Rip the Angels from Heaven

by David Krugler

  “I don’t know why he would ask you that. He knew we weren’t in contact.” His tone was neutral but forced—was there more to the O.S.S. angle than he’d let on?

  “Exactly what I was thinking, sir. Which is why I mentioned it—seemed like an awful queer question.”

  “I’d forget about it if I were you, Voigt.”

  “Yessir.” I picked up the envelope and returned it to my pocket. “Now we wait for the Russians to pick me up.”

  CHAPTER 42

  DIDN’T TAKE LONG FOR THE RUSSIANS TO FETCH ME. SOMEONE MUST have been watching my flat, for I’d only just changed out of my uniform and poured a tumbler of rye when I heard a hard knock on the door. I sighed, took a long, long drink, and made sure I had my cigarettes before I opened the door.

  Shovel-face glared at me. Without speaking, he pointed to a dark Ford sedan parked across the street. He stepped aside to let me go first, then followed close on my heels, his rasping breath audible. Whatever he’d had for dinner, it had lots of onions.

  The rear driver side door opened from within the car and I got in. Shovel-face’s sidekick sat in the back on the passenger side. He handed me a black hood.

  “Put this on and stay down,” he ordered.

  The thick cotton fabric stank of another man’s sweat. As I sank down in the seat, propped against the door, I closed my eyes and tried not to think of what had happened to the hood’s previous user. The N.K.V.D. had tortured me while my eyes were wide open, so what had they done to that poor soul? Telling myself the Russians had no reason to hurt me now didn’t help. Shovel-face had had no reason to shoot Kenny Newhurst, but he had done it anyway. No matter how good my story was, they might use the electrical prod to make sure I wasn’t holding anything back. My heart raced and I sucked in my breath at the memory of the pain, the timeless agony of being shocked. The drive, whatever our destination, wasn’t far, four miles at most, but it felt like an interminable journey.

  One of the Russians walked me from the car into a building and pushed me down into a chair before yanking the hood off. No surprise, a bright, hot light was trained right onto my face. I almost smiled—the N.K.V.D. couldn’t know that no light could ever blind me now, not after Trinity.

  “Welcome home, Lieutenant.”

  I recognized the professorial-sounding American who had interrogated me while Shovel-face had tortured me.

  “Can I smoke?” I answered him. Since they hadn’t even let me finish my drink before sweeping me up, the least they could do was let me smoke.

  “Go ahead.”

  I took out my Luckies, lit up, and stole a glance upward during my first exhale. I glimpsed a high, arched ceiling supported by steel trusses. The floor was cement, and the vast space smelled of motor oil and grease. A service garage, I guessed. Behind me, I heard a whisk of shoes, a scraping against the cement, and the creak of jointed wood. Shovel-face and his sidekick, sitting down. Knowing the two attack dogs were seated rather than standing comforted me only slightly.

  “Do you have our package?”

  I said nothing, just pulled the envelope from my jacket pocket and tossed it. It landed with a soft slap in the darkness in front of me. I couldn’t see the hand that picked it up.

  “Check it out,” the Professor told an unseen fourth person, who walked away briskly toward the far wall. I heard a door open and close.

  “How’s your memory, Lieutenant?”

  “When my brains aren’t being scrambled, excellent.”

  He chuckled. “There shouldn’t be any need for prompts tonight, as long as we’re satisfied with your answers.”

  “Then let’s get to it.”

  Get to it he did. His questions and instructions were precise, comprehensive, relentless. They ranged from the picayune—What was the name of your train and what time did it arrive in Santa Fe?—to the profound—Describe what you saw and felt when the weapon was detonated. He asked a lot of questions. How had I made contact, how did I convince “our man” (Brode) I was “a mutual agent,” where did we meet, was anyone else present when we talked? He wanted me to estimate the size of Site Y and describe the facilities I’d seen. Who was Colonel Latham, was he a capable officer? Why was an F.B.I. agent present? Who was in charge: names, duties, personalities. He wanted to know everything; having the diagram wasn’t enough. For the Russians to even think of building a gadget of their own, they needed to have a sense of the resources, manpower, and logistics required. I wasn’t a scientist or an engineer, of course—I could only share what I’d seen as a layperson, as it were—but even the skimpiest of impressions would be helpful to them, and I had no choice but to be truthful, in order to sound convincing when I did have to lie. I assuaged my conscience by reminding myself that Oppenheimer and Fuchs had doped the Russians but good by falsifying Brode’s diagram.

  And many were my lies and omissions. A real whopper: that I’d convinced Latham and Groves there was no spy present at Site Y. I couldn’t reveal that Brode had been arrested, of course, or that we’d questioned a slate of Site Y personnel in order to identify Brode in the first place. I had to fabricate entire conversations and scenes. Brode and I, walking along the perimeter of Site Y one evening; Brode working dutifully on the diagram in his quarters while I waited in the officers’ club; Brode confiding in me that he’d lost his nerve, that he was worried Army intelligence was on to him, that it was high time for him to cut ties with the Russians. This last lie was my insurance policy. Eventually, the N.K.V.D. would learn that Brode had been arrested. I wanted the Professor and his Russian handlers to believe Brode himself was responsible for getting caught, wanted them to believe that I’d done all I could to bolster his confidence and give him a pep talk while I was at Site Y. Admittedly, Brode as a nervous Nellie was a stretch, but to my relief the Professor didn’t get suspicious.

  The interrogation had gone on for hours, according to the pressing ache of my swollen bladder, before the Professor finally asked me about Mara. He did so obliquely.

  “Did you ever leave the base before going to the test site?”

  “Yes, Colonel Latham sent me to Santa Fe.”

  “How did you get there?”

  “I drove myself in a jeep from the base motor pool.”

  “And you went by yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did he send you to Santa Fe?”

  “To be briefed by a woman named Dorothy McKibbin.”

  After I answered a slew of questions about her, he asked, “What did you do after the briefing?”

  “I went to get lunch at a place she’d recommended called Joe King’s Blue Ribbon Bar.”

  “Did you meet anyone there?”

  Time to push back, I resolved. “You know I did.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your favorite fellow traveler Mara sidled up to me at the bar.”

  He responded quietly but firmly. “The treatment for insolence is the same used for memory gaps, understood?”

  “Understood.” I’d hoped to rattle him a bit, but he was too good.

  “Tell us about your conversation with her and leave nothing out.”

  I complied but deliberately omitted our visit to the shop where Mara had bought a bracelet. They might shock me for “forgetting,” but I had to know if Mara had made it back too.

  “Is that everything, Lieutenant?” the Professor asked. He knew I was leaving something out, which meant Mara had returned and told him everything about our encounter. She wasn’t in F.B.I. custody, then.

  I hid my relief in an exhale of smoke. “Yes, that’s all we—wait, I’m sorry, I forgot, we visited a little shop after the bar. She bought a silver bracelet as a souvenir.”

  “Anything else you might have forgotten?” There was an edge to his voice, but I was ready to push back again.

  “No, but I do have some bad news.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m done, I’m out, I’m finished, for a long while at least.” He started to interrupt, but I plowed on.
“Agent Slater has a hard-on for me a mile long. He’s got the Bureau’s Chicago field office digging into my past. Until I figure out a way to trip him up, I can’t have any further contact with you or any of your friends.”

  I flicked my cigarette butt to the floor, watching the ember scatter, and pressed my hands against my thighs to keep them from trembling. The Professor might agree—or not. And not could turn out very badly for me. He might insist on keeping the status quo, or he might decide that making the problem—me—go away was the best solution.

  “Well, that is a problem, but—”

  I cut him off. “The good news is, General Groves, Colonel Latham, and Commander Paslett are awful happy that I proved there was no spy at Site Y. Right now I’m their fair-haired boy, so if I go dormant and take care of the Bureau, then it goes without saying that I’ll be highly placed for any future operations you might have.”

  This was my lifeline, the pitch to keep them from liquidating me.

  A long pause. “Yes, I see what you’re saying, Lieutenant,” the Professor finally said. “Maybe you should hibernate for a while.”

  I nodded curtly and stood up, my legs aching. When I turned to leave, Shovel-face was looking at me with a curious mix of disinterest and malice, as if I were a buzzing fly he couldn’t be troubled to swat. With barely controlled fury, I recalled my mantra from the night he’d tortured me with the electrical prod. Kill Shovel-face. I couldn’t kill him, not here, not yet—perhaps never—but I couldn’t simply walk past him, not after what he’d done to Kenny Newhurst. As I passed him on his left side, I stopped and said, “You know, you left something behind at my flat the night you searched it—do you want it back?”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  I let my mind go blank and gave my body over to the training I’d received after I’d been assigned to O.N.I. We recruits had smirked at the training officer who had mastered what he called “the martial arts” during stints in the Philippines and China—until he gave us a demonstration. He hadn’t taught us much, just a few basic skills, but we’d practiced them relentlessly.

  With my right arm cocked, I pivoted on my left foot until my toes were turned in the opposite direction, swinging my right foot up and out. I put all the force of my momentum into a roundhouse kick straight into the Russian’s face. His nose shattered, blood sprayed; he toppled over in his chair. When his partner jumped to his feet, I delivered a flat, swift chop to his throat. The blow wasn’t hard enough to shatter his larynx, but he’d have to breathe through his nose for a while. As for Shovel-face, he’d have a new nickname by the time his nose healed: Flat-face. As the two Russians rolled on the floor, moaning and gurgling, I looked straight at the Professor, who hadn’t budged from his chair.

  “He didn’t need to shoot the kid,” I said.

  “They will come after you,” he said matter-of-factly. He didn’t have to add: And I won’t stop them.

  I didn’t respond—because I wanted them to come after me. The Metropolitan Police couldn’t arrest them for attempted murder because the Soviets would, I was certain, produce diplomatic passports that would allow them to leave the country. And a kick to the face wasn’t the full payback the two had earned for what they’d done to Kenny Newhurst. Without another word, I left.

  CHAPTER 43

  IN THE MORNING, I CALLED PROVIDENCE HOSPITAL: KENNY NEWHURST had been discharged to complete his recovery at home. I hailed a taxi and gave the driver the Newhursts’ address. Should I have called first? I wondered. But what I had to say, I had to say in person.

  Hard to believe less than two weeks had passed since my first visit to the Newhursts’ well-kept home. I didn’t want to dwell on all that had happened, but it was impossible not to: the shooting of Kenny; my rescue of him and frantic escape from the police; rushing to get Filbert Donniker out of harm’s way; going on the lam only to give myself up to the N.K.V.D.; my torture; my encounters with Mara; the double mission to identify Brode as the spy while convincing the Russians I had done their bidding. So far, my wretched scheming was working—by delivering a false diagram of the bomb, I’d begun to make amends for my past treason—but my conscience was far from clear.

  I paid the driver, straightened my hat, and walked briskly to the front door. Under my arm was the package I’d put together the previous night with Commander Paslett’s help. The lawn was cut, the flower bed freshly watered. The storm door was open, so I knocked on the screen door frame.

  “Coming,” Georgette called from within. Walking from the kitchen, she didn’t recognize me until she was a few steps away. “Oh my God, it’s you!” Her welcoming expression recoiled into a mask of fear, of repulsion: eyes wide and blinking rapidly, mouth open, head tilted.

  “Missus Newhurst, I’m here to ask for—”

  Lyle’s rush down the hall and his bellow of anger cut me off.

  “Get off my property you sonofabitch!” he shouted. He yanked open the screen and shoved me in the chest. I didn’t try to stop him, and the force of his blow sent me reeling—I almost toppled down the porch steps. Fortunately I didn’t drop the package. Lyle raised his fist but didn’t strike me when he saw I wasn’t going to defend myself. His face was red, eyes bright with rage, his carefully parted hair mussed and his tie askew. Over his shoulder, I could see Kenny standing in the hall behind his mother. The Newhursts had probably been finishing breakfast, Lyle having a last cup of coffee before heading to work. I had no right to be there, no right to ask for their forgiveness; but no penitent ever does.

  “Mister Newhurst, I’m here to ask for your forgiveness and for your son’s. If you want me to leave, I’ll go now and never return, I promise.”

  “Who the hell d’you think you are! You almost got my son killed!”

  “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life, sir, and the shame and remorse I feel for the harm I’ve done to you and your family will never go away.”

  My quiet tone placated him and he lowered his fist. Kenny was now standing next to his mother, who had her arm tight around his shoulder as they watched the scene from behind the screen.

  “Everything okay, Lyle?” a man’s voice carried loudly from the porch next door.

  I kept my solemn expression fixed on Lyle, waiting for him to answer.

  “Yeah, everything’s fine, Pete, thanks,” he said tersely.

  “Lyle,” Georgette called, “maybe you …” She trailed off when he held up his hand.

  “Well, I suppose, if that’s why you’re here, then I guess you oughta come inside.”

  I nodded and followed him into the house, taking off my hat. Lyle ushered us into the living room where I’d lied to Georgette at the start of my misadventure. She and Lyle sat on the sofa with Kenny in the middle while I took one of the upholstered chairs facing them. I set my hat and the package on the coffee table. Kenny watched me with a mix of curiosity and anxiety. He was thinner than I remembered and had a bruise around his right eye but otherwise showed no signs of his trauma. He wore light brown trousers and a striped sport shirt. He’d just had a haircut, and there was a thin white stripe along the nape of his neck where the barber’s razor had exposed the tan line. A good sign, that—meant he was spending time outside.

  “How are you, Kenny?” I asked him. “Are you fully recovered?”

  “I’m okay—I mean, I’m feeling pretty good, sir. The doctor says I can do anything I want now s’long as I still get lotsa rest.”

  “Please call me Ellis, Kenny. I never properly introduced myself.” I stood and reached across the table to shake his hand. “Lieutenant junior grade Ellis Voigt, U.S. Navy.”

  “I’m Kenny Newhurst,” he answered, bringing a smile to his mother’s face.

  “Do you remember me from that night at the Automat in May when I came into the kitchen?”

  “A’course. You were with that old guy, and you had some sorta rig to secretly listen to two guys out in the dining room.”

  “Right. Kenny, I’m here to tell you I made a
horrible mistake that night. I left the Automat believing the men we were dealing with—men who are trying to hurt our country—would only be concerned with me and the man who came with me. I didn’t think they would go to the Automat to find out if anyone had helped us. But someone had—you. Because I asked you to. And without hesitating, you helped, and when I told you to tell no one about our visit, you kept that promise. And then I failed you, and your folks. I failed to protect you. I didn’t come to check up on you until it was too late.”

  “But you came and got me from, from those men who were … hurting me.”

  “I should never have allowed them to find you in the first place, Kenny. It’s my responsibility to make sure innocent people don’t get hurt when they get involved in what I do, and I didn’t meet my duty to you and your folks.”

  He didn’t answer, his head bowed and hands folded in his lap. Was he remembering the pain and horror of being brutalized by the Russians?

  “So I’m here to ask for your forgiveness, Kenny. I failed to protect you after you helped me. I came into your home and I lied to your mother when I was trying to find out where you were, all because I believed I had to keep my mission secret. And when I found you, and got you to safety, I fled like a coward instead of staying by your side.” I almost added I don’t deserve your forgiveness but caught myself. It was true, but to say it aloud would be inexcusably manipulative. And I was bone-weary tired of giving in to the instincts of deceit, deception, and manipulation.

  Raising his head and looking me in the eye, Kenny said, “I forgive you, Ellis.”

  “Thank you, Kenny. I’m deeply grateful for your kindness.”

  He looked abashed and lowered his head again. Georgette squeezed his shoulder as Lyle watched me.

  “Kenny, on behalf of the U.S. Navy, I’d like to present you with this.” I picked up the package and extended it to him.

  He tore the glossy blue wrapping from the box and lifted off the top. His eyes widened when he saw the cast bronze medal and blue ribbon fitted inside a velvet-lined case. His parents leaned in to look.