breath to spare, I couldn't say another word. My boots scrabbled at the bare wall, trying to find a hold. I anchored my jaw on the concrete sill next to the bars. There was no more strength in my arms.
Our lips touched. I tasted blood, then fell away.
It was like falling in a dream, when it takes a long time but then you hit the ground and all the air comes out of you and you wake up. Except I was already awake.
Harding got me on his shoulders again but by the time I managed to hoist myself up next, all I saw was legs moving away, toward the trucks. I couldn't hold on any longer; my arms were gone, weak and shaking. I slid down to the floor and cradled my head in my hands. Sticky blood from my cheeks and jaw oozed between my fingers and I could feel gritty flecks of concrete flake away from my face as I rubbed my eyes. The worst thing was, I felt relieved Diana was gone. I didn't know if I could take seeing her again, tied up like that. I wanted to be with her, to keep her safe, not to hang onto bars while she threw herself to the ground for half a kiss before they took her away to who the hell knows where. At first, all I could think about was her, until I forced myself to recall images of home and work back in the States.
A memory came to me, a crazy one, of the time I was walking my beat in Boston and a car almost hit a lady crossing the street against traffic. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, didn't want to believe it. It was headed straight for her, then swerved, just missing her. I had felt relief, and my whole body loosened up. She stood there, scared out of her wits, and surprised she was still alive. I can still remember the look she gave me, joy and fear mixing at the sudden shock of near-death, then salvation. Then another car sped around the corner and hit her straight on, sending her flying as she bounced off the hood and rolled to the ground, arms and legs bent in different directions and no look at all on her face. I stood there, shouting 'No, no, no,' jumping up and down, trying to will away what I had seen, feeling guilty I hadn't been able to stop it.
I lifted my head from my hands and let it fall back and hit the wall with a thunk. It hurt and felt good at the same time, knocking my thoughts off that track for a second. I tried to think of something positive. A little part of me was still happy at the memory of those eyes, of Diana looking at me and getting close enough for a kiss. A flicker of joy crept up but then I felt fear. I might never see her again. She might die, still wondering where I was and when I was going to come for her. I felt jittery, as if something was about to happen I wasn't ready for. And I thought once more about that lady in Boston, looking at me in the last seconds of her life, a guy who stood there flat-footed, doing nothing.
Chapter Five
Hours passed. There was nothing to do, which usually would suit me. I'm not the kind of guy who thrives on adventure. Give me a nice routine, like walking my beat back in Boston, stopping at a diner for a cup of coffee, flirting with the waitress, twirling my baton out on the sidewalk, and watching the world go by. Seeing the same folks in their shops every day. Church on Sunday. Opening day at Fenway every April. Stuff like that.
Guys like Harding, and maybe every other GI I've run into, they all want adventure. Win the war, get a medal, whip the Nazis, smash the Japs. Me, I figure it's easy to talk tough but a lot harder to stay tough when the lead starts flying. It's not that I'm unpatriotic, I just don't have enough imagination to convince myself that war is going to be like it is in the movies. I've seen too many gunshot wounds up close to believe that. That's why I appreciate a nice, predictable, routine, boring life. Sure, you could get hit by a bus, or if you're a cop you might be one of the unlucky bastards who gets shot every now and then, but the chances are slim. The risk is a lot bigger roaming around North Africa, dodging bullets.
I thought I had it made back in Boston. I sure never thought I'd end up in a jail cell, much less a stinking Algiers jail cell. I was just enjoying being called Detective and then what happens? I get pulled out of civilian life and thrown into the army, where not even Dad's political pals could keep me out of this war. Getting into another fight alongside the English hadn't played well at the Boyle household. The Holy Catholic Church, the Boston Police Department, and the Irish Republican Army are a pretty big deal at home, although not necessarily in that order. My Dad and two uncles had gone off to fight in the Great War. Alongside the English. Only two of them came back, and they were pretty bitter. So I'd been brought up to believe that the only thing worth dying for, other than family and a brother officer, of course, was a free Ireland. One night, right after Pearl Harbor, Dad and Uncle Dan laid it on the line for me. It took a few beers at the tavern before they got around to it, but I knew something was up when Uncle Dan drained his fourth draft and told me this wasn't our war because no one had attacked a Boyle, or Boston, or any part of Ireland. Uncle Dan's a cop too, a detective just like my Dad. He's also a real IRA man, unlike Dad. He didn't like the idea of another Boyle dying for the 'fucking Brits,' but other than that sentiment, which I couldn't really argue with, they didn't have much of a plan.
Mom did. As usual. She recalled a relative on her mother's side who had married a guy who'd gone to West Point and worked himself up to general. He worked a staff job at the War Plans Division in that new building down in Washington D.C. The Pentagon. She was sure he'd like a nice young relative with police experience to be a security officer on his staff.
She had suggested the Military Police at first, but Dad hated their guts from his days in France. He said they weren't real cops, just guys with clubs who kept an honest doughboy from his drinks and the ladies on those few occasions when he got a pass. So, no Military Police for me.
Mom called her cousin and Dad called his congressman who owed him a favor or two, and pretty soon I was going to OCS and then to Washington, D.C. to join Uncle Ike's staff. Maybe Dad had kind of oversold me. True, I was a detective on the Boston PD, but I had only been in plainclothes for a few weeks. I had worn a bluecoat and walked a beat for five years right out of high school and although Dad had me detailed to help out around crime scenes a lot, I wasn't the experienced investigator Uncle Ike thought I was. It was kind of unusual for a cop to make detective at my age. While I can usually figure things out sooner or later, I'm no scholar, and the exam they gave was real hard. A few of the sheets from the test happened to find their way into my locker one day, and I managed to pass. My Uncle Dan is on the Promotions Board, so I was in. That's the way it works. I'm not saying I'm proud of it, but it doesn't mean I'm not a good cop either. I'm not just some stranger who got the job because he was smart enough to answer more questions than the other guy. That doesn't mean a damn thing when your partner is counting on you for backup.
I had to do my best and figure things out as we went along. I hate to admit it, but I didn't want to disappoint Uncle Ike either. The guy had such a big job and such a nice smile, it seemed that it wouldn't be fair to fail and add to his burdens. He's family, after all. We were all sure he and I would sit out the war at the Pentagon. Little did we know that he had been tapped to head up the U.S. forces in Europe. And that he liked the idea of having a former cop on his staff-a family member to boot-to work as his secret special investigator. There's all kinds of crime during wartime involving top brass and politicians, and Uncle Ike doesn't like anyone getting away with anything that hurts the war effort. He also doesn't like stuff like that getting in the news. Too embarrassing for Allied unity. That's where I come in. I'm supposed to look into things for him. Quietly.
The only thing quiet about this mission was this jail cell. Everything else was loud, from the artillery fire to the gunshot that killed Georgie. Nothing I could do about that now, though. I stretched my sore back and tried to get comfortable on the hard floor.
Major Samuel Harding was not 'family,' not even close. West Point graduate, decorated combat veteran in the last war, professional soldier. My complete opposite and worst nightmare. He worked in the Intelligence section at U.S. Army Headquarters, and Uncle Ike had detailed me to be his aide. That was my cover story and my job between assignments from Uncle Ike. Such as now. Which is why I'm sitting in a jail cell in Algiers, in the basement of the Vichy secret police headquarters, wondering if some French homicidal maniac is going to shoot me before or after he shoots Diana.
Diana. Now that's a whole other story. Diana had had a sister, Daphne Seaton, Second Officer in the Women's Royal Naval Service, attached to the U.S. Headquarters in London when I got there last June. She's dead now, but I don't want to think about that. I met Diana just before it happened. She knocked my socks off. Diana and I saw each other pretty regularly until I was sent to Gibraltar with Harding and she was recalled to the SOE.
She had enlisted, at the start of the war, in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. It was a women's outfit, and they weren't actually nurses, or yeomen either. Diana had ended up as a switchboard operator for the British Expeditionary Force in Belgium in 1940. She was nearly captured, and made it out of Dunkirk only to have the
