Crossword (50 page)

Fabrizio, seeing his first order threat neutralized, turned
back to the car, dropped to one knee and brought the rifle to his shoulder. The
driver, however, seeing the two cars bearing down on him, decided that
discretion was the better part of valor and darted behind the wheel. A second
later the engine roared to life and he took off in a cloud of dust and spinning
wheels.

Templeton started to get up, but Fabrizio put his foot on
his chest and forced him back to the ground. "Stay where you are," he
said in a flat voice, but he lowered the barrel of his rifle so it pointed
directly at his heart, just in case the lack of affect in his voice might be
misinterpreted as a lack of conviction.

"Why did you sell me out, Fabrizio? Someone make you a
better offer?"

"Why did you sell out your own country? Not good enough
for you? You don't have enough? Get a better offer from some other
country?"

"Goddamn right I don't have enough. Not enough respect
for what I do, not enough money and certainly no recognition. Other people are
getting rich, people who move in the right circles, people that don't even look
my way, or, if they do, wonder how I got to be in the same room with them. It's
not just the money. I want to be regarded as a person who means something, not
just another invisible civil servant. I'm not like you."

"Oh, you poor little bambino, nobody stands up and
gives you the applause. Me and the people I know, the ones that nobody sees,
the ones who are just trying to get by and take care of their families while
the world around them is going to hell, all of us are so sorry for your
condition. On their behalf I give you my sympathy and offer you the respect you
deserve."

"Don't give me that shit. I know your type; I find your
kind in the dark streets all over Europe. Money is what drives you and you
don't care where it comes from or who you have to hurt to get it."

"For a man who must have gone to school for many years
you are dumber than the mule on my uncle's farm. Yes, I like money, and sometimes
maybe I break a few rules or even hit someone on the head, but I don't stick it
to my country or the people I work with. Italy is my country, my home, the
place where I don't have to be ashamed or cringe in dark streets like some
mongrel dog waiting to join a pack led by a whore like you." He paused a
second. "I do an injustice to whores to call you that. You are much
worse."

"Yeah, so what did they offer you, whoever 'they'
are?"

"A chance to work for the allies after the war, and
from what they tell me, that should be very soon. I get safe passage back home
and I get to walk with my head high. And respect. I get respect, but it comes
from here." He tapped his chest with his fist. "For a man, that is
the only kind of respect that matters."

"You stupid ass Wop, you'll always live in the gutter,
and that's where you belong."

The first of the two cars had pulled partly onto the meadow
and had come to a stop. As it did, two men popped out, looked quickly around,
and trotted over to where the trio was in a tight cluster. Larry recognized the
men from the camp and walked towards them, stepping partly over Julian, letting
his left foot trail just a little low so it impacted on the side of his face.
He turned back. "Sorry about that. I guess us gutter Wops are a little
careless about where we walk. Always stepping in dog shit."

The two men grabbed Templeton by the upper arms, none too
gently, and hurried him into the car, motioning to Larry and Fabrizio to get in
the second car, which had just pulled in behind them. Larry suggested to the
driver that the trunk would be the best place for what he carried in his pack,
and, after stowing it out of the way, slid in beside Fabrizio who was already
seated. The last view he had of Templeton was the back of his head receding
from view as the first car bounced over the grass to regain the road, then
accelerated in the direction from which it had come. By the time he settled in
place and closed the door, the first car was disappearing from view around a
curve in the road. That was the last he saw of Julian Templeton, and weeks
later, when he casually inquired about him, he was met with a blank stare. He
never asked again.

The ride back to the camp was mostly in silence, the driver
indicating to Fabrizio that he was expected and would be taken care of. To
Larry he said that everyone was just damn happy that he made it back OK, and
that he would be debriefed by Allen Dulles himself, who had arrived at the camp
the day before. The only other time that anyone spoke was when Fabrizio turned
to Larry and thanked him for saving his life when Templeton had the drop on
him.

At the camp, Larry shook hands with Fabrizio before they
were each led off to opposite ends of the base. It was a handshake that had to
last a lifetime, for they never saw each other again, although from time to
time Larry thought about him, and when he did, he imagined him walking the
Dolomite hills in Trentino-Alto Adige, his beloved northern Italy, with his
wife and children at his side, his chin high and a smile on his face.

Larry was allowed to shower and get something to eat, but
sleep would have to be put off until after a quick check up by the doctor and
the first of his debriefings. He received a cursory examination from an
unusually taciturn doctor, was told everything seemed to be fine, and then was
hastily ushered from the exam room and sent off for debriefing before he could
ask any questions.

Allen Dulles and two other OSS members awaited him in one of
the offices in the main building of the camp, just a couple of doors from the
doctor's office where his life first started to catapult off course, in what
seemed eons ago. Dulles rose and walked across the room, hand outstretched in
welcome. As they stood and shook hands, Dulles put his arm on Larry's shoulder
and said, "You had us all worried here. You must have been through hell,
and I know you must be exhausted, but I'm going to have to ask you to stick it
out a bit longer while we ask you some questions. You're safe now and you're
going to be OK."

"Sorry to interrupt sir, and with all respect, but how
can I be all right when I have cancer and it's going to kill me if the rays
from that plutonium don't do it first."

"There's a lot we have to talk about, but I suppose
there are a few things we ought to take care of right off the bat." A
brief but awkward silence. "You don't have cancer. It was a lie, told to
you without our knowledge to get you to agree to a suicide mission. It's not
easy to tell you this, but straight talk is best, and now you know. But it is
good news."

He flashed back to Maria. "Maybe they're wrong,"
she had said, "maybe it was a mix up."
She saw more than I did
even with all my training.
"Sir, if it's straight talk we're doing, I
can't exactly feel good about the fact that I was duped into a suicide mission,
just because you tell me I really didn't have cancer. Dead from cancer or dead
from this radiation poisoning they told me about doesn't make much difference.
Either way I'm pushing up daisies."

"There's more, son, and it is good, although it may
strike you hard. You're not going to die from radiation."

"But the plutonium ..."

"It's not plutonium."

Larry's mouth dropped open, his eyes widened and his mind
buzzed with a million half formed questions like annoying mosquitoes on a
summer's evening that harried the unfortunate night traveler and gave him no
rest. He didn't know where to begin. Nothing in his training had prepared him
for this, and all he could manage was to blurt out, "But...but ..."

Dulles didn't let him suffer through the agony of trying to
frame questions in some coherent order, but jumped in while he was still
stammering. "Let me give it to you from the beginning, the short story,
but I believe it will answer most of your questions. A hydroelectric plant in
Norway was commandeered by the Germans shortly after they invaded the country,
and Hitler ordered that it was to be used to turn out plutonium for the
manufacture of an atomic bomb. Some of the best German scientists and engineers
were sent there with explicit instructions about what results were expected,
and, moreover, their families remained behind in Germany, de facto ransom on
their success. None of these men and women were fanatic Nazis, many were not
even members of the party, or had joined strictly for their own protection. The
consequences of failure were not lost on them, and when they realized how
unlikely they would be to succeed in what Hitler demanded, a handful of these
men, the most senior, met one night to discuss their predicament. One of them
made a suggestion that night, one that seemed so preposterous that they all
laughed it off; but it was an idea that apparently stuck in their minds and
wouldn't go away. They met again a week later, and, to a man, they admitted
that they couldn't stop thinking about that absurd proposal of the week before,
and each of them had thought of ways that they might make it work. I guess it's
obvious to you what they planned." He didn't wait for an answer from
Larry, who still seemed almost in shock but, after taking a sip of water,
Dulles continued with his story. "Since they ran essentially all of the
fancy equipment that monitored operations in regard to manufacturing plutonium,
as well as performing the tests necessary to evaluate their success, it was
possible, they thought, to fake it. It was perhaps the best kept secret of the
war. None of the party members knew anything, and the lower level workers
didn't have much of an idea what anyone else was doing. They each had their own
specific task to perform, isolated from each other for security reasons. The
scientists realized their subterfuge would eventually be discovered, but they
also knew how difficult it would be to make a bomb, even given real plutonium.
Considering that they all believed there was a good chance that the allies
would marshal sufficient forces to defeat Germany before a bomb could be made,
it was a gamble worth taking."

Larry had risen from his chair, his fatigue pushed aside by
the impact of what he was hearing, and was pacing back and forth. He started to
mouth a question, but Dulles held up a hand to quiet him, then went on.
"Let me finish, then I'll answer what questions I can. As added insurance,
they did whatever they could to facilitate allied bombing raids on the plant,
hoping that would obviate the chance of the ruse being discovered. Almost all
of the fake plutonium was, in fact, destroyed, but the raids had another
unexpected consequence. Hitler, afraid that everything would be lost, ordered
the one remaining sphere of plutonium to be shipped back to Germany so work
could commence immediately on making a bomb. This changed the timetable the
conspirators had in mind when they launched their plan, and would lead to
exposure before Hitler and his thugs could be neutralized by the allies.
Frantic efforts were made to pass the information about the transfer to British
intelligence, before the fake plutonium left the plant. Of course, they failed
to tell the Brits that it was fake. It was deceitful on their part, they played
both sides, but they knew well enough the horrors that would be levied on them
and their families if the plan was discovered by the Nazis. As it turned out, a
successful commando operation was launched by the English and the Norwegians,
which took out the ferry carrying it across a Norwegian lake. Unfortunately,
not only Germans were killed, but also civilians on the ferry. British
intelligence is furious. So far, no one has told the Norwegians. Unknown to all
of these people was the fact that General Schroeder had snatched what he believed
to be the real plutonium. The loose ends seemed to be wrapped up until
Schroeder contacted us. Enter Larry Sabatini, one of our best field agents,
who, as it turns out, was betrayed by one of our own."

Dulles paused to catch his breath, and Larry jumped in.
"When did you know all this?"

"It's been only days. One of the scientists from the
hydroelectric plant made it out of Norway and was debriefed by the Brits. They
didn't know about our operation so they saw no reason to forward the
information to me until I started asking questions about German operations in
Norway, looking for connections to General Schroeder." He stood and
stretched, then motioned for Larry to sit down again. "Now we have to ask
you some questions."

This first part of the debriefing went on for almost two
hours before it was apparent that Larry was just too tired to go on any more
that night. Dulles called it off and ordered Larry to get some rest.

As he stood up, Larry said, "There's one thing I have
to ask you. General Schroeder's ward was shot. We have to get her out of
Germany and back here where it's safe. How soon can I finish so I can get
started?"

The two OSS officers looked at each other, neither speaking,
then both turned to Dulles, who figured the ball had been passed to him.
"We'll talk in the morning. We'll do whatever we can, but right now you
need some sleep. You're too tired now to be of use to anyone. Someone will walk
you to your room. Good night, Larry." It came off a bit more brusque than
Dulles had intended, but he was tired too, and had a lot on his mind.

Morning turned out to be almost noon by the time Larry
dragged himself out of his bunk, showered and had something to eat. He had
slept fitfully, his sleep hounded by strange dreams and flashbacks to the
strafing by the P-51, and the ambush where Maria was shot. His body had over
ten hours of rest, but he still felt tired, and when he awoke, anxiety and fear
pervaded all his thoughts. Larry didn't even try to figure out the meaning of
any of the dreams he had had, since he knew the source of the emotions that now
troubled him. It was the well being of Maria, and respite would come only when
he brought her safely across the border. To that end, he hurried to his
appointment with Allen Dulles, eager to explain the plan that he had to rescue
her. Fabrizio would be useful, but he was sure he had memorized enough of what
he had learned from him to make it back and locate the safe house, even if his
guide was not available.