“When can I expect to hear from you?”
“After our stop at Belgrade in the morning. I can’t make contact with Horst tonight.”
“All right,” I said. “But this time the meeting better come off. I’m getting very impatient.”
In the darkness of my compartment, I stretched out on the bed and listened to the sound of the wheels as the train sped toward Belgrade and the big moment for me and for Ursula.
Ursula hoped to land her fish in Belgrade and I hoped to meet mine. Despite the story Eva Schmidt had given me, I still wondered if the man I was after and Ursula’s elusive quarry were one and the same...
Because of all the night’s excitement and my extreme fatigue, I slept longer than I had expected. A knock on my compartment door awakened me. It was Ursula. The day was bright outside, and we were nearing Belgrade.
“I wanted to say goodbye in case we don’t see each other again,” she said to me softly.
She hardly looked like an agent. Her tousled blonde hair gave her a young schoolgirl look which was very becoming.
“How nice of you,” I said.
When I rose from the bunk, she moved over to me and pressed her lips to mine. I could feel her soft body against my chest. In a long moment the kiss was finished, and she was breathing shallowly.
“I meant that I wanted to really say goodbye,” she said.
I smiled at her. I guess I had taught her to mix business with a little pleasure. “We’ll be in Belgrade soon.”
“Saying goodbye doesn’t take long.”
I smiled again and leaned down and touched my lips to hers. “You’re very persuasive,” I said.
“I hoped to be.” She smiled.
She laid her raincoat down and pulled her boots off as I watched. Then she was pulling her sweater over her head. This time she was not wearing a bra. She looked quite delicious in the morning sun. As she began to take the skirt off, I began unbuttoning my shirt.
In a few minutes we were lying on the bunk together. Her warm nakedness was pressing against me, and I could feel all those curves waiting for my touch.
I was moving my hand slowly along the velvet of her thigh. We had not bothered to pull the shade at the window, and the sun light on her skin made it look peach-colored as she moved her hips against me. I moved my hand up between her legs.
Her breasts were thrusting up toward me, responding to my touch. She had found me and was caressing me slowly and tenderly in a gentle rhythm. Her mouth sought mine hungrily, seeking and nibbling and pressing.
Then I could feel a gentle trembling inside her, and I knew I could not wait. I moved carefully onto her, and we united. A lovely moan came from the depths of her throat.
I did not answer her. I was obsessed with the urgent necessity of finding satisfaction in her. We moved together more and more insistently, and the lovely sounds from her throat seemed to be all around me. Her hips now imprisoned me in sensual desire. The rhythm built and became more violent. There was a cauldron boiling inside me that was ready to overflow. As the sounds from her became one with the distant whistle from the train, the cauldron bubbled over, and she received that hot spilling into her innermost and most secret places.
“A nice way to start a day,” I said as I lay beside her. “And we’re not saying goodbye. Not just yet. I’ll meet the police with you.”
“Forget it, Nick,” she smiled. “You have your own assignment to think about.”
“My assignment just may be related to yours,” I replied. “I can’t explain now. But we’d better get dressed. We’re almost at Belgrade.”
We dressed quickly as the train passed through the outskirts of Belgrade. Later, as we walked toward the day coaches, I had an unpleasant thought. If Horst Blücher were in fact Hans Richter and if Ursula managed to arrest him before I found out where the stolen monitor was, or if the monitor was taken into custody along with Richter, my chances of recovering it were slim. The Yugoslavs would certainly not surrender the device to me or to the U.S. government.
In a way, Ursula and I were adversaries for the moment because our missions and immediate goals were contradictory. I was sure that although I had saved Ursula’s life, she would not consider postponing her arrest of Richter at Belgrade just because I wanted to recover a piece of electronic hardware from him before he was taken into custody. She would consider her assignment of prime importance because of the enormity of his earlier crimes.
However, the double identity was yet unproven. I saw no way to divert Ursula from her purpose without divulging my mission, and I did not want to do that. So I decided to stick with Ursula during her attempted arrest, watching for Eva Schmidt, and see what would develop in my favor.
We passed through the day coaches slowly, but there was no sign of either Schmidt or Richter. By the time the train moved along the long gray platform of the Belgrade station, we were standing on a platform near the engine. There were a lot of people waiting for the train, and we both realized that Richter could lose himself very easily in such a crowd.
The train finally stopped. I turned to Ursula and gave her a smile. “Well, let’s see if we can find your plainclothsmen,” I said.
We stepped off the train onto the platform before most of the other passengers and walked toward the busy station building. Ursula was looking for the policemen, and I was watching the train platforms.
“I see them,” she said. “Keep an eye out for Richter while I bring the officers. If necessary, we’ll have the train searched from front to rear.”
Ursula darted away and then I spotted Eva Schmidt. She was alone and in a hurry, pushing her way against the flow of the crowd, headed toward the rear of the train. I forged after Eva, colliding with travelers in my haste.
I saw Hans Richter and his companion, the stocky man with the jovial face, get off the last car. Richter was carrying a piece of luggage and the familiar radio.
They met a cart loaded with luggage and disappeared behind it. I approached them with the luggage hiding me from their view and got close enough to hear their voices.
“You were wise in stalling Carter. This will soon be over.” That was Richter. “I will meet the Russian here and close the deal.”
“You have the device?” That was Eva.
Richter laughed. “Right here in my radio, where it’s been all the time.”
I plucked Wilhelmina from inside my jacket. No wonder Richter had never parted with a radio he didn’t play. The satellite monitor was inside the radio’s case. Even if it were taken apart, the device would look like part of the circuitry to anyone other than an expert.
Stepping around the end of the luggage cart, I said, “Thanks for arranging the meeting, Eva.”
Richter cursed.
“I’ll take the radio, Horst. I assume you prefer that name since you’re using it now. After I have the radio in my hands, we’ll walk over and talk to some policemen who’d like to get to know you, too.”
His friends stuck with him to the bitter end. Eva swung her purse and hit my gunhand and Mr. Cheerful jumped me.
I shot the stocky man as we fell. I was in too much of a hurry to wrestle with him.
He was gasping as I threw his weight off me and got to my feet again. He didn’t look surprised that I’d pulled the trigger of the Luger. He had expected it when he sprang for me, I thought. He was just trying to give Richter time to make a break.
The ex-Nazi had taken advantage of the opportunity. He was running hard for the door of the station, knocking people aside as he went.
Eva Schmidt ran, too. When she saw that I’d put a bullet in the man who’d jumped me, she turned and lost herself in the crowd. She was heading in the direction of the train, I noticed, but I didn’t really care what happened to her.