Younger ran up the slope. When he climbed back into the plaza, he saw Gruber's car at the other end — about to leave the square by the same cobbled lane they had come up. Younger put fingers to mouth and whistled piercingly in the night.
Gruber's car stopped. Younger whistled again. The car backed up and wheeled around, its headlamps illuminating Younger, perhaps a hundred feet separating them. For an instant there was no movement except the wind ruffling the tails of Younger's long overcoat. The great towers of the castle were shrouded in darkness; moonlight cast a faint glow on the flagstones. Younger opened his arms wide, beckoning Gruber to come at him.
The car's engine clamored. Younger began walking forward. The car jerked into motion; Younger broke into a trot. Gruber accelerated; Younger ran. In the center of the plaza, when the collision was imminent, Younger leapt high in the air. The car's hood passed under him. He hit the windshield with his shoulder, shielding his face behind an arm.
The glass gave way, knife-like shards flying into Gruber's face, and the car spun out of control. The front passenger seat broke from its anchorage when Younger smashed into it, plowing into one of the men in the backseat, who cried out in pain, his legs pinned or perhaps broken.
Next to that pinned and unarmed man, in the middle of the backseat, was Colette. 'Stratham?' she said.
'Don't move,' he replied.
Gruber's second stocky friend, on the other side of Colette, had her pistol in his hand and tried to point it at Younger as the car skidded to a halt. Younger seized that hand, placed his own thumb over the gunman's trigger finger, and forced the man's first two shots to fire harmlessly into the air. Then he thrust the man's arm across Colette's chest, so that the gun pressed directly into the ribs of the other man — the pinned man. Younger squeezed off three shots, after which he jackknifed the gunman's arm so that the pistol pointed at the gunman's own temple. The last look on the fellow's face was incomprehension; he didn't seem to understand how a weapon he himself was holding could be aimed at his head. Younger caused the pistol to fire.
Gruber, in the front seat, had been desperately scraping glass from his bloody face and eyes. At the sound of the gunshots, he thrashed wildly at his door, unable to find the latch. At last he began climbing over the door instead.
Younger got hold of Gruber's ankles and stood up on the front seat of the car, holding Gruber upside down. Gruber's hands scraped at the flagstone like the paws of a rodent trying to burrow into the earth. Younger lifted him several feet off the ground and dropped him, face- first, onto the stone.
The blow stunned Gruber, but didn't knock him out. Younger saw on the dashboard the steel shaft that had separated the two panes of the windshield. He grabbed it, jumped over the door, and hoisted Gruber off the ground, holding him up against the car. Gruber's face was bloody, his eyes frightened. Colette, prying herself loose from between the two dead men, climbed out of the car as well.
'I guess the engagement's off,' Younger said to Colette, without looking at her.
'He wasn't my fiancй,' she answered. 'He-'
'I know what he is,' said Younger.
'No,' said Colette, 'he-'
'I know,' repeated Younger.
'Luc,' cried Colette. The boy was standing only a few feet away, lit up by the car's headlamps.
Younger looked at the cowering Hans Gruber. 'I'm trying to think,' Younger said to him in a low voice consisting mostly of breath, 'of a reason to let you live.' 'It wasn't me,' said Gruber. 'It was all of us. Everyone did it.'
'That's not a reason,' said Younger in the same unvoiced voice.
'They ordered us to do it,' said Gruber imploringly.
'I don't believe you,' said Younger.
'Stratham-' said Colette.
'The only thing I can think of is your cravenness,' Younger observed, studying Gruber's pleading face. Younger thought it over. Then he said, 'But that's not a reason either.'
Younger ran the steel windshield shaft through the underside of Hans Gruber's chin straight up into his skull. The blue eyes froze. Younger looked at those eyes for a long moment — then let the corpse slump to the ground.
'We'll take his car,' said Younger.
Dragging the other two bodies out of the backseat, Younger left all three corpses in a heap. Luc gazed down at the dead men. Then he took his sister's hand, and the two of them got into the vehicle. As they crossed a bridge over the Vltava in their windshield-less vehicle, sirens and alarms began to wail.
Several hours later, Younger opened a sleeping compartment aboard a rumbling train. A single candle cast an unsteady light. On the lower bunk, both Luc and Colette were stretched out. The boy was sleeping.
'Is that you?' Colette whispered in the darkness.
'Yes.' Younger loosened his tie, went to the washbasin, rinsed his face. They had just crossed into Austria. He had waited in the corridor to see if any police boarded. None had.
'You're a good killer,' she said unexpectedly.
He picked up Luc and laid him in the upper bunk. The boy stirred but didn't open his eyes. Colette, startled, sat up, and pulled the sheet protectively up to her neck. She was afraid, evidently, that he was going to lie down next to her.
He was about to reassure her that he had moved the boy only because he had found another compartment for himself, so that she and Luc didn't have to share a bunk. But the words didn't come out. Instead he was seized with fury. He tore the sheet from her. Dressed only in a slip, she drew her knees close to her and encircled them with both arms, green eyes sparkling faint and anxious in the candlelight.
He shook his head. 'What does a man have to do before you trust him?' he asked. 'Die?'
'I trust you.'
'That's why you're acting like I'm about to rape you.'
She drew farther back into the shadowy corner of the bunk, clutching the silver chain she always wore around her neck.
He could not have explained his own violence. If it was rage, he had felt its kind only a few times, during the war. He reached down, took her by the wrists, pulled her up standing before him, and yanked the chain from her neck. She said nothing. He spoke quietly, his words just audible over the noise of the locomotive: 'I admire it — I do. You lied to me for years. You did it so well, pretending to be aggrieved at how much I kept from you. And now you play the little God-fearing virgin again, with your cross in your hands and your faith that He'll protect you. Didn't anyone tell you that good Christian girls don't hunt a man down for six years to kill him?'
'It's not a cross,' she said.
He opened his palm: at the end of the silver chain was a locket.
'It's how I knew his name,' said Colette. She took the locket from him, prized its two halves apart along a tiny hinge, and removed from within a small thin metal oval. 'When we found Mother, her fist was clenched. I opened it, one finger at a time. This was inside. She had torn it off the man who — who killed her.'
Younger held the little ovaclass="underline" it was a soldier's dog tag. Angling it, he made out the etched letters spelling Hans Gruber.
'I wore it every day,' she said, 'since 1914. If I had told you the truth, would you have let me come to Vienna to find him?'
He didn't answer.
'Wouldn't you have tried to stop me?' she asked.
'Yes.'
She turned to the compartment's window and twisted at its catch. It wouldn't turn. She pulled at it with both hands. Finally the upper pane dropped open, and a ferocious wind blew in with the roar of the rushing night. She fell back into his arms, her long black hair blowing about, getting in her eyes and his. He saw the delicate line of her cheek and the anxious radiance of her eyes looking up at him, flickering in the candlelight. He held her close, so close her chest was pressing against his, and put his lips to hers. For a moment her whole body surrendered to him; then she pushed herself away, took the dog tag from him, and flung it out the open window. It disappeared into the night without a trace, without a sound.