The Wind Chill Factor

by Thomas Gifford

  A thin, metallic voice was speaking on a crackling, snapping line. It was Colonel Steynes.

  “Calm yourself, Mr. Peterson,” he said patiently, “calm yourself and listen while I explain it again. It will be of rather considerable interest to you.” He chuckled bleakly and there was a pause. “In the early hours of this morning, during one of our incessant foggy rainstorms, alarms were tripped alerting us to an invasion of Cat Island. Dawson and I, of course, have several systems of defensive action—and the alarm system in our War Room kept us informed as to the invaders’ stealthy movements. For the better part of three hours Dawson and I sat in the War Room, having secured the house itself, and considered our situation.” I could hear Peterson breathing. I glanced up and saw him staring at his cigar, which had gone dead on him.

  “We knew there were three of them and damned if they weren’t taking their time about it. They were advancing with impressive care. By plotting their progress on our alarm map we knew when one of them had entered a clearing visible from the wall of the keep. I dispatched Dawson with a rifle, silencer-equipped, and a quarter of an hour later, in relative quiet, one of the three died. Dawson returned and we waited. Light had come and our intruders had stopped, doubtless confused by their inability to raise the third on their wireless devices.

  “Then, while Dawson was preparing us a breakfast, we heard an explosion, which we discovered blew a hole in the wall of the keep. A rather large explosion, too. We did not realize that it was a diversion, unfortunately. When Dawson positioned himself in a second-floor window to shoot the man, he was himself shot by the third man, who had gotten to the top of the keep wall on the opposite side. Even as he took the bullet, Dawson fired on and killed the man coming through the hole in the wall.” He paused again. He sounded like a written report of an action in another war, another time.

  “With Dawson wounded we had to rethink our plan. It was an unforeseen event. I stanched the flow of blood, once we realized it was a flesh wound, administered a painkiller, sterilized the area, and considered our options. It would have been interesting to take the third man alive. But it seemed a luxury which we could not perhaps afford. We did not know for certain the intent of our guests, or our one remaining guest, but their operation seemed a radical one. We presumed that the mission was to kill us and thereby put an end to our Nazi hunting. Without us, without me, the apparatus would die. The remaining Nazis would live. Do you follow our thinking, Mr. Peterson?”

  “Yes, of course. I follow you.”

  “The rest turned out to be very simple. I wheeled myself out onto the wall of the keep. I was protected by the fog, you see. I sat and waited. A matter of nerve. Nothing more. And I have more nerve than you could possibly imagine. You see, the third man was trapped on the top of the wall. Dawson was covering the wall with a machine gun. We sat there for three hours, fog all around us, no sound. Waited. Quiet. And then the breeze freshened and began to blow the fog away and I saw him in front of me, about forty feet away, crouched along the parapet, and he saw me, raised his gun in a kind of wild-eyed fright, and I shot him. I am an excellent marksman and instinctively I shot to kill and killed.”

  There was silence on the line, the crackling stopped, as if the connection had been broken. Peterson stared into his brandy.

  “We identified two of the three from our files. Nazis, of course, men in their fifties.” He sighed. “And I thought you and Mr. Cooper should be informed.”

  “I appreciate that, Colonel,” Peterson said. He was more shaken by Steynes’ story than by what he’d done to Milo Keepnews, and there must be, I thought, a moral somewhere in that.

  “Specifically, I thought you should be informed,” Steynes pressed on, “because of the identity of the three men. Two—the two we were able to identify—were associated with Gunter Brendel, your Gunter Brendel. One was employed by Brendel’s firm as a security man at the time of his death. The other actually appears in a photograph we have of Brendel taken a few years ago in the Tirol. The connection seems rather marked—”

  “Yes, yes,” Peterson interrupted. “We found out today that Cooper has been followed. He was surely followed when we went to Cat Island. And our friends began to make the connections.”

  “I would suggest that Mr. Cooper is in very grave danger.”

  “Well, yes—but not quite so grave as it was. You’ve done a hell of a job, Colonel.”

  Steynes gave the metallic, cold chuckle. “Surely, you would have expected nothing else, Mr. Peterson. After all, I have never met my match.”

  “You and I—we’re a lot alike,” Peterson said. And incredibly, Steynes laughed deeply, as if another man were there to do his big laughs for him.

  “Well then, be warned,” he said.

  “And how is Dawson?”

  “He is well, if just a bit chagrined by it all.”

  “We’re going to Munich,” Peterson said.

  “The woman? Who is she?”

  “We don’t know yet. We found her but we just don’t know for sure, not yet.”

  “One more thing—” Steynes said.

  “Yes?”

  There was a moment’s hesitation.

  “I’ve fired one of my little arrows.”

  “The target?”

  “Herr Brendel, I’m afraid. He is a dead man. I have sent my man. It’s time he died.”

  “Oh, Christ!” Peterson said, sucking in his breath. “No!”

  Germany

  ABOVE US THE BRIGHTLY COLORED people began to move in the clear cool breeze, the sky beyond the ornate, needlelike Gothic spires so blue it threatened turning white. The bay windows high above the Marienplatz arched over the figures, framed them as they began to move in the Glockenspiel. It was eleven o’clock. The coopers danced on the lower of the two levels; above them a tournament was taking place and far below we stood, along with some other tourists, and stared up at the tower of Munich’s New Town Hall.

  “It represents an event from the Landshut Princely Wedding. Duke Christoph of Munich raised hell with the Count of Lublin and carried the day.” Peterson turned to me deadpan.

  I stared at him in surprise.

  “Don’t worry, Cooper,” he said, beginning to move away. “It’s nothing to worry about. Happened in 1475. But I know these things.” He called back over his shoulder: “I’ve been here before.”

  We had flown to Vienna rather than directly to Munich, a maneuver Peterson had said would help to confuse any tails which had been assigned to us. In Vienna, we had switched to rail and arrived shortly before in the gleaming station in the center of downtown Munich. It was all a gamble, according to Peterson: if we were able to shake any would-be followers it was worth the lost time. We had to bet that Colonel Steynes’ assassin would be in no particular hurry. Once the hit was made on Brendel, Peterson was convinced that entirely new rules would govern the game and the problem was that we were just beginning to learn the old ones.

  The people in the clock tower, pretend people though they were, frightened me. Their tournament went on, each day, in the wind and the snow, and old Count Lublin came out and took his daily whipping from Duke Christoph, history being skewered on the Gothic needles and shafts. They were pretend people up above but I was becoming a pretend person, too, my humanity slipping away from me.

  I followed Peterson through the crowds in the Marienplatz but my mind was being allowed the dangerous opportunity to wander and catch a brief, realistic glimpse of what was happening to me. The brutality and danger of it all moved in a blur, in a sphere just beyond my grasp. There was so little left to cling to. There was Cyril, dependable, smiling, successful. There was the memory of my father. Brenner, the rock for the father I’d never really known, was there to set my compass by, to prove that I did in fact possess a reasonable past. But Brenner was in a coma, a sick old man whose time had finally begun to slip away.

  All my anchors, few as they were, proved absent and frail and insubstantial. And I had tried to replace them as best I
could with new ones, with Peterson and with the idea of my little sister Lee. That was what I had to count on. Peterson and Lee.

  And I had seen Peterson coolly kill a man in the toilet of a London waterfront pub. I had seen the excitement, the power moving in his face as he did it. Milo Keepnews was undoubtedly a killer and he had, in the game which was perhaps without rules, deserved to die. But there was the killer animal in Peterson and it had surfaced in that nasty, filthy death chamber.

  So what was left to cling to? Lee. …

  We were standing before a church.

  “Der Alte Peter,” Peterson said. “Saint Peter’s Church. Oldest in Munich, built it for the first time in the eleventh century. Look up there.” He pointed to the north side of the tower, plunged like an ancient dagger up to its hilt in the pale sky. “See the white disk? It means the view is good. We’ll see all the way up to the Alps.” He led the way. “It’s a long climb up Old Peter but worth it. Hell of a view.” I sighed, jolted out of my morose contemplations. “Come on, Cooper, we’ve got to talk. Follow me.”

  In the end I stood gasping in the thin cold air while Peterson prowled the perimeters of the platform. The wind whipped at us in sudden, unexpected bursts.

  Across the square, towering into the sky, were the twin blunted towers of the Frauenkirche, the worldwide symbol of the city. The cupolas were green with tarnish and age. We were alone at the top of the church but no nearer to God.

  Peterson clapped his arm around my shoulders in an uncharacteristic moment of warmth, but I shrank involuntarily. “Well, John, it’s time to do your stuff. You’ve come a long way to find your sister and you’ve been through more than you could possibly have bargained for. Well, now’s the time—she’s here, left London by plane with her blond young friend about the time we were having our interview with Mr. Keepnews.” He smiled. “No grass under my feet, thank you. While you slumbered I was on the blower to whatsisname at the Yard. A little checking—she’s here. And there’s no time to wait, not with Steynes’ little helper on the move. Contact her. Get it out of the way. We can’t really be in any deeper and since it’s what you’ve come for let’s get on with it. You can’t afford to be mooning around here in a daze anyway. Now. Right now.”

  I walked away, looked back at the Alps. Winds were shifting the blur between them and Munich. The sky was blue behind me, white toward the mountains.

  “Well, I’m scared. I’m frightened of calling her—”

  “It’s because you put it on such a personal basis. You think she knows how much it means to you, how important she has become to you, but of course she knows nothing of the kind. Who the hell knows what she may be? But, I’ll tell you this, the longer you fuck around preparing your ego for the plunge, the better the chance we go out of here in a box.” He cuffed my arm and walked away, disappeared down the stairwell.

  He was waiting for me at the bottom, clapping his gloved hands together for warmth. My legs shook from the descent.

  “Germans make lovely churches,” he said. “Too bad they keep wanting to rule the world.” Everywhere I looked spires pointed toward the sky.

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll call her.”

  There were fresh flowers in a colorful, gilded papier-mâché vase on the desk next to the telephone. The Bayerischer Hof was another exercise in Peterson’s hotelsmanship. My stomach felt as if I’d been poisoned and at the other end the telephone was ringing.

  To the German-speaking woman who answered, I said with an awful flutter: “Frau Brendel, bitte.”

  A pause, silence, another telephone lifted, a click from the first being replaced. Peterson sat by a window looking out into the early-afternoon winter shadows in the Promenadplatz. Particles of dust hung in the room’s still, warm sunrays.

  “Lise Brendel.”

  “Hello.” I swallowed. “We’ve not met, Mrs. Brendel, but my name is John Cooper. Do you mind speaking English? I’m a failure at German, I’m afraid.”

  “English is all right, actually—mine is very good. Your name is … Cooper?” She spoke with a distinctly English accent which took me by surprise.

  “Yes, John Cooper. I’m an American. And what I want to discuss with you is—well, very difficult to go into over the telephone.”

  Silence.

  “But I’ve come to Munich only to see you. It’s a highly personal matter, you see.” I sighed. Peterson’s eyes were closed. I felt innocent and silly. “Ah, might we meet soon? At your convenience, of course, but … soon.” I stopped to breathe and left it to her.

  “Important? Important to whom, Mr. Cooper?” There was a mocking quality but it was impossible to tell if she was smiling.

  “To me, Mrs. Brendel. But possibly also to you.”

  “Yes, of course, I know … important to both of us. I fully understand.” There was a long pause. “You are the second man named Cooper who has called on me.”

  “Cyril Cooper—he spoke with you?”

  “Oh, yes, just as you are.”

  “Did you see him?”

  “Yes, naturally I saw him. Are you a relative? A brother, then?”

  “Yes, his brother.”

  “Look, we’d better get this settled, hadn’t we?” She was sounding less distant, more matter of fact. “Do you know Munich, Mr. Cooper?”

  “No.” My heart was fluttering again.

  “I certainly can’t see you here, at our home. That’s impossible—my husband was very patient about Cooper Number One, but another complete stranger coming out of absolutely nowhere?”

  “You saw my brother at your home? He met your husband?”

  “Of course. But I think twice would be pushing things a bit.” She paused. “I don’t quite understand what it all means.”

  “Are you my sister, Mrs. Brendel?” Peterson’s head snapped around; he’d been rubbing his eyes, now peered at me from between spread fingers.

  “I really can’t speak to you over the telephone, Mr. Cooper. There’s a section called Schwabing, the old artists’ section. There’s a man who lives there, Doctor Gerhard Roeschler. He is my dear friend and I can meet you there. Let’s see, this afternoon I have my dancing class. Ah, this evening, is that soon enough, Mr. Cooper? Nine o’clock?”

  She gave me the address and I wrote it down on Bayerischer Hof notepaper. I was about to say goodbye when she stopped me.

  “How is your brother? Well, I hope.”

  “We’ll talk about it, Mrs. Brendel. Tonight. And thank you for … you know, for taking me seriously.”

  “And why shouldn’t I, Mr. Cooper? You’re not joking with me, are you?”

  “I’m serious,” I said.

  She hung up and I looked at Peterson.

  He smiled at me, the sunshine bleaching the color out of his face.

  The street was lined with rickety, makeshift stands and wobbling trestle tables. Paraffin lamps glowed softly in the cold, clear night. Poplars, black like solid shadows, had clothesline strung between them, and paintings and drawings hung from the line by hooks and wooden pins. Artists stood by the tables wearing navy peacoats, leather-fringed jackets, and worn, faded denim. Beards curled over collars, long hair drooped on shoulders, an occasional whiff of marijuana hung in the near-freezing night. The crowd was thick-chested and hearty, the artists thin, young for the most part. A sign in English hung between two trees: THE SOUL OF BAVARIA—MADNESS AND ECCENTRICITY. A good deal of English punctuated the German conversation. Many women were beautiful and fashionable and from the back a dozen of them might easily have been Lee … Lise Brendel. It was like a freezing festival. People laughed and made jokes as we passed.

  We turned off onto a sidestreet of espresso bars, ice cream parlors, small nightclubs. Tinny music from rock bands filtered out, people spilled onto the street, and we kept moving away, into the darkness. There was a clammy quality to the night as if rain or snow was readying itself somewhere. My own apprehension grew. Lee was waiting.

  We turned again as Peterson followed the direct
ions, up a slight incline of paving stones, the noise very faint behind us.

  Roeschler lived in half of a flat-fronted two-story building, very old and plain, lights dim behind heavy draperies in a downstairs window. My stomach was turning over: something in me longed to flee, be gone.

  The door opened as we knocked.

  He was a large old man with a shock of unruly white hair, wearing an open-necked plaid woolen shirt, baggy pants, and carpet slippers. “Come in out of the cold,” he said, guiding us through a drafty, dark hall and into the warm, cluttered sitting room. A fire crackled. Antimacassars clung to heavy old rocking chairs, books stood behind glass doors, a couple of fat old tabbies stretched and gave us long, disinterested looks and settled back where they lay. The wallpaper bore a small, complex pattern and there was the faint aroma of schnapps and cabbage soup.

  “I am Gerhard Roeschler,” he said, taking our coats and hanging them on an old floor-stand by the door, “and you must be Mr. Cooper.” He shook my hand, smiling widely, his hand dry and thick. “And you”—he turned to Peterson, without breaking stride—“must be Mr. Peterson—aha, you’re surprised!” He chuckled and shook his head, lowering himself into a huge rocker, motioning us into deep chairs. The room was parched from the fire. “Well, your reputation precedes you, Mr. Peterson, it truly does, though I must have my secrets. And I have so many—” He slapped the arm of the rocker, smiling. He adjusted round spectacles and peered at us, the smile fading.

  He poured us schnapps in tiny cut-glass goblets and a fat tortoiseshell cat leaped soundlessly into his lap. His shirt was covered with cat hair. He lifted his glass. “To your long journey, gentlemen, and may it bear fruit.”

  We drank and he grew serious, wiping his great wide mouth with the back of his hand, skin wrinkling.

  “Lise just called me, Mr. Cooper, and asked me to apologize for her. She cannot leave her home this evening. Tomorrow, however, she will meet you in the English Park and I will give you instructions.” He saw the disappointment in my face, stroked his cat’s ears while it purred, said: “Perhaps it’s just as well, Mr. Cooper. This way we can talk quite freely among ourselves—you must not expect me to tell you why, but I’m prepared to give you a good deal of information about Lise Brendel.”