There were touches of color in the captain’s cheeks and he ground out his cigarette in the ashtray with a savage twist. With the other hand he swept the pistol and ammunition back into the top drawer.
“Just one more question before you leave, my friend,” he said. “Where do you get your guts? Why in hell did you expect me to put my ass on the line for you?”
The insolence, the hatred in the question forced Weir to pause, to try to read the Belgian’s face, to put order into his own thoughts. Then he spoke firmly, but with restraint.
“Something happened a long time ago, captain. I thought you knew that. For that action I was awarded the Medal of Honor by my own government. And I was awarded two decorations by your government. One gives me the freedom and courtesy of that city through the Order of Brussels, the other extends the gratitude of His Belgian Majesty, King Leopold, to Tarbert Weir in perpetuity. And I figured if your king was willing to lay his gratitude on the line, you — as an individual Belgian — also owed me something. It’s an American concept, Alain. In Las Vegas it’s what’s called ‘an open I.O.U.’ I’m calling in my markers.”
The two men stared at one another for a long moment, then Captain Tranchet-LeRoi nodded abruptly. “So be it. And since I’ve paid my debt, may I ask a special favor of you, general?”
Tarbert Weir nodded.
“Make this the last time you see any of the Tranchet-LeRois,” he said. “My father was not out of town on business yesterday. He was in a pub in the village, waiting to see your car drive out of town. I may not speak for my mother, but I am certain I speak for my father and myself. We have had enough. Can you imagine what it has been like to compete for a lifetime against the great and glorious Scotty Weir? What more do you want of us? A war that’s been over for more than three decades and whose fire still blows through our lives, how long must we be grateful?”
His voice was shrill with emotion, and he stood abruptly, placing his hands flat on the desk, the knuckles pressed white with tension.
“We are Belgique and proud of it. We want now only to be ourselves. Is that not something you could force yourself to understand? Have you any concept, General Weir, how tired we are of Americans, how tired we are of heroes?”
Weir stood and walked toward the office door. His own anger was so sudden, that he put his hand on the doorknob to steady himself. He wanted to turn back and tip the desk onto the floor, spilling papers and files, and flinging the desk drawer with the antique pistol out over the carpet. He wanted to take the young officer by his tunic and shake him until there was no longer any look of judgment or rebuke in his pale eyes. He wanted to kill this smug, vengeful European who knew neither the young man Scotty Weir had once been, nor the young Mark Weir who was dead while this Belgique still lived.
Instead he forced himself to speak almost kindly. “Think sometime, captain, where you Belgiques would be, where all of Europe would be if it weren’t for Americans and heroes.
“Most mortals, soldier and civilian, go through life on secret orders till a moment of crisis, when something bigger than human measure is asked of them. It’s then they open those orders. That’s how heroes find out who they are.”
General Weir put on his garrison cap and opened the door. “ ‘A hero is a man who endures for one moment longer...’ I’m not the first man who said that, Alain, but I’m obviously the first one who said it to you.”
Weir nodded thoughtfully. “Yes,” he said, “you have my word on your last request. I will not see you or your family again, but on one condition only.” The kindness left his voice. “If you double-cross me, captain, if you fuck up my plans in any way at all, I’ll come back here in person and break your Belgique neck with my own bare hands.”
He walked down two flights of marble stairs, cut across the main courtyard and began the walk back to Ludensdorf. The staff car would stay in its official parking slot until later.
The general glanced at his wristwatch. The entire interview had taken less than half an hour.
Chapter Thirty-six
In Ludensdorf cafés were open and street traffic was brisk, but the sign in the airlines’ ticket office still read closed in three languages, so Tarbert Weir made his first stop at the pharmacy.
Two young men in white coats were dusting shelves and polishing glass cabinets; there were no other customers. The air was cold and smelled cleanly of alcohol, emollients and horehound drops. Weir spoke to a clerk at a rear counter. The young man hesitated a moment, then said, “If it’s for your dog, mein Herr, I could suggest a good veterinarian.”
“Thank you,” Weir said. “It’s for myself. I use a few drops of it in seltzer water as a carminative. Your German cooking is excellent but rich for my American stomach.”
The man came back in a few moments with a small bottle of colorless liquid and put it into a green paper bag. Then he put the registry book for purchasers of controlled substances onto the counter and turned it to face the general. Weir signed it “John Grimes, Rhein-Baden Spa Hotel.”
Weir pointed to the green package. “Wei steht der dollar?”
“Drei, mein Herr,” the clerk said.
The general was aware the young German was looking at him covertly, examining his uniform and rows of medal ribbons. Weir took a ten-dollar bill from his wallet and said, “Bitte geben Sir mir Deutsche Marks hierfur.”
As the clerk counted out the change in German currency, the general said, “Name und Vorname?”
“Gunther Maginer,” the clerk said.
Weir smiled and gave the man a soft salute. “Sehr angenehm und Guten Morgen, Herr Maginer.”
The clerk snapped to attention and touched his hand smartly to his right eyebrow. “Guten Morgen, Herr General.”
Scotty Weir spent the remainder of the morning sightseeing. He looked into the Grimm Brothers museum, browsed through bookstores and then joined a tour group to inspect the paintings in the palace art gallery. The guide gave the information in both German and English and Weir trailed along with the crowd, studying the paintings leisurely.
Now and then he stayed behind for a longer look at a painting that held his interest. There was an oil portrait by Rembrandt of his wife, a stolid matron, and he stood longer at the Durers, feeling an empathy for the German’s realism. The artist knew that men got hurt using their hands, and how those hands looked afterward, the fingers thickened, veins like swollen rivers, knuckles bruised and big as walnuts. Weir glanced at his own hands, hanging loosely at his sides, aligned with the seams of his uniform trousers. They were big hands, fingers strong and clean, the nails clipped short, with no rings on the fingers, no scars. Unscathed hands, it would have been wrong, a betrayal of the past, of his memories, the general realized, to have struck Captain Alain Tranchet-LeRoi with those hands.
The general took a corner table for a late lunch at the Hutten-Bar. He ordered cold meats, salad and a pot of tea, then leaned back in his chair to wait, letting his eyes wander over the dining room, past the fake bamboo wall that separated the table from the bar, until he became accustomed to the darkness. A man seated at the near end of the bar ordered a Johnny Walker Black Label with ice and soda. The voice was flat, slightly nasal, a touch of New Jersey. That meant the man was not German after all.