The Gemini Contenders (23 page)

Fontine sped out of London on the Hempstead road toward Oxfordshire. He thought the debriefing session with Teague and Stone would never end!
God!
The repetitions! His coadministrator, Stone, was always furious when he returned from one of his trips behind the German lines. It was work Stone had been trained to do, but now was impossible for him. His shattered hand ruled out such incursions and he spent his rage on Victor. He would subject Fontine to rapid, harsh, repetitive interrogation, looking for errors in every phase of a mission. What charity Victor once felt for the cryptographer had disappeared over the months. Months? Mother of Christ, it was nearly two and a half years!

But tonight Stone’s delaying tactics were unforgivable. The
Luftwaffe
strikes over England had lessened, but they had not disappeared. Should the air raid sirens begin, it might be impossible for him to drive out of London.

And Jane was nearly due. The doctors had said it was a matter of a fortnight. That was a week ago, when he had flown out of Lakenheath to France and dropped into the grazing fields of Héricourt.

He reached the outskirts of Aylesbury and looked at his watch, holding it under the dim light of the dashboard. It
was twenty minutes past two in the morning. They would both laugh at that; he was always coming back to her at ridiculous hours.

But he was coming back. He’d be at the compound in ten minutes.

Behind him, in the distance, he could hear the wail of the sirens rising and falling in plaintive fugues. There was not the jolting, breath-catching anxiety that used to accompany the terrible sound. The sound itself had taken on a weariness; repetition had dulled its terror.

He swung the wheel of the automobile to the right; he was now on the back road that led to the Oxfordshire estate. Another two or three miles and he’d be with his wife. His foot pressed down on the accelerator. There were no cars on the road; he could speed.

Instinctively, his ears listened for the distant rumbling of the bombing. But there was no faraway thunder, only the incessant whines of the sirens. Suddenly, there were sounds intruding where no sounds should be; he caught his breath, realizing instantly the return of forgotten anxiety. He wondered for a moment whether his exhaustion was causing tricks to be played.…

It was no trick! No trick at all! The sounds were overhead and unmistakable. He’d heard them too often, both over London and across the Channel in scores of different, covert locations.

Heinkel aircraft. Twin-engine, German, long-range bombers. They’d passed London. And if London was bypassed, it was a good bet that Heinkels would take a northwest heading toward the Birmingham district and the munitions factories.

My God! The aircraft were
losing altitude
. They were pitching down in rapid descent.

Directly
above
him!

In
front
of him!

A bombing run! An airstrike in the countryside of
Oxfordshire!
What in God’s name? …

Jesus! Oh, Jesus Christ!

The compound!

The one place in England without parallel in security. From the ground, but
not
from the skies!

A low-altitude air strike had been called against the compound!

Fortine held the accelerator to the floor, his body trembling, his breath coming in short, spurting expulsions, his eyes riveted to the onrushing road.

The skies exploded. The screams of diving aircraft mingled with the manmade thunder: detonation after detonation. Immense flashes of white and yellow—jagged, shapeless, horrible—filled the open spaces above and between the woods of Oxfordshire.

He reached the compound’s gate, tires screeching as he braked the car into a turn. The iron gates were open.

Evacuation
.

He stabbed the pedal to the floor and sped into the long straight drive. Beyond, fires were everywhere, explosions everywhere, people running in panic—everywhere.

The main house had taken a direct hit. The entire left front wall was blown out; the roof was collapsing in weirdly shapeless splendor, bricks and stone cascading to the ground. Smoke spread in vertical swirls of black and gray—fires beyond, spurting upward, jagged, yellow, terrifying.

A deafening crash; the car lurched, the ground swelled, the windows shattered, hurling fragments of glass—everywhere. Fontine felt blood streaking down his face, but he could see and that was all that mattered.

The bomb had struck less than fifty yards to his right. In the light of the fires he could see the ripped-out earth of the lawn. He swung the car to the right, skirting the crater, cutting across the grass toward the dirt road that led to their cottage. Bombs did not strike twice in the same zero target, he thought.

The road was blocked; trees had fallen, fires consuming them—everywhere.

He lurched out of the car and raced between the flaming barriers. He saw their cottage. A huge oak had been blown out of the ground, its massive trunk crashed into the pipe-tiled roof.

“Jane! Jane!

God of hatred, do not do this to me! Do not do this to me again!

He smashed through the door, sending it hurtling off its hinges. Inside was total wreckage; tables, lamps, chairs were scattered, overturned, broken into a thousand fragments.
Fires were burning—on the couch, in the open roof where the oak had crashed.

“Jane!”

“Here.…”

Her voice came from the kitchen. He raced through the narrow doorway and felt for an instant that he should fall to his knees in supplication. Jane stood gripping the edge of the counter, her back to him, her body shaking, her head nodding up and down. He rushed to her and held her shoulders, his face against her cheek, the spastic rhythm of her movements uninterrupted.

“My darling.”

“Vittorio.…” Suddenly Jane contracted violently, gasping as she did so. “Sheets.… Sheets, my love. And blankets, I think I’m not sure, really—”

“Don’t talk.” He picked her up and saw the pain in her face in the darkness. “I’ll take you to the clinic. There’s a clinic, a doctor, nurses—”

“We can’t get there!” she screamed. “Do as I say.” She coughed in a spasm of pain. “I’ll show you. Carry me.”

In her hand she gripped a knife. Hot water had been running over the blade; she had been prepared to give birth alone.

Through the incessant detonations, Victor could hear the aircraft ascending, scrambling to higher altitudes. The strike was coming to an end; the distant, furious whines of Spitfires converging into the sector was a signal no
Luftwaffe
pilot overlooked.

He did as his wife told him to do, holding her in his arms, awkwardly gathering up whatever she ordered.

He kicked his way through the wreckage and the spreading flames and carried his wife out the door. Like an animal seeking sanctuary, he hurried into the woods and found a lair that was their own.

They were together. The frenzy of death that was several hundred yards away could not deter life. He delivered his wife of two male infants.

The sons of Fontini-Cristi were born.

Smoke spiraled up lazily, vertical coils of dignified, dead vapor interrupting the shafts of early morning sunlight. Stretchers were everywhere. Blankets covered the faces of the dead; the living and partly living were staring upward,
mouths open, the shock imbedded. Ambulances were everywhere. And fire engines and police vehicles.

Jane was in an ambulance, a mobile medical unit, they called it. His sons were with their mother.

The doctor came out of the lean- to canvas extension of the strange vehicle and walked across the short stretch of lawn toward Victor. The doctor’s face was haggard; he had escaped death but he lived with the dying.

“She’s had a hard time of it, Fontine. I told her she would under normal circumstances—”

“Will she be all right?” interrupted Victor.

“Yes, she’ll be all right. However, she’ll need a long,
long
rest. I told her several months ago I suspected a multiple birth. She was not—shall I say—designed for such a delivery. In some ways it’s rather amazing that she made it.”

Fontine stared at the man. “She never mentioned that to me.”

“Didn’t think she would. You’re in a precarious business. Can’t have too much on your mind.”

“May I see her?”

“Not for a while. She’s solidly corked off; the infants are quiet. Let her be.”

The doctor’s hand was gently on his arm, leading him away from the ambulance toward what remained of the main house. An officer approached them and took Victor aside.

“We found what we were looking for. We knew it was here, or something like it. The strike was far too accurate. Even German instruments couldn’t do it, and night pilotage was out; we checked. There were no markings, no flares.”

“Where are we going? What are you talking about?” Victor had heard the officer speak, but the words were elliptical.

“… high-arc transmitter.”

The words still did not penetrate. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“I said the room’s still standing. It’s at the rear of the right wing. The bastard was operating a simple high-arc transmitter.”

“A transmitter?”

“Yes. That’s how the Huns came in on pinpoint. They were guided by a radio beam. The chaps at M.I.-Five and
-Six had no objection to my showing you. As a matter of fact, I think they were pleased. They’re afraid with all the confusion here someone’ll disturb things. You can confirm that we haven’t.”

They threaded their way through the rubble and the intermittent piles of smoking debris to the right side of the large house. The major opened the door and they turned right down a corridor that seemed to be newly partitioned, as if for offices.