A Gathering of Spies

by John Altman

  Somewhere in the distance, a foghorn wailed.

  A cramp stitched his side. He kept climbing, gritting his teeth. Too old for this, he thought. Too old, too heavy. Oh, but it all had gone to hell. He wanted to blame Winterbotham—Winterbotham, the old fool, God damn him to hell—but he could not blame Winterbotham without blaming himself. After all, he had been the one who had brought Winterbotham into the game. He had known his friend’s reputation. He had taken a chance, and now it was coming back to haunt him.

  Perhaps he should have made directly for the lighthouse upon arriving, he thought, instead of for the beach. But how could he have known they would be in the lighthouse? No, his logic had been sound. Secure the beach, prevent the escape, then work his way back to the lighthouse. And Christ, the cramp in his side hurt. Christ, but it burned like fire. Christ, but he was out of shape. He kept climbing anyway. Should have scuttled the dinghy, he realized suddenly. Should have scuttled the dinghy so it wouldn’t matter if they made it to the beach. He should turn around and do it now. But something wouldn’t allow him to move away from the sound of the gunfire, no matter how legitimate his reason. To move away from the fight would have been to admit his failure as a man of action—to admit that his only contributions to the game would be limited to intellectual acrobatics, forevermore.

  Finally he came off the path, onto the clifftop. He was panting loudly. He staggered through the fog on legs gone spongy, panting like a dog on a hot afternoon. Worthless, he thought. Worthless in a fight. Look at him. He was …

  A man passed in front of him no more than two feet away.

  Taylor stopped, staring. He had caught a glimpse of lustrous black.

  None of the men in his party had been dressed in lustrous black.

  The SS, on the other hand, were known to favor it.

  Still panting, he gave chase.

  Katarina Heinrich, witnessing the murder of Klaus Gruber, experienced a sudden rush of adrenaline.

  She blinked, lifting her head. She blinked again and then suddenly she remembered the packet of amphetamine dust tucked into her shoe. She had forgotten it. Stupid, lazy, weak …

  She clawed it out, fumbled it open, brought it to her face, inhaled sharply.

  She managed to get her leg under herself, to throw her weight against the wall, to begin pulling herself to her feet. Gruber, the Abwehr man, was tumbling backward. In the muted kerosene glow coming from the study, Katarina could see his face—what was left of it—sliding off his skull like snow sheeting off a mountainside under a hot sun.

  Now Winterbotham was turning, the gun coming around to bear. Katarina had no illusions about what would happen if he was allowed to complete his turn. She would be shot down in cold blood.

  So she attacked.

  She flung herself at Winterbotham, and the bullet moved inside her, and she went soft and weak all over. Her legs fell out from under her. The blow, which had been intended for his face, glanced harmlessly off his chest. Then she was on the cold, mossy floor again, waves of vertigo rushing over her. All of her wounds, it seemed, had reopened; she was slicked with blood. She moaned thickly. She rolled over, onto her back. Her eyes wanted to close. She felt tired, so tired …

  Her heart thudded, double time. The amphetamine had reached her central nervous system.

  Winterbotham was stepping away, aiming the gun at her.

  She kicked up. The kick cost her; she felt something tear inside. But her foot hit the gun solidly, spinning it out of Winterbotham’s hands, sending it end over end into the shadows.

  Katarina used the momentum of the kick to roll herself over, onto her feet. There was so much agony inside her that she had given up trying to keep track of it all. She hurt, very badly.

  She pushed the pain away.

  Focused.

  Came at Winterbotham, snapping a kick at his face, ignoring the ripping sensation in her belly.

  He raised a hand to defend himself. The kick connected with his forearm. She immediately aimed a sharp jab at his head. This time she hit her mark. He staggered backward, dazed.

  She took a moment to check her balance, and went for him again.

  She sent a round kick toward his chest. He pulled back, cowering into the wall. Then, as the force of her kick turned her around, he moved forward, thinking that she would be most vulnerable when her back was facing him. Just as she had hoped. She leapt up immediately, spinning 180 degrees in the air, and caught him across the bridge of the nose with a crescent kick.

  He went down.

  She landed heavily on the balls of her feet. Bleeding everywhere, pain running through her body in an intricate network, breath rasping in and out of her lungs. But she had done it. He was down.

  A wave of nausea took her; she stumbled.

  He was up again.

  They circled each other.

  Blood poured down his face. His massive hands opened and closed. His eyes were small and bright and hot.

  He feinted; she backed off. She feinted, and he blocked. Biding his time. She would have done the same, had she been in his position. He could see how badly she was hurt. Each passing second meant lost blood.

  Run, she thought. Run for the beach.

  But she would never make it, not if he gave pursuit. Either she dealt with Winterbotham now, or she gave up and surrendered.

  She went for him again.

  A feint with the left, another feint with the left, a jab with the right. He moved back quickly, ducked the first, ducked the second, and grabbed for her wrist after the third. Too slow; she spun, stepped into him backward, and drove her elbow into his kidney. He gasped. She reached over her shoulders and grabbed his throat. Threw her weight forward, trying to roll him over her shoulder, to hurl him to the floor on his back.

  But he outweighed her by more than a hundred pounds, and he had set his bulk solidly on wide-spread feet. She pulled for a moment, to no effect. Then he landed a blow on the side of her head, spilling her to the cold floor.

  She heard bells ringing, distantly.

  She gasped, swallowed blood.

  Tried to stand up, couldn’t.

  Her eyes were closed. She could feel her grandmother stroking her face. Getting her ready for bed.

  Open your eyes, Katarina.

  She tried. Couldn’t. Tried again.

  Winterbotham’s back was facing her. He was crouched over, digging through the shadows. Looking for the gun, no doubt, so he could put an end to her.

  She struggled up. Dizzy. But if he got the gun …

  She dove for him.

  He turned and then they rolled to the floor together, hands at each other’s throat.

  Hagen was improvising.

  He was running, but running could also be considered leading, and so he was leading, leading the men away from Katarina. There were three men behind him, two professionals and one amateur. The amateur, who was closest, was breathing so hard that Hagen thought he must be on the verge of a heart attack.

  He had been running (leading) long enough to have come off the grass, to have crossed briefly across a strip of road, and to have entered the edge of a forest. Now, surrounded by fragrant trees, with his pursuers having fallen temporarily behind, he was able to take stock of his situation.

  He could hear the clumsy amateur blundering through the foliage. He changed direction, moving a few steps at an angle perpendicular to the one he had been following. Then he stopped, and took refuge behind a tree. He regulated his breathing and listened. Once the amateur had blundered past, Hagen would walk a circle back through the forest—a wide, cautious circle, which would put him behind the pair from Scotland Yard. Then, assuming he had thrown off the pursuit, he would return to the lighthouse and Katarina. It would rankle him to let these men escape, but he needed to put such superficial concerns aside. He needed to stay focused on the mission.

  Now he could hear the amateur approaching, trampling branches. The man was still unable to catch his breath, it seemed, although the dense trees h
ad forced him to slow to a walk.

  Hagen waited. Instead of moving past, the amateur was slowing … slowing … and then stopping, not very far away. From the tortured sound of his respiration, Hagen guessed that he was simply unable to go any farther.

  Hagen leaned cautiously out from behind the tree. He could see the man’s silhouette in the gloom, bent at the waist, hands on his thighs just above the knees, very nearby.

  Hagen turned and slipped away through the forest.

  He had taken but a single step before his foot landed on a twig. The twig snapped, more loudly than he would have thought possible.

  He flung himself down even as he was aware, vaguely, of the amateur raising his gun and firing.

  The gun went off very close to Hagen’s head, but the bullet drove harmlessly into the underbrush. Before the man had a chance to fire again, Hagen had skittered away, snaking between the trees, disappearing into the forest.

  He began to thread his way back toward the lighthouse. He could hear nothing except a ringing tone that seemed to emanate from the base of his skull.

  He cursed bitterly to himself. He had no luck tonight, it seemed. The gunshot had been too close to his head.

  He was deaf.

  Katarina dug her fingers into Winterbotham’s throat.

  She was on top of him. He was trying to roll her over, to reverse their positions, but that would be the end of it—she couldn’t let that happen.

  She squeezed as hard as she could, pressing her thumbs viciously into his trachea. His face was red, turning redder by the minute. But her own face must have been red, too, because his hands also were wrapped around her throat, squeezing just as hard as she was—if not harder.

  She hissed, willing him to die.

  Winterbotham’s eyes were calm. How could he look so calm?

  Die, she thought.

  But he was too heavy, too strong. She was too small, too weak, too soft …

  Veils of gauze dipped over her vision. The bullet was still inside her, wandering.

  Now he was turning her over, settling his weight on top of her. She was helpless to prevent it.

  And still his fingers dug into her throat mercilessly.

  Suddenly, Gladys was there, watching quietly. Fritz and Hagen were standing beside each other, applauding. A spring breeze was blowing, teasing the fields into motion. Lilac and lavender, campion and convolvulus …

  She was back on the mossy floor of the lighthouse. She could hear her own breath raking in and out of her lungs.

  His hands ever tighter around her throat.

  She felt suddenly sad. To have come all this way and have it end like this … But the sadness was not without a sweetness. She wrapped it around herself, this strange, unexpected melancholy, and inspected it curiously. She had tried and failed, but at least she had tried. She had been true to herself. And she had avoided the gallows. That was something.

  She looked into Winterbotham’s face. It was no longer red; now it was gray and translucent. The wall behind it looked the same. Her own hands, beating weakly against his chest, were the hands of a ghost.

  She sighed in sudden ecstasy. Why, there was no more pain! All of the pain had vanished!

  She tried to open her mouth, to thank him for taking away the pain. No words came out; the breath rattled in her throat.

  Winterbotham kept squeezing.

  Her thoughts turned very cool and clear, very precise. She could feel herself slipping the last few degrees into death. She saw, with terrible clarity, her mistake: She had tried to strangle him. But strangling was inefficient. If she had not been wounded, feverish, and exhausted, she never would have tried to strangle him.

  Perhaps, she thought then, it was not too late to correct her mistake.

  She decided to execute a back roll, flipping him over her head. She would roll with him, of course, landing with her knees on his biceps, rupturing the muscles there. Then a driving palm heel to his chin, snapping his neck.

  She tried; but she had no strength. He barely rocked on top of her.

  Just the palm heel, then.

  She drove the heel of her palm into his chin.

  He ignored it.

  That left the eyes.

  She tried to poke Winterbotham in his left eye.

  He took one hand away from her throat to block the strike. She immediately executed an out-to-in cross block on his other arm, spilling him forward.

  She kneed him in the groin.

  Then he was off her, gasping.

  She half stood, stumbled to the door, collapsed, half stood again, found the doorknob, sucked in an agonized breath, twisted the knob, threw her shoulder against the door, tumbled out into the fog, and collapsed again.

  She got to her feet again.

  Drew another breath, which burned.

  And ran, stumbling, for her life.

  On the road between Hagen and the lighthouse, six Wolesley sedans pulled to a stop behind the five already there.

  Special agents poured forth, twelve in all. They had come from Whitley Bay. Many held firearms; all milled about in confusion. There was not a leader among them, not even a man of higher rank than the rest. They spoke among themselves in normal voices, debating the best course of action.

  Thirty feet away, and approaching rapidly, was Hagen.

  Winterbotham stood, dazed.

  He needed to get to the beach. But the woman had gotten away from him. Must he follow her? Or would Taylor take care of her? He had heard more cars pull up outside. He had heard another gunshot from far away, in the direction of the forest.

  Taylor had found him somehow. Schroeder, he thought. Schroeder must have survived and told him about their arrangement.

  Follow the woman? Or try for the beach?

  The clock continued to roll forward; the U-boat would not be waiting forever.

  The beach, he decided. And Ruth.

  He found the pistol on the floor and checked the load. Two bullets.

  He stepped out into the foggy night.

  Activity to his left, invisible through the mist. He turned right.

  He strode toward the ocean, feeling surprisingly calm.

  He reached the path leading down the cliff and began to negotiate it cautiously.

  Lunacy, he thought. Lunacy, what you’re about to do.

  Perhaps, and perhaps not. In any case, he was doing it.

  He reached the beach proper. He spied the dinghy, abandoned on the sand, oars glistening. He began to move toward it.

  Then Kendall materialized from behind a low pile of rocks, gun in hand.

  When Hagen emerged into the midst of the Special Forces, both were surprised.

  Hagen recovered first.

  A round kick sent the man closest to him onto the ground, dazed. A spinning hook kick put another man down with a broken neck. Then, before the agents could figure out quite what was happening, Hagen followed the second man onto the ground. He rolled beneath the undercarriage of the nearest staff car, and kept rolling until he came out the other side. He calmly drew his Luger and stood.

  He fired six shots.

  Six men fell.

  Again, Hagen followed them to the ground. Now the remaining agents were realizing what was in their midst; their guns were drawn, and they were falling into combat stances. Hagen could hear them yelling, but the words themselves were lost in the rush of white noise filling his head.

  The Luger was empty. He discarded it, rolled under the car again, and came up onto the balls of his feet lightly, inhaling from his tanden, focusing with a silent kiai.

  He struck the man to his left with a reverse jab, and felt the cartilage of the man’s nose being pushed into his brain. He continued with the roundhouse movement, flowing into a crescent kick that caught the man to his right even as the man’s pistol was coming around—close, too close—spilling the man down; and now Hagen could sense two others coming at him, two others who had gained their bearings.

  Too many, he thought.

>   He tried to strike the closest one, but he missed.

  Cold metal crashed against the back of his skull.

  Hagen fell onto one knee. He steeled himself to rise again, shaking his head, trying to clear it. He turned his face up to the night and found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.

  He dropped onto his back, hooked the man’s ankles with his feet, and twisted. The man went cartwheeling down, firing at the same time. Hagen felt the bullet pound into the ground by his throat. He rolled, wondering where the other one was, why he hadn’t fired yet—

  The bullet took Hagen in the small of his back.

  His legs went immediately numb. He tried to keep rolling, but it was not possible to roll with numb legs. His spinal column had been severed, he thought. So it was over. But perhaps—

  The agent shot him three more times. The final bullet opened Hagen’s head and splattered his brains on the grass in a crazy Rorschach.

  Then the agent looked around himself, wiping his hand across his nose.

  Three men were standing, dazed.

  “Christ,” the agent croaked.

  One of the men vomited noisily.

  “Christ,” the agent said again, and fainted.

  Winterbotham walked toward Kendall, not slowing, across the rocky beach. Kendall nodded. Winterbotham, without preamble, raised the gun in his hand and then brought it crashing down across the bridge of Kendall’s nose. Kendall sank to his knees, clapping his hands to his face. When he took his hands away, they were wet with blood.

  Winterbotham moved to the dinghy and began to pull it across the sand toward the water. Kendall watched, nursing his bleeding nose. When Winterbotham reached the shore, he clambered into the dinghy, then used an oar to push himself out into the North Sea.

  Kendall, still kneeling, watched as the dinghy worked its way out over the dark water. If there was a U-boat out there, he couldn’t see it.

  But there must have been, because the professor did not come back.

  Nearly twenty minutes had passed before Taylor worked his way down the cliff again. He walked to Kendall and looked down at him and, for the moment, said nothing. He dug in his pockets, found his cigarettes, put one in his mouth, and lit it.