Flowers From Berlin (36 page)

Dick Wheeler looked at him sourly. Then Cianfrani and Hearn took Wheeler's arms and pulled him respectfully in the proper direction. Cochrane waited until the three figures disappeared into the federal jail.

Laura and Peter Whiteside moved to a spot a few feet behind Cochrane and were there when he turned.

"I'll take Laura over to the Shoreham," Whiteside said. "I'll check her in there, then I'll need some sleep myself. Been a bloody long stretch."

Cochrane nodded. "What about Fowler?"

"He'll be safe with my men in Baltimore for another day," Whiteside said. "Then I'll have him brought here. Acceptable?"

Cochrane did not care for the delay. But he needed the sleep himself. He acquiesced to Whiteside's plan. His attention turned to Laura.

"I think you should stay away from your home until your husband is safely locked up," he said. And then for some reason, perhaps due to the fatigue that afflicted all of them, he added. "I'm sorry."

She nodded. Words were failing Laura at that hour, too. Something caught in both of their eyes and she reached to Cochrane and he embraced her. He gave her a comforting hug and slowly released her.

She pulled slowly from his arms. "Thank you," she said. "Come say hello tomorrow."

Cochrane promised that he would.

FORTY

"What you have to remember about the Germans," said Reverend Fowler, entrancing his two guards, "is that in the age of the Barbarians, we're talking about the 400’s and 500’s A.D. here, the first German converts to Christianity denied the divinity of Christ."

Fowler's eyes twinkled. He was at the card table with Fussel and McPherson. His feet were chained together and linked to a tall armoire. His wrists were cuffed. For the past hour, he had regaled his captors with historical and religious anecdotes ranging from the death of Catherine the Great to Cardinal Richelieu supporting Catholicism in France and Protestantism in the rest of Europe.

"That made the first German converts," Fowler concluded, "the first Christians to be both true believers and heretics at the same time."

McPherson was fascinated as Fussel listened warily. Reverend Fowler took aim on McPherson and began talking of what he called "Scotland's legitimate national feelings," to which Fussel moaned and turned a deaf ear.

There was some smoked meat on the table with a large serving fork. Both guards sat with their weapons on the opposite side from Fowler.

"Mind if I eat something?" Fowler asked in passing.

"Help yourself," McPherson said. Fussel dealt the cards and McPherson moved the serving knife from the plate.

Fowler picked up a salt shaker and shook it briskly over a slice of beef. He ate. He looked around. "What's the matter?" McPherson asked.

"Overdid it with the salt," said Fowler. He eyed McPherson's beer.

"Nothing doing!" Fussel interjected. "He doesn't get any alcohol. Whiteside's orders."

"Then get him some water," McPherson said. "You're closer than I am."

Fussel shot his partner a hostile stare. "Want to know something?" Fussel said. "I'll be happy when we can turn the bloody parson here back over to the Americans. If he's dangerous, we shouldn't have him. If he's not, we shouldn't have him, either."

"Just get him some water, huh?" McPherson said. Fowler turned politely to Fussel.

"Thank you," he said.

Fowler watched Fussel leave the room for the kitchen, one room away. With his cuffed wrists, he reached to Fussel's five-card poker hand. Fowler peeked. He looked back to McPherson.

"Two aces, a king, and two sevens," he whispered. "Is that good?"

McPherson's bushy brow furrowed and he looked studiously downward at his own hand. Then everything was too fast for comprehension. the minister's shackled wrists flew toward the serving fork, grabbed it in both fists, and brought it upward into McPherson's throat.

McPherson howled, but at the same moment, Reverend Fowler was lunging across his body, pulling the pistol from the holster and withdrawing backward once he had it. Fussel dropped what he was doing in the kitchen and raced back when he heard the commotion. He was fumbling for his own gun.

"No!" Fussel shouted, taking it all in at once— his partner anguished and clutching at the bloody fork stuck in his throat, and the parson whirling toward the doorway, a Smith & Wesson .38 in his two hands.

Then Fowler fired. Two bullets crashed into Fussel's chest. They slammed him backward and sent his own gun flying from his hand. Fussel felt the agony of the bullets ripping into his flesh and shattering his breastbone. He gasped several times, clutching his horrible wounds, and knew he was dying.

For several seconds, McPherson tried to struggle. But the fork seemed to have impaled his whole body. His eyes were thick with his own blood. Every inch of him convulsed with pain.

The last thing he understood was that the prisoner was placing the nose of the pistol to McPherson's head. There was a loud cracking sound, an indescribable pain, and then total blackness.

With another bullet, Siegfried shot through the chain that linked his ankles to the armoire. Then he crawled to the body of Andrew Fussel, found no pulse, and emptied the Englishman's pockets.

He quickly found what he wanted: the keys to his handcuffs and leg chain. He unlocked himself, stood, flexed his wrist and leg muscles, and glanced at the bloody bodies of the two men he had killed. He exuded a long sigh, not of emotion, but of fatigue. The day in captivity had been excruciating. His whole schedule and method of operation had been sabotaged now. He would have to strike Roosevelt quickly and depart. The whole country would be looking for him within twenty-four hours.

Siegfried emptied the wallets of the men he had killed and took both of their pistols with him. He closed the door to the safe house behind him less than five minutes later. Then he taxied immediately to the bus terminal and was bound for Washington, then Alexandria, Virginia, within the hour while the two undiscovered bodies had an entire night to cool in the house off Clifton Park.

*

For the first time in recent days, Laura felt safe. Stephen was under arrest. Bill Cochrane told her that with the apprehension of the big strapping Missourian named Wheeler, his Bureau's internal troubles, as he called them, were apparently settled, too.

Then there was Bill, himself. She could feel the old warning signals. Her attraction to him had been no secret since the first time they sat and talked over tea. She felt, well, safe with him. He was a man she wanted to be with. Nothing sexual yet, she thought. Just being with him sufficed. Especially now, when she needed all the emotional support she could get. Both of their minds were overladen with the events of the last few days. Now it was time to relax and to unwind.

Bill asked her to accompany him to dinner and she accepted. They spoke again of many things and Laura again found him to be a fine conversationalist and a good listener. He spoke about his boyhood in Virginia and his memories of two societies, one colored and one white, in his hometown in Virginia. In turn, she told him of the Georgian home with the high wall in Salisbury, her mother, and how she as a girl used to play with her father's ribbons from the 1914-18 campaign on the continent.

The restaurant was informal and Italian, a quiet little family place called Mario's around the corner from the Library of Congress. After the meal, he offered her a port back at his place before returning her to the Shoreham.

Again, she accepted. She could almost feel a little tingle of the old girlish excitement: a quiet glass of port at a man's place. Maybe things would get nicely out of hand. Tonight, who cared?

It was only nine in the evening when they left the restaurant and they were in no hurry at all, enjoying each other's company. The night was chilly and even raw when the wind kicked up.

"Know what?" she asked, pulling her wool coat close to her, "it reminds me of Dorset in the winter. Mind if we walk a little?"

"You Brits never feel the cold, do you?" he asked with a smile.

"It's invigorating," she said, pulling her collar close. Her dark hair, pulled close to her by her collar, framed her beautiful face.

"May I?" he asked, offering her an arm.

"Why, yes. You may," she said. She took his arm.

Washington fascinated her. Unlike London, it was a city that seemed to be only government. There were uniforms everywhere, Army, Navy, Army Air Corps, every third car that passed them as they strolled, looked official, and the illuminated monuments and Capitol Hill, washed in yellow lights after dark, told her that this was the seat of American power. This was where decisions were made. If America entered the war, the entry would become official within view of where the walked.

A light cold rain began to fall and again it made her think of England. They hurried back to where the Hudson was parked on C Street and he was struck with an idea.

"It just occurred to me," he said. "You've barely seen Washington. I'll give you the grand tour before that nightcap."

"That would be wonderful," she said. They quickened their pace and almost trotted the last block back to the car. His arm was gently on her shoulders and then he unlocked the door on her side of the car. He helped her in, came around to his side, jumped in, and, almost on cue, the rain intensified. They both laughed. The car's engine whined, ground, then sprang to life. Then they were off across the shiny, rain-swept streets of the city: the White House, the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, the Mall at the foot of the Capitol dome, and then, for the finale, he crossed into Virginia at Arlington, turned the car in the traffic circle, and took the same bridge back into the city.

She had come a long way, she was thinking, since Edward Shawcross and his plans for a country inn. Even the recent memory of her husband's attack on her seemed to recede. It was one of those magical evenings with a man who was so new to her life that by his very presence he conveyed novelty and excitement.

She began to think about the house on Twenty-sixth Street where he lived.

"I'm ready for some port," she finally said.

He turned down Pennsylvania Avenue a final time. The flag was flying and lit above the White House. Roosevelt was in residence. There were three men in U.S. Navy uniforms standing in the rain before the iron gates, peering in. To Bill Cochrane, they keyed memories of the sailors from
The Adriana
in Union Station, singing on their way to their incendiary slaughter at sea. He had to work to suppress the unpleasant memory.

The sight of the sailors keyed a similar association to Laura, and Cochrane suspected as much, because she had been very talkative over the course of the evening—more about university, her husband, her girlhood, her father—and now she was very quiet, as suddenly, were the rain-slicked streets.

Envisioning her thoughts telepathically, or at least trying to, he sought to calm her. "I know you're alarmed about Stephen," he said. "I know how traumatizing it is. But there's no way he'll harm you again. There's no way he'll harm anyone."

To which she had many reactions, but said nothing. Then they were parking near his house.

When they entered, he led Laura to the living room, eased her coat from her, and turned on only enough lights to maintain the pleasantness of the evening. She rubbed her hands together, still chilled from the outdoors, and he checked the radiator. The heat was low, so he used some newspaper to kindle some logs in the fireplace.

Laura sat quietly as the fireplace slowly came alive. "Now," he finally said, "time for that nightcap. Port, still? I have brandy, also."

"Port would be fine," she said.

He found some in a decanter on the dry sink in the dining room. He blessed the housekeepers for seeing to at least some eventualities.

He glanced at her and idly thought, What do I think I'm doing here with my suspect's wife? Then he reminded himself that his resignation from the Bureau became effective within less than two weeks. He had no suspects any more because he had concluded his final case. So much for conflict of interest.

"Bill?" she asked at length. "What do you think will happen?"

He poured a tawny port into two cordial glasses, barely looking up as she spoke.

"About what?" he asked.

"In Europe," she said. "Germany and England."

He drew a long breath and returned to the sofa. He handed her one glass and sat down near her.

"I suppose Hitler will topple what's already shaky," he answered. "France is totally unprepared for war. They'll fall the same way the Weimar Republic did. Soviet Russia is another question. I sense they’re extremely powerful and will be willing to sacrifice millions of lives.”

"And England?" she asked.

"Chamberlain's been discredited because a war has started despite all his concessions. He'll be out of office within weeks, also."

"I'm not an expert," she said as she sipped very slowly, "but England doesn't have the ships and planes that Germany has. Do you think there will be an invasion?"

"I think there's a good chance that one will be attempted. Whether it succeeds or not is another matter.”

She was looking straight ahead now, not at him, and Cochrane knew where her thoughts were: in Salisbury, at the Georgian home of her father, surrounded by memories and a peaceful garden from her girlhood. All the things she had told him about.

He placed an arm around her shoulder before he even realized what he was doing.

"I also think England will get some ships and airplanes," he said. "Very quickly, if she needs them."

She turned to him and smiled. She was, as he had noticed all along, very beautiful, in addition to being another man's wife.

"From Roosevelt?" she asked.

"That's the rumor on Capitol Hill," he said. "But who knows? There's an election coming, also. If Roosevelt leaves office, few of the other candidates have any international vision at all. Die-hard isolationists, they are. They'll travel to hell and back to keep America out of another European war."

"What will you do?" she asked. "Enlist if there's a war?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"What would you
like
to do?"

"Go to New York, I suppose. Find some peaceful work. Make a few dollars. Want the full truth?" he asked.

She nodded and was half finished her port.

"Fall in love again," he said, finishing his. "And yourself?" he asked.

"Myself?"

"What would you like to do?"

She thought for a moment, looked away to the fire, then looked back to him. "You'll laugh," she insisted.

"No, I won't, Laura."

"I'd like to spend time with you," she said. "A lot of it."

He set down his glass of port and took her hand. It was surprisingly chilly, despite the fire. Then there was a long silence, as each attempted to rationalize the danger signals that flashed.

"That would be wonderful," he said in response. And his instinct was to add the conditions: wonderful, thank you, but you're married; wonderful, thank you, but I've buried the only other two women I've loved; wonderful, thank you, but I've totally given up on love, remember? I'd hoped to fall again, but figured I wouldn't. Until I met you, that is, a voice within him said. Until I saw this lovely, frightened, distraught Englishwoman standing in the woods behind a church.

But there were no other words spoken. Instead, he kissed her. Then there was an urgent embrace and they sank back onto the sofa. Her eyes were closed and her arms were around his shoulders. When his hand moved gently to the buttons of her sweater, she did nothing to stop him. Rather, a delicious anticipatory warmth coursed through her. Much later in the evening she remembered thinking, This isn't adultery at all, I'm simply going to bed with a man I love.