Flowers From Berlin

FORTY-TWO

"A nation of sleepers and dreamers," thought Siegfried as he treaded water carefully past the first U.S. Navy vessel. There were sailors on the deck and obviously their mission was to guard the harbor. But none spotted the agent of the Third Reich as he slipped through the dark water fifty yards off the bow of their ship.

Siegfried reached The Sequoia after a swim of twenty-two minutes. The yacht was like a steel goliath when he reached it and touched the hull. The curve of the bow protected him from view from above. And the spy tingled with the same excitement as last time. Then he set to work.

He unbound his bomb from where it was strapped to his suit. He pressed adhesive cement to the aft starboard side of the vessel, then he pressed the metal-encased explosives firmly into the cement. He pressed hard for two minutes, treading water. The charge was just above the waterline, ten feet below the master cabin where the President and Mrs. Roosevelt usually slept.

The bomb was secure. Siegfried pushed off from the ship. He reached to the metal case around the bomb and he rapped it gently with his arm. It held. Waves and water would not remove it. Nothing would, until it detonated at 3 A.M.

He pushed off and slowly slipped away from the boat. Then he heard a commotion on the pier above him. Siegfried treaded the water and slowly moved at an angle to the Sequoia. He could see the pier. His heart almost stopped.

There was the presidential motorcade. Two long black Cadillac limousines. Siegfried did not see the leftist Mrs. Roosevelt. But as he stared from the shadowy surface of the Potomac, he did see the President.

Secret Service agents were lifting the invalid from the back of his car. Siegfried, ever conscious of details. could even see the ugly steel braces jutting upward within the President's trousers. The most powerful man in the world, some people called him, and he couldn't even walk. A prisoner of his own degenerative affliction. Siegfried almost laughed. How could Adolf Hitler even be compared with a cripple?

The spy watched a tired Roosevelt being wheeled up the gangplank and into the yacht. Then Siegfried turned in the water. The hardest work was done, he rejoiced. He treaded his way to a distance of a hundred yards from the yacht and continued smoothly through the water. He cut his speed as he successfully passed the second naval vessel.

He cut through the water purposefully now, with long, even, far-reaching strokes. He was giddy with excitement, proud of what he had done. He had affected the course of the twentieth century!

The shoreline of Alexandria, Virginia beckoned to him and grew larger as he swam toward it. The current carried him. Ten minutes after leaving the Sequoia, he spotted the illuminated spire of St. Thomas' Church.

That was his landmark. His beacon. He knew his car was a hundred feet from the church. He hurried his strokes. All that mattered now was his escape to Germany.

*

The shoreline on the Capitol side of the river, Cochrane reasoned, was impregnable. There was the United States Naval Station first, then Bolling Air Force Base due south. On the Virginia shore there was National Airport between Arlington and Alexandria. The most vulnerable part of the coastline, Cochrane then reasoned, had to be in Alexandria.

They stood on the Alexandria promenade on the west bank of the Potomac: Laura, Bill Cochrane, and Peter Whiteside. They looked at the dark river and they gazed upward to where the lights of Washington shone from a distance of two to four miles.

"Just tell me this, if you would," Whiteside said to Cochrane. "What exactly are we looking for?"

There was a lapse of several seconds before Cochrane could muster an answer.

"Anything," he said. "Anything in that river that isn't motorized has to come downstream. That means here."

Cochrane took two heavy flashlights from the trunk of his car and handed one each to Laura and Peter Whiteside. He kept a smaller flashlight for himself. "Why don't the two of you stay reasonably close," Cochrane suggested as they began to walk the promenade. He held in mind that of the two of them, only Whiteside was armed.

"I'll go on ahead," he said, starting to move southward along the bank. "We'll do two or three hundred yards at a time, then I'll move the car to keep it with us. By the way," he warned, "keep your eyes on the water."

"Pound to a penny we're wasting our time," Whiteside said.

"Have a better idea?" Cochrane asked.

No one did. Cochrane moved ahead. He scanned the surface of the water as he walked, squinting and trying to make the light from shore work for him. Why was the moon so dark tonight? Coincidence, or part of Siegfried's design?

A phrase came tumbling back to him out of the past. No, he thought, there were no coincidences. Fact: the water was the least guarded area. Conclusion: Siegfried was out there somewhere!

Cochrane cautiously walked twenty feet from the water. There was suddenly the sound of a male voice and Cochrane's hand was upon his pistol, drawing it, pointing it, and praying that Fowler did not have the drop on him already.

He shone his own small light in the direction of the noise and yelled, "Freeze! F.B.I.! Freeze or I'll shoot!" And the focal point of his body was his quaking finger on the trigger.

Then, stunned, he could barely react to what he saw. Two young men, one slighter than the other, their clothes askew, fresh from an embrace that Cochrane had interrupted, stood trembling and staring at him. One wore a woman's wig and an earring. It took Cochrane a full five seconds to comprehend and relax.

"Go on," he said, lowering the weapon. "Get out of here." He turned off his flashlight. Wordlessly, the two men fled, one whimpering in terror.

Can't be so nervous! Cochrane told himself, feeling his soaking palm against the black steel of his gun. Can't react that fast. I'll kill the wrong person. Cochrane replaced his pistol in its holster and continued to walk.

*

What were they doing with flashlights? Siegfried wondered. The man and the woman appeared to be looking for something. Siegfried was fifty feet off shore and intently watched Peter Whiteside and Laura. With a pair of long quiet strokes, he moved closer to them. Then he heard their voices and recognized them.

Siegfried was incensed! How dare these benighted amateurs endanger him again! This time they would both pay dearly.

Laura turned and shone her light across the water. Siegfried was imperceptible amid the choppy surface of the Potomac. Then the beam was gone.

He watched them. Their lights were like beacons and they were not far from Siegfried's car. In the water, he watched their lights move farther down the promenade. Then the Englishman walked ahead of her by several paces.

Siegfried studied the situation. A few seconds earlier he had thought he had seen a third, smaller beam farther down the shore. But when he looked for it again, he did not detect it. Must have been an odd car light, he reckoned. He waited several seconds more.

First Laura, then the Englishman. A quick, essential military operation. He moved to a position behind them and slipped quietly through the water toward shore. He reached to his leg and unsheathed the knife.

Then Laura and Peter Whiteside made things easier. Laura stayed behind and Whiteside went on ahead, They split by about fifty feet.

Siegfried was out of the water. For good measure, he reached within his diving suit and unwrapped his pistol. He placed it back within the suit, ready to draw it if necessary. There were benches and shade trees along the promenade. But Siegfried also would have to cross open spaces where he was exposed. He would have to kill Laura quickly, then catch the Englishman equally by surprise.

He started after her, holding the dagger in his fist. He would grab her from behind, he quickly calculated, cover her mouth, and put the knife between her ribs. She would never know what happened.

He was thirty feet behind her now. Laura stopped and again scanned the surface of the water with her flashlight. Siegfried moved to the side of a kiosk. He stood with his back flush to it on a side facing away from her.

Siegfried could hear his own heart pounding. He edged toward the corner of the kiosk and inclined his head to peer around the corner. She still had the flashlight beam illuminated. She looked back in his direction as if she might have heard something. She even took a step in his direction. But then she turned and followed Whiteside.

Siegfried studied his two victims. Now he understood: Whiteside was covering the ground along the promenade. Laura was watching the water. By slipping behind them, Siegfried knew, he had them both at his mercy. He could blindside both of them. I will cut her throat, he consciously decided. Messier, but there will be no scream. Same with the Englishman.

Laura was in the open and Siegfried started after her.

She held the lantern in her left hand and scanned the water, and he was within twenty feet of her. Then fifteen. He bolted forward in full flight, the knife aloft in his fist, ready to cut.

Laura swept a strand of hair from her face and turned her head slightly. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw-!

She turned as he hit her. She ducked but he had her with one hand and her mouth opened in horror-just like the poor woman who was murdered behind the church! She thought-and she launched an unholy piercing scream unlike any other in her life.

As she clutched the lantern, she saw the glint of light off the blade of the knife. She cried out again as it moved toward her throat.

His hands were wet and cold. The rubber suit was wet and slick. His grip on her was not firm. She had one hand free and held off the knife. She managed to turn. Laura's other hand crashed into his face. The steel flashlight hit him in the eye with much more force than he ever could have imagined.

Then she brought her knee upward and it was his turn to bellow. She hit him in the face again with the flashlight, across the bridge of the nose, and he slashed at her with the knife.

But he was off balance and missed. She broke away.

Siegfried cursed violently. The pain in his groin rocketed through him, but he remained on his feet.

"Laura! Laura!" Whiteside called out, and Siegfried could see the Englishman running in their direction, marked by his own lantern beam.

Siegfried staggered for a step, then pulled his revolver. It was his only option now. He raised the pistol. She was thirty, forty feet away and moving. The Englishman was maybe sixty. Easy pistol range, but Laura was directly in the line of fire. Thought to Siegfried was now all simultaneous: Have to hit the Englishman first. No time. Just shoot!

Whiteside dropped his lantern and raised his own weapon. But Siegfried fired first. Then bullets were everywhere, and Laura hit the ground.

Whiteside squeezed off two shots, then a third, but he was moving to one side as he fired. His aim was off. Siegfried's first bullet hit him in the leg, and the next smacked into his flesh a few inches above the heart. His own weapon flew from his hand and he went down.

In his pain, as he held his hands to his wounds and felt the warmth of his own blood, Whiteside stared at Siegfried. Fowler was like a black specter, something evil and violent risen from hell itself, framed by the light from a distant streetlamp and standing erect, triumphant, and proud on the other side of Laura's fallen, prostrate body.

Whiteside gasped and went to find his pistol. But his left arm wouldn't work at all. He was helpless. Siegfried-the executioner-stepped closer. Then even closer.

Laura was moving again. She whirled and threw up her hands, turning back toward the man she had once loved.

"No! Stephen! No!" she cried out in terror. Fowler raised his gun again-First Laura, then the Englishman, the proper order after all-and the night was alive with the crackling of pistol fire. Laura closed her eyes.

She waited for the pain. She waited for the bullets to tear into her flesh, for the agony of death and the inevitability of the onrushing final blackness… three, four, five shots. Then a sixth!

The first two shots from Cochrane's pistol sailed wide of Siegfried. Fowler was not the easiest target for Cochrane, shooting as he was from many yards behind Peter Whiteside. But the first shots had forced Siegfried to fire at the gunman, who must have been farther up the promenade, only to come racing back at the first sounds of violence.

Cochrane's third shot hit Stephen Fowler in the center of the chest and drove him backward. On instinct and strength he fired again, but now for Siegfried all was pain and confusion. He fired again wildly and then his empty gun clicked harmlessly. From out of the darkness more bullets came at him.

Bill Cochrane emptied his gun at the Nazi. One bullet hit Stephen Fowler in the throat and, tumbling viciously from that range, tore open the flesh, ripping inward at the Adam's apple and bursting in a red explosion out of the back of the neck.

But in some ways it barely mattered. Siegfried was already falling. Half a second later he was sprawled on the cold grass in an unearthly configuration. Blood poured from him. Part of his body shook, then he was completely still.

Sounds: quiet, building sounds of pain. Laura was crying, but no bullet had touched her. When she had fallen she had dived forward and tumbled to avoid his gunfire. More sounds, as Bill Cochrane rushed to Whiteside and Laura: Whiteside moaning and begging for a doctor. Then Laura was beside him, also, and she clutched Bill Cochrane, sobbing wretchedly and wanting to hold him very tightly and not look back at the dead man behind her.

"A doctor, please, a doctor…" Peter Whiteside begged.

Cochrane used Whiteside's necktie to tie a tourniquet around the Englishman's leg. He forced the lantern upon Laura and he pressed a handkerchief to the chest wound near the heart.

"Help him up, help him up!" Cochrane ordered. The Englishman's legs were unstable. But as quickly as they could they pointed him toward the car.

AlexandriaCounty Hospital, Cochrane knew from his days at the National Police Academy, was ten blocks away.

Then all three of them froze. Their eyes were upon the Potomac. United States Navy PT 622 was moving down the river toward the ocean. It grew steadily larger as it approached. But the eyes of Laura, Bill, and even the wounded Whiteside were upon the vessel behind the naval patrol boat.

It was The Sequoia, smooth, white, and sleek compared with the gray naval gunboat. Like its escort, it moved resolutely through the black river.

"Fowler came out of the water," Cochrane said. "The bomb is already in place."

"A doctor," Whiteside moaned again, losing consciousness. "Please

… I beg of you… a doctor."