Betrayal

Chapter 2

2

The bright spot in the distance gradually grew into a headlamp flux as it entered the forest, reappearing as flashes between trees as it travelled along the winding road. Flashes sharpened every so often into silver rapiers of light thrusting expertly between the slender trunks, and then withdrawing again with equal adroitness. Falzoni’s black Porsche swept round bend after bend, flanked on both sides by legion after legion of tall stalwart pines honouring the passing regal chariot. With the way ahead continually twisting sharply from left to right, Frank could only hold his patience and drive on and on – perhaps ‘tunnel on’ would have been more appropriate -- where the dark dense foliage of this great Norwegian forest never seemed to be ending. When at last a torch-light suddenly popped up, moving from side to side some fifty yards down the road, Frank pressed his foot down to have the car slowing down and gradually halting.

With the engine purring quietly, in readiness to race off again in an instant, and his throbbing suspicion and alertness equally tensed for action, Frank waited, watching. The dark figure started to walk forward slowly. Closer and closer it came. Eyes trained all the time on the man looming up closer, Frank felt for the .38 Ruger automatic lying beside him on the passenger seat. Still no sign of hostility. He let the widow slide down slowly. The cold air space filled up with a large face, searching eyes trapped between massive spiky beard and fur hat pulled down to the eyebrows. Seconds stretched out until inspection, both ways, was satisfied.

‘SAILOR BOY?’ The code-words came out in a surprisingly light tone, instead of a heavy bear growl to match the heavy bear face that Frank had expected.

‘SAILOR MAN,’ replied Frank in required corrective code.

Nodding in approval of the response, the man stepped back, beckoning Frank to follow him. Pocketing the automatic, Frank got out of the car to follow on, still taking the precaution, code-words or not, of not walking too close behind for the man to suddenly turn round in surprise attack on him. Stepping down off the road, they passed through the great wall of trunks and into the heavy undergrowth of the forest. With only the torch-light and snapping twigs in front to steer him, Falzoni had a hard job stumbling, tripping, and fighting off branches springing back at his face, in his effort to follow his guide. All at once, after what had seemed to be a never-ending trek, obstruction from menacing branches fell away and they were suddenly in a small clearing. Correction – he was in a small clearing alone by himself. The guy had skedaddled, leaving the torch behind, God bless his kind consideration! Still lit, and perched on a branch-end, the torch seemed to signal this to be a tryst of a stopping point.

Frank looked around, inspecting the tiny circular space. If this was where the local coven held its nocturnal pagan rituals, there wasn’t much standing room for the chorus with its vibrant Carmina Burana or without the central sacrificial bonfire scorching a few of those bare feet dancing around it. But this wasn’t the States, so you had to respect a foreign culture’s oddball way of doing things. Then he noticed the stone jutting out of the ground on the far side. It seemed too regularly shaped to be natural. It had been placed there deliberately. Now that he looked, there appeared to be markings of sorts on it. Something was written on it. Stepping in closer, he leaned down to try reading the crudely scratched words.

‘He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, no less,’ The words, suddenly cutting the silence from behind Falzoni, broke his attention in trying to read out and pronounce the strange foreign name.

‘You don’t say. How about that!’ Frank didn’t need to turn round to identify the speaker, long-time familiar as he was with the New England rounded accent.

‘And he was executed by firing squad the next day.’

‘His spelling was that bad? They reckoned money was better spent on bullets than on casting a gold medal?’ Frank turned round abruptly to face his associate ‘advisor’ and handler in the field, in things that were much better left unmentioned --- forever dubious as he was trustworthy --- Marley Goodblood. As he did, he gave a slow shake of the head of mild rebuke that hardly needed his cynical smile to reinforce his open show of annoyance. He half turned to have another look at the stone. The dirty surface made it difficult to decipher the words. ‘This – Hi-? -- or Ho-? Stohl, guy?’

‘Hirtven Stohl.’

‘Yeah, sure, whatever you say; who the f*****g hell is this guy that you had to have me come all the way out here to see his final dice-roll stepping-off block? Couldn’t you have just as easily wired me the dossier ‘ink blots’ straight through to the sub? Drowned in that flow of Navy Operational info coming through all the time, nobody’s going to notice that it was in a separate cypher that only I could read; well, not straight away, anyway. I would have deleted it immediately after reading. So what’s so important about him? What’s his security label? How the hell does he figure in the game?’

‘Frank, Frank, take it easy.’

‘ ”Take it easy”!’

‘Yeah, cool down and hear me out.’

‘This will turn out to be a good one, I bet, just like all the endless good ones you load onto me under the murky heading of ‘for national security. So let’s have it.’

‘I just figured that you could do with a break from playing Navy games, with you being holed up ten days in that fancy electronic wonder of a titanium can, playing hunt the Pirates; I thought you could do with some fresh air from a walk in the country, Frank --- this country.’

Frank recognised Goodblood’s devious smile after getting his way in dowsing the child’s anxiety tantrum, with only the stereotyped rubbing of hands missing to complete the scene. ‘Jeez, Marley! That might wash down well with coke-headed college kids with asses still dripping oil from their Alpha House initiation rituals, but not with me. Fairy tales went out the window with me when I realised that Rudolf got his red nose from swiping the seasonal brandy. Save the schmaltz for unblemished virgin ears in your next Langley recruitment class lecture.’ It was another feather in Marley’s cap, joining the already thickening plumage, for him to lay down the sacred tablets of CIA’s official rules of protocol before fresh college kids stepping forward to take up sword and shield for their country. Yeah, well, we can all fantasize at some time in our lives. Pausing for a cigarette, after his heated verbal fusillade, Frank was bluntly reminded for the second time that he had forgotten to pick them up. He had to satisfy himself with a piece, his last piece, of gum. ‘So answer the question. Where does this guy, or what he was, figure in our own little private board-game?’

Then the thought, vague at first, started to come clearer to Frank. ‘Hold on a sec --- you said: “this country”; Norway! Right, I’m beginning to see now, or perhaps at this stage, only what I’m allowed to see.’ His jaws worked more slowly on the gum as he pulled the connecting parts into shape in his mind. ‘So our little trick of using the Navy’s latest hush-hush submarine detection sonar deflection equipment to evade the Meerni’s searching sonar beams and disappear from its screens, was not entirely dreamed up and pencilled in solely by gold-braided Navy Chiefs alone, was it? It was you who initially handed them the pencil. Stopping off here for so-called ‘minor technical modifications’ in this backwater pond, was all part of the plan from the very beginning of Operations. Have I got it right?’ Of course I’m right, if I know you, Goodblood’ If ever any family name was synonymous with power in Washington, be it in politics, industry or military dealings by the side, it was Goodblood. You could be sure that Marley got more than just a word in edgeways where specific strategic lines were to be drawn in across giant screens in the Operations Room.

‘You’re not quite the parrot brain I sometimes take you for, Frank. You can hatch a good egg from time to time.’

Frank shuffled to show his restlessness, looking round the small clearing. ‘So why am I here, in what’s not exactly Central Park, if it’s not looking for Red Riding Hood. Spit it out.’

‘The significant point is that you are not here, Frank. The US Navy’s submarine Arkansas is here in a Norwegian fjord for all to see with the naked eye or electronic screen. But you are not. Repeat: you are not. Capisce? Knowledge of a civilian stepping ashore from that naval vessel and onto Scandinavian soil is shared by a very select few.’

Still only half clear on what was happening from that sparse briefing, Frank pointed to the small stump of stone. ‘And where does our pal, here, come into the picture?’

‘He doesn’t. Forget him. I came across him when I was checking the area for a suitable out of the way place for us to have our briefing in private, and I found this place. It seems that who he was, or what he was at that time, nineteen forty-two, was somewhat unclear to those concerned. He was either a collaborator informing the Abwehr (German Military Intelligence) of local Resistance movements, or a double agent supposedly working with German Occupation Forces, while all the time passing valuable information back to the Resistance. With unresolved suspicion outweighing absolute certainty on both sides, an Iron Cross or a hero’s bronze memorial plaque was not to be the order of the day. Possible embarrassment from tarnishing of reputations on both sides, made swift, remote disposal of the ‘problem’ the mutually best plan of the day.’

‘And that’s it? That wraps it up? All this.’ Frank swung a hand, indicating all around them and not hiding his irritation of the time wasted on a pointless guided tour.

‘Just thought I’d let you know and quell your anxiety in putting you off on the wrong track.’

‘You managed to do that well enough, for sure. Right, so putting that behind us and moving on, the next question is: what pawn’s square are you playing me from in this new game you’ve arranged, as if I hadn’t guessed.’

‘All in good time, kid, all in good time. I don’t have to remind you of our thumb-rule: you need know only what you need to know.’ Goodblood paused as he felt something touch the tip of his nose. Taking it off with his finger, he looked at it. A tiny white snowflake. He looked up to see that the little thing hadn’t descended on them without bringing pals along. In spite of the dark umbrella of the forest’s thick foliage sheltering them overhead, snowflakes were managing to filter though. ‘We’ll get back to that later, Frank. In the meantime, I think it’s time to get out of here. One buried here is enough; we don’t want it to be three.’

Turning to move off, Goodblood stopped again to take something out of his pocket. He handed it to Falzoni. ‘It should help you, carrying this on your person.’

Frank opened the small plastic wallet. The photograph was of him, but the name wasn’t. ‘Lewis. Frank Lewis. Food critic, writing for Boston gourmet magazine, Bon Appetit. Is this who I am for this assignment?’

‘Enjoy the Scandinavian cuisine, Mr Lewis. Now let’s get going. We’ll go in my car. Some things we need to go over on the way. Give me your keys, and someone will see to the Porsche.’

‘Hold on; wait a sec and satisfy my curiosity. What’s your opinion on him?’

You can make up your mind on that for yourself, when you meet him, Frank.’

‘No! No! Him!’ Frank jerked his head, indicating behind him at the grave.

Goodblood’s patience won over his anxious haste to leave, to let him ponder the question. ‘That damn fiasco a few years ago where we all became heroic victors wasn’t a ball game with only Allied Forces and Nazis on the field. The referee wanted to join in with his stringent rules to overrun us all, waving his glorious red flag.’

‘Red flag? You mean ---. Right, got it.’

‘Bravo! Somebody give Wonder Boy Frank, a gold star. Now, for God’s sake, let get moving. We’ve wasted enough time, without having to go into history lessons about Johnny Red Bolshevik coming into the game and pushing everyone else off the field.’