start torturing you the following morning. Four more hours and a catheter would have been an impossibility.”
“Oh. I see.” In that light the loss of a leg was a minor inconvenience.
Dr. Stronberg was about to retreat to the door. But he paused and said, “That’s an interesting birthmark you have. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
“Birthmark?” Michael asked. “What birthmark?”
Stronberg looked puzzled. “Under your left arm, of course.”
Michael lifted his arm, and had a shock of surprise. From the armpit to his hip were streaks of sleek, black hair. Wolf hair, he realized. With all the stress to his mind and body, he had not fully changed back since leaving Falkenhausen.
“Fascinating,” Stronberg said. He leaned closer to look at the streaks. “That’s one for a dermatologist’s journal.”
“I’m sure it is.” Michael lowered his arm and clasped it to his side.
Stronberg walked past Chesna to the door. “We’ll start you on solids tomorrow. Some meat with your broth.”
“I don’t want any damned broth. I want a steak. Very rare.”
“Your stomach’s not ready for that,” Stronberg said, and he left the room.
“What day is this?” Michael asked Chesna after the doctor had gone. “The date?”
“May seventh.” Chesna walked to a window and peered out at the forest, her face washed with afternoon light. “In answer to your next question, we’re in the house of a friend, about forty miles northwest of Berlin. The nearest village is a small hamlet called Rossow, eleven miles to the west. So we’re safe here, and you can rest easy.”
“I don’t want to rest. I’ve got a mission to finish.” Even as he said it, he felt whatever Stronberg had given him beginning to work. His tongue was numb, and he was getting drowsy again.
“We received a radio code from London four days ago.” Chesna turned from the window to look at him. “The invasion’s been scheduled for the fifth of June. I’ve radioed back the message that our assignment is incomplete, and that the invasion may be in jeopardy. I’m still waiting for a reply.”
“I think I know what Iron Fist is,” Michael said, and he began to tell her about his Flying Fortress theory. She listened intently, with no evidence that she agreed or disagreed: a poker face. “I don’t think the plane’s hangared in Norway,” he told her, “because that’s too far from the invasion beaches. But Hildebrand knows where the plane is. We’ve got to get to Skarpa…” His vision was fogging up, the taste of medicine thick in his mouth, “… and find out what Hildebrand’s developed.”
“You can’t go anywhere. Not in the shape you’re in. It would be better if I chose a team myself and flew them up.”
“No! Listen to me… your friends may be good at breaking into a prison camp… but Skarpa’s going to be a hell of a lot tougher. You need a professional for the job.”
“Like yourself?”
“Right. I can be ready to go in six days.”
“Dr. Stronberg said two weeks.”
“I don’t give a damn what he said!” He felt a flush of anger. “Stronberg doesn’t know me. I can be ready in six days… providing I get some meat.”
Chesna smiled faintly. “I believe you’re serious.”
“I am. And no more tranquilizers or whatever it is that Stronberg’s stuck into me. Understand?”
She paused, thinking it over. Then: “I’ll tell him.”
“One more thing. Have you… thought about the possibility that… we may run into fighter planes between here and Skarpa?”
“Yes. I’m willing to take that risk.”
“If you get shot, I don’t care to… go down in flames. You’ll need a copilot. Do you have one?”
Chesna shook her head.
“Talk to Lazaris,” Michael said. “You might… find him very interesting.”
“That beast? He’s a flier?”
“Just talk to him.” Michael’s eyelids were getting heavy. It was hard to fight against the twilight. Better to rest, he thought. Rest, and fight again tomorrow.
Chesna stayed beside the bed until he was asleep. Her face softened, and she reached out to touch his hair but he shifted his position and she pulled her hand back. When she’d realized he and Mouse had been captured, she’d almost gone crazy with worry, and not because she feared he would spill secrets. Seeing him emerge from the forest-filthy and mottled with bruises, his face hollowed by hunger and the ordeal of captivity-had almost made her faint. But how had he tracked them through the woods? How?
Who are you? she mentally asked the sleeping man. Lazaris had inquired how his friend “Gallatinov” was doing. Was the man British, or Russian? Or some other, more arcane nationality? Even in his drained condition, he was a handsome man-but there was something lonely about him. Something lost. All her life, she’d been brought up on the taste of silver spoons; this was a man who knew the taste of dirt. There was a cardinal rule in the secret service; do not become emotionally involved. To break that rule might lead to untold suffering and death. But she was tired-so very tired-of being an actress. And living life without emotion was like playing a part for the critics instead of the audience: there was no joy in it, only stagecraft.
The baron-Gallatinov, or whatever his name might be-shivered in his sleep. She saw the flesh of his arms rise in goose bumps. She remembered washing him, not with a hose but with a scrub brush as he lay unconscious in a tub of warm water. She had scrubbed the lice from his scalp, his chest, beneath his arms, and in his pubic hair. She had shaved him and washed his hair, and she had done all that because no one else would. That was her job, but her job did not require that her heart ache as she’d cleaned the grime from the lines in his face.
Chesna pulled the sheet up around his neck. His eyes opened-a glint of green-but the drugs were strong, and he went under again. She wished him a good sleep, beyond this world of nightmares, and closed the door quietly when she left.
2
Less than eighteen hours after he’d first awakened, Michael Gallatin was on his feet. He relieved himself in a bedpan. His urine was still blushed with blood, but there was no pain. His thigh throbbed, though his legs were sturdy. He paced the room, testing himself, and found he walked with a limp. Without painkillers and tranquilizers in his system, his nerves felt raw, but his mind was clear. It had turned toward Norway, and what he had to do to get himself ready.
He lay on the pinewood floor and slowly stretched his muscles. Deep pain gnawed at him as he worked. Back on the floor, legs up, crunch head toward knees. Stomach to the floor, lift chin and legs at the same time. Slow push-ups that made his shoulder and back muscles scream. Sit on the floor, knees bent, and ever so slowly lower the back almost to the floor, linger past the point of agony, and come up again. A light sheen of sweat glowed on Michael’s skin. Blood pumped through his veins and gorged his muscles, and his heart reached a hard rhythm. Six days, he thought as he breathed raggedly. I’ll be ready.
A woman with gray-streaked brown hair brought his dinner: strained vegetables and a hash of finely chopped beef. “Baby food,” Michael told her, but he ate every bit. Dr. Stronberg returned to check him again. His fever was down, and the wheezing in his lungs had decreased. He had, however, popped three stitches. Stronberg warned him to stay in bed and rest, and that was the end of the visit.
A night later, another helping of ghastly beef hash in his stomach, Michael stood in the darkness and eased his window open. He slipped out, into the silent forest, and stood beneath an elm tree as he changed from man to wolf. The rest of his stitches popped open, but the thigh wound didn’t bleed. It was another scar to add to his collection. He loped on all fours through the woods, breathing the fragrant, clean air. A squirrel caught his attention, and he was on it before it could reach its tree. His mouth watered as he consumed the meat and fluids, then he spat out the bones and hair and continued on his jaunt. At a farmhouse perhaps two miles from the cottage, a dog barked and howled at Michael’s scent. Michael sprayed a fence post, just to let the dog know its place.
He sat atop a grassy knoll and stared at the stars. On such a beautiful night as this, the question had to be
