Heroes Page 22

  The FBI agent read Schey’s thought from his eyes. His eyes went wide and he started to raise his right hand, as if to ward off a blow, when Schey pulled the trigger.

  The gun bucked in Schey’s hand, blood and bits of bone splattering outwards from the hole in the agent’s head.

  Eva cried out. Schey got to his feet and turned around, the smoking pistol in his hand. Eva shrank back.

  “It was him or us,” Schey said. “If you don’t understand that, then you can remain here.”

  She stood her ground. One of their suitcases lay open on the small bed. The other was on the floor beside it. She held a pile of clothing in her arms.

  Schey shoved the pistol in his belt and went to her. She shrank back for just an instant, and then fell into his arms, the clothing falling to the floor.

  “Oh … Bobby, what have we done,” she cried.

  “It was either them or us. And more of them are on the way.

  We have to leave. Now.”

  They parted and looked into each other’s eyes. She was frightened, and very sad.

  “It was nice here for a while, wasn’t it, Bobby? We had a good life.”

  Schey forced a smile. “It’s nothing compared to the life we’re going to have when this is all over.”

  Eva looked at the dead men. “Did we have to kill them?”

  “Pack,” Schey said.

  He turned away and went to Swanson. He kneeled beside the body, and went through the man’s pockets. He found the car keys in a jacket pocket. He flipped the blanket over the body.

  “I’ll bring the car down,” he said, and he slipped outside.

  He had not seen their car on the way in, which meant they must have parked it behind the barn. Which also meant the agent had not lied; they had talked to Romero.

  Schey looked up toward the ranch house. The kitchen light was still on. George was up there waiting. Waiting to find out the outcome.

  Schey trotted up to the barn, all his senses alert for the slightest out-of-place sound. A small, gray two-door Chevrolet was parked behind the barn. It looked like a ‘37 or ‘38, and it had government plates.

  On the back floor was a riot shotgun. A box of shells was beside it.

  Schey pulled out the gun, loaded five shells into it, then got behind the wheel, started the engine, and drove back down to his cabin. He opened the trunk.

  Inside, Eva was just finishing packing. Schey pulled the first man out the door and heaved his body up into the trunk of the Chevy. Back inside, he dragged the second man out; he stuffed his body on top of the other. Then he closed the trunk lid. The stench was terrible.

  He took the suitcases from Eva, shoved them in the back seat, then pulled a chair out into the middle of the floor, opened the ceiling trapdoor, and brought down his radio. He reached back up into the attic and fumbled around in the insulation until he found the license plates from the Hudson. There was still two months on them.

  He grabbed a screwdriver from the cabinet, went outside, and quickly switched plates. Eva came out when he was finishing.

  “What about the Romeros?” she asked.

  “What about them?” Schey asked, looking up.

  “Are you going to kill them, too?”

  Schey threw the screwdriver in the back seat, then took Eva in his arms. “Listen to me, and listen to me good,” he said.

  She hiccoughed.

  “We’re in a war. I’m a German. I love my country. I’ll do whatever it takes to ensure we win.”

  “Oh … Bobby.”

  “No, listen to me, Eva,” he said, shaking her. “We don’t have’ a lot of time. We’re going to have to get out of here. But unless you’re with me one hundred percent, you’ll have to stay behind.”

  “Then you’ll kill me?”

  “Stop it!” Schey shouted. “Stop it.” He shook her again.

  And then they were in each other’s arms, kissing deeply, the sensation so terribly strange—from danger to murder to this.

  Schey was confused.

  “I don’t understand anymore,” she said when they parted.

  “That doesn’t matter. For now we have to get away. There’ll be more FBI out there. And if we get caught, they’ll hang us.”

  “I know,” Eva said. It was all she could do to keep from crying.

  “Have you got all our things?” he asked.

  She nodded vacantly.

  Inside, Schey grabbed the agent’s hat, and jammed it on his head; then back outside, he climbed behind the wheel and started the motor. Eva got in. Schey flipped on the lights, pulled the hat low, and slowly headed up past the ranch house on his way out the front gate.

  George Romero came out onto the porch. Eva looked up at him. Romero raised his right hand to wave at her, but then dropped it.

  Schey raised his right hand and waved. Romero hesitantly waved back.

  The Chevy’s engine ticked over slowly as Schey looked both ways up State Highway 44. He tried to decide which direction he should go.

  Within the next fifteen to twenty minutes, perhaps sooner, the FBI reinforcements would be coming up this highway from Santa Fe in the east. If he turned that way, he would run the risk of meeting them. They’d recognize the car. But to the northwest was nothing … mountains, the tiny towns of Cuba and Counselor, and eventually the Colorado state line. If he turned that way, they would gain a couple of hours, perhaps more. But by morning, if they had not been found, planes would be put up from Kirtland Field down in Albuquerque. It would not take very long to find the small gray Chevrolet with a man and a woman.

  Eva was staring wide-eyed at him. She was frightened nearly out of her mind. But she was still functioning. She hadn’t given up.

  “Are they coming?” she asked.

  “Not yet. But it won’t be long now,” he said. There was nothing to the north, he kept telling himself.

  He put the car in gear and turned toward the east, working his way up through the gears. He reached up and twisted the rearview mirror over.

  “Watch in the mirror for lights behind us,” he said.

  She practically jumped out of her skin. “Are they coming that way?” she asked. She turned and looked out the rear window.

  “Christ, Bobby, have they got us surrounded?”

  “I don’t think so, but I want to know the moment you see anyone back there. 1 don’t want any surprises.”

  “Okay,” she said after a moment. She adjusted the mirror, then sat there staring up into it, her hands folded on her lap.

  At that moment Schey felt a great wave of love for her. He knew that she would follow him to hell and back if he told her to.

  She’d even follow him back to Germany. But that was totally out of the question. This was not her fight. Despite her protestations to the contrary, she was an American. She had been raised by a German family, but they were all gone now. She had been a member of the Bund, but that was gone too. Everything else in her life had been American.

  Eva fell silent as Schey drove. His every sense was at a raw edge. The moment he saw a light on the highway ahead of them, he was going to have to pull over to the side of the road and hide the car. But just at this moment there -weren’t very many places for him to conceal the car. The ditch at the side of the road was very shallow, the trees sparse.

  He began to think ahead. There was a very definite procedure for when it was time for him to get out of the country. His contact this time was in New York City. He had two telephone numbers to call. If both of them were bad, he still had his radio.

  He could try to get through. Get new instructions. But from now on he was going to have to be very careful. He was going to have to assume that all of his contacts were compromised. After all, it had been a very long time since it all had been set up by Canaris.

  Nothing lasted forever.

  He would still have to do something with the car tonight. It was too easily recognizable, even with the Hudson’s plates.

  Besides that risk, there was the chan
ce he might be stopped for a routine traffic matter and the bodies would be found in the trunk.

  He had taken the bodies so that when the agents showed up at the ranch, they’d be slowed down, believing that the other two had successfully arrested Schey and Eva and were on their way back to Santa Fe.

  Far away on the horizon to the east, Schey detected a pinpoint of light, and then it was gone. It was a car on the highway. He knew it!

  He switched off the Chevy’s headlights, the road ahead plunging into darkness. Eva gasped.

  “Watch to the rear!” he shouted. There was nowhere to pull off. Nowhere to hide. No trees, not even any brush.

  Schey pressed down harder on the accelerator as his night vision began to improve. He caught another glimpse of the lights on the highway to the east. There were three … perhaps four, sets. It wasn’t just some farmer returning home after a night in town. They were coming after him and Eva.

  Well off to the south, outlined against the ridge of a hill, Schey spotted what appeared to be an old ramshackle barn or storage shed. Even from here he could see by its outline that it was half fallen-down. He sped up, the accelerator pedal jammed to the floor, and the little car surged forward.

  It was going to be very close, he figured. He’d make it to the road up to the barn before the headlights, but he didn’t know if he’d make it up the hill in time.

  At length he slammed on the Chevy’s brakes as they came to a deeply rutted dirt track that led up to the building. They slid on two wheels around the corner.

  The headlights of the approaching vehicles were getting uncomfortably close now. If they spotted the Chevy making its way up the hill, they’d know—or at least suspect—what was happening.

  Someone would come up to investigate.

  The car was bottoming out on its springs, and sweat began to pop out on Schey’s forehead. It would be too damned close. Eva was shouting something as she held on, but Schey was too busy to make any sense of it.

  They careened around the back of the falling-down barn, and Schey stood on the brake, the Chevy slewing to the left and finally sliding to a halt.

  He jumped out of the car and hurried back to the corner of the barn.

  Below, on the highway, the lights raced past the dirt road and continued, their tires whining on the asphalt, their red taillights visible for a long way in the night.

  Schey hurried back to the car.

  “Are they gone?” Eva asked fearfully.

  “They’re past,” Schey said. He spun the car around and raced down the dirt track, back to the highway.

  They drove another five miles to U.S. 85, which led south to Albuquerque and north to Santa Fe. It was only ten or twelve miles down to Albuquerque, but nearly forty miles back up to Santa Fe. The FBI agents had come from the north. There would be others. Certainly, when they finished at the ranch, they’d head back to Santa Fe. It was not the direction to go.

 

  A truck passed, heading south. Schey turned south and headed after it.

  “Where are we going?” Eva asked.

  A car passed them, going in the opposite direction, its headlights momentarily illuminating the interior of their car.

  “To Albuquerque,” Schey said absently. He reached up and twisted the rearview mirror back so that he could see.

  “They’ll find us there,” she said, panicky. “They’ll know this car. We’ll be arrested. Christ, they’ll hang us.” She grabbed his arm.

  Schey pulled away from her. “They have to catch us first.

  And they won’t do that.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  Schey had been going on nervous energy now for hours. He snapped at her. “I’m bloody well not sure, god damnit! But I’m not going to lie on the side of the road, crying my eyes out, waiting for them to come get me!”

  “Oh sure … you can say that. You’ve got somewhere to go.

  You’ve got yourself a god damned cause. What the hell do I have?”

  “You’ve got me! If I’m not good enough for you, then the hell with it!”

  They had been shouting. Eva choked off her next words as she gazed at him in wonder. Another car passed, going the opposite way, and it made her face seem white, her eyes very large and very dark.

  “You operated in Washington right under the nose of an FBI agent. You didn’t fall apart then. If you’re coming with me now, you’re going to have to hold yourself together.”

  She nodded. “Do you mean that, Bobby? That I’m coming with you?”

  “It’s up to you,” he said. “But I’m not going to beg you. It’s not going to be easy getting out of here, and it sure as hell isn’t going to be a piece of cake back home.”

  “I don’t care. I’ll go anywhere you say. I love you. Don’t you know that? Haven’t you got that figured out yet, you big ape?”

  Schey had to laugh, not so much at the colloquial English, but at the situation. It was very likely they would never get out of the New Mexican desert alive, and he was worrying about how difficult it would be for them in Germany with the war ending and all. Eternal optimism, or just plain stupidity? He wondered.

  “If that’s funny, then I’ve been way off all along,” she said peevishly.

  Schey glanced over at her. He was smiling. He could not help himself.

  “Jesus,” she said, looking away momentarily. “Jesus H. Our backs are against the wall, and you’re grinning like a coon eating shit.”

  Schey laughed out loud. His stomach convulsed, which struck him even funnier, and he laughed harder.

  “Bobby?” Eva shouted alarmed.

  He couldn’t stop. It was nearly impossible to see the highway through the tears in his eyes and even harder to control the car.

  A part of him understood that there was absolutely nothing humorous about their situation, and yet it felt good to let go now that the immediate crisis was past. He could not remember the last time he had laughed.

  Eva finally laughed, then looked away, her right hand to her mouth. She was fighting it, but at last she too succumbed, and she began to laugh very hard, tears rolling down her cheeks.

  The highway ran straight as a ruler down out of the high plateau on which Santa Fe was located, to the desert flats where Albuquerque sprawled. The temperature rose at least ten degrees within as many miles, and as they came into the city, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad line was off to their right.

  The speed limit changed from 65 down to 45 and finally to 30 as they came into the city.

  Ahead, and far off to the right, Schey spotted a railroad depot.

  A passenger train had pulled in. They came to the access road, and the sign said: HAHN STATION: A. T.&S. F.

  They drove down the road, coming into the station’s parking lot. The depot itself was nothing more than a long, low wooden structure. A dozen cars and two trucks were parked in front.

  Schey drove around to the far end of the uneven row and parked well in front of the largest truck so that the Chevy would not be so noticeable from the highway.

  “We can’t take a train from here,” Eva said. “What’s the matter with you? They’ll spot the car, and then they’ll have us.”

  Schey got out, and making sure no one was watching, threw the keys across the tracks well out into the brush.

  Eva got out of the car. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  Schey reached in the back seat and grabbed their bags. “We’re V* c- ‘ ^r y Mr. and Mrs. Veltman. Karl and Elizabeth. Our car broke down.

  We’re trying to get to Denver. We both have jobs waiting for us.”

  He shut the door, handed one of the bags to Eva, and started across the graveled parking lot back to the dirt road that led out to the highway. Eva bounced after him. She wore a white blouse, long black skirt, and low tie shoes with medium heels. Her hair was done up in a bun with a scarf around it. She looked typically middle-American.

  “Hey, wait up,” she puffed, catching up with him. But he did not slow
down, and she finally fell in with his pace.

  It was several blocks around to the highway, across a broad, grassy field. There were houses and streetlights across the tracks from the station behind them, but ahead there was nothing but the highway, although well to the southwest, at least a couple of miles away, they could see the green and white flashes of an airfield.

  She asked him about it.

  “It’s the Cutter-Carr Airfield,” Schey said. He had studied maps of the entire area. “It’s called Number Two.”

  “So where’s Number One?”

  Schey shrugged. “You got me.”

  It took them nearly ten minutes to get back out to the highway, and Schey was hot. It was very much warmer down here than it had been up in the mountains. Of course, it was high summer, and he should have expected this.

  A big truck lumbered up the highway from town, and Schey stepped up onto the edge of the pavement and stuck out his thumb.

  The truck rumbled by, its wake hauling a great gust full of dirt over them. Eva jumped back, coughing and rubbing her eyes.

  “Christ, don’t you know nothing?” she snapped crossly. She bodily shoved him aside. “Go sit on the suitcases.”

  Schey moved back off the side of the road. For just a minute or so the night was exceedingly quiet. Even more silent than the high country where night birds screeched and where the insects whined. Here it was absolutely still.

  Eva stepped back as two cars, a truck, and a bus came by from the north, their tires whining on the pavement, audible even before they were visible.

  A pair of headlights came their way from the south, and Eva stepped out onto the edge of the highway and lifted her skirt well above her knees, exposing the tops of her nylons and a lot of her thighs.

  The car flashed by, but screeched to a halt just beyond where Eva stood. It was a big four-door Pontiac. A ‘39.

  “Wait here,” she shouted back to Schey, and she hurried up to the car, her shoes crunching on the gravel.

  She leaned into the driver’s window and hung there for a long time. Schey stepped up onto the roadway. He couldn’t see her head and shoulders, only the white blouse at the small of her back and the curve of her bottom.