Part I

Chapter One

Northern Spain
Early Summer, 1943

Val’s dead.

I saw him fall, oh, god! So long for him to fall, so long to hit the shale. It wasn’t an hour ago I asked him to come with me. Not an hour and now he’s dead. Falling … Why did I promise Val to go on, to finish this damned mission … to leave him? My god, I want to kill somebody!

Kydon Schmidt, his mind murky with angry thoughts of death, could barely stand. He had lost blood, the ache from the gunshot wound in his shoulder spread over his chest, and he fought the vertigo threatening to engulf him.

Carlos Huerra, a Spanish agent, was at Kydon’s side grasping an old leather saddlebag. “Before you go on,” the Spaniard said, “do you remember what Señor Val told us?”

Weak from the loss of blood and with the pain sweeping over him in throbbing waves, Kydon Schmidt said, “I remember everything.”

Carlos opened the saddlebag. He held out a packet of thin material. “Six parcels like this. Three for you, Señor, and one each for us.”

Manuel, a younger Spaniard coming from behind, said, “Kydon, you must finish the mission.”

Kydon’s face was cruel with grief. “I won’t give those bastards the satisfaction of saying, ‘Sorry he didn’t make it.’ You and Carlos take the damned stuff to them.”

Carlos said, “You need a doctor, medicine, time to think.” He held out the parcel with the flap of cotton thrown back. “Pebbles. Bright stones,” he said.

Kydon had a saddlebag of his own given to him by Val before they left Mont D’Ancienne. He stared at the hand Carlos held out to him, then into his own saddlebag. Uncut diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, and rubies, jewels winking in the dying light, and gold, amber. A king’s ransom. No, Kydon thought as he looked at the glinting stones, a knight’s ransom.

“You meet our government man in Barcelona,” Kydon said. “Keep Val’s gift and damn the government. Damn Preston and all the bastards who got us into this!”

His anger melted into grief as Kydon saw Val in his mind again, and he stared into the deepening shadows.

Manuel gathered the horses carrying the canvas bags. “Val said the ones marked with red were yours, those marked with white go to your countrymen. Two bags for Don Enrico.” The Spaniard spoke quickly with Carlos before turning to Kydon again.

Carlos, his flat black eyes on Kydon, said, “I will take them. Listen! From the sound of the shooting it is almost over. Manuel will take you and your horses to a safe place not far from here to the south.”

Manuel and Carlos were scrupulous. Red tagged bags were together, white tagged ones on other horses. Kydon drew in his breath. Time to go, to leave Val dead among strangers.

“I saw him fall. He was shot.” He was deliberately brutal as if it helped in some way.

“But, Kydon, it is not as you think,” Manuel said.

“It’s worse. Don’t talk about it or about Val.”

The pain from the wound in his shoulder was insidious, the weakness enveloped him, the vertigo almost more than he could fight. His horse followed the one ahead without urging from him. Kydon didn’t look back, he was nearly unconscious.

The Baron von Steyr and his dozen loyal Germans, were out of the gorge and gone into the night. Val was dead, the Nazis wouldn’t have him now.

Kydon could not concentrate. He followed the Spaniard in a stupor and even forgot the jolting of the horse as he rode down a rocky uneven trail.

* * * * * * *

The doctor in the small village had seen worse wounds, the bullet had passed through Kydon’s shoulder and missed the bones. The old priest was astonished when the blond man spoke in Latin, his mind wandered but the priest caught a few words. Valerius is dead. The priest’s own Latin was faulty beyond the limits of the mass, but he tried to tell the young man he understood the anguish.

Behind the church, Manuel hid the canvas bags under moldy straw and bits of ragged tarpaulin after stabling the horses. That done, he told the doctor and priest, “I’ll come with a truck in the dawn. Explain as best you can, he has no Spanish.”

In the morning, the priest tried to feed Kydon. The young man’s eyes were much clearer, a good sign, and he took a few spoonfuls of barley broth. The English words he spoke were unintelligible to the old man before he said in Latin, “I thank you, father.” He drifted into a half-sleep before the priest could reply.

Kydon ranted in English against Preston and the task force in Washington, at the blackmailing tactics they had used to force him and Val to come to Europe. He raved in German against Hitler and what the man had done to Germany. He railed at the baron for not being the man they expected and for coming between Val and himself.

While the priest worried about the blond man’s mind and soul, the doctor was taking pulse and temperature, and changing the dressings. The doctor’s wife bathed Kydon and put fresh clothes on him, and burned his blood-soaked things.

Manuel arrived and spoke with the doctor. The American needed more attention, sulfa powder if it could be found, the doctor said, he had none. The man could be moved and should be moved before the local police heard of the skirmish on the border and came to investigate.

“There may be more bleeding but I think not so much,” the doctor told Manuel. “Drive as carefully as you can but as fast as you can. The doctors at Gerona should have what he needs.”

The canvas bags were loaded onto the bed of the truck, a pallet was arranged between them, and Manuel and the doctor got Kydon aboard. At first, Kydon tried to help but the pain and vertigo left him helpless. He was aware of the truck moving before everything blurred in his mind as the sway of the truck became hypnotic and he fell asleep.

At Gerona there was a doctor who knew Manuel. Kydon’s wound was cleaned, sulfa dusted over the injuries, and fresh bandages applied. There was a small room with the shutters closed. A night passed and in the morning Kydon was able to tell Manuel what he wanted. Two leather-covered steamer trunks full of books once owned by an Englishman were found in a shop kept by a middle-aged woman. Perfect, Kydon said.

The length of gold chain and amber beads he used for payment was very old, far older than the woman thought, and both Kydon and Manuel assured her that she could get fifty times the worth of the books and trunks for it. Later that day, children playing in an alley found a heap of books and six empty heavy canvas bags they could sell. They ran into the street waving their treasures and shouting.

At Barcelona Manuel found a place not far from the outskirts where he could leave Kydon and the truck in relative security. “I’ll contact Nesmith. He will get you to a safe place,” Manuel said. “I must meet Carlos and deliver the rest of the bags.”

“No matter how I tried to avoid it,” Kydon muttered, “here I am in Barcelona. Sounds like an operetta. Christ.”

“With your gold hair and height we cannot risk your being seen,” Manuel said. “Someone is sure to report it to the OSS. I’ll be back within an hour.”

A bleak room nothing like the Chateau D’Ancienne with comfortable rooms, soft beds, superb meals, and the liquor. Hell, Kydon thought, you wouldn’t have known there was a war going on if it hadn’t been for the uniforms or the Swastika above the door. Not like this. A dingy room in a peeling red-painted house, but he was safe from Nazis spies, Manuel said. Nothing to do but think.

Val is spared all this. What would we have done? On the run, not that Preston or his men knows what happened, but trying to hide. Hell, I didn’t think it would be like this. I wanted to find the Gervaise Hoard and we did, but I never thought to have a piece of it. What am I going to do with it? If Val were here I’d think of something but he’s dead, I saw him fall. Oh, Jesus, I saw him …

The weakness caught him, he dozed to come awake. Voices. Manuel with someone speaking Spanish. The door opened.

Larry Nesmith was at the bedside in two strides. “We’ll get you to a better place than this. What about your people? Manuel says Carlos saw them for you.”

“To hell with them. I’m out of it. Manuel says you know where I can stay until this damned shoulder heals.”

“You should go to the OSS, see Runstedt. A man named Preston is here from the States.” Larry checked Kydon’s bandaged shoulder. “You need a doctor.”

“Preston can go to hell,” Kydon whispered. He had tears in his eyes. “I’m going back to France, I have to, I want to kill somebody, Larry. They got Val.”

“You can’t go far for some time.”

“Hell, I know that. Carlos delivered the stuff to Preston because I wouldn’t.”

“Damned irregular, Schmidt.”

“I said to hell with them! Do you want me or not?”

“You’ve got to recover first, then we’ll talk. You have a fever. I shouldn’t do this, but we’ll take you to my place.”

* * * * * * *

Larry managed to see that Kydon had good food and that the dressings were changed. The lanky black-haired Englishman had been so long in Spain that most people thought he was Spanish, and he had contacts.

After two days in Larry Nesmith’s flat, Kydon felt he could move on … until he tried to walk from one room to another. He couldn’t lift a glass of water without his hand trembling and his shoulder felt like it had been hit by a battering ram. He slept and woke to sleep again.

The doctor was hopeful. “A few weeks and you’ll be fit. Nesmith has a place for you to stay. We’ll see you have medicine. Thank god for the black market, eh?”

“I can pay,” Kydon said.

“I don’t know how they work that end of it,” the doctor said. “I’ll change the dressings before you leave.” He excused himself and was gone.

The fact that he could pay was dangerous even though Larry said nothing to him about the trunks locked in the box room at the end of the passage. Kydon braced himself when he asked his question.

“Sell an uncut gem?” Larry replied. “I can manage. We may not get what it’s worth. What is it?”

Kydon dug in his pocket. When Larry saw the object Kydon held out to him, the Englishman whistled. “A diamond? I know a man who might buy it.”

“Whatever you can get for it,” Kydon said.

“Did Val—”

“He—he got it from the baron.”

“I see,” Larry said in a low voice. “By the bye, no one has heard from the baron. Don’t know where he went to earth.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Kydon replied.

“Doesn’t it? Look, I know it’s painful, your first time, but—”

“It doesn’t matter, Larry. Leave it at that,” Kydon said and turned away to avoid the expression in Larry’s eyes.

* * * * * * *

Yes, a diamond, the jeweler told Larry, perhaps fourteen carats cut if they were fortunate, good but not fine. One hundred English pounds sterling.

“Half what it should be,” Larry said as he gave Kydon the money. “If we had the time, London would get a better price.”

“As long as it pays for the medicine, a place to stay,” Kydon said.

“Elena won’t expect much past the medicine.”

“Elena?”

“She has a villa on Mallorca we use as a safe house. Until you’re fit again.”

“Mallorca’s out of it isn’t it?” Kydon said.

“That’s why it’s the best place for you,” Larry answered with a grin.

* * * * * * *

After a trip to a dingy office in the rear of an ocher-painted house, Kydon had a set of identity papers. He had insisted on using his own name. “I still have the ones they gave me to go into France. I can still be a German citizen.”

Larry raised no objections. “It’s all the same to me if you want two sets. May be useful.. Now we have someone else to meet.”

At a tavern called El Toro Blanco near the docks, Larry left Kydon at a table while he went to ”get someone for you to meet.” He was back shortly with a small wiry man who smiled like a salesman. “This is my friend Simon Lorca,” Larry said. “He has a boat to take your trunks of books.”

Kydon might pretend to be a tourist, but he was certain that the captain knew the truth. Lorca spoke slow and deliberate German. ”Mallorca, yes, and I know the house. I have another passenger, a German, who is going across.”

“When can I go aboard? I have papers. And my trunks.” Kydon took out his cigarettes. “Do you know anyone in the Black Market? I want American cigarettes.”

Lorca said, “I can help with that. It’s a good business.” He grinned. “A man with money to set up can do very well at it.”

“Thank you for the advice,” Kydon replied.

“Remember, Señor, that if you should do it, it’s better to have someone with a boat. Things can be much easier that way.”

* * * * * * *

When they took Kydon’s four trunks aboard, an older man in a shabby suit was on deck. He watched from beneath shaggy eyebrows as the crane swung the scuffed trunks over the hatch and lowered them into the hold. When he saw Kydon on the gangplank, he turned and went into the cabin.

Lorca nodded toward the retreating man. “He calls himself Paul Vorbeck and says he’s on holiday.”

Kydon went into the cabin. Vorbeck’s forehead was sprinkled with drops of sweat when Kydon introduced himself as Joseph Schmidt and said, “I taught history.”

Herr Vorbeck pulled his hand back the instant their palms touched. “I teach. A small school at Ulm.”

Jesus Christ, Kydon thought, he could be my father, this frightened man. Smaller, older, but this could be my father on the run.

“My father’s home was near Ulm,” Kydon said, “at Ravensburg. Have you visited it?”

Vorbeck had the look of a man used to living indoors, there was little color in his face, and now he went waxy. “Never. This is my first trip anywhere in years.”

“Then I trust you will enjoy yourself.”

“And you?” Vorbeck’s voice broke. “You are in the army, I take it. Your arm, the sling, you were wounded?”

“No, a fall. I’m not in the army, it’s my heart.” Kydon could add truthfully, ”There’s a constant pain though I look healthy enough.”

Vorbeck did not believe him, the pause was seconds too long. “I, too, have a heart condition.”

They talked for a few minutes, commiserating because there were no cabins, no bunks, and the older man settled himself in a chair by the table as Kydon took a bench along one of the bulkheads. Lorca came later to tell them a meal would be served. Afterward Vorbeck kept to himself, there was no place for him to get away from Kydon other than the deck. Kydon saw him through the portholes from time to time as the old man paced.

They reached Soller on the northwest coast of Mallorca a little past dawn.

* * * * * * *

 The captain said, “The house is owned by an Italian woman who speaks German as well as English.” Lorca shouted at the men bringing up the crates and trunks from the hold.

The drive by the sea in the early morning should have been a pleasant experience, but Kydon showed no interest and Vorbeck shrank back against the seat in silence. The old man ignored Kydon but his glance kept going back to the fair-haired young man who took no apparent notice. They came around a shoulder of the rocky hill. The house, plastered and painted yellow with a red tile roof, perched on a bluff overlooking the sea. Surrounded by a neglected garden on three sides, it looked abandoned except for a dusty car leaving the front gate. Their car slowed for it to pass before they entered the forecourt.

A middle-aged woman dressed in black with only a white collar to relieve it answered the door and took them into the hall. A second woman came through a door beneath the stairway and walked toward them.

She was tall, perhaps five feet seven or eight, slender but not too much so, and young, her light brown hair was pulled back and tied with a small scarf. She stopped when she saw Kydon, her eyes measuring him, then she gave her attention to Herr Vorbeck and spoke in German, laying her hand on Vorbeck’s arm.

“Isabella, show Herr Vorbeck to his room.” She gave her attention to Kydon. “I’m Elena Avezzano. If you’ll come with me.”

When they were on the stairs and Kydon reached for the bannister, weary all at once, she said, “You’re pale. Señor Lorca, help me with him on the stairs. Do you prefer English or German?” Her voice was low, a contralto, and warm.

“Whichever is comfortable for you.”

“English then. You were with Carlos Huerra. How is he?”

“The wound in his side is healing.”

“Oh yes, he was hurt, wasn’t he?” They were on the landing and she asked, “His right or his left side?”

“His left. He was hurt on a walking trip to the north some weeks ago.”

“What should we call you?”

“Kydon Schmidt.”

“Kydon. That’s Greek isn’t it?” she said. Kydon, despite his fatigue, was surprised and pleased that she recognized his name. ”My grandfather read many of the myths to me.” She gave his arm a slight tug. “Only a bit farther now.”

In a light and airy room as Kydon eased himself to the bed, she tilted her head and glanced at Lorca near the door, then back to Kydon. Her voice was low and unhurried. “I had a message from Larry. If I hadn’t, you would be dead. We can’t have Nazi spies in our nest, and you are German are you not?”

“German born but I have American citizenship.”

Kydon noticed the deep red highlights in her hair where the light glanced off it as she moved around the bed. A brunette, the same color hair as Val. He closed his eyes and tried to think of something else.

“I thought from your speech you might be English, papers here mean nothing of course. You’ve been on a mission and now you wish to rest.”

Lorca said good-bye and the door closed behind him.

“I can pay, Signora Avezzano,” Kydon said.

“We’ll discuss that later. I do take paying guests now and then as Larry must have told you.” She paused. “He said you’d gone on a special mission and that there were two of you.” She glanced away when she saw the hurt look on Kydon’s face. “Four trunks? You have rather a lot of luggage under the circumstances.”

“Books mostly. A few clothes.”

If she thought it was strange that he was on the run with four trunks of clothes and books, she didn’t show it. She said, “Would you like coffee? We have a good Black Market here. Coffee, liquor if you want it, and cigarettes.”

“Please, signora, a cup of coffee.”

She left him then and he leaned back, relaxed, and looked around the dimly lit room, the windows were curtained with thick rose-colored velvet. He went to sleep.

She woke him as she put down a tray. “I see you have American cigarettes. May I have one, please?”

She poured a cup for herself and sat in a faded velvet-covered bergere chair.

“We have a doctor in Soller,” she said, “a German, and I don’t trust him although we’ve used him before. Of course, the way you look, so German, it may be different. Didn’t Larry get you German papers? I seem to remember—”

“I already had some.”

“May I see them?” She took the papers. “These will do, they’re good forgeries. It would be better if you had a German officer’s identity. I’ll see to that, then we’ll tell the doctor you’re on medical leave.” She put the papers on the bed near his hand and lifted her cup as she spoke. “There are things you should know, I had to know about you. Larry said you lost your partner. That’s difficult.”

“How did they get the information to you?” Kydon asked.

“You mustn’t ask yet.” She waved a finger. “I’m part of the Resistance. I fight for Italy. My husband would have had he lived but a burst appendix stopped him. The conditions were bad.”

“I’m sorry.” Kydon offered her another cigarette.

She said, “You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t what you claim. I’m not sure about Herr Vorbeck. You spoke with him on the boat, what do you think?”

“He’s running away and scared,” Kydon answered. “My guess is, he thinks I’m a Nazi spy or a Gestapo agent. Maybe he’s a Jew, and maybe not, but he’s a teacher like my father and he’s frightened and vulnerable and that’s enough.”

She brushed at her skirt. “He’s ill. That can be difficult.”

“If you have to call the German, pray Herr Vorbeck’s papers are in order.”

“Of course. Oh, if you hear Isabella address me as Contessa, I’m entitled to it. That’s the way things are.”

“La contessa.” Kydon smiled. “I’m afraid my manners aren’t as polished as you might like.”

“Your manners are quite all right. May I ask, is Schmidt your real name?”

“Yes, and I have a doctor of philosophy degree, so if you hear anyone call me doctor, I’m entitled to it. It’s the way things are.”

Elena’s eyes shone with humor as she put down her cup and stood. “I think you need to sleep. I’ll look in on you later.”

She was still smiling as she left him and closed the door.

* * * * * * *

The next morning he felt up to exploring. The house had a main section flanked by two wings extending toward the sea, and Kydon’s room was at the north end of one wing. The household was simple. La Contessa, Isabella the housekeeper and cook, and Guido and Enrico. The men were older and tough and they looked after the two cars and the upkeep of the house.

After coffee and toast, he was glad to go back to his room.

Elena said, “You have a view of the sea and always a breeze. Vorbeck has a room in the front corner away from you. If you like, we can put your things in the adjoining room and you can use it as a study.”

“I’d be grateful,” Kydon said. He winced, Isabella was changing his bandages.

She was unperturbed as she said, “It looks all right. We won’t need a doctor unless it goes septic. You brought enough sulfa powder with you, what you need now is beef broth and meat.”

“The room next door,” Kydon said. “Do you have a key?”

Elena was not shocked. “Of course. My grandfather kept his library locked. We were only allowed in when he was there.” She laughed in her husky contralto.

* * * * * * *

Kydon was surprised to find, in addition to his trunks, a bookcase and a large writing table moved into his study. The table looked, Elena said, as if it had been liberated from a school, and it was placed in front of the windows.

When he first sat at the table, he remembered the library at the chateau, Val by the window with a stack of manuscripts at his elbow. It was a good time in a way, peaceful and beautiful, until the dash for the border, the gunfire, Val falling. Manuel pulling at him, yelling they must go. It was a mental carrousel, macabre and painful. Kydon said he would look after Val, said they would make it. Now he sat alone while the memories went round and round in his head.

Kydon willed himself to think of the smiling Val in the garden, his flushed cheeks after the morning horseback ride with Wolf or how Val looked in the tomb chamber with shadows flickering on the walls as they learned how to get into the shrine. The echoing cave, the surprise when they first saw the Hoard, the glimmering gold and flashing jewels.

There were too many times during the long days and longer nights when he remembered. Val standing over the limp body of Wolf, Val shouting right before he was hit, before he fell. That endless fall.

Kydon would call Isabella for cognac or whiskey.

If he drank too much—he took care not to get drunk in Elena’s presence—she said nothing. The countess would linger at the table, the pleasant hostess, and have a drink with him. Herr Vorbeck always excused himself and left as soon as the meal was finished.

Once a week during the next four weeks, Larry Nesmith came on Lorca’s boat, usually to be rowed ashore in a rubber dinghy, to dine and stay overnight. “I get a day’s leave now and then,” he said. They would have cocktails on the terrace, smoke and talk, and always when they had a moment alone, Larry brought up the OSS office in Barcelona.

“They can find you if they want, if Runstedt tries. You should go to see him.”

“He can rot in hell and Preston with him, Larry.”

“They’re your people, Kydon. If you work with anyone, it should be them.”

“What makes the difference? As long as I’m fighting the god damned Führer, who cares? I can work for the British. I’d be good, I’m German born, for Christ’s sake. I can do it.”

“No one says you can’t. I’d be damned glad to have you, London would be glad,” Larry said more than once.

“At least I’d feel I hadn’t been forced to do it with your people, Larry. You don’t know how the bastards pressured me and put the screws to Val.”

Hearing Kydon’s rage, Larry would shrug with a lift of his eyebrows and drop the subject with the same warning, ”They can find you if they really try.”

One mid-afternoon when everyone was taking a siesta, Kydon, stretched on his bed and half dozing, was brought to his feet by voices outside his door.

“Schmidt? Open the door.”

Chapter Two

Larry Nesmith, standing by Isabella, held a carton of Chesterfield Cigarettes. “Hullo, Schmidt. May we speak?”

Isabella backed away. “I have coffee ready. Some pastries,” she said.

“In my study if you please, Isabella,” Kydon replied, taking the cigarettes.

Nesmith stepped into the room and they went into the study through Kydon’s bedroom. “Rather posh having a suite.”

Kydon unlocked the door to the hall. “It’s comfortable.”

Nesmith looked at the trunks with the lids up and books jumbled in the top trays. “Morte D’Arthur? All old ones aren’t they?”

“You didn’t come here to borrow a book or ask about my reading habits.” Kydon walked around the table and pointed to one of the chairs near the window.

“Nothing has changed in Barcelona yet,” Nesmith said as he took the chair. “Everyone’s been looking for you since you dropped out of sight. Actually, Runstedt wants to see you.”

“I thought you were working for the British.”

“I hear things.” Larry Nesmith lit a cigarette and offered the pack. Kydon took one of his own as Larry said, “They expected you, Carlos told them you’d made it out, so they couldn’t understand why he made your delivery.”

Kydon sat down at the table. “What did he tell them, do you know? Not what I told him to say probably.”

“He said you had come back across the border and disappeared. He didn’t tell them about the Germans who came with you.”

Kydon’s eyebrows went up in mock surprise. “What Germans?”

“Forgot you didn’t know.” Nesmith laughed aloud. “A Wehrmacht colonel, a baron in fact, who brought a lieutenant and ten or twelve soldiers with him, but no one seems to know where they went. Carlos knows but he won’t tell, don’t you know.” Nesmith paused. “It must have been quite a bloody dust-up on the border.”

“I’d like to forget it,” Kydon said. “Who was waiting for us in Barcelona?”

“A man named Preston from Washington. I didn’t meet him but my source said he was rather pleased with what they got although he expected a bit more. They were out of sorts because of you, they wanted to talk with you.”

“I haven’t got anything to say they’d want to hear,” Kydon said. “They got what Val packed for them. Carlos was to tell them that and he was to say that Baron von Steyr sent some to Berlin.”

The Englishman smiled wryly. “Superb touch. Both the Axis and the Allies save face. I imagine the stories were inflated, reality is seldom what you expect.”

No, Kydon thought, not what you’d expect at all. He said, “I’m off their payroll now. Not to put too fine a point on it, I’ve had a fucking bellyful.”

Nesmith lifted an eyebrow. “It’s him isn’t it? It’s Val.”

Kydon didn’t look at him. “The way it ended.”

“We all lose friends sometimes.”

“I never did before.”

“I heard about it from Manuel, Carlos wouldn’t talk about it.”

There was a knock, Isabella was there with the coffee. “Damned good Black Market,” Kydon said as he took the tray.

They drank and smoked in silence. After a time, Larry asked, “How did you and Val come to meet? I thought, from the way you two behaved together, that you’d been friends for some time.”

Kydon drew a breath. “He was on a list. There were three graduate students with the right qualifications in medieval and classic Latin and Greek. Val was perfect for the job, the only one.” He glanced at Nesmith. “Yes, he and I got on very well.”

Larry’s gaze was steady as he met Kydon’s eyes. “What are you planning to do? You can’t simply stop here for the war, you know. I’ve got to know, were you serious about coming in with us?”

“I want to do something.” Kydon opened the drawer of the writing table and took out a fresh pack of Chesterfields and opened it methodically. “What I’d like to do is get our revenge, Val’s and mine. I want to kill someone. I’m mad as hell.” He moved his shoulder, flexed his arm. “Hardly a twinge. I’ve been swimming every day for the past week.”

“Good show. But you could go back to the States.”

“I can’t, Larry. Something Val said once about not being able to go back to his classroom after going through what we did. Going back to the university would seem more unreal than all this, even insane. As if I could forget anything.” Kydon stood up and went to stand by the window. “I want to do something but not for Preston or the FBI or for any of them, you understand, but something for him, for Val.”

“Then why not the OSS rather than us?” Nesmith asked. “We all work very closely more or less. You’d be damned useful.”

“I’m not G.I. issue.” Kydon lit a cigarette. “Do you think your people would want me knowing what you know about me?” He came back to his chair. “Or are you going to do what Washington did, call me a pansy and use that as a lever, a threat, to force me to do what you want, what they want?”

Larry didn’t hesitate. “Good god, no! Talk with your man Runstedt first. I don’t know what he’ll say, what means he may use, or how he’ll try to persuade you.”

Kydon whirled to face Larry. “I didn’t like Preston when he recruited me and he sure as hell didn’t like me. He didn’t like Val. The son of a bitch blackmailed us and used us but he never cared about us.” Kydon’s voice was brittle, sarcastic. “If Roosevelt can’t get along without me, then in a week or so, I’ll talk to whoever’s in Barcelona but forget Preston!”

Nesmith freshened his coffee. “It’s no difference to me personally. I helped your people in the OSS when you went into France because London asked me to do it. I’m serious now about you helping us.”

“I want to do it.”

“They’ve already investigated you so I’ve cleared it with London. When you’re fit enough then.”

“That’s goddam great, Larry, I mean it.”

“But I expect you to take care of yourself. I don’t like losing men.”

* * * * * * *

At dinner Elena wore a plain black dress and no jewelry. They took coffee on the terrace and sat where they could see the dark purple sea. The night seeped down staining the water and the horizon was indistinct.

Nesmith said lightly, “I’ve recruited your houseguest.”

“He’s not ready to go in again,” Elena answered. “He needs a bit more rest.”

Kydon said, “I’ve got to do it.”

Elena didn’t reply. In the light from the lamp she looked sad when Kydon glanced at her. He said, “I haven’t got Italian so I’d be precious little use in Italy.”

“You could always impersonate a Nazi, you know, and perhaps be quite useful,” she said in a flat tone.

Larry leaned back. “Where was Herr Vorbeck tonight?”

“He complained of a headache.” Elena pushed her cup away. “He frightens me. I think he’s quite ill and I’m not sure what I should do.”

“Has he said how long he’s planning to stay?” Larry asked.

Elena looked into the gathering darkness. “Until his wife joins him, two more weeks perhaps, but you know how these things go.” She rubbed her arms as if chilled. “He told me she was in hospital with a heart attack, that she made him come ahead.”

“They’re running,” Kydon said. “She didn’t want him caught.”

“Of course they’re running.” Elena got to her feet. “I’ll get the brandy.”

Larry shook out a cigarette and packed it on the back of one hand. “Schmidt, the business of you and Val is strictly between us. It’s plain the Spanish agents aren’t saying anything. They didn’t mention it to me when they might have, and everyone else who knew anything about the mission is gone.”

Kydon’s anger flared again. “Sure, they’ll keep their mouths shut now, the mission’s over. At least Preston said they would.”

Larry walked to the edge of the terrace. “This sort of thing causes more trouble in your country than mine. Our school ties, you know. The old boys have a way of keeping things quiet.” He turned and came back to the table. “It shouldn’t cause any trouble. We need people who are useful.”

Kydon’s voice was soft yet firm. “If who I choose to go to bed with outweighs my ability to do a job—”

Larry came back to the table. “Here’s our hostess with the cognac.”

* * * * * * *

Kydon lifted his head. He wasn’t dreaming. He heard a dull thumping sound coming from the hall. He got out of bed, pulled on his trousers, and went to the door. His bare feet made no sound on the wood floor. He put his ear against the panel of the door and listened. The thump came again, barely audible. He opened the door and looked out.

The hall was dimly lighted by a large window at the end near Kydon’s room. The far end made a turn into the main section of the house. It was lighted faintly by an oil lamp on a table at the head of the main stairs but the glow barely reached the turn of the corridor. He slipped out and went toward the front hall. Kydon could see someone on the floor in the shadow of the hall table. He saw with horror that the thumping noise was caused by a rhythmic jerking of a hand and foot striking the floor. He ran toward the figure.

Herr Vorbeck lay against a table leg, his arms and legs twitching grotesquely, his breath a hoarse rattle. Kydon went down on one knee and bent over the old man.

“Vorbeck, can you speak?” he asked in German.

The man twisted his head around, his face was drawn and his eyes glittered in the faint light. He opened his mouth but no sound except the raspy breathing came out and he stared at Kydon with wide and terrified eyes. The flailing hands thumped against the floor.

“You have nothing to fear from me.” Kydon put his hand on the man’s chest and said gently, “I’ll get help.”

He went to the countess’s room and rapped on the door. She opened it almost at once. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders and she held her satin robe closed with her hands.

“Vorbeck’s had an attack.” Kydon leaned against the wall.

“Oh my god, where?”

“In the hall by the table. He must have gone to the toilet.”

She tied her sash as she followed him and she knelt by the old man. She whispered, “I think he’s had a stroke.”

Kydon looked around as Nesmith, a towel around his waist, came along the hall. Elena glanced up at him and said, “You and Kydon get him into his room.” She got to her feet and went ahead of them to open the door.

Larry bent to take the old man’s legs. He looked up at Kydon. ”Can you manage, old man?”

Kydon bent to put his hands under Vorbeck’s shoulders. “See if I don’t.”

The oil lamp was burning by Vorbeck’s bed as Larry and Kydon gently laid the old man down while Elena went for Isabella.

“Rotten luck,” Larry said. “Elena hates the local doctor.”

“She told me.” Kydon looked down at the frail old teacher on the bed. “God, he can’t speak. How will we find his wife now?”

Larry glanced around the room. “We can put it on the line.”

“Jesus H. Christ, the man thought I was the damned Gestapo or the SS after him. I’ve scared him to death.”

“You couldn’t help that. Everyone looks over their shoulders.” Larry looked through Vorbeck’s papers. “Ruddy light.” He turned up the oil lamp.

Elena and Isabella came in and the older woman looked down at Vorbeck. She felt his forehead, lifted one hand and then the other, and bent to peer into his face. “A stroke like my father. No need for the doctor tonight, I can make him comfortable.”

“I’ll send Guido for the doctor in the morning then.” Elena looked at Kydon. “We can manage now but thank you for your help.”

Back in his room, Kydon couldn’t shake the thought of Larry in Elena’s room. Well, la contessa was a beautiful woman. Larry wasn’t bad either if it came to that.

Kydon stepped out of his trousers, threw them across a chair, and stood at the window naked. He was filled with a sense of loss and of longing. It wasn’t that either Elena or Larry attracted him, it was the idea that two people were being intimate and Kydon realized he wanted someone beside him.

I can’t have Val, and nothing else is possible right now. When I had the chance to make something of an affair, I didn’t did I? I couldn’t say to him what I should have said, I was afraid. I wanted to find that damned treasure. Hell, no lovemaking for us under the eyes of the Germans, Nazis, while they were everywhere. Not back in Washington either, it all came too fast, too hard there for either of us. I couldn’t tell what the best thing to do really was. Did I throw it all away? Yes, I did. Now I’m alone and feeling sorry for myself.

He touched the small round pink scar in the front of his shoulder, the flesh was tender. He pressed it until he felt the pain.

Christ, Schmidt, pull yourself together. It’s happened to literally tens of thousands of people. But it’s easier for them in the long run, easier to find another mate. That’s what I threw away. I was afraid to say a few words …

He smoked a cigarette and looked out at the sea. His eyes were accustomed to the dark and he could make out the water and he heard the murmur of the surf below on the rocks. He looked northwest toward Spain, toward the unseen mountains, and toward France somewhere beyond the night.

In the main section of the house, in one of the big bedrooms, two people had made love and perhaps they were doing it again, a defiant gesture to prove a sense of immortality in the face of death.

Down the hall lay an old man, frightened into a seizure and helpless, attended by a stranger while his wife was somewhere in Germany and unaware of what had happened. Or perhaps she was on her way south at that moment and looking forward to a reunion with her husband. If she made it out of Germany.

He felt despair. What difference does it make what I do? Besides my father, there’s no one to care. What’s ahead for me? Nothing.

Kydon stood at the window and wept.

He was up at dawn, shaved and dressed, and went down to the kitchen. Isabella found him an old suitcase. She watched him run up the stairs like a boy and he saw her bite her lip before she went back to the big kitchen range.

Kydon was waiting at the table when Larry came downstairs.

“I’m ready for summer vacation camp. My bag’s packed.”

Chapter Three

Guido set them down where the road ran near the sea then the Italian drove on to the town of Soller get the doctor. Kydon and Larry went aboard a fishing boat anchored offshore in the lee of a promontory and out of sight of the town. The boat weighed anchor as soon as they were aboard, and headed northwest. It landed near Tarragona where Larry’s car was hidden among ragged olive trees. By late evening they arrived at the house where Nesmith lived.

The following morning, as soon as the streets began to come alive, Larry took Kydon back to the forger’s shop where new papers were made for him. The smiling old Spaniard in the shop was one of the best in the area. “Everyone uses him,” Larry said cheerfully. “The OSS, us, the Nazi agents, absolutely everyone.” By the time all the documents were finished and he had the earlier sets, Kydon could be a German captain, an ordinary German soldier, or a Swiss businessman, while keeping his own surname of Schmidt.

The lone exception were the papers identifying him as “Hans Deutsch,” the name used to get him into France those months before. Before he had ever met the Baron von Steyr, before Val was shot during their escape.

He needed clothes and afterward, they sat in a café and shared a bottle of wine. Larry said, “Do you want to see your people? I can arrange it.”

“This Runstedt guy?”

“He works for a man named Schoonmaker who’s set up a network in France under the OSS Algerian HQ.”

Near them and against the wall, a man with brilliantined hair began strumming a guitar. A woman came forward, her glossy black hair caught by a comb. With a twitch of her ruffled skirts, she began dancing a flamenco. The men in the café began keeping time by slapping their hands on the tabletops. Had there been tourists, Kydon might have thought it was staged. But it was nothing out of the ordinary in this place, in this time.

Larry leaned back and signaled for coffee. “I’m sure he’s been very thoroughly briefed on you and your lack of co-operation.”

“What is he like? You must know him.”

“Not actually so I’m not sure how good he is. I think he was chosen for his name. So many, far too many, Spaniards are pro-German.”

“Not all of them,” Kydon said as he thought of Manuel. “You keep a watchful eye on your competition.”

“We have to, and don’t think the yanks aren’t returning the favor.”

“I’ll get it over with.” Kydon drank his wine.

“Don’t let him talk you into anything you don’t want to do, Schmidt.”

“What difference can it make to them?” Kydon asked.

* * * * * * *

“I’ll tell you what makes the goddam difference, Schmidt!” Wayne Runstedt’s face was flushed and the veins in his neck stood out as he spoke. He was shorter by six inches than Kydon’s six feet three inches so he stood over Kydon’s chair to look down as he talked. Or screamed.

“We needed you then! Son of a bitch, you just stayed away. For Christ’s sake. What the hell do you think you’ve been doing, Schmidt? You don’t fucking waltz in six weeks after you get out of France like nothing in the frigging world is wrong.”

Kydon lifted his eyes slowly. “It looks like I have.”

“Don’t pull that superior shit with me. You might have a string of letters after your name but that tone—”

“When you’re through with your bullshit, Runstedt, ask me what you want to know. I have things to do.”

“Oh, now you have a prior engagement.” Wayne Runstedt whirled away from Kydon and slammed one fist into his palm with a loud smacking noise. “Sorry for the inconvenience but you’re off the payroll. If you think we’ll support your goddam vacation, you’re dead wrong.”

“As far as I’m concerned, I was off the payroll the minute I crossed back into Spain with the cargo for Preston and his crew,” Kydon said in a low, controlled voice.

Runstedt’s voice was tight. “You didn’t finish the job. You didn’t come in for your little chat, you sent a greasy wop with the stuff. And that Limey agent.”

“That ‘greasy wop’ and his friends are on our side, damn it. Your people got what they sent me for. It only cost a life or two.”

“It’s a war, buddy. People die.” Runstedt stopped moving around. “I should have realized when your little buddy got it. He was your special buddy wasn’t he? Did you two play toesies under the table? He knew the goddam risks when he signed on.” The man’s gray eyes were hard slate and filled with malice. “I can’t believe someone like him ever got—”

“He didn’t get to volunteer.” Kydon stood up and squared his shoulders. Runstedt’s face changed. Kydon saw the glimmer of fear in the cold gray eyes. “I’m here because someone suggested it. I should have damn well known better.” He moved toward Runstedt who backed up a step or two as Kydon stared at him. “You haven’t got any more feeling than that cold-blooded ass, Preston, if you think I use a superior tone, buddy.” He took another step forward.

Runstedt backed into a file cabinet. Dust motes glittered in a shaft of sunlight coming through the shutters. The room was quiet except for Runstedt’s breathing.

“Look here, Schmidt, I’m—”

“You’re a government man, you little shit, and because there’s a war on, you think you can throw your weight around and use any kind of language you want with anyone you please. Well, I’m off the payroll you said, and I’m a private citizen now, so to say it so you’ll understand it, I can stomp your ass into the goddam floor.”

Kydon was over him. Runstedt’s mouth opened and closed as sweat beaded his forehead as he said, “All I have to do is call—”

“Do that. I’ll say you got angry when I wouldn’t play toesies with you.”

Runstedt looked toward the door of the office. In the outer room, the aide was typing fast and hard. The sound probably covered the raised voices, Kydon realized, amazed at himself for noticing it.

“You bastard! You wouldn’t.”

Kydon’s smile was grim. “The guy outside has to get in here first. Sit down and keep your hands out of your pockets.”

Runstedt sat down hard. “I don’t carry a gun.”

“I’m not worried about a gun, I want you to concentrate when I talk to you and not play pocket-pull. You get pimples if you play with yourself too much. See?” Kydon touched him on the chin. “You have one there and here’s another one.” He bumped Runstedt’s cheek with a knuckle.

Runstedt jerked away. “You’re nuts!” His color was gone now. He licked his lips as Kydon stepped back and he managed to say, “What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m tired of you people calling other people names and pushing them into things.” Kydon looked down at the pale man. “Now you know why I didn’t come to see Goody-Two-Shoes Preston and I see I made a mistake seeing you. What the hell do you want from me? You got the damned stuff. You were here saying, ‘yes, yes, yes,’ kissing Preston’s ass and polishing his shoes.”

“Yeah, I was here when the Spanish guide brought it in.” Runstedt’s color was coming back slowly. He began to breathe a little easier. “He said Adams sent it, you sent it, then you disappeared into the mountains, that you took a bullet. That’s what he told us.”

“Forget my bullet wound,” Kydon said. “Val packed those bags with his own hands, you son of a bitch, and on the way home I saw him shot, I saw him fall. He got shot for you and the other nasty bastards like you. You can say rotten things about him and me but you don’t say them to me. Not to me, not anymore.”

“Preston said it took someone like him,” Runstedt said and his voice was strained almost to cracking.

“You sure as hell couldn’t have done it.”

Runstedt waited a moment. When Kydon said nothing, the man said, “We wanted to arrange your passage home. You want to go home don’t you?”

“No, I want to kill somebody.”

“You’re crazy.” The frightened man’s words came in a rush. “That’s what it is, Schmidt. It’ll do it to a guy, what you went through in the mountains, in France. Like shell-shock.”

“Watch how you talk to me then. I wouldn’t want to have a fit and hurt you.”

Runstedt took another tack. “You’re just doing this aren’t you? You don’t mean any of this.”

Kydon walked around the chair. “When are you going to ask me the questions you think Preston would ask?”

“Okay, okay. He thought there would be more.”

“There was. The German commandant sent some off to Berlin before Val and I could get it moved.”

“How much of it?”

“Six, eight bags. I didn’t get a chance to see how many.”

Runstedt frowned and wiped away the sweat. ”Six or eight? Say eight. The six they brought here, that’s a lot. Fourteen bags.”

Kydon’s lips twitched but he didn’t smile. “The monks had been using it, dipping into it for two hundred years before their order died out late in the 1300s.” He sat down and lit a cigarette. “A little here, a little there, like you do with your expense account.”

“How can you know that?”

“That’s the kind of thing I’m trained to know like you’re supposed to know what’s going on north of the Pyrenees except our man in Algiers is better at it than you are. The Brits are better.”

“How the hell do you know—?”

“They have better people, a better system.”

“But how can you—?”

“I’m learning.”

“The guides said a German patrol was after you. A Gestapo agent. How did they know what you were doing?”

Kydon did smile then. Okay, Val, I’ll try to get even for you.

“Someone slipped by the boys in Washington. He got right into the FBI. His name was Peter Sand and he made contact with Val Adams. Val didn’t know who or what he was but Sand knew us and why we were going to France. Sand turned out to be a lieutenant in the Gestapo and an agent for the Abwehr.”

Runstedt was shocked. “You knew this?”

“We figured it out after Val pointed him out to me in France. I’d suggest a few inquiries back in Washington. Ask an FBI agent named Jarvis. Jarvis was supposed to be in charge of Val. He’d know if one of his agents disappeared.” Kydon’s smile widened. “And there was a shooting in front of Val’s apartment. Val said it was Sand but the FBI kept quiet about it.”

Runstedt glanced at his desk. “I need to make notes—my pad and pencil—Jesus Christ! Shit. Look, they’ll want you there.” He got his tablet and began writing.

“I’m not going back yet.”

“Well shit, man, you’re not getting paid. What’ll you do?”

“I’m going in again.”

Runstedt’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you working for?”

“For my satisfaction this time.”

“It’s Larry Nesmith isn’t it? He got to you. You’re joining MI6.”

Kydon went to the door. “I’ll have someone keep you up to date in case you need someone who speaks German like a native.” He went out and closed the door behind him.

He could picture Runstedt scribbling and sweating.

* * * * * * *

Kydon walked to his rendezvous with Larry at a small café where Nesmith usually met his operatives. Someone shouted ”Sieg Heil” as he entered and made his way to the back wall, third table from the right corner. It was still a surprise to him how many Spaniards leaned toward the Germans. Obviously they didn’t fully understand what the Nazis were really like. Nothing quite like Franco and the Spanish Fascists, he hoped.

Nesmith was waiting. “How did it go?” Kydon gave him a short version and Larry said, All right then, ready to take on a job?”

“What is it?”

“You’ll need your hair cut shorter and a captain’s uniform. We need someone to go to Villard-Bonnot, a town north of Grenoble.”

“For what?”

“The radio went dead and there are drawings we need of fortifications near the Saint Bernard Tunnel. Our man got that much out and the fact he’d broken a leg. He can’t radio out plans and drawings.”

Kydon picked up his glass. ”Tell me what I’m to do.”

* * * * * * *

For Kydon’s first mission for MI6, Nesmith gave his newest operative the best and most ruthless men he could find. The Frenchmen were tough, independent, dangerous, and they had their own organization. No one knew more than one other man’s name so if the Nazis took one captive, that man couldn’t give away an entire group. Because of this, none of the four men in German uniforms escorting Captain Schmidt from Montpellier to Villard-Bonnot knew who the others were. Two of the four had good German, two passable German.

At Villard-Bonnot, Captain Kurt Schmidt toured a few installations as a guest of the commandant. As a special favor, the commandant also arranged a tour of the old churches for the captain who had an interest in ancient inscriptions.

“A hobby of mine, Latin,” Kydon said.

“My last visitor did not enjoy the town,” the commandant said as the two had coffee and cognac. “You favor him. Are you related to Heinrich Finsterwald? He’s a colonel of the SS.”

“I don’t know him.”

“Uncanny resemblance.” The commandant finished his drink. “Quite uncanny.” He poured himself another two fingers of cognac. “Finsterwald had a taste for—had unusual interests. There are people, Captain Schmidt, who are agreeable to their conquerors. Very young people. I know only from hearsay, you understand. I have children as young as those who …” The commandant hesitated. “Cognac?”

Kydon shook his head. “I’m not interested, I have a survey to finish, you understand, Oberst.”

During the next day, Captain Schmidt made many notes in Latin and Greek but they had more to do with military matters than epitaphs. An officer of the Wehrmacht seen noting down epitaphs and inscriptions in the churches was a curious enough sight to be whispered of on the streets.

Finding the contact was difficult. Kydon had the man’s code name, Orange, and little else. At a café the captain praised the food and complained about the lack of fresh fruit. He would like oranges. “But we are too far north, are we not?” It brought a round of laughter. “So I’d settle for a knight’s tomb.” The landlord told him of a church that held effigies of two sixteenth century knights.

He bought a bouquet of orange marigolds which he left at the tomb of one of the knights, and made a leisurely study of the epitaphs. At vespers, a man arrived on crutches. Kydon went into the cemetery, followed by the man on crutches. The captain talked loudly to the soldier with him as he made entries in his notebook, ignoring the man who had a cast on one leg and took up most of the path with his crutches. The man had a small bunch of flowers which he put on a small stone. Among the mass of daisies were three orange marigolds. The man adjusted the leg of his trousers covering his cast. Then, on his crutches, he swung back to the church with an insolent glance for the German officer.

The captain made a casual tour farther along the path. He glanced down at a tightly wound cylinder of paper shoved in between the marigolds. A swift glance told him no one but his own soldiers were around and the cylinder was tucked into his tunic in seconds.

All they had to do now was return to Spain.

As they drove away from the town, the man driving said, “You were a surprise to everyone, spending your time in the churches.”

“Didn’t they expect any of their own officers to be civilized?”

The man shook his head. “They said in the mess that the man before you took two children to his quarters. A girl and boy no more than twelve or fourteen.”

“So that’s what the commandant meant.”

“The SS pigs do as they wish.” The driver spat out of the window. “Children, for the love of god!”

Kydon felt disgusted and depressed. Children, spoils of war.

They drove in silence the rest of the way. They passed through the roadblocks without being challenged.

Nesmith was right, it was a simple job. He said as much in Barcelona when he handed the drawings and plans to Nesmith. “It went better than I expected. I’ll translate this material tonight.”

“Don’t think every trip is as easy,” Larry warned him. “Go back to Elena’s and I’ll send for you later. Give me your notes for the pouch, we’ll have them translated.”

“You mean I don’t go right back?”

Larry put the plans and notes into a pouch to go by courier from Gibraltar to London. “Not yet but it will happen. And we need a better code name than The Lone Ranger. Really, Ky!”

* * * * * * * *

Elena met him at the door of the villa. “Vorbeck died two days after you left. We went through everything he had, everything. We found nothing to tell us where his wife might be.”

“Can’t we contact anyone in Ulm?”

“We can, but we don’t know if that story is true.”

Kydon dropped into one of the worn velvet chairs in the shadowy drawing room. “Damn it, someone must know.”

She sat down opposite him. “It bothers you, this Vorbeck mystery, I know. You had nothing to do with his death or the stroke, Kydon. No one can foresee these things, they simply happen.”

“He was an innocent man and I meant him no harm.”

And, Kydon thought, he reminded me of my father. A teacher, a good man, a kind man, and a threat to no one.

“Come. Isabella has some food.” Elena got up and put her hand on his shoulder. “We’ll put inquiries on the line so if anyone hears of Frau Vorbeck, we’ll know. Your wound didn’t bother you?”

“Frau Vorbeck doesn’t even know she’s a widow.”

Kydon sat for a moment before following her to the dining room. He felt guilty, and that was enough. He wanted to rip and tear the people who’d caused an old man such fear. An old man … and Val. “I heard a disgusting story,” he said. “An officer took two children to his quarters. I don’t want to think …”

“You’ve got much to learn,” Elena told him. “I asked you, did your wound bother you?”

“I never thought of it.”

* * * * * * * *

It was five days of pacing the house before Larry Nesmith contacted him again.

“Look here, Schmidt, you’ll need some training,” Larry said over drinks. “Would you like to work with Manuel again?”

“Yes,” Kydon said. “What kind of training?”

“Weapons. We’ve got to make a marksman of you and you have to know mines, explosive devices.”

“Great, do I get to blow up something?”

“Christ, Schmidt, it isn’t a game.” Larry and Kydon stood as Elena excused herself.

“I’d rather not hear this.”

It would be in the mountains, Larry explained. “Carlos and his crew. You already know them and should feel comfortable.”

“When do I go?”

“Tonight with me,” Larry answered. “We’ve got to come up with another code name. HQ didn’t care for the last one.”

“You’re planning to send me anywhere and everywhere? How about Apollo?” Kydon took a sip of his drink. “One of the god’s titles was Far Darting Apollo. He was likely to show up anywhere.”

“And you can turn in your reports in classic Greek.” Larry gave him a jovial clap on the shoulder. “Apollo it is then.”

* * * * * * * *

Kydon wasn’t prepared for the response from Elena. She was watching him pack one of the well-used suitcases. “I’m sorry you’re leaving, Kydon. I know you must, but I’m sorry all the same.”

“I’m coming back. Can’t this be my headquarters as well as yours?”

“Of course.” Elena walked to the window. “I’m worried for you, that’s all, you’re an innocent in a way. You haven’t learned the—the other side of it.” She turned to face him. “You say you’re ready to kill but are you? They’ll make you into a killer, you know. That’s what this training is.”

“I’ve got to do it.” Kydon closed the suitcase. “And haven’t you had this same training, Elena? What’s the difference between us? The war has to be fought any way we can.”

“Go back to America and join your army.”

“I can’t do that.”

He couldn’t explain to her why he wouldn’t be welcome in the U.S. Army. He would have to tell her how he came to be sent on a mission and he didn’t want to see the fondness in her eyes turn to revulsion when she discovered what he really was.

“I can be of more use here,” he said.

“But you could be killed.”

“Any of us could be, Elena, but I have one advantage over you, I don’t care.”

“You can’t mean that. You have so much to look forward to. You’re young. Life’s ahead of you.”

“What kind of life? Not the comfortable life you can have. I’ve got to pay them back, all of them.”

She drew away. “It’s in your eyes again, that awful pain and anger I see so often. Do you really think killing anyone will help?”

“Do you know who the Erinyes are? The angry ones, the avenging furies of Greek myth who hound mortals to avenge crimes.”

“Oh Kydon, how will it possibly help you going after people who didn’t even know your friend?”

“Damn it, I have to try.”

“I don’t know Greek but my uncle has good Latin. He’s a priest in the Vatican. I remember a saying, ira furor brevis est.”

“Anger is a brief madness.” Kydon smiled. “Let’s hope then, Elena, that it’s a true saying.”

* * * * * * * *

He felt the old anger as he rode in the dusty car climbing into the mountains. It was ahead somewhere, the place of death and the end of his real excitement and love of life. What good was finding a fabled treasure if it cost Val’s life?

The driver, who had neither English nor German, drove morosely, striking the horn at dogs or chickens when they rode through one of the small villages, and kept his face forward like a graven image. He didn’t respond even when Kydon offered him an American cigarette. They came to a place high on the flank of a peak and the driver swung the car recklessly, braked, and said, “Espera.”

It was close enough to the Latin for Kydon to know he was to wait. He got out and put his bag on the ground. The car pulled away leaving a fine dust settling all around.

He was on a wide natural shelf. The road they came on looped down to the south, while the road ahead dropped into a narrow valley. He heard an engine knocking, the vehicle out of sight around a shoulder of fractured rock. At last the car came into view.

“My friend,” Carlos said as he emerged brushing at his clothes. “I see you are ready.”

“I am. Where are we going?”

“A little place not far. Then France.” The Spaniard grinned. “And this time you will go armed, yes?”

“You’re damned right.”

“A good thing. A man must take his revenge when he can. One thing I must say. We have a saying, revenge is a dish best eaten cold.” Carlos picked up Kydon’s bag. “Always think before you act.”

“At least you don’t think I’m crazy.”

Carlos threw the bag into the boot. “No, Señor, I do not. You have a hunger for blood and for good reason. It was your friend who was shot. A man must shoot back so you have do it as he cannot.”

“I’m glad you understand,” Kydon said as he got into the car.

Carlos got in behind the wheel. “My friend, I understand more than you know.”

Chapter Four

Being in the mountains where it had happened, Kydon thought, made it easier to learn what he must. Easy to bring up the anger of Val’s death here, to learn the training already basic to most of the others, Sten guns, rifles, hand guns, machine guns, German, British, French, or whatever they could find or steal. Grenades and explosives.

Carlos knew how to reach and release Kydon. If Kydon faltered or let his frustration get in his way, Carlos would say, “That’s why your friend was shot. Will you let it happen again, Señor? You may have others depending on you.”

Kydon held his tongue and tamed his anger and learned to channel the fierce rage inside him.

They slept on the ground, using skimpy pallets made of threadbare blankets. “And these are good compared to what we often have,” Manuel told him, “which is none at all.”

Kydon shared the camp with men who had come south. They were maquisards for the most part, men evading deportation to Germany as forced laborers, and they were all French so Kydon was forced to learn the language quickly. They were wanted by the Gestapo or the Vichy controlled gendarmes and all of them told Kydon, “We can sleep through the night here, bare ground or not, Apollo.” They all went by code names and the one called Falcon spoke to Kydon most often, he was fond of trying his English.

Kydon managed an answer in French, “Any bed is soft if you are tired enough.” They laughed at his accent.

He needed to learn, to hear what they said among themselves, he knew they didn’t trust him completely, Kydon was too tall, too blond, and he looked too German to pass as French, but he did what he could to blend with the others.

He never joined them when they had women at the camp. Several women tried to draw him into the shadows or a tent but he refused.

“You look healthy,” a man called Sailor said. “Have you no need? These women are the best, and Marie can milk you with no hands.”

“Maybe he wants someone with less experience,” Robert said. “A young girl fresh from the farm.”

Manuel told them finally that Apollo mourned a loved one left behind. A man said, “When the itch gets bad enough, he’ll scratch it. You’ll see.”

Kydon wondered if he would ever want the touch of hands on him, lips on his. He wouldn’t think of it, if he did it was to see Val again, laughing, then see him fall to the shale of the Devil’s Slide.

Better not to think. Not yet, and perhaps not ever.

Manuel had French as well as his own language, and a few of them had some English. Several had German and they coached each other during their rest periods. The maquisards formed tight-knit fighting groups while some acted as agents for the British, the men who went into France regularly, taking in radios, money, always needed and always in short supply, and medical supplies.

They heard of the RAF raids on the Ruhr Valley factories and the US bomber attacks on the German ports in the north. They heard there would soon be an invasion of Sicily, a step away from Italy. Rumors also whispered of the Allies gathering forces in England and an invasion of France by sea would come at any time.

It gave Kydon a deep gratification to sabotage the garrison at Perpignan, a pleasure so intense that it frightened him. He hoped that Oberst Tormeister was still in command when Kydon, Falcon, and the others, burned most of the garrison trucks. Afterward, hiding in ditches or behind railroad embankments, evading the sentries, gave him a sense of power although he knew he was the amateur. From that night, Kydon channeled his energies toward the job at hand and was often reckless.

It was the first of several sorties into occupied territory, to sabotage trucks or rail lines, and each one went deeper into France than the one before, each was more exhilarating than the last. He had a gun in his hand and the thing he said he wanted to do was a reality.

It was amazing the number of people who would help them when they needed food or a place to rest and sleep. There were some, once relied on, who were no longer trusted.

“There’s nothing worse than a collaborator,” Manuel said. “Enough of us die as it is.”

* * * * * * * *

“Study these maps.” Carlos spread them on a folding table. ”There are safe houses on the way. Memorize who and where.”

While he pored over the maps, Falcon, Sailor, and Robert, described the countryside of the Limousin, Languedoc, the sheer cliffs and valleys of the Auvergne, the Dordogne, the forest covered hills and small villages and towns. The caves, the men said, where there were ”animals painted on the walls before there was a Paris or Rome or London.”

* * * * * * * *

At last, Kydon went north with Falcon and some others into the Limousin, near the city of Limoges, to escort a downed RAF pilot and a British agent to the border on what they called the C line, the route to Catalonia. Jack Donovan, when his Spitfire was shot down, parachuted but he took a bullet through the calf from a passing Messerschmidt. He could walk but his wound was painful. The agent, an Englishman called Mathers, was a wiry man, stronger than he looked, and annoyingly officious. His thick salt and pepper hair was his vanity, combed back in waves like an orchestra conductor.

“He can’t get far if tetanus develops,” Mathers told Falcon. “He shouldn’t be on his feet at all.”

“Is there any place we can take him?” Kydon asked. “A safe house anywhere near?”

“There must be,” Mathers said eagerly. “I’ll help get him there myself.”

Falcon said, “There’s a chance he can stay with a woman who has a farm not far from here.”

“My god, man,” Donovan said ,anxiously. “You aren’t going on, you can’t leave me behind!”

Looking at the flyer, Kydon knew the man’s fear. “Only until you’re better,” Kydon said. “You can see you aren’t able to travel.”

Jack Donovan couldn’t move without wincing. He studied the ground, his shoulders sagged, and he looked up at Kydon and Falcon. “I’m a damned bad sport. You’ve got him to get through,” Donovan said with a nod toward Mathers. “He’s more important than a pilot with a game leg.”

“Every one of us is important,” Falcon said. “Come. The woman’s farm is not far.”

“What’s the name of the place?” Mathers asked.

* * * * * * * *

The farm was on the outskirts of a tiny village, Saint Eustace à l’ouest.

“Yes, I have a place where he can be hidden,” Madame Bonheur said as she looked at the flyer’s leg. “The priest at Saint Eustace may have medicine, even sulfa, if the others haven’t taken it. They had several worse hurt than he.”

“What others?” Falcon looked worried.

Madame Bonheur shook her graying head. “Maquis like you. Do you think you are the only ones who know me and this house?”

“How many?” asked Falcon.

“Three wounded, eight sound and full of vinegar, and all from the north from their accents.”

Her farm was on the east side of the small cluster of houses fifteen kilometers from Saint Eustace. “A walk of two and a half hours across the fields, three by road but you may meet Germans.”

“Let the Englishmen rest,” Falcon said, “and you Apollo, Emile, come with me. Madame, what signposts must we watch for if we go by the fields?”

Follow the stream past the first two fields then a long row of poplars, another corn field, and across the fallow field to the stand of beeches at the top of a small rise. Madame Bonheur drew herself up and gazed into the distance.

“You can see the church tower from the hill. Carry hoes or scythes like workmen in the event you are seen, they are in the shed there. And you,” she said to Kydon, “don’t speak, your accent will give you away, and you surely don’t look like a Frenchman.”

Falcon nodded sagely. “She’s right. Now we must go if we’re to do any good.”

The day was coming to an end, the shadows of the hedgerows lay stretched across the fields. The walking was easy, guns hidden in their belts, the hoes across Kydon’s and Emile’s shoulders and Falcon with the scythe, as they skirted the field of grain beginning to tassel out. A thrush sang as they approached a grove of beeches. From the far side of the trees, they saw the church tower, the weathered gray stone taking on the warm glow of the sun. There was a vineyard between them and the first group of houses, outbuildings, and a row of poplars that could shield them, a small brook with willow and alder growing rampant on its banks.

They could see a road running out from the village in a long lazy curve. An old man led a bony horse pulling a cart. Kydon saw the man lead the horse off the road to make a detour at the edge of the field.

Falcon swung the scythe off his shoulder and leaned on it. ”Apollo, stay here. If we are not back within an hour, go back for the others and then go south back along our trail. The pilot must either take his chances with you or stay behind.”

Kydon sat down with his back to a tree where he could watch the road and the backs of the houses. Falcon and Emile left him, taking the hoes and leaving the scythe.

The two men had been gone half an hour when Kydon heard the sound of car and truck engines. He moved behind some bushes where he could lie on his stomach and watch the road.

It was a small convoy led by an open Mercedes-Benz flying the swastika from the front fenders and two officers sat in back. Behind the car were two open-top troop carriers filled with soldiers. Kydon could see the light glinting from bayonets.

The car stopped, the driver hit the horn, and the two officers stood suddenly. The heavy trucks came to a ponderous halt with the lead truck right on the bumper of the car. There was shouting.

It was a roadblock. Several lengths of tree trunks lay across the narrow road. The voices came clearly to him where Kydon lay in the bushes as he watched the officers climb down from the car. A sergeant came on the double at a shout, and Kydon squinted at the two officers. A lieutenant. The second officer, a colonel, had his back to Kydon and his words were muffled but Kydon heard him say, ”Go into the village and get people to clear this away.”

“Yes, Oberst Finsterwald.”

“Have them bring laborers and twenty civilians.”

“Yes, Oberst.”

“They are to execute five civilians every five minutes until the road is cleared.”

“Yes, Oberst Finsterwald.”

The sergeant called his men and they headed for the village.

 Kydon lay under the bushes gripping his pistol. Finsterwald! There couldn’t be two SS colonels with that name. All he could see was a tall man whose field cap covered his hair and shaded his face.

The pistol was useless against the thirty or so men in the trucks. Kydon felt cold as he thought of Falcon and Emile in the village and no way to get word to them. He looked at his watch, Falcon and Emile had been gone forty-five minutes. From where he was, the church looked closer to the near end of the village, but now the German soldiers were in the village streets.

A volley of rifle shots. Silence. More shots.

Kydon looked behind him and saw the ground was clear and he edged back on his belly away from the open field. Should he retreat or stay the hour? The German colonel would have the woods searched, there was enough men to do it. The ground was too open to move forward and try to overhear what was being said as the two officers stood smoking by the car. As if they could read his thoughts, the lieutenant signaled a few men who went into the sparser woods on the far side of the road. They would come his way soon.

Kydon inched farther back until he could get to his feet with the tree trunks to shield him. He thought irrelevantly of playing cowboys and Indians when he first went to the States as a boy as he made a noiseless retreat to the far side of the beech grove.

He heard voices at the far side of the grove. He hung the scythe from a branch and looked around. Ahead of him was a large beech tree with a ragged triangular hole in the base of the trunk. He threw himself down and looked inside it then thrust his arm upwards. He couldn’t feel the top of the cavity and it would be a trap if he were discovered, but he crawled into it and stood up. The dark cavity was high enough.

Kydon pressed his hands against the walls to hold him so he could lift his feet. He felt insects crawl on his face, in his hair, but, when he looked down, his feet were in shadow. He heard voices. Look, a scythe. A scythe in the woods? The stupid French. Let’s go back, there’s nothing here. He could hear them walking, boots scuffling through the leaves, and as the sound faded, one man began to whistle. The sound grew fainter and then was gone.

Something soft ran across one hand and Kydon flinched in spite of himself. He lowered his feet and then slipped out of the cavity to look around. He was alone. He brushed at his head and shook his arms and felt insects in his sleeves and under his shirt. He quickly retrieved the scythe and moved toward the edge of the beech grove.

The open field stopped him for a minute. Kydon looked at the ragged hedgerows running to his right and left, the one to his right led to a distant line of poplars. He shouldered the scythe and set off, keeping to the edge of the trees and shrubs bordering the field. When he found a place to slip into the hedge, he pushed through. There was a grass filled ditch easy to follow but the marks of his footsteps were also clear to see if anyone followed him.

He stripped off his shirt and shook it, flinging two centipedes into the air. He slapped at his back and arms, hefting the scythe from one hand to the other, and ran his fingers through his hair. His skin tingled and itched.

As he walked toward Madame Bonheur’s house, Kydon thought of the cool, calculating voice of the colonel ordering the executions of the villagers. It was one thing to fight, to shoot and be shot at, and another to hear death so calmly ordered.

Finsterwald. He had a glimpse of the man, arrogant with power and position, who could take children for toys and have people killed because he was held up by a roadblock causing him a few minutes inconvenience. Finsterwald, was an inhuman machine like the one who had killed Val and would kill them all if it could. Finsterwald, a man Kydon wanted to kill.

No one was behind him as he kept to the shelter of the poplars but he didn’t breathe easy until he saw the farm buildings. He kept away from the road, and slipped along the back of the sheds until he reached the house.

Madame Bonheur listened to him quietly. “The people defying the enemy,” she said when Kydon was finished, “and one can understand. Yes, the villagers will pay.”

“Can we hide here and wait for Falcon?”

“You must go at once and hide somewhere in the woods,” the woman said. “It is not what I wish, you understand, but if they come this way, it could be bad for all of us. The Englishman can travel slowly. I soaked his leg in the salts, it was all I had, but he should have compresses of it … ”

“Can you spare some?”

“A little.”

Mathers looked at Kydon with a grim expression. “You are the leader now? What shall we do, which way do we go?”

“Falcon is still the leader,” one man said.

Another added, “If he hasn’t been captured.”

“He wasn’t, Falcon will come. He’ll catch up with us.”

Madame Bonheur poured crystals into a small jar. “Argue later if you must, but go now and keep to the old lane which runs to the south. There is a farm five or six kilometers away, the roofs are gone but the walls are sound enough to shield you. Beyond that, I can’t tell you, I’ve never been much farther myself.”

“Thank you,” Kydon said.

Madame Bonheur smiled unexpectedly. “I’ll tell Falcon when he comes. You should be safe enough. Go with god.”

* * * * * * * *

Mathers helped the pilot as they left the farmhouse. Donovan looked better but not by much. The other three men muttered among themselves as they left the shelter of the buildings, one by one, to run through the vineyards and orchards, until they were on the lane going into the forest where they met again.

“I don’t know if I can keep up,” Donovan said once when they stopped to rest.

Kydon said, “I’ll carry you if I have to. The others can go on ahead if they want.”

Mathers looked relieved as he got to his feet. “That would be best. I have important information to deliver.” He spoke to the Frenchmen. “Shall we go?”

“Better us than someone without experience,” one of the men said with a covert glance toward Kydon.

In a few minutes Mathers and the three Frenchmen were gone. There was silence except for the birds and Kydon thought, Damn it, everything sounds and looks so frigging normal.

“Rest a bit longer, Donovan. I’ll cut you a crutch.”

His knife was a good one and he found a sapling with a fork that would work. Donovan looked at it when it was finished, stripped of leaves and the ends smoothed as best as Kydon could do it, and the flyer laughed.

“With a pack I’d look like a peddler out of Chaucer.”

Kydon helped Donovan to stand. “Use your jacket as a cushion in the fork. You’re on the road to Canterbury, all right, but old Chaucer never dreamed of pilgrims quite like us.”

“Damned decent of you to help me out like this.” Donovan took one or two hobbling steps. “The others would have left me.”

“They would have left you in hiding. They’re eager to join a fighting group,” Kydon said. “I imagine you feel the same, anxious to get back to your squadron.”

They walked along the overgrown lane, Kydon matching his steps to the pilot. Donovan said, “I won’t lie. Yes, but it’s a qualified answer, I’ve seen one too many of my chums shot down.”

“I know something about that,” Kydon answered. He looked behind them. The lane was empty. “You want to get even but you must think about it. The Spanish say revenge is a dish best eaten cold.”

“Cool, premeditated revenge. Yes, I’d like to get my own back for my leg. Bloody hard on someone who likes a bit of tennis.”

The lane curved up a grade and into a heavier stand of trees. There was no one coming behind them as they made the gentle turn. When Kydon glanced at the pilot, Donovan said, “That’s what you’re after isn’t it … revenge? It was in your face when you came back.”

Kydon looked at him. Jack Donovan’s face was, or had been until recently, the open and plain face of a hopeful young man. Now lines were etched around the frank gray eyes and the deeper lines on either side of his mouth were not laugh lines.

“I didn’t know it showed, it shouldn’t.” Kydon kept his glance forward as they walked. “If you’d heard the bastard … Someone will get him one day.”

There was no one at the ruined farmhouse. The stone walls were shrouded in ivy and grape vines which obscured the window openings. Donovan collapsed on the well curb while Kydon reconnoitered.

“I don’t think this is the best place to spend the night,” he said as he leaned out of the doorway. “How’s the leg?”

“Throbbing but bearable,” replied Donovan. His face was drawn.”I’m game to move on whenever you say.”

“If we get to Brive, there may be someone with a car or truck,” Kydon said.

“If we do.”

Kydon turned in the doorway. “I say ‘if’ because we may have to take another route. I’ll get you to safety.”

“Sorry. Being morbid,” Donovan muttered.

They rested another half hour before going on into the woods. The sun was low in the west when Kydon found a place, a deep chasm where a stream rushed roughly southward. He recognized the shallow ledge caves where they had rested on the trip north. Gratified to think he knew his way, he gathered wood.

“We’ll have fire when it’s dark. The glow of the fire here will be hidden from above and no one will see the smoke.”

As soon as it was dark and a fire built, he used a tin plate to heat water, strips of Donovan’s shirttail and undershirt shirt to make compresses to apply to the wound. In the firelight, it looked no more red or angry than it had.

Falcon and the men did not appear in the night. Kydon and Donovan were alone in the dawn.

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