Golden Trap by Hugh Pentecost Read Free Book Online Page A

long time ago—nineteen forty-five,” he said. “Her name was Carole—Carole Schwartz.” He held up his glass, staring at the ice cubes floating in the pale Scotch. “It was in Berlin; a Berlin being bombed into rubble by Allied planes. It was a hell of a place for an American to be, because I was in hourly danger of being blown to pieces by my own friends. One thing I’ve never cared for is irony. I had been working to get information out that would help pinpoint our bombers’ attack. Every day, almost literally, I was in American bombsights. It was my job to stay there, to get out the word that would correct mistakes, to assess the effectiveness of yesterday’s attack, and to act as part of an underground that helped shot-down fliers back to our lines. I knew the war was almost over; I knew the Nazis were close to collapse. You keep saying to yourself, why do I stick it out? If I walk away while I’m still in one piece, it won’t affect the outcome. But you don’t walk out, and I didn’t because there was no way for me to take Carole with me.”
    “Schwartz is a German name,” I said, when he didn’t go on.
    “It was a black night, stabbed at by the flames of exploding bombs,” he said. “I was hurrying along a sidestreet toward a good shelter I knew of, when I was knocked head-first into a concrete hole that had once been the cellar of a house by an incendiary bomb that lit not twenty yards from where I’d been walking. I landed on top of someone else—a girl. I guess I was knocked half senseless because I was shouting up at the sky in English—a language it wasn’t safe to use—‘Why don’t you look where you’re going, you dumb sonofabitch!’ A cool hand went over my mouth and I found myself staring at a blond girl, her lovely face smeared with dirt, her trench coat torn and grimy.
    “‘You’re English?’ she whispered, in English as good as mine.
    “‘I only swear in English,’ I said in German. ‘I went to school there. I am Karl Kessler.’ That was my cover in Berlin.
    “‘I see,’ she said, in German now. She sounded disappointed.
    “We lay in that concrete hole, our bodies pressed close together, staring up at the sky, wondering if the next bomb would land squarely on top of us. At times like that you cling to strangers instinctively—to anyone or anything.” His sudden smile was bitter. “The way I’m clinging to you now, Mark. I’m waiting for the next bomb to fall—right here in your living room.”
    “Help yourself,” I said.
    He turned to the windows looking out over the East River. “It had happened so fast—the tumbling into that concrete hole, and the girl, and that small hand over my mouth When I’d inadvertently spoken in English, and her own words in English. I realized in the first thirty seconds that this girl was on my side of the fight. She had tried to protect me from the danger of speaking my own language. In the darkness around us there could be listening ears; hostile ears.
    “We lay there, huddled close, her breath on my cheek, my arm tight around her shoulders that shook a little. You’re not ashamed of physical fear when it’s raining death on you. After a long time the planes were gone. We could see each other clearly then because there were bright fires all around. There wasn’t anyone else in that particular hole in the ground. I should have gotten up, tipped my hat, and gone about my business—the ostensible business of Karl Kessler, an office clerk in the disorganized Berlin freight yards. I didn’t. I did what was a reckless thing to do in my business; I gave a stranger an opening to destroy me.
    “‘You were right about me,’ I said, watching her face. ‘And you’re not German either.’
    “‘My name is Carole Schwartz,’ she said, her face expressionless. ‘My husband is Colonel Kurt Schwartz in command of the SS in this area.’
    “I’d walked right into it. Colonel Schwartz was well known to me, a cruel, relentless