He didn’t know how he did it, he just kept dragged Asbach backwards until the heat stopped and he could feel the blessed cold of the snow. Then he passed out.
Asbach was already being loaded on to an improvised stretcher, ready for the run home. The men had concluded that their colonel might have a chance, if they could drive him home. Around Lang, men peeled the charred greatcoat off his body, wincing at the sight of his burns. He also might stand a chance, if they could get him home again fast enough. Then one of them snorted and pointed out a miracle. Surrounded by the charred remains of his greatcoat and the burned rags of his uniform, Captain Lang’s white silk scarf was still untouched and pristine.
“The paperwork is here.” Lillith walked in with a pile of papers in her hands and put them on The Seer’s desk. He picked the top one up. His imagination told him that it still smelled slightly of cheese and salami. When he read the synopsis his eyebrows raised slightly.
“This is gold. Important things first. How’s Igrat?”
“In Bethesda. Her nose is very bad, broken in a lot of places. Sir Archibald is looking at it now. She’s very sick, she took a big chance in getting here and now she’s paying for it. Mike Collins is with her, holding her hand and crying. I don’t think anybody has ever seen the Big Fella crying before.”
“Might do him some good. Snap him out of it; he’s been moping around doing nothing in particular ever since he arrived here. Looking after Igrat might give him an aim in life.” He paused for a second, not noting that Lillith’s eyes had narrowed suspiciously. “As for Igrat, as long as she’s still breathing, she’ll be all right.”
“It’s not surviving that will be worrying her Seer. It’s her looks. She doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life with a crushed and twisted nose.”
“And she won’t. Sir Archibald will see to that. He’s the best there is. Now, the microdots, they got through as well?”
“Sure did. We fished the plastic packet they were in out of the cheese and salami, ran them through the machine and we’re printing them out now. They’ll be ready for your three o’clock.”
“Good. Schedule. I’ll be at the Intelligence Committee until 11. Then we all go over to Bethesda and see Igrat. Anybody who wants to go, gets time off to do it. I have to be back for the Dropshot Supervisory Committee at three. Please call Naamah and tell her I need to see her urgently.
“Gentlemen, the room is secured and no unauthorized personnel are in attendance. The meeting may now proceed. Firstly I’d….”
“We have an important matter to discuss.” Brigadier-General Donovan cut straight across the President, an act that got him a furious glance from President Dewey. Donovan had been one of Roosevelt’s favorites but that state of grace had not transferred to the Dewey Administration. There was no love lost between the two men. “I have been increasingly concerned with the security of intelligence information being brought back from Sweden. The precautions taken in carrying it have been negligent in the extreme. This vital data was entrusted to the carriage of two young woman, both of doubtful character, and an old man. We feared it could have been taken from them at any time. With this last shipment, our fears were justified. The couriers, if they can be called that, were intercepted and the product stolen by German agents. It was only through the efforts of two of my men that it was recovered and it is now on its way back here.”
“Is this true, Stuyvesant?” Dewey stared hard at The Seer.
“No, Sir. It is not.” A gasp ran around the conference room. It wasn’t often that somebody got openly called a liar in this kind of meeting.
Donovan got angrily to his feet waving his hand at the Seer. “I’ve said for years that we should have a centralized intelligence system. Now everybody can see why we need it. You….”
“Sit down Donovan.” Dewey’s voice cracked across the room. “Stuyvesant, what’s your side of this?”
“Sir. We have been aware for some time that the OSS was unhealthily interested in the pipeline from Geneva. I say unhealthily because it could have attracted attention we didn’t need. On the trip before this one, an OSS man actually tried to harass our people. General Donovan, I believe these are the two men you claim retrieved the allegedly lost information?” The Seer slid two pictures across the table. One was of Frank Barnes, the other of William Schwartz.
“That’s them. How dare you expose their identit….”
“Be quiet Donovan. Carry on please Stuyvesant.”
“Well, in that incident, our courier removed the wallet from the man harassing our operation. General Donovan’s description is quite correct Sir, our courier is indeed a young woman of poor character. Sneaky, devious, underhanded, conniving and rather sly.”
“In that work, those sounds like qualifications.” Dewey was beginning to be amused and he could already begin to see where this was going.
“That’s my opinion too, Sir. She’s also utterly reliable and absolutely loyal.” The Seer didn’t add ‘to me’ although he should have done. “She’s also a first-class, highly skilled thief. She stole this from the OSS man.”
He slid Frank Barnes’ wallet over the table. President Dewey took a glance at the picture in it, then looked very hard at Donovan. “I see. Carry on Stuyvesant.”
“Anyway, this latest trip, our team were aware of the fact they were being followed from early on. They lost the initial tail in a hotel of dubious repute. I’m afraid dubious reputations are rather prominent in this story Sir. That allowed them to make the pick-up. However, they guessed that they would be intercepted on the way out. There are only two ways out of Geneva, one is by train and the other by aircraft. So they broke the usual schedule. Our courier, her name is Igrat Shafrid by the way, acted as a decoy while the intelligence package left another way. When we were speaking of character, did I also mention Miss Shafrid is extremely courageous? She took her part in this knowing full well the risk she was running.
“Anyway, as expected, she was picked up at the train station. Not be the Gestapo or the Abwehr but by General Donovan’s agents from the OSS.”
“That’s a lie!” Donovan was outraged.
“Can you prove that Stuyvesant?” President Dewey was also outraged but for different reasons. He had a sense of when things were right or not and Stuyvesant’s story was ringing true.
“Sir, I can. Miss Shafrid was picked up by two of Donovan’s men as I said. Fortunately, we had preparations in place and she and her abductors were followed from the moment they left the station. The precautions taken by our team left Donovan’s men with a problem. The intelligence package wasn’t on her and they didn’t know where she had got it. So they tried to beat the truth out of her. This is what they did to her.” The Seer laid pictures taken in Geneva’s emergency ward, ones taken before the blood had been cleaned off her and where her nose was still crushed and flattened to one side. “In addition to the injuries you can see here, she was also sexually assaulted.”
“What?” Dewey’s voice was outraged.
“Mister President, I must protest at these allegation…”
“Shut up, Donovan. Stuyvesant, carry on please.”
“Sir, the other two members of the team had followed the abductors to their refuge and, with the assistance of the Swiss Police raided it. In the process of this, the two OSS men who were torturing Miss Shafrid, were both shot dead. You see, Sir, that ‘old man’ is probably the best pistol-fighter I have ever met. The third member of the team is a skilled street-fighter and an artiste with a knife. Anyway, these are official Swiss Police photographs of the bodies.” He reached into his file and laid the two pictures of Frank Barnes and William Schwartz on the conference table. The bullet hole in each forehead showed up clearly. The Seer had thought of bringing the severed heads up to the conference room. Loki had sent them over in a box of ice and there had been a time when The Seer would have produced them. But now, pictures told the story well enough.