The Hess Cross (5 page)

The leader ran to the trawler and climbed over the gunwales. He descended the cabin ladder, and the boat's interior light flashed on. The high whimper of a frightened voice wavered across the river. Then a short, corpulent man, dressed in wool long johns, climbed to the deck. The gunman followed, his pistol dug into the fisherman's neck. They climbed the steep ladder to the controls above the cabin. The second assassin untied the mooring lines and jumped on board. The boat's diesel engine boomed. Stern water boiled as the propeller whipped the river water. The boat pulled away from shore.

The vessel ominously turned toward Crown and Maura. The wooden hull split the water into frothing halves as the boat bore down on its targets. The second gunman walked to the bow, leaned against the bow railing, and casually revolved the cylinder of his weapon. He stared down at the floating men as the boat closed the gap. Crown saw the assassin's thin smile.

Even without his friend anchoring him, Crown could not have escaped. He was forty yards from the shore opposite the boat moorage. Evasive swimming maneuvers, even if successful a time or two, would quickly sap his strength. The boat would simply herd him like a cowboy herds cattle, until the bowman got him in his sights or the trawler ran over him. There was nothing to divert the gunmen's attention. No escape route. No offensive maneuver. By any calculation, he and Maura were dead. The boat was twenty yards off and lunging toward them. The bow gunman raised his pistol again.

"One of us can make it. Two cannot. Leave," Maura shouted above the engine. He craned his head toward Crown and commanded in a lower voice, "Leave."

It was the diversion, a simple tactic used when all other routes were closed. The mathematics of the diversion were
plainly and succinctly stated by Maura. It demanded immediate action. No farewells.

Crown kicked off and swam frantically away from Maura. When he was three yards out of the boat's course, he stroked toward the moorage from where the fishing boat had just come. The boat plunged by him. Its wake lifted him above the waterline as the trawler bore down on Maura. The gunman's steady arm pointed at the Basque as if the boat's bow alone would not do a thorough job on its floating target.

Three seconds before impact, Miguel Maura's arm lashed out. Crown saw a steel glint flash in the air. The gunman lurched and clutched his neck. Blood spurted through his fingers. Maura's throwing knife was embedded in the assassin's throat. The gunman stumbled blindly against the bow railing, lost his balance, and toppled over the rail into the river. The boat plowed into Maura and the henchman at the same instant.

Crown swam wildly toward the river shore. He knew the remaining murderer could easily see him as the boat swerved port to make another pass. The handgun popped, and a shaft of inky water shot into the air two feet from his head. His arms churned the water. Crown's back was an easy target for the gunman's next shot. His spine tightened in anticipation of the bullet.

Crown's knuckles slammed into the stern of a fishing boat moored to the river shore. Skin ripped off three fingers. He reached for the deck of the boat to pull himself on board, but he didn't have the strength to kick himself high enough, and he slipped back into the water. The assassin fired again, and wood chips burst from the boat near the waterline.

The trawler was now thirty yards from the moored boat. Crown kicked to the moored boat's stern. The boats were
lined bow-to-stern in a long row along the shore. Twelve inches separated the stern of the boat from the bow of the next. Crown grabbed the hull of the next fishing cruiser and pulled himself through the gap.

The gunman's trawler abruptly throttled back. Crown heard the muted clang of the gear lever being rammed into reverse. The engine growled and strained as it slowed the fishing boat.

Crown was trapped in the water between the boats and the vertical slope of the concrete dock. The mooring lines were out of his reach. No steps descended from the shore to the waterline. He pulled himself along the slip of water. The moored boat drifted to shore. To avoid being crushed against the concrete, Crown inhaled deeply and dipped beneath the surface. He came up ten feet farther along the slip, where the boat's listing could not catch him. He paddled to the stern, paused, wiped the oily water from his eyes, and peered through the boats into the center of the river just as the gunman's boat glided into view. Maura's murderer was casually patrolling the shore, knowing Crown was trapped. The line of boats was endless. There was no way to climb out of the water. The gunman was leisurely waiting until Crown either showed himself and was shot or froze to death.

Crown plunged into the next gap between moored boats and kicked at the water to propel him to the cover of the next fishing vessel. A bullet crunched into the bow of the boat that now shielded him. The prowling trawler's wake rolled into the moored boat, which then drifted against the concrete. Crown's hand was caught and cruelly pinched between wood and concrete. He yanked it free. Two disjointed fingers were bent at right angles to his hand. Cold blocked the pain.

He drifted toward the stern of the boat. There was no hurry. He had no plan. There was only an endless line of
boats to shield him from the gunman's shots. Cold penetrated to his bones. His strength was nearly gone, and his body had almost quit responding. Breaths came in short spastic gasps.

Once again Crown felt a warm rush against his legs. His mind flashed to his friend's blood wasting away in the river. But this wasn't blood. Warm fluid was pouring into the river. Crown spread his hands along the shore wall, feeling for the outlet. His knees smashed against the wall as he groped for the pipe and tried to keep his head above the water. A fetid stench wafted toward him. Wisps of odorous steam rose from the water. He inched along the wall, his exhausted legs pushing him through the increasingly warmer water.

His right hand grasped an edge, an indentation in the shore wall. He gripped and pulled himself to a hole in the concrete wall. The tunnel's tepid effluent pushed against his body and rolled around him into the river. The top of the corrugated-sheet-metal opening was twelve inches above the waterline. He grabbed the lip of the tunnel opening, tucked his legs under him, and lifted himself into the shaft. The sound of another shot reverberated in the tunnel.

The shaft was four feet high, three of which were filled with slowly flowing sewage. Crown duck-walked upstream. His head rhythmically bumped against the metal roof of the tunnel as he tried to keep his mouth and nose above the sewage. Blackness was absolute. Sewage vapors seared his nostrils. Methane gas emitted by the human waste would kill him in a few moments, but his exertions forced his aching lungs to gasp great quantities of the gas. An age passed. His body was airy and distant. Concentrate. Walk. Keep alive. Hurry. Thoughts came in simple, weak pulses. Survive. Walk. His mind was failing, victim of the gas. Thought was fog.

The bumping stopped. Crown's head no longer hit the top
of the tunnel. Rising slowly to his full height, he saw dark purple sky strained through a manhole grating above him. He reached blindly for the wall and found an iron rung. With the last of his mental reserve, he willed his weak legs to climb. Hand over hand, step by step, he ascended the ladder. Near the top, he hooked one leg over a rung to prevent falling and lifted the manhole cover out of its slot and to one side. His head emerged from the hole. He was at a warehouse truck-loading dock. No one was in sight.

III

C
HICAGO'S FIRST WINTER SNOW
fell two nights later. By next morning, smog had discolored the white blanket. The sky was ash-hued, and the trees were gray and lifeless. Crown's eyes searched in vain for some relief from the monotonous juxtaposition of drab on drab as he walked across the midway, passed Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House, and north on Woodlawn. He had received the telephoned summons a few minutes before. Meet the Priest at a home on Woodlawn and Fifty-sixth Street. That the Priest had flown in from Washington was an indication of the importance of the assignment. Operatives went to the Priest. He did not go to them.

Crown hadn't given the present mission his attention. He was obsessed with one question: Who killed Miguel Maura? In the two days since his friend's death, Crown had secluded himself in his bleak studio apartment on the corner of Sixtieth and Woodlawn, asking that question over and over. When he reported Maura's death to Sackville-West,
he had been ordered not to search for the killer. Crown's mission was too important to draw attention to himself by investigating a murder. So he sat in his room drinking Blue Ribbon and trying to piece the puzzle of Maura's death together. None of their old adversaries knew they would be in Chicago, because they had come to the Midwest in utmost secrecy. And they hadn't been here long enough to have made enemies. Had they been followed from Lip's Lower Level? No, not followed. They would have known within two blocks. Crown could not remember anyone watching them with undue interest at Lip's. Yet, it couldn't have been a random killing. The murderers had been too persistent and ruthless for that. The pieces didn't fit.

Crown knew he had not been analyzing the killing clearly. Grief numbed him. He tried to push it aside, but it returned again and again with aching persistence. He had worked with Miguel for four years. Their assignments had been hazardous and important, and they had risked their lives together on occasions too numerous to recall. They had developed an intuitive knowledge of the other's actions. This unerring sense had made them the Priest's most valued team.

Miguel was gone and Crown was left with a rush of emotion. His mind was sodden. His thoughts wandered to Spain, France, and Norway, where he and Miguel had worked together. The comradeship and the accomplishment they had shared in those places returned to sharpen the grief. Crown couldn't put Miguel's death into a compartment and force it into a corner of his mind. It pervaded him and spread to all corners of his thoughts like a winter blizzard.

For two days he had sat in his dim little room mechanically working through a case of warm beer, and there had come a certainty. The killer was somehow connected with his reason for being in Chicago. He would meet Miguel's
murderer again. Crown had no doubt of the outcome of that encounter.

Crown climbed the front steps of the home to a large porch. The house was typical of others along Woodlawn. It was a large red-brick single-family unit that covered most of its lot. The front yard was very small and was encircled by an iron seven-foot-high spike fence broached by a swinging black iron gate. Crown could not see the guards, but there was no question the gate was closely watched by men ordered to let only him through. The Priest was cautious.

A tall, drawn man Crown vaguely recalled seeing once in Sackville-West's office in Washington answered the door, said a smileless hello, and led him toward the study. The window shades were drawn, and it took a few seconds for Crown to adjust to the dim light. The tall man opened the study door and gestured Crown inside.

Richard Sackville-West stood next to a large table that was covered with the papier-mâché reproduction of a battlefield. Several acres of hills and fields had been constructed in miniature with infinite care. A blue stream meandered down from the hills and cut through the pastures near a cluster of toothpick-and-paper houses. A tiny bridge on each end of the town crossed the stream. The hills were made of papier-mâché and covered with green-tinted cotton and small twigs, a believable mock-up of a forest. The remainder of the board was open field bisected by hedgerows made of a brown rubbery substance.

Located in strategic positions on the battlefield were squadrons of colorfully uniformed and helmeted ancient Greek troops. The metal soldiers were no more than a half-inch high, and were positioned in orderly phalanxes of ten men across and four rows deep. Each soldier carried a glittering sword in an upraised position. The Greeks were elaborately and authentically hand-painted. Even the soldiers' eyes had been carefully drawn on the lead. Behind the foot
soldiers were squadrons of cavalry. The riders sat erect, with their shields turned toward the opposing hill.

Facing the rows of Greeks were enemy troops wearing darker, more somber uniforms. The enemy front row carried spears and shields, and following rows had swords held across their chests. The darker soldiers were backed by platoons of archers kneeling on a papier-mâché hill overlooking the action. The battle was frozen, waiting instructions from the players.

Richard Sackville-West strode around the table and extended his hand to Crown. "Good to see you, John. I hope you found your apartment suitable."

Crown already wondered at the conversation. Verbal amenities had never been the Priest's forte. He believed in short, economical discussion, touching only on matters at hand. This efficiency was an extension of the man's appearance. He was wearing a dark blue conservative suit and was sporting the habitual tweed tie. His wing-tip shoes enjoyed the typical mirror polish. His face was cultured. A pepper-gray, closely clipped mustache stopped precisely at the line of his thin upper lip. The mustache was a shade darker than his steel-colored hair. Only the eyes were unrefined. They were too hard, too quick. He could have been a successful banker or lawyer from LaSalle Street. But Crown knew he was one of the most dangerous men alive.

Another man sat on a velour couch near the battlefield table. The pleasant niceties had probably been for his benefit. Sackville-West continued, "John, I'd like you to meet Everette Smithson, head of the Midwest Division. This is his home, and he was kind enough to let us use it today. Everette will be working with you during the next few weeks."

The plump Smithson gathered his legs under him and with considerable effort lurched up from the couch. He
smiled ingratiatingly with small even teeth set between fleshy jowls and shoved his hand toward Crown. It was damp and clammy, and it pumped Crown's enthusiastically, making his elbow snap like popcorn.

"Welcome to my game room," he said, still working on Crown's hand. "Your boss and I are recreating the Battle of Arbela, fought by Alexander the Great in 331
B.C.
Of course, we don't have all of Alexander's forty-five thousand men, but we make do. I'm directing Alexander, and he is doing his best with Darius' Persians."