“He ordered it the day it was released. He gave them out as little favors to visiting colleagues, or people who hosted him for lectures. He was quite proud of you.”
“He never told me.”
“He wouldn’t have. He was just too damn stubborn. Or maybe afraid is a better word.”
“Afraid?”
“Didn’t you ever notice the way he inched up to the line with so many people, trying to be their friend, only to back away at the last second? Like the risk just wasn’t worth it. Even with me, in a way.”
“Not with you.”
“Oh, yes. After the war, anyway. I know you don’t believe me when I say he came back a changed man, but he really did. I figured maybe he’d seen one of his buddies blown to pieces in one of those flying coffins. But, well, you read the piece in the Daily Wildcat.”
“Then maybe it wasn’t the war. Maybe it was just his true nature emerging as he grew up. It happens, Viv. When people aren’t kids anymore, they no longer have to try and please everybody. Maybe that’s just the way he was.”
She stared at him a few seconds, seemingly on the verge of tears.
“That’s probably the cruelest thing you’ve ever said, Nat. I guess you’ve earned the right. But spare me that kind of honesty in the future, if you don’t mind.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No. It’s me. Maybe it’s too early to be poking around in all this stuff. Besides, you never knew him like I did. That’s the real pity. No one did. All the little things he’d let slip out from time to time, like the story about the bunker. It never happened when he was being a professional. In his work he was always so guarded. Even with you.”
“I understand.”
“I don’t think you do. When he signed on with the OSS he took an oath of secrecy, and that meant something. I met some of the others at reunions. They’re the same.”
“Maybe so.”
Although Nat had his doubts. Oath or not, once you became a historian your goals were the exact opposite of a spy’s. You no longer kept secrets; you brought them to light. Gordon had preached that as passionately as anyone.
“Or maybe…” Viv said, hesitating. “Maybe it was a woman. I’ve always wondered.”
“You can’t really believe that?”
“We weren’t married yet when the war started, even though we had talked about it. Of course we made all sorts of promises when he left. ‘Don’t sit under the apple tree’ and all that. But it wasn’t like he was in a trench somewhere, especially once he landed in Switzerland. Wine, women, and song, from what I’ve read.”
“Weren’t you able to tell from his letters home?”
“He couldn’t send any. Or get any, either. Not with the borders closed. After his plane went down I didn’t even know he was alive until the Red Cross told his parents he’d landed in Switzerland. We were pretty much cut off for more than a year.”
“Did you ever ask after he got back? About a woman, I mean.”
She shook her head.
“Too afraid he’d tell me, I guess. But I did find something once. A book.”
“Some kind of journal?”
“No. A novel. He said it was a Swiss murder mystery. It was in German, so who knows what it really was?”
“That’s your evidence?”
“There was a flower inside, pressed between the pages. And a girl’s name was on the inside cover.”
Hardly on the level of lipstick on the collar. Viv was probably overreacting based on Gordon’s later infidelities.
“He probably picked it up in a secondhand shop when he was bored out of his mind. The girl could have been a previous owner.”
“That’s what he said. But explain the flower.”
“A bookmark. He was reading in a field, or a park, and never got back to it. I’ll give it a look if you want. Put your mind at ease that it wasn’t some sappy romance.”
“I never saw it again. For all I know, he threw it away.”
Hardly an act of the lovelorn. But Nat held his tongue. On this, of all nights, Viv was entitled to give free rein to her emotions.
“My advice to you, Nat, is that if you ever have an important question to ask someone you love, then ask it. Don’t wait for the right moment. ’Cause one day you wake up and you’re all out of moments.”
There were tears on her cheeks. She leaned closer and Nat held on, feeling her muffled sobs. When she pulled away her face was splotchy, but she managed a weak smile.
“Maybe you’ll get to the bottom of all this. You and the FBI, looking for those missing folders.”
“Did Holland tell you about that?”
“Only because he thought I might know something. As if I’d tell
“And?”
She shook her head.
“No idea. All I know for sure is that the old Gordon has been dead much longer than the one you knew. Maybe that’s what you’ll find hiding in those folders-the old Gordon.”
“I’ll let you know.”
She nodded and picked up the glass of cognac. Then she thought better of it and set it back down. When she next spoke, all the energy was drained from her voice.
“Help me to bed, will you? I’m kind of tired.”
Viv took his arm and wobbled toward the bedroom. He tucked her in, the way he had once tucked Karen in as a child. She shut her eyes and took his hand. For a harrowing moment he was convinced she had decided to die, and would do so then and there. But within seconds she was sound asleep.
Her other hand still held a cigarette with a drooping column of ash. Nat gently took it from her fingers and stubbed it out. Yes, Gordon was a drunk, but Nat wondered how many times the old fellow must have kept Viv from burning down the house. Like most enduring couples, they had developed an unspoken symbiosis. How long would Viv last now that Gordon’s half of the survival equation was missing? He made a mental note to check up on her when he could. It was the least he could do for Gordon.
He walked quietly back to the living room and again looked over the items from Gordon’s strange bequest. Mere trivia? Nat doubted it. Especially after hearing of Gordon’s trip to the Hitler bunker. The items had the feel of encoded knowledge, a gift from one historian to another, and Nat felt the first stirrings of an excitement that he hadn’t experienced in ages. Gordon, who in life had done so much to damage his zeal, was now reawakening it in death. Already Nat felt fiercely proprietary about these objects. Maybe he shouldn’t tell Berta about them, or anyone else. It was, in other words, the usual dilemma of the treasure hunter. Who else could be trusted with the map?
He tucked the box under his arm and strolled out into the night, too restless to simply drive back into town. Moonlight illuminated the trailhead that Gordon and he had walked so many times before, and visibility was so good that Nat decided to enjoy the smells and sounds of the night forest before heading back. It would feel good to stretch his legs after such a strange and exhausting day.
Only a few feet in, he picked up a scent that was strangely out of place-a faint trace of aftershave or cologne. Maybe Willis Turner’s warning of a stranger from the Middle East was preying on his mind, because when he sniffed again the smell was gone. Nat scanned the path to the front and rear. Empty. He chased the thought from his mind and continued. He didn’t intend to walk far. No sense turning his ankle in the dark with so much work to be done.
After about a quarter mile, and just as he was hitting his stride, he stopped to turn back. As he did, he heard a muffled disturbance in the brush perhaps twenty yards behind. He listened intently, but there was nothing more. He started back slowly, then picked up the pace. If someone had been pursuing him, now he was in pursuit, so why
