The Gemini Contenders (15 page)

“That’s what you’re counting on, isn’t it? We both ask questions.”

Teague leaned forward, suddenly reflective. “These are hectic and complicated times. There are more questions than there are answers. But one answer was right in front of our eyes only we didn’t see it. We were training these men for the wrong things! That is, we weren’t sure
what
we were training them for; vaguely for underground contacts, routine information runs, it was amorphous. There’s something better; damned ingenious, if I say so myself. The strategy, the concept is to send them back to
disrupt
the marketplace, create havoc—not so much physical sabotage, we’ve enough people doing that, but bureaucratic chaos. Let them operate in their former bailiwicks. Accounting offices consistently out of balance, bills of lading constantly inaccurate, delivery schedules at sixes and sevens, mass confusion in the factories: exemplary
mis
management at all
costs!”

Teague was excited, his enthusiasm infectious. It was difficult for Vittorio to keep his concentration on the essence of his original question. “But why do I have to leave in the morning?”

“To put it bluntly, I said I might lose you if there were any further delays.”

“Further? How can you say that? I’ve been here less than—”

“Because,” broke in Teague, “no more than five people in England know why we
really
got you out of Italy. Your complete lack of information about the train from Salonika has them stunned. They took an extraordinary gamble and lost. What you’ve told me leads nowhere; our agents in Zürich, Berne, Trieste, Monfalcone … they can trace nothing. So I stepped in with a different version of why we got you out and saved a few heads in the bargain. I said this new operation was
your
idea. They leaped at it! After all, you are a Fontini-Cristi. Will you accept?”

Vittorio smiled. “ ‘Mismanagement at all costs.’ That is a credo I doubt has a precedent. Yes, I do see the possibilities. Whether they are enormous—or theoretical—remains to be seen. I accept.”

Teague smiled slyly. “There’s one thing more. About your name—”

“Victor Fontine?”
Jane laughed beside him on the couch in the Kensington flat, warmed by the glow of the burning logs in the fireplace. “That’s British cheek if I ever heard it. They’ve
colonized
you.”

“And made me an officer in the process,” chuckled Captain Victor Fontine, holding up the envelope and dropping it on the coffee table. “Teague was amusing. He approached the subject rather the way one expects from the cinema. ‘We must find you a
name
. Something immediately recognizable, easy to use in cables.’ I was intrigued. I was to be given a code name, something quite dramatic, I imagined. A precious stone, perhaps, with a number. Or an animal’s name. Instead, he merely Anglicized my own and lopped it off.” Victor laughed. “I’ll get used to it. It’s not for a lifetime.”

“I don’t know if I can, but I’ll try. It’s rather a letdown, frankly.”

“We must all sacrifice. Am I correct in assuming a
capitano
is a higher rank than a flying officer?”

“The ‘flying officer’ has no intention of giving orders. I don’t think either of us is very military. Nor is Kensington. What about Scotland?”

He told her sketchily, keeping what facts he knew unspecific. As he spoke, he saw and could feel her unusually light-blue eyes probing his, looking beyond the offhand phrases, knowing surely there was more, or would be. She was dressed in a comfortable lounging robe of pale yellow that accentuated her very dark brown hair and emphasized the blue of her eyes. Underneath the robe, between the wide lapels, he could see the soft white of her nightgown and he knew she meant him to see it, and to want to touch her.

It was so comfortable, thought Fontine. There was no sense of urgency or maneuver. At one point during his monologue he touched her shoulder; she slowly, gently reached up and held his hand, her fingers caressing his. She
led his hand down to her lap and cupped it with her other hand as he finished.

“So there we have it. ‘Mismanagement at all costs’ wherever it can be inflicted.”

She was quiet for a moment, her eyes still probing, and then she smiled. “It’s a marvelous idea. Teague’s right, the possibilities are enormous. How long will you be in Scotland? Did he say?”

“Not specifically. A ‘number of weeks.’ ” He withdrew his hand from hers and casually, naturally reached around her shoulders and drew her to him. Her head rested on his upper chest; he kissed her soft hair. She pulled back and looked up at him—her eyes still searching. She parted her lips as she moved toward him, taking his hand and casually, perfectly naturally, leading it between the lapels of her robe, inside over her breast. When ther lips met, Jane moaned and widened her mouth, accepting the full moisture of his own.

“It’s been a long time,” she whispered finally.

“You’re lovely,” he replied, stroking her soft hair with his hand, kissing her eyes.

“I wish you didn’t have to go away. I don’t want you to go.”

They stood up in front of the small couch. She helped him take off his jacket, pausing to press her face against his chest. They kissed again, holding each other at first gently, and then with gathering strength. For the briefest time, Victor placed his hands on her shoulders and moved her back; her lovely face was below him and he spoke into her blue eyes. “I’ll miss you terribly. You’ve given me so much.”

“And you’ve given me what I was afraid to find,” she answered, her lips forming a gentle, quiet smile. “Afraid to look for, actually. Good heavens, I was petrified!”

She took his hand and they walked across the room to a doorway. Inside was the bedroom; a single ivory lamp shone on a night table, its yellowish white glow throwing light up on the walls of soft blue and across the ivory-colored, simple furniture. The silk spread over the bed was, again, blue and white and filled with the intricate circles of a floral design. It was all so peaceful, so away, so lovely, as Jane was lovely.

“This is a room of great privacy. And warmth,” said
Fontine, struck by simple beauty. “It’s an extraordinary room, because it’s your room and you care for it. Do I sound foolish?”

“You sound Italian,” she answered softly, smiling, her blue eyes filled with love and urgency. “The privacy and the warmth are for you to share. I want you to share them.”

She walked to one side of the bed, he to the other. Together they folded back the silk spread; their hands touched and they looked at each other. Jane walked around the bed to him. As she did so, she reached up and unbuttoned the top of her negligee, and then untied the ribbon of her gown. The fabric fell away, her round, full breasts emerged from the folds of silk, the nipples pink, taut.

He took her into his arms, his lips seeking hers in moist, soft excitement. She pressed her body against his. He could never remember being so completely, so totally aroused. Her long legs trembled and once again she pressed against him. She opened her mouth, her lips covered his, low moans of sweet pleasure coming from her throat.

“Oh, God,
take
me, Vittorio. Quickly,
quickly
, my love!”

The telephone rang on Alec Teague’s desk. He looked at the office clock on the wall, then at his wristwatch. It was ten minutes to one in the morning. He picked up the receiver.

“Teague here.”

“Reynolds in surveillance. We have the report. He’s still in Kensington at the Holcroft flat. We think he’ll stay the night.”

“Good! We’re on schedule. Everything according to plan.”

“I wish we knew what was said. We could have set it up, sir.”

“Quite unnecessary, Reynolds. Deposit a file-insertion for the morning: Parkhurst at the Air Ministry is to be contacted. Flying Officer Holcroft is to be given flexible consideration, including a tour of the Loch Torridon warning relays in Scotland, if it can be arranged quietly. Now, I’m off for some sleep. Good night.”

Loch Torridon was west of the northwest highlands on the edge of the water, the source of the loch in the sea leading to the Hebrides. Inland there were scores of deep ravines, with streams rolling down from the upper regions, water that was icy and clear and formed pockets of marsh. The compound was between the coast and the hills. It was rough country. Isolated, invulnerable, patrolled by guards armed with weapons and dogs. Six miles northeast was a small village with a single main street that wound between a few shops and became a dirt road on the outskirts.

The hills themselves were steep, the abrupt inclines profuse with tall trees and thick foliage. It was in the hills that the continentals were put through the rigors of physical training. But the training was slow and laborious. The recruits were not soldiers but businessmen, teachers, and professionals, incapable of sustaining harsh physical exertion.

The common denominator was a hatred of the Germans. Twenty-two had their roots in Germany and Austria; in addition, there were eight Poles, nine Dutch, seven Belgians, four Italians, and three Greeks. Fifty-three once-respectable citizens who had made their own calculations months earlier.

They understood that one day they would be sent back to their homelands. But as Teague had noted, it was a formless sort of objective. And this undefined, seemingly low-level, participation was unacceptable to the continentals; undercurrents of discontent were heard in the four barracks in the middle of the camp. As the news of German victories came with alarming rapidity over the radio, the frustrations grew.

For God’s sake! When? Where? How?
We are wasted!

The camp commander greeted Victor Fontine with not a
little wariness. He was a blunt officer of the Regulars and a graduate of MI6’s various schools of covert operations.

“I won’t pretend to understand much,” he said at first meeting. “My instructions are muddy, which is what they’re supposed to be, I imagine. You’ll spend three weeks, more or less—until Brigadier Teague gives us the order—training with our group as one of the men. You’ll do everything they do, nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Yes, of course.”

With these words Victor entered the world of Loch Torridon. A strange, convoluted world that had little in common with anything he had experienced in his life before. And he understood, although he was not sure why, that the lessons of Loch Torridon would merge with the teachings of Savarone and shape the remaining years of his life.

He was issued regulation combat fatigues and equipment, including a rifle and a pistol (without ammunition), a carbine bayonet that doubled as a knife, a field pack with mess utensils, and a blanket roll. He moved into the barracks, where he was greeted casually, with as few words as possible and no curiosity. He learned quickly that there was not much camaraderie in Loch Torridon. These men lived in and with their immediate pasts; they did not seek friendship.

The daylight hours were long and exhausting; the nights spent memorizing codes and maps and the deep sleep necessary to ease aching bodies. In some ways Victor began to think of Loch Torridon as an extension of other, remembered games. He might have been back at the university, in competition with his classmates on the field, on the courts, on the mats, or up on the slopes racing downhill against a stopwatch. Except that the classmates at Loch Torridon were different; most were older than he was and none had known even vaguely what it was like to have been a Fontini-Cristi. He gathered that much from brief conversations; it was easy to keep to himself, and therefore to compete against himself. It was the cruelest competition.

“Hello? My name is Mikhailovic.” The man grinning and speaking to Victor sank to the ground, breathing heavily. He released the straps of his field pack and let the bulky canvas slip from his shoulders. It was midpoint in a ten-minute break between a forced march and a tactical maneuver exercise.

“Mine’s Fontine,” replied Victor. The man was one of the two new recruits who had arrived in Loch Torridon less than a week ago. He was in his mid-twenties, the youngest trainee in the compound.

“You’re Italian, aren’t you? In Barracks Three?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Serbo-Croat, Barracks One.”

“Your English is very good.”

“My father is an exporter—was, I should say. The money’s in the English-speaking countries.” Mikhailovic pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his fatigues pocket and offered it to Fontine.

“No, thanks. I just finished one.”

“I ache all over,” said the Slav, grinning, lighting a cigarette. “I don’t know how the old men do it.”

“We’ve been here longer.”

“I don’t mean you. I mean the others.”

“Thank you.” Victor wondered why Mikhailovic complained. He was a stocky, powerfully built man, with a bull neck and large shoulders. Too, something about him was odd: there was no perspiration whatsoever on Mikhailovic’s forehead, while Fontine’s own was matted with sweat.

“You got out of Italy before Mussolini made you a lackey to the German, eh?”

“Something like that.”

“Machek’s taking the same road. He’ll run all of Yugoslavia soon, mark my word.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Not many people do. My father did.” Mikhailovic drew on his cigarette, his eyes across the field. He added quietly, “They executed him.”

Fontine looked compassionately at the younger man. “I’m sorry. It’s painful, I know.”

“Do you?” The Slav turned; there was bewilderment in his eyes.

“Yes. We’ll talk later. We must concentrate on the maneuver. The object is to reach the top of the next hill through the woods without being tagged.” Victor stood and held out his hand. “My first name’s Vittor—Victor. What’s yours?”

The Serbo-Croat accepted the handshake firmly. “Petride. It’s Greek. My grandmother was Greek.”

“Welcome to Loch Torridon, Petride Mikhailovic.”

As the days went by, Victor and Petride worked well together. So well, in fact, the compound sergeants paired them off against superior numbers in the infiltration exercises. Petride was allowed to move into Victor’s barracks.

For Victor, it was like having one of his younger brothers suddenly return to life; curious, often bewildered, but strong and obedient. In some ways Petride filled a void, lessened the pain of his memories. If there was a liability in the relationship it was merely one of excess on the Serbo-Croat’s part. Petride was an excessive talker, forever questioning, always volunteering information about his personal life, expecting Victor to reciprocate.