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Authors: T. Davis Bunn

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BOOK: Gibraltar Passage
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A hundred meters farther, Mikus bounded up crumbling steps to enter a derelict abode. The filthy entrance hall opened into a broad central courtyard lined with rusting balconies and laundry. Its center boasted a well, a carefully tended patch of green, and three date palms.

Mikus reached the far corner of the courtyard and climbed the wooden staircase in great bounds. He reached the top floor, walked to the first entrance, and pounded on it with his fist.

A moment later a bespectacled man, burdened by the
sorrows that lined his face, opened the door. In German he said, “Ah, Mikus. Good. You are just in time for tea.”

“I bring news,” the grizzled priest replied abruptly, also in German. “May God be praised, your daughter is alive.”

A shriek rose from the apartment's depths, and the bespectacled man staggered against the doorpost. Before he could bring himself to speak, a woman appeared, an older image of Lilliana, dark and sharp-featured and beautiful in a tired and world-worn way. She clutched at the priest's frock with desperate fingers. “My baby? Lilliana? Alive?”

Father Mikus motioned toward Jake. “Calm yourself. He has just come from her.”

The priest looked surprised when Jake stepped forward and added in German, “Lilliana is alive and well. I spoke with her eight days ago. She has had a fever and is still too weak to travel, but she is recovering.”

The woman broke down and wept so hard her legs gave way beneath her. Together the priest and her husband helped her inside the apartment. Jake stood awkwardly in the doorway, fumbled with his cap, and watched as Lilliana's father held and soothed the old woman, ignoring the tears that streamed down his own face.

When a semblance of calm was restored, the husband motioned for Jake to enter and asked quietly, “What can you tell us?”

“Lilliana was arrested in Marseille,” Jake replied. “But only for not having papers. She was shipped to a Nazi prison camp and put to work in an armament factory. She stayed there until the Allies liberated her. She recognized my friend Pierre, mistaking him for his brother Patrique.”

“The brother of Patrique is here?”

“At my house,” Mikus replied. “He has word that Patrique is still alive.”

“Perhaps,” Jake amended.

“That such a man would send my baby off like that,” the woman moaned. “May he roast in hell.”

The husband became rigid. “What do you say!”

“That such a man would risk his own life time and time again to save ours,” the priest said gravely, “as well as the lives of countless others, may the dear Lord reward him well.”

Jake unbuttoned his jacket pocket and extracted Lilliana's letter. “I have brought this from your daughter.”

Instantly the woman leapt up, tore the letter from his grasp, ripped it open, scanned the page, and crushed it to her breast. She rocked back and forth, sobbing, “Alive, alive.”

Gently the husband reached for the letter, read it, and looked up at a room he did not see. “I must go for her.”

“It would be tough but probably not impossible to arrange for you to travel,” Jake said. “I can write a couple of letters that might help, but my influence is barely above zero here, and you'd have to expect long delays on the way. Transport is extremely crowded.”

“Pay attention, Peter,” Father Mikus urged. “Listen to the colonel. This is important.”

The bespectacled man struggled to focus. “What do you suggest?”

“We have arranged for her to be issued papers—ID card, travel permits, assistance requests, official passage, the works. All we need is for you to write the Red Cross in Badenburg and confirm where you are. We can even arrange for an escort, with time—an older woman or another family traveling in this direction.”

“My wife and I will speak of this,” Lilliana's father said in a trembling voice. “We are in your debt for all time.”

“Could I ask, did Patrique mention anything to you about a traitor?” Jake asked.

“Not to me,” the husband replied. “Three weeks after Lilliana disappeared, Patrique came to us and told us he had news that had to be delivered in person. He said that she had gone to Marseille as his messenger, and had not returned. He feared the worst. My wife,” he paused, then went on more quietly, “my wife was hysterical. Lilliana is our only child.
She came late in life, after we thought children were denied to us.” He looked down at the letter. “All this time I have tried to hope, but it has been hard. So very hard.”

Father Mikus patted the man's shoulder. “We will leave you. I shall return later. Arrangements must be made.” He stood and motioned Jake from the apartment.

Once they were outside, Mikus said, “They are too distressed to say it, so I shall do it for them. Thank you.”

“You are welcome.”

“Come.” As they made their way back downstairs, Mikus said, “Your German is good, very good.”

“Thanks. I was studying it when the war broke out.” Jake followed him through the courtyard and back out into the dusty street. There the children gathered, waiting for them.

He watched the priest walk over to a vendor, buy a fistful of sweets for a single copper, and begin distributing them to all the little hands. Somehow he seemed to know when one had already received a sweet, for several times he slapped away an eager palm and directed the candy into another mouth. When all the sweets were gone, he waved impatiently and spoke harsh words in Arabic. The children laughed as though it were part of the game and continued to dance along behind him.

Jake drew up alongside him and asked, “Do you know the name Ibn Rashid?”

“Do not speak those words in public,” Mikus snapped. He picked up the pace. “Why do you ask?”

“The assassins we captured in Gibraltar were sent by him.”

“Then this is both good and bad news.” They turned into narrow passages just as the sun cleared the city wall. Suddenly their entire world became one of brilliant light and impenetrable shadow. “Good because the man whose name you spoke is no fool and would not spend money chasing after one already dead. Bad because he is a jackal, a hyena, a robber of graves, and will do his best to ensure that Patrique's life is as brief as possible.”

As they entered the square, Jake found the courage to venture, “May I ask you something?”

“You may ask anything you like. Whether or not I answer is an entirely different matter.”

“From time to time people have been coming to me for advice. About spiritual matters. I try to help them. I pray,” Jake said, and faltered.

Father Mikus stopped and turned to him. “You are a believer?”

“I try to be. But when I try to help people, I feel . . .” He searched for the word.

“You feel human,” the priest said. “You feel trapped within all that is not perfect within yourself. You feel empty.”

“That's it,” Jake said, glad he had spoken.

“Good,” Father Mikus said, turning back around. “Only when we are faced with our own emptiness can we open ourselves fully to be filled by the Spirit.” He started forward. “Come, let us get out of this heat.”

Jake hustled to keep up with him. “But I feel like there has to be somebody else who would be better—”

“Look around yourself,” Father Mikus snapped. “Do you see crowds of perfect people? Do you see a world filled with the Savior's love? Do you find a thousand people calling out to be used by our Lord? No. You find nothing of the sort. You find bitterness and pain and wounded spirits. You find unanswered needs crying out to uncaring hearts.”

He stopped once more and fixed his impatient gaze on Jake. “Accept that the Father is calling you, Colonel. Accept that in your imperfections grow the seeds of His divine love. Be content to know that no matter how flawed you may be, no matter how great your failings, the Lord sees in you the
possibility
of perfection. Why? Because you have opened yourself up to be used by Him, the One in whom perfection is complete.”

Chapter Thirteen

When they returned to the priest's house, Jake found that Pierre had returned upstairs. Jake sat on the crumbling stoop and watched the day's growing heat gradually beat all life from the dusty square. There was little to be seen beyond a series of tumbledown French colonial structures, a few tired donkeys, and a handful of dusty Arabs intent about their business. Yet he could not get enough of the scene. He sat and watched the day take hold, and decided that he would go exploring on his own if Pierre did not rise soon.

Jake stiffened at the sight of two figures in Western garb crossing the square toward him. As they drew closer, he recognized Lilliana's parents. The mother was carrying a steaming cauldron, her hands protected by layers of padding. Jake hurried over and asked in German, “Can I help you with that?”

“I am sure the good father has shown you as little concern over food as he shows for himself,” she replied, ignoring his offer. “So I have brought you some real sustenance.”

Father Mikus appeared in the doorway. “You can scarcely afford to share the little you have, Edna.”

“Nonsense. This is a time for celebration. Move aside, Father, and see to plates and spoons for these hungry men.”

As Edna bustled into the house, her husband stopped in front of Jake and solemnly extended his hand. “I failed even to introduce myself properly. Please forgive my bad manners. I am Peter Goss.”

“Nice to meet you. Jake Burnes.”

“The honor is mine, I assure you.” The handshake was firm, belying the man's frail image. “You cannot imagine what joy you have brought into our lives.”

“My husband speaks for both of us.” Edna Goss appeared in the doorway, nervously wiping her hands over and over with her cloth. “I wish to apologize for my words about Patrique.”

“They were understandable, given the circumstances.”

“They were unforgivable,” she replied sternly, her hands still busy with their cloth. “Almost as unforgivable as my thoughts.”

“Edna,” her husband murmured.

“I have raged against Patrique ever since my daughter's disappearance. But in my heart I have always known that the girl probably thrust herself upon him and demanded that he send her.”

“Lilliana positively adored the man,” Peter Goss added. “She would have done anything for him. Anything.”

Pierre appeared behind Frau Goss and asked, “These are the parents of Lilliana?”

The sounds of English words turned both their heads. Peter Goss was the first to see, and gasped at the sight. Frau Goss cried aloud. “You!”

“Allow me to introduce Patrique's brother,” Jake said, “Major Pierre Servais.”

“I would never have believed it,” Peter Goss murmured. “Even seeing it with my own eyes, I still am having difficulty.”

Edna Goss had staggered back to be steadied by her husband. “Patrique told us he had a twin, but never would I have imagined the resemblance.”

“Forgive me,” Pierre said, his German halting. “Do you perhaps speak English or French?”

“Our English is much better,” Peter Goss replied for both of them and released his wife to offer one unsteady hand. “It is an honor to meet you, Major.”

“Please, call me Pierre.” Despite the extra sleep, distress was clearly taking its toll. His skin was drawn taut over his features, and his eyes bore the weight of exhaustion. He bowed toward the mother and said, “You have a most remarkable and brave daughter, madame.”

“Thank you,” Edna Goss said, finding her voice. “The colonel tells me she was ill.”

“Jake,” he corrected.

“That is so,” Pierre replied. His tone was formal, his bearing rigid, as though holding himself erect by strength of will alone. “But when we left she was recovering nicely. Hopefully by now her strength will be restored.”

“You look as though you have been ill yourself,” Frau Goss said.

Pierre did not bother to deny it. “In spirit,” he replied, his eyes seeking Jake. “Thankfully I have friends who minister to me in my hour of need.”

“Enough of this chatter,” the priest said crossly, poking his grizzled head out of the doorway. “There is food, and it is hot, and I am hungry. The talk will keep, the food will not. Come and sit.”

The Moroccan lamb stew, called tangeen, was delicious. It was cooked in a clay pot, with quarter moons of potatoes set in a rich sauce of meat and pungent spices. Jake took three heaping portions and stopped only when his belly positively refused to accept another bite. “That was wonderful, Frau Goss.”

“Indeed, indeed,” Father Mikus agreed, his eyes turned owlish from an overstuffing of rich foods. “Your cooking is a blessing, Edna.”

“It is the least I could do,” she replied, her nervous hands again busy with the cloth in her lap. “After what I said—”

“Enough,” the priest said, but without his customary rancor. He switched into German and said, “The good colonel has demonstrated the best kind of forgiveness by forgetting what you have said.”

“It is true,” Jake agreed.

“If you find Patrique,” she said hesitantly, her eyes on her ever-active fingers, “tell him,” and here her voice became as downcast as her gaze. “Tell him I forgive him and ask his forgiveness in turn.”

“You have it,” Jake replied. “If he is half the man I know his brother to be, I am sure he has long since done what you ask.”

“Excuse me,” Pierre said in English, rising from the
listlessness that had held him throughout the meal. “You are speaking of my brother?”

“Only that he is a fine man,” Frau Goss replied in her heavily accented English. “Would you tell him that for me, please? That I said he is a good and fine man.”

“After you left us this morning,” Peter Goss said, picking up for his wife, “I had a thought. There was a very dear friend of Patrique's, the son of friends, people who escaped with us.”

BOOK: Gibraltar Passage
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