Ike peered intently at the base of the brass shell. “German my keister. These are Cyrillic markings. This is a Russian round.”
The general handed back the brass shell and a silence fell over the room as Ike’s words sank in. A Russian bullet. What did that mean?
The phone rang and Kit Henderson moved to snatch it before it could ring a second time. He listened for a moment, then said, "Send him up."
"We'll just have to keep a sharp eye out," Ike said. "Ty tells us the man was limping, so maybe he broke something getting down off those roofs. That would be some justice in this world."
The door opened, and a guard led in an owlish-looking man holding a black leather bag. He looked around at the roomful of officers. If he recognized General Eisenhower, he didn't let on. "Is this the patient?" he asked, nodding at Ty on the couch. "What happened to him?"
"Losing side of an argument," Kit Henderson explained. "He butted into something he shouldn't have."
The doctor peeled back the makeshift bandage covering Ty's cheekbone and nodded in agreement. "I'd say.” Then he opened his bag and started to lay out his instruments antiseptic, thread, a bright, hooked needle. "I'll sew you right up, son, but you're always going to have a scar to remember this night. I hope your argument was worth it."
"Oh, it was," Ty said, wincing as the doctor began to dab at the wound with a gauze pad soaked in antiseptic. It hurt like fire and his head swam from the pain and the bourbon. "But if I ever run into the guy who did this, he's not going to get off so easy the next time around."
General Eisenhower had overhead. "You're not going to run into anybody, son. You're going to stay right here and mend before we head back to England."
Ty struggled to sit up, nearly shoving the doctor out of the way. "With all due respect sir, if you're going to White Sulphur Springs, then so am I."
Chapter 17
Hess flicked his eyes at the rear view mirror as he drove out of Washington into the Maryland countryside. His ankle ached from the fall he had taken on the rooftops. He ignored the pain and kept driving. He had no particular destination in mind, other than wanting to put as much distance as possible between him and the manhunt that must certainly be taking place in the city. Would the Americans believe he had given up and fled — or that he was only awaiting another opportunity to assassinate General Eisenhower?
Silently, he cursed the officer who leapt to save Eisenhower at the very instant Hess had fired. Another fraction of a second and the general would have died, Hess’s mission accomplished. Now everything was a mess and he might have lost his only chance.
He was not sure how the American captain had known he was about to shoot General Eisenhower. There was no way the captain could have seen Hess taking aim from across the street. Something — or more likely, someone — had given him away. He wondered about the soldiers at Eva Von Stahl’s house. Had Eva alerted the Americans about the assassination and then set a trap for him — or had she been found out as well?
He went back over the events of the last few days, mentally retracing each step and word he had spoken in Washington. He could not remember giving Eva any real clue as to his purpose, though she might have guessed easily enough. However, it did not make sense to Hess that if Eva had known what he was about that she would have let the plot progress so far as to risk Eisenhower being shot. She could have had American agents arrest him as soon as he arrived in Washington.
The possibilities filled his head like a swarm of bees until he could almost hear his mind buzzing. He pushed away all thoughts of espionage and intrigue, focusing on the country road ahead. He was not a spy. He was a German soldier. A sniper. Give him a target and he would shoot it. And if he missed he would try again. He’d had a setback, but he would figure out what to do next.
Something caught his eye. In the rearview mirror, he spotted headlights coming up fast. The road had been empty otherwise. He fought the urge to push the accelerator to the floor — speeding might only attract attention to himself. Instead, he kept one hand on the steering wheel and curled his right hand around the grip of his pistol.
The pursuing car roared up behind him, running up on his bumper, then falling back. A horn sounded. Hess glanced in the mirror but could only see blinding headlights. Then they reached a straightaway in the road and the car roared around him. He caught the blare of a radio and laughter. Something landed on the road and exploded into a thousand glittering shards. A beer bottle. Hess relaxed as the other car sped off into the night, the taillights winking at him.
Hess knew that escape was impossible. If war had taught him anything, it was that sometimes there was no going back, only forward. If you ran, the enemy might bayonet you in the back or some bastard of a sergeant would shoot you down as a deserter. If you went forward, you might be killed — or you might defy all odds to win victory and survival.
Too much thinking. He realized the buzzing in his head might not be from the thoughts pinging around inside his skull so much as from exhaustion. Dawn could not be far off.
Hess pulled over at a wide place in the road, then eased himself out of the car. Shooting pains ran up his leg when he put weight on it, but as he hobbled around the car, his leg began to feel better. Nothing he could not live with. He looked up at the sky. A cold front had moved in, leaving the night clear, and the stars burned brightly overhead. Hunting weather. All those stars made a man not only feel tiny, but also that he was part of something much larger than he was. All a man could do was try his best. Time took care of itself.
He got back in the car and lay down on the seat, keeping his pistol within reach. It was cold, but not the sort of winter night Hess had known in Russia, where to fall asleep meant you might never wake up again. He would decide what to do in the morning. Hess shut his eyes and slept.
“I need an aspirin,” Ty said, sitting upright with a groan and rubbing his head. He was still on the couch in Ike’s suite at the Metropolitan, though now morning light peaked around the edges of the heavy drapes. The brightness made his eyes sizzle like two strips of bacon laid on a hot skillet. The sniper’s rifle butt had rung his head like a gong, but it was nothing compared to the fun that the dregs of Maker’s Mark bourbon were having inside his skull this morning. Starbursts of color went off behind his eyelids whenever he blinked and his mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton. He groaned.
Kit Henderson sat in an easy chair reading the Washington Star and drinking a cup of coffee. He put down the paper and bent close to inspect the gash that the doctor had sewn up on Ty’s cheekbone. To Ty’s annoyance, Kit looked amused by his own condition.
“You look like shit,” Henderson informed him with a note of amusement.
“Go to hell,” Ty rasped. “But get me that aspirin first.”
Kit laughed, got up to rummage in the bathroom, then returned to pop two tablets from a flat tin into Ty’s palm. He poured Ty a hefty shot of Maker’s Mark from the bottle on the coffee table. The smell of bourbon made Ty’s stomach roil.
He shook his head, but Kit pressed it on him. “Hair of the dog that bit you. Best thing there is.”
Ty had never thought much about that phrase, but it seemed aptly put as he washed down the tablets. The bourbon did, in fact, taste and feel like a scratchy handful of dog’s hair going down — a particularly mangy dog.
“Ugh. Anything happen that I should know about?”
“No sign of the sniper. Maybe if we could turn the city upside down — but all we’ve been able to do is put out a quiet word to be on the lookout for him.”