But then he made her lie back, and he was on top of her. She managed to keep her face away from his as he pushed inside her. He could not see her tears. He was rough and fast, like she imagined a man might he in a whorehouse. And when she felt him finish, she was relieved. Horrible as it was, at least it was over.
He moved off her, breathing heavily. He lay near her and she sensed him to be more of a stranger than any man she had ever made love with. She was afraid to speak. She looked at the knife, which still stuck in the floor nearby. She realized that he could still kill her. She would have to see this terrifying hour through to the end.
"I like you as a sexual animal," she lied, wondering all the time how she was managing to maintain her facade.
"Get dressed and get out of here," he said. Apparently, she realized, he had decided to keep her alive. She stood and reached for her clothing. Stephen grabbed her by the wrist.
"And Laura," he snapped, holding her so tight that it hurt, "you never come up here again. I have things to do that a woman couldn't begin to understand. Do you hear me?"
"Yes, Stephen," she said.
"Now, go."
She did.
Laura returned to their bedroom in the rectory. She looked in the mirror at her ashen, tear-streaked face, felt something welling inside her, and threw up.
She went downstairs. She found a bottle of Scotch, took a drink, and after several minutes it seemed to calm her. She would have to maintain the act until the right opportunity came along, she told herself. No, she could barely tolerate thinking about or looking at this man again, much less have him violate her. But she did know where she could find friends. She only needed the right moment.
Stephen forced his new, brutal form of sex upon her again that night and the next. Then, mercifully, he announced on Wednesday morning that he was traveling again. He departed on the noon train to Trenton and Philadelphia.
Within another hour, she too was gone. She traveled first by bus, using some dollars she had put aside in her kitchen. In Newark she walked from the bus depot to the train station and found a southbound express for Washington. There, at Union Station, she deciphered a confusing city map and started her way to the British Consulate, praying that Peter Whiteside would still be there.
THIRTY-FIVE
The drive to Pennsylvania from Washington wasn't as smooth as Cochrane's previous trip. There had been traffic around Philadelphia, then a closed two-lane highway around Stroudsburg. Cochrane had to drive along the slower route that went through the mountains. Then, as was Mauer's quaint habit, there had been the meeting at the farmhouse door with the German holding a shotgun across his chest. Mauer lowered the weapon as soon as he saw Cochrane was alone.
Mauer shuffled back into the house, leading Cochrane, and went to the armchair from which he ruled his domain in exile. He stood his shotgun against a table, no more than an arm's length away. He sat down.
"You'll excuse the gun again, I hope," Mauer began in German. "Only a precaution."
The two men gazed at each other for a moment and a slow, ironic smile crept across Mauer's lips.
"So, you were saying," Mauer said. "Fired? From your Bureau?"
"Fired," Cochrane confirmed.
"Why?"
Cochrane paused. "The reason given was rudeness to a subordinate." He explained about Adam Hay. Otto Mauer enjoyed the story. Otto Mauer, for that matter, enjoyed havinga visitor. He poured a brandy for each of them as Cochrane spoke. He walked the drink to Cochrane and stepped past two large crates of books.
Cochrane finished speaking.
"So you were impertinent to this gremlin, who is a file clerk, and for this J. Edgar Hoover dismisses you from his F.B.I.?"
"That's correct."
Mauer sipped his brandy as visions of his own bureaucratic nightmares flashed through his mind. "In Germany," he finally said, "it is the burden of inferiors to be polite to their superiors. Not the other way around. Prosit."
Mauer sipped and replenished his own glass. "Prosit," Cochrane answered. Mauer set down his brandy. "Do you think this was the only reason you were dismissed from the F.B.I.?" the German asked.
"I have my doubts."
Several thoughts went through both men's minds and all were unspoken and contained by a long silence. "I see," Mauer said at length. Then he cocked his head in a peculiar manner, as if to examine Cochrane in a new light.
"So," Mauer finally asked, "why then have you come to see me again? You are no longer looking for your spy. You no longer have any authority. You cannot help me and I cannot help you. We are both in exile, my friend, and exiles are eunuchs."
"Well," Cochrane started slowly, "my plans will move me to New York to take a private job. I wanted to reassure you that there are other good men in the F.B.I.. I'm asking two friends from the Newark office to remain apprised of your case. Concerning your family, that is. If it's possible to move your wife and son here, they will expedite things for you."
"You're very kind," said Mauer flatly.
Cochrane wasn't sure how much cynicism laced the remark. But he continued.
"Second, there's one thing I cannot comprehend," Cochrane said.
"And what's that?"
"The code system," said Cochrane. "If the F.B.I. knew Siegfried's five-digit additive, they could break the German naval code. You must know how such systems work."
"And so?"
"Why didn't the F.B.I. ever ask you about the additive?"
"They did ask me."
"And?"
"And until my family is returned I cannot help."
"Then you know more than you told them?"
"I only know that they lied to me. I do not have my family."
There was cautious ambiguity in Mauer's reply. It was the same sort of charade that had transpired between the two men in Germany.
"Is that what you told them?" Cochrane asked.
"That's what I told them," he said, sipping again, "and that is what I now tell you."
Mauer watched Cochrane. "You look puzzled," Mauer suggested airily.
"I am."
"Why?"
Thinking of Hunsicker, Cochrane answered, "They have new methods. The Bureau badly wants the code broken. I'm surprised you were not subjected to-"
"Coercion?"
"Yes."
"I'm surprised, also," said Mauer. "Perhaps they are not as anxious to break the code as they maintain."
"I can't believe that," Cochrane said instinctively. It dawned on him also that he couldn't believe he had been dismissed merely for the contretemps with Adam Hay.
"My friend," Mauer said, finishing his second shot of brandy, "we are entering an age in which much happens that we cannot believe. Look at Germany again," he said with a sigh. "Who can believe that Hitler is the chosen leader? But he didn't seize power. His party was elected to a majority. Hindenburg asked him to form a government. The world is an insane place. May I pour you another drink? Cognac makes reality less harsh."
"Thank you, I'm fine," demurred Cochrane, who wasn't fine at all.
Mauer poured himself another drink. "We live in an age of unreality," the German expanded philosophically. "Why was Germany allowed to rearm? Who financed Hitler? Why does the capitalistic West align itself with the Soviets? Will America allow Germany to conquer all of Western Europe? Who else will stop the Wehrmacht? Will America risk joining a much greater war than the one a generation ago? I ask you, young man, does any of this flirt with reality? Yet it happens."
Mauer rambled on for half an hour, then tossed down his third cognac with one enthusiastic gulp. Cochrane knew it was time to think about departure.