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Page 58.

The three heavies had a rear door open, and their Führer took Tim by the elbow. “Major Malone, I apologize for what you have been through. I was away on business and just debarked from the airplane. Bouvard assures me that it would never happen again.” He pushed gently, persuasively, and Tim crawled into the ample backseat that smelled of leather and cloth. The four men piled in, the doors slammed, and the car pulled away leaving a glowering Bouvard at the curb. Tim sat jammed between two men in the back, while two were in front including the driver. Tim reached behind his head, as if to scratch the back of his neck, and surreptitiously gave Bouvard the finger.

“My name is Crane,” the spectacled man said offering a soft white hand with severely trimmed pink nails. The other hand, upon closer inspection, was a pink prosthesis. He smelled of starch, stamp pad ink, and gun oil. “Ivor Crane. I’m sort of a loose intelligence wheel rolling around here. I’ll be in charge of helping you.”

“Nice to meet you,” Tim said cautiously.

“It’s all very hush-hush. And your name again?”

“Nordhall. Not Malone.”

“Ah yes.” Crane lit a cigarette and placed it in a green onyx holder. “H.M.S. Sturmer.”

“Oh my God,” Tim said, “you know.”

Smoke wrinkled around Crane’s unperturbed face. “Of course. We thought the entire crew was lost, but here you are. You were testing a variation of Huff/Duff—High Frequency Direction Finder. The Navy will want to brief you about that, but I have other plans for you. You just happened to get stuck in a bureaucratic bottleneck with Mr. Bouvard. Let me apologize again for Eddy. He’s rather dense, but useful. He filters out the frequent diamond smuggler or other unsavory character we get.”

“Why did you call me Malone back there?”

“You’ll figure it out soon enough, Lieutenant Nordhall. By the way, I’m a colonel in the U.S. Army, extremely high level intelligence operations. I’m not pulling rank on you. I just want you to feel comfortable knowing this is a very high-level show. You’re in good hands. No more run-around.”

“Yessir,” Tim said. He did feel reassured, though still mystified.

“The Navy will want to debrief you about the sinking of your ship,” Crane repeated, “but I have other plans for you.”

Tim laughed. “Are you transferring me between services, Sir?”

“Sort of. Actually, you’ll be two people, in two different services, with a security clearance so high you’ll have to kill yourself just for knowing.” Crane winked.

“Nice joke, Sir.”

Crane made a wry face. “I never joke unless I’m holding a glass of scotch in one hand and a cigar in the other.”

The car sped through city streets, slowing for pedestrian crowds, treating red lights as suggestions rather than commands. Tim glimpsed dark-skinned men in business suits carrying newspapers, women in colorful garb with bundles on their heads, white school children in cute uniforms, all the trappings of modern Belgian governance, overlaying a resentful native culture.

“The situation with Major Malone was very unfortunate,” Crane said. “Good family, good breeding, lots of money, all the right jokes, and he has to ruin himself by gambling. I learned just yesterday that he had died. That creates inconveniences, but also an opportunity.”

“Oh?” Tim felt sorry for the dead man, but he was tired and had no stomach for intrigue. He was too tired to ask how Crane knew about Malone, and how much he knew. That was a mystery in itself. “I really would like to get back to my engineering duties in a regular U.S. Navy capacity.”

“I understand,” Crane said, holding up his cigarette holder and letting smoke dribble from his lips while they waited in the middle of a throng of people and two large white cows. “You are a clockmaker at heart, are you?”

Tim wrinkled his lip. “Hardly.”

“You left New Haven because your country called you, but also because you are looking for something more out of life. Is that correct?”

Tim nodded.

“What’s the name of your best girlfriend, Lieutenant?”

“Huh?” He had to think...back to summer nights at Lighthouse Point or Morris Cove, football games, the marching band playing, and people enjoying themselves as best they could. Prohibition was over, but the Depression was still on, and even buying a cola and a hot dog was a bit of an expenditure. But taking a girl to the Yale Bowl, treating her just right, appreciating that she’d gone out and bought a new gray sweater just for the occasion...

“In high school,” Crane said helpfully.

“Sally,” Tim said. “Sally Levesque.” He could picture her, green-eyed, red-head, with dimpled cheeks and a smile that sort of lit up her whole face. She had soft, thick thighs like creamery butter, just asking to be touched. She liked that, in the back of the old Chevy, breathing faster...