Blok started to reply, then thought better of it. He glanced around at the people who had come forward. “Welcome back to the living, Baron,” he said, his eyes cold. “You’d best take a shower. You smell very fishy.” He turned and stalked away, followed by Boots, but then stopped abruptly and addressed the baron again. “You’d better hold on to your reed, sir. Miracles are few and far between.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Michael said; he couldn’t turn down the opportunity. “I’ll hold on to it with an iron fist.”
Blok stood very still, ramrod stiff. Michael felt Chesna’s arms tighten around him. Her heart was pounding. “Thank you for your concern, Colonel,” Michael said.
Still, Blok didn’t move. Michael knew those two words were wheeling in the man’s brain. Was it a figure of speech, or a taunt? They stared at each other for a few seconds, like two beasts of prey. If Michael was a wolf, Jerek Blok was a silver-toothed panther. And then the silence broke, and Blok smiled faintly and nodded. “Good health to you, Baron,” he said, and walked up the riverbank toward the Reichkronen. Boots glared at Michael for perhaps three seconds longer-enough to convey the message that war had been declared-and then followed the colonel.
Two German officers, one wearing a magnifying monocle, came forward and offered to help Michael to his suite. Supported between them, Michael limped up the riverbank with Chesna and Mouse behind him. In the hotel lobby the flustered and red-faced manager appeared to say how sorry he was for the baron’s misfortune, and that a wall would be put up along the riverbank to prevent such future calamities; he suggested the services of the hotel physician, but Michael declined. Would a bottle of the hotel’s finest brandy help to soothe the baron’s injuries? The baron said he thought that would be a perfect balm.
As soon as the door of Chesna’s suite closed and the German officers were gone, Michael eased his muddy body down onto a white chaise longue. “Where were you?” Chesna demanded.
“And don’t give us that six-hours-in-the-river crap, either!” Mouse said. He poured himself a shot of hundred-year-old brandy, then took a glass to Michael. “What the hell happened to you?”
Michael drank down the brandy. It was like inhaling fire. “I took a train ride,” he said. “As Harry Sandler’s guest. Sandler’s dead. I’m alive. That’s it.” He undid his bow tie and began to strip off his tattered shirt. Red razor slashes streaked his shoulders and back. “Colonel Blok assumed Sandler would kill me. Imagine his surprise.”
“Why would Sandler want to kill you? He doesn’t know who you really are!”
“Sandler wants-wanted-to marry you. So he tried his best to get me out of the way. Blok went along with it. Nice friends you have, Chesna.”
“Blok may not be my friend very much longer. The Gestapo has Theo von Frankewitz.”
Michael listened intently as Chesna told him about the phone call Blok had made. In light of that fact, his remark about “iron fist” seemed rather reckless. Frankewitz would sing like a bird once the Gestapo went to work on him. And though Frankewitz did not know Michael’s name, his artist’s eye-however bruised and bloodshot-would remember Michael’s face. That description would be enough to bring Jerek Blok and the Gestapo down on all of them.
Michael stood up. “We’ve got to leave here as soon as we can.”
“And go where? Out of Germany?” Mouse asked hopefully.
“For you, yes. For me, I’m afraid not.” He looked at Chesna. “I have to get to Norway. To Skarpa Island. I believe Dr. Hildebrand’s invented a new type of weapon, and he’s testing it there on prisoners of war. What that weapon has to do with Iron Fist I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. Can you get me there?”
“I don’t know. I’ll need time to arrange the connections.”
“How much time?”
She shook her head. “It’s difficult to say. A week, at the least. The fastest route to Norway would be by plane. There’ll be fuel stops to arrange. Plus food and supplies for us. Then, from the coast of Norway, we’d have to use a boat to get to Skarpa. A place like that is going to be under tight security: offshore mines, a coastal radar station, and God only knows what else.”
“You misunderstand me,” Michael said. “You won’t be going to Norway. You’ll be getting yourself and Mouse out of the country. Once Blok realizes I’m a British agent, he’ll figure out that your best performances have not been in films.”
“You need a pilot,” Chesna replied. “I’ve been flying my own plane since I was nineteen. I have ten years of experience. Trying to find another pilot to take you to Norway would be impossible.”
Michael recalled Sandler mentioning that Chesna had flown her own stunts during one of her films. A daredevil, he’d called her; Michael was inclined to think that Chesna van Dorne was one of the most fascinating women he’d ever met-and certainly one of the most beautiful. She was the kind of woman who didn’t need a man to direct her, or to praise the insecurity out of her. She had no insecurities, as far as Michael could see. No wonder Sandler had wanted her so badly; the hunter had felt the urge to tame Chesna. To survive this long as a secret agent in the midst of the enemy camp, Chesna had to be someone special indeed.
“You need a pilot,” Chesna repeated, and Michael had to agree. “I’ll fly you to Norway. I can arrange to find someone with a boat. From there, you’re on your own.”
“What about me?” Mouse asked. “Hell, I don’t want to go to Norway!”
“I’ll put you in the pipeline,” Chesna told him. “The route to Spain,” she clarified, when he continued to look puzzled. “When you get there, my friends will help you find a way to England.”
“All right. Fine with me. The sooner I get out of this viper’s nest, the better I’ll feel.”
“Then we’d best get packed and out of here right now.” Chesna went to her room to start packing, and Michael went to the bathroom and got the mud off his face and out of his hair. He took off his trousers and looked at the wound across his thigh; the bullet had grazed cleanly, cutting no muscles, but it had left a scarlet-edged groove in the flesh. He knew what had to be done. “Mouse?” he called. “Bring me the brandy.” He looked at his hands, the fingers and palms crisscrossed with razor cuts. Some of them were deep, and would require burning attention as well. Mouse brought him the decanter, and made a face when he saw the bullet wound. “Get the bottom sheet off my bed,” Michael instructed. “Tear a couple of strips out of it, will you?” Mouse hurried away.
Michael first washed his hands in brandy: a task that made him wince with pain. He would smell like a drunkard, but the wounds had to be cleansed. He washed the cuts on his shoulders, then turned his attention to his grooved thigh. He poured some brandy on a washcloth and pressed the wet cloth against the wound before he had too much time to think about it.
He had need of a second washcloth, and this one he jammed between his teeth. Then he poured the rest of the golden fire over the red-edged wound.
“Yes, that’s what I want from Frankewitz,” Jerek Blok was saying into the telephone in his suite. “A description. Is Captain Halder there? He’s a good man; he knows how to get answers. Tell Captain Halder that I want the information now.” He snorted with exasperation. “Well, what do I care about Frankewitz’s condition? I said I want the information now. This moment. I’ll stay on the line.” He heard the door open and looked up as Boots entered. “Yes?” Blok urged.
“Herr Sandler’s train hasn’t passed through the rail yard yet. It’s over ten minutes late.” Boots had been downstairs on another telephone, speaking to the rail master at the Berlin yards.
“Sandler told me he was putting the baron on the train. Yet the train’s still on the rails somewhere and Baron von Fange comes up out of the river like a damned toad frog! What do you make of it, Boots?”