Death

May 27, 1942.

Pulaski sat at his desk. He watched the gendarmes running in the hallway.

A telegram had come in from Prague. An open-top Mercedes. Two Czechs with a Sten gun and a grenade. Reinhard Heydrich was going to die.

- They’re saying he won't make it, Benoit whispered, leaning over Pulaski’s desk.

-Why are you here? Pulaski asked, standing up. I have to take a walk.

Pulaski decided to go to Avenue Louise on his own. He was hoping for the same guard, but had the feeling they’d let him in without a pass this time.

They did.

He found Klirren in his office. He was standing by the window, his tunic unbuttoned at the neck. There was a stack of files on his desk a foot high.

-They are calling for blood, Klirren said. His voice was raw. Berlin wants every open file on a British operative closed with a reprisal.

-You have Newkirk, Pulaski said.

-One dead man isn't enough for the High Command! Klirren shouted. They want a network. They want to know who sheltered him. Who fed him.

Pulaski looked at the file on the desk. PROJECT NEWKIRK. It was full of the lies he and Schultz had built.

-The file says he was a lone operative, Pulaski said firmly. A specialist. That was your report, Sturmbannführer. If you change it now, it looks like you missed a cell.

Klirren stopped. He looked at the file. He looked at Pulaski. To admit there were more spies was to admit a failure in security.

-A lone wolf, Klirren muttered, wiping sweat from his lip. Yes. But someone must pay for the death of Frelinghuysen.

-He has.

-No. The Communists in the Citadel. Ten of them. It is the standard rate for an informant.

Pulaski looked out the window. He could see the tram lines leading toward Saint-Gilles.

-Why tell me?

-It’s the price for order, Klirren snapped.

Pulaski walked out. He passed Room 12.

Schultz was at his desk. He was typing faster than Pulaski had ever seen.

May went and June came. Heydrich died and went to hell.

The flags were at half-mast.

Pulaski stood in the courtyard of the Citadel of Namur.

Ten men were lined up against the wall. They were from the docks. They were from the coal mines. They were men who had been in the cells for months, waiting for a reason to die. Today, the reason was Frelinghuysen.

The officer in charge read the decree. He mentioned the "British saboteur." He mentioned the "protection of the Reich’s assets."

Pulaski watched. He felt the three thousand francs in his pocket. It was his now. He heard the shots.

They echoed off the stone walls.

He walked out of the Citadel. He got on the tram.

He rode it all the way to Saint-Gilles. He walked past the tenement.

Pulaski walked to the corner. He leaned against a lamppost and rolled a cigarette.

-You did it, Captain, he said to the rain.

He thought about the vagrant in the potter's field. He thought about the ten men at the wall. He thought about Schultz, sitting at a desk, typing lists for a war that would never end.

He lit the cigarette.

-It’s not my problem, he said.

He turned the corner and disappeared into the gray of Brussels.