Heroes, David Hagberg [me reader .txt] 📗

getting dark now, and there were a lot of people here.

Tourists escaping the winter and the war. The climate was perfect; it was warm with a light breeze up from the sea, and dominating the eastern shore of the bay was Gibraltar, the huge key to the Mediterranean.

“I’m going to church,” Canaris said, and he turned and walked away, leaving Meitner standing there openmouthed.

He crossed the square, waited for traffic, then went around the corner past a small row of shops: a tobacconist, a leather goods store, a silversmith, and the tiny rental library, where he ducked through a courtyard, out a rear gate, and across a narrow avenue into the Church of the Little Saints.

On the square there had been the noise of traffic and lights spilling from open doorways and windows. Here in the church it was cool and quiet, the only light coming from the votive candles beneath the statue of the Virgin on the left of the altar and a few dim lights hanging from fixtures above.

Canaris dipped his fingers in the holy water at the door, crossed himself, and then went forward to a pew halfway to the altar. He knelt, clasping his hands on the seat back in front of him, and looked up at the wooden crucifix.

“Dear God,” he murmured. He knew in which direction his fate was taking him as surely as he knew Germany’s eventual fate. He did not want it to be so. But he didn’t know what it was he could do to prevent any of it.

Germany was lost. But there was still the possibility for an honorable peace. At least there could be. But he was afraid of what Dieter Schey was sending them from Oak Ridge. In the agent’s coded messages he had told them about the new secret weapon involving nuclear energy. The Fiihrer had called it

“Jew science,” but the scientists at Peenemunde were ready to build it, and the mathematicians at Gottingen paled when he mentioned the possibility.

One of them, reasonably certain that Canaris would not turn him over to the Gestapo for making defamatory statements, breathed the pronouncement that: “Only God has the right to tamper with such things. Man certainly has no right.”

A side door opened and a woman dressed in black, a veil covering her face, entered the nave, crossed herself, and came around to the center aisle between the pews.

Canaris’ heart began to accelerate as the woman genuflected before crossing in front of the crucifix; then she turned and glided back to where he was kneeling.

He moved over, and she knelt beside him. She lifted her veil, and Canaris’ pounding heart skipped a beat. She was beautiful, in the classic Spanish aristocratic fashion. Her skin was olive, her complexion flawless. She had wide, dark eyes, high cheekbones, and full sensuous lips.

“Hello, Wilhelm,” she whispered, her voice like gold.

“Welcome back.”

“Dona Marielle Alicia,” Canaris said reverently. He lifted her hand and pressed his lips to her fingers. She stroked his hair with her other hand as the tears fell from his eyes to the sleeve of her dress.

Dieter Schey rinsed his coffee cup in the sink and put it on the drain. He stared out the window at the snow blowing in long streaks past the streetlight at the end of the block. The plows hadn’t been back here in the neighborhood yet, but the buses would still be running from Administration out to the plants. The main roads were always the first to be opened after a storm.

Maine was going to stay with him for a very long time. All the way back on the train he kept seeing a vision of the coastal watcher’s face … the dead man staring up at him. He kept hearing Lieutenant Voster telling him about conditions at home.

Berlin was being bombed by the Americans as well as the British. Berlin!

And he worried about the submarine making it back to Germany.

It would take nothing more than a simple malfunction aboard the boat to send the film canisters to the bottom of the Atlantic. All his work would have been for nothing.

He gripped the edge of the counter hard enough to turn his knuckles white. The film would get home it had to! His work here at Oak Ridge was finished. Or very nearly finished. Very soon he was going to have to move on. A new project. A new location. A new identity. Robert Mordley would cease to exist.

Two years of his life would be gone … “Do you want me to fix you some breakfast?” Catherine asked.

Schey spun around as she came into the kitchen and put a half-full baby bottle in the refrigerator. She was still in her nightgown, her feet bare.

“How is he? Any better?”

“No,” Catherine said. She brushed her hair back. She looked very tired. “He’s still running a slight fever and he just doesn’t want to eat.”

“Call the doctor this morning; see if he can come over.”

Catherine nodded. “I’ll wait until eight. How late will you be?”

“Just until noon. Riley has some tooling he wants me to get right on. Shouldn’t take more than three or four hours.”

“Now, do you want a couple eggs?”

Schey looked at her in amazement. Eggs. She was wonderful.

But he shook his head. “I’m going to walk over and catch the early bus.”

“Don’t tell me you’re coming down with something, too,” Catherine said. She came across the kitchen to him and touched his forehead with the back of her hand.

“I’m fine,” he said, and he drew Her close. “How about you?” He kissed her, then laid his cheek against her forehead. It was cool.

She was much shorter than he; her hair was a light brown, her eyes hazel, and her figure pleasant but very plain. From the first she had been flattered that someone so ruggedly good-looking as Schey would give her anything more than a glance. She had always been grateful to him, and her gratitude had always made him feel embarrassed—like he was a heel.

It