They had to clean out the wound and re-stitch it. Rita told me about the penicillin they gave me. It's a miracle drug. Do you know about it?'
'More than I want to. I've got a lot to tell you-'
'Tell both of us, Boyle.' The deep voice of Major Sam Harding boomed out from the doorway where he stood; the expression on his face said he was not pleased. Gloria Morgan stood right in back of him. Her face told a different story. She looked very happy to be in the major's company. She gave me a little raise of her eyebrow and a coy smile, then vanished as Harding shut the door behind him, but not before he'd given her a smile and a nod. I had a feeling they'd be doing some catching up later.
'How are you, Lieutenant Kazimierz?' Harding asked as he took off his helmet and sat next to Kaz's bed on the chair I had occupied before his arrival.
'Fine, sir. My arm hurts a bit, but they said that would pass. I am very lucky Billy got me here in time.'
'Good. Now tell me what the hell is going on,' Harding said, his eyes drilling me. 'This morning I got your message that you'd brought I Lieutenant Kazimierz here, but I assumed it was just to check his wound. Then I get a phone call from Gloria… Captain Morgan… informing me that it was gangrene and that oh, by the way, the CO here wants you to investigate a murder!'
'Bet it was a real surprise hearing from her, Major.' I said.
His look said the topic was off limits. The room went totally silent.
Kaz glanced between us. 'Do you know Captain Morgan, Major?' he asked, tentatively. A couple of seconds passed very slowly as Harding turned his gaze toward Kaz, who obviously was unaware of their history. Some of the grimness left Harding's face, mostly because he wasn't looking at me anymore. It made me wonder about what had happened between him and Gloria. And what might happen next.
'Yes. We served together for a while back in the States. She's career Army Medical Corps.'
More silence. That was going to be it. I looked at Kaz. He looked at Harding. Harding looked at me. Right back where we started.
'Start at the beginning, Boyle,' Harding said as he shook a cigarrette out of a pack of Lucky Strikes and lit up with his Zippo. That reminded me of Willoughby's Chesterfields.
'Just one quick question, first,' I said, 'sir.' Always helps to remember to call 'em sir when they're in a bad mood. 'Those little four-packs of Chesterfields, do they only come in K-Rations?'
'Yes,' answered Harding. 'Why?'
'And K-Rations are only issued to guys in the front-lines, right?'
'Who else would want to eat them? Now what's this all about?'
I thought about Willoughby and how he was probably just a little rat who pilfered supplies when he had the chance. That was a court martial offense, but turning him in wouldn't get me anywhere. Better to leave a little leverage in case I needed it later.
'Probably nothing. Not worth going into. So where do we start Kaz?'
We were each thinking fast, trying to come up with some explanation as to how we'd gotten the information from Bessette's office. An explanation that didn't involve rooftops and late night burglary.
'Late last night we made contact with Agency Africa,' Kaz blurted out first, as if he didn't trust me to concoct a good story. I had forgotten that his job was to find out if any part of the pre-war Polish spy network still existed and make contact after we were established in Algiers. 'We asked if they knew anything about the political prisoners,' Kaz continued, 'and gave them the names of the French officers involved, Villard and Bessette.' Then he looked up at me. Not a bad cover story. I picked it up, using Agency Africa as the source of the information I'd discovered.
'They said Bessette is as crooked as they come, that he's involved in drug smuggling. He recently had a French Army officer killed after he threatened to expose him.'
'Do they have proof?' Harding asked.
'An eyewitness, but no other hard evidence. They did tell us two things about the supply depot at Bone where Villard was headed with the prisoners. First is the password: Le Carrefour.'
'Crossroads,' Kaz translated for us.
'Go on,' said Harding. I took a deep breath. It was just a hunch, and I had been wrong before, but there was something about that matchbook, and all those bills in Bessette's desk drawer.
'A contact for the smuggling operation can be made in a bar, Le Bar Bleu, in Bone, near the supply depot. There's a link between Villard, the prisoners, and the smuggling operation.'
I didn't know that there was such a link. Maybe Bessette just collected matchbooks. But I had to keep this thing going in the same direction that Diana was headed, or I'd never see her again.
'Interesting,' said Harding, giving me a once-over that said he believed me about as much as he believed we'd be home by Christmas. 'What was the name of this contact?'
I looked at Kaz, who simply shrugged. 'We were not given a name, Major.'
'Man or woman?' he asked. We both hesitated for a heartbeat, but It was long enough for Harding.
'Never mind,' Harding said, 'I don't want to undermine the enthusiasm of my junior officers, even if they use unorthodox and illegal means.'
'You know!' I exclaimed.
'All I know is that you have about fifty feet of rope stowed under your cot, and there was a dark rust-colored stain on the floor in Bessette's office when I met him there this morning. Some Arabs delivered a new rug and rolled it out while I was there. Even a regular army guy can figure stuff out sometimes, Boyle.'
'Did he tell you anything?'
'Regular appointments are nice but this one didn't yield as much information as your unannounced visit. I told him we were concerned about the fate of civilian prisoners taken after the attempted coup. He told me it was none of his business since it was a police matter, and none of mine since it was a French police matter.'
'Major, I saw him bash in the head of a French Army captain who was yelling at him about drugs, smuggling, Americans-I couldn't understand most of it. Bessette grabbed a candlestick and killed him With it. His guards reacted like it was business as usual.' 'Americans? What do you think he meant by that?' 'I don't know, sir. I couldn't make it out. It sounded like the captain-Pierre was the only name I heard-was threatening Bessette. Bessette pretended to give in, then picked up the candlestick and beaned Pierre. It was all over in a second.'
'Then what happened?'
'They left with the body wrapped in the rug he fell on. I went through Bessette's desk and files as best I could. I found the password written on a copy of the same travel orders we found at police headquarters. I figure this place may have something to do with it.' I handed Harding the blue matchbook for Le Bar Bleu.
'And when do we get to the murder you're investigating?'
'Oh, yeah. Noncom named Joe Casselli got his throat slit this afternoon. He was the supply sergeant, in charge of this penicillin as well as all the other medical drugs. Do you know about this stuff, sir?'
'I do, but you shouldn't. These medical people should learn to keep their mouths shut. This is a top-secret test. If everything works like the eggheads say it should, penicillin is going to save thousands of lives. And only we have it.'
'Do the Germans know that?' Kaz asked.
'They know all about penicillin. The trick isn't making it, it's producing enough of it to be useful. This hospital's supply is the first batch from a new production process. That's why we want to keep it a secret.'
'So this stuff is valuable?' I asked.
'Billy,' Kaz said, 'I would be dead without it. I think it's very valuable.'
'Exactly,' said Harding. 'There's no telling what it would be worth on the black market. Is any of it missing?'
'They're doing an inventory now. We can go check over at the depot. As far as the murder goes, I'm pretty sure who did it.'
'Who?' Kaz and Harding asked at the same time.
'Villard. I saw him driving out of here in a truck, wearing an American uniform, just before they found Casselli's body. I'll bet that truck was full of medical supplies, including penicillin.'
'Goddamn,' Harding said. Kaz said something in Polish that was probably along the same lines.
'I do have some good news, though. Remember Georgie- Lieutenant Dupree? He had a younger brother, Jerome, who was with the rebels? Well, he's here, in the hospital. He was all worked up about a notebook that the
