A Traitor's Loyalty: A Novel Read Free

brought it instantly to bear in the direction Garner had indicated. “I see him,” he said after a moment.
    The figure was slowly making his way towards the embassy. Garner’s heart quickened. Despite everything, this operation was actually going to come off.
    Something was wrong, though. He could not pinpoint it at first, but then he realized: sirens. The sound ofsirens, very faint, far away, but slowly drawing closer.
    “The SS are coming,” he breathed.
    Barnes nodded without looking in his direction. “I hear.”
    The sirens were getting louder very quickly; they must have been traveling at breakneck speed. The man in the street had heard them, too—he had quickened his pace and forgone carefully shrouding himself in darkened alcoves in favor of making it to the embassy that much sooner.
    Garner glanced down at the embassy gates. Two uniformed Royal Marines stood in the guard box, each with a rifle. With them waited a nondescript man in plain clothing—an MI6 agent, there to meet the figure when he arrived.
    He spoke over his shoulder to the radio operator. “Have them open the gate. They need to be ready to meet him.”
    “Yes, sir,” the operator said. He removed his radio headset, picked up the receiver of the in-embassy telephone sitting next to him, and dialed the front-gate extension.
    Garner watched as the MI6 man picked up the telephone receiver in the guard box. Behind him, the radio operator relayed his instructions. The MI6 man said something, hung up, and spoke to the Marines. Immediately, they unlocked the front gate and swung it open.
    The figure was less than half a block from the embassy now, still across the street, but the sirens were almost upon them. Then, suddenly, their source burst into view around a corner: an armored troop carrier, closely followed by two Gestapo Focke-Wulfs with flashing lights on top.
    The figure burst into a sprint, heading straight for the open embassy gate. The armored car and the Focke-Wulfs came to a screeching halt. The Focke-Wulfs’ doors swung open and two Gestapo got out of each, pistols firing. With an anguished scream that reached Garner as nothing more than a thin whimper in the cold air on the embassy roof, the figure clutched his right thigh and sank to the ground.
    “Sir,” said Barnes, but Garner ignored him.
    The figure was still crawling towards the gate, dragging himself on one elbow and one knee while the other hand clutched at his injured leg. He was not six feet from the embassy entrance. The two Marines and the MI6 man stood right at the gate waiting for him, but they went no further. They knew the rules: as long as he was on German soil, they could not help him. He had to reach embassy territory before they could offer him asylum.
    The four Gestapo and the Waffen-SS platoon from the troop carrier were hurrying toward the figure. “Sir,” Barnes’s voice was becoming more plaintive, “we haven’t much time.”
    Garner did not respond. He stood transfixed, staring at the horrible scene that was unfolding inexorably before him. So close. They had come
so close
.
    The SS were almost upon him.
“Sir!”
Barnes hissed.
    Garner came out of his reverie with a start. “What? Yes, man. Fire!”
    Barnes’s finger squeezed the trigger. A shaft of orange flame spat eighteen inches from his rifle muzzle. Down in the street, the figure’s head exploded into a chunky vapor of blood, brains, and bone fragments. The nearest Gestapo was only a few feet away; he skidded to a halt and threw his arm up over his face to protect it. The figure’s headless body collapsed to the ground, twitched for several moments, and lay still.
    Garner took the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it onto the ground. It landed next to his feet, smoldering. He ground it into the dust with his heel.

PART 1
    ----

CRISIS
    If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop