Robert Adams - The Memories of Milo Morai

Barstow cursed himself, feelingly, for several minutes.

Some hours later, in his office, with a cigar going well and the whisky poured, he said, “Milo, I’m sorry as hell about putting you through all this just past, but I had no choice, no options, in the matter.”

Milo just sat silent and listened. Not the reek of Barstow’s strong cigar, not the peat-smoke odor of the whisky could make him stop smelling the odor of bitter almonds that had arisen from Betty’s slack mouth when he had lifted her body to place it in the ambulance. In a part of his mind, he still was waiting to awaken from this long, detailed, horrible nightmare.

“Milo, we knew that there were two ringers in the operation, but we had no idea who, only that one was a man and one a woman. They or rather theirsuperiors, must have learned of this assignment of mine before even I knew just why I was being brought back Stateside. I had no inkling that I had been infiltrated until a week or so before I set you up in the small compound.

“Originally, as you must have guessed, the intention had been to house and feed and interview the subjects out here, where we were better set up for it. Then, when I was apprised that a Russky team was in my unit, I decided that it was just too risky to do it all in the preplanned way.

“Now, the only things that were known about the ringers was that they had both been in my Munchen operation—for what purpose we’ll never know. It was known that at least one of them had been a sleeper in the United States even before our entry into the war. A full-steam investigation narrowed the list of suspects, here, down to Ned, Hugo, Judy, Buck, Betty and you, Milo. So it was you six I sent to the small compound, along with enough others to make it appear normal, of course. I might’ve handled it better had I had a bit more time. Maybe then we wouldn’t’ve lost Herr Gries, Ned and Vasili.”

“Ned?” asked Milo.“Vasili? They’re dead?”

Barstow nodded grimly. “Yes. Hugo apparently shot them both just before he went to meet Tatiana Nikolayev . . . our Betty.”

“When did you find out it was Betty?” said Milo dully.

“Just yesterday,” replied Barstow. “The soldier who drove our mess steward over to pick up stores has been careless from time to time in making contacts with someone over on that base. When he was given two silenced pistols, he was observed, and immediately he was back on the road headed here, the person who gave him the pistols was picked up by our people and taken away. Fortunately for us, he had a very low pain threshold, so we had most of the scheme before that day was done, but he also had a weak heart and he died on us before we got every jot and tittle out of him.

“We had sent the two men you knew as Herr Hizinger and Herr Gries through in the normal way, along with a real, if nearly useless, Nazi bureaucrat who had been a midlevel paper shuffler with the rocket projects—that is, Herr Faber. Both Hizinger and Gries were born in Germany, and both lived there until the late 1930s, so it was thought that they could give convincing performances as ex-Nazis, and they were schooled and coached at some length about the proper responses to questions thrown at them by the three doctors. They did convince the learned doctors, I presume?”

“Oh, yes,” said Milo, his voice tinged with bitter-ness. “Dr. Smith was jubilant—he assured me that Hizinger and Grieswere the greatest thing since sliced bread. So Betty and Hugo meant to kidnap them, eh? How did they expect to get them to Russia, though?”

Barstow steepled his fingers and looked at Milo through them and the thick cloud of blue-gray cigar smoke. “I would not be at all surprised if there isn’t a Russian submarine cruising or lying somewhere just east of Hampton Roads, in Chesapeake Bay or even over in the James River or the York. A group of heavily armed men was to be waiting up the road to eliminate any pursuit, and a large, fast automobile was parked on a shoulder of Route 60, ready to receive Tatiana, Hugo, Hizinger and Gries. They would then have been driven to where a fast boat was moored. And we don’t know any more than that, that’s when the man we got most of the rest out of died. But we’ll get more—four out of the six we ambushed back up the road there were taken alive and are more or less sound.

“That we weren’t able to take Hugo or Tatiana alive is a blow, and I can only blame myself for not checking her mouth thoroughly before I turned my back on her for even an instant. I should’ve known better. She knew we’d break her, one way or the other, before we gave her to anybody else, and she knew she had a lot to hide, so she did her duty, the only thing she could do under the circumstances; she was a good operative, that one.”

“How is Judy?” asked Milo. “Betty . . . Tatiana said she’d poisoned her.”

Barstow nodded. “She did—she shared with Judy a small box of chocolates that you had supposedly given her last night. Judy, of course, had no slightest reason to suspect anything was amiss and ate two of the things right after her breakfast. Then when she got sick, she was too sick to tell anybody, even Buck. But the doctors over at the base hospital say that she’ll be fine in a few days, a week at the outside—they got her in time.

“But back to you, Milo. You’re some kind of fine shot to’ve been able to shoot out both rear tires of a moving vehicle with a strange weapon.”

“It wasn’t me that did it, sir.” Milo shook his head. “I did try, but I either missed or those twenty-twos just couldn’t make the grade against those heavy-duty truck tires. It was the WAAC sergeant, Stupsnasig, with a thirty-eight caliber Smith & Wesson she carries inside her brassiere.”

Barstow just stared, almost dropping his cigar from between his teeth.“Brunhild shot out the tires, you said, with a thirty-eight caliber revolver she carries where?”

“She has a stiff linen holster stitched inside her brassiere, she told me, sir. She carries a hammerless round-butt thirty-eight Smith & Wesson Terrier in the holster, apparently, at all times.”

“Did she happen to mention why, Milo?” asked Barstow.

“To safeguard her virtue, sir. She has a very low opinion of the motives of men,” said Milo.

Barstow chuckled. “Her opinion is probably sound. But she’s the last one I’d expect to need a thirty-eight snub to safeguard her body and virtue. God, man, that woman is bigger—and no doubt stronger, too—than half the men in the Army of the United States of America !”

He chuckled again, then added, “Nonetheless, I’m glad as hell that the beefy battleaxe had the gun and the skill to use it so efficiently. She’s a staff sergeant, right? Yes, well, I’ll bump her up to tech, and I’ll put a nice letter in her 201 file, too.

“As for you, Milo—“

“General,” Milo interrupted, “in the morning, you’ll have on your desk a letter from me resigning my commission. I’ve fought my first and my last skirmish in this new war of yours. I made it all through one war and I’m just sick and tired of seeing blood, of smelling fear, of watching people I know die. I have a promise to an old friend to fulfill, and I mean to fulfill it... if I can. At any rate, I want to get back to a life that doesn’t include shooting men and getting shot at for a living, that’s all.”

“But good God, man,” expostulated Barstow, “you’re a Regular, not just some damned homesick draftee. What kind of career do you think there’ll be for a fucking infantry officer in civilian life? Or do you intend to be a gentleman farmer, live on the Stiles fortune and raise thoroughbreds, up in Loudon County?”

Milo arose. “Whatever I do, general, it will sure as hell beat watching a young woman die of cyanide under a clear blue sky, and it will beat the hell out of loading her body into an ambulance. I don’t give a shitwho she really was or what she really was; she loved me and I was beginning to fall in love with her and I’ll be a damned long time forgetting her and the fact that it was your new dirty little undeclared war that parted us and killed her. You can admire Tatiana Nikolayev all you wish for being a ‘good spy’ and suiciding at the right time. But I’ll mourn Betty, if you don’t mind . . . and even if you do . . . sir.”