Descendant

Napa, 1957

I returned to the States on November 22, leaving Heathrow Airport in a silvery-gray fog. With George Goodhew and Warrant Officer Tim Headley I had tracked down only two more strigoi mortii — one close to Oxford and the other in Swindon — but I was pretty sure that we had now caught all of them. There had been six or seven more outbreaks of “Korean Flu” in the London suburbs, but as far as I could tell these were the last desperate feeding frenzies of the few live Screechers who were left. After Guy Fawkes’ Day, on November 5, there were no more reported killings.

Charles Frith came to the airport himself to see me off. He wore a gray suit and tan leather gloves. “I want you to know that we deeply appreciate what you’ve managed to do for us, Captain. It’s a great pity that ah. We can never give you the public credit you so richly deserve.”

George had been carrying my Kit for me and when I reached the gate he handed it over. “Let’s hope you won’t be needing this again.”

“Thanks, George. Let’s hope so.”

I returned to New Milford but when I arrived the house was empty. Louise was in Boston, visiting her sister. I was pretty sure that she had timed the trip deliberately, so that she wouldn’t have to welcome me home, but I didn’t have any proof of it.

I had been back less than a day when I was visited by the two counterintelligence officers from Fort Holabird who had first briefed me on my mission to London — the one with the sandy hair and the one with the Clark Kent spectacles.

They came into the house with their caps tucked under their arms.

“We’ve received a very positive report back from MI6,” said the sandy-haired officer. “This little operation has done great things for our relationship with British intelligence.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that I wasn’t half-cremated for nothing.”

“You won’t be staying here for very much longer?”

“I need to pack some things, make some arrangements. Talk to my wife.”

The officer in the heavy-rimmed eyeglasses looked around the room and said, “Expect you’ll be sorry to leave. But we’ve fixed you and your wife up with a very pleasant home in Louisville.”

“Louisville, Kentucky?”

“That’s the one. A four-bedroom house with an orchard in back. And we can handle all the moving for you.”

“Why the hell would I want to live in Louisville, Kentucky?”

“Because. it’s a very friendly city. And it’s very central. And that’s where they invented the Hot Brown sandwich. And. who’s going to think of looking for you there, of all places?”

Louise refused to come with me. I can’t say that I blamed her, but she put me into an impossible position. If I stayed in New Milford with her, there was always the possibility that one of the strigoi mortii would find me, and kill me, and kill her, too, and I couldn’t expose her to a danger like that, especially since I wasn’t even allowed to tell her what the danger was.

We said a very polite good-bye, almost as if we scarcely knew each other. I took my Kit and a single suitcase and climbed into my car. There was a fresh breeze blowing and the street was filled with whirling storms of red and yellow leaves.

Louise came out of the house and I wound down the car window. “I’ll call when I get there,” I told her.

She nodded, but said nothing.

“You know that I haven’t stopped loving you, don’t you?”

“Love doesn’t mean anything without trust, Jim.”

“I’m sorry. I never wanted to have a double life. I just wanted to spend all of my time with you.”

“You can’t, though, can you?”

“No,” I admitted.

I sat there for a little while longer. Louise started to shiver, so I started up the engine and said, “I’ll be seeing you, sweetheart.”

“No you won’t.”

At Christmas I flew out to San Diego to see my father. Earlier that year he had sold the house in Mill Valley and moved south to Rancho Santa Fe, a small retirement community in the hills near Escondido. It was very quiet here, and the weather was always warm, and there was a strong fragrance of eucalyptus in the air.

He lived in a small Spanish-style cottage with a walled garden filled with flowers. He was white-haired now, but the sunshine and the gentle lifestyle had been kind to him. We sat on the red-tiled veranda on Christmas morning, drinking champagne and orange juice.

“You don’t want to get the sun on those burns of yours,” he cautioned me.

“They’re healing, Dad. Don’t worry about it.”

“Still can’t tell me what happened?”

“Secret stuff. Sorry.”

“Goddamned oppressive interfering government. If a son can’t even tell his own father how he ended up with burns all over his mush. ”

“Just like you never told me the truth about what happened to Mom.”

He looked at me over his half-glasses. “You know about that?”

I nodded. “Let’s just put it this way. what I was doing in England, that was connected with that. And a debt got repaid. That’s all I can tell you.”

“I see. Well, as a matter of fact, I don’t see.”

He sipped his champagne and orange juice for a while. Then without another word he got up from his chair and went into the living room. It was cool in there, with a draft that stirred the zigzag-patterned drapes. Most of the ornaments and pictures were familiar to me from the house in Mill Valley, although there were quite a few photographs that I didn’t recognize.

Dad sat down at the piano and started to play.

“ ‘Who made doina?

The small mouth of a baby

Left asleep by his mother

Who found him singing the doina.’

Remember that one? Your mother loved that one.”

On top of the piano stood a framed photograph of a handsome-looking woman in a smartly pressed US Army uniform. One hand was raised to shield her eyes from the sun. The other was holding the collar of a glossy-looking bloodhound.

“Who’s this?” I asked my father.

He carried on playing — very softly, his wrinkled hands barely touching the keys, as if he were remembering the music in his mind, rather than listening to it. “That? That’s Margot Kettner. Friend of your mom’s, during the war.”

“That’s a bloodhound. A man-trailer.”

“Really? I wouldn’t know. All I know is, Margot Kettner and your mom, they were very close.”

“I never heard her mention any Margot Kettner.”

“More than likely you weren’t listening.”

I put the photograph back on top of the piano. “No, Dad, you’re right. I probably wasn’t. You know me.”