"Thanks," Carter said. He hung up, paid the operator at the desk, and stepped outside. Somehow the sunlight didn't seem nearly as bright and hopeful as it had ten minutes before.
Ten
Carter spent the remainder of the morning at the sidewalk cafe attached to the hotel. It was virtually deserted in October, most of the tourists having either gone home or moved on to the Alps to await the snow for skiing; and although it was cool in the shade, Carter managed to stay warm by sipping hot coffee and eating apple strudel while he pored over the Parisian papers.
At noon the whistle blew in the shoe factory down the street, and in a few minutes the cafe was inundated with sallow-faced secretaries and pimply mail clerks eager to enjoy the favorable turn in the weather. They talked amiably and joked until one o'clock, when they all disappeared as suddenly as they'd come, leaving Carter alone to drink his sixth or seventh coffee and to peruse a week-old edition of The New York Times the waiter had found for him in the lobby. He was leafing through the front section when he chanced to look up and notice that not all the young people had left. An attractive girl in skin-tight designer jeans and an American ski parka sat three or four tables away, staring at him. He quickly turned back to his reading, but not before he'd taken account of the lovely auburn tint in her hair, her wide, sea green eyes, and most particularly, her tanned skin.
He'd read another half dozen paragraphs, not really digesting any of it, when he heard her chair scrape against the pavement. Looking up, he saw her standing over him, the parka hanging open, revealing a beautifully suggestive curve beneath her buttoned-up sweater. She had prostitute written all over her.
"Mind if I sit down?" she asked in a street German.
"Macht nichts," he shrugged. He turned a page and studied the headlines. He looked up shortly and found her staring at him again.
"I'm wondering what kind of man you are."
"A busy one. Too busy for fun and games, I'm afraid. Maybe some other time."
"What do you think I am?" she protested indignantly but with a shade of astonishment, as though what he were implying were so out of line it wasn't to be believed.
"I don't think you want me to tell you. Let me just say I haven't any money for your services today."
Her mouth fell open in surprise, then a cloud of anger rolled in behind the sea green eyes. "Schweinhund…" she started to say, but he was ahead of her, having already stood and folded the paper under his arm.
That's not to say you're not pretty," he went on, "or that I might not enjoy it another time, but not today."
If this were an attempt to smooth things over, it failed miserably. A mixture of surprise and anger continued to mount in the girl's face until it seemed as if she'd lost the ability to talk. "W-What? W-What it'?" she stuttered.
Carter didn't bother to reply. He turned his back to her, crossed the cafe, paid his bill at the bar, then left the hotel by the front door.
He went straight to Schwetzler's apartment. Schwetzler was sitting in an armchair, gun oil, rags, and pieces of revolver laid out on the table beside him.
"Fog tonight," he said, greeting Carter cheerfully. He sighted up the barrel to see if it was clean. "That's how it is. During the day sun. Then at night the air cools and fog. A climate suitable for smugglers, yes? And the air is damp today. Should be a thick one."
Carter went to the window and pulled back the drape. Down in the street on the opposite corner the girl strained to look first in one direction, then in the other. Apparently she'd lost him when he turned in from the main street.
"Friedrich," he said, calling him over. "Know her?"
Schwetzler looked down over Carter's shoulder. "No," he said after a moment's study. "But I'd like to, even at my age. Is she an agent?"
"I don't know."
They watched as the girl shrugged and retraced her steps up the side street. "If she isn't," Carter said, "I just blew one of the better opportunities of my life."
The fog was everything Schwetzler had promised. It hung in the air like a curtain, impeding pedestrians and slowing automobile traffic to a crawl. They drove out the lake road until it became little more than a cart path, and they lost sight of it even in the high beams. Schwetzler parked, and they went the rest of the distance on foot.
The skiff was moored to a single piling in a sea of reeds that obscured it completely from view. Carter was amazed his companion was able to find it.
"We do this two, sometimes three nights a week in heavier fog than this," he explained. Tonight is easy. Usually I have heavy boxes to carry."
They got into the boat, and Schwetzler began rowing. In the fog the night seemed to close around them with only the occasional bleat of a foghorn to the northwest to orient them.
"How do you find the shack in all this?" Carter asked.
"I hear it. The waves play a tune on the pilings. Listen!" He held up a finger for quiet. There it is!" He turned several degrees starboard and continued to row.
Even with Schwetzler's sonar guidance, it took them half an hour to reach the shack. Once there, they waited another hour and a half before they heard the first slow chug-chug of a diesel engine growing steadily closer.
"Hallo! Wer ist da?" called a voice.
"Why is he speaking German?" Carter asked suspiciously, grabbing Schwetzler's arm.
"What would you have him speak in these waters? Hungarian? Hier!" Schwetzler called back.
The lumbering hull of a fishing boat appeared out of the mist and nuzzled itself against the pier. Her sole occupant, a young man in a black sweater and sailor's watch cap, threw over a line and Schwetzler secured it.
"Nicholas, this is my son-in-law, Emo Vadas," Schwetzler said as the young man stepped onto the pier.
"Emo, this is Nicholas Carter. He is…"
"Ein Amerikaner," finished Vadas, shaking Carter's hand.
"Is it so obvious?"
"No, but every frontier guard from Bratislava to Szombathely is looking for you. They have orders to shoot to kill."
"Where did you hear this?" demanded Schwetzler.
"They are talking about it as far east as Györ."
"Kobelev," said Carter, turning to Schwetzler.
"But I don't understand. Why would he want you dead when he has still to negotiate for his daughter?"
"His daughter escaped. She's probably on her way to him right now."
"Then your position is very grave," said Schwetzler, shaking his head.
"Not as grave as the girl's he's holding captive."
"Do you think she is still alive?"
"Maybe. Kobelev isn't on the best of terms with his home base. It's possible he hasn't been told yet. Maybe he figures that now that I've had a chance to relay his demands to my superiors, I'm expendable. He's wanted me dead for a long time."
"Then I pity you, my friend. You are a hunted man. As a man who has also been hunted in his time, I know how it feels."
"This is idle talk," Vadas put in impatiently. "And it is not getting us any closer to Hungary. We must move now. The guard boats are double tonight."
The three men quickly set to work emptying the shack of its contents: cases of French wines, bolts of brightly colored cloth, boxes of perfume and other luxury items, and stacks of Western clothing, including denim jackets and blue jeans. They stashed the contraband belowdecks, men Schwetzler gave Carter's hand a solemn, knowing shake, and stepped from the gunwale onto the pier. The diesel sputtered into life, and Schwetzler threw the mooring line onto the deck. Carter watched from the bridge as Schwetzler waved once; as the boat moved away, he was quickly swallowed by the fog.
The young captain spun the helm to port and headed for open water. "This boat isn't built for speed, so I take it you use the fog as a screen rather than trying to outrun them, is that it?" Carter shouted over the engine.