She put on her glasses and began to open Eve’s mail.
There were three bills. After scanning the electricity statement, she flipped to the credit-card bill. Eve had used it only twice last month. Both items were purchases made at Harrod’s, and both were listed as women’s apparel.
She slit open the third bill. It was for the telephone. Quickly she glanced over the list of charges and was about to set it aside with the other two bills when one word leaped out at her from the bottom of the page: Berlin. It was a long-distance call, made on an evening two weeks earlier.
She clutched Nick’s arm. “Look at this! The last entry.”
His eyes widened, and he snatched the bill from her fingers. “This call was made the day of the fire!”
“She told me she tried to call him, remember? She must have known where he’d be in Berlin—”
“But to be so careless—to leave a trail like this—”
“Maybe it wasn’t to him directly. Maybe this is a go-between. A contact. She didn’t know what had happened to him or where he was. Nick, she must have been at wit’s end…so she called Berlin. I wonder what this number is.”
“We can’t try it. Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“A long-distance call at this point might scare off any contact. Let’s wait till we hit Berlin.” He began to throw things back into her purse. “Tomorrow we’ll catch the commuter line out of the city. From Düsseldorf we can get the express. I’ll buy all the tickets. I think it’s better if we board separately and meet inside the train.”
“What happens when we get to Berlin?”
“We’ll call the number and see who answers. I’ve got an old friend in the Berlin consulate, Wes Corrigan. He might be able to do our legwork.”
“Can we trust him?”
“I think so. We were posted together in Honduras. He was okay….”
“You said we couldn’t trust anyone.”
He nodded soberly. “We’ve got no choice, Sarah. It’s a risk we have to take. I’m gambling on friendship….” He suddenly saw the worry in her eyes. Without a word he took her in his arms and pulled her down with him onto the pillows. It was a feeble attempt to banish the fear they both felt.
“What an awful feeling, to be caught without a future,” she whispered. “If I look too far ahead, all I see is Eve.”
“You’re not Eve.”
“That’s what scares me. Eve knew what she was doing. She knew how to survive. Now she’s dead. What chance do I have?”
“If it’s any small comfort, you have me.”
She touched his face and smiled. “Yes. I have you. Why am I so lucky?”
“Windmills, I guess.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Lieberman said they used to call me Don Quixote, for all my tilting at windmills. Funny. I never knew I cut such a ridiculous figure.”
“Am I another one of your windmills?”
“No. Not you.” His lips brushed her hair. “You’re more than that, now.”
“You don’t have to stay with me, Nick. I’m the one they want. You could go home—”
“Shh, Sarah.”
“If you left me, I’d understand. Really I would.”
“And what would you do on your own? You can’t speak a word of German. Your French is—well, it’s…quaint. No, you need me.”
There it was again. Need. Yes, he was right. She needed him.
“Besides,” he said, “I can’t leave you now.”
“Why not?”
He laughed softly. “Because I’m now an unemployed bum. And when this is all over, I plan to live off your income.”
She rose up on her elbow and gazed at him. He was squinting up drowsily, and the bare lightbulb cast strange shadows over his face. “Nick. My sweet Don Quixote.” Gently she lowered her mouth to his and placed a kiss on his lips. “Here’s to Berlin,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he murmured, pulling her against him. “To Berlin.”
* * *
DAWN, BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL. The train tracks, which a moment before had been a wet, dismal gray, suddenly gleamed like gold in the morning light. Wisps of steam curled from the rails. On the platform where Sarah now stood, commuters were already shedding raincoats and scarves. It would be warm today, and as bright as an April day should be. Schoolgirls dressed in uniforms lingered in the sunshine with their eyes closed and their faces turned like flowers to the sky. It had been a long, wet winter for Belgium, and the country was yearning for spring.
Nick and Sarah stood a dozen yards apart on the platform, exchanging only the briefest of glances. Nick was unrecognizable. With his cap pulled low and a cigarette hanging precariously from his mouth, he slouched against a platform post and scowled at the world.
From the distance came the clackity-clack of an approaching train. It was a signal that drew people from their benches. Like a wave, they flowed to the platform’s edge as the train to Antwerp rolled gently to a stop. A stream of departing passengers emerged: businessmen in wool suits, students in regimental blue jeans and backpacks, smartly dressed women who would soon return home with their shopping bags full.
From her position near the end of the queue, Sarah saw Nick crush his cigarette under his heel and board the train. Seconds later, his face appeared at a window. They did not look at each other.
The line grew shorter. Only a few yards more, and she would be safely on board. Then, from her peripheral vision, came a strange flash of light. A sudden premonition of fear made her turn slowly toward its source. It was sunshine, reflected off a pair of silvered glasses.
She froze. By the ticket window stood a man with pale hair, a man whose gaze was fixed on the train door. Though he was partly hidden behind the platform post, Sarah saw enough of his face to recognize him. Her blood ran cold. It was the same man who’d stared at her through the window of the blue Peugeot. The man with the death’s-head grin.
And she was headed straight for his line of vision.
CHAPTER TEN
HER FIRST IMPULSE was to turn and run, to lose herself in the vast crowd of commuters. But any sudden movement now would surely draw his attention. She couldn’t turn back. The man would see her break away and he would wonder. She had to keep moving forward, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t recognize her.
Frantically she searched the train for the window where she’d seen Nick’s face. If only she could signal for help! But the window was too far behind; she couldn’t see him.
At the head of the line, an elderly passenger had dropped his ticket on the ground. Slowly he bent down to retrieve it. Dear God, please hurry! she prayed. The longer she stood here, the longer she could be studied. Swallowing her panic, she struggled to assume the role she’d chosen, that of a sickly Belgian wife. Keeping her eyes lowered, she clutched her purse tightly in her arms. Beneath her breast her heart was thudding. The black wig felt like a blessed shield against the man’s eyes. Perhaps the wig would be enough. The man was looking for a woman with reddish-brown hair. Perhaps he wouldn’t notice her.
“Madame?”
She flinched at the hand on her arm. An old man was tugging at her sleeve. Stupidly she stared at him as he spoke to her in loud, rapid French. She tried to jerk her arm away, but he trailed after her, waving a woman’s scarf. Again he repeated his question and pointed to the ground. With sudden comprehension she shook her head and gestured that no, she had not dropped the scarf. The old man shrugged and walked away.
Almost in tears, she turned to climb aboard. But someone stood in her way.
She raised her head and saw her own terrified face reflected in a pair of mirrored sunglasses.
The blond man smiled. “Madame?” he said softly. “Come…”
“No. No!” she whispered, backing away.
He moved toward her and something in his hand glinted, an object whose image burned its way like a hot iron into her brain. She thought of the arc the four-inch blade would follow; she anticipated th
e pain of its thrust. She felt herself falling dizzily backward and then realized it wasn’t her own movement, but the train’s. It was leaving her behind.
She caught a glimpse of the train door receding slowly down the final fifty yards of the platform. Her last chance to escape.
Sarah sensed the man moving closer. His momentum carried him forward, toward a prey he thought would turn and run.
And she did run. But in the opposite direction. Instead of turning to flee, she dashed past him, after the departing train.
The unexpected move bought her a precious split second. He was caught totally off balance.
The train was picking up speed. Only a dozen yards of platform were left before it would move beyond her reach. Her feet seemed weighted with lead; she heard his footsteps behind her, and they were gaining. With her heart close to exploding, she sprinted the last few yards. The grab bar hovered only inches away. Then her fingers touched cold steel. She fought to hold on, to pull herself aboard.
She scrambled onto the steps and collapsed, gasping for air. Buildings and gardens flashed by, fast-moving images of light and color. The ache in her throat dissolved into an incomprehensible sob of relief. I made it, she thought. I made it....
A shadow swung across the sunlight. The step creaked with a terrible new weight, and a chill settled like frost on her shoulders, a foreshadowing of her own death. She had no strength left to fight and nowhere left to retreat. She could do nothing but huddle there as the man towered above her.
The pace of the train quickened. It pounded in her head and drowned out everything else, even the thudding of her heart. You can’t be real, she thought. You’re not a man, you’re a nightmare!
Paralyzed, she watched as he bent toward her, blotting out the last bits of sunshine. She waited to be swallowed up in his shadow.
Then, from somewhere behind her, came a low sound of rage. She sensed the movement more than saw it, a savage thrust of a foot as it connected with flesh. The shadow looming before her toppled backward with a groan.
The blond man seemed to hang forever, suspended in an endless fall. Sunlight flickered on the sallow face; the glasses slid away. Almost as if by magic, he dropped from the steps, and his parting curse was lost in the train’s clatter. She caught one last glimpse of him, scrambling to his knees in the gravel below, and then he disappeared from view. Somehow she was still living, breathing; the nightmare had been shaken free.
“Sarah! My God….”
Rough hands wrenched her upward, away from the edge, away from death. With a shudder she fell into Nick’s arms. There he held her so tightly she could feel the drumbeat of his heart.
“It’s all right,” he murmured over and over. “It’s all right.”
“Who is he?” she cried. “Why won’t he leave us alone!”
“Sarah, listen to me. Listen! We’ve got to get off this train. We’ve got to change course before he intercepts us—”
And then what? she wanted to scream. Where did they go next?
He glanced at the scenery hurtling past. They were moving too fast to jump off. “The next stop,” he said. “We’ll have to travel some other way. Walk. Hitchhike. Once we cross the Dutch border, we can catch another train east.”
She clung to him, not really hearing his words. The danger had taken on wild, irrational proportions. The man in the sunglasses had turned into something more than human. He was supernatural, beyond any horror that existed in the real world. She closed her eyes, and in her mind she saw him waiting for her at the next train station, and the next. Even Nick could not hold him off forever.
She stared ahead at the train tracks and prayed that the next stop would come soon. They had to get off before they were trapped. Blending into the countryside was their only chance.
But as far as she could see, the tracks stretched on without end. And it seemed to her that the train had turned into a steel coffin, bearing them straight into the arms of a killer.
* * *
KRONEN EXAMINED HIS bruised face in the mirror, and a wave of unspeakable anger rose inside him like hot magma. For the second time, the woman had escaped. He had had her in his grasp, there on the platform, but she had startled him by dashing off in an unexpected direction. Then, to be kicked like an animal off the train just as he’d caught up with her—that was the part that enraged him most.
Kronen slammed his fist into the mirror. Twice, this man, Nick O’Hara, had gotten in his way. Who was he, anyway? CIA? A friend of Simon Dance? Whoever he was, he’d be a dead man when Kronen found him and Sarah again.
Finding them, however, was going to be a difficult matter.
They had disappeared. By the time Kronen’s associates had intercepted the train at Antwerp, the woman and her companion had vanished. They could be anywhere. He had no idea where they were headed or why.
He’d have to call the old man again for help. The prospect made Kronen at first apprehensive and then angry—at the woman, for escaping, at her companion, for interfering. She’d pay dearly for all the trouble she’d caused him.
Kronen put on his sunglasses. The bruise was plainly visible over his right cheekbone. It was a humiliating reminder that he’d been bested by such an unassuming creature as Sarah Fontaine.
But this was only a temporary setback. The old man would be looking for her, and his eyes were everywhere, even in the most unexpected places. Yes, they would find her again.
She couldn’t hide forever.
* * *
IT WAS THE pigeons flapping overhead that awakened Sarah. She opened her eyes. By the gentle light of dusk, she saw smooth stone walls, the fluttering of wings and the mill’s wooden shaft revolving slowly. A pigeon settled on a window ledge high above and began to coo. The gears of the windmill creaked and groaned, like the timbers of an old ship. As she lay there in the straw, she was filled with a strange sense of wonder, and a fear that she had few such moments left to live. Oh, but she was so hungry for life! She’d never known such hunger. Only now, as the pigeons flapped and the sunlight faded, did she realize how precious each moment had become. And she owed them all to Nick.
She turned and smiled at him. He was sleeping beside her in the straw, his hands clasped behind his neck, his chest rising and falling. Poor, exhausted Nick. They had hitched a ride across the Dutch border; then they had walked, miles and miles it seemed. Now they were less than a mile from the next train station. But Sarah had balked at the thought of boarding another train. We’ll wait until dark, he’d said. They’d found a place to rest, a windmill in the fields, and in their stone tower they’d both dropped immediately to sleep.
Berlin, she thought. Will we ever make it?
She curled up against Nick and listened to his steady breathing. With a shudder he awakened, and his arm came around and encircled her.
“It’ll be dark soon,” she whispered.
“Mmm-hmm.”
“I wish we never had to leave this place.”
He sighed deeply. “So do I.”
For a moment they lay together, listening to the creak of the gears, to the sails flapping in the wind. Suddenly he laughed.
“How ironic,” he said. “Brave Don Quixote, hiding out in a windmill. I can hear ’em now, laughing in London.”
“Laughing? Why?”
“Because dumb O’Hara’s back in trouble.”
She smiled. “In trouble, maybe. But not dumb. Never dumb.”
“Thanks for the vote.”
She studied him curiously. “You sound so bitter, Nick. Is the foreign service that bad?”
“No. It’s a great job. If you can smother your conscience. When you join up, they make you sign this paper. It says, essentially, ‘When in public, I swear to always toe the party line.’ I signed it.”
“Big mistake, huh?”
“When I think of all the asinine policies I had to uphold. And then there were the cocktail parties. Night after night of standing around, trying not to get drunk on the sherry. The games we used
to play with the Russians! Baiting Ivan, we called it. We were like little kids, trying to learn each other’s secrets.”
“Ah. Diplomacy is hell.”
He smiled. “But not as bad as war.”
“I used to think you were just another bureaucrat.”
“Yep, that’s me, shuffling papers all day.”
“Oh, Nick, you’re the most unbureaucratic man I know! And believe me, I’ve known quite a few!”
“Men?”
“No, silly. Bureaucrats. Those guys in Washington who dole out my grant money. You’re not like them. You’re… involved.”
“Damn right I’m involved,” he said with a laugh. “Not just with me. With the world. Most people can’t be bothered with anything outside their immediate existence. But you go out and fight for strangers.”
“No, I don’t. I used to. When I was in college, all those issues mattered to me. Believe it or not, Tim Greenstein and I once spent a very cold night in jail. We got arrested for illegal assembly on the chancellor’s doorstep. But you know, these days, people don’t seem to care about the world anymore. Maybe we all got older.” He touched her face. “Or maybe we all found more important things to care about.”
The pigeons suddenly flapped their wings, and straw fluttered down like bits of gold raining in from the window. They both sat up, and he began picking the pieces of straw from her hair.
“And what were you like in college?” he asked. “Very well-behaved, I’d imagine.”
“Diligent.”
“Of course.”
“Up until now I was very good at ignoring distractions.”
“Such as men?”
She tapped his nose lightly and grinned. “Such as men.”
For a long time they looked at each other. Her ears were filled with the sound of her own heartbeat and the creak of the mill as it turned in the wind.
“Now I wonder what I missed,” she whispered.
Call After Midnight Page 14
