“Before I got to Frankfurt. On the way to Marburg.”
“By whom?”
There was another perceptible hesitation.
“Christ, I really hate to tell you,” he said.
“I don’t want you playing games with her.”
“I think I have to know,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said.
“Fuck you,” Fulmar said.
“You have to know what I goddamn well decide to tell you.”
Von Heurten-Mitnitz stiffened. He was not used to being talked to like that.
But he kept control of himself.
“Someone you knew when you were at Marburg?” he asked reasonably.
And then, when Fulmar remained silent, he added, “I don’t want to sound melodramatic, but I will be here when you are safe in England.”
“Tell him, Eric,” the Countess said.
“As you pointed out, we are not in a delicate business.”
“I don’t want you trying to use her, you understand me? Her, or her father.”
“Who recognized you? “von Heurten-Mitnitz persisted gently.
“Elizabeth von Handleman-Bitburg,” Fulmar said.
Von Heurten-Mitnitz’s eyebrows went up. The Countess looked at him with a question in her eyes.
“Generaloberst von Handleman-Bitburg’s daughter?” von HeurtenMitnitz asked.
Fulmar nodded.
“Possibly it’s meaningless,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said.
“She met a young Obersturmfuhrer whom she had once known. Was there any reason you think she was suspicious?”
“Her father had told her that I was seen in Morocco in an American uniform,” Fulmar said.
“She knew.”
“And what do you think she will tell her father?” von HeurtenMitnitz asked.
“Nothing,” Fulmar said.
“She won’t tell him a thing.”
“I wish I shared your confidence,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said.
“The only reason I’m telling you this, “Fulmar said, “is because I don’t want you to protect your ass by taking her out.”
“Telling me what?”
“We spent the night together,” Fulmar said.
“Okay? Get the picture?”
“Yes, I think I do,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said.
“If anything happens to her,” Fulmar said.
“I will…”
“Don’t be childish,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said.
“I was about to say something childish, “Fulmar said.
“Like I will come back here and kill you myself. But I won’t have to do that. All I’ll have to do is make sure the Sicherheitsdienst finds out about you.”
“My God!” von Heurten-Mitnitz said.
“I made a mistake in telling you,” Fulmar said.
“No, you didn’t, Eric,” the Countess said. She walked to von HeurtenMitnitz and put her arm in his, then stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek.
“Helmut understands that even in the midst of this insanity, people fall in love.”
Fulmar looked through them, then chuckled.
“Well, I’ll be goddamned,” he said.
“The Merry Widow in the flesh.”
lONE]
The Maylaybalay-Kibawe Highway Island of Mindanao Commonwealth of the Philippines 4 February 1943
The mountainous center of the island of Mindanao is virtually inaccessible by motor vehicle, and accessible by foot only with great difficulty. It was for that reason that Brigadier General Wendell Fertig Commanding, U.S. Forces in the Philippines, had elected to place his headquarters and the bulk of his force in the mountains: the Japs had a hell of a hard time getting in there, and when they tried it, he was always notified in plenty of time to plan his defensive strategy.
Almost without exception, that strategy was to evacuate his headquarters and, from positions in the mountainous jungle nearby, observe how close the Japanese had come to finding it.
So far they had failed, although on occasion they had come across outposts or villages where he had stationed small detachments of his guerrilla force.
That was, he knew, a somewhat grandiose manner of describing the six, or eight, or a dozen armed men living in those villages and earning their support from the villagers by working in the fields.
When the Japanese had proof (or strongly suspected) that a village was harboring guerrillas, they burned it to the ground. They would have shot the village leaders, had they caught them, but the villagers–men, women, and children, as well as the guerrillas–invariably found safety in the surrounding jungle when Japanese appeared.
Pour I’encouragement deles autres, the elders of several villages that had not been housing guerrillas had been shot, and their villages burned down by the Japanese. The result of this had been to increase the number of natives willing to support U.S. forces in the Philippines. The remaining men would have been happy to enlist in USFIP, but Fertig had neither food to feed them nor arms with which to equip them.