t about to sell my soul for a fortune or for a plugged nickel. The package went out in the trash. Now let’s go home.”

We did. We had pot roast and never spoke about it again.

Anders’s hand was flat on the table, too.

“So everything won’t fall apart,” I said in answer to Anders’s question, feeling myself my father’s son.

Anders reached for his revolver. I held my breath for a second, the muscles in my legs and arms bunched, ready to upend the table and run for the door. He put it in his holster. I breathed out, relaxed, and felt as if I had just passed a test.

“It will be difficult to take Rolf out of here as your prisoner.”

“I imagine it will be.”

Anders looked at me for a minute. I could see he was making up his mind about something.

“We need a plan,” he finally said.

The evening mountain air was cool. Anders and I sat on a rough wooden bench in front of the hut. He was reading a worn paperback book with a picture of three Viking warriors on the cover. I was smoking a Norwegian cigarette and thinking what a demand there would be for Lucky Strikes after the invasion.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“The
Edda
. An ancient Norse poem. I studied it at university, and we had to read it in English as part of language class. I always enjoyed it, and picked up this copy in London. It seems to me to see into the future.”

“How so?”

He flipped through the dog-eared pages and began to read.

The one who squats at the end of the sky

is known as Engulfer of Corpses

a giant in eagle form;

they say from his wings comes the wind of the world.

Brothers will fight and kill each other,

siblings do incest;

men will know misery,

adulteries be multiplied,

an axe-age, a sword-age,

shields will be cloven,

a wind-age, a wolf-age,

before the world’s ruin.

“Cheery,” I said.

He laughed. “It’s also a story about the theft of gold. Sound familiar? There are many parallels to Europe today. We have our own Engulfer of Corpses, and this is certainly an axe-age and a wolf-age.”

“And men certainly do know misery, some more than others.”

“Some deservedly so, some not.” He gazed out over the fjord with a distant look in his eyes.

“Well,” I said into the silence, “let’s hope tomorrow is Rolf Kayser’s ruin, not the world’s. Or ours.”

Anders put down the book and looked at me. “Remember, Billy, I need Rolf alive. He has information to give me about the Underground Army in Nordland. It is very important. Once I have that, he’s yours.”

“I understand. It should be easy if he doesn’t suspect anything.”

“He may be very careful. He knows that at this rendezvous is the only location anyone in England knows he will be at.”

“Right. But I can’t think of any better way to take him alive.”

Our plan was simple. I would sit right out front tomorrow, dressed in Anders’s British battle dress. I would watch for Rolf coming up the trail. There were several places where it was visible, and with binoculars you could even make out the road below in the valley. As soon as I saw him, I’d wave him up and walk inside the hut before he got too close. Anders would be hidden in the woods, about twenty yards from the hut. He’d have a clear view of Rolf all the way and would follow him inside, once Rolf had gone through the door. Easy.

“Yes,” agreed Anders. “Alive, there is no better way.”

He closed his book.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX

I
T WAS ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL
day. I was surprised at how nice it was this far north, especially after all those rainy and chilly summer days in England. What I did on my summer vacation, I thought idly, remembering childhood September essays. Never anything like this. I leaned back on the bench, so that its front legs came off the ground and my back rested against the hut. I felt the sun warm my face and would’ve taken off the wool jacket I wore if it hadn’t been a disguise. A black bird cawed above me, drifting on the wind with its wings outstretched. I put the binoculars up to my eyes and scanned the road down in the valley for the hundredth time.

There it was. The milk wagon on its morning run. It stopped at the path and a figure got off, dressed in the same British browns I wore. He didn’t stop to wave good-bye to the old lady. I could almost make out the rhythmic metal clanking sounds of the milk cans echoing up the hillsides as the cart wobbled on down the dirt road. I signaled to Anders, who was hiding at the tree line. We were on.

I caught sight of Rolf several times as he hustled up the trail. He was faster than I had been. I made a show of walking back and forth in front of the hut, so he would see me. I guessed he’d signal me as soon as we sighted each other. That was my cue to go into the hut.

Finally, I saw him stop. He put his hand across his brow, to block out the sun. It felt like he was looking straight into my eyes. I waved one arm back and forth in a slow, deliberate motion. He waved back. I changed to a “come on up” motion, and stood watching him for a few minutes. He disappeared and reappeared as the trail dipped and turned. His head bobbed up once and I could almost make out his features. Time to go. I made sure he could see as I opened the door to the hut. I stepped inside and pulled out my automatic, flipped off the safety, and chambered a round. The sharp
snick
of the slide snapping back was reassuring, comforting in a lethal sort of way. I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. I felt my heart thumping against my chest and breathed deep again, willing myself to slow down, to listen to every sound outside, and not to my own blood pumping through my veins. I waited.