Code to Zero (2000) Read online

  Pete went out and Anthony shut the door.

  For the first time today, Anthony was scared. Now that Luke knew his own identity, there was no telling what else he might find out This project should have been Anthony's greatest triumph, but it was turning into a foul-up that might end his career.

  It might end his life.

  If he could find Luke, he could still patch things up. But he would have to take drastic measures. It would no longer be enough simply to put Luke under surveillance. He had to solve the problem once and for all.

  With a heavy heart, he went to the photograph of President Eisenhower that hung on the wall. He pulled on one side of the frame, and the picture swung out on hinges to reveal a safe. He dialed the combination, opened the door, and took out his gun.

  It was a Walther P38 automatic. This was the handgun used by the German army in the Second World War. Anthony had been issued with it before he went to North Africa. He also had a silencer that had been specially designed by OSS to fit, the gun.

  The first time he had killed a man, it had been with this gun.

  Albin Moulier was a traitor who had betrayed members of the French Resistance to the police. He deserved to die - the five men in the cell were agreed on that. They drew lots, standing in a derelict stable miles from anywhere, late at night, a single lamp throwing dancing shadows on the rough stone walls. Anthony might have been excused, as the only foreigner, but that way he would have lost respect, so he insisted on taking his chances with the rest. And he drew the short straw.

  Albin was tied to the rusty wheel of a broken plough, not even blindfolded, listening to the discussion and watching the drawing of lots. He soiled himself when they pronounced the death sentence, and screamed when he saw Anthony take out the Walther. The screaming helped: it made Anthony want to kill him quickly, just to stop the noise. He shot Albin at close range, between the eyes, one bullet. Afterwards, the others told him he did it well, without hesitation or regrets, like a man.

  Anthony still saw Albin in his dreams.

  He took the silencer from the safe, fitted it over the barrel of the pistol, and screwed it tight He put on his topcoat. It was a long camel-hair winter coat, single-breasted, with deep inside pockets. He placed the gun, butt down, in the right-hand pocket, with the silencer sticking up. Leaving the coat unbuttoned, he reached in with his left hand, pulled the gun out by the silencer, and transferred it to his right hand. Then he, moved the thumb safety lever on the left of the slide up to the 'fire' position. The whole process took about a second. The silencer made the weapon cumbersome. It would be easier to carry the two parts separately. However, he might not have time to fit the silencer before shooting. This way was better.

  He buttoned his coat and went out.

  .

  6 P. M.

  The satellite is bullet-shaped, rather than spherical. In theory, a sphere should be more stable; but in practice, the satellite must have protruding antennae for radio communication, and the antennae spoil the round shape.

  Luke took a taxicab to the Georgetown Mind Hospital and gave his name at the reception desk, saying he had an appointment with Dr Josephson.

  She had been charming on the phone: concerned about him, pleased to hear his voice, intrigued to know that he had lost his memory, eager to see him as soon as she could. She spoke with a southern accent, and sounded as if laughter was forever bubbling up at the back of her throat.

  Now she came running down the stairs, a short woman in a white lab coat, with big brown eyes and a flushed expression of excitement Luke could not help smiling at the sight of her.

  'It's so great to see you!' she said, and she threw her arms around him in a hug.

  He felt an impulse to respond to her exuberance and squeeze her tightly. Afraid that he might do something to cause offence, he froze, his hands in the air like the victim of a hold-up.

  She laughed at him. 'You don't remember what I'm like,' she said. 'Relax, I'm almost harmless.'

  He let his arms fall around her shoulders. Her small body was soft and round under the lab coat.

  'Come on, I'll show you my office.' She led him up the stairs.

  As they crossed a broad corridor, a white-haired woman in a bathrobe said: 'Doctor! I like your boyfriend!'

  Billie grinned and said: You can have him next, Marlene.'

  Billie had a small room with a plain desk and a steel filing cabinet, but she had made it pretty with flowers and a splashy abstract painting in bright colours. She gave Luke coffee and opened a package of cookies, then asked him about his amnesia.

  She made notes as he answered her questions. Luke had had no food for twelve hours, and he ate all the cookies. She smiled and said: 'Want some more? There's another pack.' He shook his head.

  'Well, I have a pretty clear picture,' she said eventually. 'You have global amnesia, but otherwise you seem mentally healthy. I can't assess your physical state, because I'm not that kind of doctor, and it's my duty to advise you to have a physical as soon as you can.' She smiled. 'But you look all right, just shook up.'

  'Is there a cure for this type of amnesia?'

  'No, there's not The process is generally irreversible.'

  That was a blow. Luke had hoped everything might come back to him in a flash. 'Christ,' he muttered.

  'Don't be downhearted,' Billie said kindly. 'Sufferers have all their faculties, and are able to relearn what has been forgotten; so they can usually pick up the threads of their lives and live normally. You're going to be fine.' _,.-.

  Even while he was hearing horrible news, he found himself watching her with fascination, concentrating his attention first on her eyes, which seemed to glow with sympathy, then her expressive mouth, then the way the light from the desk lamp fell on her dark curls. He wanted her to carry on talking for ever. He said: 'What might have caused the amnesia?'

  'Brain damage is the first possibility to consider. However, there's no sign of injury, and you told me you don't have a headache.'

  That's right. So what else?'

  'There are several alternatives,' she explained patiently. 'It can be brought on by prolonged stress, a sudden shock, or drugs. It's also a side effect of some treatments for schizophrenia involving a combination of electric shock and drugs.'

  'Any way to tell which affected me?'

  'Not conclusively. You had a hangover this morning, you said. If that wasn't booze, it might be the after effects of a drug. But you're not going to get a final answer by talking to doctors. You need to find out what happened to you between Monday night and this morning.'

  'Well, at least I know what I'm looking for,' he said. 'Shock, drugs or schizophrenia treatment'

  'You're not schizophrenic,' she said. You have a real good hold on reality. What's your next step?'

  Luke stood up. He was reluctant to leave the company of this bewitching woman, but she had told him all she could. 'I'm going to see Bern Rothsten. I think he may have some ideas.'

  'Got a car?'

  'I asked the taxi to wait'

  I'll see you out'

  As they walked down the stairs, Billie took his arm affectionately Luke said: 'How long have you been divorced from Bern?'

  'Five years. Long enough to become friends again.

  'This is a strange question, but I have to ask it Did you and I ever date?'

  'Oh, boy,' said Billie. 'Did we ever.'

  .

  1943

  On the day Italy surrendered, Billie bumped into Luke in the lobby of Q Building.

  At first she did not know him. She saw a thin man of about thirty in a suit that was too big, and her eyes passed over him without recognition. Then he spoke. 'Billie? Don't you remember me?'

  She knew the voice, of course, and it made her heart beat faster. But when she looked again at the emaciated man from whom the words issued, she gave a small scream of horror. His head looked like a skull. His once-glossy black hair was dull. His shirt collar was too large, and his jacket looked as if it were
draped over a wire hanger. His eyes were the eyes of an old man. 'Luke!' she said. 'You look terrible!'

  'Gee, thanks,' he said, with a tired smile.

  'I'm sorry,' she said hastily.

  'Don't worry. I've lost some weight, I know. There's not a lot of food where I've been.'

  She wanted to hug him,- but she held back, not sure he would like it He said: 'What are you doing here?'

  She took a deep breath. 'A training course - maps, radio, firearms, unarmed combat.'

  He grinned. You're not dressed for jujitsu.'

  Billie still loved to dress stylishly, despite the war. Today she was wearing a pale yellow suit with a short bolero jacket and a daring knee-length skirt, and a big hat like an upside-down dinner plate. She could not afford to buy the latest fashions on her army wages, of course: she had made this outfit herself, using a borrowed sewing machine. Her father had taught all his children to sew. I'll take that as a compliment,' she said with a smile, beginning to get over her shock, 'Where have you been?'

  'Do you have a minute to talk?'

  'Of course.' She was supposed to be at a cryptography class, but to heck with that.

  'Let's go outside.'

  It was a warm September afternoon. Luke took off his suit coat and slung it over his shoulder as they walked alongside the Reflecting Pool. 'How come you're in OSS?'

  'Anthony Carroll fixed it,' she said. The Office of Strategic Services was considered a glamorous assignment, and jobs here were much coveted. 'Anthony used family influence to get here. He's Bill Donovan's personal assistant now.' General 'Wild Bill' Donovan was head of OSS. I'd been driving a general around Washington for a year, so I was real pleased to get posted here. Anthony's used his position to bring in all his old friends from Harvard. Elspeth is in London, Peg is in Cairo, and I gather you and Bern have been behind enemy lines somewhere.'

  'France,' Luke said.

  'What was that like?'

  He lit a cigarette. It was a new habit - he had not smoked at Harvard - but now he drew tobacco smoke into his lungs as if it were the breath of life. 'The first man I killed was a Frenchman,' he said abruptly.

  It was painfully obvious that he needed to talk about it 'Tell me what happened,' she said.

  'He was a cop, a gendarme, Claude, same name as me. Not really a bad guy - anti-Semitic, but no more so than the average Frenchman, or a lot of Americans for that matter. He blundered into a farmhouse where my group was meeting. There was no doubt what we were doing - we had maps on the table and rifles stacked in the corner, and Bern was showing the Frenchies how to wire a time bomb.' Luke gave an odd kind of laugh, with no humour in it. 'Damn fool tried to arrest us all. Not that it made any difference. He had to be killed whatever he did.'

  'What did you do?' Billie whispered.

  'Took him outside and shot him in the back of the head.'

  'Oh, my God.'

  'He didn't die right away. It took about a minute.'

  She took his hand and squeezed it. He held on, and they walked around the long, narrow pool hand in hand. He told her another story, about a woman Resistance fighter who had been captured and tortured, and Billie cried, tears streaming down her face in the September sunshine. The afternoon cooled, and still the grim details spilled out of him: cars blown up, German officers assassinated, Resistance comrades killed in shoot-outs, and Jewish families led away to unknown destinations, holding the hands of their trusting children.

  They had been walking for two hours when he stumbled, and she caught him and prevented his falling. 'Jesus Christ, I'm so tired,' he said. 'I've been sleeping badly.'

  She hailed a taxi and took him to his hotel.

  Luke was staying at the Carlton. The army did not generally run to such luxury, but she recalled that his family was Wealthy. He had a corner suite. There was a grand piano in the living room and - something she had never seen before - a telephone extension in the bathroom. f She called room service and ordered chicken soup and scrambled eggs, hot rolls and a pint of cold milk. He sat on the couch and began to tell another story, a funny one, about sabotaging a factory that made saucepans for the German army. 'I ran into this big metalworking shop, and there were about fifty enormous, muscle-bound women, stoking the furnace and hammering the moulds. I yelled: 'Clear the building! We're going to blow it up!' But the women laughed at me! They wouldn't leave, they all carried on working. They didn't believe me.' Before he could finish the story, the food came.

  Billie signed the check, tipped the waiter, and put the plates on the dining table. When she turned around, Luke was asleep.

  She woke him just long enough to get him into the bedroom and onto the bed. 'Don't leave,' he mumbled, then his eyes closed again.

  She took off his boots and gently loosened his tie. A mild breeze was blowing in through the open window: he did not need blankets.

  She sat on the edge of the bed watching him for a while, remembering the long drive from Cambridge to Newport almost two years ago. She stroked his cheek with the outside edge of her little finger, the way she had that night. He did not stir.

  She took off her hat and her shoes, thought for a moment, and slipped off her jacket and skirt. Then, in her underwear and stockings, she lay down on the bed. She got her arms around his bony shoulders, put his head on her bosom, and held him. 'Everything's all right, now,' she said. 'You just sleep as long as you want. When you wake up, I'll still be here.'

  Night fell. The temperature dropped. She closed the window and pulled a sheet around them. Soon after midnight, with her arms wrapped around his warm body, she fell asleep.

  At dawn, when he had been asleep for twelve hours, he got up suddenly and went to the bathroom. He returned a couple of minutes later and got back into bed. He had taken off his suit and shirt, and wore only his underwear. He put his arms around her and hugged her. 'Something I forgot to tell you, something very important,' he said.

  'What?'

  'In France, I thought about you all the time. Every day.'

  'Did you?' she whispered. 'Did you really?'

  He did not answer. He had gone back to sleep.

  She lay in his embrace, thinking about him in France, risking his life and remembering her; and she was so happy she felt her heart would burst.'

  At eight o'clock in the morning, she went into the living room of the suite, phoned Q Building, and said she was sick. It was the first day she had taken off for illness in more than a year in the military. She had a bath and washed her hair, then got dressed. She ordered coffee and cornflakes from room service. The waiter called her Mrs. Lucas. She was glad it was not a waitress, for a woman would have noticed that she wore no wedding ring.

  She thought the smell of coffee might wake Luke, but it did not. She read the Washington Post from cover to cover, even the sports pages. She was writing a letter to her mother hi Dallas, on hotel stationery, when he came stumbling out of the bedroom hi his underwear, his dark hair mussed, his jaw blue with stubble. She smiled at him, happy that he was awake.

  He looked confused. 'How long did I sleep?'

  She checked her wristwatch. It was almost noon. 'About eighteen hours.' She could not tell what he was thinking. Was he pleased to see her? Embarrassed? Was he wishing she would go away?

  'God,' he said. 'I haven't slept like that for a year.'

  He rubbed his eyes. 'Have you been here all the time? You look as fresh as a daisy.'

  'I took a little nap.'

  You stayed all night?'

  You asked me to.'

  He frowned. 'I seem to remember...' He shook his head. 'Boy, I had some dreams.' He went to the phone. 'Room service? Let me have a T-bone steak, rare, with three eggs, sunnyside up. Plus orange juice, toast and coffee.'

  Billie frowned. She had never spent the night with a man, so she did not know what to expect in the morning, but this disappointed her. It was so unromantic that she felt almost insulted. She was reminded of her brothers waking up - they, too, emerged from sleep stumbly, grouchy a
nd ravenous. But, she recalled, they generally improved when they had eaten.

  'Hold on,' he said into the phone. He looked at Billie. 'Would you like something?'

  'Yeah, some iced tea.'

  He repeated her order and hung up.

  He sat beside her on the couch. 'I talked a lot yesterday.'

  'That's the truth.'

  'How long?'

  'About five hours straight.'

  I'm sorry.'

  'Don't be sorry. Whatever you do, please don't be sorry.' Tears came to her eyes. 'I'll never forget it as long as I live.'

  He took her hands. 'I'm so glad we met again.'

  Her heart jumped. 'Me, too.' This was more like what she had hoped for.

  'I'd like to kiss you, but I've been in the same clothes for twenty-four hours.'

  She felt a sudden sensation inside, like a spring breaking, and she was conscious of wetness. She was shocked at herself: it had never happened this fast before.

  But she held back. She had not decided where she wanted this to go. She had had all night to make a' decision, but she had not even thought about it Now she was afraid that once she touched him she would lose control. And then what?

  The war had brought about a new moral laxity in Washington, but she was not part of it She clasped her hands in her lap and said: 'I sure don't aim to kiss you until you're dressed.'

  He gave her a skeptical look. 'Are you afraid of compromising yourself?'

  She winced at the irony in his voice. 'Just what does that mean?' -

  He shrugged. 'We spent the night together.'

  She felt hurt and indignant. 'I stayed here because you begged me too!' she protested.

  'All right, don't get mad.'

  But her desire for him had turned, in a flash, to equally powerful anger. 'You were falling down with exhaustion, and I put you to bed,' she said wrathfully. 'Then you asked me not to leave you, so I stayed.'