As Time Goes By (22 page)

He tried to put his arm around her, but she shrugged him off. It was no use: the moment had passed.

"Look, Rick," she said, "even if I wanted to, I
couldn't marry you. You
know that. We both know
that." She smiled at him, that killer smile that matched
her old man's killer eyes, that smile that no man alive
could possibly refuse, even if he wanted to, which he
didn't. But he could not tell if it was a smile of af
fection or a smile of pity.

"Ricky," she said. She leaned forward and gave him
a little kiss, the kind you'd give a child.
"
You're
sweet.
Very sweet. I think you're swell. But you're not for me.
It's not that I don't like you—or even
..."
She hesi
tated for a moment, searching for the right word. "Or
even that I don't love you, a little. "You're a stand-up
guy, and my dad thinks the world of you, and so do I.
You're going places." She had stopped smiling. "It's
just that the places that you're going and the places that
I'm going aren't the same places."

"Where's Meredith going?" Rick asked bitterly.
"Can he take you to the right places?"

"I don't know," she said honestly, "but he's got a
better chance than you do. Isn't that what life is all
about? Chances? Opportunities?"

"Yeah," he said. "I guess that's what life's all
about."

"Well, I've" got to grab my chances when they come
along!" she said excitedly. "Don't you think I know what I face if I don't? Do you really think I want to
spend the rest of my life up here, living like an old
maid in a third-floor walk-up, and not knowing whether my father is going to come home alive each night? Has
it ever crossed your mind that that's no life for a girl?
And that Daddy knows it? And that he's trying to do
something about it? And that it's selfish for you to try to take that away from me, no matter how you feel?"

Rick knew he had lost the battle, utterly. "I guess I never thought about it that way." He hung his head.

Lois kissed him once, quickly, on the cheek. "You
don't have to look like your dog just died," she said. "Buck up. Things are going great. In fact, you know
what?"

They were walking again and were almost back to
her front door.

"What?" he said dully.

"I think that tough guy O'Hanlon's kind of im
pressed with you. Oh, I gathered tonight that he and
Daddy don't get along all that well, but they've been
doing business together for years.
You
could be some kind of go-between for them. Heck!" she exclaimed.
"You could end up runnin' the whole show after the
old geezers quit if you play your cards right."

"I never thought of that," Rick admitted.

"Of course you haven't, you silly boy," said Lois as
she walked up the front stoop. "You need a woman to
think things through for you." She looked at him one
more time in the glow of the city's lights. "It's just that
it can't be me, is all."

She kissed him again, this time the way he had al
ways wanted her to kiss him. He drank her kiss in
deeply, because he knew it would have to last him a
lifetime. At that moment, he didn't care if Solly came
down with a hand cannon and blew him into the street;
it would have all been worth it for this kiss, this one
kiss.

She pulled away again, this time more slowly, her lips the last part of her body to separate from his.

"Come on, let me go upstairs, lover boy. It's chilly
out here, it's late, and I've got to get my beauty sleep."

He stood forlornly on the sidewalk, across from his
one-thousand-dollar DeSoto, and watched her walk up
the stairs and out of his life.

One thing bothered him, though: Which was her real
kiss? The first one, or the last?

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

Major Sir Harold Miles reviewed their assignments
one more time. They had already been over them on a
dozen occasions, but once more wouldn't hurt. Who knew, it might even do some good. Maybe it would
keep some good boys from getting killed unnecessarily. Still, Rick didn't hold out much hope. Good boys got killed because they didn't pay close enough attention, and no one could do anything about that.

Jan Kubiš
 
and Josef
Gabčík
had joined them, and
Laszlo introduced them to Rick as members of the
Czech resistance movement in London whom he had
hand-picked as his chief operatives. Together with
Laszlo, Renault, and Rick, they would be parachuted
into Czech territory by a Royal Air Force plane. The drop was to take place near Prague, at a small village
called Lidice, where Kubiš
 
and
Gabčík
were from. It
was a small, tightly knit town of no more than a few
hundred souls, all of whom, Laszlo had assured every
one, were deeply committed to the cause of repelling
the Nazi invader.

For
an operation of this magnitude, the equipment was surprisingly simple. The assassination device was
a bomb of British manufacture that would be tossed
into Heydrich's open car as he rode into town toward
his office in Hrad
č
any Castle. It had to be tossed in
because Heydrich's car was an armor-plated Mercedes-
Benz designed to roll over land mines and drive away
unscathed.

"Don't they know how to make bombs in Czecho
slovakia?" asked Rick. A bomb seemed to him a cow
ardly way to kill a man. "I thought the Czechs were
supposed to be good at things like bombs."

"Not an explosive device like this," interjected
Major Miles. "Even the Germans don't have a bomb like this one." He seemed very pleased about it.

The major held a disarmed sample in his hands. At
least Rick hoped it was disarmed, because Sir Harold
proceeded to set the timer.

"Listen very closely, gentlemen," he said. Rick
glanced at Laszlo to see if he could detect any fear in
the man's face, but his gaze was riveted on the bomb.

For
ten agonizing seconds silence reigned in the
room. At first, Rick wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to be listening for; then he figured it out: he was
supposed to be listening for nothing, and nothing was
exactly what he heard.

"Absolute quiet," said Sir Harold, "and absolutely
reliable. Failure rate: zero. The Germans and the
Czechs have handheld bombs, of course, but they make
the most frightful noise. As you have just heard, this bomb makes nothing of the kind. You could slip it into
your wife's purse and she'd be none the wiser until the
thing went off. Silent and deadly." He permitted him
self a small chuckle. "Let's hope the Irish never get
hold of one."

Rick could think of one Irishman who probably al
ready had: the same Irishman who had advised him, so
long ago, to go with a winner, and whose advice he
had studiously avoided taking ever since.

On the wall, Major Miles indicated a large map of
Prague. "We have considered a number of possible
sites for the attack," he began, "but we are all now
agreed that this is the best one." He tapped with his
pointer at the Karl
ů
v Most, the Charles Bridge, the
most famous and beautiful bridge in the city, spanning the Vltava in a baroque orgy of statuary.

"Thanks to Miss Lund, whose progress in infiltrating
Prague Castle has been extraordinary, we know that Heydrich rides in from his country villa to the castle
by the same route every day. As you can see"—the
major tapped the map with the tip of the pointer—"as
he approaches the bridge, he must pass by the Clement
inum, then make a sharp left onto K
ř
i
ž
ovnick
á
, and
another sharp right onto the Charles Bridge. Even if his security men were able to clear the bridge of all civilian traffic—which so far they have shown no inclination to
do—his Mercedes would still have to come almost to a
complete stop to make this turn without throwing the
Protector into the river.

"We have something else working in our favor. The
Protector is extremely punctual. He hates lateness in
others, and he absolutely detests it in himself. He
crosses the bridge each morning at precisely seven-
fifty, so he may drive through the gates of the castle at
the stroke of eight o'clock." The major seemed person
ally very pleased by his opponent's punctuality.

Armed with automatic pistols, Kubiš and
Gabčík
would man the posts on either side of the bridge while
Laszlo stepped forward, as if he were about to cross the
street once the Hangman's car had passed. When the
car had achieved its lowest possible speed, when the
driver's concentration was most focused on negotiating
the curve, Renault would step out in front of the vehi
cle, forcing it to come to a stop. Laszlo would then
move briskly behind the car, drop the bomb inside, and walk smartly away. The ten-second delay meant every
body would have to hurry.

A secondary diversion was to be provided by Rick,
who, seconds after Laszlo had delivered his package, would lay down a smoke bomb just ahead of the car's
path, on the bridge proper. As the car's occupants dealt
with the perceived threat from the front, the bomb
would go off in the backseat. That would give the con
spirators the chance to disperse, and by the time the
police were picking up the pieces they would be far
away in different directions, later to reassemble in the sanctuary of the Church of St. Charles Borromeo.

"One last thing," said Major Miles. "Despite all our
best efforts, there is always the chance something
could go wrong. If it does, you will all be in the great
est danger."

"So we need an abort signal," Rick said.

"Mr. Blaine is right," replied Sir Harold. "Such a signal must be clear and easily understood, and invoked only in absolutely unexceptionable circum
stances. In our planning we have relied absolutely upon
Heydrich's German sense of punctuality. Through a
prearranged signal, Miss Lund will confirm contact. The team will depart for the staging area in Lidice
upon reception of her message, and the assassination will take place as soon as possible thereafter. Therefore, Mr. Laszlo and I have agreed that if Heydrich is
one second past five minutes late, the operation is to be
considered compromised and everyone is to stand
down at once. Any questions or objections?"

Rick's voice broke the somber stillness. "Just a cou
ple, Major," he said. "How can we be sure that we
won't all be arrested the minute we hit the ground, and
shot on the spot?"

Sir Harold looked only mildly discomfited at the
thought. "We have no reason to suppose anyone is talk
ing out of school," he said. "A British gentleman's
honor is paramount in these matters." He waved his
hand in the air as if to brush away the very notion.

"Another thing," continued Rick. "As Louis has already pointed out, how are we all going to live with
ourselves—assuming we live at all—when after losing
their beloved Heydrich, the Germans decide to get even by killing hundreds, maybe thousands, of innocent peo
ple in retaliation? They've done it before, and there's no reason to think they won't do it again."

Now it was Laszlo's turn to reply. He rose to his feet.

"Monsieur Blaine," he said, "your concern for the
welfare of others touches me deeply, especially insofar
as it appears to be a recently acquired characteristic.
You would obviously prefer to let this monster continue
to walk the sacred earth of my homeland. Do you have
any idea who this man is?"

Rick said that he had some idea.

"Not as I do. You were not at Mauthausen."

"No, I wasn't," Rick shot back. "But I was at Addis
Ababa and at the Ebro River. Do you think I haven't
seen what you have? Do you think I haven't seen men
suffer and die?" He smacked his fist on the table. "Get
the chip off your shoulder, "You're not the first guy
who's ever had some tough luck, and you won't be the
last. The way I see it," he said, "if I'm sticking my
neck out, I have just as much right to an opinion as you
do."

Laszlo had never heard Richard Blaine speak with
such passion. "Let me tell you how the Nazis amuse
themselves in Mauthausen," he said. "They take a man
to the bottom of a deep stone quarry and then force
him to walk to the top, carrying stones weighing
twenty-seven kilos on his back. Every step of his jour
ney is accompanied by blows. When he finally gets
there he is sent back to the bottom again, and loaded
down even more heavily for another ascent. When he stumbles, as eventually even the strongest man must,
he is beaten with a bludgeon. So it goes until he is
dead. One morning I counted twenty-one bodies lying
on the side of the road. There were times when I almost
wished myself among them."
   

Laszlo sat down. "I am grateful for your willingness
to assist us in this matter. I do not flatter myself that it
is I whom you think you are helping. Frankly, I don't
care. Whatever occurred between you and my wife
happened in the past. Understand this, however..."

His voice dropped low, as if he and Rick were the
only two men in the room, perhaps in the world.

"I could not care less what happens after we kill
Reinhard Heydrich. When I was in Mauthausen, the
death of this man was my sole reason for living, and I
swore to myself that should I escape, I should not rest,
should not flee, until I saw him dead. Now I have him
within my grasp. I will not let you or
anybody else
dissuade me from my task.

"If I die, so be it. If you die, or even if Ilsa dies, that
is the price we must be willing to pay for the greater
good of eliminating this man. And if it also means that
others, innocents, must die in order that he does, too, then that is the price they must pay as well."

"Sounds a little steep to me," said Rick.

"Who are you to judge? What do you know of the
enemy whom we face? What do you know of the suf
fering of the people of Europe? Do you know how long
they have been waiting for this moment, wailing for a few brave souls to strike a blow against the oppressor
and to give heart to everyone else? Within Germany
itself there are those who are on our side—Hans and
Sophie Scholl of the
Weisse Rose,
Bishop Galen, Pro
fessor Huber—but who outside Bavaria knows their names? And what, in any case, can they do?

"We
can do something, however, and we shall. When
we slay this monster Heydrich, we shall be offering the
gift of hope to millions who thought hope had vanished
from their lives forever. There are no noncombatants
in this war, Monsieur Blaine, no neutrals. One is either for us or against us. Should you prove to be numbered
among the latter instead of the former, then you shall
be sacrificed with no more thought or regret than if you
were a spring lamb.