Chapter Eight

 

Armless O’Neil really wanted a drink. He’d been held at gunpoint, lied to, tied up, and made to take a fool’s leap his legs and knees were still complaining about. And to top it off, he still had to figure out how to get both Drechsler and Tommy out of Ethiopia alive.

He eyeballed the row of bottles behind Marshal Emilio De Bono’s chair, and used every bit of his remaining willpower to avoid licking his lips and diving across the table for one of the vials of life-giving poison.

“Would you like a drink, Mr. O’Neil?” De Bono asked without looking at him.

“If you insist,” he answered calmly. “Sure. Why not?”

“It’s the least I can do for the man who walks a dead woman into my office and tells me he has the murderer I need to kill so that all is well again in this Ethiopian paradise.”

“Paradise, right.” O’Neil nodded toward the cognac. “A bit dusty for my tastes. I prefer vegetation and trees.”

“You may return to your jungles quickly enough, Mr. O’Neil.”

“Couldn’t come a moment too soon.”

He took in the lay of the office. Hertz stood at the window farther from the desk, gazing out onto the long street heading through the heart of the city. Costa stood at attention at the door, keeping his eyes locked onto Miss Drechsler, who sat beside O’Neil, her arms woven through the back of the wooden chair and her wrists tied together with a rhin woven rope.

“She is a lovely corpse, is she not?” De Bono asked.

O’Neil didn’t feel that he expected an answer, so he kept his mouth shut and waited for the drink. De Bono clapped his hands, and in a moment, the servant in the white uniform entered and poured him and his master a glass of wine. As he offered the glass to O’Neil, De Bono raised his hand for the servant to stop. “I believe our guest prefers cognac. Take the wine to Hertz.”

Over at the window, Hertz made no response, but he took the glass and set it on the sill in front of him.

The servant got a clean glass and filled it half full with cognac, then at O’Neil’s prompting, filled the remaining half as well. He took the glass when it was offered to him, drained a third of it, then set it on the desk between himself and De Bono.

“I thank you, and my liver thanks you.”

“However,” De Bono said. “This does leave us in what you American’s call a pickle. Ms. Dreschler’s family has, shall we say, a history in German society and we can’t just turn her over to a firing squad on the word of an American drifter.”

“Don’t really care. Not my problem,” O’Neil mumbled and grabbed the glass for another deep guzzle of amber. “Where’s Tommy? We had a deal.”

“Mr. Huston is on his way. Herr Hertz’s men are bringing him.” De Bono lifted his glass of wine and swirled it between him and the sunlight, making prisms on the freshly polished desktop. “As I was saying, we’ll need more than the word of an adventurer like yourself.”

“Ask Costa. He heard every word I did.”

De Bono lifted his eyes to Costa.

“Not every word,” Costa said. “But enough.”

“And we have proof that she is a double agent?” the Marshal asked.

“It’s difficult to prove,” Costa answered.

“That’s the trouble with good spies.” O’Neil finished the last of his liquor. “They don’t advertise.”

De Bono smiled, then looked to Hertz and let the expression lapse for a moment to a frown. “There is, how do you say it, our rub, is it not?”

“If I may speak, Marshal?” Bridgette twisted at her bonds, then sat up as straight as they would allow her.

“Certainly, Miss Drechsler,” De Bono said.

“I believe I have a solution for your problem.”

“Please share, young lady.”

“Yeah,” O’Neil said, cutting his eyes from the liquor to the lady.

“Inside my front pocket you’ll find a set of papers in an envelope.”

O’Neil rose and leaned toward her, but she shook her head vehemently. “I’d prefer anyone other than the armless arsch to retrieve them, thank you.”

He didn’t need a translator for that one, he thought. So much for living up to the finishing school standard.

De Bono nodded and laughed, then called to Costa, who didn’t speak, but walked to the woman, delicately opened her coat, and withdrew the envelope from her inside pocket. He opened it, read for a few moments, then his eyes grew wide.

“Yes?” De Bono prompted.

“Yeah. What’s the news?”

Even Hertz had turned and was watching intently.

Costa handed the letter and envelope to his superior, who took it, read it, then slapped his desk top and yelled out, “By damn!”

O’Neil’s patience hit the red, and he jerked the letter from De Bono’s clutches. As he did, Costa swung for him with his ham-sized fists. O’Neil ducked, and stepped away from his chair to avoid a follow-up punch, but it never came. The Marshal nodded for Costa to stand down.

“You should be more careful with your actions, Mr. Armless O’Neil.”

“I get that a lot.”

He opened the letter. Then laughed.

“Glad to see you’re having a good time, old friend,” came a voice from the door.

O’Neil turned to see Tommy standing a supposedly free man, with one SS guard behind him and one off to his right. The guards remained only long enough for Costa to dismiss them.

“My God, Tommy, did you dodge a bullet this time!” He stomped over to his young friend and threw his arms around him, but only for a moment. “I don’t mean the firing squad. I mean the black widow of the SS.”

Tommy cut his eyes from O’Neil to Bridgette and back again. “What are you on about?”

O’Neil handed him the letter, and Tommy read it quickly then let it drop to his side. “An SS agent?”

“Signed by Himmler himself, I’m afraid.” O’Neil smacked the young man on the back. “I’m afraid so, Tommy. We both got played for patsies, but at least my heart hasn’t been stomped on with her stilettos.” He took the note back, returned to the desk, and handed the page to De Bono.

“So where does this leave us now?”

Bridgette spoke up. “With me still tied to a chair.”

“Yes, that.” De Bono motioned for Costa to cut her loose, and the giant did as instructed.

“Der Führer has long suspected a group of Thulists within his ranks who have other loyalties than the party. My job was to flush them out,” she said once she was free. “And I do appreciate Mr. O’Neil’s assistance in that matter.”

“And I don’t appreciate being a Nazi stooge.” O’Neil raised his hook at the woman, then thought better of it and put it down again. “I’d like to get the kid and go now.”

“Almost,” said De Bono. He returned his attention to Bridgette. “And this traitor is?”

Bridgette’s eyes locked on Hertz’s back. The office grew quiet as every other eye in the room did the same. After a moment, Hertz must have felt the weight of the stares, and he turned to face De Bono and Bridgette.

“I have served der Führer faithfully for years,” he said.

“Only as it served your interests, I’m afraid,” she responded.

O’Neil felt the air grow heavy, like smoke without the color or the odor, just the weight and the thickness. Pick a side, he told himself, because in about two seconds that’s going to be the only way out of this room alive.

Hertz went for his Mauser.

O’Neil went for the floor behind the desk.

De Bono stood up and reached for his own pistol, but there was no way he’d beat Hertz on the draw.

Bridgette screamed and dove for the floor. Tommy appeared and huddled over the woman like a blanket.

O’Neil looked for Costa. The giant was in motion with a speed that seemed disproportionate to his size.

Hertz fired, and the bullet grazed the giant’s thigh, but didn’t slow him down. In the next moment Costa launched into the German’s gut like a mortar shell. Both went through the window and into the street, rolling away from the building like schoolboys on a tirade.

Upon hearing the crash, those walking in the street glanced at the fight, noticed the uniforms, then ran for cover. In a few scant seconds, the street was empty save for Costa and Hertz.

O’Neil waited at the broken window, and soon felt Tommy, De Bono, and Bridgette heavy on his back.

De Bono yelled for his guards to help Costa, but before they could make it outside, another shot split the dusty air, and the two stopped rolling in the dirt.

“What hap—” Bridgette asked.

“Can’t tell,” said Tommy.

“You just killed another man,” O’Neil said. “That’s what happened. Just don’t know yet whether to thank you or slug you.”

“Are you okay, Bridgette?” Tommy asked, ignoring him.

“She’s SS, Tommy. Your bloodline doesn’t measure up, kid.”

“I can still be human, can’t I?”

“Sure, but can she?”

Tommy put his arm on her shoulder and she settled in next to his chest.

O’Neil ignored them both and watched out the window. In the street, the mass of dusty uniforms finally moved. The larger figure on top seemed to rise first, but then it fell over to the side, and the smaller one sat up and aimed a pistol at the window.

“Sorry about your boxer, De Bono,” said Hertz. “But he lost this one.”

“Give it up, Hertz,” Bridgette yelled.

A group of four Italian guards ran into the street and stopped.

“My private guard,” De Bono said with as much care as if he were calling his manservant, “will shoot you on the spot before you can fire a second shot.”

“It will only take one.”

He turned the pistol to his own temple. “Traitor,” he said, glaring at Bridgette, then added, “Für den Ruhm der arischen Rasse.”

The Mauser spoke a final time, and Zellenleiter Johannes Hertz fell to the ground beside the body of Lieutenant Rubiano Costa.

De Bono spoke to his private guard in Italian, then turned away from the window, returned to his desk, and sat down. “Would you like another drink, Mr. O’Neil?”

O’Neil glanced from the window to the desk, then to the open door leading out of the office. “No thanks. I’ll get my own. The company ruins the flavor.”

He walked to the door.

Tommy followed a few steps, then stopped and looked back to Bridgette.

O’Neil shrugged his shoulders.

“What’ll we do now?” Tommy asked.

“You’re free to go, Mr. Huston,” De Bono said, not giving the tall American a second look. “You may do whatever you like.”

Tommy cut his gaze to the blonde woman, who smiled, then shook her head. “I’m afraid your friend is right about me.”

“One thing I don’t get, Drechsler.” O’Neil sighed loudly. “Why the map? It obviously was a fake.”

She smoothed her skirt, and stepped away from Tommy toward De Bono. “A ruse, of course. A made-up trinket to draw out the cultists who are trying to unduly influence der Führer.”

“Not the goods, but the girl,” he mumbled. “Should’ve seen it a mile away.”

“What are we going to do, O’Neil?” Tommy seemed suspended between the woman and O’Neil, wound up like a string and ready to start spinning.

“Do whatever you want, Tommy.”

The boy looked hurt, but O’Neil didn’t care. Besides, Tommy would get over his hurt feelings soon enough. It was the curse of the young to forget too quickly to avoid walking the same road again. “I’m going to get you another ticket to America, and maybe after this she-wolf convinces you finally that your blood’s too mixed up to sell her the moon, I’m going to put you on the damn boat myself this time.”

He turned to De Bono, and the Marshal looked up to meet his gaze.

“Yes?”

“Changed my mind.” O’Neil wandered to the bar behind the desk and grabbed two bottles. He didn’t look at the labels. He didn’t care. “I will take a drink.”

He locked his eyes on the doorway and walked toward it, then through it, then disappeared into the Ethiopian dust.

 

 

THE END