by Neil Maresca
“That man!” Mrs. Van der Berg repeated, “Something must to be done about him!”
De Groot wanted to send for a doctor to examine Anke’s injuries, but she refused, protesting that she was alright and had a lot of errands to run. So she left the warmth and comfort of Professor de Groot’s office and reentered the world of cold and ice. The wind had abated, but flecks of wet snow still floated down from a slate gray sky. She wrapped herself in her coat and sleepwalked her way to the Beestenmarkt, completely self-absorbed.
She sat in her usual place, alone except for a few schoolchildren trying unsuccessfully to scrape together enough snow to make snowballs. This time, however, she did not sit on the side of the bench, but in her more customary position—in the middle. She was no longer expecting company.
In the journey from de Groot’s office to the Beestenmarkt, it had become clear to her that it didn’t matter whether Lucas was in captivity, dead, or in America, he was gone—gone from Leiden, gone from her, gone as surely and completely as her mother was gone. America? Dead? There was no real difference. And she saw the irony of it, and felt its bitterness. Lucas was lost to her forever, and he had taken any chance she had of happiness with him—whether to the grave or to America hardly mattered.
So she sat on her bench and watched the day’s detritus drift downstream toward the North Sea. She sat unmoving even as the sky darkened, and the last child ran home eagerly anticipating a warm home and hot dinner. And sometime after darkness fell, she rose from her bench, walked to the bridge that crossed the canal, stepped over the barrier, and dropped into the swirling, black water. Her last thoughts were that maybe she would float down to the North Sea into the Atlantic, and someday wash up on the shores of America where Lucas and her mother would be waiting for her.
Chapter 58
May, 1957
Landstuhl Army Medical Center
Frankfurt, Germany
“When did you learn about Anke?”
“Strickland told me yesterday. He mentioned it in passing after filling me in on the official version of things. He blamed her death on grief over Peter, who, he assumed, she was in love with. He had no knowledge whatsoever about me and Anke, and I saw no reason to mention it.”
“How did you feel when you heard?”
“How do you think I felt? I hurt!. I hurt bad! Just because I don’t go around crying over it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt!”
“No, I only ask because I was checking my notes, and during our first conversation you said you felt ‘nothing’ when you killed László.”
“I lied. We’re all liars. Don’t you know that—The Russians, the Germans, Strickland, me, all of us.”
“I should still like to know what you felt.”
“I don’t know…regret maybe, and a little anger.”
“Regret? Do mean you are sorry you killed him?”
“No. I mean I felt regret that I could only kill him once. He killed my father, my brother and my friend. He owed me three lives, but he had only one to give. If there is an afterlife, I will find him there and kill him again—and again.”
Rosenfeld closed his notebook and put down his pen. He did not write what Lucas had said.
“We’re finished?”
“Yes Lucas, we are finished.”
“What’s your verdict? Am I sane?”
“I seriously doubt it, but that’s not my concern. Besides, I’m not sure I really know what ‘sane’ is. All of us are a little bit mad.”
“If you weren’t evaluating my sanity, what were you evaluating?”
“Your trustworthiness. Strickland is interested in recruiting you for the CIA, but he needs to know if he can trust you.”
“And what will you tell him?”
“Oh, I already told him that he could trust you with his life.”
“That was rash. I don’t really like Strickland.”
“What will you tell him when he asks you to join the CIA?”
“I’ll think it over. I have some unfinished business in Leiden.”
“If you are referring to Pietr Roosa, save yourself the trip. I just heard that he was killed in a workplace accident.”
“Pity.”
“Do you think the Russians did it to shut him up?”
“Possibly, but we’ll never know. As I said before, everybody lies.”
“And that ‘package’ that Peter picked up in Berlin—any idea what that was?”
“None. Strickland says he doesn’t know either—‘above his pay grade’—but he wouldn’t tell me anyway. For all I know, it was a shopping list, and Peter died for a loaf of bread and gallon of milk.”
“And how does that make you feel?”
“Angry. During our last conversation, Peter said that he felt like he was being used, that his life, and mine, and Kate’s, and Anke’s, and even yours Doctor, are merely pieces in a game so vast we can see neither the beginning nor the ending of it, nor understand its purpose. It is a game in which our hopes and dreams, loves and lives count for nothing.”
“What do you intend to do about it, Lucas?”
“I have no choice. I have to play the game. I was dealt in a long time ago. And since I am already involved, I plan on taking as many enemy pieces off the board as I can.”
THE END
