The Gemini Contenders: A Novel Read online

  “Not specifically. A ‘number of weeks.’ ” He withdrew his hand from hers and casually, naturally reached around her shoulders and drew her to him. Her head rested on his upper chest; he kissed her soft hair. She pulled back and looked up at him—her eyes still searching. She parted her lips as she moved toward him, taking his hand and casually, perfectly naturally, leading it between the lapels of her robe, inside over her breast. When ther lips met, Jane moaned and widened her mouth, accepting the full moisture of his own.

  “It’s been a long time,” she whispered finally.

  “You’re lovely,” he replied, stroking her soft hair with his hand, kissing her eyes.

  “I wish you didn’t have to go away. I don’t want you to go.”

  They stood up in front of the small couch. She helped him take off his jacket, pausing to press her face against his chest. They kissed again, holding each other at first gently, and then with gathering strength. For the briefest time, Victor placed his hands on her shoulders and moved her back; her lovely face was below him and he spoke into her blue eyes. “I’ll miss you terribly. You’ve given me so much.”

  “And you’ve given me what I was afraid to find,” she answered, her lips forming a gentle, quiet smile. “Afraid to look for, actually. Good heavens, I was petrified!”

  She took his hand and they walked across the room to a doorway. Inside was the bedroom; a single ivory lamp shone on a night table, its yellowish white glow throwing light up on the walls of soft blue and across the ivory-colored, simple furniture. The silk spread over the bed was, again, blue and white and filled with the intricate circles of a floral design. It was all so peaceful, so away, so lovely, as Jane was lovely.

  “This is a room of great privacy. And warmth,” said Fontine, struck by simple beauty. “It’s an extraordinary room, because it’s your room and you care for it. Do I sound foolish?”

  “You sound Italian,” she answered softly, smiling, her blue eyes filled with love and urgency. “The privacy and the warmth are for you to share. I want you to share them.”

  She walked to one side of the bed, he to the other. Together they folded back the silk spread; their hands touched and they looked at each other. Jane walked around the bed to him. As she did so, she reached up and unbuttoned the top of her negligee, and then untied the ribbon of her gown. The fabric fell away, her round, full breasts emerged from the folds of silk, the nipples pink, taut.

  He took her into his arms, his lips seeking hers in moist, soft excitement. She pressed her body against his. He could never remember being so completely, so totally aroused. Her long legs trembled and once again she pressed against him. She opened her mouth, her lips covered his, low moans of sweet pleasure coming from her throat.

  “Oh, God, take me, Vittorio. Quickly, quickly, my love!”

  The telephone rang on Alec Teague’s desk. He looked at the office clock on the wall, then at his wristwatch. It was ten minutes to one in the morning. He picked up the receiver.

  “Teague here.”

  “Reynolds in surveillance. We have the report. He’s still in Kensington at the Holcroft flat. We think he’ll stay the night.”

  “Good! We’re on schedule. Everything according to plan.”

  “I wish we knew what was said. We could have set it up, sir.”

  “Quite unnecessary, Reynolds. Deposit a file-insertion for the morning: Parkhurst at the Air Ministry is to be contacted. Flying Officer Holcroft is to be given flexible consideration, including a tour of the Loch Torridon warning relays in Scotland, if it can be arranged quietly. Now, I’m off for some sleep. Good night.”

  8

  Loch Torridon was west of the northwest highlands on the edge of the water, the source of the loch in the sea leading to the Hebrides. Inland there were scores of deep ravines, with streams rolling down from the upper regions, water that was icy and clear and formed pockets of marsh. The compound was between the coast and the hills. It was rough country. Isolated, invulnerable, patrolled by guards armed with weapons and dogs. Six miles northeast was a small village with a single main street that wound between a few shops and became a dirt road on the outskirts.

  The hills themselves were steep, the abrupt inclines profuse with tall trees and thick foliage. It was in the hills that the continentals were put through the rigors of physical training. But the training was slow and laborious. The recruits were not soldiers but businessmen, teachers, and professionals, incapable of sustaining harsh physical exertion.

  The common denominator was a hatred of the Germans. Twenty-two had their roots in Germany and Austria; in addition, there were eight Poles, nine Dutch, seven Belgians, four Italians, and three Greeks. Fifty-three once-respectable citizens who had made their own calculations months earlier.

  They understood that one day they would be sent back to their homelands. But as Teague had noted, it was a formless sort of objective. And this undefined, seemingly low-level, participation was unacceptable to the continentals; undercurrents of discontent were heard in the four barracks in the middle of the camp. As the news of German victories came with alarming rapidity over the radio, the frustrations grew.

  For God’s sake! When? Where? How? We are wasted!

  The camp commander greeted Victor Fontine with not a little wariness. He was a blunt officer of the Regulars and a graduate of MI6’s various schools of covert operations.

  “I won’t pretend to understand much,” he said at first meeting. “My instructions are muddy, which is what they’re supposed to be, I imagine. You’ll spend three weeks, more or less—until Brigadier Teague gives us the order—training with our group as one of the men. You’ll do everything they do, nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  With these words Victor entered the world of Loch Torridon. A strange, convoluted world that had little in common with anything he had experienced in his life before. And he understood, although he was not sure why, that the lessons of Loch Torridon would merge with the teachings of Savarone and shape the remaining years of his life.

  He was issued regulation combat fatigues and equipment, including a rifle and a pistol (without ammunition), a carbine bayonet that doubled as a knife, a field pack with mess utensils, and a blanket roll. He moved into the barracks, where he was greeted casually, with as few words as possible and no curiosity. He learned quickly that there was not much camaraderie in Loch Torridon. These men lived in and with their immediate pasts; they did not seek friendship.

  The daylight hours were long and exhausting; the nights spent memorizing codes and maps and the deep sleep necessary to ease aching bodies. In some ways Victor began to think of Loch Torridon as an extension of other, remembered games. He might have been back at the university, in competition with his classmates on the field, on the courts, on the mats, or up on the slopes racing downhill against a stopwatch. Except that the classmates at Loch Torridon were different; most were older than he was and none had known even vaguely what it was like to have been a Fontini-Cristi. He gathered that much from brief conversations; it was easy to keep to himself, and therefore to compete against himself. It was the cruelest competition.

  “Hello? My name is Mikhailovic.” The man grinning and speaking to Victor sank to the ground, breathing heavily. He released the straps of his field pack and let the bulky canvas slip from his shoulders. It was midpoint in a ten-minute break between a forced march and a tactical maneuver exercise.

  “Mine’s Fontine,” replied Victor. The man was one of the two new recruits who had arrived in Loch Torridon less than a week ago. He was in his mid-twenties, the youngest trainee in the compound.

  “You’re Italian, aren’t you? In Barracks Three?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Serbo-Croat, Barracks One.”

  “Your English is very good.”

  “My father is an exporter—was, I should say. The money’s in the English-speaking countries.” Mikhailovic pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his fatigues pock
et and offered it to Fontine.

  “No, thanks. I just finished one.”

  “I ache all over,” said the Slav, grinning, lighting a cigarette. “I don’t know how the old men do it.”

  “We’ve been here longer.”

  “I don’t mean you. I mean the others.”

  “Thank you.” Victor wondered why Mikhailovic complained. He was a stocky, powerfully built man, with a bull neck and large shoulders. Too, something about him was odd: there was no perspiration whatsoever on Mikhailovic’s forehead, while Fontine’s own was matted with sweat.

  “You got out of Italy before Mussolini made you a lackey to the German, eh?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Machek’s taking the same road. He’ll run all of Yugoslavia soon, mark my word.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Not many people do. My father did.” Mikhailovic drew on his cigarette, his eyes across the field. He added quietly, “They executed him.”

  Fontine looked compassionately at the younger man. “I’m sorry. It’s painful, I know.”

  “Do you?” The Slav turned; there was bewilderment in his eyes.

  “Yes. We’ll talk later. We must concentrate on the maneuver. The object is to reach the top of the next hill through the woods without being tagged.” Victor stood and held out his hand. “My first name’s Vittor—Victor. What’s yours?”

  The Serbo-Croat accepted the handshake firmly. “Petride. It’s Greek. My grandmother was Greek.”

  “Welcome to Loch Torridon, Petride Mikhailovic.”

  As the days went by, Victor and Petride worked well together. So well, in fact, the compound sergeants paired them off against superior numbers in the infiltration exercises. Petride was allowed to move into Victor’s barracks.

  For Victor, it was like having one of his younger brothers suddenly return to life; curious, often bewildered, but strong and obedient. In some ways Petride filled a void, lessened the pain of his memories. If there was a liability in the relationship it was merely one of excess on the Serbo-Croat’s part. Petride was an excessive talker, forever questioning, always volunteering information about his personal life, expecting Victor to reciprocate.

  Beyond a point, Fontine could not. He simply was not so inclined. He had shared the anguish of Campo di Fiori with Jane; there would be no one else. Occasionally he found it necessary to reprimand Petride Mikhailovic.

  “You’re my friend. Not my priest.”

  “Did you have a priest?”

  “Actually, no. It was a figure of speech.”

  “Your family was religious. It must have been.”

  “Why?”

  “Your real name. ‘Fontini-Cristi.’ It means fountains of Christ, doesn’t it?”

  “In a language several centuries old. We’re not religious in the accepted sense; not for a long time.”

  “I’m very, very religious.”

  “It’s your right.”

  The fifth week came and went and still there was no word from Teague. Fontine wondered if he’d been forgotten; whether MI6 had developed second thoughts over the concept of “mismanagement at all costs.” Regardless, life at Loch Torridon had taken his mind off his self-destructive memories; he actually felt quite strong and capable again.

  The compound’s lieutenants had devised what they called a “long-pursuit” exercise for the day. The four barracks operated separately, each taking forty-five degrees of the compass within a ten-mile radius of Loch Torridon. Two men from each barracks were given a fifteen-minute head start before the remaining recruits took chase; the object being for the hunted to elude the hunters for as long as possible.

  It was natural for the sergeants to choose the best two from each barracks to begin the exercise. Victor and Petride were the first eluders in Barracks Three.

  They raced down the rocky slope toward the Loch Torridon woods.

  “Quickly now!” ordered Fontine as they entered the thick foliage of the forest. “We’ll go left. The mud; step into the mud! Break as many branches as you can.”

  They ran no more than fifty yards, snapping limbs, stamping their feet into the moist corridor of soft earth that angled through the woods. Victor issued his second command.

  “Stop! This is far enough. Now, carefully. We’ll make footprints up onto the dry ground.… That’s enough. All right, step backward, directly on the prints. Across the mud.… Good. Now, we’ll head back.”

  “Head back?” asked the bewildered Petride. “Head back where?”

  “To the edge of the woods. Where we entered. We’ve still got eight minutes. That’s enough time.”

  “For what?” The Serbo-Croat looked at his older friend as if Fontine was amusingly mad.

  “To climb a tree. Out of sight.”

  Victor selected a tall Scotch pine in the center of a cluster of lower trees and started up, shinnying to the first level of branches. Petride followed, his boyish face elated. Both men reached the three-quarter height of the pine, bracing themselves on opposite sides of the trunk. They were obscured by the surrounding branches; the ground beneath, however, was visible to them.

  “We’ve nearly two minutes to spare,” whispered Victor, looking at his watch. “Kick any loose limbs away. Rest your weight solidly.”

  Two minutes and thirty second later, their pursuers passed far below them. Fontine leaned forward toward the young Serbo-Croat.

  “We’ll give them thirty seconds and then climb down. We’ll head for the other side of the hill. A section of it fronts a ravine. It’s a good hiding place.”

  “A stone’s throw from the starting line!” Petride grinned. “How did you think of it?”

  “You never had brothers to play games with. Race-and-hide was a favorite.”

  Mikhailovic’s smile disappeared. “I have many brothers,” he said enigmatically, and looked away.

  There was no time to pursue Petride’s statement. Nor did Victor care to. During the past eight days or so, the young Serbo-Croat had behaved quite strangely. Morose one minute, antic the next; and incessantly asking questions that were beyond the bounds of a six-week friendship. Fontine looked at his watch. “I’ll start down first. If there’s no one in sight, I’ll yank the branches. That’s your signal to follow.”

  On the ground, Victor and Petride crouched and ran east at the edge of the woods, the base of the starting hill. Three hundred yards, around the circle of the hill was a slope of jagged rock that overlooked a deep ravine. It was carved out of the hill by a crack of a glacier eons ago, a natural sanctuary. They made their way literally across the gorge. Breathing hard, Fontine lowered himself into a sitting position, his back against the stone cliff. He opened the pocket of his field jacket and took out a pack of cigarettes. Petride sat in front of him, his legs over the side of the ledge. Their isolated perch was no more than seven feet across, perhaps five in depth. Again, Victor looked at his watch. There was no need to whisper now.

  “In half an hour, we’ll climb over the crest and surprise the lieutenants. Cigarette?”

  “No, thank you,” replied Mikhailovic harshly, his back to Fontine.

  The note of anger could not be overlooked. “What’s the matter? Did you hurt yourself?”

  Petride turned. His eyes bore into Victor. “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

  “I won’t try to follow that. You either hurt yourself or you didn’t. I’m not interested in manners of speech.” Fontine decided that if this was to be one of Mikhailovic’s periods of depression, they could do without conversation. He was beginning to think that beneath his wide-eyed innocence, Petride Mikhailovic was a disturbed young man.

  “You choose what interests you, don’t you, Victor? You turn the world off at will. With a switch in your head, all is void. Nothing.” The Serbo-Croat stared at Fontine as he spoke.

  “Be quiet. Look at the scenery, smoke a cigarette, leave me alone. You’re becoming a bore.”

  Mikhailovic slowly pulled his legs over the ledge
, his eyes still riveted on Victor. “You must not dismiss me. You cannot. I’ve shared my secrets with you. Openly, willingly. Now you must do the same.”

  Fontine watched the Serbo-Croat, suddenly apprehensive. “I think you mistake our relationship. Or, perhaps, I’ve mistaken your preferences.”

  “Don’t insult me.”

  “Merely clarification—”

  “My time has run out!” Petride raised his voice; his words formed a cry as his eyes remained wide, unblinking. “You’re not blind! You’re not deaf! Yet you pretend these things!”

  “Get out of here,” ordered Victor quietly. “Go back to the starting line. To the sergeants. The exercise is over.”

  “My name,” Mikhailovic whispered, one leg pulled up beneath his powerful, crouching body. “From the beginning you refused to acknowledge it! Petride!”

  “It is your name. I acknowledge it.”

  “You’ve never heard it before? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “If I have, it made no impression.”

  “That’s a lie! It’s the name of a priest. And you knew that priest!” Again the words floated upward, a cry shouted in desperation.

  “I’ve known a number of priests. None with that name—”

  “A priest on a train! A man devoted to the glory of God! Who walked in the grace of His holy work! You cannot, must not deny him!”

  “Mother of Christ!” Fontine spoke inaudibly; the shock was overpowering. “Salonika. The freight from Salonika.”

  “Yes! That most holy train; documents that are the blood, the soul of the one incorruptible, immaculate church! You’ve taken them from us!”

  “You’re a priest of Xenope,” said Victor, incredulous at the realization. “My God, you’re a monk from Xenope!”

  “With all my heart! With all my mind and soul and body!”

  “How did you get here? How did you penetrate Loch Torridon?”

  Mikhailovic pulled his other leg up; he was fully crouched now, a mad animal prepared to spring. “It’s irrelevant. I must know where that vault was taken, where it was hidden. You’ll tell me, Vittorio Fontini-Cristi! You’ve no choice!”