Lipstick and Lies (30 page)

I felt suddenly dizzy. There was a pitiful moan. Me? Someone close to me?

Willing myself to stand, I snapped on the light. It had been V-V’s groan, not mine. The stiletto protruded from his chest.

“Pucci!” Dante called, rushing toward me, bracing me as I collapsed.

The clamor of his unit running up behind him revived me. I straightened up. “Liberty?” I asked, tentatively. “What happened? Did you see? Did I hit her?”

Dante’s hair was damp with perspiration. A bead of sweat dribbled down his forehead, catching the light. He checked me over. “You’re hurt!”

“I’m okay…Liberty?” I repeated.

“Can’t say. We’re chasing her.”

“But V-V was a sleeper spy. So’s Liberty. She’s also an assassin. She killed Blount, now she’s stabbed V-V.”

He nodded. “We know about Blount. Chaplin told us, back at headquarters.”

“Good, you got him…” I licked my lips. They were parched and cracked. I teetered.

“Medic, quick.”

A G-2 medic appeared at the same time two ONI men rushed over to check on Kiki. V-V was hidden in a shadow.

“V-V needs help first,” I said, gesturing in his direction. The medic swept a practiced eye over me, then went to check on him.

“Your hand,” Dante said softly, “You’re bleeding.”

He was staring at my clenched fist. The tip of my thumb was blood-caked. I opened my palm. “Her earring.” My hand trembled. Dante took the converted cross. He nodded to the crimson stain on my sleeve. “What about that?”

The gash along my arm was not all that deep, but I’d lost a fair amount of blood. Gingerly placing a hand over the stain, I applied pressure to quiet the throbbing ache beneath. Dante cupped my chin with his hand, lifting it. His lips clamped into a line as he studied the scratches on my neck and along my jaw. My forehead bore a slight wound also, I realized, watching his fretful gaze pause to assess the damage.

My cheek burned with pain. I raised my hand to cover it. “It’s nothing. But I’m in no shape to help with the search,” I admitted reluctantly. “But you should go…”

A rivulet of blood stained my sweater below my sternum. He took it in, smiled faintly and released my chin. “Don’t worry about the chase. My men are on it. I’ll catch up. Soon as we get these wounds tended.” He turned back to the medic. “How is he?”

The medic had been kneeling beside V-V. He shook his head and stood. “He’s gone.”

The medic, who wore an armband, with a cross parted the rip in my sweater and studied my arm. Dante looked away while he examined the wound beneath my sweater. Next, he scrutinized my neck. “Got everything I need to dress these in my kit,” he announced.

“Good,” Dante said. “Let’s go into the bunker, find a place where she can sit down.”

The ONI men were still with Kiki. They had untied her, but she was too out of it to stand. I wanted to go to her, but Dante insisted I get off my feet. He directed the medic to evaluate Kiki, adding that we would wait for him inside.

We passed through the doorway Dante’s men had sprinted through moments before, into a bunker, a tunnel-like space dug into the deepest part of the knoll. An extension of the boathouse, it had the same low, curved ceiling and stone walls, reinforced with timber. Bare bulbs, strung along the ceiling’s center, washed the narrow room with stark light.

A quasi bomb shelter and communications planning center, the musty space was stockpiled with weaponry, including an assortment of rifles, machine guns, grenades, and timing devices propped against the sloping walls. Machine guns aimed in the direction of the house were mounted on tripods, their muzzles protruding through three small openings, paralleling the grassy slope outdoors.

A turret had been carved into the arched ceiling on the dugout’s far end. At its center was a column with a machine gun on a swivel base. A chair for a gunner had also been installed. Built on a principle similar to that used in a bomber’s turret, the chair and its occupant could swivel with the arc of the weapon’s firing range.

“Zounds,” I said, staring with a mix of shock and awe.

Dante also looked awed. “A person could mount a small war out of this room,” he marveled.

“Precisely what V-V had in mind.
Cardillac
…” I added under my breath.

Dante had been steering me to a long table in the center of the room. “What did you say?”

My former friend had confessed to killing Blount; now with V-V’s death she had become a multiple assassin. An
exceptional
multiple assassin. In a matter of seconds, in a blackened cave, she had found V-V and dispatched him, then vanished.

Suddenly weak from stem to stern, too wrung out to respond, I slumped into the nearest chair. Dante perched on the edge of the table next to me. I looked up at him.

“Liberty killed V-V. Why’d she do it?” I whispered uncomprehendingly. “They were on the same side.”

“He was injured, unable to escape,” he said matter-of-factly. “Maybe she thought he’d crack under questioning, reveal some plans we aren’t aware of yet.”

I placed my hand over the circle of blood on my sleeve and shook my head. “I always knew Liberty was a good actress. But this level of pretense—how did I miss it?”

Dante touched my shoulder. “Look at me.” I looked up. “There’s nothing you could have said or done to change things,” he said, softly. “The
Abwehr
got to Liberty long before the two of you ever met.”

“I know.” A deep sorrow closed over me while I debriefed myself of everything Liberty had revealed to me.

Afterward, Dante nodded knowingly. “It all fits.” He ticked off points on his fingers. “At a difficult age, her relationship with the Leaches turns upside down when she finds out she’s adopted. She’s dispatched to a foreign country. A war is brewing. She’s troubled, vulnerable. She feels alone, she’s looking for a palliative. Any shrewd
Abwehr
case officer would recognize the susceptibility and prey on her instantly.”

“Yeah, Sari deHajek, for example,” I said bitterly, informing him that besides spending time together in Europe, the two women had attended Vassar in the same year.

I thought of my boss, Miss Cochran. She too had grown up in an adoptive home, on Tobacco Road, in the South, with a similarly difficult childhood. “Bleak, bitter, and harsh,” was how she had once described it. But unlike V-V and Liberty, whose early hardships had led them to evil, she’d transformed her difficulties into a positive, had turned herself into a striver. What was at the core of such opposite outcomes?

“Now what?” I asked. “V-V’s been training saboteurs. And they’re not here anymore. They’re holed up somewhere with Tazio. Maybe she went to join them—” My words caught. “Or lead them.”

Dante was staring at a dark corner where a large patch of moss climbed the wall. Squinting, I saw a slight protrusion on one side and realized the blanket of fuzzy greenery was actually a camouflaged doorway. Blame it on trauma, maybe loss of blood, but I’d momentarily forgotten about Dante’s men. They must have dashed through the secret door.

I looked at him. “Would you
please
go join your team? I’m fine.”

Lines fanned out from Dante’s eyes as he smiled. “I know you are. But like I said, my men are handling things.”

The hairs at the back of my neck bristled. I turned to Dante. “There’s a lab on the property. They’re sending a shipment of explosives, disguised in cans of tomatoes to NAS—”

Dante interrupted. “Shhh…it’s okay. We’re on it. Chaplin broke under questioning. Told us everything. Including about the band of Ukrainian desperadoes based on the grounds. We came prepared.”

Dante’s unit had arrived at the estate first and intercepted Zerov, Yakutovych, Dr. Shevchenko, and a few others loading the hijacked truck intended for NAS Grosse Ile. Then his men fanned out over the grounds.

“Leo is with Renner. Did you find them at the lab? Is Leo all right?”

The medic had entered the bunker and it was he who replied, “Renner is heavily sedated and Leo has a world-class headache. But they’ll both be okay. Same with the lady we moved from here. She was drugged, but she’ll be fine.”

I removed
Personality Unlimited
from my pants pocket, placed it on the table.

“There’s a bookplate inside that explains Kiki’s role in what’s been going here and how V-V managed to get the upper hand. She’s got some patching up to do with her sister, but once you read it, I think you’ll agree Kiki was a genuine victim.”

Dante did not look completely convinced, but he took the book, slipping it inside his breast pocket.

“You were at the house,” I said to the medic. “Irina? Is she okay?” He nodded. I turned to Dante. “Your ‘eyes and ears’?” His eyebrow shot up. He looked away. “What about Dee?” I remembered in a panic. “One of V-V’s acolytes went to fetch her.”

“Don’t worry,” Dante re-emphasized with a smile. “Lieutenant Simmons is on that. She’s at the house.”

He continued, “The lab has a secret passage. We split up. Some of us went underground. Everyone else fanned out topside. Our trail led us to the river and eventually here.”

“And you arrived in the nick of time. I’m safe,” I said pointedly.

We were rocked by an explosion. Dante raced to the hidden door and vanished through it.

I sat with my bad arm resting on the table. I watched, willing myself not to be squeamish, while the medic lopped off my sleeve.

“It’s the latest wartime style,” he joked, “saves on fabric. You look great in it.”

He dabbed the scratches at my neck and on my face with alcohol, then checked the laceration beneath my sweater. “It’s only a minor puncture wound,” he assured me, deftly dressing it.

Using a flat stick resembling a wooden spoon used for eating ice cream, he scooped out a dollop of dark amber cream. Steadying my injured arm with one hand, he swabbed the incision with the stick. Too late, I realized he was applying creamed iodine. The gash, hardly noticeable until now, was on fire.

My eyes popped, but I refused to scream. Gritting my teeth, I smiled—probably made more of a grimace—forcing my arm to relax while the medic slathered my wound, buttering it like it was a slice of dried toast and not raw flesh.

I surveyed the maps above his head, desperate for a distraction.

On the map of Europe, V-V had poked pin-mounted swastikas into England and France as well as a host of smaller countries Hitler’s legions had either conquered or were currently in position to take over. On a separate map of America, swastika pins dotted the East Coast and Great Lakes region. I began tallying them, but the Rising Sun symbols, peppering the West Coast, intervened. I was curious. Was it possible, as part of his grandiose scheme, that V-V was willing to cede California, Oregon, and Washington to the Empire of Japan?

The third map was a blown-up duplicate of the map we’d found in Renner’s safe. I tracked the string of Heinkels, following the Great Circle Route out of Norway to Northern Canada. Near the border, pins in assorted colors marked the bombers’ final targets: the industrial cities of the Midwest.

The air inside the bunker smelled damp and earthy like a newly excavated grave. I drew a long breath, turning away from the disturbing depiction, opting to watch the medic apply a thin strip of gauze to my throbbing arm.

Dante stepped through the doorway.

I immediately asked, “What was the explosion?”

“It was on the outskirts of the estate. We haven’t pinpointed the exact location. Connelly is due here any minute. He’ll have more information.” He looked down at my arm and his eyebrows pinched together. “Hurt much?”

“Nah,” I scoffed.

Ears, our teammate from yesterday’s job at Renner’s office, followed Dante through the entrance. He nodded briefly to me, an expression of sympathy and admiration on his face. He and Dante examined the radio gear on a console pushed against the bunker’s stone wall, including a short-wave transmitter, a receiver, and a backup generator. They began exchanging ideas about what to do in the event transmission came through. Attracted by a flurry of noises in the boathouse, I leaned sideways, straining to see who was out there.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Connelly breezed into the bunker. He frowned. “What happened?” he asked, catching my gaze. He actually looked concerned.

“Long story, but I’m fine. What about Liberty? Any sign of her?”

Connelly’s once black suit was caked with dust, his shirt stained and sweaty. His tie, stuffed into his jacket’s breast pocket, protruded haphazardly. “None. Two separate passages, heading off in different directions, both showing signs she’d taken them. Obviously, she couldn’t have. It was a setup, meant to trip us up. Which it did. I took some men one way, Simmons went the other. He hasn’t reported in yet.”

“How about the rest of V-V’s gang?” Dante asked.

Connelly brushed an unyielding blond wave. “Nothing yet.”

I turned to Dante. “The Countess isn’t connected to V-V’s ring, by the way. Hadn’t a clue about what he was doing. She missed her chance.” I briefed Dante and Connelly on my final meeting with her. “She’s ready to cooperate. Even testify if there’s a trial.”

The men exchanged a private look and thanked me.

“So what will happen to Renner? V-V confessed he used coercion to draw him into his ring. And Renner copied the bombing raid drawing so he could turn it over to you. At least that’s what he told Leo.”

“Coerced or not, he aided the enemy,” Dante said firmly. “Think about the truck with defective parts. Think about what would have happened if Blount hadn’t come to us, if we hadn’t intercepted delivery. He may have been reluctant, but we’ll definitely do our all to see that he’s tried as a traitor.”

My upper arm had begun to seriously throb. I dug my fingers into the muscle surrounding the wound. “And after you intervened, halted the delivery,” I said, glumly, “V-V had Blount, the squealer, silenced. Cardillac confessed.”

“
Who?
” Connelly asked.

Somehow associating Liberty’s alter-ego with the crime made the reality of who she had become easier. I brought him up to date on the rechristening.

I sighed. “Chaplin let her into the factory. Why’d he get involved, anyway? He had a good job. He’s an American…”

“He went nuts at being passed over.” Dante caught my glance. “I don’t mean because of his size. For the inspector’s job that went to Gisela—Mrs. K’s daughter. They turned him by offering him big money to bribe the guards.”

Red-faced and out of breath, Simmons paused just inside the door, panting. “We’ve lost her.”

I gasped. Connelly kicked a vacant chair. Dante, unable to mask the strain in his voice, blurted, “What the hell happened?”

“The tunnel led to the adjoining estate. We didn’t know it was the path she’d taken until we reached the end.” Simmons was sweating. He pulled out a dirt-smudged handkerchief from his jacket and dabbed his face. “Lucky we weren’t any closer. She tossed explosives down the hatch. The mound of dirt and rocks was so thick, we couldn’t push through. We had to backtrack.” The handkerchief paused on one of his huge ears. Simmons took a breath. “She’s gone, left no trace. The search continues, but—” He shook his head.

Dante punched the fist of one hand into the palm of the other.

My hand rested over the dressing on my arm. The deep pain beneath had evolved into a dull ache. I sighed. “That’s it then.”

Dante turned on me. “The search for Liberty or Cardillac or whatever she’s calling herself these days doesn’t end here. You know her better than any of us. I want you to stay on this case.”

I felt an excited fluttering in my chest. I did not think I would succumb again to an invitation to a private Mrs. Sarvello meal in his apartment. But the chance to continue in this line of work—to keep Liberty on my radar screen…

I came back down to earth. I was committed to the WASP. “Sorry. My ferrying duties come first.”

Dante’s dark eyes met mine. “You’ll do both.”

My decision was easy. And instantaneous. “You understand I’ll need to clear this with Miss Cochran.”

He nodded. “Flying will be part of your cover.”

Long ago, Liberty and I had made a vow to keep in touch. One way or another, our paths would intersect—I knew it in my bones. I still had the Chinese bracelet she’d given me. And now I had the cross earring I’d given her in friendship, the cross earring I’d ripped from the ear of a sworn enemy of my country.

I reached for it. A sharp pain rippled down my arm.

Of course I would find her.

Of course this would not be the last chapter.