The Memory of Eva Ryker (14 page)

Leaves rustled behind me.

“Down, boy, down!”

“Ah, let him loose! He'll tear that guy to pieces.”

Sweat dripped down my eyes. Not far to go.

Car headlamps lit up the snow between the trees. It was Jan in the Fiat. Maybe fifty yards away.

The barking was louder. Whipping off my jacket, I wrapped it around my right arm.

The light from the car cast shadows through the forest. From the darkness red eyes lunged.

The pinscher jumped me, attacking my arm. Long white teeth cut through my jacket into the flesh. Snarling gums. Hot panting breath.

He pushed me on my back, straddling me—shaking me like a piece of meat. My fingers grappled over the ground, squirming, grasping for a stone or stick.

My hand curled around a potato-sized rock.

Teeth slashed for my throat. The stone in my hand hit the dog behind the ear with a sharp crack.

With a shrill whimper the Doberman shuddered and died. I pushed him off me, smelling animal sweat and the last of his rotten-meat breath.

The guard's flashlight searched for me through the trees. Jumping to my feet, I threw away my tattered coat and sprinted for the car.

Two more dogs barked behind me, not far away.

Peeking down through the trees, I saw the outline of the Fiat, parked at the soft shoulder.

The dogs were closing.

I darted down the hill.

My shadow appeared in front of me, outlined in yellow.

“There he is!”

Gunshots whistled through the branches.

I broke through the last of the forest. Half running, half falling, I headed for the car. Jan leaned over, opening the door, her face terrified.

Dogs snarled behind me as I jumped in and tugged the handle. Two pinschers hit the door, their teeth scratching the glass.

“Norman …”

Bullets thudded into the bodywork.

“Later! Later! Get this thing going!”

Gears ground and the car lurched spastically.

“What the hell …”

Jan stared down at the clutch pedal. “I never could drive this damn car!”

“Get over!”

Both dogs had discovered our flimsy convertible top. Their claws made white slits in the canvas as we kicked and jabbed each other, changing seats.

“Move! Move!”

“I'm moving!”

One dog broke through, his teeth snapping at my shoulder. Jan's screaming filled my ears as I scrambled for the glove compartment. Under the impact of my pounding fists it popped open and I grabbed the flashlight.

Jan was flailing at the Doberman with her purse. I shoved her aside and smashed the flashlight against the dog's nose, then pushed broken glass into his eyes. He wrenched the flashlight from my hands, then backed out of the rip in the top and ran howling off into the darkness.

However, the other pinscher was made of sturdier stuff. As I wrestled with the balky gearshift, he bounded on the hood. The dog looked me in the eye and attacked. The windshield cracked under his impact. Glaring at me through the glass fissures, he charged again, tearing off one wiper.

The stick finally popped into first. I let in the clutch, watching the Doberman's shoulder muscles ripple in an effort to grip the hood as we got back on the road. He barked and snarled as the speedometer crept upwards.

At forty kilometers my foot hit the brakes. The pinscher flew off into space, rebounding over the radiator ornament. I caught a flashing glimpse of his wild eyes under the glare of the headlamps. Then came a sickening
bump-bump
as the car's momentum took us over the body.

Red in the afterglow of tail lights, two armed guards ran out into the road. Bullets crashed through the rear window. I pushed the gas pedal to the floor. The Fiat's little engine screamed in protest as we rounded a bend, putting the guards behind us.

The speedometer hovered at ninety kilometers. No headlights following. I eased up on the pedal as we slowed into a curve.

“We had quite a head start.” I tried to swallow but couldn't. “I doubt if they can catch up.”

Jan looked down at my arm. “Oh, God. You're hurt.”

“No, I'm not …” I followed her gaze down to my bleeding hands and my arm with long teeth marks raked through the flesh. Jan wiped away some of the blood and I suddenly felt very ill.

“What happened to you?” she cried.

“I bitched it.”

“You had to leave everything?”

I nodded.

She pointed at my chest. “Then what's that?”

I reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out the 8-mm magazine. Holding it in front of my eyes, I grinned raggedly, then tossed the film to Jan.

“That,” I said, “is the most valuable home movie on earth.”

13

February 3, 1962

First, of course, the movie had to be processed.

Jan dropped the film in a Geneva mailbox on January thirtieth to send it to Kodak's Paris lab. On February third the finished roll arrived, amid a pile of bills, at our post office box in Fourqueux.

All in all, a three-day wait. Those three days were among the most unpleasant in my life.

Two of them were spent sneaking inconspicuously out of Switzerland. Jan did most of the work, I'm afraid. I wasn't in shape to do much of anything as she drove me back to the hotel, washed my wounds, and put me to bed. While I slept, Jan paid through the nose to repair and repaint the Fiat for its innocent return to the agency. By the time I awoke, she had paid off the hotel and reserved two seats on a BOAC flight to Paris.

We took a cab straight home from Orly, locked the doors, lowered the blinds, unhooked the phone, and waited.

Nothing.

For the next two days Jan stayed glued to every TV newscast while I made cautious forays into Fourqueux to buy
L'Express
and peek at the other headlines at the newsstand.

I was beginning to think the whole misadventure was some sort of opium-dream until February 3, when the movie film arrived at our post office box.

Shoving the little yellow carton in my coat pocket, I tried to walk calmly back to the Rolls. Slowly, Norman, slowly. Let's not have an undignified scramble.

Jan met me at the door.

“It's here,” I said breathlessly. “I picked it up at the post office.”

“Calm down, Norman.” She took my coat and put it in the closet. “You look like Moses after he saw the burning bush.”

“Where's the projector?”

“In the garage. The screen's there, too.” She opened the door. “If you'll stop shaking, I'll help you set it up.”

Jan settled the projector on the coffee table while I rigged the screen. She flipped on the lamp and fiddled with the elevation control. The film chattered to life and she focused on the red Kodak ID letters printed on the leader.

The screen went dark. Ryker's desk flashed into life and I watched my hands reach across the blotter to turn the first stack of papers.

“Slow it down, dear.”

My hand jerked across the screen at five frames per second, releasing the first page. A blur, and then it fell full-face in front of the lens.

“Freeze it right there.”

Jan fine-focused. As far as I could tell, it looked like a business memo concerning Texas oil holdings.

“Okay, Jan. Go on.”

For the next thirty minutes we watched the pages flicker on the screen. I chewed my lip to combat the sinking feeling of disappointment.

More pages flitted by. Stock prospectus. Dividend reports. Payrolls. Tax forms. Legal briefs. Not exactly great movie fodder.

In the middle of a huge stack of personnel records going back more than fifty years a torn, age-darkened page appeared, then vanished.

“Wait a minute, Jan. Turn back a few frames.”

I rose and walked toward the screen.

Jan whispered. “Would I be belaboring the obvious to say that it looks like a cipher?”

“Yes. But you can say it anyhow.” I bent closer to the screen. “Look how the paper's aged. And there seems to be some sort of watermark.” Peering at the faint letters on the screen, I could see only the random grain structure of the film emulsion. “If this damn thing was only sharper …”

“Maybe you're too close,” Jan said. “Back up a bit.”

I followed her advice and studied the picture as one would scrutinize a museum's Picasso. “‘Marconigram,'” I finally said.

“You're sure?”

“Hardly. But look at those first letters. ‘MARCO,' right?”

Jan tilted her head in appraisal. “Could be. I can't think of anything better.”

I stuck my fingers into the projector's beam path, tracing the jagged edge of the paper on the screen.

“If it is a Marconigram, the departure point and destination point have been torn off.” I snatched up my notebook lying on the table. “Let me copy it before the projector burns a hole in the film.”

When I'd finished, Jan switched off the machine and peered over my shoulder. “Why the vertical layout, do you suppose?”

“Who knows? Maybe it's meant to be read that way.”

We studied it some more in silence. She propped her chin on my elbow and muttered, “Who do we know in the cipher business?”

“No one. There's only one way we're going to crack this thing …”

We ended up with a slim library book called
An Invitation to Cryptograms
by Eugenia Williams.

I spent all that night and most of the following morning stumbling through the charts and diagrams. Finally, that afternoon, I placed Ryker's cipher on my desk top and decided to give the damn thing a try.

“This is our starting point.” I showed Jan the chart. “It gives us a pattern of repeating letters typical with the English language.”

“Fine,” Jan said. “But what does that prove?”

“Nothing yet. But once we know the frequency of letters in this cipher, we should be able to find some letter equivalents.”

“Assuming the cipher's in English.”

The corner of my mouth drooped forlornly. “Don't even think it, my dear. Just help me count the letters.”

After fifteen minutes we compiled a list.

My eyes examined the line of numbers. “The logical point to start with is the letter R, since it's the most frequent.”

We substituted E for R in the cipher and continued working through the chart from that point, but, after a half hour, it became obvious that all we were creating was more alphabet soup.

I rubbed sweat off my forehead. “A dead end. R isn't our starting letter. That's for sure.” I pointed at the chart. “The next most frequent letters in the cipher are I and W. Let's go with W.”

Recopying the cipher, I blanked out all the letters except W, replacing it with E.