The Deadly Embrace (34 page)

Without the wreckage to hold on to, she knew she would drown. Hanging on was her only hope of survival. As she swam toward the far end of the fuselage, Sullivan moved to intercept her. He let go of the wreckage with his good arm just long enough to raise it for the coup de grace.

Liza heard the crack of a pistol, strangely thin over the roar of the sea. A puzzled expression registered on Sullivan’s face as his arm dropped weakly to his side. He stared sightlessly at her for a moment before slowly vanishing beneath the surface.

Liza grabbed the edge of the fuselage and held on as another savage wave engulfed them. Holding her breath for as long as she could, she came out of it to see Charlie still draped over the frame of the fuselage, his body safe in the arms of Nicholas. The pistol had disappeared.

“I’m reminded of that line from
Macbeth,"
shouted Nicholas, spitting out sea water. “‘Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.’”

Struggling along the edge of the fuselage, she joined him next to the still-unconscious Charlie. As the minutes passed, they discovered that, if each of them kept one hand on Charlie’s shoulder while holding on to the frame with the other, both his head and the fuselage remained just above the surface of the surging waves.

“Charlie,” Liza called out to him in the darkness.

There was no response.

Nicholas switched on the small flashlight that was hanging from a leather lanyard around his neck and trained the beam on Charlie’s face. Most of the big man’s hair was gone, and his lips were swollen up like inner tubes. Through a mask of shock, his open, childlike eyes stared downward. Picking up his hand from the water, Liza saw that the skin had peeled away in shreds and most of the flesh underneath was burned black.

Nicholas switched off the flashlight.

They floated in the sea for a long time without saying anything. Liza had lost her sense of direction. She had no idea from where rescue might come, if it ever came. She only knew that Charlie would live no more than an hour or two unless they got him medical attention. Her bitterness at Nicholas and what he had done suddenly exploded.

“I know why you helped me to save Charlie back there,” she shouted over the wind. “Without him you have nothing to give your German cousins.”

“You may think what you like,” said Nicholas calmly.

He switched on the flashlight again, illuminating a small hand compass he had removed from his pocket. Turning away from her, he stared into the darkness, then switched the light off again.

They continued to drift in the cold, boiling sea. Every few minutes, she would take Charlie’s pulse to make sure he was alive. As the rain steadily pummeled her face, she began to lose track of time. Her mind went back to the last conversation she had had with Nicholas in the cliff cottage.

“So you didn’t murder Joss,” she said, as if there had been no interruption.

“She took her own life,” he came back in a conversational tone.

“But you were kind enough to help her, is that it?” she said acidly. “I was there, Nicholas. I saw it all.”

In the darkness, she could just make out the shape of his head above the crashing waves. He was obviously looking at her, but remained silent.

“Didn’t you?” she shouted at him.

“You don’t know anything about us, Liza … about Joss and me. We grew up together alone … the two of us united against our hideous parents.”

A wave rolled over both of them before he continued again.

“We were fourteen during the summer we decided to become Lord Byron and Lady Caroline. She thought we could go through the rest of our lives playing those roles. But that wasn’t the reality, Liza. Actually, I was always kind to her. I would like you to believe that.”

“Yes, what a Good Samaritan you were,” Liza shouted. “I also happened to be with her at the moment she discovered she was pregnant with your child.”

“She had hoped it was mine,” he said, taking in another mouthful of seawater and hacking it out. “But I can never have children, Liza … one more legacy from my sainted parents. That was another reason she wanted to take her life—realizing it was Jellico’s or Kilgore’s or Des Sullivan’s.”

“You were there,” shouted Liza over the biting wind. “You made no effort to save her.”

“I was there,” he said. “We had made love for a last time, and then the air-raid sirens went off, and I went upstairs to the roof to watch the raid. When I came back down to the pool, she was … she had...”

“So that’s when you tied her to the tile machine?”

“She had already fastened the cord herself,” he said. “Joss was always very melodramatic—just ask her aunt Helen.”

“So you helped her by shoving the tile machine into the pool.”

“She was going, Liza. It was like watching an animal die by the road after it has been hit by a car.”

“How noble of you,” she shouted as they continued to drift in the stormy darkness.

There was silence again. A few minutes later, Nicholas said, “She was already quite old in many ways, Liza … just as I am.”

“She was in love with you and you killed her,” pronounced Liza for the last time.

“So be it.”

“And what about J.P.?” she demanded. “Did you drive the hatpin through her brain to put her out of her misery?”

“Des murdered her,” he said. “I had no idea he was planning to do it. Afterwards, he claimed he had done it to protect me.
”

Charlie’s chin had dipped lower into the water, and Nicholas carefully lifted it onto the edge of the wreckage again.

“From what?”

“One night we were all together at Des’s apartment … the four of us … Joss, J.P., Des, and I. It was a … You wouldn’t understand.”

“I understand,” she said.

“You and I had very different upbringings, Liza,” he said then.

“If that’s what you want to call it,” she said coldly. “So what happened then?”

“In the course of the evening, I got fairly drunk, as usual,” said Nicholas. “I gather that at one point Joss was talking to me about the proposed date of Overlord and the fact that Normandy would be the landing site, and that she hoped her favorite hotel would survive the invasion.
”

“So?” Liza demanded after another wave rolled over them.

“Des said that J.P. heard Joss talking to me about it and that she would eventually connect Joss’s death to us—at least, that is what he said.”

Staring across at the shadowy outline of his face, Liza realized she no longer felt the constant lash of the rain. She looked up to see the sliver of a crescent moon through the ragged storm clouds, and a small patch of starry sky.

“The sea is beginning to moderate,” said Nicholas, checking his pocket compass with the flashlight again.

“So you’re completely innocent,” she said, “the victim of an unhappy childhood.”

“Hardly,” he said, staring out again into the distance.

For the first time, Liza could detect a hint of predawn illumination from one horizon, and realized that France had to be in that direction. She remembered Nicholas radioing the message, before the plane went down, that he was within eight miles of the French coast. It was impossible for her to tell if they were drifting toward it or away from it. A few minutes later, she could definitely make out a dark outline of land against the leaden sky.

Charlie began to moan aloud as the shock of his burns began to wear off. The first glimmer of dawn turned his grotesquely swollen face into an image of horror. His cries grew steadily louder.

“He isn’t going to make it much longer without help,” said Liza.

“I know,” said Nicholas.

Liza thought she heard the distant growl of engines. The sound stopped for a few seconds and then came again, slightly louder. Nicholas had obviously heard it, too. He was gazing into the distance. Liza suddenly realized the sound was coming from the dimly lit land-mass over his shoulder. France.

“Well, Liza, you survived a ship being torpedoed in the North Atlantic, and now you have survived the crash landing of a plane,” said Nicholas, his voice steady. “What a remarkable tale you will have to tell your grandchildren someday. It certainly proves you’re one of the chosen people.”

“Not if your German cousins have their way,” she said.

The sound of the marine engines was definitely louder now. Although she could not see the craft’s running lights, it seemed to be heading directly toward them. Soon she could actually make out its rakish lines against the dark horizon. It was low and sleek and very fast.

“I know you won’t believe this, Liza,” he said, “but I loved you from the first moment I met you.”

“Goddamn you, Nicholas,” she shouted. “Where is that boat coming from?”

“It’s an E-boat,” Liza, he said,” a German patrol craft, and it’s coming to pick us up. They will take good care of Charlie. And I will make certain that you both are returned safely to England in a month or two.”

Liza had already decided what she had to do. She had begun thinking about it long before the sound of the engines, and had already transferred the scalpel to the breast pocket of her uniform. After she finished slitting Charlie’s throat, she would kill Nicholas, or die trying.

As Nicholas let go of the wreckage and switched on his pocket flashlight again, she tugged the scalpel out of her pocket. The German patrol craft was about a half-mile away, and moving toward them with astonishing speed. She had no more than a minute before it arrived. Removing her other hand from Charlie’s shoulder, Liza tugged his head back, exposing his neck.

“Not so fast, my darling,” said Nicholas, pulling Charlie’s body out of her grasp.

A moment later, Liza heard a tremendous blast. It sounded like the roar of a cannon, followed by a long, ear-piercing whine. As she watched, a huge splash erupted within a dozen yards of the German patrol craft that was racing toward them.

She heard another blast, quickly followed by several more. Two geysers of water erupted near the E-boat, the first on one side and the second on the other. Still it raced on toward them at an incredible rate of speed, not veering an inch from its original path.

“They’ve got her bracketed,” said Nicholas calmly.

The front deck of the German craft suddenly appeared to glow bright red for a moment. A split second later, the E-boat blew up in a massive tower of flame and wreckage that rose fifty feet into the air. The ensuing fire lit Nicholas’s tranquil face for several seconds before fading into the gloom.

“Our immortal English navy,” he said admiringly. “That destroyer is still at least two miles away from us. It must be equipped with radar-controlled guns.”

As Charlie continued to groan in agony, Liza wondered how Nicholas could remain so composed when his one chance for rescue had just been obliterated. The low snarl of other powerful engines came toward them, borne on the wind from the opposite direction of the E-boat.

“English motor torpedo boats,” he said. “Well, Liza, if I’m the man you think I am, I guess it’s time to get rid of the both of you.”

“Go ahead and try,” she said fiercely, the scalpel extended in her hand.

In the murky light, she could now see on his face the familiar endearing grin that she had once found so compelling.

“They’ll never find you in time to save Charlie without this,” he said, holding up the lit flashlight. After removing the lanyard from around his neck, he secured it to the central rib of the fuselage.

“Where are you going?” she demanded as the rain came again, harder than ever.

“I’m swimming for it,” he said, as if the French coast were just a few hundred yards away.

“You’ll never make it, Nicholas. It’s eight miles.”

“Piece of cake,” he said jauntily. “See you in Biarritz when the war is over.”

He had already let go of the wreckage and was slowly drifting away from them, but then appeared to look back at her once with enduring intensity.

“I did love you, you know,” came his voice across the open water.

He began to swim in a crude attempt at a sidestroke, but, given his prosthetic leg, he couldn’t generate any momentum against the turbulent sea. The iron harness was already weighing him down.

Liza kept him in the beam of the flashlight for almost a minute as he rose and fell on the crest of the waves. By then he was humming a tune, as if setting off for a romantic holiday at the beach. She recognized the song. It was Bunny Berrigan’s “I Can’t Get Started with You.”

A savage breaker rolled over the fuselage and momentarily drove her underwater. By the time she was able to train the flashlight on him again, the humming had stopped and Nicholas had disappeared.

CHAPTER 32

Liza came up out of the foaming sea into the pitiless rain, shivering uncontrollably as powerful hands pulled her into the motor torpedo boat and draped a blanket around her shoulders.

She opened her eyes experimentally. A flask of brandy was suddenly at her lips, and she felt its fire going deep inside her. Someone picked her up in his arms and carried her across the deck and down a short set of steps.

“Charlie,” she cried out, her salt-inflamed eyes almost shut.

“Don’t you worry, miss. We got the big bloke first,” a man called out after her.

“You’re both safe now, Liza,” said a familiar voice very close to her ear. It was Sam’s.

He carried her into the captain’s cabin and placed her on a warm, dry bunk. She could not stop shivering. Quickly pulling off her soaked uniform, he wrapped her in two more blankets and began briskly rubbing her feet, first one and then the other, a minute at a time. She felt sharp needles of pain as the numbness in them slowly receded and circulation returned.

“Rest easy for a moment,” he said. “I’m going to check on Wainwright.”

Burrowing deeper in the blankets, she closed her swollen eyes and drifted away.

“Miss,” she heard someone calling out to her. “Miss.”

Opening her eyes, she saw an English sailor standing next to the bunk, wearing rain-slicked oilskins. He had a chest-long gray beard, and was holding a mug of steaming tea. After he helped her to sit up, she grasped it with both hands and took the first sip. Almost scalding hot, it had been spiked with a healthy measure of rum.