Weapons of Peace

by Johnston, Peter D. ;

  “Before I go, I must speak with my cousin. Alina is trustworthy and a fabulous researcher. She can arrange to have her twin sister, Maria, a member of the underground in Berlin, meet me as soon as I cross into Germany.”

  Nash interjected, “Maria? Sounds familiar. Have you told me about her?”

  “I have,” Emma said. “Don’t worry. I know this must be awful for you, Everett, not being able to remember everything tucked into your gorgeous mind.”

  “You probably want to say a proper goodbye,” Lady Baillie said, glancing from Emma to Nash before making her way to the door. “Emma, I’ll meet you at the nursing desk at a quarter to six, and we’ll leave for my plane.”

  Emma sat on the bed and held Nash’s hand. This might be the last time they would ever see each other. She refused to cry, and she didn’t want him to, either.

  “Everett, thank you for everything I’ve learned from you. I don’t know if I’ll be successful, but I will try to be true to all you’ve taught me.”

  “There are some things I recall with great clarity and others that I simply can’t, Nurse Doyle,” he said, his speech his most fluid yet but the spark gone from his eyes. “I do remember that your own blood once helped save my life—and I’m thankful for that.”

  “So am I,” she said, tightening her grip on his hand.

  “I also remember another insight that I have to share with you,” he said, putting his finger under her chin tenderly and tilting her face up so that he could see her.

  “And what might that be?” She leaned in to hear his words.

  “There is one more key you’ll need to unlock all the doors in your realm of influence. I call it the golden key. Its impact can be greater than the power produced by Einstein’s formula—or the power of love itself.”

  “And you’re only mentioning this now?” Emma said with a smirk.

  He smiled. “I thought we’d have more time. And you have to experience some things to understand them,” he said. “This key affects all aspects of our lives, yet it is rarely seen for what it is. While often golden, it is also invisible or blinding at times. You come across it daily in its various forms. Used wisely, it is magical. Used poorly, it will haunt you. If it is not used, life itself can be at risk.”

  She looked at him in wonder. This man, this patient, who’d been unconscious that morning and struggling for words that afternoon, had just said something remarkably eloquent without wasting a word. Unfortunately, she wasn’t quite sure she’d understood any of it.

  “That’s an amazing puzzle for you to give me, Everett, but I don’t know if I can figure it out on my own,” she said. “And so much is at stake. Tell me, what do you mean?”

  He lapsed into silence, his face gray, leaning back against his pillow, again succumbing to exhaustion. He’d reverted to a semiconscious state within a matter of seconds. It was as though he had put all his remaining energy into clearing out the most important corners of his mind for her.

  She, too, went silent, going over his words again, trying to remember them, hoping that one day she’d get her hands on his golden key. At least she was now aware that the key existed.

  She leaned over, kissed his lips lightly, and rose from the bed, locking eyes with him. “I love you, Everett, and I love all the timeless things you stand for—integrity, bravery, and putting others before yourself, including me.”

  He didn’t hesitate. “I love you, too, Nurse Doyle. And I look forward to hearing news of your successes from Lady Baillie,” he said. His words were flat. His eyes were blank. He was unable to keep them open any longer.

  Emma smiled wistfully. She turned to leave, knowing that Nash had completely forgotten the fact that just a week before they had been passionately in love. His parting words could only parrot her own, because, along with his other fragmented memories, he’d lost a piece of her.

  —

  At 11:00 p.m., Emma stood with Lady Baillie outside the gatehouse, both dressed warmly to ward off the chill of the autumn air. Lady Baillie’s trusted friend, Lars Dekker, was waiting in his car.

  “I will quietly try to find out who Buckley is and what he’s up to,” Lady Baillie said. “But before I know considerably more, I can’t approach the prime minister’s office with such an accusation—about someone I’ve never even heard of.”

  “Of course not,” Emma said. “I just hate the idea that the mole who betrayed Everett—whether it’s Buckley or not—is still at work while he’s lying in a hospital bed.”

  The heiress nodded, frowning. She took Emma’s hand and drew her in closer. “Thank you for sharing your story with me on our way back from Oxford this evening.”

  “If anything were to happen to me, I’m glad that at least you and my cousins know about my past and how much I love Axel—and how hard I’m trying to get him back.”

  “We do know that,” Lady Baillie said gently. She paused. “It’s been a long day, Emma, and what you’re being asked to do on such short notice is quite exceptional. You seem calm enough, but, you know, if you’re feeling scared—even terrified—those are reasonable feelings, too.”

  “I’d probably be more scared if I had time to think it all through,” Emma said, smiling. “But I can tell you this: there is only one thing that terrifies me right now—the thought of never seeing my son again. That helps keep everything else in perspective.”

  The two women embraced and said goodbye.

  Emma picked up the leather rucksack that she, Lady Baillie, and her daughters had carefully assembled, and walked slowly to Dekker’s car.

  She looked around her, knowing that she would miss the castle and everyone in it, including her loyal friend and guard, John Harris, whose gravestone she’d insisted on visiting as soon as she arrived back at the castle. This had been her home and family for four years. But it had also been a means to an end, she reminded herself—and it was time to move on.

  Armed with a single revolver in her coat pocket, she jumped into the front seat of Dekker’s car, cranked down the window, and waved goodbye. The smell of dead leaves blew into the vehicle. She quickly rolled up the window again.

  “Godspeed, my dear Nurse Doyle,” Lady Baillie said as the car moved away from the gatehouse.

  Forty-five minutes later, Dekker watched from a windy bluff as Emma met Hans Brouer far below on a frigid, stony beach northeast of the town of Maidstone.

  As Brouer’s old but sturdy boat began to move quietly across the water toward Holland under the cover of darkness, Everett Nash slipped back into an unconscious state from which he would never awake.

  Part II

  The Negotiator

  Chapter 19

  Thursday, September 28, 1944

  10:15 p.m.—Leer, Germany

  Emma kept running, the rucksack on her back jostling up and down. She turned one corner after another, trying to lose whoever was behind her.

  Where the hell did he come from?

  She had to hide or he’d catch her. She ducked into an alley, jumped into a basement stairwell and stared up, trying to catch her breath. She hoped her dark jacket, trousers, and wool hat would make her invisible against the black alley, and that her own stench wouldn’t betray her. Slowly, she reached inside her jacket and pulled out her revolver, holding it against her chest.

  Moments later, her eyes grew wide. An extraordinarily tall figure stopped not more than ten yards away, peering into the alley. He glanced to his left, directly at her, and Emma thought that her heart was going to burst.

  She aimed her gun.

  His head swiveled to the right. He started moving, continuing up the deserted brick street. Emma’s body went limp, and she began breathing again. How could she have been tracked down by anyone? She’d arrived in Leer only half an hour earlier. Had Alina’s messages and her meeting plans with Maria been intercepted? Was someone trying to capture her inside enemy border
s before she’d even had a chance to search for her son?

  She rose cautiously from her hiding place, tightened her rucksack, and looked around the corner. Her pursuer had disappeared along with the sound of his footsteps, absorbed into the fog flowing up from the river and the blackness that Hans Brouer had warned her about.

  She had said goodbye to Brouer on the riverbank north of the town center, jumping to shore from his modest thirty-foot boat with its small main cabin. She reeked of fish, because Brouer made sure his boat was full of them to help dissuade the authorities from boarding his vessel for inspection.

  Her limbs still ached from being forced to spend most of the previous twenty-four hours sitting inside a large fake kitchen cupboard designed to hide sensitive cargo, coming out only when Brouer felt certain that no one was within miles of them.

  She’d stayed hidden even when they stopped at the isolated town of Hollum, on the Dutch coast, to wait out the daylight hours until they could move again by night. She slept for just minutes at a time, relieving herself in a bedpan, eating bread and canned beans supplied by Brouer, who heated them up on a small gas stove.

  To Emma’s surprise, they had been stopped just three times between England and Leer. Each time, Brouer used the name of his Nazi contact and a code word he’d been given to signal that his boat should be allowed safe passage. Each time, his message was accepted by the aggressive German coast guards. But it was only when the Dutch captain pulled out a carton of Lucky Strike cigarettes from his weather-beaten trunk that Emma could hear the tone of the conversations grow much warmer, followed soon after by permission to proceed.

  Despite being produced by the enemy, American cigarettes were apparently a treasure coveted by the guards. Emma’s brief modeling career continued to pay dividends.

  Emma already missed Brouer’s bravado and his stories. He was gone now, her safety blanket steering his way back to England in search of his next cargo. The only thing he’d left her with was a hand-drawn map of Leer, which she hoped would guide her toward the town’s largest church and its clock tower. With the mist in the air, the clock remained hidden, but she assumed that it would come into view shortly. She placed her gun in the outside pocket of her jacket, knowing that it would be ready to fire in less than a second. It comforted her to be armed again. She liked the feel of a gun.

  She moved briskly through Leer’s empty streets and alleys, past closed or boarded shops, running from one doorway and wall to another, monitoring her new surroundings closely.

  The cold autumn air grew even whiter around her as she breathed in and out, trying not to make noise, surprised at how hard her lungs were working. She picked up on the scent of burning wood. The town she surveyed had been beaten down, not broken. There were some buildings that had been decimated by bombs and fires, but for the most part Leer remained intact, though eerily quiet. Apart from her pursuer, she hadn’t heard or seen a single person, nor had she come across any dogs, cats, or livestock. It was as if the plague had arrived on a boat days before her own boat had docked. But she knew otherwise. Brouer had explained the lights-out curfew aimed at hiding Germany’s populated areas from the intensifying Allied bombing raids.

  She felt alone, tired, dirty, and hungry. As she alternated between a fast walk and a slow run, passing more scars from successful bombings, she was reminded of just how lucky she’d been to find safety at Leeds Castle, nestled away in the English countryside, far from the front lines of war.

  Maria had chosen a much harder path here on the Continent. Emma could only imagine how living as a resister in Berlin would have affected her cousin physically and mentally. She braced herself for their first meeting since the start of the war.

  She checked her map, angling her neck upward. The church’s clock loomed directly above her. A black veil had been thrown over it to dull the backlighting, but she could still make out the time: 10:55 p.m.

  Perfect timing.

  She dodged behind one of the brick building’s broad white columns, crouching down by a thick bush that ran the length of the Calvinist church. As she waited, the fog making it hard to see more than five yards in front of her, she fought the temptation to think about Nash. She had done enough of that on the boat.

  She had to stay focused.

  —

  At exactly 11:00 p.m., Emma’s head swung around, alert to the sound of an approaching motorcar.

  As she watched, two dim headlights came into view through the haze surrounding the church, the automobile itself barely visible. From where she stood, it looked like an official vehicle or a car belonging to a wealthy individual; its silhouette was quite large and refined in appearance.

  Who would drive such a car, and have access to the rare gasoline required to run it?

  Emma remained hidden, wondering whether to wait or to run. If she moved quickly enough, whoever had pulled up in front of the church would never catch her in this fog. She heard a car door open, followed by heavy footsteps. She turned and began to edge farther away from the church’s entrance. Suddenly, the footsteps stopped and reversed course. The car door slammed shut. The vehicle disappeared.

  Emma had no idea what was going on, but without a good alternative she stayed where she was. Ten minutes passed, and that’s when she heard it—a muffled cry. It came from her left, on the other side of the church. She once more prepared for flight, but, again, silence followed.

  She continued to wait, feeling powerless. Not being able to see through the enveloping mist was unsettling, but she took comfort in knowing that it was her best defense in these circumstances.

  A loud screech jarred her.

  What now?

  The big black car was back, and coming fast. The vehicle slammed to a stop in front of the two columns. A voice called out in German, “Cousin, if you’re there, come quickly!”

  She moved fast along the church, away from the car, running across the road at a distance where she couldn’t be seen. Then she cut back in the direction of the car. She would come at the vehicle from the opposite side, so that she’d have a better chance of seeing its occupants before they saw her. She drew within a few yards of the luxury car—and gasped.

  Through the window, she could see someone who looked vaguely like her cousin, but this woman wore shoulder-length blond hair and a fur coat. She was looking out the window toward the church.

  Emma knocked softly on the window. The young woman turned toward her, a warm smile of relief confirming her identity: it was Maria, as hard as that might be for Emma to believe.

  Maria slid over to the door and opened it, pulling Emma inside. Her uniformed chauffeur threw the car into reverse.

  “Emma, did you know someone is following you?” Maria asked.

  “Yes, from the river, but I thought I’d lost him,” Emma said.

  Maria touched Emma’s knee, correcting her. “No English, okay? We only speak German. We don’t want to slip up in front of the wrong people.”

  “Of course, Maria. I’m sorry,” Emma said, switching to German.

  “When we drove up the first time,” Maria explained, “Gottfried spotted your admirer behind a bush on the far side of the church. So we circled around the building. Gottfried surprised the man from behind and knocked him to the ground, but he managed to escape before we could find out who he was or what he wanted.”

  “Tough guy,” added Gottfried from the front seat in a deep, gravelly voice. “I hit him hard with the butt of my gun. And, speak of the devil,” he said calmly, eyeing the road ahead. Turning toward them, he guided the sedan backward at speed.

  Emma stared out at the darkness, fear gnawing at her gut. She could see him. A huge man was running toward them, the same one who had stalked her earlier. As the car accelerated, the man pulled out a black object and raised it.

  “Duck!” Gottfried shouted. Maria and Emma lowered their bodies, bracing themselves. Nothing hit
the car.

  The women looked at each other, then at Gottfried.

  “False alarm,” he said. “It was some kind of radiophone, not a gun.” He continued speeding in reverse, faster and faster, his gray eyes focused intently to avoid the deep ditches on either side of the road.

  “Well, no time for sightseeing in Leer, after all,” Maria said.

  “It’s quite foggy anyway,” Emma said with a smile.

  “Let’s just get to Berlin, then,” Maria directed. “Take the back routes. If he’s Gestapo, he may have alerted officials on the main highway.”

  “Certainly,” Gottfried responded, shifting the brim of his blue driver’s cap back into place.

  “Emma,” Maria said. “The Gestapo often trails people from this region because being so close to the North Atlantic makes it an attractive entry point for foreign spies. Let’s hope your friend from the bushes was following you as a matter of habit—and that no one else was expecting your arrival.”

  “Yes, let’s hope,” Emma said.

  “First things first, though. Gottfried, as soon as you think we’re out of danger, we need to stop briefly, preferably near a river.”

  “Why is that?” the driver asked.

  “Because as beautiful as she is,” Maria said, looking at Emma sideways, “my cousin here stinks like a big, rotten fish.”

  Chapter 20

  Friday, September 29, 1944