The Wolf's Hour Part 3

"Retired? After one lousy field a.s.signment in North Africa?" Shackleton made an unpleasant noise with his lips. "So you were a hero during the battle for El Alamein, right?" He'd read Gallatin's service record during his trip from Washington. "You got into a n.a.z.i commander's HQ and stole deployment maps? Big d.a.m.ned squat! Unless you've missed the point, Major, the war's still going on. And if we don't get a foothold in Europe in the summer of forty-four, we might find our a.s.ses washed out to sea for a long time before we can make another try."

"Major Shackleton?" Michael turned toward him, and the intensity of his glare made the major think he was peering into the green-tinted windows of a blast furnace. "You won't mention North Africa again," he said quietly, but with dangerous meaning. "I... failed a friend." He blinked; the blast-furnace glare dimmed for a second, then came back full force. "North Africa is a closed subject."

d.a.m.n the man! Shackleton thought. If he could, he'd stomp Gallatin into the floor. "I just meant-"

"I don't care what you meant." Michael looked at Humes-Talbot, the captain eager to get on with the briefing, and then Michael sighed and said, "All right. Let's hear it."

"Yes, sir. May I?" He paused, about to shrug off his overcoat. Michael motioned for him to go ahead, and as the two officers took off their coats Michael walked to a high-backed black leather chair and sat down facing the flames.

"It's a security problem, really," Humes-Talbot said, coming around so he could gauge Major Gallatin's expression. It was one of profound disinterest. "Of course you're correct; it does involve the invasion plans. We and the Americans are trying to clean up all the loose ends before the first of June. Getting agents out of France and Holland, for instance, whose security might be compromised. There's an American agent in Paris-"

"Adam's his code name," Shackleton interrupted.

"Paris is no longer a garden of Eden," Michael said, lacing his fingers together. "Not with all those n.a.z.i serpents crawling around in it."

"Right," the major went on, taking the reins. "Anyway, your intelligence boys got a coded message from Adam a little more than two weeks ago. He said there's something big in the works, something he didn't have all the details on yet. But he said that whatever it is, it's under multilayered security. He got wind of it from an artist in Berlin, a guy named Theo von Frankewitz."

"Wait." Michael leaned forward, and Humes-Talbot saw the glint of concentration in his eyes, like the shine of sword metal. "An artist? Why an artist?"

"I don't know. We can't dig up any information on Von Frankewitz. So anyway, Adam sent another message eight days ago. It was only a couple of lines long. He said he was bein' watched, and he had information that had to be brought out of France by personal courier. He had to end the transmission before he could go into detail."

"The Gestapo?" Michael glanced at Humes-Talbot.

"Our informants don't indicate that the Gestapo has Adam," the younger man said. "We think they know he's one of ours, and have him under constant surveillance. They're probably hoping he'll lead them to other agents."

"So no one else can find out what this information is and bring it out?"

"No sir. Someone from the outside has to go in."

"And they're monitoring his radio set, of course. Or maybe they found it and smashed it." Michael frowned, watching the oakwood burn. "Why an artist?" he asked again. "What would an artist know about military secrets?"

"We have no idea," Humes-Talbot said. "You see our predicament."

"We've got to find out what the h.e.l.l's going on," Shackleton spoke up. "The first wave of the invasion will be almost two hundred thousand soldiers. By ninety days after D day, we're plannin' on having more than one million boys over there to kick Hitler's a.s.s. We're riskin' the whole shootin' match on one day-one turn of a card-and we'd sure better know what's in the n.a.z.is' hand."

"Death," Michael said, and neither of the other two men spoke.

The flames crackled and spat sparks. Michael Gallatin waited for the rest of it.

"You'd be flown over France and go in by parachute, near the village of Bazancourt about sixty miles northwest of Paris," Humes-Talbot said. "One of our people will be at the drop point to meet you. From there, you'll be taken to Paris and given all the help you need to reach Adam. This is a high-priority a.s.signment, Major Gallatin, and if the invasion's going to have any chance at all, we've got to know what we're up against."

Michael watched the fire burn. He said, "I'm sorry. Find someone else."

"But, sir... please don't make a hasty-"

"I said I've retired. That ends it."

"Well, that's just peachy!" Shackleton burst out. "We broke our b.u.t.ts gettin' here, because we were told by some jacka.s.s that you were the best in your business, and you say you're 'retired.' " He slurred the word. "Where I come from that's just another way of sayin' a man's lost his nerve."

Michael smiled thinly, which served to infuriate Shackle-ton even more, but didn't respond.

"Major, sir?" Humes-Talbot tried again. "Please don't give us your final word now. Won't you at least think about the a.s.signment? Perhaps we might stay overnight, and we can discuss it again in the morning?"

Michael listened to the noise of sleet against the windows. Shackleton thought of the long road home, and his tailbone throbbed. "You can stay the night," Michael agreed, "but I won't go to Paris."

Humes-Talbot started to speak again, but he decided to let it rest. Shackleton muttered, "h.e.l.lfire and d.a.m.nation!" but Michael only pondered the fires of his own making.

"We brought along a driver," Humes-Talbot said. "Is there a possibility you might find some room for him?"

"I'll put a cot in front of the fire." He got up and went to get the cot from his storage room, and Humes-Talbot left the house to call Mallory in.

While the two men were gone, Shackleton nosed around the den. He found an antique rosewood Victrola, a record on the turntable. Its t.i.tle was The Rite of Spring, by somebody named Stravinsky. Well, count on a Russian to like Russian music. Probably a bunch of Slavic jabberwocky. He could use a bright Bing Crosby tune on a night like this. Gallatin liked books, that was for sure. Volumes like Man from Beast, Carnivores, A History of Gregorian Chants, Shakespeare's World, and other books with Russian, German, and French t.i.tles filled the bookcases.

"Do you like my house?"

Shackleton jumped. Michael had come up behind him, silent as mist. He was carrying a folding cot, which he unfolded and placed before the hearth. "The house was a Lutheran church in the eighteen-forties. Survivors of a shipwreck built it; the sea cliffs are only a hundred yards from here. They built a village on this site, too, but bubonic plague wiped them out eight years later."

"Oh," Shackleton said, and wiped his hands on his trouser legs.

"The ruins were still st.u.r.dy. I decided to try to put it back together again. It took me all of four years, and I still have a lot to do. In case you're wondering, I've got a generator that runs on petrol out back."

"I figured you didn't have power lines way out here."

"No. Not way out here. You'll be sleeping in the tower room where the pastor died. It's not a very large room, but the bed's big enough for two." The door opened and closed, and Michael glanced back at Humes-Talbot and the chauffeur. Michael stared for a few seconds, unblinking, as the old man took off his hat and topcoat. "You can sleep here," Michael said, with a gesture toward the cot. "The kitchen's through that door, if you want coffee or anything to eat," he told all three of them. "I keep hours you might find odd. If you hear me up in the middle of the night... stay in your room," he said, with a glance that made the back of Shackleton's neck crawl.

"I'm going up to rest." Michael started up the stairs. He paused and selected a book. "Oh... the bathroom and shower are behind the house. I hope you don't mind cold water. Good night, gentlemen." He ascended the steps, and in another moment they heard a door softly close.

"d.a.m.n weird," Shackleton muttered, and he trudged into the kitchen for something to chew on.

4.

Michael sat up in bed and lit an oil lamp. He hadn't been sleeping, only waiting. He picked up his wrist.w.a.tch from the small table beside his bed, though his sense of time told him it was after three. It was three-oh-seven.

He sniffed the air, and his eyes narrowed. A smell of tobacco smoke. Burley and latakia, a potent blend. He knew that aroma, and it called him.

He was still dressed, in his khakis and black sweater. He slipped on his loafers, picked up the lamp, and followed its yellow glow down the circular staircase.

A couple of fresh logs had been added to the hearth, and a polite fire burned. Michael saw a haze of pipe smoke drifting above the high-backed leather chair that faced the flames. The cot was empty.

"Let's talk, Michael," the man who called himself Mallory said.

"Yes sir." He drew up a chair and sat down with the lamp on a table between them.

Mallory-not his real name, but one of many-laughed quietly, the pipe's bit clenched between his teeth. Firelight glinted in his eyes, and now he didn't appear nearly as old and unsteady as he'd been when he first entered the house. " 'Stay in your room,' " he said, and laughed again. His real voice, unmasked, had a gravelly edge. "That was good, Michael. You scared the b.a.l.l.s off that poor Yank."

"Does he have any?"

"Oh, he's quite a capable officer. Don't let the bluff and bl.u.s.ter fool you; Major Shackleton knows his job." Mallory's penetrating gaze slid toward the other man. "And you do, too." Michael didn't answer. Mallory smoked his pipe in silence for a moment, then said, "What happened to Margritta Phillipe in Egypt wasn't your fault, Michael. She knew the risks, and she did her job bravely and well. You killed her a.s.sa.s.sin and exposed Harry Sandler as an agent for the n.a.z.is. You also did your job bravely and well."

"Not well enough." This still made the sick sensation of grief gnaw at his insides. "If I'd been alert that night, I might have saved Margritta's life."

"It was her time," Mallory said flatly, a statement from a professional in the arena of life and death. "And your time of brooding over Margritta should end now."

"When I find Sandler." Michael's face was tight, and heat rose in his cheeks. "I knew he was a German agent as soon as Margritta showed me the wolf he said he'd sent her from Canada. To me it was perfectly clear it was a Balkan wolf, not Canadian. And the only way Sandler could've killed a Balkan wolf was to go on a hunting trip with his n.a.z.i friends." Harry Sandler, the big-game hunter from America who'd been written about in Life magazine, had vanished after Margritta's murder, and left no tracks. "I should have made Margritta leave the house that night. Immediately. Instead I..." He clenched his hands on the chair's armrests. "She trusted me," he said, in a hushed voice.

"Michael," Mallory said, "I want you to go to Paris."

"Is it that vital that you be involved with this?"

"Yes. That vital." He puffed smoke and removed the pipe from his mouth. "We'll have one chance, and one chance only, for the invasion to be successful. The time frame, as of now, is the first week of June. That's subject to change, according to the weather and the tides. We have to make sure ail potential disasters are dealt with, and I can tell you that watching these commanders hash things out leaves a lot of room for the d.a.m.nedest mistakes you could imagine." He grunted, and smiled thinly. "We have to do our part to give them a clean house when they move in. If the Gestapo's watching Adam so closely, you can be certain he has information they don't want getting out. We have to learn what it is. With your... uh... special talents, there's a possibility you can get in and out under the nose of the Gestapo."

Michael watched the fire. The man sitting in the chair next to him was one of three people in the world who knew he was a lycanthrope.

"There's another facet to this you should consider," Mallory said. "Four days ago we received a coded message from our agent Echo, in Berlin. She's seen Harry Sandler."

Michael looked into the other man's face. "Sandler was in the company of a n.a.z.i colonel named Jerek Blok, an SS officer, who used to be commandant of Falkenhausen concentration camp near Berlin. So Sandler's moving in some high circles."

"Is Sandler still in Berlin?"

"We haven't had word from Echo to indicate otherwise. She's keeping watch on him for us."

Michael grunted softly. He had no idea who Echo was, but he remembered Sandler's ruddy-cheeked face from a Life magazine photograph, grinning as he rested one booted foot on a dead lion on the Kenya gra.s.sland.

"We can get you dossiers on Sandler and Blok, of course," Mallory ventured on. "We don't know what their connection might be. Echo would contact you in Berlin. What you might decide to do from there is up to your own discretion."

My discretion, Michael thought. That was a polite way of saying that if he chose to kill Harry Sandler, he would be on his own.

"Your first mission, however, is to find out what Adam knows." Mallory let a trail of smoke trickle from his mouth. "That's imperative. You can relay the information through your French contact."

"What about Adam? Don't you want him out of Paris?"

"If possible."

Michael mulled that over. The man who, in this instance, called himself Mallory was as infamous for what he left unsaid as for what he spelled out.

"We want to tie up all the loose ends," Mallory said after a moment's silence. "I'm intrigued by the same thing you are, Michael: why is an artist involved in this? Von Frankewitz is a n.o.body, a hack who does sidewalk portraits in Berlin. How is he involved with secrets of state?" Mallory's eyes found Michael. "Will you do the job?"

Nyet, he thought. But he felt a pressure in his veins like the power of a steam furnace building heat. In two years he had not gone one day without thinking of how his friend, the Countess Margritta, had died while he slumbered in the embrace of spent pa.s.sions. Finding Harry Sandler might wipe the slate clean. Probably not, but there would be satisfaction in hunting the hunter. And the situation with Adam and the impending invasion was a vital issue on its own. How might Adam's information affect D-Day, and the lives of the thousands of soldiers who would storm ash.o.r.e on a fateful morning in June?

"Yes," Michael said, tension in his throat.

"I knew I could count on you at the eleventh hour," Mallory said with a faint smile. "The wolf's hour, isn't it?"

"I have one request to make. My parachute training's rusty. I'd like to go over by submarine."

Mallory considered it briefly, then shook his head. "I'm sorry. Too risky with German patrol boats and mines in the Channel. A small transport plane is the safest alternative. We'll whisk you to a place where you can sharpen your skills, do a few practice jumps. Piece of cake, as the Yanks say."

Michael's palms were wet, and he closed his fists. Only two things frightened him: confinement and heights. He couldn't stand the roar and sputter of airplanes, and with his feet off the earth he felt diminished and weak. But there was no choice; he would have to bear it and forge ahead, though the parachute training would be sheer torture. "All right."

"Splendid." Mallory's tone of voice said he'd known all along Michael Gallatin would accept the task. "You're doing well, aren't you, Michael? Getting enough sleep? Eating balanced meals? Not too much meat, I hope."

"Not too much." The forest was stocked with a large herd of deer and stags, plus wild boar and hares.

"I worry about you sometimes. You need a wife."

Michael laughed, in spite of Mallory's well-intentioned seriousness.

"Well," Mallory amended, "perhaps not."

They talked for a while longer, about the war, of course, because that was their crossroads of interest, and as the fire gnawed quietly on oak logs and the wind keened before dawn, the lycanthrope in service to the king stood up and ascended the stairs to his bedroom. Mallory slept in his chair before the hearth, his face in repose again that of an elderly chauffeur.

5.

Dawn came gray and stormy as yesterday's dusk. At six o'clock orchestral music roused Major Shackleton and Captain Humes-Talbot, whose backbones popped and moaned as they pried themselves out of the narrow and wholly uncomfortable dead pastor's bed. They had slept clothed, to ward off the chill that sneaked in around the stained-gla.s.s window, and they went downstairs marked with unmilitary wrinkles.

Sleet slashed at the windows, and Shackleton thought he might scream. "Good morning," Michael Gallatin said, sitting in the black leather chair before a newly built fire, a mug of hot Twinings Earl Grey tea in his hand. He wore a dark blue flannel robe and no shoes. "There's coffee and tea in the kitchen. Also some scrambled eggs and local sausage, if you want any breakfast."

"If that sausage is as strong as the local whiskey, I think I'll pa.s.s," Shackleton said, with a frown of distaste.

"No, it's very mild. Help yourselves."

"Where's Mallory?" Humes-Talbot asked, looking around.

"Oh, he had his breakfast and went out to change the oil in the car. I let him use the garage."

"What's that racket?" Shackleton thought the music sounded like armies of demons clashing in h.e.l.l. He walked to the Victrola and saw the record spinning around.

"Stravinsky, isn't it?" Humes-Talbot inquired.

"Yes. The Rite of Spring. It's my favorite composition. This is the part, Major Shackleton, where the village elders stand in a circle and watch a young girl dance herself to death in a pagan ritual of sacrifice." Michael closed his eyes for a few seconds, seeing the dark purple and crimson of the leaping, frenzied notes. He opened them again, and stared at the major. "Sacrifice seems to be a particularly popular topic these days."

"I wouldn't know." Gallatin's eyes made Shackleton nervous; they were steady and piercing, and they held a power that made the major feel as boneless as a washrag. "I'm a Benny Goodman fan."

"Oh yes, I know his work." Michael listened to the thunderous, pounding music for another moment; in it was the image of a world at war, fighting against its own barbarity and the barbarity clearly winning. Then he stood up, lifted the needle without scratching the 78 rpm disk and let the Victrola wind down. "I accept the mission, gentlemen," he said. "I'll find out what you want to know."

"You will? I mean..." Humes-Talbot stumbled over his words. "I thought you'd made up your mind already."