The river nets were not going to find Baron von Fange. Perhaps he was already snared in a net, and perhaps a net was about to enshroud her and her friends, too. I’ve got to get out, she decided. Make up some excuse. Get to the airport and my plane and try to make it to Switzerland…
Mouse glanced over his shoulder and inwardly quaked. Coming toward them were Colonel Blok and the monstrous man who wore polished jackboots. He felt like a pigeon about to be plucked and boiled in oil. But he knew the truth now: his friend-the baron, ha!-had been right. It was Hitler who had killed Mouse’s wife and family, and it was men like Jerek Blok who were Hitler’s weapons. Mouse slid his hand into the pocket of his perfectly creased gray trousers and touched the Iron Cross there. It had sharp edges.
“Chesna?” Blok called. The sun glinted off his silver teeth. “Any results?”
“No.” She tried to keep the wariness out of her voice. “They haven’t found so much as a shoe.”
Blok, wearing a crisp black SS uniform, positioned himself on Chesna’s other side, and Boots stood like a mountain behind Mouse. The colonel shook his head. “They won’t find him, I’m afraid. The current’s very strong here. If he went in anywhere near this point, he might be miles downriver by now. Or snagged on an underwater log, or caught between rocks, or…” He noted that Chesna looked pallid. “I’m sorry, my dear. I didn’t mean to be so vivid.”
She nodded. Mouse could hear the huge man breathing like a bellows behind him, and drops of sweat fell from his underarms. Chesna said, “I haven’t seen Harry this morning. I would’ve thought he’d be interested in all this.”
“I called his room just a few minutes ago,” Blok said. “I told him what must’ve happened to the baron.” Blok squinted in the glare off the gently rippling water. “Harry isn’t feeling too well. Sore throat, he said. I think he’s planning on sleeping most of the day… but he did tell me to convey his condolences.”
“I don’t think we know the baron’s dead yet, do we?” Chesna asked coldly.
“No, we don’t,” Blok agreed. “But two witnesses said they saw him stumbling along the riverbank, and-”
“Yes, yes, I know all that! But they didn’t see him fall into the river, did they?”
“One of them thought he heard a splash,” Blok reminded her. He reached out and touched Chesna’s elbow, but she pulled away. His fingers lingered in midair for a few seconds, then he dropped his hand. “I know you… had strong feelings for the man, Chesna. I’m sure you’re quite upset as well,” he said to Mouse. “But facts are facts, aren’t they? If the baron didn’t fall into the river and drown, then where is-”
“We’ve got something!” shouted one of the men in a rowboat, about forty yards offshore. He and his companion began to pull mightily at their dredge. “It’s heavy, whatever it is!”
“The net’s probably caught on a sunken log,” Blok said to Chesna. “I’m afraid the current carried the baron’s body far down-”
The net broke the surface. In its folds was a human body, dark with clinging mud.
Blok’s mouth hung open.
“We’ve got him!” the man in the rowboat shouted, and Chesna felt her heart swell. “My God!” came the man’s voice. “He’s alive!” The two men struggled to pull the human body up over the rowboat’s side, and the muddy figure splashed in the water and heaved itself in.
Blok took three steps forward. Water and mud swirled around his boots. “Impossible!” he gasped. “It’s… utterly impossible!”
The onlookers, who’d been expecting a soggy corpse, if anything, surged closer as the rowboat angled toward the riverbank. The man who’d just been hauled from a wet grave pushed aside the folds of the net to get his legs free. “Impossible!” Chesna heard Colonel Blok whisper; he glanced back at Boots, his face white as cheese. Mouse gave a joyful cry when he saw the black hair and green eyes of the man in the rowboat, and he ran out into the water in his creased trousers to help pull the craft to shore.
As the boat keel bit solid earth, Michael Gallatin stepped out. His shoes squeaked, and mud clung to what used to be a white shirt. He still wore his bow tie.
“Good God!” Mouse said, stretching to put his arm around the man’s shoulders. “We thought we’d lost you!”
Michael nodded. His lips were gray, and he was shivering. The water had been quite chilly.
Chesna couldn’t move. But then she remembered herself, and rushed forward to throw her arms around the baron. He winced, supporting his weight on one leg, and he clasped his muddy arms to her back. “You’re alive, you’re alive!” Chesna said. “Oh, thank God you’re alive!” She summoned tears, and they trickled down her cheeks.
Michael inhaled Chesna’s fresh aroma. The chill of the river had kept him from passing out during the long swim, but now the weakness was catching up with him. The last hundred yards, then a short underwater swim to get himself tangled in the dredging net, had been brutal agony. Someone stood behind Chesna; Michael looked into the eyes of Colonel Jerek Blok.
“Well, well,” the colonel said with a brittle smile. “Returned from the dead, have you? Boots, I do believe we’ve just witnessed a miracle. How did the angels roll away your stone, Baron?”
Chesna snapped, “Leave him alone! Can’t you see he’s exhausted?”
“Oh yes, I can see he’s exhausted. What I can’t see is why he isn’t dead! Baron, I’d say you were underwater for almost six hours. Have you grown gills?”
“Not quite,” Michael answered. His wounded thigh was numb, but the bleeding had ceased. “I had this.” He lifted his right hand. In it was a hollow reed, about three feet long. “I’m afraid I was careless. I had too much to drink last night, and I went for a walk. I must’ve slipped. Anyway, I fell in and the current took me.” He wiped mud from his cheek with his forearm. “It’s amazing how you can sober up when you realize you’re about to drown. Something trapped my leg. A log, I think. Gave me a nasty slash on the thigh. You see?”
“Go on,” Blok commanded.
“I couldn’t get loose. And the way I was held under, I couldn’t lift my head to the surface. Luckily I was lying near some reeds. I uprooted one, bit off the end, and breathed through it.”
“Very lucky, indeed,” Blok said. “Did you learn that trick in commando school, Baron?”
Michael looked shocked. “No, Colonel. Boy Scouts.”
“And you’ve been underwater for almost six hours? Breathing through a damned reed?”
“This ‘damned reed,’ as you put it, is going home with me. I may gild it and have it mounted. One never knows one’s limits until life is put to the test. Isn’t that right?”