He was hurt pretty badly, but refused to give up. Black and blistered, burning hot and cold, in anguish, almost crying, he crawled away from his upturned jeep, from the fierce, scorching heat, toward the water glittering blackly in morning light. The smoke billowed around him, stung his eyes, choked his lungs, and each time he coughed, he was whiplashed by a spasm of pain. He was hurting so bad he wanted to die, but he just couldn"t stop. He simply had to see what he had come for and that kept him going.
"G.o.ddammit!" he gasped, keeping himself aware, fighting the urge for oblivion. "Think of Wilson! Remember!"
So he managed to crawl forward, along the quay, by the docks, the stones covered in expelled sh.e.l.ls and reeking of cordite and wet, as he suddenly realized, not with rain, but with blood.
Whose blood?
What the h.e.l.l...?
He shuddered and gasped and put his head down, trying to think, listening to the bombers rumbling overhead, the gunfire in the distance. The war was still raging, coming closer to its b.l.o.o.d.y end, and he couldn"t believe how far he had travelled to arrive at this nightmare.
The stones beneath him were wet with blood.
Whose blood?
"G.o.ddammit," Bradley whispered to the wet stones. "Gimme a break here!"
The pain whipped him again and he sobbed and then gritted his teeth. When he raised his head, he turned slightly to the side and looked out to sea.
There was a submarine out there.
At first he thought he was imagining it, but then he saw it more clearly, still on the surface, just outside the harbour, obviously preparing to go to sea but not yet submerged. Bradley knew who was on it.
He sobbed with frustration, clenched his fist, and hammered the wet stones.
Then, when he heard approaching footsteps, he looked up again.
An SS officer was coming toward him, holding a pistol in his right hand, his shadow stretched obliquely across the quay in the morning"s pale light. He stopped by Bradley"s head, looked down at him, then knelt beside him and took hold of his hair to jerk his head up.
He placed the barrel of his Luger pistol against Bradley"s temple.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Mike Bradley. An American."
"It"s an American uniform, I grant you, but your German is excellent."
"I"m an American. Believe me. I"m a member of the OSS."
"The Americans haven"t reached this far yet, so what are you doing here?"
Bradley started to reply, almost blacked out with pain, recovered and pointed weakly at the distant submarine. "Is he out there?"
"Who?"
"You know who. That son of a b.i.t.c.h, Wilson."
"Your compatriot."
"No!"
"Your friend. Your national hero. The man we Germans now revere. You want Wilson. You"ve come here alone for him? You must want him a lot."
"I do."
"Tell me why."
Bradley didn"t know what to say. There was no way to explain it. Besides, this handsome, civilized SS officer was going to blow his brains out.
"He"s a traitor," Bradley tried.
"Not enough," the German replied. "You have the look of someone obsessed, so tell me why you want Wilson."
Bradley, who thought he was dying, needed to confess.
"I have to see his face," he said. "I"ve wanted to see it for years. I have to fit a face to the man to know what he"s about. It"s as simple as that."