"TEASE ME, BABY ... TEASE ME FIRST" With some girls, it was just the money, with others they needed it, wanted it, had to have it. And if they liked a guy, they'd do anything for him ... anything to keep him loving them. She was this way: SEX STARVED AND INSATIABLE! SEX STARVED AND INSATIABLE!
Archive Note: The (scrambled) CHAPTER numbering in the hardcopy pocketbook is reproduced here exactly as found in the original pocketbook.
CHAPTER ONE
"Wow! what a body!"
Sergeant Joe Guthrie made the expression quietly but with a great deal of feeling as he tip-toed into the little room at Pension Dorfstadt and gazed admiringly at the shapely nude silhouette in bed. He had just finished a hectic night shift at CSS Headquarters in internationally turbulent West Berlin, but sleep was the last thing on Joe Guthrie's mind now.
The girl in bed lay languidly on her back, a perfectly formed thigh propped up provocatively even in sleep. Or was she really asleep, Joe wondered, removing his necktie and edging closer to the bed.
It was still almost pitch dark, but the bare outline of her voluptuous body was enough to charge Joe's fervent imagination until he had a clear mental picture of each creamy curve and crevice.
Her left knee shifted slightly to make an open chasm at the apex of two langorous legs.
"Oh, baby!"
Joe mumbled his excitement audibly this time, his hands reaching down anxiously to touch the firm yet yielding thighs, and feel a shudder radiate from the rapturous torso.
Only a month ago. Erika Lang had been but a face in the crowd, like any of a thousand or so girls who saunter nightly along Berlin's bright Kurfuerstendamm, looking for a boyfriend, a customer, or just out to marvel at the sights of the gaudy "gay white way" of the Western World set so incongruously here in this tight little enclave of freedom over a hundred miles inside the Iron Curtain.
But there was something about Erika that was different, something beyond the sparkling and expressive face, the long shimmer of golden blonde hair, and the figure that would do credit to a modern day Venus even in the drab cotton frock of the East Sector's State owned HO store.
Joe had asked her to have a drink with him and suggested they go somewhere for the night in much the same way a million GI's must have asked a million German girls along the Kurdamm since World War Two. But from there on it had been different.
Erika Lang was no "shack job". She was the marrying kind. And Joe, in spite of his sophistication and worldliness after four years in the Army and a year before that as a country cop back home, "wanted desperately to marry Erika. The feeling was deeply mutual too. But just as strongly impossible. Because the day before they met, Erika had slipped through the wall from her home in East Berlin. And for fear of reprisals against her family if she registered at Marienfelde as a refugee, she had insisted on remaining incognito.
The naked form on the bed moved again now, emitting a lightly impassioned moan, then reached out to Joe who was standing by her side. His hands crept tenderly across the subtle squirming body. She shuddered again, this time quivering sensuously to his feel.
And then it happened! Suddenly Joe knew this wasn't Erika. He was too familiar with each detailed sweep and orifice of her tremendously articulate body. And this girl, he now sensed when his hand glided over the outsize bosom, was not Erika Lang. Erika's breasts were smaller in proportion and unusually well defined and exciting. But this girl was heavy busted, at least a 38 compared to the well rounded 34 he knew so well, the lovely little shelf of rigid, titillating projection that went so proportionately with the petite 23 waist.
. "Don't turn on the light, darling," an American girl's voice cautioned from the strange lips so close to him, "...just make love to me ... now ... like this."
She spoke in a hushed and husky plead. Long arms moved up to his neck and pulled him against the twisting mounds of plus flesh that played an undulating game of mobility with her restive body.
"Dammit, girl!" Joe cursed savagely, countering his surprise with anger," Who the hell are you-Where's Erika-Where is she?"
Joe wrested himself away from the probing hands and yanked on the wall light cord behind the bed. The naked glare of the unfrosted bulb gave an abrupt harshness to the small guest room of the Pension Dorfstadt. It was almost bare except for a white leather suitcase by the foot of the old wooden bed, and an open wardrobe displaying a row of New York feminine finery like Erika had never dreamed of owning.
"Turn off the light, darling ... please," the voice of a completely nude redhead, her fulsome body still mobile and teasing, begged enticingly.
"Who the hell are you? Where's Erika?" was all Joe could come up with as he reached down to pull the top sheet off the floor and drape it over the redhead's disconcerting nakedness. "This room is ... is my wife's...."
Joe clammed quickly and began to pace the floor. This was a fool thing to do ... spout off like this to a perfect stranger when he was keeping house with a forbidden East German girl. Maybe the Army had sent the redhead to check up on him. Or perhaps she was from the East Sector trying to find the escaped Erika.
"I've had this room for over two weeks, darling," the voice from the bed insisted, her lips pursing seductively as she deliberately let the sheet slide away from her tremendous jut of breast and peered down with a suggestive smile at their ruby tipped prominence, "You should have been here sooner. You're quite a delicious looking man."
Joe only frowned at the compliment. He balled up a fist and whacked it into his palm frustratedly. Of course Joe Guthrie was the type gals went for-tall and muscular with a devil-may-care outlook that matched the unconcerned lope of a walk he'd picked up during a rugged youth with plenty of outdoor living on an upstate New York farm.
But there was no jaunty swagger to his walk now.
"Where the hell is Erika?" Joe shot the question at her for the third time. "Let's stop this crap about being in this room for two weeks!"
"Don't get mad, darling," she reached out for his hand and dropped her voice to an intimate husk, "I'm Sally Martin, and I'm a nice little expatriate who's having herself a big bash here in Berlin. Come on now, Sergeant ... aren't you lonesome for some home grown loving? You know an American girl is better than these fickle Fraeuleins...."
"Go to hell!" Joe roiled up, wrenching away from her hold on his arm and pulling open the hallway door, "Herr Dorfstadt! Herr Dorfstadt! Get the hell out of bed and come here!"
"Shut up!"
"Was ist los?" Silencio!" A multilingual barrage of protests came from the other rooms.
"Ja....ja ... yes? What is matter, please?" a paunchy little German inquired in a thick accent, gesturing excitedly as he padded from his room in an old nightshirt, "What you want here? Are you make trouble for Miss Martin, soldier? I call MP. I call...."
"You won't call anybody, pops!" Joe angered, grab bing him by the collar and dragging the chunky proprietor into the room, "But you will tell me what happened to Er ... to my wife, and her clothes, and...."
"Mein Gott in Himmel!" the breathless German gasped, twisting and gulping hard to try and free himself from Joe's grip, "I swear to you, Sergeant ... I never see you wife ... I never see you before this minute. Miss Martin is here two weeks yet. She . .
"You lying son of a bitch!" Joe cursed him heatedly, gathering up more of the nightshirt collar and pressing him hard against the wall. "Now, look here, Dorfstadt! I know I told you not to tell anybody she was here. I know I paid you five times what the damn room is worth so she wouldn't have to register and get on the police records. But I'm the guy who paid you ... you can talk to me! Where the hell is she?"
"I ... I don't know what you mean!" Dorfstadt choked for air as he shrieked his denial, "I swear it! I never see you before...."
'Look here, you kraut bastard! I'll...."
Suddenly, Joe let go and the panicky German dropped to the floor, vainly groping for a hold on the radiator pipe. Joe knew his threats were meaningless. He could hardly afford for the German to call the MFs. If the Army ever found out he was keeping an unregistered refugee from the East Sector, his four year record as a model soldier would go right out the window. And with a General Courts Martial behind him he's never get back on the County Police Force when he got out, much less be able to take his discharge in Berlin and marry Erika legally .
"Okay, Dorfstadt. You win for now," Joe relented, stooping down to help the prostrate proprietor to his feet, "But I'm going to search this room until I find something of Erika's. Then you'll...."
"Please, Herr Sergeant. You can't do that," the man protested feebly, backing toward the door, "This is Miss Martin's room. She...."
"Oh, I don't mind a bit, Mr. Dorfstadt," the long silent redhead brightened with a flirtatious wink, the sheet now pulled decorously over her rich curves, "I think perhaps he could find something very interesting."
"Okay ... okay, Sergeant ... but you make me trouble I call MP," Dorfstadt warned, then closed the door behind himself.
"All right, Red! Where's Erika?" Joe started in again, stomping threateningly toward the bed.
"I ... really don't know," she replied hesitantly, dropping her tease, "Why don't you ... search the room?"
Joe turned quickly to the old wardrobe and yanked the girl's dresses from the rack, pulled out the dresser drawers and upended them, fished through the mire of feminine toiletries by the lavatory.
Not a trace of anything he recognized.
"Don't lie to me again!" Joe became menacing, talking between clenched teeth as he approached the bed and pulled the sheet back over the svelte body which she had managed to strip-tease down again, "You're lying and Dorfstadt's lying! But why?"
"I ... I can't tell you. Honestly, I can't," the redhead admitted suddenly, a shiver of fear seeming to course through her naked body as the big green eyes begged for belief, "But you ... you can't afford to make trouble either. I heard what you told Dorfstadt. You paid him to hide this girl ... your wife."
Joe wasn't listening now. His probing eyes had picked up a faint dot of something red wedged in the accumulated dirt under the old radiator. He stooped down to finger it out of the dust. It was a little red capsule, just like the ones he'd seen in the prescription box Erika carried in her purse.
"Take a look at this, Miss Martin!" Joe demand with a righteous sneer, pushing the capsule toward her startled face, "You still going to tell me Erika's never been here? This is hers! I recognize it!"
"Look, darling ... I'm ... I'm in trouble too," the redhead broke down in frightened seriousness, "I ... I don't know where Erika is ... I'll swear to that, Sergeant. But ... well, I guess we're both in the same boat."
"What land of talk is that?" Joe snapped impatiently, lighting up a cigarette but not offering her one, and still refusing to sit on the bed which she kept patting invitingly, "Okay, girl ... talk! Let's hear it!"
"I'm ... not supposed to be in Berlin," she began to relax a little, letting the sheet ride down over the magnificent breasts again while she reached for a cigarette in her purse on the night table, "My husband's been missing for almost three months now. He came over here on business ... we've got a small camera import business in New York. I tried to get over here sooner, but the State Department forbid it ... hinted he was on some sort of security or intelligence work and I might only mess things up. So ... I managed to sneak over ... and then found out about this place-the fact that if you paid Dorfstadt enough he wouldn't turn in your name as a registered guest like he's supposed to...."
"All right! All right! You don't have to tell me the rest," Joe cut her off impatiently, looking at the capsule thoughtfully before stuffing it in his shirt pocket, " ... and Dorfstadt told you to tell anybody who asked that you'd been here two weeks ... you kiss mine and I'll kiss yours. That's the way the bastard works."
"I'm ... not really in love with my husband," the redhead confessed needlessly, pouting impishly as she threw the sheet all the way off and twisted her fabulous body in a contortive spasm, "I'm only trying to find him because I put up the money for our business. Right now, darling, I'm simply starved for a man. Look at me! Nice, huh?"
"I'm not buying, baby," Joe pushed her off sarcastically, making for the door, "Go back to sleep and have a nice dream. Goodnight!"
"Damn you!" it was the redhead's turn to show her temper, but it subsided quickly to the more effective nymphish pout, "I'll see you later, darling. No man gets away from De ... little Sally that easily."
"Whatever your name is ... you make me sick! Joe clipped back.
But underneath his angered and deeply concerned exterior, the sight and motions of the warm blooded redhead had set up a turbulence as old as time. It was something a virile young man can never quite forget ... even when he's trying to be true to the most beautiful and exciting little blonde in the world-and she's crazily, mysteriously, unexplainably vanished into thin air.
Joe slammed the door and strode down the dim hallway toward Dorfstadt's room. He stopped short of his mark. Reason set in to replace his anxious anger. Joe Guthrie was trapped ... caged like an animal. He dared not threaten the crooked pension owner again.
It was I:30 now. The only thing to do was to go back to the barracks and talk it over with Larry, who was also involved to some extent with his hiding Erika away. Larry was always full of bright ideas, and as his roommate and closest friend, Sergeant Lawrence A. Thompson, had lent him some of the money to keep Erika housed, clothed and fed these past five weeks. Right now, he was the only person whose complete confidence Joe could share.
Outside the pension, the warm night air was forebodingly still. There was no sign of light or movement along the gas-lit cobblestone street.
"What the ... ?" Joe jumped around to his left at the sudden feel of hard metal gouging in his side.
The gunmen, who had stepped stealthily from the shadows, said nothing as Joe swirled his face around. A set of white teeth smiled with sardonic menace, and the gun jammed harder into Joe's ribs, steering him to the rear door of a black Mercedes at the curb.
"Your girl friend is safe, Sergeant Guthrie," a thick voice, heavy with accent, immediately informed him from the back seat, "But one word to the authorities ... and she dies a most terrible way ... so terrible you can not possibly imagine!"
Joe studied the outline of the man during the moments of silence which followed. He was not cumbersomely obese, merely squat and muscularly big. There was no clear delineation of the facial features in the darkness. But Joe could see he sported a huge mass of dark hair rooting up from barely an inch above bushy, "John L. Lewis" eyebrows. He had little forehead, the big head caving back abruptly in a near Neanderthal form which Joe dimly recalled seeing on some kind of poster recently.
"You ... you've kidnapped her!" Joe exclaimed with sudden realization, then winced as the gun pressed in against him harder, "But why? Why?
"You are not a stupid young man," the voice complimented obliquely, then began to display a frightening knowledge of the life of Joe Guthrie, "You have two years of college, twenty-six years of age, made Sergeant after only two years in the Army. Now surely you must realize why Erika has been taken."
"You goddam Commies!" Joe riled, feeling the gun twist and pinch through his thin summer shirt, "Yeah ... sure, I know why you've got her. You don't like to let anybody escape across that damn wall without...."
"Ha ha! You are amusing, Sergeant," the big one bellowed out in cruel laughter, "I am not interested in every little nineteen year old secretary who sneaks through to...."
"Then why ... why?" Joe blurted, holding out his hands.
"You know why! You are just putting on an act!" the man insisted loudly, "And if you will walk down the right side of the Kurfuerstendamm at noon tomorrow ... in the direction of the Kaiser Wilhelm Church ruins ... you will find out how to save your beloved Erika from the most terrible torture and death a woman can suffer. You will be contacted then, Sergeant. Goodnight!"
"But look ... she may be sick ... she has some pills to....
Joe's pleas were cut off quickly when the gunman at his side yanked him away from the car. He went sprawling to the sidewalk as the big vehicle, it's rear the deserted street.
The words stuck in his mind, " ... walk down the Kurfuerstendamm at noon tomorrow ... you will be contacted.
Joe pulled himself up by grabbing the jutting balustrade of the old building next to the pension. He brushed himself off and started toward Innsbrueckerplatz to look for a cab.
Of course he knew why they had kidnapped Erika. There was only one reason the Reds would risk hitting the scene in the West Sector to get back an apprentice secretary who was going to marry a mere Sergeant in the U.S. Army: The mere Sergeant in this case was night duty code clerk in the top secret Combined Security Service of the Berlin Command.
CHAPTER TWO
"No shack job tonight, huh Sarge?" the PFC at the guard gate to Grunewalk Kasern put his greeting to Joe crudely as he walked up from the taxi.
"Has Sergeant Thompson come in yet?" Joe asked, ignoring the remark.
"Somethin' like fifteen minutes. Boy, was he soused!"
Joe walked quickly across the dark drill field to the old stuccoed former Luftwaffe barracks where he shared a room with Larry. This was clearly the wrong time to approach his buddy with a problem like this. But it had to be now. Joe had to talk about it now. They had kidnapped Erika, and Larry was the only person Joe could tell.
"Wha's matter? Lil woman kick y out awreddy?" Larry Thompson laughed tipsily, lumbering all over the room as he tried to get out of his pants, "Godawmighty, pal. Hoi' a room still fer me, willya?"
"You'll be sober quick enough, Larry," Joe put it to him as strongly a she could, his usual cheerfulness soured by a serious frown, "Erika's been kidnapped by the goddam Commies!"
"Sleep it off, pal," Larry hiccoughed, grabbing at the bunk beds to keep from falling when his trouser leg suddenly pulled off, "She's probably got herself all 'cited "bout somep'n an' jus' took off fer...."
"Shut up, Larry! She's been kidnapped, goddammit!" Joe boiled, grabbing the short Sergeant roughly by his shoulders, "This is no laughing matter, buddy. Sober up! The Reds got her and they know I can't do a damn thing about it! They got me mouse-trapped and over a barrel ... and you're in on the deal, too, good buddy. You've been helping me foot the bill at that flea trap pension. If I'm nabbed for hiding an unregistered refugee from the East ... you're in it too!"
"You ... you ain't kiddin', huh?" Larry started to sober, plopping on the bottom bunk in his underwear, "But ... well, what the hell? I ain't tryin' to let a buddy down or nothin' ... you wan' me t'help an' I'll cut off my damn tallywacker fer ya, pal. But I jus' loan't you some dough ... tha's all."
"But you knew what it was for," Joe reasoned, pacing the floor after he lit a cigarette and tossed the pack toward Larry. "They had to pull this on a guy who had goofed up and let himself be vulnerable. That's me, good buddy ... the honor soldier, the indomitable Sergeant. Hell! I sure fouled up this time."
"I'm not readin' ya, pal."
"Don't you see, Larry...." Joe stopped pacing long enough to give his roommate a light, "there are only two of us on that night trick in the CSS Decoding Room-Sergeant Dickson and myself. Dick's a respectable home and family type with his brood right here with him. And when I was playing it straight with Martha ... I was just a normal boy, too, dating a hospital nurse and doing what any single guy would do. But now I'm vulnerable as hell-a Security NCO keeping house for an unregistered gal from the Commie side. And they've got me pegged too ... they knew I was really in love with Erika. I never went out with another German gal the whole two years I've been here ... much less risked my neck by eating the forbidden fruit from the East."
Gosh, pal!" Larry exclaimed, shaking the wobbly cobwebs from his head as the whole thing hit him. "You botched it up real good. But ... wait! Mebbe they jus' want dough ... ransom."
"From me?" Joe queried with a ludicrous sneer, then pounded his fist on the dresser. "Me-a poor Buck Sergeant who has to borrow dough from another poor Sergeant to keep her up? And Erika? She hasn't got any dough. Her folks are just regular working people over in East Berlin. No, good buddy, there's only one reason that fat gorilla with an accent like the Volga Boatman would take Erika."
"Whatcha gonna do?" Larry asked glumly, rubbing his eyes and getting up from the bed. "I know Erika wasn't no ... well you wasn't just shackin' with 'er. But this is serious, man...."
"I don't know what to do," Joe threw up his hands despairingly and sat down. "I'll be responsible for letting them kill Erika if I tell Captain Marsh ... and I'm a traitor if I don't."
"And I'm on a piece of that boat," Larry admitted his involvement now, pulling a fifth of Cognac from his foot locker, "Nipe on this, pal, an' let's plan how we're gonna spen' the rest of our lives in Leavenworth. Hell ... even if we do report it now, we're still cooked."
"There's got to be another alternative," Joe vowed angrily, smashing a fist into his palm and getting up to pace the floor again. "We both work in Security, Larry. We've seen the cloak-and-dagger boys operate. Let's think, buddy! Let's think!"
"Get off it, Joe," Larry pessimized, reaching into his roommate's pocket for another cigarette as he mashed out a half-butt from the other one. "We can't go traipsin' 'round the East Sector huntin' fer spies. We're the boys in the backroom on this intelligence stuff."
"You think of a better way then," Joe dared, " ... traitors or Leavenworth. Which shall we take?"
"Chee-rist!" Larry exclaimed helplessly, stuffing the package back in Joe's pocket. "I lent money to a hundred guys to help out with the girl frien' ... an' look what I get this time-Instant Benedict Arnold. Hey! What's this?"
"Huh? Oh, that," Joe replied, looking at the capsule Larry pulled from his shirt pocket. "It's one of Erika's pills ... the only thing of hers I could find. They'd cleaned out the room."
"What's it for?"
"Hell, I don't know." Joe threw up his hands, digging out another cigarette for himself. "She had them in her purse that first night I met her. I never asked."
"Get it analyzed!" Larry snapped, excited over his idea, "maybe you can use it to find out where she is ... like if ... ' '
"What do I do?" Joe cut in, not taking to the idea, " ... go to some little German Apotlicke and say, 'here, analyze this.' That would go over great, wouldn't it? They'd want to know where I got the East Zone medicine, why I wanted to find out...."
"Get Martha to do it," Larry suggested, swilling deeply from the cognac and passing the bottle to Joe. "She can have one of the pill boxes at the Army pharmacy check it. They'd do it for Martha without askin' no questions."
"Martha?" Joe barked the question at Larry, tossing down a mouthful of the liquor. "I haven't seen the girl since I met Erika last month. Hell's bells, she's the last person who'd want to do me any favors. I dated her for damn near a year ... got her last summer when we took that leave together in Paris ... then ditched her like a hot potato when I met Erika."
"Yer past is catchin' up with ya, pal."
"All right! All right! So I was a bastard," Joe confessed, remembering unpleasantly how he'd treated the lovable and lovely redheaded nurse. "But a gal like Erika only happens once in a guy's life. Martha was all right ... a real doll of a red ... Hey! You know what?"
"Don't tell me," Larry shuddered, covering his face. "You prob'ly shot somebody with my gun, too."
"The redhead!"
"Hit me again, pal?"
"There was some redhead sexpot in Erika's bed," he filled in, perching on the edge of a rickety QM night table. "I thought she looked familiar. She had a body on her like Martha, and that same hair . .
"Coincidence, kid," Larry sloughed it off, sipping from the bottle again and eyeing his Sergeant's stripes on the shirt in the open wardrobe. "But look, Joe ... why not make a clean breast of it with Martha? Tell 'er the truth an' tell 'er you're in a jam. She's the only one can help you on this capsule thing ... an' that's the only trace you've got left of Erika."
"But what the hell good...."
"You wanted to play 'Spy versus Spy', kiddo," Larry was getting enthusiastic now as he ran a comb through his coal black crew-cut and patted his administratively enlarged belly. "What if it's diabetes or somethin'? You can use it as a wedge nex' time you contact those boys. Tell 'em she ain't gettin' 'er pills an' you wanna be sure she's still all right. Use it to force that guy Dorfstadt into comin' across fer ya. That's the only piece of proof you got she was there."
"It's not much ... but you're right, buddy," Joe had to agree, snuffing out his cigarette under a leaking stream of lavatory water. "This'll be a helluva thing to pitch at Martha this time of night ... but, well maybe I won't have to tell her the whole truth."
"What about her roommate?"
"Phyllis? She's got the graveyard shift," Joe told him, tightening his tie and looking in the mirror. "No problem there. And being officers and gentlewomen, they've got their own apartment that opens right into the street in that neighborhood over by the hospital."
"Good luck, pal," Larry offered, tossing him the keys to his car. "Take the jalop. It's parked right outside the gate. And ... I'll think on this some more while you're gone. Hell, I can't go to sleep now."
"Rattle the brain plenty, Larry," Joe got real serious as he pocketed the keys. "I'd do anything for Erika ... or my country. And thanks for the buggy."
Three sets of footsteps rushed past Joe and jumped into an MP scout car just as he reached the guard gate. The uncouth PFC, who had been chatting with a Lieutenant in the MP sedan, jumped back into his guard shanty when Joe came up.
"Security in on the big murder, too?" the soldier asked, nodding him through.
"Uh ... no. I just had a row with the gal friend ... Martha ... the nurse I go with ... thought I'd go back and make up," Joe stammered out some logic for his 3 A.M. departure. "Why? What's up with the MP's?"
"Aww ... some German got strangled to death down in the Schoeneberg area," he related desultorily, picking up his copy of the OVERSEAS WEEKLY. "Got some witnesses claim they seen a GI come in this here little pension down there and threaten the guy what owns it. Half an hour later ... the kraut gets croaked."
"What?" Joe's jaw dropped incredulously before he could regain his composure. "Where ... where did you say this happened?"
"Down in Schoeneberg," the PFC mispronounced it terribly again, turning the paper over to a rape-murder story from Munich. "Some joint called the Pension Dorfstadt. Say ... you come in pretty late tonight. You wasn't...."
"Me?" Joe protested too much, then calmed quickly. "Hell, I was over at the girl friend's ... over in the Hospital Housing Area. I can prove it."
"Jumpin' jackrabbits, Sarge," the PFC broke into an apologetic laugh, throwing down the paper, "I was only kiddin'. It was prob'ly some drunked up GI with a shack job. Gosh Sarge ... I known you a long time ... you wouldn' do nothin' like that."
The guard's words taunted Joe as he walked outside to find Larry's car. "A drunked up GI with a shack job." That's what they would think. That's what everyone would think. And now there was a murder rap they would try to hang on him too.
CHAPTER THREE
"You've got more nerve than a four star General with a private nurse!" Martha Anderson shouted, sitting on the edge of an overstuffed QM lounge chair and puffing violently on a cigarette, "Over a month since you've called me! Over a month since I've seen you! I don't know whether you're dead or alive! After all, Joe-we'd been hitting it nearly steady for a whole year in this holed up city. What gives?"
In spite of a gauzy peignoir that revealed two mobile pink tips straining against its transparency, and a peek-a-boo look at the translucent blue briefs, Lieutenant Martha Anderson was in no mood for physical chuminess. Joe had roused her from bed in a plea for help, only to be subjected to a well deserved diatribe from the woman scorned. He paced the floor, kept looking thirstily toward the little kitchen where the girls kept their sedating liquor, then paced the rug again.
"I'm a heel, baby," Joe admitted, running his fingers through the brown crinkle on his head and trying to fight off the new anxiety tension over Dorfstadt's murder, "I treated you like ... oh, hell, worse than anything. But I'm in a hot jam now, baby. A great big jam! And I've got nobody else to turn to!"
"You're in a jam ... and I'm supposed to bail you outr Martha resumed her rage, jumping up and swirling the peignoir around as she stomped her foot, "You go get yourself in some pickle ... maybe you wouldn't be in if we'd still been going together! That's a helluva note! Look, Joe ... we weren't exactly engaged ... and you sure as hell never told me you were really in love with me. But what's a girl supposed to do? We're a steady thing for over a year ... and I loved you! How could I help it in this crazy town where all the Americans go ape over the little Fraeuleins ... and an American gal is blessed lucky to nab a guy?"
"I ... I said I'm sorry," Joe began to falter, amazed even more now that Martha was close to him, how much she resembled the girl at the pension -same flaming hair, large bust that projected so youthfully, the long legs tapering from full thighs to the small ankles.
"No favors, Joe," Martha tried to be firm and resolute as she stood almost against him, arms folded sternly, " ... unless ... unless you tell me what happened ... where you've been.
"Okay, baby ... sit down," he sighed resignedly, knowing he'd have to pitch it pretty close to the truth, "I was ... well, sure, we went together, baby. But it wasn't real love ... not the home and kids and forever kind of love. It wouldn't have worked for us ... not both ways. And without a two way love it's no good. But I met this gal a few weeks ago, and...."
It was a painful job telling the jilted girl who still loved him all about Erika. In fact the explanation itself didn't seem logical or reasonable when he repeated it in chronological order. It was something only he could understand.
Martha accented his remorse with an almost instant change from the fiery redhead to a sincerely hurt young woman. With each new detail, the wrath subsided more. And when he was through, the 22 year old nurse lay heaped in the chair, fighting back the tears no longer.
"God ... what a fool I was! What a stupid little fool!" she sobbed out self criticisms, sopping up the tears with a procession of tissues Joe passed to her, "At least ... at least you were honest about it ... you never said you loved me ... or promised to marry me...."
"It's all my fault, baby," Joe shouldered it anyway, kneeling to the floor and feeling an incongruous warmth at her nearness, "I can't explain it ... I can't rationalize it. It just happened ... for both of us. We met and we knew."
"I don't care what they do to her!" Martha straightened up suddenly, sniffing loudly and tossing the Kleenex away, "I'm not going to get involved with this, Joe. You've told me ... and it's my duty to tell the authorities. You can't make a traitor out of me too. I'm going to telephone Security right now. I'm not a fool...."
"Wait, baby," Joe only coaxed, restraining himself from grabbing the phone away, "I'm not a traitor yet ... not by a long shot. And I'm not a murderer either. I didn't kill that guy at the pension. But I'll need your help ... just give me a hand on two little things ... and I'll try to clear up this mess. I can do it too, baby. Larry and I....
"Nol" she stated flatly, pushing Joe away.
"Martha! Martha! Don't write me off like this. For God's sake ... help me!" Joe pleaded, grasping both her hands now and pulling her close, feeling the sobbing warmth of her upset body against him, "I'm no traitor! But I can't let them kill her! Not without trying...."
A firm knock at the front door interrupted!
They both turned with a start. Joe let go Martha's hands and instinctively stretched himself out against the wall where the door would cover him, his heart bearing fast.
"Who ... who is it?" Martha stuttered.
"MP, Lieutenant Anderson, ma'am," a muffled voice came through the door, "Jus' wanna ask you a couple a questions."
Martha looked at Joe with an unspoken question. He responded with a worried look, but then nodded his head. The decision would have to be hers.
"I'm ... not dressed," Martha explained, cracking the door just a bit, "Could you come by tomorrow?"
"Sorry, ma'am," the deep voice outside droned, "I'm Sergeant Rutherford from Crim'nal Investigation. Jus' doin a quick check-up on all Enlisted Men who come in after two this mornin'. Le's see now ... Sergeant Joseph Guthrie was with you tonight ... right?"
The pause seemed like an eternity to Joe. Standing where she was, Martha had only to glance to her right to see the plea for mercy that strained his face. There was no demand to his look, just a humble and contrite begging for help, for a stretch of precious time.
"Yes, that's right," Martha made her decision, managing full credulity to her lie, "He didn't leave here until two. Is that all you want?"
"You sure it was two?"
"Well, I couldn't be sure it was precisely two...."
"Maybe one ... or one fifteen...."
"No, not that early. Two o'clock ... five minutes either way," she stuck with it, "I ... I remember telling him it was late and I had to be up for the seven o'clock shift."
"You have a fight?"
"A fight?" she questioned curiously, "Why no. We...."
Joe kept nodding his head up and down.
"Well...." Martha managed a silly little laugh, looking back at the MP, " ... it was nothing. Just a....
"That's all right, Lieutenant, ma'am," the MP drawled his apologies, "Please pardon me for bothering you. I didn' mean to ask no real pers'nal questions. Jus' a routine check. Sergeant Guthrie seems to be in fine shape ... story checks out real good. 'Night, ma'am."
"Whew!" Joe exclaimed, them grabbed Martha's full blown body and kissed her on the cheek in gratitude, "Now, you will help me? You will get one of those guys at the pharmacy to see what's in the capsule?"
"I must be nuts," Martha was sobbing again, but this time she cradled her head in Joe's chest, "I'D do it, Joe. I ... I guess I still love you. But please ... don't give those damn Reds what they want ... don't!"
"I'll work it out, baby," he was more at ease now and stepped away briefly to get a bottle of Cognac from the kitchenette cabinet, "I can stall 'em now. And Larry and I are working on some other angles too."
"What ... what secrets do they want? Or can't you tell me?" she asked, her hand still trembling as Joe handed her a drink."
"I don't know exactly," Joe told her, feeling even better after he downed the Cognac, "But the whole top secret transmission-everything from Washington, Bonn, Paris, Heidelberg-it all comes through the Decoding Room on my shift. It would be impossible to get away with anything though. The Security Officer hand-carries each message from the teletype, walks it through Decoding, and delivers it personally. I couldn't get out of that place with a message even if it was only a new Army recipe for mashed potatoes."
Joe sat down next to Martha on the couch. He wrung his hands, wanted another drink, but had to be sober and alert for the noon hour meeting. Martha drained her glass, then edged closer.
"I did mean it, Joe ... what I said in Paris last year," she dropped her voice to an intimate whisper, "I'd do anything for you ... anything."
Joe gulped hard. He didn't know how to take this. She wasn't exactly throwing herself at him like the other redhead, but the old infusion of bio-chemicals began to smolder. And this time Joe knew the formula, knew the explosiveness of the mixture which was" bubbling up into the turgid pitch of defenseless desire. Another minute ... two or three, and it would be just like old times. One of them had to stop it.
"I'll see you tomorrow, baby," he said it quickly, feigning a yawn as he got up.
"Today, you mean," she corrected him quietly, disappointed, but impressed by his desire not to make her hurt worse, "I'm off at three-thirty. I'll have the Corporal at the pharmacy check it out first thing today."
"Goodnight, baby," Joe cut it off, pecking her lightly on the cheek, "If I never loved you, Martha ... at least it was the closest thing to the real thing that ever happened."
"Thanks, Joe," her voice was resiliently soft, and she moved against him for one brief moment, then drew back, "I still love you, Joe. Goodnight ... darling."
CHAPTER FOUR
It was a clammy-hot July day in Berlin. Even the I staid Germans paraded the length of the Kurdamm I in their shirt sleeves during short lunch hours that I provided at least a breezy respite from their hot offices. But there was no air of relief, no lunch break gaiety about the sombre American Sergeant who trekked slowly down the right side of the colorful avenue of shops and cafes. Every face in the crowd received a curiously pleading look from the young GI, as if to ask, "Is it you ... are you the contact with there Reds, the one i who can take me to Erika, tell me what heinous espionage I must commit against my own country to save her young life?"
"Have you a match, please?"
Joe jerked his head around in the direction of the voice. It had come from one of the tables at a sidewalk cafe to his right.
"Good Gosh! Eri ... Oh, I'm sorry," he fumbled an apology after a double take.
The voice had come from a leggy blonde beauty sitting alone against the little fence that separated the tables from the sidewalk. A pensive, questioning smile lit her provocatively full lips. In her left hand she held a cigarette to them, while the right twirled at the stem of a big goblet of Berliner Weissbier. Her figure was small busted yet projecting, the legs with that bathing beauty suppleness and shape of Erika's, the short dress used to optimum advantage.
Yet the physical similarity could have been coincidental. What really threw Joe was the dress she wore-the very same clinging white sheath, the sleeveless decollete creation he had bought Erika at the PX just three days before.
"You like to sit down with Hildegard?" she smiled the question pertly, made-up eyes flickering with intense interest as she patted the seat beside her. "Please to come around and sit with Hildegard. Maybe we make date and go to my place ... yes?"
"I ... uh, yeah ... sure," Joe fell in quick with the B-girl cover, then walked around the little fence.
"We make just like you be looking for nice girl," she explained in a low voice, accepting the light he offered and covering her mouth cautiously. "And me? I look nice ... yes? Like many beautiful German girl who make afternoon pleasure with American GI."
"Where's Erika?" Joe asked immediately, letting his arm hide his mouth as he reached up to remove his cap. "I do nothing until...."
"Impetuous," she remarked with a sly smile that befitted the setting. "I am only little piece of metal in very big machinery. You pay for the drink and we walk up to Charlie."
"Checkpoint Charlie?" he questioned with alarm, then quickly glanced around to see if he had been overheard. "I mean ... just walk through the place ... right into the East Sector?"
"Is no problem," the girl shrugged, her skirt easing down to the dimpled knees as she stood up. "I have a camera for you to put around the neck ... it's in my purse. No sweat to get through if you look like regular tourist. Many GI walk through each day."
Joe's body was drenched with perspiration, the khaki uniform stuck to his skin when he stopped to show his ID card to the MP at Checkpoint Charlie. As a Security Clerk with better than top secret clearance he was actually forbidden to go into East Berlin even as a tourist, but the ID card did not reveal his unit, and Joe managed to play his part well when the MP asked: "You stationed in Berlin, Sergeant?"
"No ... USAREUR Finance Office in Heidelberg ... just doing a little sightseeing."
"Gotchoor leave papers?"
"On orders ... auditing the books on QM purchases. Left my papers with the Transportation Office to clear me on the duty train back to Frankfurt."
"Okay, Sergeant," the MP was apparently satisfied as he gave a smirking look of approval toward the blonde. "Don't get into any arguments or unnecessary conversations. And watch that camera ... no pictures of Russian troops or the East German Vopos."
"Right. Thanks, Mac."
Joe wiped his wet forehead. He felt dizzy. The walk through the narrow gate in the Red wall seemed interminable until at last two Vopos in their "guardhouse green" uniforms waved them through without so much as a glance at the proffered documents.
"We go down Friedrichstrasse here, up to Unter den Linden," Hildegard instructed carefully. "There will be a sedan waiting to take us to Commde Gherkov."
Joe's memory flipped into gear-the man in the back seat of the Mercedes last night. There had been a tinge of recognition even then about the outline of his cave-man features. Now he knew. He had seen the identification poster in the CSS file. He was Alexandrei Gherkov, most vicious and hated of all the KGB agents in Berlin.
Fifteen minutes later the chauffer-driven ZIL limousine, which had been waiting for them on the United den Linden, came to a stop. There was a brief exchange of words between the driver and another man, a sound of metal scraping cement, a very short drive through an area which echoed hollowly with the sound of the cumbersome engine, then they stopped again.
"We can now take this off," Hildegard's voice spoke for the first time since they had entered the car.
In spite of the circumstances, the feel of her soft hands removing the blindfold was a pleasant sensation. As soon as it was off, Joe found himself looking into a sneering row of perfectly shaped teeth. The chauffer was the same man he'd seen last night, the man who had gouged the pistol in his side outside the Pension Dorfstadt. Had he killed the old hotelkeeper?
"This way," Hildegard directed tersely, the flirty smile and wigglesome walk gone now, "Anatovich will be right behind us."
Joe blinked his eyes and pulled at the collar of his stuffy shirt. They were inside an enclosed storage area or warehouse. Slits of hot sunshine shafted through rows of skylights the whole length of the block long building, which was sparsely occupied by trucks and cars of every conceivable make, mostly American and West German. Some were exact replicas of U.S. Army and Air Force staff cars and jeeps, right down to detailed unit designations on their bumpers.
"Where ... where the hell are we?" Joe asked intuitively, vying against their footsteps that reverberated through the dank emptiness of the mas sive enclosure. "Will I ... see Erika?"
"You will see Commde Gherkov," Anatovich's voice rung out harshly for the first time, and he nudged Joe toward a small door at the side of the building.
"Just a goddam minute!" Joe blew, turning to face the long silent Anatovich. "I want to see Erika. What the hell have you done ... Owww! Owww!"
Joe had no more than pivoted around in his fit of ill advised anger, than the bulky Russian had locked both arms in a vice-like grip from behind and tightened up hard.
"Son of a bitch! You lousy goddam bastard!" Joe grunted, trying to struggle out.
"Ughaa ... ughaa," Anatovich gave out with an animal sneer, squeezing harder, tightening on Joe's arms until the pain seared through his shoulder sockets and he thought his arms would come off.
"You ... you try this!" Joe managed to grunt, letting the lower half of his body sag forward.
The Russian tried to pull up Joe's suddenly relaxed torso, but was caught by surprise. Using his buttocks as a battering ram, Joe slammed back his body toward the assailant's groin.
The surprised Russian let out a whelping scream as Joe smashed against his tender privates, "Gooska! Gooska!"
Joe reeled around and aimed a right to his jaw. But it was like hitting steel. His pained knuckles glanced off and the Russian's wiry features went from a pained grimace to a vengeful snarl. Saliva drooled from his big lips, the straight row of pearly falsies became dislodged and extruded out bestially from his puffed mouth.
Joe tried to come through with a left. But that was all he remembered, Anatovich had reared back against the wall to dodge Joe's blow, and come up with his clod of a foot to his head. There was a bright shaft of excuciatingly tormentive light, a bolt of sharp lightning that whammed through his whole cranium.
And then it was black-a dull, aching darkness that blotted out all else.
"Drink it all," a thick voice penetrated the cobwebs Joe tried to look through. "It settles a bad stomach and has certain soothing effects on the common headache as well."
Joe gulped the brown liquid quickly, immediately recognizing the taste of one of the aromatic and intoxicating bitters so popular in Europe for an alcoholic stomach-a kind of Teuto-Gallic Hadacol which provided the excuse of medication for the lush with a queasy gut.
Joe worked his eyes again, and Alexandrei Gherkov's Neanderthal countenance blurred fuzzily, then came into slow focus. The big KGB man was seated behind an elaborately fancy, late-model desk. Joe turned around painfully, putting his hand to his bruised and beaten forehead which still throbbed with the memory of the cleat-footed chauffer, only to stare directly into his snarling face. He went dizzy again, but righted himself and took in a fleeting glance at the ultra-modern office which seemed so out of place in the midst of the dank and dirty warehouse.
"We have been good to you this time, Sergeant Guthrie," Gherkov spoke in his virile harshness as he rummaged through the top drawer of his fancy desk. "The next time you become difficult, your beloved Erika will also suffer."
Gherkov let the threat sink in a moment while he took a small man's wrist watch from the drawer and eyed it carefully, turning the timepiece around and around in his big hands like a jeweler checking out a repair job. Joe tried to occupy his mind with something neutral, some foolish distraction to blot out the jabbing ache in his head and the seeming hopelessness of his anguish. He looked again around the meticulously spotless office, then his nose picked up the distinctive smell he'd noticed just before Anatovich had temporarily clobbered him. It was an acrid dankness, a mixture of mud and oil, a familiar scent that took him back ... back to the docks along the St. Lawrence where he played as a kid. The warehouse must be along a river. That was it! He was in a warehouse along the River Spree, the main commercial water artery to the beleaguered city....
"I have a present for you, Sergeant Guthrie," Gherkov smiled unfittingly, pushing the wrist watch across the desk.
Joe fingered the timepiece nervously, paying little attention to it. He was observing the incongruity presented by the close-up of the hulking Gherkov as he leaned over the desk, his big-jowled face leering at Joe. The hated Secret Police official had beady little eyes inset like small lighten caverns beneath giant overgrowths of jet eyebrows, an under sized, purposeful mouth, and boxed-in ears like a retired pug. These tricks nature had played on him, formed a marked misalliance with the impeccably tailored, double breasted executive suit he wore.
"Where's Erika?" Joe asked suddenly, still fingering the watch abstractly.
"Your beloved Erika is quite safe ... for the present," Gherkov made his threat clear, "and she will remain that way just as long as you follow my instructions with complete devotion. Otherwise ... you will both be dead heroes."
Joe clenched his fists, gritted his teeth, straining against deep seated impulse to strike out at the primitive ugliness of the Russian's vile face. This was no place, no situation for a man of action.
"What do you want?" Joe demanded tensely.
"Do you like the watch?" Gherkov checked his protest.
"The watch? What...." Joe stopped as he realized he was still holding it.
"We are not amateurs at this game, Sergeant," the wily Russian continued, smiling craftily as he observed Joe's curiosity over the watch. "There is a concealed minicamera in that innocent appearing watch you have ... manufactured in West Germany incidentally ... and you will simply wear it on your left wrist in place of the one you now have."
"But I can't...."
"Please, Sergeant," Gherkov cut him off with an eerie calmness. "We are quite conversant with your cryptographic machines and have the task completely organized for you. As each card comes from the decoding machine it falls, I believe, into a trough directly in front of you. Correct?"
"Yes."
"And there is a metal bar about half an inch high and four inches away from the card?"
"Something like that," Joe tried to sound unimpressed while actually dismayed at the telling accuracy of their knowledge and precision of the planning.
Three and eight-seventeeths of an inch to be exact," Gherkov beamed proudly as he referred to a diagram on his desk. "And if you rest your wrist against this bar, directly in front of the message, it will put in the lens of the concealed camera within the range which the focus has been pre-set."
"But the Security Officer's right there...."
"Silence, stupid American!" Gherkov shouted him down, rising from his desk. 'The Security Officer will notice nothing. You merely lay your arm along the machine's shelf against the bar. You activate the camera while appearing to merely drum the fingers of your right hand idly on your left wrist."
"I want to see Erika," Joe switched the subject angrily, gripping the arms of his chair again.
"You will see your beloved Erika when you bring us the first roll of exposed film tonight," Gherkov raised his voice impatiently. "In fact if you have done your job well you may be able to take her back with you ... since, of course, our possession of your first films will be sufficient to assure your continued cooperation."
"How do I know she's here? How do I know you haven't killed her already?" It was Joe's turn to be demanding as he stood up to bank his fist on the desk. "Sure ... you've got me in a real sweet little bind ... but I've got you too. Without me you don't get the transmission pictures. And you want those badly, Mr. Gherkov ... real bad. You've worked months on this thing ... got it planned right down to the end. And I'm the only guy who can do your dirty work. You've got a lot invested in me ... and if I don't produce ... you're out cold
"Your wife has very beautiful hands, Sergeant ... nice, delicate fingers...." Gherkov leered crazily, like a man with a digital fetish.
"Hands? Fingers? What the hell is...."
"I make a proposition, Sergeant Guthrie," Gherkov laughed with a deranged chuckle, pulling out a small switchblade knife. "I will have the young lady brought down so you may see her. But there must be a price for this extra service. You will be tied to that chair while Anatovich clips off her little finger at the first joint!"
"Good God! No!"
"Huhhuh ... he-huh!" the chauffer broke his long silence with a ghoulish laugh, then leaned over to swat Joe's bruised forehead from behind.
The pain was like his raw wound had been whammed with a clawhammer, amplifying the searing ache that coursed constantly through his tensed brain. The surge of instinct to strike back brought him up out of the chair.
Anatovich's wild guffaw echoed through the sparsely furnished office and he brought out a Russian .9mm pistol.
"Nyet, Anatovich! Nyet!" Gherkov barked an order at his scowling stooge. "Sergeant Guthrie's all right. Just a bit unsettled now. Perhaps it would be best to provide him with some proof of the young girl's safekeeping. Go get Frau Ganzl!"
The gangling driver showed his teeth again, then walked out the door. Gherkov withdrew a pistol from beneath his coat and leveled it at Joe. There was absolute silence. Joe tried to think ... Frau Ganzl? The name had an unpleasant reference somewhere.
And then she entered the room! Joe pulled back in shock, his face contorting into a grimace of fearful surprise. And he puzzled about the name no more.
The woman who entered was a blaspheme to the word female. She weighed close to three hundred pounds. Her monstrous breasts pushed out and down at the dirty sack of a dress she wore, showing cleavage larger than the circus fat lady's naked buttocks and looking every bit as vile. Her hair was straggly long and unkept. Her mouth purple and palsied with a perpetual scowl disfigured into it. The eyes large and filled with diseased veins. The nose bulbous and chancred.
Joe remembered the name now ... Ganzl ... Ilse Ganzl, the legendary Mistress of the pre-war Berlin Black Masses. The terribly disfigured halfwitch, who had been sought all over Germany after the War, and was now apparently assigned to do a share of the Russian's dirtiest work. Joe knew now she was no myth, no legend that began as a tall tale in some barrooms or in the fertile mind of some over-imaginative chronicler of Nazi atrocities. Use Ganzl existed in the flesh, a mammoth mutation of a woman, so cursed with hate and vengefulness over her own malformation, that to inflict and debauch the blessedly normal was her very reason for existence.
"Frau Ganzl!" Gherkov spoke firmly, folding his hands and grinning contentedly at the reaction from Joe, "Sergeant Guthrie would like some proof that his beloved is in good hands ... that you are ... taking care of her."
The last phrase, slanted as it was with a sardonic leer, sickened Joe to the pit of his pelvic guts. The Satanic Mistress of mayhem and murder was also an avowed homosexual, a "butch" lesbian of the most violent form. And this was the woman assigned to "protect" the beautiful and desirable young Erika.
"Don't despair, Sergeant Guthrie," Gherkov tried to sound soothing but wore a pornographic grin. "Frau Ganzl is a most obedient servant of our rightful cause. She will give vent to neither her physical nor sexual obsessions without approval. Needless to say, your conduct will determine her behavior toward Fraulein Erika."
"How ... how do I know you have her?" Joe was hesitant in his demand this time and tried to look away from the human bitch.
"Nice ... blonde girl. I be goot mit her ... ja!" Frau Ganzl slobbered in a saliva filled mumble of gibberishly accented English, then plunged a gnarled hand down the gelatinous mass of flesh between her breasts. "Here ... you see dis? You know vat is dis?"
Joe's stomach began to reel and pitch. A retching spasm began in the base of his throat, but could only produce a convusively dry vomit. The gargoyle of a woman had pulled out a pair of sheer pink panty briefs from the naked folds of her Sapphic breasts. They were the ones he had bought for Erika at the little lingerie shop on the Kurdamm, the ones he liked to see her wear when they were alone in the room, to watch her walk around in with nothing else on, and revel in the exciting way they brought out the budding sensuality of her fantastic young body.
"Nice ... very nice girl ... nice body," the beast drooled with a provocative sweep of her hamlike arms to indicate Erika's soft curves and ripe hips. "You got real nice vooman, Mr. 'Merincan ... I like ... very much."
The monstress licked her lips rapaciously, fondled the panty briefs with a possessive glee, then stuffed them back between her immense mounds languorously, as if to savor every crush of their dainty suggestiveness against her fat blobs of flesh.
"Show ... show me how to work the camera," Joe asked, rubbing at his tortured and sickened forehead.
CHAPTER FIVE
"... it was terrible! You just can't realize how terrible!" Joe punctuated his recant of the afternoon's experience to Martha. "How ... how about a drink, huh?"
"Sure ... sure, honey," Martha Anderson said with a shudder, her starched nurse's uniform making feminine sounds as she got up to go to the kitchen. "It's almost unbelievable, Joe ... that perverted Use Ganzl still alive. And to think what it must be like for a pretty young girl like Erika to be with her."
"That bitch! That human bitch!" Joe shook his head in despaired anger, then managed a weak smile somehow as Martha returned with the drinks. "How about the capsule, baby? Any luck?"
"Oh ... the capsule you gave me," she hedged purposefully, rustling up the white skirt as she sat down carelessly and exposed plushly filled white nylons to mid-thigh. "Well, you know those pill rollers we have aren't real pharmacists ... just kids who can read labels. This guy on duty was....
"Look, baby ... did you find out or not?" Joe asked exasperatedly, gulping the wine glass of cognac in three throws. "You promised me this morning ... promised it would be real simple."
"But how can you accept the word of that PFC in the pharmacy, Joe? Martha protested a little too vigorously, biting her lips as she made a business of positioning the stiff skirt. "He could be wrong ... and"
"Was it diabetes medicine? Something she'd have to have?" Joe asked with new concern, kneeling down by Martha's chair. "Come on, baby, tell me! My God, girl-at this point I can take anything."
"It could be a mistake, Joe," she continued hesitantly, clutching his hand, "but the guy swears it was Tranquizine. Even showed me some of our stock capsules and let me put a bit of the powder on my tongue to make a comparison."
"Martha! For God's sake, what's Tranquizine?" Joe yelled despairingly, standing up and looking down at her. "I'm no doctor or medic. What the hell's Tranquizine?"
"He could be wrong, Joe...."
"What is it? Tell me!
"It's used by pregnant women ... for morning sickness ... nausea...."
"What?" Joe broke into joyous relief and clapped his hand to his forehead. "You mean ... I'm gonna be a papa? And so soon ... soon...."
The instinctive cheerfulness ended more quickly than it began. The smile turned to a pained scowl, and a migraine type ache banged at his head.
"That's right, Joe," Martha spoke with slow deliberation, taking his hand away from his forehead and standing up to face him. "You've been ... you've known her barely a month, and she was taking the pills when you met. I didn't want to tell you, Joe. I wanted to keep from hurting you like this."
"I just can't believe it," Joe shook his head in a way that belied his words, then reached tremblingly for the glass Martha had refilled with cognac.
"My shoulder's available, Joe. Cry if you want to." She offered it with simple sincerity, starting to sit down by him. "It's a helluva thing to find out you've been taken by someone like that ... but I've seen bigger men than you cry, Joe. I'm a nurse, remember."
Martha stopped short of sitting down and began to slowly undo the buttons on the front of her crisp uniform. There was nothing overt in the way she did it, more a logical move for an efficient nurse who might have to wear the uniform again, and was in the informal company of an old and trusted friend. The act itself seemed subtle, rational and natural.
But there was nothing discreet about the form-fitted slip beneath that hugged every supple curve of flesh like a tight glove, outlining clearly the pinkish contrast of skin tones above the white nylons, the bare midriff, and stopping just beneath the shapely nakedness of femininely full shoulder and arms.
"I may have to wear this tomorrow unless I get to the PX laundry this afternoon," she stated abstractly, laying the uniform neatly across the back of a chair. "Here, honey ... the bare shoulder's softer than the stiff old uniform anyway."
"Thanks ... thanks, baby," Joe said disdainfully, clutching her arm warmly and reaching for the cognac with his other hand. "I ... I guess if it's true it's about what I deserved ... after the way I did you, baby. It's just ... well, hell, a guy goes out with lots of girls, he thinks he knows somebody ... loves them, does everything for them. Then boom! You find out the gal is just looking for a legitimate father for some little Commie bred bastard!"
"Don't condemn her, Joe," Martha told him sympathetically, then smiled as she withdrew his hand tenderly from the cognac bottle. "And remember you have to be at work soon."
"I guess it all fits...." his anguished thoughts stayed with Erika as he let the bottle go. "She acted so damn ... well, respectable about it. Wanted us to go through this little pretend marriage ceremony and read from the Bible ... so we'd think of it as really being married morally, if not legally. I guess she'd have suckered the first American she could get into this deal of thinking he got her pregnant. And I was her patsy."
"You don't love her now ... do you?" Martha asked a little too quickly, fidgeting as she tried to sound more sympathetic. "I mean ... well, look, Joe ... be realistic. Why don't you admit the whole thing was just a crazy fling you've had. Every American over here has to get next to at least one Fraulein before he goes home. And you can't really blame the girl too much, Joe. Life is rugged over there in East Berlin, and she was only thinking of the kid."
"No! No! No!" Joe tried to snap out of his despondency, smashing a fist into his palm as he bounced up from his seat. "She couldn't have done it. She wouldn't have done it! She was a virgin ... only nineteen. A guy has a way of knowing when a girl tries to sucker him. Erika wasn't like that!"
"All right, Joe, I'm sorry I talked so much," Martha apologized, pulling her legs up on the couch and reaching underneath the filmy slip to undo a garter. "Look, honey ... you want me to get you a sick slip from the hospital? It's three forty-five now and you're in pretty rugged shape. I could get you off work, give you a sedative and you could just He down here ... rest...."
"No, goddammit!" Joe swore, pounding his fist against the kitchen wall, then turning around to face her with a sudden burst of new decision, "I'm going to work and I'm going to forget! I've got to face the facts, Martha. I know nothing about this gal ... she could have even been in with the Reds on this from the beginning. Either that or she's pregnant by some East German or Russian ... or maybe both."
"That's my boy, Joe!" Martha beamed happily at his change of heart, pulling up both legs and clutching her bare knees, letting the slip ride down to her lap. "When you're like this, Joe, you can fight anything. Damn, Joe, I love you ... I don't care what the problem is ... let the Reds tell your boss you were keeping this refugee kid. You'll beat 'em, Joe!"
"At least I knew I was the first ... with you ... huh?" Joe ventured nostalgically, a flicker of a smile on his face as he viewed the sight of Martha's provocative near-nudity on the couch.
"You're the only man I've ever had, darling," she spoke it with pleased softness, patting the couch beside her with one hand while reaching back to draw the big drapes across the window. "I love you, Joe."
"You're a wonderful gal, baby!" Joe let his feelings out more as he watched her sling down to an almost prone position with the slip riding right past the plush pantied hips, elasticized edges pulling up over the rounded curve of ripe beauty he knew so well.
"Kiss me ... kiss me, Joe, ... love me," Martha panted, working her body from side to side as Joe bent down to comply. "Here ... here, darling ... kiss my breasts ... they've missed your lips ... ohh, honey!"
Their rapid breathing matched now in a fury of impassioned release. This was the escape Joe needed so much ... the feel of a woman next to him, a woman he knew was all his. Martha's hands jerked nervously at the straps of her bra and slip, until the left mound of full bosom squeezed out from its confinement to seek his hungry lips. She flexed her body beneath him, pulling him down until she could feel his fullness against herself.
"Ohh, baby!" Joe moaned wildly, making awkward pulls to get his clothes off without disturbing the heated rhythm their bodies had set up.
"Love me ... love me, Joe!"
Martha's continued pleas, her passion-riddled vocal urgings, only added to the fast burning fuse of release for which Joe clamored. She had never acted this desirous before, never seemed to want it so bad, never appeared so unashamed and demanding. If this was a new Martha Anderson, Joe wanted more. Her long body rotated beneath him, her young breasts constantly upraised for attention, the slim waist acting as a gyroscopic axis for the two sets of undulating flesh firmaments.
"Joe! Joe! Here ... like before," she begged him, tearing off the other pair of straps at her shoulder, and hunching her gorgeous breasts together.
"Damn, baby!" Joe went wild with the exploding pool of passion in which he was swirlingly mired, moving up on her body, digging his knees into the couch for motivation.
Martha knew Joe like a book, could tell every emotion and feel he telegraphed when they were together like this. She would have to stop briefly, slow down and precipitate surge that was coming, prolong the agonizing beauty of the love play. She quickly stilled her body, smiling up at Joe as she pushed aside her straggle of flaming red hair which had worked across the pretty school-girl face. Joe tried to keep up the rhythm, but the harmony was suddenly missing. He gave a frustrated sigh and looked down at Martha questioningly.
"Just ... just a minute, honey ... I'm uncomfortable," she answered his look, pulling up toward the end of the couch, then bringing his lips down to hers.
Martha started the movements again, her body covered awkwardly at the waist by the pile of pushed-up and pulled-down clothing, otherwise completely exposed to Joe's probes and play. She worked herself up to him, then reached out to guide him toward her breasts again. Joe protested mildly. He was ready now for the play to end, the tease to terminate, ready for the final incursion that would bind them together in the eventual explosion of love's climax.
"More ... here, darling," she begged in husky breathlessness.
"I ... I can't hold out, baby," he protested, reaching down to stroke her thighs and pelvic arch as he straddled her pulsating stomach. "I ... f got to get to work soon...."
While he talked, Martha hunched her breasts together again, surrounding him with the feel of their sensuous firmness, the mounds pliant to his straining manliness, joe's tormented body could do nothing but yield to the movement she set up. His mounting turgidness begged for fulfillment, tension nearing the breaking point. But he held off for the right moment, the right....
"Please ... please, baby," he begged again, trying to move himself down.
"Do you love me, Joe?" Martha asked in a passion-rapt moan, holding him firmly by the buttocks, her fingernails digging in with the bittersweet cuts.
"Martha ... baby ... I love you!" Joe nearly screamed the profession, tugging to move down.
Without a word, she released him, let him slide down her moist body until he was trembling poised for his quest, Simultaneously, Joe placed rabid kisses on her lips, throat, neck and breasts. His roiling passion was at fever pitch now. There had to be no loss of beat, no break in the continuity of the fulsome, ecstatically infused mood of their act. This had to be the....
"Get up and go to work, soldier!"
Martha blasted the words at him with a sudden savage scowl. She jammed her legs together like a pressure closed vice, and rolled over to the back of the couch.
"What the ...-." Joe exploded helplessly, his turbulent equilibrium shattered and uncomprehending.
"Go find yourself another little Fraulein to get your kicks with!" she tore into him. "No ... you see what it's like to be tossed over!"
"Damn you, baby!" Joe roared with sudden anger, grabbing her locked legs and prying them apart with brute force. "I'll get you now if I have to...."
"All I have to do is scream, Joe!" Martha let him have it, gritting her teeth. "One good scream from me and you've had it, Joe ... your future, Erika's, Larry's....And I'm just the innocent little bystander, the stupid little nurse who got taken in by a Red loving GI who tried to rape her! All right, Sergeant, this is an order! Get out of my quarters!"
Joe rolled off the couch and gathered up his clothes. He seethed inside, ready to burst into uncontrollable rage. But there was nothing else he could do ... except go to jail.
"Damn women!" Joe cursed disconsolately to himself, running his finger around the inside of his sweat-soaked collar as he walked the eight blocks to CSS Headquarters in the broiling Berlin sun.
Joe moved his fingers down the front of his shirt, working it like a bellows against his damp chest. His uniform was wrinkled and disheveled from the disappointing exercise with Martha, his thoughts and fears more jumbled than before. But it was five minutes until his shift started-no time to shower and change, or to think about the huge challenge still facing him.
When he looked at the wrist watch, which showed 4:55, Joe remembered the other watch he was supposed to wear ... remembered it just before he turned the corner by the high brick wall that shielded him now from the CSS guard gate.
"Damn women to hell!" she shouted aloud.
And with this burst of disoriented decision. Joe yanked the minicamera from his pocket, dashed it to the pavement, and ground it underfoot into bits of bent metal and broken glass.
CHAPTER SIX
When midnight came, things looked different. Joe's relief signed in at the Decoding Room at 11:55. And in the hours before, sobering second thoughts had set in to blur the firmness of the decision he had made on the spur of the moment. Transmissions had been light tonight, due to an atmospheric disturbance over the Atlantic, and alone in the code room, Joe's mind had experienced a similar turbulence, vacillating each new idea and making his head seem like a cocktail shaker in perpetual motion.
Did Erika really deceive him, want to marry him only to legitimatize a Communist conceived child?
Did he still love her? Did he ever really love her?
The Corporal on duty at the front desk provided part of the answer when Joe was about to leave the building.
"Know a broad named Erika?" the Corporal asked with a wry grin.
"Erika! She's my...." Joe gave away his true feelings with the tone of enthusiasm, "Yeah! Yeah ... she's a gal I know. Why?"
"Sure got a nice bedroom voice on the phone," the youth drawled it out tortuously long for Joe's tight anxiety, " ... 'course all these Frauleins got bedroom voices. But this one here called 'bout a hour ago an' says she wants you to meet her at some joint called the Kleine Klause up by Innsbrueckerplatz ... know it?"
"Yeah ... yeah!" Joe jumped to it eagerly, snatching the memo from the solider's hand, "Thanks ... thanks a lot."
Joe ran out the door, and the two blocks to Bismarckstrasse where he could flag a cab. He was beside himself now with new hope. Gone were the angers over the Tranquizine, gone were the insinuations of the jealous Martha, gone were the lingering desires for the young nurse's body. All Joe could think of was Erika-that afternoon they'd met on the Kurdamm, the whole night of dancing, the long walk by the Havel and watching the sun come up over the foreboding ramshackle of rooftops of Communist East Germany on the other side, them first night in the little pension when they slept wrapped in each others arms.
"Keep the change, Heinrich," Joe gleefully manufactured a name for the German cabbie when they reached the Kleine Klause, passing him a twenty mark bill.
Inside the intimate cabaret, Joe's eyes scanned every table, the bar, the booths along the back. Each time his eye caught a glint of blonde hair, a fairly common sight among the Nordic featured natives of Northern Germany, it was a potential Erika. But his spirits took a dip with each new false alarm. Was someone playing a cruel game with him? Could this be another form of Martha's non-violent vengeance? And why would Erika choose this place? They had never been here before, and there were other all night bars in Berlin.
When the last blonde was counted, Joe's hopes were lower than the Kleine Klause's lighting, his excited heartbeat as high as their prices. This was the type place a visiting wheel could pick up something nice ... and expensive, or where the bustling town's broad minded elite could bring their wives or dates for a look at the new sophistication that replaced the Old World charm of another day.
"A table for you, Sergeant?" a dapper waiter inquired of Joe, trying not to let his distaste for the Enlisted uniform show.
"I ... I was supposed to meet my girl friend here ... Erika," Joe explained nervously to the anonymous waiter, "Maybe ... maybe she's just late. I'll wait at the bar."
Two doubles of Weinbrand did little to quell the mounting anxiety, the tenseness that grabbed him inside and out.
"Hi, Sergeant!" a familiar voice friendlied up from his left as Joe downed the dregs of the second drink.
"Dam!" he gasped in surprise, seeing first the long blonde hair as he jerked his head around.
But it wasn't Erika. It was Hildegard Krauss, the girl with the silhouette and hair that were right, and still wearing Erika's tight, white sheath.
"I picking you up ... for business," she whispered, sliding onto the stool beside him, then affording a generous view of ungirdled buttocks as she pulled the skirt up to flip it back over the seat, "You make it like good act ... okay?"
"Look ... where's ... ?"
"Come on ... come on," she scolded, smiling and murmuring at the same time.
"Yeah ... how about a date?" he asked clumsily but aloud, noting the two American freeloaders down the bar immediately lose interest at the intimation of money, "You ... got a place, baby?"
"Sure thing, GI. I got nice room for sure. You got a hunnerd marks?"
"It's a deal, Schazi."
"All right, blondie ... where's Erika? Where is she?" Joe demanded in her room after a five minute cab ride during which she had refused to even whisper about it, "You gave Erika's name when you called...."
I had to be sure you come," she cut him off tersely, a questioning look in her intense eyes as she picked up a bottle of Cognac from the table, "When I say I'm Erika ... I figure you gonna come for sure."
"Well ... what's the deal?"
"You got the film?" she asked, pouring a drink for Joe after he nodded affirmatively toward the bottle, "We take the film over to East Berlin ... the pictures be okay ... you see your Schazi okay."
"Look ... Hildegard," he used her name for the first time, trying desperately to think of a way to explain away the minicamera, "I ... I messed up the film. I didn't want ... didn't mean to do it. But I forgot how to work the thing...."
"Gherkov don't like tha ," Hildegard frowned with a worried look, "For sure he gonna make big trouble for you now."
"Can't I explain it to him? Won't he believe me? Is he coming here?" Joe rattled off the questions beseechingly as an idea began to form.
"No ... he don't come here," Hildegard informed him, pouring another drink, "We gotta meet the car over on Uater den Linden again."
"Gad, girl!" Joe started nervously, downing his Cognac quickly to quiet his fears, "I can't go running over ihere this late. The MP's would raise hell."
"No sweat," Hildegard broke into a little laugh, intrigued by Joe's serious intenseness and admiring the way his muscles tensed so virilly when he was upset, "You got a ... what Gherkov call "Sergeant privileges'. You just tell a MP you wanna visit a few cabarets in East Berlin with your girl friend. The MP give ya bunch a talk about stay sober ... but no sweat."
"All figured out, huh?" Joe was still uneasy as he paced the floor, then made a dramatically calculated gesture of pulling out his American Express checkbook, "Look ... look, Hildegard, I'm in a jam without that film. I don't know what those guys are paying you ... but I need your help real bad. Here ... I'll write you a check for five hundred bucks ... you can cash it first thing tomorrow ... if you'll just help me."
The German girl did a double take at the idea. Money was Hildegard's business ... from a bed partner or the Reds-or anyone who could pay for what she could do for them. She knew that even American Sergeants often had good sized bank accounts, almost believed the legend that American streets were paved with gold. And Gherkov paid her pittance on a job basis. Her whole take, in fact, for the Guthrie job would be less than 500 marks ... a month's pay for many a Berlin worker, but five times less than the bait Joe was offering.
"What I gotta do for this money?"
"Help me ... tell me where they've got Erika ... take my side that I messed up the film accidentally ... had to ditch the camera because I was afraid the Captain I work for was getting suspicious," he drew a quick picture for her, "You're the direct contact with me for Gherkov ... hell respect what you say."
"I don't tell you where they got her," Hildegard was fearfully adamant, but covetous of the money, "But ... mebbe I fix it so Gherkov don't kill the girl friend. Five hunnerd...."
"Sure ... okay," Joe jumped at the offer, pouring their glasses half full to seal the bargain in the accepted European fashion, "Ein prosit! We're in business."
"You not a bad lookin' guy, you know?" she smiled at him like a hundred German girls had before, then crossed her legs coyly to let him look at their stockinged shapeliness, "How much money you got in that GI bank account?"
"Uh ... close to a thousand bucks," Joe lied, recalling all too well it was closer to ten dollars and fifty cents, "A hundred more of it's yours if you tell me where they're keeping Erika ... where the old warehouse is."
"Hey, good lookin!" she stopped him with a laugh, then reached for the Cognac bottle, "I take a big chance to fix you up on this camera stuff. Okay ... I get by with that mebbe, an' nobody gets hurt. But when I tell you other things they gonna fix me good. Here ... you gonna feel better after 'nother drink."
She was warming to him. Joe felt it, knew the signs of reaction that seemed to always come with it. Hildegard, he reasoned, was no different than so many of the European play-for-pay kind-her worst weakness was what she was trying to make a salable commodity.
And this girl had to be pleased now, had to be played to. Hildegard was the first link to getting Erika back, the only real 'in' he had to the people holding her, the people with the power to ruin or kill them both.
"You write that check now, okay?" the girl broke into his anxious thoughts with a compromising smile, "Hildegard make it good for you then. I be back in a minute."
Joe took out his ball point as she got up and went into the bathroom. He was too engrossed in his own plans to even wonder why she had gone out. Signing the paper in an illegible scrawl and adding an extra initial, he would worry later about the ruckus at the bank when she tried to cash it. By that time, he figured, he would be successful ... or dead.
"You think I got nice body, Sergeant?"
The ball point clattered to the brittle linoleum floor of the cheap apartment. The relaxation which had begun to flow through his body from the four Cognacs, was obliterated by a sudden spasm of tenseness. Only this time it was not dread fear that clutched at Joe's loins and churned him up inside. Hildegard had entered from the bathroom more beautifully naked than the day she was born. And the body was so much like Erika's Joe blinked his tired eyes in utter disbelief.
"Thanks ... thanks, Joe. Muchas Gracias. Merci. Danke viel masF' she voiced happily, winking saucily as she glided across the floor to pick up the check, "Now you got a nice bonus comin', Joe. Hildegard likes a guy ... she treats him nice. Lotsa GI offer fifty ... hunnerd ... two hunnerd mark for Hildegard. You get it because you nice guy."
Joe tried to return the smile, but it came out nervous. Berlin was overflowing with what the GI's called "free stuff-most professional B-girls would go broke in the town. But Hildegard was different. The "free stuff, even the overpriced stuff for the moneyed tourists, seldom looked this good. Of course Joe might be prejudiced because of the resemblance to Erika. But nearly any guy could be biased about Hildegard.
"You like?" she asked unnecessarily, pirouetting around on her high heels to show off the full blown curves of her trim legs.
Only Hildegard's face showed the schizophrenic strain of life for a Berliner. Her body was young, warm, supple, with a hint of firm yield and pliability to the plush shapeliness. Like Erika, she had the small, pointed breasts with the little erected nipples appearing in a constant state of excitement. Her legs were full yet lithe, the buttocks rounding out to the edge of respectability before concaving back to meet the inset demands of a tiny waist.
But unlike Erika, whose beauty was so differently intriguing because of her relative naivete and innocence, Hildegard provoked a man's feeling in each step and practiced movement. The way she articulated the taut buttocks with each step, the suggestive jounce she could set up in the perfectly formed little breasts, the so slight quiver in the full thighs as she came up on a man-these were talents indigenous to a girl who depended on her body ... and who took thrill soaked pleasure herself in the orificial orgies of love's abandonment.
"What ... what about Gherkov?" Joe asked, twitching his fingers worriedly, "Won't he be waiting for us?"
"'Nother hour," Hildegard dismissed the thought, then fell down on the couch beside Joe, "We take a cab to Charlie ... then it's maybe a five minute walk. You a good man, Joe? Forty five minutes to love Hildegard?"
The passion was rolling anew in Joe's body. The (purely physical demands fostered by the day's earlier frustrations, combined with the rational license of the situation. He was freed to a certain extent morally by the lingering uncertainty over Erika. And further, he could not risk offending the sexually enslaved Hildegard who was now his only remaining hope.
"Terrific body, baby...," Joe commented honestly, shunting aside the big worries to lose himself temporarily in the musty morass of pleasure, grazing his hands down the supple nakedness of her smooth thighs, then gripping the rigid buttocks and pulling her to him.
Hildegard was no longer the Commie go-between. She was hardly a spy type anyway, merely a trusts contact the Reds paid by the piece for seducing on inveigling gullible Westerners when the sex approach could be utilized. But now the young German girl was stripped of all elements of foreign intrigue She was merely the passionate neurotic product of torn and divided people lusting for the feel of a lover's body, hungering to be wanted, and desirable, am expensive.
With the deftness of experience, she loosened Joe collar and set about her pointedly arousing task of undressing him. She knew men like to be undressed like to have a woman's delicate fingers curl through their body hairs. Hildegard had learned all this long ago, learned a lot more too-about the unusual sometimes perverted tastes of so many men. But she was not worried about this with Joe. Even a whom likes a real affair of her own sometime. And Hildegard liked Joe. She would have even paid him had it become necessary.
Joe let his hands take up a continual play over the fascinating projections and orifices of her excited young body loving her mobile reactions to his touches as much as she did their feel. There was a strange awareness too of the striking similarity to Erika, an insoluble conflict that tugged at Joe's conscience, saying "do" and "don't " at the same time. But his emotional hyper-sensitiveness to the basic physical drive and temporary relief he sought so desperately in the stinging solace of sex, won out and compelled him on.
"Oh ... you're a nice man!" Hildegard caught her breath suddenly, the sparse light playing across her face an a way that erased the lines of strain and worry, "I like to see you nekkid, darling...."
Joe pushed his mouth to her lips, stilling the words while her tongue kept moving, darting its excited tip in and out between his lips, surling up under them and trying to explore further. Joe pulled away easily, Hildegard gave a disappointed start at first, then a slightly pleasurable moan when she realized he was going down further, trailing his lips along the smoothness of her neck. She tilted back desirously, scooting up onto his lap and hand leading an excited nipple to his eager lips.
"Ohhh! Mem Gott in Himmel! Du bist ein schoen ... schoen mannr she shrieked in a delirium of uncontrollable want when Joe laid her back on the couch while he let the hyper-sensitive nippel ride back and forth between his lips.
"Commde Krauss! Commde Krauss!"
The whole experience was shattered in one blinding moment!
Anatovich emerged from the big wardrobe cabinet by the wall, his right hand gripping a Russian .9 mm pistol.
"Wha ... ?" was all Joe could manage.
"No! No! I only do it to make him talk!" Hildegard cried out. the stark fear of the Communist retribution overshadowing every other thought, "No ... I tell Commde Gherkov, I only mean to...."
"Silence!" the Communist bully-boy shouted, remonstrating with the pistol to keep Joe at a distance.
"No! No! Ahhh!" Hildegard screamed as he brought his left hand smashing across her face.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Russian Army troop truck rumbled to a halt at Checkpoint Charlie. It was a routine crossing, the I A.M. change of guard from the Soviet War Memorial located in the West Sector. A desultory American MP pulled back the canvas cloth across the truck's tail, took a cursory look at the two rows of uniformed soldiers lining the sides of the vehicle in erect sitting positions, didn't even glance down at the big weapons box on the floor, then walked back to the cab.
"Okay ... commde," he cleared the driver, with what he hoped was undetectable sarcasm, "see ya t'morra."
"Good night," the Russian struggled with English syllabication, then threw the cumbersome conveyance into gear.
Joe relaxed little as the big vehicle bounced and jarred along the broken pavement of East Berlin. The two Russian soldiers beside him reholstered the guns they had kept jammed at his sides. He loosened the collar of the thick, ill-fitting Soviet uniform they made him wear, and wondered how the Ivans could stand the hot wool-felt in summertime.
There was a small groan from inside the wooden weapons box. The heavy-set Ariatovich, also disguised as a Soviet GI, opened the top to leer inside.
The almost nude body of Hildegard Krauss was trussed and gagged, cramped awkwardly into the pine enclosure. She struggled to speak, but the burly Russian merely slammed the lid and smiled at Joe.
"Tonight, foolish American," he sneered with inbred hate, "You will see what can happen to enemies of the people."
Joe felt the truck stop, heard big doors clang like before, then felt the sudden relief of the warehouse's cool dankness compared with the sweltering humidity of the Berlin summer.
"Come!" Anatovich ordered, jumping from the truck and yelling instructions to the driver in Russian.
"Hey ... what the hell happens to Hildegard? You're not...."
The roar of diesel exhaust cut off his questioning plea, which Anatovich was ignoring anyway. The truck zigzagged a course through the mire of ve hides Joe recalled from before, and disappeared into another section of the massive building.
"We go to see Commde Gherkov," the Russian told Joe, pulling a small packet from his breast pocket, "Russian cigarette? Much better for throat ... more bigger filter."
"You sound like a T-V pitch man," Joe ad-libbed abstractly, taking the small round of dark tobacco that was attached to about three inches of filter.
"Pitch man?" Anatovich puzzled, breaking into a prideful smile when Joe accepted, "Pitch man is for carnival? Circus? No?"
"Skip it. Let's go see Commde Jerk," Joe got away with the mispronunciation as die Russian fought to understand Americanese.
He led Joe between two stacks of sacks piled almost to the ceiling like a sandbagged enclosure, then into the incongruously new and modern office of Alexandrei Gherkov. The burly KGB man was behind his desk, puffing calmly on a pipe and tapping his fingers abstractly on a bulky envelope.
"Commde Frau Ganzl is quite excited that you have betrayed us," Gherkov spoke with ominous casualty, setting down the pipe and reaching into a brown humidor for a black Cuban cigar, "She has become very attracted to your charming girl friend ... and is consequently most frustrated as long as we force her to sublimate her ... somewhat strong desires. Now, of course, I see no sense in prolonging her anxiety."
"G--damn you to ... owww!" Joe screamed suddenly at the vice-like grip that twisted his arm be hind his back and pulled up, up, up, then slowly released as he quieted down.
"You have done two very foolish things, Sergeant Guthrie," The KGB man continued, pouring out metal and glass fragments from the envelope in his hand, " ... destroying the camera, and trying to compromise Fraulein Hildegard."
The pieces of the minicamera tinkled out on the plastic-laminated desk top with a foreboding sound. They were very precise and sure, these Commies. Obviously hadn't left Joe unobserved for a moment except while he was at work.
A knock came at the door to jar Joe's dizzing plight!
Gherkov gave a quickly cautioning nod to Anatovich, who moved back from Joe and stepped toward the door.
Joe jerked his head around in time to see the chauffer open the door and step outside. Joe saw a glimpse of a blue suit for a moment, before the hulking chauffer moved to block his view again.
"A man about to die always receives one last wish ... in my country, as well as yours, Sergeant Guthrie," Gherkov said with new seriousness, shedding his sardonic sneer and wry wit, "And I feel sure this would be yours...."
The door opened wide, and Joe's confused face went from Gherkov to the door, back to Gherkov, back to the door. No one was there, and his head was going left to right like a rabid tennis spectator, who had lost control.
"Joe! Joe! Mein Gott ... Mein Mann! Joe! a voice came through the silent vacuum.
Erika Lang suddenly had appeared silhouetted between the steel jambs of the doorway. She just stood there at first, crying and sobbing, the little gingham dress from the P-X bargain shop disheveled and dirty. Joe wanted desperately to lurch up from his seat and run to her aid or rescue, but Anatovich held her left arm from behind in an apparently less painful version of the same hold he had used on Joe.
"Let go of her, you Ukrainian idiot!" Gherkov showed his European Russian feelings as he remonstrated at Anatovich, "Please, Sergeant ... you must excuse...."
"Erika! Erika, baby! ... baby! Are ... are you all right! Are you...."
Erika literally fell into Joe's arms when they met in the middle of the floor, then clutched desperately at his body to maintain her balance, to snatch a moment of new hope, treasure at least one more moment in the arms of the man she loved.
"Please ... please, Joe!" she was still crying a few minutes later as Joe held her close to savor what might be their last minutes on earth, "They will kill my family. Oh, Joe! I don't want you to be traitor, Joe ... but they tell me yesterday my father has a big accident ... he breaks both arms. But, Joe ... they did it to him. I know. I tell them to kill me ... kill me first, but they say my family gets burned to death if I don't make you do this ... Joe ... Mein Gott!"
Joe gulped hard to fight back his own tears. Here was his Erika, the tantalizingly warm and voluptuous Erika, the one girl he had ever wanted to make it forever with. Here she was ... that same yielding and stimulating body, the same long and beautiful hair and the little eyes that used to sparkle and glow ... begging him to spy on his own country.
"And how is Commde Ganzl treating you?" the imperturable Gherkov asked calmly, picking bits of dirt from beneath his long fingernails, "Tell Sergeant Guthrie about your little nightly conversations, Fraulein Lange."
"Mein Gott! Oh, mein Gott!" Erika shuddered violently, gripping Joe's arms until her fingernails dug into his suntanned skin, "Every night ... every night she don't let me go to sleep. Every night she tells me for hours what she will do to me ... with me if you don't do like they say. Oh, God, Joe ... I gotta die ... I kill myself first, but they tie me in chair so I can't...."
It was becoming too much for Joe. His head was beginning to become dizzy, and all he could think of was killing Gherkov ... maybe he could....
"Nein! Nein! Nein! Mein Gott! Bitte! Bitte!" piercing screams rent through the closed door from the warehouse.
Crazed laughter followed from someone else.
The door was thrown open! Hildegard's naked and bruised body was catapulted into the room and fell to the floor in a sobbing heap! But there was nothing pretty about her now. Long whelps crisscrossed her bare back, rising red and vivid from the soft skin which had reminded Joe so much of Erika's. The long blonde hair hung down in her face, matted to her skin in spots by blood, sweat and tears. Her convulsive and pained body gave a start at the feel of some new jolting ache and she rolled over. The bruises and whelps covered her abdomen too.
"No! No! Look, Joe!" Erika gave a hysterical scream and plunged her terrified face into the haven of Joe's chest.
Joe had to force himself, bite his lip, tense his muscles, to keep from joining her in breaking down at the sight that met them. Hildegard's left breast was distended grotesquely, misshapen. And in place of the little nipple ... there was a bleeding mass of torn tissue.
"Nice ... nice gorl!" Use Ganzl mouthed in a mad drivel, entering the room with a Satanic snarl on her disfigured face, a crimson blob drooling from her mouth like retched catsup.
"You monster! You sadistic monster!" Joe broke into a mad rage, the only thing he could do to vent the spark of protest that gouged his body and brain.
Frau Ganzl, still in a dreamy state of ghoulish savor over her Lesbo-sadistic coups, threw back her hams of arms in surprise when Joe lunged at her! Wild with fury now, he clawed savagely to dig his fingers in her puffed globs of fatty arms and shoulders.
"Anatovich!" Gherkov barked.
And the Ukrainian bully clobbered Joe from behind with one swift rabbit chop to his neck.
Joe pulled the blonde form next to him. He loved Erika, loved her with every fibre of his tired aching body. Now, he felt, she was really his. They were gliding through space, surrounded by little cloud formations and the happy faces of people who waved at them from their own private clouds. Theirs though, his fancies figured, must be cloud nine ... or something like that.
Then the vision shattered! A cruel, bulky face of a man with close cropped black hair, was staring at him. When Joe opened his eyes, he broke into a terrifying laugh that sent great bolts of thunder and lightning through the remaining fragments of the visionary sky and made it disappear.
The sickening jolt of Alexandrei Gherkov's subtly gruesome laughted came at him.
The dream was gone ... but the girl was still there! The fair blonde hair streamed across Joe's arm as he lay on the floor beside her. But instead of Erika, Joe was embracing the blood spattered corpse of Hildegard Krauss.
"You like ... to make love with ... dead woman?" the voice of Anatovich asked from behind Joe, then broke into vile laughter, his foot kicking at the bloodied mass until it rolled over to the corner of the office.
"Where ... where's Erika?" Joe managed between dry gulps that tried vainly to bring up his last meal, but only succeeded in filling his mouth with dry pockets of foul stomach gases.
"She became quite ill," Gherkov leered, leaning down accommodatingly to set a miniature bottle of bitters by Joe's hand, "Anatovich has taken her back to her room. Here ... this makes good for your upset feelings, Sergeant Guthrie. Too bad you had to miss Frau Ganzl's piece de resistance. Every good soldier should witness a person die slowly. It equips him better for the day he must kill and be killed on the battlefield."
"To hell with you!" Joe forced out the bitter words with excruciating venom, biting his lip until he tasted blood, and pushing away the bottle of bitters.
"I ... make you get up," Anatovich volunteered, grabbing Joe under his arms and hauling him into the chair in one sweep.
"Remove the body!" Gherkov directed his henchman sternly, with all the unconcern of asking for a match, then sat down and faced Joe, "Tomorrow night it can be your beloved Erika. And her poor father, crippled as he is ... what could he do if his little house was to catch on fire...?"
Joe was too sick, too totally nauseated and dizzy to think well. But he had to do something, had to stall. Maybe even had to....
"You are terribly upset, Sergeant Guthrie. Too bad you refused the medication," Gherkov came out with a crooked smile, snapping off his wrist watch and setting it on the desk, "But you are indeed a fortunate young man. You will find out now the humane quality of Communist mercy, which your papers so often deny. We are an understanding people, Sergeant Guthrie ... benevolent, considerate, magnanimous. Here then is another minicamera. We give you one more chance!"
The retching spasm returned to Joe's twitching stomach. His head seemed to want to blast apart into a thousand pieces and render him a mental eunoch, incapable of deciding or doing anything. But a thin fragment of courage, a ray of hope, the last grasp at survival tor Erika, her family and himself, egged him on. With this scant grip on temporary survival, there was still the slight piece of optimism for eventual salvation.
"Okay, Jerk," he said with resignation, seeming to pronounce the name unintentionally, "Give me the camera."
CHAPTER EIGHT
"Guard re-placement," the Russian soldier pronounced his English laboriously as he halted the Soviet staff car at the American side of Checkpoint Charlie.
"Okay, Commde," the MP said with an agreeable smirk, glancing at the erect figure in Russian uniform beside the driver.
"Your clothes ... in back seat," the man spoke to Joe as they drove away, "You change now."
Joe was in no mood to argue, or even make remarks. Even from a Soviet staff car, the Western Sector never looked better to him. And if he had to make a dressing room out of the front seat, so what. It was cramped and awkward, but by the time they were cruising down Hauptstrasse, Joe was a full fledged American GI again, wearing his cool khakis, but still itching from the felt uniform he had sweated in for so many hours. It was now 3:45 A.M.
"You get out here," the Russian directed gruffly, slowing just before Innsbrueckerplatz, "Maybe you get taxicab here. Is place open there to make telephone."
Joe felt dazed and disoriented as he stepped from the car. He didn't even hear the roar of the clumsy engine as it headed away. All he could see was the subdued neon that said, "Kleine Klause ... geoeffnet alle nacht".
It was like a big welcome mat, a haven of refuge beckoning the weary and hot traveler from a trek across the desert. Joe's imagination immediately conjured the vision and taste of a tall mug of the German beer he had learned to love in the past three years, and he brushed quickly past the liveried doorman.
"I am so sorry, sir," the barman inside explained properly, turning up his nose distastefully at Joe's request, "But if we sell beer, every Amer ... person comes in and makes a gasthaus of this place. But ... I have wine, a Mosel, or Rhine, or...."
"Dammit, I want a beer!" Joe glowered determinedly, standing up and slamming his fist down on the bar as the whole house turned to gawk, "I ... I've been working all day and I want a cold beer!"
"I am sorry," the bartender was equally adamant, folding his arms and glaring at Joe, "We do not serve beer!"
"The hell you don't! Two nights ago I saw...."
"Ach, so!" the German brightened, smiling as he reached down into the cooler under the bar, "Yes ... of course! You may have a picolo of Champagne ... with a beer on the side! Very good drink. Twenty marks for the Champagne, one mark for the beer ... or five dollars twenty-five cents if you don't have marks."
Joe eased back into his seat cursing in a mumble the perversity of European cabarets which had no sympathy whatever for beer lovers. He pulled out a fifty mark bill and slapped it down on the bar.
"You drink the Champagne, Heinrich," he managed a scowl to compensate for the forced five dollar tip, "Just give me the damned beer."
"As you wish, sir,' the barman shrugged.
Joe gulped it down, then ordered a Cognac with the next one, a combination which the bartender permitted, though the liquor was only five marks a shot. He had killed the pony of booze, when he caught a glimmer of recognizable red hair going across the mirror behind the bar. It was Sally Martin, the girl from the pension, the redhead with the lost husband.
The murder of Dorfstadt came vividly to Joe's mind, and a new fear welled up in him. There was the clue of the threatening GI that the MP's were searching out, and the redhead knew he had stomped out of the bedroom toward Dorfstadt's door, And there was only his alibi with Martha, which she would hardly corroborate if the chips were down.
With Sally Martin was a tall blond fellow in a blue suit. Her husband? Or maybe a CID agent from the MPs making the rounds to find Joe?
"Another Cognac," he asked the bartender quickly, shaking noticeably as he pushed the empty shot glass out, "Come on ... right now!"
"Hi, good lookin'!" the familiar voice came up at Joe from the rear, and the sedating liquor's relaxation vanished completely, "I haven't seen you since ... since several days ago."
Joe clenched his fists, refusing to look around at first. His new Cognac came, and he downed it in one gulp. He slammed the glass on the bar, then turned around bullishly to face the redhead.
"Look ... I think you made a mistake. I'm...."
"Easy, darling," she smiled with that same look of intriguing invitation as when she had laid nude on the bed,. "I'm on the lam too, you know. I wasn't a registered guest either ... remember?"
Joe gave a relieved sigh and wiped a spot of Cognac from his chin. The tall blond fellow in the blue suit was standing over by a table impatiently tapping his fingers. Joe looked back at the redhead.
"Find your husband?" he asked, nodding to the man.
"Oh ... him?" she gave a throaty chuckle, grasping Joe's hand which was still trembling slightly, "Heavens no. He's a private detective I've got working on it. But I think he's more interested in me than he is in finding Milo ... my husband. He's not my type though, darling. Let's shake him, okay?"
The redhead sidled her body up close to Joe. Her hips did two swivels against his leg and brought back a vivid picture of her heated undulations on Erika's bed at the pension. She might be a bitch, Joe realized. But at least she could be a friendly bitch. In fact she was one of the few people with whom he could share his own turmoil ... the murder of Drofstadt, and Erika's kidnapping.
"Sure, let's have a drink," he warmed with a smile, getting up from the bar, his eyes not missing the chance for a masculinely intuitive sweep of the tightly clothed body.
"... but if it wasn't for settling his estate, which amounts to getting my own money back really, I'd say to hell with him," the redhead finished up her summary of transpired events since the night at the pension. "And you, darling? No luck yet in finding your little ... friend?"
"Like I said ... Sally," Joe hesitated, aware again that the name didn't quite fit, "I can't tell you too much about it. The point is ... she's still missing. I'm in one hell of a mess. And when the MFs or the German cops run those fingerprints from your room through the Army file in Heidelberg, I'll be in it up to here."
"You Berlin GI's," she remonstrated with a slight smile, downing her second drink since they'd been at the table, " ... all spooks, all hushhush. You'd think we were in a nest of spies here."
"Look ... Sally," Joe lowered his voice, took hold of her hand and looked up into the enigmatic eyes, "I ... I don't know how to say this ... but, well, I need a friend. Really I do. And you ... I know you're not in love with your husband. This whole thing is probably just a big game with you, but...."
"I'm a woman, Joe ... and I'm very human," her mood changed abruptly from the flip, flighty facade and she gripped his hand hard, "I laugh and joke ... play the seductive queen. But how do you think it makes me feel to know my husband's run out on me? Whether I wanted him or not isn't the point. The point is he ditched me. That's why I go around trying to prove myself ... trying to prove I'm attractive."
"You don't need to," Joe broke into an intimate grin, responding nicely to her closeness, "You're a beautiful gal, and you know it."
"Oh ... I've got a pretty face, and statistically my thirty-eight, twenty-five, thirty-seven, is what the (guys go for. But that's like a clinical analysis of a healthy pig. And ... I don't want just any man. I'm choosy."
"What ... what did the cops say when Dorfstadt was murdered?" Joe changed the subject quickly, wanting her affection, yet wary at the same time of her aggressiveness.
"Nothing much more than I told you," she shrugged, giving him a quizzical look, "Uh ... Sally Martin isn't my real name, of course. I had to pay five hundred dollars to some crook in Paris for this Passport. The State Department characters didn't want me to come to Berlin looking for my husband ... so I had to do something."
"I didn't think it was Sally, Didn't fit," Joe smiled again, reaching for her hand, "What is it ... really?"
"Does it matter?" Can't I just be Sally, and you, Joe ... and we've met and liked each other in Berlin," she romanticized, nodding affirmatively as a waiter hovered over their empty glasses, "We're both married, Joe ... or at least we both have other obligations. Let's just leave it at that. When you find your girl ... I can be like a dream interlude-Sally in Berlin. No other name, no address, nothing tangible to bother our consciences."
"Okay," Joe couldn't help but agree, glad she wanted it this way, "But what about the MP's ... the cops?"
"Well ... I had to tell them you were in my room," she explained, leaning closer again, "But I swore you were just a guy I'd met at a bar ... that I didn't even know your name. I admitted you were arguing with Dorfstadt in my room ... I had to because the other guests heard you. But I told them it was only an argument over your being there in the room with me. And I told them you went straight out of the building ... you did, ... didn't you?"
"Yeah."
"Joe!" You didn't come back and kill him? You're not involved in that murder?"
"No ... no," Joe tried to quash her suddenly expressed doubts, holding on as she tried to pull her hand away, "It's all right, baby ... Sally. I didn't do it. I swear, I didn't."
"For ... forgive me, Joe. I'm sorry," Sally almost burst into tears, laying her head over to his shoulder, "It's ... it's been so terrible ... so lonely here for me. I ... I can't sleep at nights. I walk the streets. I came into a place like this. I let that horrible private detective take me out dancing, paw over me...."
"Easy ... easy, baby," Joe consoled, feeling a burst of sympathy, understanding and oneness with the distraught girl, "We , ... we could go somewhere maybe. But not back to Dorfstadt's ... I don't want to go there again."
"I left that night," she told him, dabbing her eyes with a napkin, then easing away from his shoulder slightly so she could look directly into his face, "I was afraid they'd find out who I really was. I walked the streets until morning, then thought to look up a detective to help me. I had to turn to somebody."
"You're not staying with him?" Joe asked, feeling curiously jealous of the handsome blond man.
"No. Ye Gads, no," she managed a laugh, squeezing Joe's hand, "But he got me a room at a little place out in Grunewald."
"He had a mean look in his eyes when you told him I was going to take you home," Joe mused, leaning back for the waiter to serve their drinks, "I wouldn't be surprised if he weren't hanging around there waiting ... say, I've got an idea!"
"Yes?" she questioned, cheering up and looking at Joe interestedly, "I don't know what it is, but I think I'll like it."
"There's ... a little hotel about three blocks from where I work. Some of the guys ... well, anyway, as long as you pay for two rooms they don't ask questions."
"I ... I don't know whether to be seductive again ... or just tell you I'd love to sleep with you ... really sleep, I mean," Sally reacted with an unbelievable shake of her head, a look of unburdened relief on her pretty face, "Oh, Joe ... Joe, darling I need someone so badly ... someone to hold me and tell me I'm nice, make me know I'm a woman again."
"Prosit!" Joe offered the traditional German toast, picking up his glass.
A noise sounded through the distant mist. It came in short, erratic spurts, unlike the drone of a foghorn, yet it must be a foghorn. Joe felt his body moving in a hyper-sensuous whirl of erotic must. He felt the movement, but wasn't controlling it. His whole body seemed to glide through a shrouding mist, moving against something plush and delightful. It was like having your kick with complete lack of effort.
The fog began to clear, and Sally Martin's face hovered into focus. She was looking at him, smiling and beckoning. No need for him to gesture back though, because she was right there, her body undulating, convexing to met his. Her arms were wrapped tightly around his back, the long thighs stretched against his legs in an embrace of uniting passion.
And they kept drifting ... drifting through the air. Now Joe could feel himself working against her warm skin. He pushed and pushed, twisting his arms up so his hands could reach the large young globes of breasts which sent Sally into an ecstatic delirium of fanciful facial contortions. He pushed, pushed, pumped and worked now, fever wrought to make their love complete.
And then she began to drift away from him in the enveloping fog like the unfulfilled end of a love dream.
"Joe, darling ... love me! Love me, darling ... please," a voice pleaded.
Joe blinked his eyes and saw the light. It had been a dream, and now the light of day was filtering through the drawn drapes of a cheap hotel room. The bustle of morning traffic along the thoroughfare outside replaced the bleating fog horns with the incessant honking of irate motorists bound for work.
"Joe, darling! Ohh, Joe ... !"
The voice came through in a languorously culminative whine. It was soft and gentle though, not the plushy aggressiveness of the girl in the pension, but the sincerely needful cry of relief of a young woman who needed desperately the warmth, affection and love of a man.
"Good grief!" Joe ejaculated verbally.
He was totally naked, lying on his back. Sally, her plush body still throbbing, was on top of him.
"I'm sorry, Joe ... sorry if I frightened you, Joe ... sorry I had to do it this way," she begged forgiveness, clutching him around the waist and laying her head in the mat of hair on his chest, "But you passed out on me, darling. Remember last night ... this morning rather? You hit the bed and you were in dreamsville. I guess you must have been really dead, darling ... and the Cognac hit you like a sleeping pill."
"What time is it?"
"It's eight-thirty ... you've been asleep since five," Sally told him, raising up on her knees and pushing back wisps of the fiery red hair from in front of her contented face, "I couldn't help it, Joe. I couldn't sleep ... and you wouldn't wake up ... and you were so ... so ready, darling."
Joe grabbed Sally impulsively and brought her down on him again. His mouth received the responsive probe of her tongue, then ventured to the shapely nakedness of her soft shoulders and the posh voluptuousness of ripe nipples which extended to greet him as she eased up.
"Then ... it wasn't a dream," he realized out loud.
"No, darling," she smiled down on him, running long fingers through the stubbly crew-cut, "It was wonderfully, wonderfully real. But I don't think ... I don't think you were ... satisfied."
"Want some more?" He questioned with a vigorous grin, pulling her down again and rolling over until he was on top.
"Darling ... darling!" Sally moaned with a feeling that was excitement itself, "Joe, darling. I could love you forever and ever."
The possessive words would have chilled and frightened him a day ago. But now, after the resting sleep, and with the nearness of someone who shared, even obliquely, his burden, there was an infusion of feeling he did not want to deny. This would not be like the frantic attempt at love with Hildegard, or the frustrating thrashing with the jealous and vengeful Martha. This seemed like something that was good and right.
Joe worked his hands down the sides of her responsive body, exploring the curves and orifices that delighted to his touch with sensual twinges of re action. With a sense of mutual adjustment to the melding of their moods and bodies, Sally flattened herself on the bed, then moved and positioned, making each twitch of her mobile frame a sensation of love, until her body was perfectly situated. She raised a knee slightly, and Joe slipped his hand beneath the firm buttocks.
"Tease me first ... just for a minute," she urged him in a rapturous pant, guiding him with her hand, "Oh! Oh ... Joe! Joe! I love it ... love it ... love it!"
Her words surged out with the same orgastic thrust as her pelvic body movement, the same initial swell of unrequited need, the last push to contact them both in a sweeping flame of joyous movement that had to build and build to final fruition.
Joe was beside himself now, working feverishly to quench the want which had consequently built to top pitch, then been stilled so abruptly twice the day before. But now the rhythm became steadier, the harmony like a sonorous background of ebbing and flowing ecstatic utopia. These highest sensations grew and grew, until the last indescribable moment, the final explosion sf pent-up frustrations and agonies, were blasted away in the wanton peak of sensual summitry.
"Don't leave me ... please don't leave me, Joe!" Sally begged fiercely, hugging him tight when they finally awoke from the after sleep of love.
"I've got to go to work, baby. It's late," he explained regretfully, forcing away the delicate fingers that grasped his arm, "I'll be off ... at midnight."
The terrible moment of truth was suddenly realized. He would be off at midnight ... but they would be there to meet him. Be there to get the film from his wristwatch camera, take him to East Berlin, give him back Erika if he had obeyed them, kill them both if he had refused to endanger the life of the free world.
"Can't I see you before ... before then, darling," she beseeched him again.
"Look ... I'll come by at suppertime. How's that?" he questioned hesitantly, trying to think of a way to grab at one more pleasurable moment of escape from the midnight terror, "Sure ... I'll bring something to drink ... and some bread and cheese, a couple of sausages. Maybe I can get a couple of hours off for supper. I only work a few blocks away. I can be back at eight. How's that? Huh?"
"All right, darling," she smiled contentedly, watching with admiration as Joe stood naked in front of the bed and slipped on a shirt.
A knock came at the door, and Joe showed his first sign' of nervousness in hours.
"You ... you better answer," he whispered cautiously, "I'm registered in the other room."
"Who were you calling ... when?" Joe puzzled
"Here is portier, Miss Martin,' a voice muffled through the wood, "I have cigarettes you left in phone booth this morning."
"Oh ... thank you," she faltered nervously, avoiding Joe's eyes as she got up to crack the door, "Here ... I'll take them."
"Who were you calling ... w hen?" Joe puzzled after she palmed the cigarettes and closed the door.
"It was when you were sleeping so soundly, darling," she beamed at him lovingly, stuffing them in her purse, "I had to find out if the detective had anything new."
"Oh ... the lover boy," Joe laughed, fishing for a cigarette, "Say ... how about one of those. I'm all out."
"Of course, darling ... Oh ... I'm nearly out myself," she said in surprise, "Can't you get some on the way to work?"
"Yeah, sure," he dismissed it, giving her a quick kiss, "I'll see you at eight."
When the door closed, the redhead gave a long sigh of relief, then pulled the package of long-filter Russian cigarettes from her purse.
CHAPTER NINE
"Just a minute, Sergeant Guthrie!" the booming voice of Captain Marsh called from his office as Joe walked down the hall toward the decoding room.
"Yes sir," Joe replied, standing a little too rigid as he paused in the doorway.
"Come in and close the door," the officer ordered sternly, settling behind his desk, "I think we'd better have a little talk."
Joe forced a weak smile and complied, tightening up inside. Then ... all effort at hiding concern immediately vanished. MP Major John Burroughs, the tall, soldierly looking demon of the Army's CID in Berlin, was standing in the corner. The intrepid officer was known to go after unsolved rapes and murders in his current assignment, with all the fortitude that he had used in the initial landing parties he had led on Omaha Beach as a fledgling Lieutenant.
"So ... you've been playing house with Lieutenant Martha Anderson," Captain Marsh observed, "And the Major tells me you were safely tucked away there the other night when this German hotelkeeper was murdered by one of our GI's."
"Well, sir ... I," Joe fumbled miserably, shaking as he sat down, "I guess she told you about...."
Joe's near confession of the whole story, which he felt sure the irate nurse must have revealed, was fortunately stopped by the domineering Major.
"Of course we only have her word that you were there earlier." The tall, graying officer spoke with what seemed like accusatory doubt, "But the MP who checked her story saw you lurking behind her apartment door at three in the morning. That's true isn't it?"
"Can I ... have a cigarette, please sir ... sirs?" Joe was shaking uncontrollably.
Captain Marsh, his round and wrinkled face frowning seriously, pushed his pack across the desk without a word.
"Answer my question, Sergeant!" Burroughs roared, waving a report at Joe.
She went to the bar, hips swinging, and she must have made the drinks as soon as Mrs. Barth called. She was back almost at once with two long stemmed glasses. She handed him one and raised her in a salute.
"To Joe," she said gaily, and she looked like Joe was the furtherest thing from her mind. "Martinis were Joe's favorite drink."
Joe had never had a martini in his life. He had always been more of a straight shot man. He drank it quickly, disliking the sharp taste. It left a warm spot in his stomach, though, and that he did like.
"Did you know Joe well?" she asked.
She might have been discussing the weather.
"Fairly well," he said, and managed not to laugh. "We worked together once.
He named a town he had once worked in, and she nodded pleasantly. He was sitting on the couch, and she came to sit beside him. Much closer than was necessary.
"It was nice of you to come," she said softly.
The invitation in her eyes was unmistakable, and for a moment he considered it. Then he thought of Callie and told himself sternly to forget it.
"Well, it's the least I could do for Joe," he said.
"Must we talk about Joe?" she murmured.
"I supposed you would want to, Mrs. Smith," he couldn't resist saying. "After all, he was your husband."
She laughed softly. "Joe was a bum, Mr.-?"
"Call me Cal. You didn't love him?"
"No ... no, it isn't true!" Joe blurted, ready to tell all.
"Don't lie to me, Sergeant!" Burroughs became angry, stepping over to Marsh's desk and leaning across it to glower at Joe, "You were in that nurse's apartment at three o'clock in the morning! You were shacked up with her the entire evening! Answer me, soldier!"
Joe looked from Burroughs to Marsh. His head buzzed with bewildering dizziness. What did they want? Did they know? Hadn't Martha blown the whole thing?
"I ... I've been going nuts about this for ... for a long time sir ... sirs," Joe felt compelled to go through with his confession, not wanting them to play him along like this any longer, "I couldn't sleep ... couldn't do anything. I knew you'd find out ... eventually, but...."
The stern Major broke into a hearty laugh that really confused Joe's addled thoughts.
"Take it easy, Joe. It's not all that serious," Captain Marsh joined the inexplicable frivolity with a deep chuckle, "Nobody's going to crucify you for bedding down with a Nurse-Lieutenant in today's Army."
"Look, Sergeant," the Major spoke now, still smiling as he held the report between his fingers, "This whole thing goes no further. I'll tear it up and forget it. But for goodness sake use a little more common sense next time you want some brassbound tail. you. I'd say she's bearing up under her loss quite well. Not that I blame her much, I guess. All the no good bum ever did for her was to die and leave her some insurance money. I'm surprised he even did that."
"If you will just give me her address-"
He kept what he was feeling out of his voice. She looked miffed at having her gossip cut short, but she told him.
"Over on Linden street," she said grudgingly. "You can't miss it. A fancy new ranch style place. Joe must have left her quite a bit of insurance."
He thanked her and got out of there as quickly as he could. He had never liked Mrs. Barth and her sharp tongue. She couldn't resist one last parting shot.
"I'm sure she'll be real glad to see you," she called after him. "You're a man, ain't you?"
He didn't bother to answer. It confirmed what he had always suspected about Paula, if the old harpy was telling the truth. And she probably was. He had always figures that Paula had made good use of her time whenever he was gone, and it had never bothered him. He hadn't exactly been a model husband, so why should he lack about what she did?
As Mrs. Barth had predicted, he had no trouble finding Paula's house. He whistled inwardly when he saw it. It must have set Matt Landon back a lot of money.
He walked across the drive to the door and he didn't realize how tense he was until a small black cat scurried in front of him and he jumped her nervously. He fervently hoped it was not a bad omen. He took a deep breath and rang the bell.
Paula had changed. Her clothes were chic, and her figure was better. She had lost weight, and it became her. Her hair was smartly styled, her make-up subtly applied, and the general effect was rather enchanting. Only her smoky gray eyes were the same. They had the same come-hither look that had first attracted him to her. The attraction of an easy lay, he thought wryly.
"Mrs. Smith?" he asked, and there was no recognition in her eyes, either. He let out the breath he had been holding.
Paula smiled and held out her hand in a pretty gesture.
"You must be Joe's friend," she said sweetly. "Mrs. Barth called and told me you were on your way. Won't you come in?"
He took the hand she extended and felt himself drawn inside the house. It gave him the feeling of a fly being lured insistently into the spider's web. Trust old lady Barth to herald his arrival. He'd bet her phone would be tied up for quite a while, spreading the word.
"I really can't stay," he said rather uncomfortably. "As I told Mrs.-Barth, is it? I'm only passing through, but I thought I should stop and pay my respects."
"And I'm glad you did," she said smoothly. "I'm always glad to meet a friend of Joe's."
Well, he was nothing if not a friend of Joe's.
"Would you like a drink?" she asked, and didn't bother to wait for an answer.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Joe watched Matt Landon go up the stairs, a tired and beaten man. Still, he carried himself with a strange kind of pride. Joe felt no triumph about Angela Harmon. There had been no pleasure in showing Cory's father how he had been taken in by a chiseling little tramp, nor in bringing up his guilt about the accident in which he had been involved.
Well, it was done now, and best forgotten. He had plans to make and carry out before this would all be settled.
The next thing he had to do was likely to be extremely unpleasant, but it was necessary. He had to go see the last person in the world that he wanted to. Paula Smith, his widow.
Early the next morning he was on a train, a train that was taking him back to the place he had never intended to go near again. His old home town.
It didn't look much different. It was just a typical medium-sized town.
He walked down the street with a confidence he didn't really feel. It had been many months since anyone here had seen him, but each time he met someone he knew, even casually, he cringed inside waiting for them to recognize him. He knew that he looked different, and he felt different. Still, he was afraid that it might not be enough.
No one even noticed him. He went to the apartment house where he and Paula had lived. He rang the front doorbell, half hoping no one would answer. The door opened, and he found himself face to face with Mrs. Barth, his former landlady. There was no recognition in her eyes.
"Yes?" she said impersonally.
"I'm looking for a Mrs. Paula Smith," he said casually, and waited for the light to dawn.
It didn't.
"Mrs. Smith hasn't lived here for some time," she said coolly.
"Do you have any idea where I could find her?"
The old bitch always had been the nosy type. And from the sly emphasis she put on 'friend', he didn't think Paula had changed much.
"No, ma'am," he said politely. "I knew her husband. I'm just passing through and I thought I should stop and see her."
"A sympathy call? I wouldn't bother if I were no one ever checked on her father?"
"I suppose no one ever thought about it. I suppose they circulated the story about their wealth themselves. I'm ashamed of myself for being taken in so easily by common con artists."
"I wouldn't exactly call her common," Joe said reminiscently. "He wasn't really her father, I would imagine. My guess is that they planned to marry after she had collected a settlement. The guy has my sympathy. She won't be easy to keep up with."
Matt smiled ruefully. "I know. I've suspected for some time that I couldn't keep up with her. I just didn't want to admit it."
"It might have worked if she hadn't been so greedy. She probably thought blackmail would pay even better. She would have drained you dry."
"You knew about this all along, then. You have the real pictures?" His voice was sad.
"I have the pictures, but I did find them by accident. I didn't know anything about them except for the obvious. I don't know how I came by them, or why I kept them."
"What are you going to do with them now?"
"Whatever happened, I think you have suffered enough, everyone makes mistakes."
Matt Landon looked at him oddly.
"Maybe you're right. God knows, I did what I could. The boy died, nothing could change that. There was only his mother left and I paid the funeral expenses, saw that she had money enough to make a new start. Everyone praised me for being so generous," he finished bitterly.
"Where is she now?"
"She died a few month ago. There was nothing more I could do, nothing except think about it. That I will do for the rest of my life."
"And if you had refused to pay blackmail?"
"If this were turned over to the proper authorities I could go to prison."
"Which would serve no useful purpose, if this boy and his mother are dead. There were no other relatives?"
"None."
"Then it is done."
Joe took out the pictures and negatives and tore them into small pieces. He put them in an ashtray and set fire to them. The smell of burning film and paper filled the room. They were both silent as the fire burned brightly and then gradually died. Joe watched them burn to ashes and thought about Cory Landon who had blackmailed his own father. It was almost as thought he were destroying something of the man himself. Or maybe just his memory.
He looked up and met the eyes of Cory's father.
"We won't speak of this again," he said quietly. "The past is over and done with."
Again Matt's eyes looked at him oddly. It seemed to Joe that he looked very sad, and yet there was a kind of happiness, too. It troubled him, but then there were many things about this man that puzzled him.
"All right, son," he said at last. "We won't speak of it again. And thank you."
"I can't imagine what we could possible have to talk about," she said icily.
"Couldn't we call a truce? This is about Dad, and since you're going to marry him it concerns you, doesn't it?"
"What is it?" she said warily.
"Well, I ran across something that worries me. I found it in my room." He took out a manila envelope. "It has some clippings and pictures in it. It's about an accident of some kind, and I don't quite understand. Is Dad in some kind of trouble?"
He made himself look worried and watched her without seeming to. He saw her eyes become calculating, and then she quickly disguised it. She came and took the envelope from his hand and he let her have it.
"It isn't important, Cory," she said sweetly. "I'll take care of it."
She put the envelope in her purse and she couldn't disguise the triumph in her eyes. He could almost see her mind working, and he felt rather sorry for Matt Landon.
"Give your father a message for me, Cory, darling," she said gaily. "Tell him I have decided not to marry him, after all. He'll hear from me, though. Quite soon."
She was almost to the door when Joe stopped her.
"I wouldn't be too hasty, Angela, darling," he said mockingly. "Why don't you look in the envelope?"
She stared at him unbelievingly.
"Why don't you do that, Angela?" It was Matt Landon, and he looked old and defeated.
"Matt! Don't look at me like that, darling. I was just going along with Cory's stupid little joke."
"Don't bother, Angel," Joe said coolly. "There's only blank paper in the envelope."
She knew she was finished, but still she tried to brazen it out.
"Surely you aren't going to listen to him, darling," she pleaded huskily. She started toward Matt, but the cold look in his eyes stopped her.
"No, Angela. I know the truth, all of it. I suggest that you and your father, or whoever he is, get out of town while you still can."
"He's lying about me," she said desperately. "He doesn't want you to marry me. If he can't have me he doesn't want you to, either."
"Neither of us want you," Matt said. "Detective reports don't lie."
"All right!" she screamed suddenly. "Keep your damned money and your precious name. Did you think I really wanted to marry you, you silly old man? I don't need you, you're old, old, old!"
She ran out, slamming the door so hard it shook. Matt stared at the door and then sat down wearily.
"So you were right, after all, Cory. When did you first suspect that she wasn't what she pretended?"
Joe grinned crookedly. "When I saw how determined she was to land a Landon. How come wondered how long it would be before he would be able to. Or if he ever would.
He wondered if what he was going to do was right. It seemed to him that it was, and once having decided to live right he was going to work at it as hard as he had worked at being bad.
"Cory," Matt said, "I've decided to marry Angela. I'm sure you must be wrong about her. I know she seems rather hard and willful at times, but I can't believe that she is really only interested in money."
"If you knew that she were would you marry her anyway?"
"I don't think so. I'm not foolish enough to believe that I could hold her if she doesn't really care for me. I've lived long enough to know I couldn't settle for having her for only a short time before she demanded a divorce and a large settlement, only to trade me for a younger man. I have too much foolish pride."
"And if I can prove to you that it really is money she wants?"
"Then I shall be a sad but wiser man. If you can prove it."
"I think I can."
"Why, Cory? For the money you will eventually inherit from me? I assure you, it isn't necessary. The trust fund you will receive when you marry is most substantial. It was set up by your grandfather, incidentally."
"I don't care about the money," Joe said, and it was true, although it was for a different reason than Matt could imagine. "I just want to do what's right."
Cory's father looked at Joe and smiled.
"Sometimes, Cory," he said wistfully, "I hope you never recover your memory. Now tell me, how do you propose to prove this claim of yours?"
"Call her and get her to come over to the house. Then stay out of sight and let me talk to her. All you have to do is listen."
Matt frowned. "That doesn't seem quite fair," he said.
"Would you rather take a chance and marry her?"
"No, I suppose not. It wouldn't be pleasant, wondering. All right, Cory. I'll try it your way on condition that if you are wrong you'll not leave, at least not until you give it a chance."
"It's a deal," Joe said.
He wasn't worried about being wrong.
He never knew exactly what Matt said to Angela, but she came to the house, apparently thinking she had won.
He had never seen her looking more beautiful. She wore a dress of some kind of shimmering gray material, deceptively simple and devastatingly revealing. Her blonde hair was pulled back and caught with a diamond clip and her eyes were as clear and sparkling as emeralds. Emeralds that turned to green ice when she saw Joe.
"Where's Matt?" she demanded. "Was this some kind of trick to try to keep me from marrying him? Well, it won't work."
"No trick, Angela. Dad was delayed, but he'll be along soon. I did want to talk to you, though."
Matt didn't look convinced, but Joe had a hunch' he had planted enough doubt to make him try it. He and Angela left, and Angela flashed him an icy look as she went past. He hoped Matt wasn't as tired as he looked. He was going to need all the energy he had.
Joe spent the evening quietly, playing records, trying to read. Mostly he was waiting for Matt to come back.
It was quite late when he finally came. Joe needed only one look to know he had been right. He waited for Matt to tell him. He didn't have long to wait. Matt went to the bar and poured himself a drink.
"Well, Cory, you were right," he said wearily. "Does that make you happy?"
"Not particularly. It doesn't surprise me, though."
"I told her I didn't think we should rush into marriage, that we should take time so that I could work things out with you. She gave me until tomorrow. Either I fly to Las Vegas with her and get married or we don't get married at all."
"What did you tell her?"
"I didn't. I told her I would talk with you tonight and let her know tomorrow. Somehow I got the feeling that it was partly to hurt you."
"It's possible. A woman scorned and all that jazz."
"Maybe that's the only reason," Matt said, but Joe knew he didn't believe it.
"Maybe. But I doubt it. Are you going to marry her?"
"I don't know, Cory. How do you feel about it? Would you stay here if I did?"
"It might be a little awkward. No, I don't suppose I could. Don't let that stop you, though."
"A year ago it wouldn't have. Our lives have been pretty independent of each other until now. I guess I've never understood you. Maybe I didn't even try. But since you came home from the hospital it's been different. I find it hard to put into words, but I feel differently toward you than I did before."
Joe didn't know exactly what to say. It made him feel uncomfortable, but he wasn't ready to tell Matt Landon that he wasn't his son. There were still some loose ends to tie. He stood up and stretched.
"It's late, and my brain is dusty. Could we talk about it tomorrow?"
"All right. Cory. I find that I am very tired, too."
They said good-night and Joe went to his room. It was a long time before he went to sleep, and when he finally did he knew what he was going to do.
Joe got up early and left the house before Matt was up. He left a message with the maid that Matt should meet him for lunch, then he took a cab to the largest town nearby and went in search of a detective agency. He found one that specialized in fast service and he was back in Landon Mills by noon with the information he wanted.
Matt looked like he hadn't slept well and Joe she's hot to marry you? Why? Does she just want to marry a Landon? She doesn't need social position. Does she need money? And if she does, why me? I haven't anything of my own."
Matt was looking at him strangely.
"Cory, I don't understand what you're driving at, and I don't believe it for one minute. But didn't you know that you have a trust fund, a considerable one, that you are to receive when you marry?"
It was Joe's turn to stare.
"No," he said slowly, "I didn't know. And that could be it. Angela knows about this, of course?"
Matt nodded slowly. "But-she always seems to have all she needs, and with her father having so much, I naturally assumed-"
"Never make the mistake of assuming anything. And there is something else."
"I don't think I care to hear about it."
"I'm sorry, but you have to. The other night when I got slightly potted, Angela brought me home and put me to bed. She waited until she thought I was asleep and then she searched my room. What was she looking for?"
All of a sudden Matt Landon looked his age. His eyes had a defeated look, and a deep hurt. Still, he managed to keep up the front a little longer.
"I really can't imagine, Cory," he said. "Can't you?" Joe said evenly. The doorbell rang and they both jumped. Joe went to answer it. It was Angela.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Joe might have been another piece of furniture for all the attention she paid him. She swept by him and on into the living room.
"Matt, darling," she said gaily, "I simply couldn't wait until tonight to see you. Do you think we could leave early? I must talk to you."
"Well," Matt said doubtfully. "I had planned on having an early dinner with Cory."
"Oh, that's all right," Joe said easily. "I don't mind. I have some things to do anyway."
He managed to get Matt alone for a second before they left and said, "If you don't believe me you won't be afraid to try a little experiment. Tell her you want time to make sure that I'll take it all right. That you want to marry her, but it's impossible for a few months. If I'm wrong what have you got to lose?" please think about it. And please say yes."
He hung up. He should be getting home from his office if he wasn't there already. Joe hurried home. Now, the next thing was to talk to Matt Landon. that he had decided what he was going to do he was anxious to get it over with.
Matt was talking to someone and it took Joe a minute to realize that he was on the phone. He seemed to be doing a lot of eavesdropping lately, but he stood still and listened.
"But, Angel," he was saying, "why must it be now? It's only fair to Cory to give him a chance to get used to the idea. Even though he did decide he didn't want to get married now he'll know that this hasn't happened since this morning. I don't suppose you'll understand this, but he trusts me and I don't want to hurt him."
There was a silence while Matt apparently listened to Angela.
"I know all that," he said impatiently. "The point is, Cory doesn't remember it. I feel more like his father than I have in a long time."
There was another, briefer silence and then he said, "All right. We'll talk about it tonight. Just don't say anything in front of Cory."
Joe walked into the room as Matt was saying good-bye.
"Oh, Cory," he said nervously. "I didn't hear you come in."
"I just saw Angela," Joe said without preliminary.
"Oh? What did she say?"
"I understand you talked to her. How did she take it?"
"She-well, she seemed rather relieved. Cory, there's something I have to tell you."
"First there's something I have to tell you. I couldn't help overhearing some of your conversation just now. Would you mind explaining it?"
"I suppose I will have to sooner or later. Angela and I want to be married, Cory."
"Kind of sudden, isn't it?"
"No, I'm afraid not. I've been in love with her for a long time."
"I know that. That's not what I mean. You see, when I talked to her this afternoon, she didn't seem relieved at all like you said. In fact, she tried to change my mind."
Matt's face was suddenly pale.
"I don't believe it. She wants to marry me, she just told me so. Right away."
"I think it's time we were honest with each other, don't you? I don't give a damn about Angela, and apparently you do. That's fine with me, but I think you should know what you're getting into."
"I think you had better explain yourself, Cory," Matt said grimly. "Does this mean that you do remember?"
"No. It means that I'm not stupid and something very odd is going on."
"Is it so strange that an attractive woman wants to marry me?" he said stiffly.
"No. It's strange that she's in such a hurry. This afternoon she wanted me. Less than an hour later had said that her father owned most of the town that didn't belong to the Landons. He didn't believe that she cared about him personally. The sex thing was too casual with her for that. And anyway, if she cared about Cory Landon why had she played around with his father? And others, as Cory had implied?
He smelled her perfume before he saw her. He turned to look and she was wearing the filmiest robe he had ever seen. She stood in the door of the bedroom, the light behind her detailing the lines of her incredible body. He stared at her, the familiar pressures mounting.
"Well, Cory?" she said huskily. "Do you still want to throw me over?"
Her green eyes sparkled an open invitation, and something else. It was the something else that stopped him. He set the glass carefully on a table and walked to the door. . "I'm sorry, Angela," he said deliberately. "Thanks, but no thanks."
Her eyes flashed green sparks, but her lips smiled as she moved sensuously toward him. She stopped in front of him, her body still swaying seductively. The something else he had seen in her eyes hit him again. Funny, he thought, how you could want a woman so much and yet feel so repelled by her.
"I want you, Cory," she whispered.
"Not me, baby. You want any man as long as he's a man."
As soon as he said it he knew that it was true. He looked at her and she wasn't anything that he wanted. She reminded him of a bitch in heat.
"I'm not used to being refused, Cory," she said, her eyes dangerous. "Look at me. Can you honestly say that you don't want me?"
He looked at her and he said, "I don't want you. Now or any other time. Go peddle your goods elsewhere, baby."
He reached for the door knob.
"Walk out that door, Cory, and you will regret it," she said, and she was quivering with rage.
He walked out and he didn't regret it.
Out on the street the air was cool and clean, but it did little to dispel the feeling of being unclean.
Joe Smith, he thought firmly, today you are resigning your position as ail-American heel.
He didn't really understand it, and he didn't try. He thought that maybe trying to step into Gary's Landon's shoes and finding how unsatisfactory the fit was must be part of it. He had always considered himself something of a scoundrel and been rather proud of himself. Now he found himself wanting to rejoin the good part of the human race.
It was perhaps significant that his first thought was of Callie. He found a phone booth and dialed her number. He waited until he heard her answer and then spoke quickly before she could hang up.
"This is Cory. Please don't hang up and don't say anything. I love you and I want to marry you. There are some things I have to take care of first and then I'll come for your answer. There are some things I'll have to explain to you and then I'll
"I-I don't know. I honestly don't know."
Very gently he took her in his arms and kissed her. She held herself stiffly at first and then gradually he felt her responding. He felt desire rising within him, but he held it carefully in check. He had the feeling that he held something very fragile in his hands and he didn't mean just the girl. After a minute she moved out of his arms.
"I think you'd better leave, Cory," she said rather shakily.
"All right. But I will see you again?"
'I don't know, Cory. I'm too confused to think right now. Call me in a few days if you like."
He left reluctantly. He didn't want to go back to the Landon house. The afternoon stretched before him endlessly. He walked toward the downtown district, not having anything special in mind. He stopped at a cafe and had a sandwich, and then wandered on aimlessly.
He had plenty to thing about, but he didn't want to think at all. He wondered idly if Matt Landon had delivered his message to Angela. Maybe he was a sucker to give up a girl that fell into bed with him so easily, but he had the feeling she was trouble, big trouble.
It wasn't by chance that he ran into her. She was obviously looking for him. Her car pulled up beside him and her lips smiled although her eyes didn't.
"Get in, Cory," she commanded.
He got in.
"I just talked to Matt," she said casually. "He tells me you're throwing me over."
"Well, that wasn't quite the way I meant it. I just don't feel like it's fair to you to go on this way when I can't remember anything."
"My, aren't you thoughtful. Why didn't you tell me before you went to bed with me? Or did you just want a sample of the goods before you decided whether you were buying or just browsing?
"You make me sound like a scoundrel. I'm sorry you feel that way."
Her eyes were angry, but all of a sudden she switched her tactics. She pulled the car up in front of her apartment.
"Oh, Cory, let's not fight. Come on up and have a drink. We might as well part friends."
They went upstairs and she made their drinks. She handed him one and then said, "Will you excuse me for a minute?"
He sipped his drink and wondered what she was up to now. Since he had seen her searching his room, he had been on his guard. He was reasonably sure that she had been looking for the clippings and pictures he had found taped under the bar, but he wasn't just sure why unless she had wanted to make sure his memory didn't come back and make him want to use them again. If she really planned to marry Matt Landon she might have wanted to destroy them. Somehow, though, he found it hard to picture her married to Cory's father. He had to be a lot older than she was and with her erotic tastes he doubted if the man could keep up for her for long. It couldn't be money, since the detective's report.
There was still Callie Shannon and Cory's son. And he knew that this was what he had been thinking about all along. He wasn't just sure why he couldn't get her out of his mind, but he knew that he had to see her again.
It took all the nerve he had to call her, but he did. He had his hand ready to hang up the phone if her father answered, but it was Callie that spoke this time.
"Callie, this is Cory Landon," he said. "I have to talk to you. May I come over?"
There was a silence and then she said, "All right, Cory. Come in about an hour."
She hung up the phone. Joe waited impatiently for the hour to pass and exactly an hour later he was at her door. She was as pretty as he had remembered, and while she wasn't exactly friendly at least she didn't seem unfriendly. She held the door silently and he went inside. He didn't know what to say to her and he was relieved when she spoke first.
"Cory, I've been doing some checking and maybe I misjudged you yesterday. A lot of people seem to believe this amnesia of yours is real. And you do seem different."
-"I wasn't lying to you, Callie. I don't know a thing about what Cory Landon was like before the accident."
"Accepting that for the moment, I still have a child to raise. A child that you are responsible for."
"I understand that. There are a lot of things that I don't understand. For one thing, you say you called me a lot of times over the last two years. Would you mind filling me in on what happened?"
"Well, at first, when I learned that I was pregnant, I suppose I expected you to marry me. You didn't answer my messages and I finally went to your house."
"Does my father know about it?"
"He knows that I had a baby, but he didn't believe that you were responsible. He was there the day I went to your house. You denied that it could be your child and of course he backed you up. I finally realized that it was hopeless so I stopped calling. Later I hoped that you would at least be decent enough to help me, but that was foolish, too. When I heard that you were back in town I thought-well, I don't know exactly what I thought."
"Callie, there's something about your story that doesn't ring true. Would you really marry me just to give your child a name?"
He looked into her eyes and she was the first to look away.
"You were in love with me," he said wonderingly.
"No," she said quickly. "How could I have been? I only went out with you that one time and-oh, what's the use? Cory, up until that night I can't remember when I wasn't in love with you."
They were standing facing each other. He moved closer but he didn't touch her.
"What about now? Do you have any feeling for me?"
Mills about two years ago. Her father bought up a lot of property here. Why do you ask?"
"I just wondered. Dad, what am I going to do about Angela?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, about us being engaged. We were planning on getting married, weren't we?"
Matt Landon's expression was unreadable, "Doesn't she want to marry you, son? Is that it?"
"No, sir. That's not it. I don't want to marry her."
"You-what?" His face was a study in amazement.
"I don't want to hurt her, but I'm not going to marry her. What am I going to do?"
"Well, Cory, if you're sure, I suppose I could talk to her if you want me to."
"I sure would appreciate it. I didn't know what had happened before and I didn't know exactly what to say to her."
Matt got up to leave and he patted Joe's shoulder reassuringly.
"Don't worry about it, son. I'll take care of it."
His walk was jaunty as he left and Joe watched him thoughtfully.
You're welcome to her, brother, he thought wryly.
CHAPTER TEN
Now that Joe had the information he had wondered about, he didn't know what to do with it. What Matt Landon had done was a contemptible thing, but where did Joe Smith get off throwing stones? Of course, killing an innocent kid and being the cause of Cory Landon's death wasn't quite the same thing, but still he was no angel.
It seemed to Joe that there were two courses he could follow. Either he could continue playing the part of Cory Landon and all that it involved, or he could go back to being Joe Smith and all that it involved. Being Cory seemed the lesser of the two evils. All he had to do was think of Paula, and the accident, and the life he had led as Joe Smith. Cory hadn't been a very nice character, but maybe with the help of his amnesia it could be handled. It would mean forgetting what Matt Landon had done and probably accepting Angela Harmon as a stepmother. And wasn't that a laugh? Then he thought of something else. groping fingers touched some kind of paper. He was puzzled and curiosity got the better of him. He had to unolad the liquor and cans in order to tilt it backwards enough to see what it was. A small sheaf of papers was taped to the underside of the wood. He loosened the tape and got them out.
His hangover was suddenly forgotten. He walked quietly over to the door and snapped the lock. Then he went back and-sat down on the floor with the papers.
Part of them were newspaper clippings. They seemed to concern an automobile accident that had happened some time ago. He looked at the date and it was about a month before he had been in the accident with Cory Landon. He read them quickly and then more slowly. A car had struck a small boy on a bicycle and the child had died a few hours later. Someone had taken him to the hospital and left him there without having been seen by anyone. The hit and run driver was never found.
Joe looked at the clippings, puzzled. He leafed through them and underneath were two negatives, and two prints obviously taken from the negatives. He studied the pictures and a lot of things were all of a sudden clear.
One of the pictures was a long shot, but everything was in focus. A car, a late model black Cadillac, was sitting in the middle of the road. The front of the car had been damaged and in front of it was a crumpled bicycle with a small, equally crumpled body lying near it. A man knelt beside the child. It was Matt Landon. The other picture was a close-up of the same scene. The main difference was that the license plate on the car was visible and so was the look of shocked horror on Matt Landon's face.
Joe sat for a long time staring at them. At last he got up and looked around the room. Apparently the hiding place had been meant to be a temporary one, since it was too well known an idea to work for very long. It was odd that they had not been discovered sooner.
After thinking about it Joe put the clippings in a book in the bookcase. The pictures and negatives he hid in his billfold. He carefully replaced the things he had taken from the bar and made sure it was back in place. Then he went back to bed.
Joe made it a point to be down for breakfast in time to see Cory's father. Knowing what he did about the man made it difficult to be pleasant, but he managed. Neither of them mentioned Joe's binge of the night before. For a while Joe kept the conversation casual. As they were finishing their coffee he brought up the subject that was bothering him.
"Dad, there's something I'd like to ask you," he said casually. "You said if there was anything I wanted to know to ask you. I've been wondering about Angela."
"Oh? What about her?"
"Well, like how long have we known her? And what do we know about her?'"
"We met her when they moved to Landon leave, get out of here. I don't want to make any more of a fool of myself than I already have."
He left. He felt like a rat, but there was nothing else to do.
Congratulations, Joe, he thought bitterly. You're doing Cory Landon real proud.
He went to a tavern, a different one this time, and took up where he had left off.
He didn't know how long he had been there when a woman slid on to the stool next to him. He turned to look at her and it was Angela. In fact, there seemed to be three Angelas.
"Well, well," he said, and his voice sounded blurred. "This seems to be my night. Hist'ry repeats itself an' all that jazz."
The three Angelas shook their heads.
"Where in the world have you been, Cory? Your father is worried sick. I have to call him and tell him I've found you. Stay right here."
She was back almost before he realized she was gone. She led him out to her car and he went along meekly. She drove to the Landon house and took him up to his room. If Matt Landon was there he was not in sight. She put him to bed and then stood staring down at him.
"Cory, do you remember what happened the day you left here? Before the accident and everything."
Drunk as he was, he still had sense enough not to say anything. Instead he leered at her and said, "Aren't you coming to bed with me?"
"Not in the shape you're in," she said disgustedly. "You'd never make it."
She didn't leave, though. She picked up a magazine and sat down in a chair. She didn't say anything and he dozed. A sound half awakened him and he opened one eye. Her back was turned and she didn't see him. She was quietly searching his room. He wondered briefly what she was looking for, but the problem was too much for him. He went back to sleep and when he woke up the room was dark and she was gone.
Most of the effect of the liquor was gone and it had left in its wake a king-size hangover. He got out of bed and turned on a light, wincing at its sudden glare. Moving around was rather painful, but his mouth had such a dark brown taste that he decided anything would be better than staying where he was. He walked slowly over to the bar and opened the cabinet beneath it. There was all kinds of liquor there but the very thought of it made him shudder. He found some cans of tomato juice and that sounded a little better. He took one out and searched for an opener. He found one and started to open the juice. His hands were shaking badly and it slipped out of them, landing on the floor. He leaned over to pick it up and cursed softly when he couldn't find it. He finally got down on his hands and knees, feeling around on the floor with his hands. The bar was a cabinet type affair that stood on small legs, and it must have rolled underneath it. He felt under it as far as he could, but it was hard to do because the thing sat so low. He stretched himself flat on the floor and slid his arm under the bar. He didn't find the can opener, but his thought his first impression of her had been wrong.
"Maybe I've always been bad," he said. "Seems to be the general opinion." , Maybe it was the clothes that made her look different. She was wearing a black sheath dress and it was a hell of a lot sexier than the uniform he had seen her in before. She was wearing more, make-up, too. He decided that he liked her better this way. She didn't make him feel like he should make like a gentleman.
"Aren't you going to buy me a drink, Cory?" she asked, and managed not to sound coy.
They had a drink. In fact, they had several drinks. They left together by unspoken agreement and they were both a little drunk.
She took him to her house. At the door he hesitated.
"Is anyone home?"
"No, silly. My mother and I live alone and she works nights."
They went inside and she didn't turn on the lights. She took his hand and led him to what felt like a couch of some kind. He put his arms around her and she kissed him with abandon. He slid one hand down her arm and let it come to rest on one of her full breasts. He felt it harden and press eagerly against his hand. His own desire mounted, but he felt strange, almost like he was the one being seduced. He heard the sound of a zipper and realized it was his own, but she was the one who had slid it down. Then her hands touched him and he couldn't have stopped if he had tried. He searched for and found the zipper of her dress and it slid off easily. He unfastened her bra and freed her eager breasts, cupping them in his hands, stroking her nipples, feeling her respond. He found the elastic band of her panties and slid them down over her hips. She lay back on the couch and he moved over her, but he felt almost reluctant. She matched her movements to his, but with him it was almost automatic. It was over quickly and he moved away with the feeling that his was a singularly unsatisfactory performance as far as she was concerned.
He heard small sounds as Sandy adjusted her clothing and then a light came on. He felt almost sober and it was the expression in her eyes that sobered him.
"I think you had better leave now, Cory," she said, and she sounded as though she were almost crying.
"Why, Sandy? For G -'s sake, why did you do it?"
She shrugged. "I had to find out. I thought I could make you love me. I know better now."
"It was all an act then, the sexy clothes, the siren bit?"
"Do I look like a siren now?" she said bitterly.
She didn't. She looked like a girl who had taken on something she couldn't cope with.
"All I can say is that I'm sorry. Sorry this happened, sorry you feel this way about me."
"Oh, don't worry about it, Cory. I asked for it. And I imagine I'll survive. I did before. You can't help how you feel any more than I can. Only just
CHAPTER ELEVEN
At 12:29, two figures approached the black ZIL limousine parked along the desolate loneliness of a deserted Unter den Linden in East Berlin. A stark sky with illumined moonlight shafting eeriely through segmented blocks of clouds, made the dreary wastes of the surrounding rubble look even gloomier than usual. The old Beichstag building, scene of the unholy holocaust of the Nazi era, loomed up in frightening shapes of twisted steel and fragmented stone.
"You will sit back here, please, Sergeant Guthrie," the throaty voice of Alexandrei Gherkov directed as the back door of the limousine swung open, "Commde DeLoach will ride with Anatovich." couldn't force him to. The boy looked enough like him to leave little doubt, though. And wasn't that poetic justice for you?
It was growing dark. He had started toward the Landon house, but changed his course and headed for a tavern. He didn't feel like facing Cory's father right now. He didn't even feel much like facing himself.
If anyone recognized him in the dim light they didn't say anything. He sat alone on a bar stool and drank straight whiskey. He was well aware that he was getting drunk and he didn't give a damn. He was getting pretty sick of being Cory Landon, anyway.
He was drunk, but not drunk enough. He kept seeing Callie Shannon's heart-shaped little face in the bottom of his glass. Each time he had the glass filled he thought that it would drown the image, but it was still there. He wondered drunkenly if there was such a thing as love at first sight. He doubted it. He wasn't even sure there was such a thing as love.
"Fill it up, Charlie," he told the bartender.
"Don't you think you've had enough?"
"I doubt if there is enough."
The bartender shrugged and filled his glass.
A girl slid onto the stool next to him and said, "Well, Cory, fancy meeting you here. Are you slumming, or has the good little boy turned bad?"
He focused his eyes on her with difficulty. It was Sandy Reed, but she looked different. Or maybe it was the whiskey. Or maybe his perspective had changed. Whatever it was, he
"I got the pictures," Joe lied eagerly, sliding in beside the burly KGB man and taking off his watch, "Now ... do I get to see Erika ... take her back?"
"When we develop the film," Gherkov replied slowly and with menace, "Then we discuss the...."
"Oh, damn!" the redhead's voice interrupted just as she started to open the front door.
"What happened?" Joe questioned, looking out the window, "Oh ... dropped your earring, huh? I'll help you look for it...."
"Anatovich will help!" Gherkov roared irritably, grabbing Joe's arm, then holding the minicamera up toward the ray of light from a street lamp.
. The tall Ukrainian got out and stooped down to the gutter, flipping on his lighter to see by. The redhead remained standing.
Joe let out his breath easily. Gherkov had reacted exactly as he had planned it.
"What is this?" The KGB man suddenly angered as he squinted his eyes and turned the watch rewind, "You have taken no...."
It all happened in an instant!
Joe coughed loudly and the redhead instantly brought a hammer from her purse and smashed it down into Anatovich's skull with all her might! Joe whipped out his .45 and jammed it hard in the firm flesh between Gherkov's ribs.
"If you move, I'll kill you! I'll kill you right now!" Joe gritted the threat between his teeth.
"Gordsky Dalimitov!" the Russian cursed, but he knew better than to move, knew the power of vengeance in a man as determined as Joe, "I will obey. Sergeant. But let me tell you of the precautions. You can't possibly...."
"Shut up or I'll kill you!" Joe riled at him, pulling a length of the wire from his pocket, "Bring both hands very slowly behind your back. Do anything wrong and this gun goes off ... it's got a dum-dum cartridge in it I fixed up special just for you. I'd love to see your guts go flying all over this car!"
"I will comply, Sergeant Guthrie," he talked more calmly now, "I have no intention of dying ... and I realize clearly how you would love to kill me."
"What ... what do I do now, Joe ... what do I do?" Martha Anderson, garbed in Delores' dress, was near panic as she stood over the limp chauffer, "He's got a concussion, I think ... We can't let him...."
"Forget it!" Joe snapped, cinching the wire tight around Gherkov's wrists, "He'd do the same to you if he had to ... probably worse. We'll put him in the trunk as soon as I'm through here."
"One word and she kills you ... right now!" Joe vowed, trying not to show his own tenseness and doubts as they approached the gate to the Russian AMTORG shipping docks on Bernstrasse.
In the back seat, Martha tensed tightly to keep ' from shaking, then jammed the Russian's own gun in harder against his ribs. She wanted no part of this, had no idea what she was getting into when Joe had brought her to tears with the story of Hildegard Krauss. But now it was too late. Here she was, a 22 year old American nurse in the big fat middle of the Russian East Sector, holding at bay the most dreaded KGB functionary in all of Germany.
"You are ... nervous, young lady," Gherkov tried to smile, but he too was upset at the trembling trigger finger of the pretty nurse, "Calm yourself, please...."
"Sure, I'm nervous," Martha admitted, becoming bold by the very fright of her all or nothing commitment, "You better do everything Joe says too ... or this gun goes off. It'd be curtains for us, Mister, but you'd see the end first."
"Please, young lady ... lady is no need to threaten," Gherkov assured her, perspiration glistening from his big jowls and the half inch of forehead between his eyebrows and thick hair.
Joe flashed the car's headlights and a small door set in the big truck entrance opened. An aging man in a guard's uniform came out and approached the car.
"Tell him it's all right ... I'm getting more nervous," Martha whispered, the gun shaking as it probed deeper into his side.
Two minutes later they were inside the compound and Joe brought the lumbering vehicle to a precipitate halt. His head went dizzy and light. They faced a row of twelve identical dockside warehouses.
The confusion hit him like a bolt of electrical shock. The building momentum of the race to save Erika was suddenly stilled. A barrier had been clomped down in front of him.
Gherkov chuckled lightly, his voice adding in a sneer, 'The intrepid, indomitable American is lost.
Go ahead ... take your choice, Sergeant. Which one?"
"Damn you to hell, Gherkov!" Joe's bubbling anger erupted, his frustrated confusion fought for an outlet, "Duck, Martha! Duck!"
In a sudden surge of instant violence, Joe swung his arm around in an arc, the side of his fist smashing against the surprised Russian's jaw and banging his Neanderthal head solidly against the door jamb.
"Talk, Jerk!" Joe yelled, poising his arm again.
"I ... don't have...."
The mere sound of a negation in the Russian's voice was all that Joe needed. Without hesitation or any more verbal threats, he smashed his fist again into the same sensitive spot, then turned around on the front seat so he could begin to pummel his fat face with both fists.
"Gardovsky!" Gherkov yelled, covering his face, "I ... I tell ym. Of course, I tell you. It is first ... first building right there."
"Is there a guard?" Joe asked, yanking Gherkov's hands away and aiming his fist again, starting the jab, "Tell me, Jerk!"
"Nyet ... no ... is post lock," Gherkov had trouble forming words through his aching mouth and swelling jaw.
"What the hell's a post lock?" Joe growled, grabbing the lapels of his suit, "Talk ... damn you...."
"In ... glove compartment," the Russian struggled to speak, wincing through the pain in his jaw," ... key fits in post there...."
By the door of the first building Joe saw the long post that reached up to about the level of the car's window. Quickly, he reached into the glove compartment and found the key. He was jerky with his movements. A creeping sense of fear and futility was moving in. He knew in the back of his mind that what he was trying to accomplish was damn near impossible. But he must never let Martha know this.
Inside the incongruously modern and immaculate office of the KGB man, Joe ordered him to sit on the couch. He could take no chance of there being some secret warning device for Gherkov to set off from his private desk.
"Sergeant Guthrie," Gherkov addressed Joe, cool logic and reason in his voice as he rubbed slightly at the side of his face, "Do you realize you are in the middle of the most security conscious enclave in the Communist world? A ten foot high wall lies between you and your Capitalist showplace in West Berlin. Beyond that ... over a hundred miles to the most guarded border in the world ... our so called Iron Curtain stretching all the way from Luebeck Bay in the Baltic to the Turkish coast on the Black Sea. You will never get out alive, Sergeant ... never!"
"What can you offer if I don't try?" Joe snapped, worried about the effect of Gherkov's speech on Martha, who was obviously quite riddled with fear as she listened.
"I can offer you a great deal," the Russian said with a show of enthusiasm, sitting up straighter, "You are a most forthright young man ... merely idealistically misinterpretive of life. You could be very valuable to us here...."
"Lying bastard!" Joe cried out, smashing his hand across the smarting face, "You think I'd have come this far just to turn traitor. No -no, Mr. Jerk. I don't have any choice now. You tabbed it right when you were talking about that Iron Curtain. Either we get back through it ... or we're dead. You bastards never keep your word anyway. If I made the stupid decision to defect right now ... I'd be just as dead tomorrow as if I tried to scale that wall at high noon by the Brandenburg Gate ... and you know it!"
"You ... you so foolish," Gherkov mumbled, shielding his face, "The people's democracy here is...."
"Where is she?" Joe screamed the question with wild virulence.
"I ... a a soldier too, Sergeant," Gherkov managed, swiping at the blood from his puffed lips as he became very stoic and brave, "Soviet soldier ... not afraid to ... to die...."
"You better be afraid to live...," Joe vowed venomously.
Gherkov had his head buried in his hands to ward off another blow from Joe's fists. But Joe's reasoning had gone haywire now in this precipitate moment of naked hate and anger. Standing directly in front of the cowering Russian, who was seated, Joe brought up his knee in sudden violent rage, catching him squarely under the chin. There was a terrible crunching, shattering sound. The Russian merely bobbled a deep throated groan as blood and teeth spewed from his big mouth, and his body slumped over senseless on the big white couch.
"Here ... let me look at him," Martha jumped to his side, relieved actually at the opportunity to be of use in her own field.
"I'll get some water," Joe volunteered, turning toward the washbowl in the room's comer, "That bastard's gotta talk...."
"Oh . ... God!" Martha let out a little terrified yelp and looked over at Joe with helpless despair, "He can't ... talk, Joe! He ... he doesn't have a tongue any more!"
"First aid kit ... in the car!" Joe fired back quickly, fighting off revlusion over his own brutality.
'But, Joe ... I'm not a doctor ... I can't...."
"Do what I say!" Joe yelled, straining to think what he could do next, "Patch him up! Dead or alive, Gherkov's our ticket back through that wall ... our only ticket!"
"I ... I can't, Joe! Oh, God ... Joe, well never get out!" Martha went into hysteria, looking away from the bloody drool that flowed so bizarrely over the light colored upholstery, "We ... well die...."
"Godammit, Martha! Get that first aid kit and patch him up!" Joe pulled no punches, grabbing both shoulders and shaking her violently, "I'll find Erika, and we'll all get out of here! You crap out on me now, and it's your fault if we die! You understand, baby? Your fault ... your goddam fault!"
Joe could barely hold onto is own equilibrium, but he'd seen panic like this before, seen them go into raving hysteria at the scene of fatal accidents when he'd been a cop back in New York State. And counter shock was the one instant way you could usually deal with them.
"I'll ... I'll try, Joe," Martha sobbed out, her body still shaking with fright, "I'll ... try...."
Joe moved stealthily between the packing cases against the pier side of th-; mammoth building, pausing at each of the irregularly placed side rooms to listen. Could they have been warned-heard the ruckus with Gherkov, or perhaps in the brief exchange of Russian gibberish between Gherkov and the guard? Was Erika really here ... in this building? Or had the passion wracked Delores been smarter than he thought? Did they....
Joe stopped dead in his tracks! He had heard a voice-unintelligible, but definitely a human voice.
"Ahh, schoener brueste, Maedchen ... ahh, so gut zu saugen ... sooo gut!" a raspy, sharp woman's voice spoke clearly.
"Nein! Nein!" a young girl's scream responded.
It was Erika!
Joe's fingers instinctively tightened around the .45. His whole body tensed into a giant mass of adrenalized strength ready to burst.
Instead, he bit his lip until he could taste the salty blood. Joe had found out already the price of giving vent to naked emotions ... Gherkov lay speechless, maybe dead, as the result of his last untimely outburst.
Joe crept across an aisle that was left between several rows of boxed auto parts, and listened at the door.
"Nice breasts ... beautiful breasts she has," Use Ganzl vulgarized in unimaginative English.
Why was she speaking English? Ganzl was German, Erika was German. But the discrepancy only flitted through Joe's mind. His uppermost thought was to get Erika away from this foul Lesbian creature, get her away now ... and then get them all three back to West Berlin.
Slowly now, he gripped the door handle and pushed down easily. It was locked.
A small shaft of light hit Joe in the face! He thought sure it was a flashlight, thought sure he'd been discovered! Then he began to relax. It was only the light from a warped crack between the door jamb and the heavy strip of molding down its side.
Joe blinked his eyes and looked through. The sight turned his stomach, set him to seething with almost uncontrollable fury!
Erika was tied to a chair. Her blouse had been ripped down to her stomach, her brassiere torn away.
"Nein! Nein!" her small voice screamed again.
Joe steeled himself against the building anger. The hulking Lesbian monsteress moved into view. She was completely nude and making lewd swipes at her own ghastly body. Her salaciously Sapphic breasts hung over the fat blobs of her bloated stomach. Each monstrous thigh was like the whole body of a hairy, overfed hog. Perspiration dripped from the dirty folds of her inhuman appearing buttocks.
"Nice girl . ... I suck breasts...," the beast drooled thick saliva with her vile mouthings.
"Nein! Nein!" came the pitiful, high pitched protests.
Joe could take it no longer.
"Commde Ganzl! Commde Ganzl!" he called out in a deep throated muffle like the guttural Gherkov.
"Ja ... ja ... Ich komme," she answered breathlessly.
Joe poised himself like a catapult against the packing crate opposite the door. The wait was only seconds, but seemed like eternity. He knew Use Ganzl would have to slip her clothing back on, cover up Erika's exposed breasts, if she believed it were Gherkov.
The door opened.
"Ja ... Ich war...." she broke off the excuse with a horrible scream, doubling up in pain.
Using Ids head as a battering ram, Joe had lunged straight into the fat folds of Use Ganzl's huge stomach and sent her bulbous body thudding to the floor.
Erika looked at Joe with a strange, inexplicable fear. Her voice cried out to speak, but was caught in the mute grip of terror. And then, almost too late, Joe learned why Use Ganzl had been speaking in English, why Erika could not smile at him in blessed relief. Her English mutterings had been for the vicarious benefit of the third person in the room-the handsome blond fellow in the blue suit, the man who had been with Delores at the Kleine Klause, the man whose description fit perfectly that of Milo DeLoach. And the man who was now bearing down on Joe, his pistol raised to crack his skull.
"Son of a bitch!" Joe vented verbally, moving his head to the right.
DeLoach's forearm came down with a crack on Joe's shoulder. The gun spewed from his hand and clattered crazily across the wooden floor and through the open door to the pier outside. Joe reached for his own gun, but it was not there, must have dropped out in his forceful lunge at Use Ganzl, who was now screaming vile curses and trying to extricate herself from the floor.
"Joe ... Joe!" Erika screamed his name helplessly, still bound to the wooden chair.
"Give up, soldier," DeLoach advised, getting a lock hold around Joe's neck.
"I ... I kill both American swine," Use Ganzl swore as she pushed her huge hulk up from the floor.
Joe fought hard against the pinioning arm that was making it harder for him to breathe, pulling up tight against his throat and blurring everything in the room.
Use Ganzl stood up now, trying to focus her snot green eyes. She finally caught the nod from Milo DeLoach toward the pier outside, then spotted the gun laying out there in the murky darkness.
"I kill ... both American swine," she mumbled again, then clomped toward the waterside doorway.
Her myopic eyes clouded by the globs of sweat which reeled off her forehead, and still dizzied from Joe's blow, Use Ganzl did not notice Erika working her chair ever closer to the doorway. She moved her huge, bunion laden feet ever faster to carry the three hundred pounds quickly across the room and retrieve the gun.
Erika meanwhile, strained with every ounce of pressure she had left. She was almost to the doorway now, but could not move fast enough to completely block the beast's path.
But what she did accomplish in that final second, got better results than the helpless Erika Lang could have ever hoped for.
In a surge of energy to block off the advancing woman, Erika pushed so hard that the chair teetered backward. Her legs strained against the ropes at mid calf to regain balance. The rope slipped up just a bit.
The madly scurrying Use Ganzl tripped headlong over Erika's feet which extended into the doorway's path at just the moment her chair was toppling backwards. The corpulent blob of sweat soaked fat slid crazily across the spray dampened pier. Slid right to the edge and never stopped.
There were barely audible gurgling sounds above the frantic splashing in the high tided waters of the River Spree below. And while Use Ganzl's three hundred pounds of gelatinous flab did not let her sink totally, its unbalanced shifting, and her terrified thrashing held her head submerged long enough to accomplish the same effect.
A riverboat tooted in the distance. And after that, Use Ganzl was heard no more.
"Let him go! Let him go!" Erika screamed as she looked back to the scene inside.
But Milo DeLoach was still intent on snuffing the very life out of Joe Guthrie. The sudden demise of his Commde in the murky waters of the Spree, brought no compassionate lessening of his task at hand.
As for Joe, the dizziness and blurs had increased to almost the point of totally uncaring lethargy of mind and body. There was no frustrated surge to blot free anymore-only the vacuum of shock inspired dullness that seemed to anesthetize all feeling, all thought.
"Let him go!" Erika's scream echoed again through the room and against the distant walls of the warehouse outside.
Three shots, or the sound of them at least, blasted through the disappearing world that was Joe Guthrie's.
In the doorway, her hands still trembling, the .9 mm gun of Alexandrei Gherkov still smoking, stood Martha Anderson. She had fired the shots at the ceiling. She was afraid of hitting Joe otherwise. But DeLoach was enough impressed and surprised at their sound, to let go of Joe.
His body slumped to the floor, alertness returned slowly, but he was conscious at least of what must have happened. He tried to speak and it came out garbled.
"Don't ... raggh ... shoot ... shoot him," some words were coherent between huge gasps for life restoring air, "Got ... gogglura ... get ... him ... buh ... back ... alive...."
DeLoach saw the hysteria in Martha's eyes. Saw her fingers relax and nearly drop the gun at Joe's instruction not to shoot.
"You are a ringer for Delores, aren't you," the blond traitor spoke slowly, advancing just a step at a time and keeping his eyes glued on the gun, "You look the same way she does when she's scared too. You better take it easy, honey. Come on now ... come on...."
Joe was coming into his senses now. His breath came easier, flowed into his lungs with a semblance of regularity as opposed to the desperate gulps he had quaffed at first. His brain began to function and he remembered the last quater of a high school football game, remembered the crouching position he'd assumed to prevent the tying touchdown by the opposition. His body seemed to work mechanically, work into that same position for the flying tackle that saved the day. But this time he wasn't sure of his strength, wasn't sure....
"Now just give me that gun, honey...."
DeLoach plunged to the floor as Joe's shoulders impacted against the back of his legs. But Joe was still weak. He had made the plunge with that bit of adrenalized strength that can only last so long. Now, he could barely lift himself from the floor.
"You lousy, goddam GI," DeLoach cursed.
The blood suddenly roared through Joe's body again, the adrenalin had been primed once more. He'd beat the devil out of some 4-F punk in New York who called him that once. And DeLoach was a much lower cut than the anonymous youth he'd met in a bar.
Joe was almost on his feet now, raising to strike at the also rising DeLoach.
The blond defector reached back and grabbed a chair. Erika screamed. Martha felt like passing out.
"I'll kill you ... you goddam GI!" DeLoach swore again, bringing the chair up over his head.
Joe saw he couldn't make it ... couldn't possibly make it up in time to miss the blow. He dropped back to the floor quickly, flattened himself, and rolled.
"Die, you idealistic bastard!" DeLoach screamed.
And then two things happened at once.
The chair came down on Joe's left leg with a resounding crack. The wood splintered, but Joe had to let out a piercing cry of pain.
Simultaneously, Martha regained herself at the sight of Joe's plight, and brought the butt of Gherkov's gun down solidly on DeLoach's head. He fell backwards and hit the floor in an unconscious heap.
"My leg! My goddam leg!" Joe let go when he saw the situation was under control, "I ... think . .
"It's broken all right," Martha let him have it straight, after one look at the bent ankle, "Don't move. I'll make a splint. There's some pieces of wood outside."
"Get her out of that ... that goddamn chair first," Joe strained to talk through his agony, and told Erika about her family's escape while Martha freed her.
In that next instant, the instant when Erika Lang ran to kneel down by Joe, caress and kiss him through her own tears of terror, he knew who he loved. He knew it with no doubt or compunction, as the whole justification of the yet unfinished ordeal became crystal clear even in the disorder of his troubled mind. He would always adore Martha, be eternally grateful for what she had done. But Erika ... Erika was the only girl he could ever really love ... forever.
CHAPTER TWELVE
"We ... won't make it back ... will we?" Martha asked pessimistically as her own terrible loneliness suddenly closed in when she finished splinting Joe's leg, "It's eight miles back to that wall ... and then...."
"The hell we can't!" Joe said positively, gripping Erika's hand tightly to ward off the pain, and hoping he sounded convincing.
"Won't they discover ... find out we escaped from here?" Erika was doubtful too.
"We can put you on the floor in the back of the car," Martha tried to think for them, 'Then...."
"Hold it," Joe held up a cautioning finger and let go Erika's hand, "I've got to drive! It's the only way we can get through! And we're going to take Gherkov and DeLoach with us!"
"But darling, darling," Erika objected, kneeling real close into him, "You can't...."
"There's a lot I can't do," Joe cut in, squeezing her hand, "But I'll do the thinking and the driving ... after you girls get me in the seat. This won't be easy for you, but we'll make it. First, you'll get Junior here tied and gagged) then put him in the trunk with Anatovich. Then...."
The big ZIL chugged and puffed awkwardly at each stop light and halt sign as Joe learned to maneuver the foot pedals by using only one leg.
Joe was perspiring freely, his terrible tiredness and pain trying to force down his strength and make him quit, his eyes having trouble following the map through the ill-lighted, ill repaired streets of the East Sector. But he had been right about getting out of the warehouse area. The old guard had not even ventured a second look before saluting Gherkov's silhouette in the back seat, and opening the gate.
In front of them now, lay the foreboding wall of mortar, brick, regurgitated rubble and steel, which separates so symbolically the tight run Russian Sector from the affluent society of West Berlin.
It was 1:44 A. M.
"He ... he's dead!" Martha's tremulous voice broke the awkward stillness of the tense ride.
"What?" Joe asked, wincing as he jerked his head around to the back seat and activated a torn leg muscle with the bodily movement.
Gherkov's unconscious body had been placed between the two girls in compliance with Joe's plan. The bloody face had been wiped clear, and somehow they had been able to take turn supporting the foul smelling form of the critically injured KGB man. But now this. Could they carry through their plan with a corpse?
"His breathing ... it just stopped ... and his pulse is ... gone...," Martha sounded dazed.
"It makes no difference," Erika said bravely, taking a deep breath, "We can still do it. Maybe is better we don't worry now he wakes up to talk at wrong time."
"Martha? Are you all right? Can you make it?" Joe asked, new concern creeping up on him as he recoiled again the tight security on the Russian side of Checkpoint Charlie, the gizzag baffles that slowed anyone leaving down to five miles an hour.
"I guess ... it's them or us," Martha owed through tight lips, then tried to loosen up with one of those sick-joke idea that can hit in the midst of tragedy, "I've had some pretty dead dates before ... but this one's for real . ."
"Make it a good one, Martha. Here we go!" Joe alerted her as the lights of Charlie loomed into view.
"Push him over this way ... further," Martha asked Erika, then pulled her blouse open and unfastened her bra.
Joe shifted down to low when they approached the first set of labyrinthine baffles barely wide enough for a single vehicle to navigate. The built-up sides were made of thick boards almost the height of the car, and sunk deep into foundation runners of concrete.
Once inside the zigzag single lane, which led eventually to the West Berlin gate, a car's speed was forced to a near creep, and the Russians could throw heavy iron barriers across it at any of three points to assure that no one gunned through in a sudden escape attempt.
"We're ready, Joe," Erika assured him from the back, taking up her position.
"Wait! Look!" Martha let out a terrified yell, pointing toward the gate entrance, "Oh, my G -! They've caught us!"
Joe snapped his head around to the front and froze!
A column of Soviet troops were marching toward them, obliquing left and right in precision step through the zigzag lanes of the baffle, and emerging to come straight at them.
One soldier jumped out of ranks and placed himself squarely in front of the car, his rifle held across his chest diagonally.
Joe slammed on the brakes.
A Lieutenant ordered the troops to split in the middle, two lines of soldiers squeezing around each side of the car in the narrow approach to the barricade, virtually surrounding them in a show of armed strength against which they would be helpless.
"I'll kill some of them first...," Joe mumbled the threat, his hand tremblingly releasing the safety on his .45, "I'll make them pay for...."
"Wait, Joe!" Erika urged in a sharp whisper.
The marching men halted. The Russian officer barked an order. Both columns turned to face the car from either side. The Lieutenant broke the silence with another order. The soldiers unshouldered their rifles and brought them straight abreast in front. The officer stepped closer to the car.
"I'm not waiting ... it's them or us," Joe gritted his teeth and gripped the pistol tightly.
"I love you, Joe. No matter what ... I love you," Erika vowed, her hand grasping his shoulder.
The Lieutenant, stopped his advance. He barked another order, then snapped to attention. He immediately brought his hand up.
Joe pulled the gun to just below the level of the window.
The Lieutenant smiled slightly, then gave a snappy salute. The troops simultaneously righted their rifles to a present arms position. The Lieutenant yelled out two more orders. The troops faced to the rear. They marched off.
"The car! It was the ... the damn car!" Joe broke into a nervously relieved sweat, "Damn! Gherkov's a wheel ... and they were saluting his damn car!"
"Let ... let's go," Martha urged, adjusting their positions in the back seat again, "We're not through that wall yet."
Joe slipped the hand shift back into low and entered the labyrinth, glancing in the back seat and swallowing hard. Gherkov was a wheel. But even wheels had tried to run through to the West before.
"Remember now," Joe reminded, turning the big sedan around the next zig, "We go right through the MFs too ... unless they kick up a fuss. In that case, we'll have to play it by ear."
"Why ... why don't we just give over to the MP's?" Erika pulled her head around long enough to ask, "They're on our side ... aren't they?"
"If this car and Gherkov's corpse get apprehended officially in the West Sector, we've created an International incident," Joe tried to explain it away quickly, "Believe me, honey, my way's best ... if it works."
A shaft of bright light hit Joe in the face!
He slammed on the brakes!
A gate banged across in front of them and a guard jumped out from behind two slits on each side of the labyrinth wall.
"Commde Gherkov...," Joe forced a knowing smile as he pointed a thumb over his shoulder to the back seat, " ... Amerikanski...."
He knew no other Russian. He merely let the last word trail off, finishing the statement with a waving design of his hands to indicate pulchritudinous femininity. He held his breath for the reaction.
The Russian who had poked his head in the car by Joe, looked into the back seat, frowned, then broke slowly into a wide grin after surveying the scene.
Gherkov's big dead arms were wrapped around the slim backs of both girls. His head though, was leaning away from the guard, buried in the expansivenes of Martha's exposed breasts, while Erika cuddled close and ran her fingers through the back of his bushy crop of matted down hair.
"Da ... da," the Russian beamed proudly at his countryman's conquest of two such attractive American girls, then smiled at Joe again, "Sexy ... da!"
"Sexy," Joe agreed, tipping Anatovich's hat.
The three sets of iron gates in front of them raised simultaneously and the car eased through to the American side.
"Protocol . ... diplomatique...," Joe muttered in an affected accent to the young MP on the American side.
"Be my guest," the youth smiled, jotting down the license number routinely.
"I ... I think I ... faint...," Erika said, clapping her hand to her head and falling limp against the side of the car as they turned off into deserted Kochstrasse.
"Not yet, honey ... please," Joe begged, turning around, "We've got to ... owww!"
"Watch that leg!" Martha said, then broke the top off a little ammonia vial and pushed it over by Erika's nose, "Come on, snap out of it, honey. I may need this for Anatovich if he's still passed out."
"Pray he's not dead," Joe interjected.
"I'm ... all right," Erika said fuzzily, shaking her head, "But, Joe ... why we can't just take him to MP's?"
"I told you, Erika," Joe tried to explain again. "Technically speaking, we've commandeered a Russian vehicle, killed a Soviet KGB wheel, kidnapped one of their henchmen ... all in their own Sector. We keep DeLoach because he's an American ... and regardless of how we got him back, he's clearly inside the American Sector now. We turn he and his wife over to the authorities ... and pray they'll forget about what we did."
"But Gherkov and his chauffeur ... the car, they've go to go back," Martha broke in to finish it off as the Russian's body slumped grotesquely to the floor, "If they've got their own people and the car back, they can't put up a fuss without admitting what they did in the first place."
"Oh," Erika finally understood the whole thing.
"What if ... Anatovich refuses to drive back?" Martha's doubts came to the fore now as she opened the door to get out.
"I've got a good little persuader here," Joe patted his gun, "And we can watch him from the corner. Charlie's only about a block away."
"I know this kind of Russian," Erika recalled unpleasantly, "He never defect. He will go back. Only he will never understand why we don't kill him."
"He's through ... I saw him drive right through!" Martha reported jubilantly as she ran back to the sidewalk where Joe was sitting with Erika by DeLoach's unconscious form.
"Thank God!" Joe said, shifting his leg to ease the throbbing pain, "See if ... you can ... get us a cab. I ... I think ... I might faint...."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was ten degrees hotter and twice as humid in Washington, compared with the relatively cooler Northern summer of Berlin. But in the air-conditioned two room suite in the Park-Shelton occupied by Sergeant and Mrs. Joseph E. Guthrie, things couldn't have been nicer.
"Twenty-two bucks a day ... wow!" Joe whistled as he looked at the room rate posted by the door.
"You don't expect U.S. Government to put its big witnesses against DeLoach's in a little pension," Erika winked, looking over at the three big suitcases and trying to decide which to unpack first.
It was a week later now, and after six days in the hospital, day and night sessions of grueling interrogations along with Erika and Martha, and a whirlwind marriage ceremony the morning they left Berlin, Joe was alone with his wife for the first time. The treason trial against the DeLoach's would begin next week, but until then, their time was their own.
"Sit down on the bed ... here, I take your crutches, darling," Erika offered, observing Joe swing his leg up on the bed deftly and set the big cast down, "And you decide ... do we hang first the things from your Valpac, or...."
"Why don't you get those hot clothes off," Joe suggested logically, hiding a smile as he eased down on the plush bed, "I'll bet it's a hundred degrees out there."
"Oh? Maybe so," Erika shrugged, undoing the top button of her tight sheath, "But so nice in here. Ohhh! Just feel that air condition run down my front."
"Uh ... huh," Joe drawled out easily, lowering his brows as he leaned back against the pillow.
"Well ... I can throw these away now," Erika busied herself with probing in the overstuffed purse Joe had bought her the day before.
"Oh?" Joe questioned with a sudden frown when he saw the little box of red capsules, "What ... what are they for, baby?"
"These?" she asked indifferently, hunching her pretty shoulders and setting the shimmering pageboy of blondeness into play, "Just something Doctor Steinhardt gives for when I was so nervous...."
"What are they for?" Joe demanded.
"Well ... gosh, you think I commit a crime or something," she stiffened, "It's not like I was taking dope."
"What are they for?" Joe raised up to his elbows this time.
"They are Tranquizine capsule ... for when I am so nervous and want to get from East Berlin," she readily admitted, flashing her big blue eyes at him curiously, then tossing the capsules in the wastebasket, "I used to be so nervous ... so I get pills for how you say ... tranquilizing."
"Tranquizine ... for nervousness?" Joe questioned.
"Sure ... your pretty little nurse can tell you what they are for," Erika sloughed it off, undoing the next button of her dress, "They are same as doctors give all times for travel sickness, anxious feeling, morning sickness when a wife is pregnant, for ... Joe! You didn't think..., T
"Forgive me, baby ... I'm an idiot," Joe berated himself, then joined Erika in a laugh, "I'll forgive Martha for her cute little tricks ... and you forgive me ... okay, baby?"
"For everything," she vowed resolutely, slipping into his outstretched arms as her dress slipped to the floor, "Joe! Joe! You can't! Your leg! The cast might...."
"I'll take the chance, baby," he cut her off, pulling the nylon slip up and grasping her naked thighs, then holding her out to view the luscious sight, "God, what a body! Oh, baby ... it's been so long...."
"Like you used to in Berlin, Joe ... when you come into wake me up after work ... ?" she asked, pleadingly, tugging at the trousers to pull them over the cumbersome cast.
