“I told you, MI5 ordered me to drop my Mulder inquiry. I should have pretended to let go. I didn’t.” She smiled ruefully.
“So they began tailing you?”
“Someone was. They wanted to stop me. And if I disappeared they would know where I’d gone. They might even have warned Mulder. God knows why. I needed to get them off my trail. Make them think I’d been kidnapped. Maybe killed.”
“You set it up to look like Gambatti. You’d targeted him long before you met me.
You just needed a sucker to get you closer.” I couldn’t help the accusation in my voice.
“I needed your help.”
“Why my help? Why me, Eve?”
She ran her hands over her face. “You were on the front pages. You were in the right business. You could get me access to the underworld. And…”
“And?”
“You’d probably spot the watchers.”
I thought for a long minute. “So that when you vanished I’d be able to back up the kidnap story?”
She nodded. “More or less.”
“I don’t get it. The moment I began to tell you about the watchers you clammed up. You denied it. You ditched me, Eve, because of them!”
By the moonlight seeping through the curtains I could see the glitter trickling down her cheeks. She rubbed the blanket at her eyes.
“You’d just saved me from two of Gambatti’s hard men. Gunmen. You didn’t think.
Just acted. A big daft hero.”
“So?”
“If that’s how you were going to react… If I was in worse trouble… you were going to put your life at risk.”
I shrugged. “And?”
“I hadn’t expected… it wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“What?” I asked softly.
Her voice was at a whisper. “That I’d fall in love. I didn’t want you dead.”
I got up and sat beside her on the couch. I put my arms round her and held her while she shook and wept. A while later I guided her through to the bed and we lay on it, spooned together like babes in the wood. Sleep quickly carried her away from me. I lay for what seemed hours, waiting for the running feet in the night and the shouts of Raus, Raus!
TWENTY
Next morning I ventured out. We were starving and I had a couple of dollars left for food. I also wanted information. I assumed the manhunt for us was well underway. Four Russian soldiers had seen the three of us hightail it from the scene of the crime. Mulder’s lover boy – if he survived – would corroborate. And a dozen terrified sharpshooters at the sector checkpoint had seen three ashen faces bearing down at them in a two-ton Merc. The Brandenburg Gate was a congregating point right smack in the middle of the city. We could hardly have got more publicity out of the front page of the Daily Trumpet. The question was who would be coming after us? The Brits? Russians? The military? Police? Or the lot of them?
Much depended on how Gideon’s death and glory mission had climaxed. Had he got far enough away to divert them from us? Had he died in a fireball so violent that they couldn’t tell if there were three bodies in the car or one? Or had he ground to a halt, still alive, and been tortured till he’d disclosed who we were and where we were hiding? My guess was Gideon had died fighting or in the explosion we heard. If they had taken him alive and made him confess in his dying minutes, we would have had a reveille from Russian storm-troopers.
It was a glorious day and the sunshine gave me unwarranted hope. I no longer had a gun to hide so I went without my jacket. I was in grubby rolled-up shirt-sleeves and open neck. But I’d borrowed Eve’s beret to hide my red hair.
It was tight but not much different from my old army version. I decided to wander back up the road to see what I could see at the Gate. A clichй of my own making: the criminal returning to the scene of the crime. Stupid if there was anyone around who could recognise me.
I tried to walk nonchalantly, hands in pocket, as I came to the corner of the last building before the roads opened up and led to the Gate. I stood with my back against the wall and lit up, as though I hadn’t a care. The Gate was about four hundred yards away in open ground. The sun was behind me so I got a good view. There was a cordon round one part of the Gate and if I screwed my eyes up I could make out the burnt wreckage of the car. Gideon hadn’t fooled around.
He’d gone straight for it like Jimmy Cagney charging the Feds, both guns blazing and roaring like a stag in heat. There were plenty of guards round the wreck, some in Russian uniform and some from our own side. There were also plenty of gawpers, so I didn’t feel too conspicuous wandering over.
I feared seeing the charred body of Gideon in the heap of twisted metal, but the car was mercifully clear of burnt remains. The front was stoved in and fire had swept through the rest, but it was recognisably my Merc. Vic’s Merc. Where Gideon had hit the wall was blackened in smoke. Guards were shoving people away.
I asked one of my fellow ghouls what had happened.
“A madman killed himself in protest at the rationing.”
“No, no,” another guy interrupted. “It was one of Hitler’s generals. He had been hiding but became insane and made a last assault on the Russians. A brave man,” he whispered.
I would get no sense here and turned and walked away. A voice behind me called out, “McRae? That you, McRae?”
I walked faster, trying to put people between me and him. I broke clear of the crowds around the gate and began to trot. It was never a good idea to run in a place so brimful of guilt. But the guy behind me wasn’t to be shaken off.
“McRae! Stop, Danny! Stop or I’ll shoot, so help me god!”
I stopped and turned round and waited for him to catch me up. He was breathless but he was also in uniform and holding his service pistol.
“Hello, Vic.”
“You stupid sod! I nearly shot you.”
“In the back? Vic, how could you?”
“Because of what you did to my car, you bastard!” He was right in my face and angry, but at least he’d lowered his gun.
We locked gazes till he laughed. “What the fuck is going on, Danny? Have you any idea the shit I’m in? This car isn’t – wasn’t! – exactly inconspicuous. I got hauled out of bed at five this morning by a bunch of pissed-off Redcaps wanting to know why I’d tried to demolish the fucking Brandenburg Gate, and mow down half the fucking Russian army in the process? Not to mention – not to fucking mention! – shooting District Controller Heinrich fucking Mulder himself!”
“Vic, I can understand you’re a wee bit upset…”
“A wee bit fucking upset!”
“Vic, don’t shout. You’ll draw attention to us. Let me buy you a beer and explain.” I took his arm and led him like a recalcitrant child back to the shelter of the shattered buildings. We found a bar, and though it was barely nine o’clock they found us a beer each. I made him pay.
“I’m sorry about the car,” I started.
“You’re sorry!”
“You’re shouting again.”
He sat back and folded his arms. “I’m waiting.”
I checked the room. The barman was listening to the radio, a mix of news and music from Voice of America.
