To Catch a Spy by Stuart M. Kaminsky Read Free Book Online Page B

opened the gate, went back to the car, and drove in. I got out again and closed the gates and got back in the Crosley. It was dark in front of me. My headlights were stronger than the bulbs in refrigerators, but not by much. I drove slowly, trying to remember the way to the Memorial Grove. I almost made a wrong turn, but my lights caught a sign with an arrow telling me which way to go.
    I parked as close to the Memorial Grove as I could and got out. I had one hand on the .38 in my pocket and the other around the pouch of bills in the other pocket. A flashlight would have been a good idea. The moon wasn’t giving me much help. I stood looking at the black outline of trees, leaves rustling from a thin breeze. I waited as my eyes adjusted to the darkness.
    A spot of light. About thirty yards ahead and to my right. I watched it move toward me, disappearing a few times as it went by a tree between it and me. Then, about fifteen yards away, the light stopped moving.
    “Come,” came the voice behind the light, the same voice I had heard on the phone a half an hour earlier.
    I moved toward the beam of light and felt it find my face.
    “Show your hands,” the voice said.
    I did.
    “Now show what you have brought me.”
    I took the pouch out of my pocket and held it up.
    “Show me what you brought,” I said, taking the .38 out of my other pocket.
    There was a rustle behind the beam, and then a hand came out from behind it, holding an envelope.
    “It’s in here,” he said. “Move forward slowly.”
    I did. When I was no more than a few yards from him, I could see his shape beyond the light. He was short, thin. He had hair. That was about all I could tell.
    “We exchange at the same time,” he said, holding his envelope out.
    I followed his example.
    His small hand went around the pouch, and my fingers touched his envelope. Things were going well so far, but that changed.
    Two shots sounded from behind the beam of light. There was a man gasping. The flashlight fell and landed with its beam headed into the night. I got down on one knee and aimed into the darkness toward where I thought the gun shot had been fired from. I had no hope of hitting anyone. I was breathing hard, hard enough that I didn’t hear whoever had come up behind me and hit me twice on the back of the head and neck. It might have been more than twice. I was out after the second blow.
    I’ve been knocked out before. The best part is being out. The worst part is coming to and feeling the pain. I felt a lot of pain. I was on my face, my neck hot, my head throbbing. I had grass in my mouth and something was crawling on my cheek. I brushed it away. It hurt to brush it away.
    The flashlight was about six feet from me and still on, aimed at nothing. I crawled to it, took it in my left hand, and reached for my pocket, hoping the .38 was there. It wasn’t. I stood, legs uninterested in cooperating, and pointed the beam toward the tree where I had made the exchange. It took me a few seconds to realize three things. First, I didn’t have the envelope that had been handed to me. Second, I couldn’t find the pouch with Cary Grant’s money. Third, I saw my gun lying on the ground about a yard in front of a man sitting with his back against a tree.
    He was almost paper white. Part of the reason was the cold beam of the flashlight, but part of it was because he was losing blood. Some of it was trickling out of his right ear. He was sitting in a small pool of his own blood.
    I moved toward him, picked up my gun, and shone the flashlight in all directions. Nothing. No one. I knelt next to the little man, whose eyes rolled up toward my face. He said something, but it was so low I couldn’t understand it, and, besides, it sounded like German.
    “I don’t understand German,” I said.
    His next words, the last he would ever speak, came out with a gurgle. He grasped my sleeve.
    “George Hall,” he said.
    He let go of my sleeve and died. His eyes closed. His head