Between the lines

Alice shifted around in her car seat uncomfortably, staring out of the side window, frowning. None of this felt remotely right. Why had Calloway really been at the pension? And what kind of misunderstanding could it have been? The Russian sniper, the attackers, the blood stains on the wall? No, none of this made any sense. She had tried to convince the British Major to send a few of his men to have a look at the scene of the crime, but to no avail. She had told him of the traces of brutal violence, of Calloway’s heroic act of bravery, of the circumstances of her own escape, but Wiltshire had laughed, and turned her away with the polite impertinence only Brits were able to master. He had insisted that these incidents were quite common, that skirmishes between Allies in the different zones of occupation were not more than friendly wrestling between boys.

That was the only reason that Alice had finally given in and left the station. That, and the mocking stares of Wiltshire’s colleagues maybe. Because there was no reason that Alice could think of that a Major would risk the life of an experiences Lieutenant. If Wiltshire had actually believed that Calloway was in danger, he would have acted on her warning. Wouldn’t he?

Chris sat next to her, steering the car through the late morning traffic, her face an unsuccessful attempt of hiding her anger. Again, Alice felt sorry for her. Jake had behaved like an asshole towards his German sidekick. It was alarming that his harshness made her skin tingle with desire for him, that the way he simply took what he wanted, without hesitation, made her stomach churn with raw lust.

“Look…Chris,” she began, trying to pry her thoughts away from Calloway, the incidents in Zehlendorf, and Jake’s hands bruising her thighs. “Jake acted like an entitled jerk earlier, probably because he was as scared and surprised as I was about the shooting. It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t care for you.”

It sounded ridiculously hollow. Alice knew for a fact that Jake did not give a rat’s ass about Chris, that he was a man with a large appetite. It was the only thing she currently was sure of. The German girl did not reply.

“I’ll go over to the Blue Angel from the pension. Give you space? Maybe you can hash things out between you.” It was probably not a good moment to mention Prague.

But seeing Lieselotte Junker was more important than ever. Alice felt that she was the only one who could make sense of everything she had seen. She would also know where to find Calloway – or at the very least, where to look for him.

“I don’t need you to patronise me, you know.” Alice looked at Chris. “No, I guess not.”

“Jake promised me to take me with him, away from this burnt out shithole.”

“Then he should.”

“Look, I already told you…” Alice nodded. “Yes, I shouldn’t.”

The car came to a halt in front of the boarding house. “Thank you,” Alice said softly. “Tell Jake that I took a walk to see Lieselotte. It would be better if I went alone.”

Chris nodded, still frowning. Alice got out of the car.

“Good luck.”

The Blue Angel was eerily quiet at this time of day, although there was always the familiar prickle of watching eyes from the neighbouring buildings. Inside, the same scowling barman from the night before was sweeping up -long, slow and measured movements of the broom.

He looked up at Alice as the slender young detective entered.

"What do you want?"

Alice had walked all the way from the boarding house to the Blue Angel – Alice had an excellent memory for places and only ever needed to walk somewhere once to be able to find a place again without difficulty.

Still slightly shaken by the encounter with Major Wiltshire, Alice squinted as she walked from the bright street into the dank cellar of the Blue Angel. It was empty, and stools and chairs had been piled onto the tables. Despite her visit to the bar the previous night it felt like it had been ages since she had last been here.

Taken aback by the rude address of the German bar tender, she tried to counter his grump with the most charming smile she could muster. “Excuse me, sir, I did not mean to barge in here like this, but I really need to speak to Fräulein Junker. Last night she told me that I would be able to find her here.”

Again Alice wished that both Calloway and the German singer had been more forthcoming. It was quite clear that the man in front of her would not grant her any more information in case that Lieselotte was not in the Blue Angel.

“It is pretty urgent,” she tried again, and, remembering that Calloway had been quite familiar with the bartender, she added: “I am worried that something has happened to Lieutenant Calloway. Maybe Fräulein Junker can help me?”

Despite himself, the bartender looked a little charmed by the irresistible smile on Alice's delicate, classically beautiful features. His scowl lightened slightly, but he frowned as he heard Calloway's name.

"Calloway is in danger? What has happened to him?"

He hesitated, once again glancing at Alice's winsome face.

"Go up then. She will want to hear if anything has happened to Calloway."


Lieselotte had a flat at the top of the building under which the Blue Angel was based. A flight of narrow backstairs took Alice up to the one-time film star's door. It was ajar.

In the small, neat sitting room within, Lieselotte's shapely form was silhouetted by the open window, framed by sunlight. She smiled as Alice entered.

"The detective returns. What can I do for you now?"

Alice knew it was silly, but she could not help but breathe a sigh of relief at the sight of Lieselotte Junker. Somehow – absurdly – it felt like the German singer was the only person she was still able to trust, the only one that was open and honest to her. It was strange what a few hours in Berlin could do to her judgment. She had to restrain herself from hugging the woman.

“Fräulein Junker, I am very glad to find you here. When we parted you told me that Lieutenant Calloway would always know where to find you. But you see, the issue is that now I need your help to find him.” She paused. Alice wondered if she had any right to upset this beautiful, troubled creature any more than she already had with her inquiries about von Radd. What if Major Wiltshire had been right? But there was this nagging feeling that something was not quite right, and that Lieselotte would be able to confirm this.

“I met him by accident today at a pension in Zehlendorf where I thought Jozef had last been sighted. I am not sure why Calloway was there, too.” Another pause. “We were attacked by Russian snipers. He helped me escape, and…” Alice blushed, suddenly uncomfortable under Lieselotte’s intense gaze. “I am not sure where he is now, and I thought you could help me find him. I really need to speak to him. He said something to me that was…troubling.”

Lieselotte's eyes narrowed.

"If the Russians have Calloway, then he must be... we don't have much time."

She took Alice's hands in hers, staring deep into those gorgeous dark eyes.

"Listen. Calloway had a theory about von Radd, and if the Russians have taken him, it means that they think it must be true as well. Jozef is..."

There was an impossibly loud snap, like a roll of thunder. Lieselotte suddenly jerked upright, her eyes going wide, and then fell forward into Alice's arms. She coughed once, a little blood trickling down her chin, and then went limp. Blood from the gunshot wound at the back of her head slowly began trickling down on to the carpet.

Alice sat downstairs next to the bar, clasping a glass of scotch. It was way too early in the day to get drunk, but when the bartender put the glass in her hand, she had not been in any state to refuse.

An inspector had arrived and was now rummaging around upstairs with a couple of officers. He had asked her a few half-motivated questions that she had answered in a flat, mechanical voice. It was quite obvious that he did not believe to ever find the shooter, and his tired expression had suggested that murders like this happened a lot, all over the city. Many people wanted to settle old scores, swiftly. Alice knew that Lieselotte had had many critics, and likely many enemies. And yet!

She had decided not to follow the first, rather strong urge to run to Jake. What she now needed was silence, and time, to force herself to think. This had been no unlucky coincidence.

Looking down at her hands, she half-consciously noticed speckles of blood on her wrists. Lieselotte Junker’s blood. Alice took another sip of scotch to counter her oncoming sickness.

Confused thoughts drifted to the surface of her mind before slipping away again. There were the things Lieselotte had said that she did not fully grasp. A theory about von Radd? Jake had been adamant about von Radd being dead. Calloway obviously did not agree. And Jozef? Lieselotte had known more than she had wanted to admit to the previous night, and now she was dead. Alice failed to shake off a heavy feeling of guilt.

Lieselotte had not hesitated to believe that Calloway had been taken by the Russians. In fact she had acted like it was the only possible explanation. She, Alice, had not suggested it. If anything, she had hinted at the possibility, maybe hoping to hear Lieselotte immediately dispute it. But she had not. “If the Russians have Calloway…” These had been her words.

The feeling that her whole world had suddenly been yanked out of balance was threatening to overwhelm her. Why would a major of the British military police lie about one of their own being attacked and possibly taken prisoner? Why would they try to cover up a potential crime committed by the Russians, with tensions between all occupying factions running dangerously high already?

And what about von Radd? What about Jozef? Lieselotte had been about to reveal both before she was murdered. Alice refused to believe that this was a coincidence. Someone was watching her very closely, someone hellbent on spoiling her investigation. But why? Why? What was so remarkable about a poor Polish composer whose family wanted to cling on to one last, thin straw of hope that he was still alive?

Absent-mindedly she started scratching off the dried blood, getting increasingly irritated. Alice felt that her mind was on the brink of snapping, of shutting down to leave her to battle her fears all by herself. That could not happen, not now. Slamming the glass down on the bar so hard that the teary-eyed bartender looked up at her with a frown, she stood up.

She needed to wash, urgently, and then to seek a very serious chat with a certain war reporter. Prague would just have to wait.

"It's done."

Jake put the pay phone down without replying. So Loew had carried out his job. Jake didn't feel elated or even grimly satisfied. He just felt curiously numb and empty. He'd killed people before -three, by his count, but that had been in wartime. That had been... different.

He was in a crowded, noisy cafe somewhere in the American sector. He stubbed out the lit cigarette he'd been holding, without smoking, on the edge of his cup and dropped in the cold coffee. Time to go and console the only person who mattered in this whole mess.


"Alice!"

Jake's tall frame blocked the light from the cellar stairs.

"I've got a contact with the cops. I came as soon as I heard."

He crossed the floor.

"I'm so sorry you had to see that."

Alice had not expected to see Jake in the Blue Angel. She had just been about to leave the club when he appeared in the doorway, and she froze. “Jake! How did you…?”

“I've got a contact with the cops. I came as soon as I heard.” Alice nodded, biting back tears. “I'm so sorry you had to see that.” His cool façade was all but gone again. His voice was soft, full of genuine concern, nothing seemed left of the slick womanizer, the jock of the same morning.

All her resolve melted away and she threw herself in his arms, burying her head at his chest. It felt good to let herself go. For a moment, she allowed herself to be weak and vulnerable, gladly handing Jake the role of the knightly protector.

“It was terrible, Jake! Simply terrible.”

Looking up at him with teary eyes, she almost stumbled over her words. “The Brits are hiding something. They must have something on Calloway, or maybe something against him, I don’t know. Some major tried to make me go away, saying that I had misunderstood the situation.” She sniffled, and smiled faintly. “There is not much to misunderstand about three Russian killers trying to off both me and your favourite British detective.”

In Jake’s arms, Alice threw all caution into the wind. Who could she trust if not him? He was almost all she had now, and she was more determined to solve this case than she had ever been. He needed to help her. He had connections, he could help her get more information. Her opponents obviously were not very squeamish. She needed a partner, someone to have her back. At this point the American war reporter was her best bet.

“This is no coincidence, Jake. First Calloway, then Lieselotte Junker. Someone is trying to interfere in my investigation and keep me from finding out were Jozef is. Someone who seems to have a lot to lose.” Her delicate face suddenly took on a determined, almost grim expression. “I plan to make that someone pay for what he did to her.” She glanced up at the stairs leading to Lieselotte Junker’s rooms. “And I will find out what happened to Calloway. Every fibre of my body tells me that there is much more to him – and to my Polish composer – that meets the eye.”

For the first time, she smiled. “Will you help me, Jake?”

Alice was crying. Jake would never have believed it of the cool, self-possessed young detective, even having seen her transformed by lusty passion, but there were certainly tears on her delicate, beautiful face. She had thrown herself into his arms, suddenly fragile and feminine and vulnerable.

If he hadn't schooled his face to respectful compassion, Jake might have grinned. There it was -the crack in the facade that he'd been searching for. She trusted him now, relied on him, and all it had cost had been the life of the inconvenient Lieselotte, a woman who'd finally run out of escape-routes.

And now... now he could steer Alice's investigation exactly where he wanted. Now he could manipulate her, work to undermine and destroy any other connections she might make in Europe. Her confidence had been badly shaken by the murder. He was now the only person she trusted in Berlin. And he could use that.

The uncharacteristic hesitation she had shown last night, refusing to simply let him fuck her where and how he pleased, still rankled. But now Jake couldn't wait to see what kind of degradation this new, pliant Alice would yield to, once the habit of trusting obedience had been carefully cultivated.

But none of it showed on his face.

"I'm your guy, Alice," he said seriously. "Let's get these bastards."

Alice leant her head against the train window, watching as blurred landscapes went past as if pulled on a string in the opposite direction. She was exhausted. Before their departure to Prague she had filed a telegram to the US, telling her clients that she had a lead she was going to follow, and that she hoped to have more concrete news soon.

The pang of guilt when she thought of Calloway would not go away. Lieselotte Junker’s death had rattled her nerves more than she had expected. After all she had been around murder scenes many times before in her life, but never had she felt as vulnerable and helpless as she did this time.

She had also convinced herself that looking for Calloway did not make much sense.

In the end, she had scribbled a quick note on a paper napkin that she had handed to the bar tender in the Blue Angel. “Jake and I are on our way to Prague. – A.” At first she had wanted to tell him about her encounter with the British military police, tell him that she was very sorry for Lieselotte Junker’s death – for that, too, she felt responsible – but then she had decided otherwise. It was likely that he would never even get the note she had written, and the last thing she wanted was to attract more attention from the wrong people. The bar tender had promised to keep the note for Calloway, if he would show up again.

If Calloway was not dead, he would be sure to do so. Part of Alice was hoping and praying that she would see him again, just once, if for nothing else than to absolve herself of the guilt she felt towards him.

Jake had proved to be a thoughtful and sensitive travel companion. After the incident with Lieselotte Junker, he had been nothing but sweet and considerate, making sure that everything was taken care of. She wondered what he had told Chris, but was too tired to ask him.

Finally she looked up, and smiled at the war reporter. “For all my curiosity to finally see Berlin, I am glad I’ve left it behind me.” She pulled her leather notebook from her bag and opened it. “Thank you for coming with me, Jake. I am not sure I would have ventured behind this so-called iron curtain all on my own.”

Jake nodded, and got up to pull the curtain across the window of their compartment as the train thundered into the first stop.

"We don't know who's out there, waiting for a glimpse of us," he explained briefly, knowing he didn't need to mention Lieselotte's death.

Of course, Jake wasn't actually worried. Loew had been paid off and was no doubt already spending his crisp new American dollars in some East Berlin brothel. The chance of a Russian sniper just so happening to be waiting for them were slim. But that wasn't the point. The point was to keep Alice in fear, to keep her from thinking straight.

And there was another advantage to their darkened compartment. Although by the time he was done with her, Alice wouldn't hesitate to service him in front of all Prague -she still had too many 'good girl' scruples to let him fuck her in plain view of a train station.

"You'd better be ready," he said, stroking her face gently. "Prague's no picnic either. The Nazi occupation really went to town on it."

Alice was nervous. With shaking fingers she held a cigarette, watching as Jake pulled the curtain of their compartment closed, the notebook open on her knees. “I know”, she muttered, inhaling deeply. “I know.” The scene she had been forced to witness in Berlin was engraved in her subconscious, and she was unable to stop the flashes of memories, Lieselotte Junker’s face, the blood, her slumped body. She thought of the blood stains in the pension, and of detective Calloway. Staring at the notes before her, she tried to make sense of it all.

Death came so easy, and it seemed to follow hard on her heels.

It annoyed her that she was so shaken, it made her feel weak and helpless. It was the uncertainty that scared her most – the not knowing why Lieselotte had had to die, why Calloway had vanished, why his major had lied to her, and, worst of all, not knowing, still not knowing, if these events were all connected, and all connected to a forgotten Polish composer. While it was possible, likely even, she could not be sure.

She flinched when Jake caressed her face, but immediately apologised. “I am sorry.” She looked up. “I guess I am still somewhat in tatters.” A brief, humourless smile flashed across her face. “Let’s hope that the horrors of Prague will distract me from those we have witnessed in Berlin.”

"I have an idea for something else that might distract you," Jake murmured. Placing his hands on either side of Alice's delicate, frightened face he slowly drew her to him and began kissing her, softly and gently at first, savouring the taste of her soft warm lips.

"Mmm... don't think about anything. Don't you think about a thing..."


***

Calloway came to lying in near-total darkness.

His body ached, bruised and battered everywhere. He was stiff and his arms, forced behind his back and cuffed to the cold metal of a radiato, throbbed painfully. A single dim lightbulb illuminated the cold, bare cellar he was in.

With distant interest, Calloway wondered whether he was still in Berlin, or if hi Russian captors had taken him further east. He looked around the room for clues, but could find nothing -it could have been any dank, stone-walled cellar from Berlin to Moscow.

So much for the great detective.

The thought made him think of the American girl. What an odd time he'd chosen for a display of chivalry. At best, the girl was Thornton's little cat's-paw -and he still wasn't sure that his first instinct, to see her as another OSS agent, had been wrong. Yet he'd stayed behind to allow her to get free. And even now he hoped she'd made it, hoped with a fervour that surprised him. An innocent in Berlin -a rare commodity these days.

Could he really be playing the fool over a pair of sparkling brown eyes?

Noises came from above, and a figure began to descend the stairs. Calloway braced himself.

Alice did not resist. Her decision not to cross the line with Jake anymore vanished into thin air as his lips met hers, gently, almost delicately. And why would she? Jake was her safe haven now, her only benchmark. Kissing him felt good, and right, and it did distract her from all of her other worries. It made her forget Lieselotte Junker, the blood on her fingers, the blood on the wall in the pension. It made her forget about Russian snipers, about Calloway, about the Polish composer. Forgetting was comforting. Why would she not give in to him?

***
Elena Toporovna sighed. “No”, she said calmly. “Calloway is ours to handle. You will follow the directives, sergeant.”

“Fucking chekisty bitch!” The uniformed man in front of her looked like he was going to punch her. “This is a matter between men. Between soldiers! I will not stand for this bullshit!”

The red-haired, slender young woman in front of him remained silent. She was wearing a knee-long pencil skirt, a plain blouse and a grey, cheap-looking jacket over it, giving her the air of a minor civil servant. Under her arm she was carrying a leather briefcase. Her hair was in a loose chignon, and her porcelain skin and delicate face gave her an almost fragile appearance. A misperception many men made, albeit often only once.

“Has the office in Moscow not been clear enough in their orders?” She smiled sweetly, driving the officer facing her to new heights of fury.

“That son of a whore down there belongs to us. We will deal with him! Why should we leave him to some little girl, to…some Cheka secretary?”

The small, but definitely very sharp blade had seemingly appeared out of nowhere in her hand. She was nonchalantly holding it against the officer’s crotch. He froze, his eyes widening in disbelief as he felt the steel press uncomfortably hard against his genitals.

“Do you know what we do with insubordinates, sergeant?” Elena still spoke in the same pleasant, conversational tone she had earlier. “I suggest you step aside.” Finally, he complied.

In the firefight at the pension, Calloway had killed one of their comrades, something the night witches did not take kindly to. The rage had left its mark on the man’s body. He had been beaten and kicked quite severely. His shirt was ripped and stained with blood. There was blood on his face, too. She sighed. They had not left her much to work with.

Elena did not like the brute, unrefined violence men seemed to enjoy. And opponents like Calloway did not usually break under the infliction of such raw torture, under the imprecise blows that an angry fist or a boot was able to administer. Simple physical pain would not do, and neither would a few broken ribs. Men like him needed a subtle approach, they needed to be challenged on a more, well, intellectual level.

She delicately put the thin leather case she had been carrying on the battered-looking wooden table to one side of the radiator. It was low enough for Calloway to make out what was in it. Unfolding it without haste, she revealed an array of surgical instruments, glinting in the weak light overhead. Next to them she deposited a loose stack of papers. Then she turned to the prisoner in front of her, considering him silently for a moment. Bowing down to him, she pulled a clean handkerchief from her jacket pocket and gently wiped the blood from his chin, smiling at him.

“Lieutenant Calloway”, she said softly, her Russian accent barely detectable. “While I regret meeting you under such distressing circumstances, do believe me that I am overjoyed to finally make your acquaintance.” She pulled up a chair and sat down across from him. “There are so many things we need to talk about, you and I.”

The kiss was soft at first, gentle, reassuring, but Jake's hunger would not allow it to remain that way for long. He pressed down on her, his broadshouldered physique dominating her, keeping her helplessly pinned against the seat as he took his pleasure from her lips. One hand began undoing the buttons of her coat one by one, swift and practised flicks.


***

The image was incongruous. The slender, redheaded young Russian woman had a fragile beauty, bending to wipe the blood away with a delicate, tender hand. She could have been an angelic, compassionate nurse in one of the propaganda movies that the Soviet Union churned out -lovingly caring for the brave socialist warriors who'd been wounded fighting the fascists. But on the table in front of her was a gleaming array of blades, and Calloway knew what this angel of mercy intended to do with them.

He coughed, feeling the blood in his lungs and watched her seat herself opposite him, looking down at him as she spoke.

“Lieutenant Calloway. While I regret meeting you under such distressing circumstances, do believe me that I am overjoyed to finally make your acquaintance. There are so many things we need to talk about, you and I.”

"Really?" Calloway said, raising an eyebrow. "Do tell. Tchaikovsky, perhaps? Your views on War and Peace? The economic miracle of the five-year plan?"

Alice let herself fall into his kiss, let him pin her down. It felt good being this helpless. His kiss became more demanding, hungrier, reminding her of that first night in Berlin. It seemed to be ages ago.

When his hand slid from her shoulder to the front of her coat, she shifted in her seat to grant him easier access, impatient for him to free her from the woollen garment. A soft moan escaped her lips as his fingers brushed roughly against her silk-clad breast.

She shrugged the coat off and lifted herself up from the seat briefly, roughly trying to hike up her skirt while still locking lips with Jake. All she now wanted was for him to take her again, and chase the haunting memories of Berlin from her mind.

***

“War and Peace?” Elena laughed softly. “A rather tedious topic.” She pulled a silver case from her pocket, opened it, and pulled out a slim cigarette. “I would have suspected to be a man who prefers Gogol. Or Chekhov?” Turning the cigarette between slender, perfectly manicured fingers, Elena smiled as if lost in thought. “I have heard that you are a man of wit, Calloway. Don’t disappoint me.”

She looked at him, the icy glint in her eyes in conflict with the tender expression of her face.

“And we will speak about music, Lieutenant. I find Tchaikovsky too common. Don’t you think? I am surprised that you would prefer him over the works of more recent, more modern composers.” She lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. “But all in good time.”

The snide remarks, the cynicism and his attempts to deflect her would wear off eventually. Elena was not in a hurry. The smoke drifted languorously from her lips.

“First I want to extent my condolences to you, Lieutenant.” She considered him, her dark blue eyes calm, almost compassionate. “I know that you and Lieselotte Junker were close.”

She waited to let this statement sink in, closely watching for signs of shock, anger, maybe despair about the death of his friend. Elena was good at detecting another person’s emotions: the contraction of pupils, the faintest flicker around the corners of a mouth, a shift in position, an uncontrolled sudden intake of breath. Each physical reaction, no matter how insignificant, was a hint, a sign, a letter waiting to be read, to made sense out of.

“You should not have underestimated your enemies, Calloway”, she said. “In a way, you have yourself to blame for Fräulein Junker’s murder.”

Jake was ferocious, animal-like. Alice squirmed and writhed against him as he kissed her with brutal intensity. All tenderness had vanished from his kiss, his touch. One hand undid his belt and let the massive length of his cock out. There was nothing tender or seductive this time. Holding her in place, he simply rammed himself into her.

He let out a short gasp at the unbelievable wet tightness of her. The thought that anyone could come into their compartment at any moment gave a delicious spice to the act -they'd see a formerly reserved, respected young private detective being taken like a willing little slut.

The thought brought a savage grin to his face and he redoubled his thrusts.


***

Clever.

While Elena had been studying him, sizing him with a wolfish intensity, Calloway had been conducting his own survey of his opponent. Clever was his first thought. Intelligence was obvious in her poise, in her intent bright eyes, even in the way she was examining him. That meant he had to be on his guard.

He couldn't tell yet whether she was a true believer in the Soviet ideology or simply an opportunist, the kind of coldly intellectual strategist who'd have done equally well among the Americans or the Nazis. His inclination was to the latter but he couldn't be sure. Some of the most brilliant thinkers he knew had a blind and sincere faith in the prophet Marx and his apostles Lenin and Stalin. She hadn't responded to his gibe about the five year plan. He should try to find out -both types had their weaknesses to exploit, but those differed dramatically.

And she was ruthless. Was it true? Was Lieselotte dead? Had Berlin claimed that beautiful, haunted creature as she always feared it would? Calloway could not allow himself to show the despair he felt rising up in him. He meant to go on with his quest, no matter what -but he had embarked on it for one woman, and she might now be dead.

No pain showed on his face. Nor did the hatred that for a moment flared up inside him. His tightly muscled body was totally still, his face impassive as he gazed at Elena.

"I had not heard that Fräulein Junker was dead. If so, that is a great pity. She was a very talented performer."

You think I'm at your mercy, and that you're going to break, with torture and cruel little games and words.

His expressionless face yielded to a half-smile.

But you are not going to break me. I am going to break you.

Alice tried to muffle her increasingly loud moans by burying her head against his shoulder. There was nothing tender about the way Jake was fucking her now, but the raw desire she felt for him, too, was exactly what she wanted to feel. It was all that she wanted to feel, and it was easy, so easy, to give in.

There were voices in the corridor outside, footsteps. She stiffened in his grip, only too conscious of her hiked-up skirt, her torn stockings, the position she was in, but she could not stop.

The door slid open, there was a brief silence, then a snort. “Hübsche Nutte, was kostet die?” Over Jake’s shoulder Alice spotted two young men in business suits, one of them smoking a cigarette while the other just grinned. Their eyes met, and Alice could see the lust in their faces as they watched her being fucked like the hooker they thought she was. She did not lower her glance, but instead muttered: “Yes, fuck me, fuck me…” Her voice trailed off in a moan as vulgar as her words had been.

“Amerikaner, wa?” The men sniggered. “Welcome to Germany!” They allowed themselves another look glance before closing the door again, their laughter fading as they walked on.

Alice was not sure if it had been the humiliation or Jake’s hard expert thrusts that made her climax, but all she could do was cling on to him, trembling, as he rammed himself into her again and again, making her forget.

***

A very talented performer.

As are you, Elena thought, calmly studying Calloway’s face.

“A pity indeed”, she continued, her voice as soft and even as it had been before. “And our sources point to a German sniper hired by an American operative?” The inquisitive tone was slightly too heartfelt to be genuinely sincere. “An old acquaintance of yours.” She paused again to let this new bit of information sink in. Elena knew that Calloway would be able to guess whom she was referring to and she wondered what kind of reaction it would tickle from the British detective.

“I wonder what Fräulein Junker had done to run afoul of your foe. Maybe he just did not think that she was as formidable a performer as you thought her to be?”

If her assessment of Calloway was correct, the cruelty of this comment should produce at least some reaction.

Pulling a grainy photograph from the stack of papers on the table, she held it up for Calloway to see. “We have reason to believe that the man I mentioned is now in the company of this charming young lady, an American PI who has no idea what she is really chasing.” Elena smiled again. Men like Calloway, men who still believed in chivalry, in an honour code, in bravery, were best baited with a damsel in distress they could protect. She was not yet sure if Miss Alice McGregor would be a juicy enough morsel for Calloway to swallow, but at this point, each of his reactions provided a helpful piece to the puzzle of his mind.

“We have no way of knowing if she knows who her companion and protector really is.” She put the photograph away. “But these post-war days make for strange bedfellows, wouldn’t you agree?”

The truth was that her bosses in Moscow really did not know what part the young American woman was playing. Chances were that Calloway did not know either, but one of their spies had reported that it had been Calloway who had dropped hints about the Polish composer to her. Why had he done that if not because he believed she was clean?

“You see, we might be able to come to an agreement, you and I.” She took a last drag from her cigarette before throwing the stub to the floor to extinguish it with the tip of her boot. “If you tell me where the two travellers might be heading, we could join forces to catch up with them.”

She motioned vaguely up the stairs with her head. “I know what you are thinking. But my department has a different approach to the matter than the men you can into at the pension. We have no interest in killing Miss McGregor.” The smile returned to her lips. “But seen the friends she has made in Berlin, you and I should both hope that she doesn’t find what she is looking for before us. Not as long as she is with him.”

Jake could hardly contain himself at the young men's inadvertant entrance. A few days ago, Alice McGregor had been a nice, reserved young lady -the kind well-capable of keeping her desires as well as her fears well under control. Now she was a wanton little slut, all too easily mistaken for a whore, being fucked and begging for more on a German train.

When he became bored with her, after this was all over, Jake enjoyed the thought of leaving her in some bombed-out back-alley as a fucktoy for any man who came across her. Maybe she'd be able to suck enough cocks to get a ticket back to New York.

The thought of delicately pretty, self-possessed Alice being used and degraded in this way was enough to push him over the edge and he came with a groan, shooting his hot seed into her.


***


Even Calloway could not contain the rage he felt. Thornton. Of course it was Thornton. He knew Elena was telling the truth now. It simply fit too well with Thornton's M.O.

He'd have told himself that it was eliminating loose ends, that it was a clean and professional operation. Maybe he wouldn't even have acknowledged the truth to himself -the truth that Jake Thornton hated women as much as he desired, that he loved to make them suffer as much as he loved fucking them.

He looked very deliberately up at his beautiful interrogator.

"I think," he said, his voice level and toneless, his English accent infused with a remote, chilly superiority, "That we'll have an unhappy world, caught between you and your comrades and Mr Thornton and his masters. You deserve each other."

He caught his breath for a moment.

"As for this... Miss McGregor... I'm afraid I haven't had the pleasure."

Alice fell back, exhausted. Her legs were still trembling. Was this really her? This woman that had just let a man who was not much more than a stranger fuck her like a prostitute? But it had felt good. She knew she would do it again. Jake knew this, too.

Without a word she straightened her skirt and tried to arrange her stockings as best she could. She only travelled with one other pair, and chances were that procuring such a luxury item in Prague would prove to be tricky. Her mind wandered already. To Lieselotte Junker, to Calloway. To Jake fucking her again. To Jake watching her being fucked by another man. She groaned, unsure if the thought scared or excited her. She needed to be alone.

Distracted, she rose from the bench. “I’ll go clean myself up a little”, she muttered. It was the middle of the day, but Alice felt the string need for a drink. Maybe there was a restaurant cart where she could find something strong enough to clear her head. Ever since the scene she had witnessed in the Blue Angel it was as if her mind had fallen apart, scattered into a million little pieces, each mirroring only a distorted shard of her thoughts.

She reached for her bag. “Do you want anything?”

***

„You haven’t had the pleasure? “ The confusion briefly robbed Elena of her relaxed poise. For a moment an expression of utter incredulity gave her pause. Why would he say such a thing?

“We know you met her in the Blue Angel, Calloway.” She studied his face, unsure of why he would tell such a blatant and easily detectable lie. “Bloody hell, the snipers would have shot her back in the pension if you had not saved her. If it wasn’t for Alice McGregor, you would not be here now!” Elena was not shouting, not yet, but the volume of her voice had certainly increased.

“The boys upstairs would love nothing more than having to carry you out of this cellar in handily sized buckets.” She motioned to the array of blades on the table. Each was meticulously polished, and nothing hinted at the inhuman suffering each had caused, the wounds each had inflicted. But Calloway was a self-declared hero, and he would become a martyr for the cause if need be. All men ultimately feared pain and every human being had a threshold for suffering beyond which they were unable to venture without losing their mind, but Elena had enough experience to know that there was a small number who would rather go insane with agony before giving in to torture. Calloway struck her as just such a candidate.

“If Miss McGregor currently travels with that American operative, she is in grave danger. You and I both know what Jake Thornton is capable of.” There was a faint glint in her eyes, a hint of a haunting memory she could not shake off. “I doubt that you would want the detective to find out just how far he is willing to go.”

Calloway's expression did not change but his pulse quickened almost imperceptibly. He had been looking for a chink in Elena's armour -some vulnerability behind that beautiful, immaculately composed face, and he thought he had found it. It was not surprising that it should be Thornton. Thornton liked hurting women. Perhaps Elena had gained her present aptitude for interrogation after an encounter with Thornton.

But at the same time, the thought twisted a knife in his guts. He'd been irritated by Alice McGregor -for all her intelligence and charm, an innocent wandering into the hell that was Berlin, but he'd also felt that fatal impulse to protect her, that same damnable chivalry that had first brought him into contact with Lieslotte.

And how well he had protected her. He realized that this was precisely where Elena wanted his thoughts to go -and perhaps she knew that he realized it as well, and didn't care. Thy were bound together for now. He simply could not bear the thought of Thornton hurting Alice as he had hurt so many others... and he might still have a chance to outwit the Russians, before the game was over.

"I wonder... " he asked, "If I might have a cigarette? The time has come to talk of many things."

Alice stared at the glass of bad vodka in her hands, her fingers wrapped around it as if she hoped to warm them there.

The strong drink calmed her, and sitting by herself in the busy restaurant cart helped her to bring the world back into focus. She took a deep breath, and pulled her notebook from her bag. Lighting a cigarette, she opened it, scanning her notes, the thin neat lines of her handwriting helping her to bring sense to the chaos that was this assignment.

She unfolded a newspaper clipping she had glued into the pages and looked at a grainy photograph of Jozef standing next to a piano, smiling stiffly for the cameras, a still from a concert he had given in Dresden, one of his last. Alice looked at the dark-haired, slender young man, wondering how much of the pending horror he had sensed already then, with many of his own leaving the country, his Jewish colleagues increasingly struggling to find work and employers.

Her thoughts drifted to Calloway. At their very first meeting, he had described Jozef Berkowicz like a connoisseur, someone intimately acquainted with his music and style. Alice frowned. There had been something odd, something he had said subsequently and that she could not quite put her finger on, but it irritated her, nagged at her. What was it?

She stared at the photograph, the audience, all smiling and clapping, unaware or uncaring about the fact that the man they applauded was not Aryan enough for the German government. Outside the train windows, small towns and trees were passing in a flurry of dulled colours, bringing them closer to the city Calloway had pointed her to. Prague.

Then it hit her.

“The man you are looking for is in Prague.”

That was how Calloway had put it, back in the pension, with the Russian snipers closing in on them. Why would he phrase it like that if the man he was talking about was a musician he was acquainted with, whom he admired and who he had spoken to her about only minutes prior to that incident? Why did Berkowicz suddenly become “the man”, an anonymous figure?

Alice drained the glass in one gulp, enjoying the burning sensation in her throat. She would ask Jake what he thought about this, if he had an idea who they would really be looking for in the crushed city of Prague.

***

Elena nodded. “Of course.” The cynical edge from his voice was gone. Maybe her tactic had worked, and he did realise that they were not enemies in all things, that both of them had an interest in finding their opponent fast, before he accomplished his mission. Before he tired of Alice McGregor, and she would become yet another woman he had used and discarded.

She knew what that felt like. For all her indifference to the young American woman currently sharing his bed, falling for the façade of the fun and easy-going jock, Elena did not wish for even one more woman to suffer at his hands, degraded and hurt and frightened of her own shadow. She wondered if Calloway had realised the urgency in her request, if he had glimpsed the dormant fear in her eyes. Maybe it was the real reason he finally started to respond.

Yet his suddenly conciliatory tone surprised Elena. It was almost too soon, from a man like him. Maybe she had underestimated the guilt he felt in the face of Lieselotte Junker’s death, and whatever feelings he might harbour for the pretty private detective.

She crouched down, her face now level with his.

“I am not allowed to unshackle you, I’m afraid”, she said, smiling, indicating the guards upstairs with a movement of her head. “They don’t trust a weak lady like me to be able to deal with a strong man as yourself, I suppose.” The mockery in her tone was almost amicable. “But I’m happy to help.”

With that she lit a cigarette, taking a deep inhale before plucking it from her lips to put it between his, a somehow strangely flirtatious gesture.

“So, Calloway, what is it that you would like to talk about? I am all ears.”

Prague.

The city had once stood for Old World mystery and power, for alchemy and Hapsburg intrigues, for suffering and transcendance. But seven years of Nazi occupation had worn Prague's magic thin, and sated even its appetite for punishment. Standing under the Gothic spires of the Tyn church, Jake looked about the shelled-out Old Town Square, where grey-faced figures moved quietly through the gloaming.

The American stood out among the crowds, and not just for his height and muscular physique. He radiated utter, swaggering confidence -an animal sense of certainty about himself and his place in the world that the otherworldly citizens of Prague had lost, or perhaps had never possessed.

Alice was at his shoulder, the beautiful young detective's pale face withdrawn and troubled. It made her look all the lovelier, but it was an irritation to Jake. She'd been that way ever since he'd fucked her on the train. Jake didn't think it was that which was troubling her, though. No, this went deeper. It had to be motherfucking Calloway -something he'd said to her, some hint the smug English bastard had dropped.

Calloway. Too much to hope for that the Russians would get rid of him for Jake. No, Jake would have to take care of that himself, once he'd found out where they were keeping him. He'd need to keep Alice distracted while he sorted that out -and he had just the distraction in mind.

He checked his watch. Now where was she?

In the end, Alice had decided not to tell Jake about Calloway’s comment in the pension. She was unsure why not. When she had returned to the compartment, he had sat there, staring darkly out of the curtain-clad window, smoking, lost in thought.

There would be time for questions later.


***

Justyna Miroslava watched Jake Thornton from behind one of the bombed-out walls. He looked good. Too good for these times, and too good for this city. But she noticed this with the detached curiosity of the scientist who observed an unusual phenomenon, and her observation did not translate into desire at all.

He had joked that she was the only woman whose heart he was unable to break because she had none, and maybe that was not far from the truth. A heart, she had found out very early in her life, gave her a vulnerability that she was just not able to afford.

She had been in the resistance, and it had been there that she and Jack Thornton had first crossed paths. Her ruthlessness, her utter lack of fear had impressed him and soon after the end of the war, he had recruited her as one of theirs. They had fucked, too. Jake Thornton was the kind of man who seemingly had to seduce a beautiful woman before he could concentrate on working with her, so she had given in to his advances – in their line of work, lack of dedication could prove to be deadly.

Had he ever believed that she could fall for him? Maybe. Most women did. She smiled as she watched him greedily inhale the smoke from his cigarette, obviously impatient and agitated. Justyna had not often seen Thornton lose his composure, and part of her craved the dangerous, the violent anger he was capable of when he did. Few who met him as the fun-loving American jock had any idea of the beast underneath, and even fewer of those who caught a glimpse of the real man lived to tell the tale. In that, they made an excellent team.

And they had done good work together, Thornton and her. Interrogations, investigations. Once or twice they had killed together. But this assignment demanded a different set of skills. Justyna’s glance fell on the dark-haired detective. Pretty. Very pretty. It would be easy, almost insultingly so.

Another heartbeat, another deep breath, and she emerged from her hiding place to stride across the square. Alice saw her first.

“I am sorry, I was held up” – her voice now apologetic, polite, demure – “Jake Thornton! Welcome to Prague. I did not think that I would see you again.”

She tilted her head. “You must be Alice McGregor? Welcome, welcome to Prague. My name is Justyna Miroslava, and I am here to help you find your way around our sad city.”

***

Alice took her slender hand and shook it, still unsure of how on earth Jake had managed to conjure up yet another beautiful female in yet another devastated city, yet again eager to help them. Justyna was almost as tall as Jake, her hair a rich, golden blonde. Her slender figure, her large blue eyes and her confident smile was what the Germans must have had in mind when describing the perfect Aryan woman.


“Nice to meet you.” Alice tried to sound as thrilled as humanly possible. In reality she wanted to be alone, and think about what Calloway had told her. But Jake had probably had the right idea in asking a local to guide them.

She looked at Jake. “Where should we start?”