Greg Iles - Black Cross

“He’s gone,” McConnell said, shutting the door against the cold.

“What did he say?” Anna asked from the table.

Without Stern’s manic energy there to distract him, McConnell noticed for the first time the tremendous toll all of it was taking on Anna. Her skin, especially around the eyes, had completely lost the pallor of that first night, and taken on the shiny darkness of overripe fruit.

“He’s setting the two cylinders for eight tomorrow night. He’ll send the rest down at the same time. He said I should wait for him in the cellar, and you should wait upstairs.”

She looked surprised. “I assumed he would tell you to wait on the hill, in case he was caught and you had to carry out the attack tonight.”

“He doesn’t plan on getting caught.”

“What do you think?”

McConnell sat down opposite her. “To tell you the truth, I don’t even know if I could climb the pylon. They didn’t train me for that.”

“You have to climb it to release the gas?”

“According to Stern.”

“I could go with you,” Anna suggested. “Help you. There’s no reason for me to stay here.”

“There no reason for you to risk going with me. Besides, you . . . you look done in. You really should try to sleep.”

Anna folded her arms together as if she were cold. “I cannot sleep. I am exhausted, but I don’t want to drop off. Schörner could send someone for me at any moment.”

McConnell weighed the dangers of remaining at the cottage against trying to reach the pylon on the hill. “Anna, has anyone suspected you before now?”

“I don’t think so. But it won’t take Schörner long to put it together.” She brushed her hair back from her face. “If they come for me — if Sergeant Sturm comes for me — I think I would kill myself rather than be taken.”

McConnell looked into her eyes. She was not only exhausted, she was absolutely terrified. He felt stupid for not seeing it earlier. And she meant what she said about suicide.

“Look, I’m not leaving you behind,” he said. “I’m taking you out with us.”

“Stern said the British wouldn’t let you take anyone out.”

McConnell tensed at the sound of an engine on the Dornow road, but the vehicle didn’t turn into the lane that led to the cottage. “How long have you been helping SOE?” he asked.

“Six or seven months.”

“To hell with what the British say. I’m taking you out. Smith owes you that.”

She kept looking at him. In her eyes he sensed, or hoped he sensed, some flicker of hope for herself. He could tell that she had been forcing herself not to think about what would happen after the attack. But now he had offered her a chance, and he saw that she wanted it.

“What about the hill?” she asked.

“To hell with it. I’d rather wait here.”

“In the cellar?”

He slid his hand across the table. “With you.”

She lowered her eyes, but did not take his hand. “Stern told me you’re married.”

“I am.”

“Why didn’t you tell me last night?”

“I don’t know. You didn’t ask.”

She looked up at him again. “What is it you want, Doctor?”

“You.”

“I know you want me. Why do you want me?”

He searched for some reasonable answer, but could not find one.

“Is it because you might die tomorrow? Or even tonight?”

He considered this. “I don’t think so.”

“Why, then?”

“Because I love you.”

“Love me?” Anna’s lips curled with a trace of irony. “You don’t even know me.”

“I know you.”

“You’re mad.”

“No argument.”

“Don’t say you love me, Doctor. Not to persuade me to give my body to you. You don’t have to say that.”

“I don’t say it easily. You’re the second woman I’ve said that to in my entire life.”

Her eyes searched his face for deception.

“I know a lot of men say it,” McConnell went on, “just for that reason. It’s the easiest way to get a woman to let you have your way with her, I’m sure.”

“And you say it now.”

His eyes didn’t waver. “Yes.”

“You have a wife.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t love her?”

“I do love her.”

“But she isn’t here to comfort you. And I am.”

McConnell watched the way her eyes changed when she talked. They seemed as much a part of her communication as her words, amplifying each question or statement with fine yet uncertain shades of meaning. “She hasn’t been in England to comfort me for the past four years, either,” he said. “I made it fine without any . . . comfort.”

“There were temptations there? In England?”

“Enough.”

“But you ignored them? You were noble?”

“Trying to be, I guess.”

“But you are not feeling noble now.”

He sighed wearily. “Look, is this a test or what? I certainly don’t feel noble about this. I feel like I’ve been dropped straight into hell or the closest thing to it. A week ago I was a pacifist and a loyal husband. Tonight I’m planning mass murder and contemplating adultery.” He laughed then, rather strangely. “Maybe I’m working my way up in stages. First adultery, then a little assault and battery to get warmed up . . . then I’ll go for the really big time. Poison gas.”

“Stop it,” she said.

“Look, let’s just forget it.” He stood up. “Maybe we should go up the hill.”

“What is your wife’s name, Doctor?”

“What?”

“What is your wife’s name?”

“Susan.”

“You have children with her?”

“No. None yet.”

Anna stood up slowly. Her left hand went to the button at her throat. She unfastened it and moved to the next button. “Then,” she said deliberately, “with all humility I ask Susan’s forgiveness for what I am about to do.”

He watched the white blouse open, revealing scalloped collarbones, then her breasts. “Why are you saying that?”

She dropped the blouse from her shoulders. “Because she is your wife. Because she is here with us now, and there’s no use pretending she isn’t.” Anna unfastened her skirt. It brushed the floor with a soft rustle. She took a step forward.

He could see the pulse at the base of her throat.

“I won’t be ashamed for this later,” she said, her voice trembling. “In spite of what we are about to do. This is what it is, but I refuse to be ashamed .”

He held his hands in front of him, as if to stop her. “Are you sure you want this?”

“Yes.”

“Because you might die tomorrow?”

“Partly.”

He winced. In spite of the impossibility of it all, he had hoped for something more. “Is it because of Franz Perlman? The man you loved?”

A faint smile touched her lips. “No. That’s past.”

She reached out and laid a finger on McConnell’s lips.

He pulled her to him and kissed her mouth. He felt a sudden heat across the back of his neck, and his heart beat in quick, irregular bursts. She molded her body against his, withholding nothing. “Hurry,” she said. “Schörner could come at any moment.”

He backed toward her bedroom, kissing her and pulling her with him while she worked at the buttons of his shirt. After four years of self-denial, the mere touch of her skin, the pressure of her breasts as she drew breath against him made him flush with heat. At the edge of the bed Anna reached down, still kissing him, and pulled back the heavy duvet.

“ Zeig’s mir ,” she said. “Show me how you love me.”

As she opened to him, he had a sense of collapsing into her, of leaving behind more than the terror and uncertainty of the past three days. Show me how you love me , she had said. But what he heard was, Show me we are still alive . . . .