“You can walk.” I stepped back and looked down at him. “Get up.”
He struggled to his feet.
“You realize this will effectively cut off my circulation within forty-five minutes.” Still cool, I had to hand him that much.
“If I decide to keep you alive any longer, I’ll loosen them.” I raised the gun. “Upstairs, and quiet.”
He half-hopped across the living room like a guy in a potato sack race, and I went up the elegant spiral staircase backwards, keeping him three steps below and in front of me all the time. At the top of the stairs he lurched and sprawled onto the landing, hard and loud, and he almost got it right there. I flung myself back against the wall and aimed the gun down the passageway, but there was no sign of life.
“Try that again and you’re dead,” I grated, my guts churning.
“It was an accident,” Beck said levelly.
“Sure.”
I shoved him ahead of me and we checked out the two master bedrooms, bath and study, but there was nothing but a lot of sheet-shrouded furniture squatting ghostlike in the gloom.
“Is there an attic?”
“No, look for yourself. This is it.”
Maybe so. I had time to find out one way or the other.
“Downstairs.”
In the living room I sat on the edge of the couch, keeping five yards between us. Even with the wire there was no sense taking any chances.
“On your knees.”
Beck fell clumsily to the floor in a praying position, his hobbled feet almost sprawling him face forward onto the carpet. I kept the gun level with his belt.
“When did you sell out, Beck?”
He said nothing.
“How much did they pay you? What’s the going price on traitors these days?”
Beck just sighed.
“Haider, you dumb bastard, you’ve stumbled into something you don’t understand and you’re in way over your head. Get out now and go back to your cops and robbers games, forget all about this. I won’t bother you again, you can count on it.”
“Like you didn’t bother Ed Kohler?” My finger involuntarily tightened on the trigger but I forced myself to ease off. I needed him alive, at least for now.
“Kohler was an unfortunate necessity.” Unemotional, distant. “He was an intelligent man, a trained agent, I couldn’t be sure lie really intended to stop. You?” He smiled again, contemptuously, blood still dribbling from the comer of his mouth, “I’ll write you off, as of now.”
What bull. To make him talk freely I’d have to get him back to the precinct and requisition the equipment, and that could prove sticky. He was still a Gestapo agent and despite my letter of authorization I was just a cop. Hell, Beck could claim I’d killed Kohler, I’d been out there too, and it would be his word against mine. No, I’d have to settle this here and now, and on my own.
“Have you found the Jew, Beck? Is that why you’re trying to silence us, me, Kohler, von Leeb?”
“Haider, you don’t…” I stiffened and waved him into silence. I could hear something, faintly at first, then louder, the sound of footsteps, footsteps coming from below us. Shit, I’d been a bloody fool. A basement, there was a basement. A door groaned open in the kitchen and suddenly Beck dropped the act and reeled to his feet, screaming an incoherent warning just as an old gray-haired man shuffled into the room. Beck seemed to crumple where he stood then and a strangled noise croaked between his lips. The old man looked back and forth between me and Beck uncomprehendingly, then caught sight of my gun. Slowly, wearily, he turned to Beck.
“Is it…”
“Yes, Felix. I’m sorry.” Beck’s voice was dead, defeated. “I’m terribly sorry.” He turned to me swaying slightly, his voice barely above a whisper. “Haider, meet Felix Hirsch. I found him two weeks ago.”
Even after everything that had happened, it was still hard to accept. I stood there gaping, trying to square the chubby little old man in front of me with my childhood image of a hooknosed international banker, but either our school books were exaggerating or this one had gone through some fantastic plastic surgery. He was just an ordinary looking guy in his mid sixties, fairly close to Macri’s anonymous composite, with a tired, deeply lined face, thinning grey hair and startlingly blue eyes. Something else Jews weren’t supposed to have.
“Move over next to Beck,” I said finally, fighting back a mounting sense of unreality. “Then empty your pockets, carefully, no fast moves.”
He moved slowly, like a man walking under water. When he’d strewn the floor with a lot of junk, scraps of papers, a briar pipe, a couple of pens and a plastic tobacco pouch, I told Beck to back away and walked to within a foot of the old man.
“Hands in the air.” He obeyed, in that same dazed slow-motion, and I patted him down. Nothing.
“Both of you, down on the floor, cross your legs and put your hands in your pockets.” Beck groaned involuntarily as he struggled to his knees and I could see the blood welling from underneath the wire around his wrists. The Jew—shit, the Jew!—settled silently to the carpet, his eyes fixed dully on the gun in my hand.
“All right, Beck, how did you find him?”
He was silent for a while, his eyes squeezed shut, but after a minute or so he looked up, his old self again, the shock of failure apparently assimilated. Beck was resilient, all right, and still dangerous.
“I had a head start.” He smiled drily. “Five weeks’ head start, to be exact, from the minute I saw a dupe of Fiske’s report in Washington. It had already been forwarded to Berlin, so I knew we had to move quickly.”
More blood was running from under his trouser leg. I had to give the bastard credit, he wouldn’t beg.
“How many Jap agents are there in the Gestapo?”
“A few. Enough.”
I shook my head.
“How do they pay you, Beck—a fixed salary, or so much per murder?”
“I don’t do it for money.” His tone was still calm, almost patronizing. God, I’d love to get some electrodes on the son of a bitch.
“An idealist?” I forced what I hoped was a scornful laugh. “I didn’t notice any slant to your eyes.”
Beck looked up at me.
“I’m not a mercenary.” There was a sudden, fierce throb of pride in his voice. “I hate this filthy system of yours and everything it stands for. I’ve been fighting to destroy it for years.”
“That’s why you work for the Japs then—‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’?”
“Yes. And for other reasons.” His eyes were fixed on the floor, the only sign of strain a slight tightening of his facial muscles. “The Empire is a feudal, autocratic system, but it’s still on a human scale. It robs men of their territory, just like the Reich, but at least it leaves them their souls.”
What hypocrisy. I snorted, and turned to the old man.
“And you—you really are a Jew?”
He didn’t answer.’ I thrust the gun forward.
“I asked you a question.”
“Yes.” The faintly accented voice was barely audible. “Yes, I am a Jew.”
“How does it feel, Haider?” Beck asked bitterly. “How does it feel to see the last of a species? You might as well be standing in front of a golden condor, or a Kodiak bear, or a snow leopard.” His composure vanished as his voice rose, taut with barely repressed fury. “How many men, women and children did you butchers slaughter to make him the last, Haider? How much blood is on your hands?”
This was getting out of control.
“Just quiet down, Beck, I’m only a policeman, save your lectures for somebody who makes policy.” I got up, still keeping a safe distance from the two of them. “I’ve got more questions, but first I want to talk about me.” I aimed the gun at his gut.