to their hard brilliance.
“Susan—”
“Where is he?”
“In another hospital. A British one. He’ll be fine there. He’ll be all right. If it’s a matter of worrying about him, then please don’t. We’ll take good care of him. He’s quite important.”
“You have no idea what that man’s been through.”
“I think perhaps I do. It’s been very rough on him, sure, we realize—”
“You have no idea, Jim. You can’t possibly begin toimagine. If you think you can, then you’re fooling yourself. Believe me.”
Leets said nothing.
“Why? For Christ’s sakes,
why?
You kidnap a poor Jew. Like Cossacks, you come in and just take him. Why?”
“He’s an intelligence source. An extraordinary one. We believe he’s the key to a high-priority German operation. We believe we can work backward from the information he gives us and track it down. And stop it.”
“You bastard. You have no idea of the stakes involved, of what he means to those people.”
“Susan, believe me: I had no choice. I was walking down a London street a few nights ago with a woman I love. All of a sudden she unreels a story that struck right at the heart of something I’d been working on since January. You needed a witness? Well, I needed one too. I had no way of knowing they’d turn out to be the same man.”
“You and that bastard Englishman. You were the officers that came by the clinic yesterday. I should have known. Dr. Fischelson said investigators. I thought of cops. But no, it was you and that Oxford creep. You’d do anything for them, won’t you, Jim?
Anything!
To get in with the Oxford boys, the Harvard boys. You’ve come a long way from Northwestern, goddamn you.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t send the Jew to Anlage Elf in the Schwarzwald. I didn’t set him among the Waffen SS and the Man of Oak and Obersturmbannführer Repp. The Germans did that. I’ve got to find out why.”
“You bastard.”
“Please. Be reasonable.”
“That’s what you people always say. That’s what we’ve been hearing since 1939. Be reasonable. Don’t exaggerate. Stay calm. Keep your voice down.”
“Yell then, if it makes you feel better.”
“You’re all the same. You and the Germans. You’re all—”
“Shut up, Susan. You’ve got no call to say that.”
She stared at him in black fury. He’d never seen so much rage on a human face. He swallowed uncomfortably, lit a cigarette. His hands were shaking.
“Here, I brought you something.” She reached into her purse. “Go ahead. Look. Go ahead, you’re brave. I insist.”
It was a selection of photographs. Blurry, pornographic things. Naked women in fields, standing among German soldiers. Pits jammed with corpses. One, particularly horrible, showed a German soldier in full combat gear, holding a rifle up against the head of a woman who held a child.
“It’s awful,” he said. “Jesus, of course it’s awful. What do you expect me to say? It’s awful, all of it. All right? Goddamn it, what do you want? I had a fucking job to do. I didn’t ask for it, it just came along. So get off my back, goddamn it.”
“Dr. Fischelson has an interesting theory. Would you like to hear it? It’s that the Gentiles are still punishing us for inventing the conscience five thousand years ago. But what they don’t realize is that when they kill us, they kill themselves.”
“Is that a theory or a curse?”
“If it’s a curse, Jim, I extend it to you. From the bottomof my heart, I hope this thing kills you. I hope it does. I hope it kills you.”
“I think you’d better go now. I’ve still got work to do.”
She left him, alone in the office. The pictures lay before him on the desk. After a while, he ripped them up and threw them into the wastebasket.
Early the next morning, before the interrogations began, Leets composed the following request and with Outhwaithe’s considerable juice got it priority circulation as an addendum to the weekly Intelligence Sitrep,
“Susan—”
“Where is he?”
“In another hospital. A British one. He’ll be fine there. He’ll be all right. If it’s a matter of worrying about him, then please don’t. We’ll take good care of him. He’s quite important.”
“You have no idea what that man’s been through.”
“I think perhaps I do. It’s been very rough on him, sure, we realize—”
“You have no idea, Jim. You can’t possibly begin toimagine. If you think you can, then you’re fooling yourself. Believe me.”
Leets said nothing.
“Why? For Christ’s sakes,
why?
You kidnap a poor Jew. Like Cossacks, you come in and just take him. Why?”
“He’s an intelligence source. An extraordinary one. We believe he’s the key to a high-priority German operation. We believe we can work backward from the information he gives us and track it down. And stop it.”
“You bastard. You have no idea of the stakes involved, of what he means to those people.”
“Susan, believe me: I had no choice. I was walking down a London street a few nights ago with a woman I love. All of a sudden she unreels a story that struck right at the heart of something I’d been working on since January. You needed a witness? Well, I needed one too. I had no way of knowing they’d turn out to be the same man.”
“You and that bastard Englishman. You were the officers that came by the clinic yesterday. I should have known. Dr. Fischelson said investigators. I thought of cops. But no, it was you and that Oxford creep. You’d do anything for them, won’t you, Jim?
Anything!
To get in with the Oxford boys, the Harvard boys. You’ve come a long way from Northwestern, goddamn you.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t send the Jew to Anlage Elf in the Schwarzwald. I didn’t set him among the Waffen SS and the Man of Oak and Obersturmbannführer Repp. The Germans did that. I’ve got to find out why.”
“You bastard.”
“Please. Be reasonable.”
“That’s what you people always say. That’s what we’ve been hearing since 1939. Be reasonable. Don’t exaggerate. Stay calm. Keep your voice down.”
“Yell then, if it makes you feel better.”
“You’re all the same. You and the Germans. You’re all—”
“Shut up, Susan. You’ve got no call to say that.”
She stared at him in black fury. He’d never seen so much rage on a human face. He swallowed uncomfortably, lit a cigarette. His hands were shaking.
“Here, I brought you something.” She reached into her purse. “Go ahead. Look. Go ahead, you’re brave. I insist.”
It was a selection of photographs. Blurry, pornographic things. Naked women in fields, standing among German soldiers. Pits jammed with corpses. One, particularly horrible, showed a German soldier in full combat gear, holding a rifle up against the head of a woman who held a child.
“It’s awful,” he said. “Jesus, of course it’s awful. What do you expect me to say? It’s awful, all of it. All right? Goddamn it, what do you want? I had a fucking job to do. I didn’t ask for it, it just came along. So get off my back, goddamn it.”
“Dr. Fischelson has an interesting theory. Would you like to hear it? It’s that the Gentiles are still punishing us for inventing the conscience five thousand years ago. But what they don’t realize is that when they kill us, they kill themselves.”
“Is that a theory or a curse?”
“If it’s a curse, Jim, I extend it to you. From the bottomof my heart, I hope this thing kills you. I hope it does. I hope it kills you.”
“I think you’d better go now. I’ve still got work to do.”
She left him, alone in the office. The pictures lay before him on the desk. After a while, he ripped them up and threw them into the wastebasket.
Early the next morning, before the interrogations began, Leets composed the following request and with Outhwaithe’s considerable juice got it priority circulation as an addendum to the weekly Intelligence Sitrep,
Similar Books
