CHAPTER 9I don’t remember much about my trip to the Organization’s hideout in the country. I recall walking endlessly, and later being carried over Gaston’s shoulder. I remember terrific heat, and agonizing pain from my battered face, my half-healed gunshot wounds, and innumerable bruises. And I remember at last a cool room, and a soft bed.
I awoke slowly, dreams blending with memories, none of them pleasant. I lay on my back, propped up on enormous fluffy feather bolsters, with a late afternoon sun lighting the room through partly-drawn drapes over a wide dormer window. For a while I struggled to decide where I was. Gradually I recalled my last conscious thought.
This was the place in the country Gros had been headed for. Gaston had taken his charge seriously, in spite of his own sugges
