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Authors: Robert McCammon
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knew the risks, and she did her job bravely and well. You killed her assassin and exposed Harry Sandler as an agent for the Nazis. You also did your job bravely and well.”
“Not well enough.” This still made the sick sensation of grief gnaw at his insides. “If I’d been alert that night, I might have saved Margritta’s life.”
“It was her time,” Mallory said flatly, a statement from a professional in the arena of life and death. “And your time of brooding over Margritta should end now.”
“When I find Sandler.” Michael’s face was tight, and heat rose in his cheeks. “I knew he was a German agent as soon as Margritta showed me the wolf he said he’d sent her from Canada. To me it was perfectly clear it was a Balkan wolf, not Canadian. And the only way Sandler could’ve killed a Balkan wolf was to go on a hunting trip with his Nazi friends.” Harry Sandler, the big-game hunter from America who’d been written about in Life magazine, had vanished after Margritta’s murder, and left no tracks. “I should have made Margritta leave the house that night. Immediately. Instead I…” He clenched his hands on the chair’s armrests. “She trusted me,” he said, in a hushed voice.
“Michael,” Mallory said, “I want you to go to Paris.”
“Is it that vital that you be involved with this?”
“Yes. That vital.” He puffed smoke and removed the pipe from his mouth. “We’ll have one chance, and one chance only, for the invasion to be successful. The time frame, as of now, is the first week of June. That’s subject to change, according to the weather and the tides. We have to make sure ail potential disasters are dealt with, and I can tell you that watching these commanders hash things out leaves a lot of room for the damnedest mistakes you could imagine.” He grunted, and smiled thinly. “We have to do our part to give them a clean house when they move in. If the Gestapo’s watching Adam so closely, you can be certain he has information they don’t want getting out. We have to learn what it is. With your… uh… special talents, there’s a possibility you can get in and out under the nose of the Gestapo.”
Michael watched the fire. The man sitting in the chair next to him was one of three people in the world who knew he was a lycanthrope.
“There’s another facet to this you should consider,” Mallory said. “Four days ago we received a coded message from our agent Echo, in Berlin. She’s seen Harry Sandler.”
Michael looked into the other man’s face. “Sandler was in the company of a Nazi colonel named Jerek Blok, an SS officer, who used to be commandant of Falkenhausen concentration camp near Berlin. So Sandler’s moving in some high circles.”
“Is Sandler still in Berlin?”
“We haven’t had word from Echo to indicate otherwise. She’s keeping watch on him for us.”
Michael grunted softly. He had no idea who Echo was, but he remembered Sandler’s ruddy-cheeked face from a Life magazine photograph, grinning as he rested one booted foot on a dead lion on the Kenya grassland.
“We can get you dossiers on Sandler and Blok, of course,” Mallory ventured on. “We don’t know what their connection might be. Echo would contact you in Berlin. What you might decide to do from there is up to your own discretion.”
My discretion, Michael thought. That was a polite way of saying that if he chose to kill Harry Sandler, he would be on his own.
“Your first mission, however, is to find out what Adam knows.” Mallory let a trail of smoke trickle from his mouth. “That’s imperative. You can relay the information through your French contact.”
“What about Adam? Don’t you want him out of Paris?”
“If possible.”
Michael mulled that over. The man who, in this instance, called himself Mallory was as infamous for what he left unsaid as for what he spelled out.
“We want to tie up all the loose ends,” Mallory said after a moment’s silence. “I’m
“Not well enough.” This still made the sick sensation of grief gnaw at his insides. “If I’d been alert that night, I might have saved Margritta’s life.”
“It was her time,” Mallory said flatly, a statement from a professional in the arena of life and death. “And your time of brooding over Margritta should end now.”
“When I find Sandler.” Michael’s face was tight, and heat rose in his cheeks. “I knew he was a German agent as soon as Margritta showed me the wolf he said he’d sent her from Canada. To me it was perfectly clear it was a Balkan wolf, not Canadian. And the only way Sandler could’ve killed a Balkan wolf was to go on a hunting trip with his Nazi friends.” Harry Sandler, the big-game hunter from America who’d been written about in Life magazine, had vanished after Margritta’s murder, and left no tracks. “I should have made Margritta leave the house that night. Immediately. Instead I…” He clenched his hands on the chair’s armrests. “She trusted me,” he said, in a hushed voice.
“Michael,” Mallory said, “I want you to go to Paris.”
“Is it that vital that you be involved with this?”
“Yes. That vital.” He puffed smoke and removed the pipe from his mouth. “We’ll have one chance, and one chance only, for the invasion to be successful. The time frame, as of now, is the first week of June. That’s subject to change, according to the weather and the tides. We have to make sure ail potential disasters are dealt with, and I can tell you that watching these commanders hash things out leaves a lot of room for the damnedest mistakes you could imagine.” He grunted, and smiled thinly. “We have to do our part to give them a clean house when they move in. If the Gestapo’s watching Adam so closely, you can be certain he has information they don’t want getting out. We have to learn what it is. With your… uh… special talents, there’s a possibility you can get in and out under the nose of the Gestapo.”
Michael watched the fire. The man sitting in the chair next to him was one of three people in the world who knew he was a lycanthrope.
“There’s another facet to this you should consider,” Mallory said. “Four days ago we received a coded message from our agent Echo, in Berlin. She’s seen Harry Sandler.”
Michael looked into the other man’s face. “Sandler was in the company of a Nazi colonel named Jerek Blok, an SS officer, who used to be commandant of Falkenhausen concentration camp near Berlin. So Sandler’s moving in some high circles.”
“Is Sandler still in Berlin?”
“We haven’t had word from Echo to indicate otherwise. She’s keeping watch on him for us.”
Michael grunted softly. He had no idea who Echo was, but he remembered Sandler’s ruddy-cheeked face from a Life magazine photograph, grinning as he rested one booted foot on a dead lion on the Kenya grassland.
“We can get you dossiers on Sandler and Blok, of course,” Mallory ventured on. “We don’t know what their connection might be. Echo would contact you in Berlin. What you might decide to do from there is up to your own discretion.”
My discretion, Michael thought. That was a polite way of saying that if he chose to kill Harry Sandler, he would be on his own.
“Your first mission, however, is to find out what Adam knows.” Mallory let a trail of smoke trickle from his mouth. “That’s imperative. You can relay the information through your French contact.”
“What about Adam? Don’t you want him out of Paris?”
“If possible.”
Michael mulled that over. The man who, in this instance, called himself Mallory was as infamous for what he left unsaid as for what he spelled out.
“We want to tie up all the loose ends,” Mallory said after a moment’s silence. “I’m
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