March spun, rammed into it with his shoulder. Whoever was on the other side was knocked back by the force of the blow. And then March was in and on him, pushing him through the tiny hall and into the sitting room. A lamp toppled to the floor. He tried to bring up the gun, but the man had grabbed his arms. And now it was he who was being pushed backwards. The back of his legs made contact with a low table and he toppled over, cracking his head on something, the Luger skittering across the floor.
Well, now, this was quite funny, and in other circumstances March might have laughed. He had never been very good at this sort of thing, and now — having started with the advantage of surprise — he was on his back, unarmed, with his head in the fireplace and his legs still resting on top of the coffee table, in the position of a pregnant woman undergoing an internal examination.
His assailant fell on top of him, winding him. One gloved hand clawed at his face, the other seized his throat. March could neither see nor breathe. He twisted his head from side to side, chewed on the leather hand. He flailed at the other man’s head with his fists, but could put no force behind his blows. What was on him was not human. It had the remorseless power of machinery. It was grinding him. Steel fingers had found that artery — the one March could never remember, let alone locate — and he felt himself surrendering to the force, the rushing blackness obliterating the pain. So, he thought, I have walked the earth and come to this.
A crash. The hands slackened, withdrew. March came swimming back into the fight, at least as a spectator. The man had been knocked sideways, hit on the head by a chair of tubular steel. Blood masked his face, pulsing from a cut above his eye. Crash. The chair again. With one arm, the man tried to ward off the blows, with the other he wiped frantically at his blinded eyes. He began shuffling on his knees for the door, a devil on his back — a hissing, spitting fury, claws scrabbling to find his eyes. Slowly, as if carrying an immense weight, he raised himself on one leg, then the other. All he wanted now was to get away. He blundered into the door frame, turned and hammered his tormentor against it — once, twice.
Only then did Charlie Maguire let him go.
CLUSTERS of pain, bursting like fireworks: his head, the backs of his legs, his ribs, his throat. “Where did you learn to fight?”
He was in the tiny kitchen, bent over the sink. She was mopping blood from the cut on the back of his head.
Try growing up as the only girl in a family with three brothers. You learn to fight. Hold still.”
“I pity the brothers. Ah.” March’s head hurt the most. The bloody water dripping into the greasy plates a few centimetres from his face made him feel sick. “In Hollywood, I think, it is traditional for the man to rescue the girl.”
“Hollywood is full of shit.” She applied a fresh cloth. “This is quite deep. Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?”
“No time.”
“Will that man come back?”
“No. At least, not for a while. Supposedly, this is still a clandestine operation. Thank you.”
He held the cloth to the back of his head and straightened. As he did so, he discovered a new pain, at the base of his spine.
“ "A clandestine operation"?” she repeated. “You don’t think he could have been an ordinary thief?”
“No. He was a professional. An authentic, Gestapo-trained professional.”
“And I beat him!” The adrenalin had given lustre to her skin; her eyes sparkled. Her only injury was a bruise on her shoulder. She was more attractive than he remembered. Delicate cheek bones, a strong nose, full lips, large brown eyes. She had brown hair, cut to the nape of her neck, which she wore swept back behind her ears.
“If his orders had been to kill you, he would have done so.”
“Really? Then why didn’t he?” Suddenly she sounded angry.
“You’re an American. A protected species, especially at the moment.” He inspected the cloth. The flow of blood had stopped. “Don’t underrate the enemy, Fraulein.”
“Don’t underrate me. If I hadn’t come home, he’d have killed you.”
He decided to say nothing. She clearly kept her temper on a hair-trigger.
The apartment had been thoroughly ransacked. Her clothes hung out of their drawers, papers had been spilled across the desk and on to the floor, suitcases had been upended. Not, he thought, that it could have been very neat before: the dirty dishes in the sink, the profusion of bottles (most of them empty) in the bathroom, the yellowing copies of the New York Times and Time, their pages sliced to ribbons by the German censors, stacked haphazardly around the walls. Searching it must have been a nightmare. Weak light filtered in through dirty net curtains. Every few minutes the walls shook as the trains passed.
This is yours, I take it?” She pulled out the Luger from beneath a chair and held it up between finger and thumb.
“Yes. Thank you.” He took it. She had a gift for making him feel stupid. “Is anything missing?”
