Sam Bourne - Pantheon

He was filled with rage. He would not die like this, not here, not now — not without seeing Harry and Florence one more time. This bastard would not stop him. All the fury and agony he had endured over the last weeks — and years — now flowed through him. Still gripping the doorframe, feeling his jacket billowing in the wind, he swung forward, kicking out with both his legs so that his feet landed directly in the attacker’s face.

The man stumbled backwards and James dived onto him, searching for the gun. The attacker reacted fast, firing a shot, but not fast enough: the bullet went straight into the ceiling. James gripped the man’s wrist and the pair of them wrestled on the floor, the gunman supine, James on top of him and with the advantage. He forced the man’s gun hand to the ground, where it would be useless. It was nearly there…

But the assassin refused to give up, his hand curled around the butt of the revolver ever tighter. And now James’s left shoulder began screaming. The exertion of this struggle was becoming too much.

James shifted his weight, so that his knee landed firmly on the man’s private parts. When he heard the yelp of pain, he did it again, shoving his attacker’s prone body along the floor, his knee pushing upwards against the man’s groin. One more shove and he had rammed the man’s head into the door.

But the gun hand was twisting, the barrel turning to face James, like the head of a snake. No matter that James had moved his left hand onto the assailant’s windpipe, where he hoped to strangle him, one squeeze of the trigger was all it would take…

He had only one option and he would have to rely on his left hand to do it for him. With his right still curbing the attacker’s gun hand, he reached up with his left, found the train door handle, turned it and, with the last of his strength, propelled the man forward, sliding him head-first into the fast, night air.

James remained there, kneeling on the floor of the train, buffeted by the wind coming in from doors open on both sides. He was panting. And, as the adrenalin faded, he became aware of the acute pain in his wrists, his legs and especially his left shoulder. At last he staggered to his feet, closed both doors and slumped onto a seat. His head hurt and he reached up to touch his forehead. When his hand came away there was blood on it. Even in a year of combat in Spain, even when he had seen his friend Harry’s brain shattered before him, he did not believe he had ever come so close to death.

He spent the rest of the journey pacing, like a captive animal that had been dangerously provoked. McAndrew had sent this man, there was no doubt in James’s mind. How had he known where to find him? He considered the possibility that Dorothy had betrayed him yet again, considered it and dismissed it. Her help for him, her feelings for him, had been genuine, he was certain of it. No, McAndrew had relied on more direct means. James remembered the Buick with the white-rimmed tyres. He might have shaken off his watchers for a few hours after Riley released him from jail, but they had clearly caught up with him. The gunman must have been at the station, watching from the shadows, seeing what train James took, then quietly climbing aboard.

And even though he felt no pity for the dead man, even though James believed he had every justification — in law and in morality — for what he had done, he could not shake the image of the man sliding off the train to a painful death. Back in Spain, James had shot at the enemy many times. Statistical probability alone meant he had surely killed at least one man, if not several. And yet he had never done it like this: he had never seen the face of a man he had killed. James thought of his parents and their lifelong vow of non-violence. What prayer would they utter after committing such an act?

To dispel the thought, he checked his watch. It would be hours before he reached Washington. He still had no clear plan how he was going to find McAndrew once he got there. He desperately needed help.

Twenty minutes passed and at last he saw lights in the distance, not just a few but whole constellations of them. The train was approaching New York.

Slowly, the suburbs gave way to busier, city streets. Billboards began to appear: for Dairy Queen ice cream, for Time magazine, for Peter Pan Peanut Butter. James watched them go by, clasping his aching shoulder.

Suddenly an image floated before James’s eyes: Time magazine, the edition he had read while watching and waiting outside the Wolf’s Head tomb, the page opposite the article on Lord Beaverbrook. He had scarcely registered it at the time, but now the whole double-page spread appeared to him — including the name, middle initial and all, waiting to be found. The only man James knew in Washington; probably the only man he knew in the whole of America.

He jumped onto the platform while the train was still moving, not wanting to waste a second. The station was deserted except for two men with brooms and an older man with a nest of a beard, peering into the dustbins looking for food. Remembering their location from his first visit here, he sprinted over to the phone booths, entering the first and nearest one.

He lifted the handset and was glad to hear the dial tone. He waited for the voice of the operator, nasal and metallic, yet still female: ‘Local or long distance?’

‘Long distance, please.’

‘What city?’

‘Washington, DC.’

‘What name?’

‘The name is Edward P Harrison.’

There was a long delay. James pictured a woman, middle-aged and bespectacled, leafing through a fat directory of thin pages, listing name after name. H for Hammond, Hanson, Harris…

‘There are two Harrisons, Edward P in the DC area, sir. I have a Dr Edward P Harrison?’

James wanted to smile. ‘No, the man I’m looking for is not a doctor.’

‘Connecting you now, sir.’

He heard a series of clicks, then a long ringing tone and then another. Damn it all, he wasn’t there. Damn, damn, da ‘Hello?’ A woman’s voice, sleepy.

‘Hello. I’m sorry to call so late. I need to speak-’

A man’s voice now, taking the phone. ‘Who the hell is this? What’s the idea, calling after midnight?’

‘Ed, is that you? It’s James, James Zennor. From Barcelona. I mean, we were in Spain together, remember, when you were covering the People’s Olympiad?’

There was a pause, into which James spoke again. ‘You took a letter for me, do you remember? When you went back home, through London?’

‘OK, now I remember. Zennor. You were writing your girl who’d left you for Hitler, wasn’t that it?’

‘She’d gone to Berlin, that’s right. You’ve got a good memory.’

‘Jeez, you sound terrible. You OK?’

‘Just ran into a spot of… bother, that’s all.’ He could feel the ache in his jaw, where he had slammed into the train door.

‘The thing is, I don’t know what time it is where you are, James, but it’s real late here. So if-’

‘My train’s just made a stop in New York, Ed. And I need your help.’

‘Call me in the morning and I’ll arrange for Western Union-’

‘I don’t need your money!’ The words came out faster and angrier than James intended. He cursed himself. He had only a minute or two before he had to get back on the train. ‘I mean, that is very kind of you, but I’m not asking for that sort of help.’ He was getting this all wrong. He thought of Dorothy Lake and the ambitious young staff of the Yale Daily News and hoped the same urges drove seasoned reporters as motivated new ones. He took a different tack: ‘I may have a very important story for you.’

An instant change in tone, sharper and more alert. ‘What kind of story?’

James had to think quickly. ‘One that could affect whether or not America enters the war.’