The Deadly Embrace (32 page)

“Then why are you doing this? Tell me the truth.”

“The truth?” he repeated. “The truth is, I don’t really care who wins this war anymore. I’m part German to begin with, as you know—bad mix of blood, I suppose.”

Releasing the hammer of the pistol with his thumb, he put it into the pocket of his flying jacket.

“But why?” she demanded again.

“Do you have any idea what my German cousins will pay for the Normandy plans and the knowledge that we have broken their most secret military code?” he asked. “It’s enough for me to disappear to a safe haven with about ten million pounds sterling.”

“What is money to you?” she said. “You already have a vast fortune.”

“I’m as rich as Jacob Marley’s ghost, Liza,” he said. “My father plundered it all. Quite a piece of work he was … coward, swindler, pedophile, alcoholic, embezzler, collaborator—you name it—they all applied. It took my family a thousand years to accumulate its wealth, and just thirty for him to throw it all away. I am not looking forward to being dragged into debtors’ court. That would be quite pathetic, really.”

“But all your estates...”

“Mortgaged to the hilt, and the house of cards is about to fall,” he said with a laugh. “It’s all a bloody façade—a pathetic gold-plated façade. My mother continued the pretense right up until the bill collectors were at her door. They were going to serve her on Monday. This last house party was her swan song. She poisoned herself this afternoon.”

“Oh...”

“My father preferred the shotgun in his mouth,” he added with a sardonic grin, picking up Charlie’s briefcase. “Shall we be on our way?”

“You’re not a traitor, Nicholas,” said Liza. “You were a hero in the Battle of Britain.”

“I wasn’t a hero,” he said forcefully as he limped toward her again. “Not like the real ones in this war. To be truthful, it was no more than a lark at the beginning. A lot of us in the Oxford squadron looked on Spitfires as a throwback to the days of jousting knights—kill or be killed—I enjoyed it—very stimulating, shooting down my obnoxious German cousins, actually.”

He picked up a fleece-lined mackintosh from the back of the couch and handed it to her.

“You’re going to need this for a bit,” he said.

“Why are you taking Charlie with you?” she asked.

“Des paid someone a great deal of money to secure one of the ULTRA code-breaking devices,” he said, “but that didn’t work out. In the end, the man couldn’t deliver, or so Des says.”

“So how will you convince them?” she asked, trying to buy time, already knowing the answer.

“The Germans are such thickheaded clots,” he said. “If I simply told them about ULTRA and the Overlord secret, they wouldn’t believe me. Adolf apparently remains convinced by his soothsayer that we are going to invade at Calais. But Charlie is the living proof of ULTRA and all it represents. He was even kind enough to supply me with several German military cables, along with his impressive interpretive analysis of them. That should be enough to convince them.”

“When they are finished interrogating Charlie, they will kill him.”

“No, they won’t,” said Nicholas. “You’ll have to trust me on that.”

She laughed harshly.

“We really have to go now,” he said, firmly taking her arm and leading her to the door. “Don’t worry. No harm will come to you.”

“Not if Des Sullivan has his way.”

“Des is a paid agent of the German Abwehr—rather handsomely paid, I might add,” said Nicholas, opening the door for her. “He has been working for them since the war began. Like so many Irishmen, he continues to take fervent umbrage at the subjugation of his race by my forebearers over the last few hundred years.”

The rain and wind had strengthened considerably in the short time she had been in the cottage. Liza pulled the mackintosh tightly around her as Nicholas helped her up into the cab of the farm vehicle. Sullivan appeared surprised to see her, glowering at Nicholas before putting it in gear and turning on the masked headlamps. Letting out the clutch, he ran the truck forward through the mass of rosebushes.

Liza suddenly heard the crackle of a foreign voice followed by a long burst of static. Looking down, she saw a small shortwave receiver sitting on the floor of the cab. Two wires ran from the metal unit into the engine compartment. As the voice continued speaking, Liza realized his language was German. The man was delivering a weather forecast for southern France.

A rough cart track ran along the edge of the cliff and through the trees that led back to the open pastures below the castle. A few minutes later, they pulled up next to the large stone barn that Liza had seen at the edge of Nicholas’s boyhood airstrip.

Leading her to a small padlocked side door, Nicholas opened the lock with a key and led Liza inside. The barn was dark and reeked of gasoline. Sullivan followed behind them, dragging the massive rolled rug with Charlie in it. He dropped his burden just inside the door. Charlie moaned once and was still again.

“I hope you didn’t hit him too hard,” said Nicholas disapprovingly. “He is going to need all his faculties when we get there.”

“And where is that?” asked Liza as Sullivan flipped a wall switch, illuminating four bare lightbulbs spaced across the interior of the barn.

“Since you’re not going with us, I would prefer you not to know that,” said Nicholas.

Liza gazed across the dark, cavernous interior. Old metal farm implements had been shoved against the walls to make room for the airplane. It was painted entirely black and had no numbers or markings on the fuselage or the wings.

“Is that the Sopwith Camel?” she asked.

Nicholas laughed and said, “No. That old girl is gathering dust up in the loft, I’m afraid. This is a DeHavilland Tiger Moth, a little more appropriate for our present purposes. It’s more than ten years old, but still quite serviceable now that I configured it for our needs. Charlie will ride comfortably in the cabin bay with Des.”

The airplane had two parallel wings on each side, like the First World War planes she had seen at Mitchell Field on Long Island. It was about twenty feet long, with a small enclosed cockpit for the pilot and a separate cabin underneath and behind it. The cabin seats had been removed and were lying on an old threshing machine off to the side of the plane.

Still carrying Charlie’s briefcase, Nicholas climbed up on the lower wing and stowed it in the pilot’s compartment. She heard the quick snap of switches being thrown as he leaned into the cockpit.

“Ignition off,” he called out.

Sullivan moved around to the front of the plane and pulled the propeller through several revolutions before stepping back.

“Contact,” shouted Nicholas.

Sullivan placed his fingers on one blade of the propeller and pulled it downward in one quick motion, jumping back from the whirling propeller as the engine sparked to life.

Nicholas adjusted the controls in the cockpit, and the engine slowed to a low snarl. A few moments later, he climbed down from the wing to help Sullivan lift the rolled rug holding the still-unconscious Charlie into the cabin bay.

“Well, I guess we’re ready to leave,” said Nicholas. “Liza, it’s time to say goodbye. No ceremony. I wish you a good life. Believe that.”

“You can’t be serious,” said Sullivan. “You can’t just let the bitch go.”

“She has no idea where we are going,” said Nicholas. “Besides, once we’re airborne they’ll never find us in this storm. I’ll be on instruments all the way.”

“She will go straight to the authorities,” said Sullivan.

“They will know everything soon enough anyway,” said Nicholas.

“Not about me … not about the murders,” said Sullivan. “I had to take care of Griffin.”

“You didn’t tell me about your latest handiwork,” said Nicholas.

“I’m not going to swing for any of it,” Sullivan said, pulling a knife from his jacket and flipping open the long blade. “We’re heading for Lake Maggiore in Switzerland, love,” he said to Liza with a braying laugh. Then, turning to Nicholas: “Now she knows where we are going.”

“Yes,” said Nicholas.

“You just fly the plane,” said Sullivan. “I’ll handle the rest.”

Walking straight toward her, Des said, “I’ll make this painless for you, since the good Lord Ainsley appears to be so squeamish about it.”

Seeing the cold menace in his black eyes, Liza knew it would be impossible to reason with him. She slowly backed away as he came toward her, glancing left and right for a place to escape. Sullivan watched her every move like a hunter waiting for his rabbit to break for cover. When she tried to run for the door, he grabbed her easily with his left hand, raising the knife toward her throat with his right.

“Des,” shouted Nicholas over the growl of the engine.

It was no longer the voice of the Nicholas she had once known. It was as cold and hard as an executioner. The knife stopped in midair. Des slowly turned to face him. Nicholas was pointing his pistol at Des’s back. As she watched, he cocked the hammer of the automatic with his thumb.

“Drop the knife,” he demanded. “Now!”

Sullivan grinned at him.

“As you wish, my lord,” he said, letting it fall from his hand.

“Get in the plane,” Nicholas ordered.

Des slowly led her back to the cabin bay.

“I think Charlie might need medical attention,” said Nicholas, helping her inside. “Please see to him.”

“If you succeed tonight, the war could go on for years,” she said, kneeling on the floor next to Charlie. “Don’t do this, Nicholas.”

Ignoring her, he pointed to a circular rubber diaphragm in the corner of the cabin and said, “That is a Gosport tube. If you need to talk to me during the flight, just shout through it and I’ll hear you.”

As Des climbed in after her, Nicholas grabbed his shoulder.

“She had better be safe and unharmed when we arrive in Switzerland,” he said, his eyes deadly earnest.

Des grinned at him again before following her into the little cabin.

Nicholas shut the door to the bay, and Des drove home the bolt. Still kneeling on the floor, Liza quickly glanced around the fuselage. The frame appeared to be made of wood and stretched canvas. Two pillows and a blanket lay against the far bulkhead. A bamboo food-hamper sat next to the near bulkhead, along with a rack holding several glass bottles of water. There was a square glass porthole in the front of the cabin, and one on each side of the fuselage. Charlie’s head was resting by her feet. The rug that enclosed him disappeared toward the tail.

“A brief reprieve,” said Sullivan with a cobra’s smile. “Perhaps you’ll be a useful addition to the trip after all, Liza. We have many hours to kill until we reach Switzerland.”

Through the glass nose-port, she watched Nicholas go to the two barn doors in front of the plane. He swung the first one open, anchored it against the wind with a large block of stone, and then went to the second, swinging it wide before securing it with another block.

Across the dark meadow, she could see a small section of the castle grounds in the distance. For some reason, the lawns were lit up like a football field. At least a dozen vehicles were parked sideways along the gravel drive, their headlights pointed across the field toward the barn. In the glow of the lights, she could see the shadows of tiny figures coming toward them on the run. A large truck was rumbling ahead of the men, moving straight for the makeshift runway.

A shot rang out, and she heard a bullet clang off an old tractor parked alongside the aircraft. She watched Nicholas come limping back toward the plane, as unruffled as if he were heading out for a Sunday ride after church. He disappeared for a moment below the glass porthole. When she saw him again, he was pitching aside the wooden chocks that had blocked the front of the wheels.

The plane was creeping forward on its own. As it rolled past him, Nicholas clambered onto the wing, and climbed into the cockpit. The engine noise suddenly increased from a low snarl to a throaty roar. The airplane rolled quickly through the open doors and out into the stormy night.

Staring through the right port, she prayed that the men running toward them could disable the plane before Nicholas was able to take off. The Tiger Moth was vibrating and shuddering as if it was about to come apart as it gathered speed across the rutted field, the tail bouncing violently behind them. Up ahead, she could see the truck headlights racing across the muddy pasture in a converging line with their takeoff path.

Liza heard the faint crack of gunshots in the distance. Des shoved her toward the rear of the compartment and removed a large revolver from his belt. He slammed the butt of it against the right port, shattering the glass.

A young American soldier was running toward them, raising his rifle as he came. He was only twenty feet away when Des shoved the barrel of his revolver through the open port and fired. The soldier went down headfirst in the grass.

Liza glanced at Charlie. He was still unconscious, his head bumping up and down on the wooden deck as the Tiger Moth leapt and bounced. Kneeling next to him, she cradled his head in her arms as the staccato crack of massed rifle fire momentarily drowned out the engine.

Jagged holes suddenly appeared in the wooden frame alongside her shoulder, the same bullets making instantaneous exit holes in the opposite bulkhead. Another bullet whined past her ear and smashed one of the water bottles. Des was firing back at them when she heard a dull thud and he dropped the gun out the window. The force of the bullet carried him backward until he came up hard against the far bulkhead and was still.

Up ahead, she could see the truck’s headlights. They were no longer moving. It had come to a stop directly in their path. Men were scrambling out the open doors of the cab and diving to safety.

From the closed cockpit, Nicholas adjusted the throttle control to maximum pitch. With its petrol tanks crammed to the brim with fuel, the Tiger Moth was reacting very sluggishly to the joystick as he fought to keep it on the rutted path. There was no way to turn the plane to avoid the truck, not if he still hoped to escape. It was a big one, a troop carrier. They would have to go over it or through it.