I looked at the big man, and, oddly enough, we hated each other on sight. I was a happily married man without a thought for any woman but my wife. And he was a professional doing a job-whatever it might be-with an assigned partner. But he would have been briefed before he came here, and he would know that I'd once done a job with the same partner. Whatever his success in extracurricular matters-and from the looks of him he'd be the lad to give it a try-he'd be wondering just how successful I'd been, under similar circumstances, fifteen years ago. And of course, although Tina was nothing to me any more, I couldn't help wondering just what her duties as Mrs. Loris involved.
So we hated each other cordially as we shook hands and spoke the usual meaningless words, and I let him grind away at my knuckles and signal frantically, giving no sign that I felt a thing, until the handclasp had lasted long enough to satisfy the proprieties and he had to let me go. To hell with him. And to hell with her. And to hell with Mac, who'd sent them here after all these years to disinter the memories I'd thought safely buried. That is, if Mac was still running the show, and I thought he would be. It was impossible to think of the organization in the hands of anyone else, and who'd want the job?
CHAPTER 3
THE last time I saw Mac, he was sitting behind a desk in a shabby little office in Washington. -
"Here's your war record," he said as I came up to the desk. He shoved some papers towards me. "Study it carefully. Here are some additional notes on people and places you're supposed to have known. Memorize and destroy. And here are the ribbons you're entitled to wear, should you ever be called back into uniform."
I looked at them and grinned. "What, no Purple Heart?" I'd just spent three months in various hospitals.
He didn't smile. "Don't take these discharge papers too seriously, Eric. You're out of the Army, to be sure, but don't let it go to your head."
"Meaning what, sir?"
"Meaning that there are going to be a lot of chaps"- like all of us, he'd picked up some British turns of speech overseas-' 'a lot of chaps impressing a lot of susceptible maidens with what brave, misunderstood fellows they were throughout the war, prevented by security from disclosing their heroic exploits to the world. There are also going to be a lot of hair-raising, revealing, and probably quite lucrative memoirs written." Mac looked up at me, as I stood before him. I had trouble seeing his face clearly, with that bright window behind him, but I could see his eyes. They were gray and cold. "I'm telling you this because your peacetime record shows certain literary tendencies. There'll be no such memoirs from this outfit. What we were, never was. What we did, never happened. Keep that in mind, Captain Helm."
His use of my military title and real name marked the end of a part of my life. I was outside now.
I said, "I had no intention of writing anything of the kind, sir."
"Perhaps not. But you're to be married soon, I understand, to an attractive young lady you met at a local hospital. Congratulations. But remember what you were taught, Captain Helm. You do not confide in anyone, no matter how close to you. You do not even hint, if the question of wartime service is raised, that there are tales you could tell if you were only at liberty to do so. No matter what the stakes, Captain Helm, no matter what the cost to your pride or reputation or family life, no matter how trustworthy the person involved, you reveal nothing, not even that there's something to reveal." He gestured towards the papers on the desk. "Your cover isn't perfect, of course. No cover is. You may be caught in an inconsistency. You may even meet someone with whom you're supposed to have been closely associated during some part of the war, who, never having heard of you, calls you a liar and perhaps worse. We've done all we can to protect you against such a contingency, for our sakes as well as yours, but there's always the chance of a slip. If it happens, you'll stick to your story, no matter how awkward the situation becomes. You'll lie calmly and keep on lying. To everyone, even your wife. Don't tell her that you could explain everything if only you were free to speak. Don't ask her to trust you because things aren't what they seem. Just look her straight in the eye and lie."
"I understand," I said. "May I ask a question?"
"Yes."
"No disrespect intended, sir, but how are you going to enforce all that, now?"
I thought I saw him smile faintly, but that wasn't likely. He wasn't a smiling man. He said, "You've been discharged from the Army, Captain Helm. You've not been discharged from us. How can we give you a discharge, when we don't exist?"
And that was all of it, except that as I started for the door with my papers under my arm he called me back.
I turned snappily. "Yes, sir."
"You're a good man, Eric. One of my best. Good luck." It was something, from Mac, and it pleased me, but as I went out and, from old habit, walked a couple of blocks away from the place, before taking a cab to where Beth was waiting, I knew that he need have no fear of my confiding in her against orders. I'd have told her the truth if it had been allowed, of course, to be honest with her; but my bride-to-be was a gentle and sensitive New England girl, and I wasn't unhappy to be relieved, by authority, of the necessity of telling her I'd been a good man in that line of business.
CHAPTER 4
Now, in the Darrels' living room, I could hear Mac's voice again: How can we give you a discharge, when we don 't exist? That voice from the past held a mocking note, and the same mockery was in Tina's dark eyes as she allowed herself to be led away, accompanied by the Herrera girl, whom Fran had also taken in tow. I'd forgotten the color of Tina's eyes, not blue, not black. They were the deep violet shade you sometimes see in the evening sky just before the last light dies.
The big man, Loris, gave me a sideways look as he followed the trio of women; it held a warning and a threat. I slipped my hand into my pocket and closed my fingers about the liberated German knife. I grinned at him, to let him know that any time was all right with me. Any time and any place. I might be a peaceful and home-loving citizen these days, a husband and a father. I might be gaining a waistline and losing my hair. I might barely have the strength to punch a typewriter key, but things would have to get a damn sight worse before I trembled at a scowl and a pair of bulging biceps. -
Then I realized, startled, that this was just like the old days. We'd always been kind of a lone-wolf outfit, not noted for brotherhood and companionship and esprit de corps. I remembered Mac, once, saying that he made a point of keeping us dispersed as much as possible, to cut down on the casualties. Break it up, he'd say wearily, break it up, you damn overtrained gladiators, save it for the Nazis. I was falling right back into the old habits, just as if the chip had never left my shoulder. Perhaps it never had.
"What's the matter, darling?" It was Beth's voice, behind me. "You look positively grim. Aren't you having a good time?"
I turned to look at her, and she looked pretty enough to take your breath away. She was what you might describe as a tallish, willowy girl-well, after bearing three children I guess she was entitled to be called a woman, but she looked like a girl. She had light hair and clear blue eyes and a way of smiling at you-at me, anyway-that could make you feel seven feet tall instead of only six feet four. She was wearing the blue silk dress with the little bow on the behind that we'd bought for her in New York on our last trip East. That had been a year ago, but it still made a good-looking outfit, even if she was starting to refer to it as that obsolete old rag-a gambit any husband will recognize.