Avi Rosenthal slipped quietly through the shadows, moving with deliberate slowness from one pool of inky darkness to the next - and while he looked ahead his senses told him to slow down and look in his wake. The same urgent intuition that now informed his every move told him he was being followed - again - as he moved to the meeting place. But by whom?
Rumors were the most valuable currency these days, and Avi traded in them day and night, passing along what he knew or had learned to members of the Danish underground. And though Avi was a physicist and so far from being some kind of secret agent, he had out of necessity learned some of the basic elements of fieldcraft...like:
How to spot a tail on the fly or how to set up a last minute dead-drop...
Or to use reflections in windows to spot surveillance assets moving in from the rear...
And most important of all, how to evade a tail silently, efficiently, and - if needs be - ruthlessly...
And because Avi Rosenthal had demonstrated more than once that he had mastered all these skills, the underground resistance had taken to using him to convey information to and from various cells around the city, and they soon learned to rely on his own peculiar sources of information to know what the Nazis were planning.
Because, or so it seemed, many Germans working at the University really didn't care for Hitler and his more extreme objectives, and many of these men and women were working with the University's own physicists. But now the word coming down was that the Nazi leadership in Berlin was set to abandon the idea of Denmark being a 'protectorate' - and stage a full military occupation of the country. It was becoming too dangerous for German troops to assemble or move around within the country or while on their way to Norway - because of recent efforts by the Danish resistance.
Of even more importance, there was mounting evidence that the Germans intended to simply take all of the faculty from the Physics Department to work at a weapons development site within Germany proper, and once Avi had confirmed this rumor had originated from multiple sources within the Danish-German Uranverein, he had signaled that an urgent meeting with the heads of the local underground was needed.
He fell deeper into the shadows and waited several minutes, watching for his followers...because he just knew they were out there...
...because he felt something, a dank warning in the heavy, seaside air...
...over there, down on the water, a reflection that didn't belong...movement that shouldn't be there...
He stepped into the light and made his way home, only now he knew he was blown. Whoever was following him was good, and suddenly he felt he needed to run. But for his plan to work he first had to convince Imogen - and her father, Aaron - that it was time to make good their escape to Sweden.
Assuming there was still time.
When his street was just in view he heard two cars racing in his direction; he saw them as they turned up his street and skidded to a stop in front of his house. Troops ran to his door and kicked it down, then more men in leather jackets walked in, and this confused him. Had he been betrayed from within?
He was cut off now and knew it. Exposed as a traitor to the provisional government, he would truly be persona non grata...but worse still, his true place in the government might be exposed, and that would be a disaster.
No, he thought, it was time to disappear. Now. Tonight.
He felt a hand reach out from the darkness - and he tried to resist as a hand slipped over his mouth - then he shook his head as a black hood was pulled down over his head. Worse, next he felt a burning pinch on his arm - and felt himself falling off a cliff into an impenetrable darkness...as if the world was sliding by underfoot.
+++++
"Well Harry, I think because I have some experience with this kind of stuff."
"But having him declared dead?" Callahan mused aloud. "What about his wife and kids? How can you keep them from spilling the beans?"
"By not telling them," Bullitt said, shrugging away the pain he knew it would cause to people he cared deeply about.
"What?" Callahan yelled. "You've got to be kidding! How could you..."
"Because their reactions will be critical to selling the story to whoever was behind the attack." Frank looked at Harry, then to Dell and Stan for support - but only Stan nodded his head. "We've got to sell it to them before we can sell it to reporters. We have to assume everything concerning Sam's family will be watched, and closely, so any fuck-up on the front side will only cause the whole thing to fall apart. After the funeral and any other public appearances we can tell them the truth."
"What does Sam have to say about all this?" Harry asked, shaking his head slowly as he looked from the floor up to Bullitt.
"It was his idea," Frank sighed as he watched Callahan brighten. "We ran it by Stacy, too, and she agrees."
"Okay," Harry added, suddenly less outraged.
"You're going to pick her up tonight at SFO, Harry. Here's the flight information."
Callahan took the paper and scanned it, then looked at Frank again. "And...? What am I missing?"
"We think they're going to try and take you out tonight. Right after you pick her up."
"You think? What the hell does that mean?"
"The patrolman who gave you up at the Perryman scene? We've been running a tap on his phone for a few hours. Seems he's been a very busy boy, too. You'd never know he was one of Briggs' first recruits, would you..."
"How the hell do you know that?"
"Because Briggs was a compulsive son-of-a-bitch," Delgetti smirked as he held up a bunch of copied pages. "We found a safe in his office and, well, I'll be damned if we didn't find it standing wide open this afternoon. Right, Carl?"
"Right," Stanton said, grinning. "Wide as a hooker's crack..."
