The Gemini Contenders (24 page)

“A radio beam could bring a squadron into the area,” said Fontine, walking beside the officer. “But only the area, not the target. These were bombers. I was on the road; they dove to the lowest levels. They would need more sophisticated equipment than a simple high-arc—.”

“When I said there were no markings, no flares,” interrupted the major, “I meant in a pattern; points A to B to C. Once they were over the target area, the bastard simply opened his window and shot up fireworks. He
did
use flares then. A fucking box full, from what we’ve found on the ground.”

At the end of the corridor a door was flanked by two uniformed guards. The officer opened it and stepped inside; Victor followed.

The room was immaculate, miraculously no part of the surrounding carnage. On a table against the wall was an open briefcase, a circular aerial protruding out of it, attached to radio equipment beneath, secured in the case.

The officer gestured to his left, to the bed, not at first visible from the doorway.

Fontine froze. His eyes locked on the sight now in front of him.

On the bed was the body of a man, the back of his head blown off, a pistol beside his right hand. In his left hand was gripped a large crucifix.

The man was in the black robes of a priest.

“Damned strange,” said the major. “His papers said he was a member of some Greek monastic brotherhood. The Order of Xenope.”

He vowed it! There would be no more.

Jane and their two infant sons were taken secretly to Scotland. North of Glasgow, to an isolated house in the countryside of Dunblane. Victor would not rely on compounds
without-parallel-in-security
, nor on any guarantees from MI6 or the British government. Instead, he used his own funds, employed former soldiers, exhaustively screened by himself, and turned the house and grounds into a small but impenetrable fortress. He would not tolerate Teague’s suggestions
or
objections
or
excuses. He was being pursued by forces he could not understand, an enemy beyond control, removed from the war and yet part of it.

He wondered if it would be so for the rest of his life. Mother of Christ, why didn’t they believe him? How could he reach the fanatics and the killers and roar his denials? He knew nothing!
Nothing!
A train had left Salonika three years ago, at dawn on the ninth of December 1939, and he knew
nothing!
Only of its existence. Nothing more!

“Do you intend to remain here for the rest of the war?” Teague had come up to Dunblane for the day; they walked in the gardens behind the house, in sight of the high brick wall and the guards. It had been five months since they’d seen each other, although Victor permitted calls over redirected scrambler-telephones. He was too much a part of Loch Torridon; his knowledge was vital.

“You have no hold over me, Alec. I’m not British. I’ve sworn no allegiance to you.”

“I never thought that was necessary. I did make you a major, however.” Teague smiled.

Victor laughed. “Without ever having been formally inducted into the service? You’re a disgrace to military tradition.”

“Absolutely. I get things done.” The brigadier stopped.
He bent over to pick up a long blade of grass and rose, looking at Fontine. “Stone can’t do it alone.”

“Why not? You and I talk several times a week. I tell you what I can. Stone expedites the decisions. It’s a sound arrangement.”

“It’s not the same and you know it.”

“It will have to do. I can’t fight two wars.” Fontine paused, remembering. “Savarone was right.”

“Who?”

“My father. He must have known that whatever was on that train could make men enemies even when they fought for a common survival.”

They reached the edge of the path. A guard was thirty yards away across the lawn by the wall; he smiled and stroked the fur of a leashed Great Dane that snarled at the sight and scent of the stranger.

“One day it will have to be resolved,” said Teague. “You, Jane, the children: You can’t live with it for the rest of your lives.”

“I’ve said that to myself more times than I can count. But I’m not sure how it can be.”

“Perhaps I do. At least, I’m willing to try. And I have at my disposal the finest Intelligence service in existence.”

Victor glanced at him, interested. “Where would you start?”

“The question is not where, but when.”

“Then,
when?”

“When this war is over.”

“Please, Alec. No more words, no strategies. Or tricks.”

“No tricks. A simple, uncomplicated agreement. I need you. The war has turned; Loch Torridon enters its most important phase. I intend to see that it does its job.”

“You’re obsessed.”

“So are you. Quite rightfully. But you’ll learn nothing of ‘Salonika’—that’s Brevourt’s code name, incidentally—until this war is won, take my word for it. And the war
will
be won.”

Fontine held Teague’s eyes with his own. “I want facts, not rhetoric.”

“Very well. We have identities you don’t have, nor, for your own safety and the safety of your family, will I reveal them to you.”

“The man in the car? In Kensington, Campo di Fiori. The streak of white? The
executioner?”

“Yes.”

Victor held his breath, controlling a nearly overpowering urge to grab the Englishman and force the words from him. “You’ve taught me to kill; I could kill you for that.”

“To what end? I’d protect you with my life, and you know it. The point is, he’s immobilized. Under control. If, indeed, he
was
the executioner.”

Victor let his breath out slowly. The muscles in his jaw pained from the tension. “What other identities?”

“Two elders of the Patriarchate. Through Brevourt. They command the Order of Xenope.”

“Then they’re responsible for
Oxfordshire
. My
God
, how can you—?”

“They’re
not,”
interrupted Teague quickly. “They were, if possible, more shocked than we were. As was pointed out, the last thing they wanted was your death.”

“The man who guided those planes was a priest! From Xenope!”

“Or someone made to appear so.”

“He killed himself,” said Fontine softly, “in the prescribed manner.”

“No one has a quota on fanatics.”

“Go on.” Victor began walking back on the path, away from the guard and the dog.

“These people are the worst kind of extremists. They’re mystics; they believe they’re involved in a holy war. Their war permits only confrontation by violence, not negotiation. But we know the pressure points, those whose word cannot be disobeyed. We can bring about a confrontation through Whitehall pressure, if need be, and demand a resolution. At least one that removes you from their concerns—once and for all. You can’t do this by yourself. We can. Will you come back?”

“If I do, all this will be set in motion? I, myself, a part of the planning?”

“We’ll mount it with the precision we mounted Loch Torridon.”

“Has my cover in London been kept absolute?”

“Not a dent. You’re somewhere in Wales. All our telephone calls are placed to the Swansea area and tripped north. Mail is regularly sent to a post office box in the
village of Gwynliffen, where it’s quietly put in other envelopes and returned only to me. Right now, if I’m needed, Stone places a call to a Swansea number.”

“No one knows where we are?
No one?”

“Not even Churchill.”

“I’ll talk with Jane.”

“One thing,” said Teague, his hand on Fontine’s arm. “I’ve given my word to Brevourt. There’ll be no more trips across the Channel for you.”

“She’ll like that.”

Loch Torridon flourished. The principle of mis-management-at-all-costs became a thorn in the German craw.

In the Mannheim printing plants, 130,000
Commandmant Manuals for Occupation
came off the presses with all negatives dropped in vital restrictions. Shipments to the Messerschmidt factories in Frankfurt were routed to the Stuka assembly lines in Leipzig. In Kalach on the Russian front, it was found that three quarters of the radio equipment now operated on varying frequency calibrations. In the Krupp plants at Essen, engineering miscalculations resulted in malfunctions in the firing mechanisms of all cannon with the bore number 712. In Kraków, Poland, in the uniform factories, fabric bypassed a chemical saturation process and 200,000 units were sent out, subject to instant flammability. In Turin, Italy, where the Germans ran the aircraft plants, designs were implemented that caused metal fatigue after twenty hours of flight; entire sections of squadrons structurally collapsed in midair.

In late April of 1944, Loch Torridon concentrated on the offshore patrols throughout the coastal zones of Normandy. A strategy was conceived that would alter the patrol schedules as they were issued to the German naval personnel from the base at Pointe de Barfleur. Brigadier Teague brought the explosive report to Supreme Headquarters, Allied Command, and handed it personally to Dwight Eisenhower.

The supreme commander responded appropriately. “I’ll be goddamned.…”

Overlord was executed and the invading armies progressed. Under Badoglio and Grandi, the outlines of the Italian collaboration were negotiated in Lisbon.

It was a trip Alec Teague permitted Major Fontine. He was entitled to it.

And in a small room in Lisbon, a weary Badoglio faced Victor. “So the son of Fontini-Cristi brings us our ultimatum. There must be a certain gratification in that for you.”

“No,” replied Victor simply. “Merely contempt.”

Alec Teague stood in front of the map on his office wall. Fontine sat dejectedly in the chair by Teague’s desk, his eyes on the brigadier across the room.

“It was a gamble,” said Teague. “We lost. Can’t expect to win every time. You’ve had too few losses, that’s your trouble, you’re not used to them.” He removed three pins from the map and walked back to his desk. He sat down slowly and rubbed his eyes. “Loch Torridon has been an extremely effective operation. We have every reason to be proud.”

Fontine was startled. “Past tense?”

“Yes. The Allied ground offensive toward the Rhine will
commence maximum effort by October first. The Supreme Command wants no complications; they anticipate widespread defections. We’re a complication, possibly a detriment. Loch Torridon will be phased out over the next two months. Terminated by the end of September.”

Victor watched Teague as the brigadier made the pronouncement. A part of the old soldier died with the words. It was painful to watch Alec. Loch Torridon was his moment in the military sun; he would get no nearer, and jealousies were not out of the question regarding its termination. But decisions had been made. They were irrevocable, and to fight them
was
out of the question. Teague was a soldier.

Fontine examined his own thoughts. At first he experienced neither elation nor depression; more a suspension, as if time were abruptly arrested. Then slowly, painfully, there was the momentary feeling of what now? Where is my purpose? What do I do?

And then suddenly these vague concerns were swiftly replaced. The obsession that was never far from his mind came sharply into focus. He got out of the chair and stood in front of Alec’s desk. “Then I call in your debt,” he said quietly to Teague. “There’s another operation that must be mounted ‘with all the precision of Loch Torridon.’ That’s the way you phrased it.”

“It will be. I gave you my word. The Germans can’t last a year; surrender feelers already come from the generals. Six, eight months, and the war will be over. ‘Salonika’ will be mounted then. With all the precision of Loch Torridon.”

It took twelve weeks to close the books and bring the men back to England. Loch Torridon was finished; twenty-two cabinets of accomplishments were all that remained. They
were put under lock and seal and stored in the vaults of Military Intelligence.

Fontine returned to the isolated compound in Scotland. To Jane and the twins, Andrew and Adrian, named for the British saint and any of several acceptable Romans. But they were neither saintly nor imperial; they were two and a half years old, with all the energy that age implied.

Victor had been surrounded by the children of his brothers all his adult life, but these were
his
. In themselves they were different. They alone would carry on the Fontini-Cristis. Jane could have no more children; the doctors had agreed. The injuries at Oxfordshire were too extensive.

It was strange. After four years of furious activity and strain he was suddenly, abruptly, totally passive. The five months in ’42 when he remained in Dunblane could not be considered a period of tranquility. Jane’s recovery had been slow and dangerous; the fortifying of the compound had obsessed him. There’d been no letup of pressure then.

There was now. And the transition was unbearable. As unbearable as the wait for “Salonika” to begin. It was the inactivity that gnawed at him; he was not a man for idleness. In spite of Jane and the children, Dunblane became his prison. There were men outside, across the Channel, deep within Europe and the Mediterranean, who sought him as intensely as he sought them. There was nothing until that movement could begin.