This was death luck, John knew. Because his resolve remained steely, it generated power. The power acted differently on different people. It blinded the woman to the truth because she did not wish to see reality for what it was.
She dropped him off in a suburb of Paris, one much older than where he had slain the CID agents.
John thanked her and watched the Bristol scoot away. Then he put on his jacket and strolled down the street. This one had large maple trees so he walked in shade the entire time.
His information was two years old. It might well be stale. People changed with the times, with new ideas and with successes or failures. This was a gamble, he knew. John shrugged, and he turned onto a well-kept path. Rose bushes abounded, each bush cut to an exact height and with large flowers. Was that a good or bad omen?
John decided it was good. He believed it showed a personality that didn’t like change. Did that mean the owner of the house was an ardent French nationalist? Possibly. It might also mean someone who hated Germans, which wasn’t quite the same thing. In any case, it was time to see if the secret service agent could help him or not.
While climbing the three steps, John almost decided to revert to smiling again. No. That would be a mistake. He was the hormagaunt. The more he hewed to his true self, the better and safer he would be. Boldness would give him an advantage. He had already wasted too much time.
He pressed the doorbell and heard chimes inside. Too much time passed. He leaned close to the door and listened. It had a metal safety screen, which indicated a cautious personality. He couldn’t hear anyone or anything inside. Finally, he knocked loudly.
After a few seconds, slow footsteps approached.
“Who is there?” a woman asked, an older lady, he would guess.
“I’m John Red Cloud from Quebec,” he said.
She paused before saying, “The name is not familiar to me.”
“It will be to your son,” he said.
“You are a friend of his?”
He had guessed right, that this was the mother. “I am,” John said, “a long lost friend, a hidden friend.”
She paused again. Then the lock turned and the inside door opened. Because of the sunlight, John couldn’t see through the security door. He smelled baking bread, though, a warm and friendly odor.
“I don’t recognize you,” she said, sounding closer and yet invisible to him.
“Your son is Peter Francis,” John said. “He works for the French secret service. I met him in Quebec two years ago.”
“Oh, my,” she said. “Well…he’s not home.”
“I realize that. I need to give you a package.” He needed to get past the security door.
“Oh.” The woman hesitated. “Very well, leave it on the porch.”
A ghost of a smile tugged at John’s mouth. It wasn’t out of happiness, but the sad realization that his death luck might be departing. It had been a risk waiting so many days. A hormagaunt’s luck only lasted so long and no longer. Yet he had needed to lie low. Every instinct he possessed had told him so.
“My instructions were to put the package into your hands,” he said.
“I’m—”
“This is very important,” John added.
“Oh, dear,” she said, sounding miffed. “If you insist, I suppose.” A lock clicked and she eased open the security door, sticking out a thin old hand with trembling fingers.
John ripped the door open and stepped inside, forcing her back. She wore a red dress with thick stockings, had gray hair and showed shocked surprise and then dismay.
“Everything will be fine,” he said, closing the security door behind him.
“Please,” she said, “you must go outside and—”
He gripped a frail, upper arm and marched her deeper into the house, slamming the inner door shut.
“What are you doing?” she complained.
“You made the right decision,” John told her. “I’m your son’s friend. I’m France’s friend. Now sit down while I explain what you’re going to do.”
She would phone her son and tell him to hurry home. Then John would speak to him. If his death luck held, the son would agree and the assassination plot would go forward. If he had waited too long to strike…
Maybe it was time to the pray to the old gods. No. If they were real, they had already failed him once already. He would stick to the death power and win or lose on its strength alone.
GD Sergeant Hans Kruger woke up with a start. A burly guard with a nightstick dangling from his belt shook him awake.
Hans stared up in fright at the sour-looking individual. The man had a crew cut and a face like dough, with a trickle of fluid oozing from the left eye. Up near the ceiling and behind the guard’s head glared a single light bulb.
“Get up,” the guard said. The man had rank garlic breath.
Trying not to make a face due to the foul odor, Hans sat up in a sterile room. He had a cot with a threadbare blanket, a steel stink and five feet of pacing room. It was worse than a monk’s cell. And all he had for clothes were white jockey shorts. They’d taken everything else.
He’d entered the cramped submarine yesterday morning and traveled to the other shore of Lake Ontario. They hadn’t docked, but about three hundred meters from shore he’d jumped into a speedboat together with his two captors. He still remembered the boat’s bottom scraping up against a muddy beach. Several cars waited for them on a nearby road. His two captors had jogged to a different vehicle, and it had followed his car. He hadn’t seen those two since. Last night, Mr. Nightstick or his twin took his clothes and watched him shower as he’d washed with sandpaper-like soap. He’d spent most of the night staring up at the black ceiling of his cell, wondering what these changes would bring him.
“Go that way,” Mr. Nightstick said.
Hans wanted to ask for clothes, but he was too afraid. On naked feet, he padded through empty corridors of white tile. His eyes felt as gritty as last night’s soap and his stomach grumbled. What did they plan to do to him?
“Stop,” the guard said.
The man unlocked a heavy door, opening it and pointing inside a room.
Hans entered, and he heard the door slam shut behind him. There was a table, two chairs and a mirror along a wall. He sat down, put his hands on the table and waited. He didn’t look at the mirror. He suspected others stood behind it, watching him.
Time passed, and Hans shivered at the coolness of the cell. His stomach rumbled several times and he wanted a drink as his mouth was dry and stale.
Abruptly, a key turned and the heavy door swung open. Three people walked in: Mr. Nightstick, a narrow- faced man in his thirties with a brown suit and a goatee and an exceptionally pretty woman in a green uniform with a white blouse. Mr. Goatee took the chair across the table from him. Mr. Nightstick stood near the door, crossing his arms and staring belligerently. The woman walked around the table and stood behind him.
Hans twisted around to watch her. She didn’t wear pants, but a dress, nylons and heels. She had exceptional legs, better than the Turkish prostitutes he’d used.
The man with the goatee cleared his throat.
Hans faced him.
“Don’t worry about Ms. Norton,” the man said. “She’s a psychologist and will assess the truthfulness of your words.”
Hans opened his mouth to speak.
The man with the goatee held up a slender hand. When Hans closed his mouth, the man nodded and leaned back in his chair.
“Call me Karl,” the man said. “Do you understand English?”
Hans nodded.
“You will refrain from gestures and speak your answers,” Karl said.
