The Last Survivor (A Wilde/Chase Short Story)

  She realised with a flash of shame that he was right, and she hadn’t even been aware of doing so. ‘I – I can put in more about her when I start editing it …’

  His expression was now not so much angry as disappointed, which somehow hurt all the more. ‘I stuck up for you in Cairo when Ubayy Banna said you took credit for other people’s work, but … I don’t know, maybe he was right.’ He shook his head. ‘Why would you do that? Macy was our friend! Writing her out of your book, it’s … it’s disrespectful. She’s dead, but that doesn’t mean she never existed. I would never forget a friend. Never.’ He glanced into the living room, where photos of fallen friends and comrades proved his point.

  ‘I haven’t forgotten her,’ Nina insisted. ‘I …’ She was on the verge of telling him about her recurring nightmare, how much she feared sleep because she knew it would bring something she wished she could forget, but something stopped her.

  Her hesitation allowed Eddie to continue his tirade. ‘If you haven’t forgotten her, then why are you trying to paint her out of the picture? And she’s not the only one – you didn’t mention people like Hugo or Jim Baillard in the chapter about Atlantis. It’s like …’ Now it was his turn to pause as a thought struck him. ‘Like you’re in denial. Is that it? You can’t cope, so you’re pretending it never happened?’ It was instantly clear from his expression as his mind caught up with his mouth that he knew he should have phrased the accusation more tactfully, but by then it was too late.

  ‘Oh, you think I can’t cope?’ Nina snarled. ‘I’m not some hard-assed special forces soldier, so I deal with my traumas by hiding them away as if they don’t exist? Screw you, Eddie! You of all people should know what I’ve been through, but if your idea of help is telling me I ought to just get over myself, then I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t even want to be in the same building as you!’ She whirled and stalked out of the study.

  Eddie followed. ‘Nina, I’m sorry – I could have put that a bit better—’

  ‘No shit!’ She snatched up her jacket.

  ‘Where’re you going?’

  ‘Out!’ she yelled, opening the apartment door. ‘You were moaning about me not leaving the house for days, so you’ll get to cross one thing off your list of complaints. I’m going down to Little Italy for the festival. I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Nina!’

  She waved a dismissive hand over her shoulder, not looking back as she exited. ‘Give Natalia my regards,’ she said, letting the door swing shut behind her with a bang.

  ‘Buggeration and fuckery,’ Eddie muttered. He considered catching up with his wife, but decided – drawing on experience – to give her time to cool down first. Instead, he took a cab to the airport, initially still fuming before eventually calming down. If nothing else, the argument had encouraged Nina to go out and actually do something rather than just sit at her computer working on the book. Neither the circumstances nor the timing was ideal – he wouldn’t have minded going to an Italian food festival himself – but it was a start. And now that the subject of Nina’s denial about Macy had been brought into the open, maybe she would think about it instead of trying to avoid it.

  He arrived at the terminal and headed for the arrivals gate, seeing on the information board that Natalia’s flight had landed not long before. Even so, it still took more than half an hour for her to finally appear; it was her first visit to the United States, forcing her to go through the rigmarole of biometric scanning before being allowed to exit. ‘Natalia!’ he called, waving.

  Natalia Pöltl gave him a wide smile. The young German had changed in appearance since their last meeting, finally returning home after eight years of self-imposed exile in Vietnam. Her hair was now cut short and styled, and returning to a Western diet had fleshed out her figure. Eddie could still see a weariness beyond her age in her face, though. The former aid worker had endured a nightmarish experience, kidnapped by forces from both Russia and the US seeking to obtain the genetic secrets locked in her DNA – those of a biological agent that was slowly killing her.

  Nina had been infected by the same substance. But she had found a cure – and now Natalia could share it, ending the threat once and for all.

  ‘Eddie!’ she replied, hurrying to meet him. They embraced, and she kissed him on the cheek. ‘It is so good to see you again!’

  ‘You too. How’ve you been?’

  ‘As good as I can be,’ she replied, expression turning downcast. ‘More tumours have appeared. The illness is getting worse.’

  ‘Well, we’ve got something that’ll fix that, I hope. But what’s it been like finally going home? How’s your dad?’

  ‘My father, he is …’ She paused to find the right English word. ‘He was overjoyed when I came back to Hamburg. He had thought I was dead. When I first telephoned him, he was almost angry because he thought someone was playing a cruel joke on him. But,’ she smiled at the memory, ‘he soon became happy when he realised it really was me.’

  ‘And nobody’s been following you?’ Everyone involved directly with Natalia’s kidnapping – on both sides – was now dead, but there was a chance that others might be continuing their work.

  ‘Not that I have seen. I have done what you said, and watched for people. And I have not spoken about the eitr to anyone, not even my father – especially not on the telephone.’ The deadly toxin had been a formative part of Norse legend: eitr, a primordial poison from the depths of the earth.

  ‘Good. Better to be safe, eh?’ He looked down at her luggage; she had only one bag. ‘Is that everything?’

  ‘Yes.’ She smiled. ‘I lived in a village in Vietnam for eight years. I realised I do not need many possessions.’

  ‘Same here. I always travel light if I can. Learned that in the army – the less you have to lug about with you, the better. Here, I’ll take that.’ He picked up the bag. ‘Okay, we’ll get a taxi.’

  Natalia shook her head. ‘No, no, that will be expensive. We can take the … it is called the subway in New York, yes?’

  It was his turn to smile. ‘Yeah, it is – but we won’t be taking it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it doesn’t come to JFK.’

  She blinked in disbelief. ‘But this is the biggest airport. How can there not be a train to the city?’

  ‘Welcome to America!’ he said with a laugh. ‘Come on. Let’s find a cab.’

  Mulberry Street in Little Italy was the home of New York’s annual Feast of San Gennaro. Nina had barely started along it before her mouth started watering. Both sides of the thoroughfare were lined with food stalls, selling anything that could even remotely be considered Italian, and quite a lot that couldn’t. She absorbed the delicious aromas as she ambled through the crowd. The cravings from the early stages of her pregnancy had died down as she entered the second trimester, but right now she had a definite urge to grab a plate and start eating.

  A pang of regret as she saw chocolate gelato on a nearby stall; it was one of Eddie’s favourites. She wished that he was there with her, but at the same time she still felt a residual anger. She had attended Macy’s funeral, mourned her friend, wept for her; she wasn’t in denial. He was making assumptions based on her book – her unfinished book, at that. She wasn’t in denial.

  Was she?

  ‘Get yer calzone!’ shouted a stallholder right beside her, jolting her back into the moment. ‘Hey, lady? You wanna calzone? Funnel cake?’

  ‘I’d love one, but … I probably shouldn’t. I’m pregnant,’ she told him with regret.

  He gave her a cheeky grin. ‘Hey, I got four kids. My wife never stopped eatin’ my food the whole time. C’mon, babies need calories.’

  Nina laughed. ‘Okay, you convinced me. Give me a ham and pecorino.’ He beamed and reached for one of the stuffed dough crescents.

  The blond man who had followed her from the apartment and on the subway journey to Little Italy stopped twenty feet behind her, pretending to check the produce on another stal
l. The moment she left with her purchase, he set off again too, trailing her through the crowd.

  Natalia’s face was practically pressed against the cab’s window as she gawped at the towering skyline of Manhattan. ‘Wow!’ she gasped. ‘That is so incredible!’

  ‘It’s a bit bigger than Ly Quang, innit?’ said Eddie, remembering her little Vietnamese hideout. They were crossing the East River on the Queensboro Bridge, giving them a spectacular view of the island. He pointed at a tall green glass tower on the far bank. ‘That’s the United Nations, where me and Nina used to work. Thought I was shot of it, but we got dragged back to the International Heritage Agency a few months ago. Although if we hadn’t been,’ he admitted, ‘we wouldn’t have found the cure for what Nina had – what you’ve got.’

  She turned away from the view to regard him with a mixture of hope and worry. ‘What you found … do you really think it will work for me? It will cure the eitr?’ Natalia’s grandfather, a Soviet scientist, had conducted secret and illegal experiments with the toxin, using his own family as test subjects – and infecting them with a cancer that had been passed down through the generations.

  ‘I hope so. I really do,’ he replied. ‘It worked on Nina, and we know it cured stuff for the Nazis who were after the spring.’

  ‘But I was not poisoned by the eitr – I was born with the infection in my DNA. This water, it may not work on me.’

  ‘We’ve got to try,’ Eddie insisted. ‘If there’s a chance, you’ve got to take it.’

  A hesitant smile. ‘You are right. Thank you.’

  He smiled back. ‘No problem.’

  They crossed the river into Manhattan, the cab turning north towards 78th Street. ‘Nina told me in Vietnam that she was going to write a book about all the things she has done,’ said Natalia. ‘Has she finished it?’

  ‘Not yet. We got a bit sidetracked with the whole bunch-of-Nazis thing, but she’s been working on it since then. It’s pretty much all she’s been doing, actually.’

  She tipped her head quizzically. ‘And you are not happy about that?’

  ‘No, I don’t mind,’ he insisted. ‘Unless she wakes me up at four in the morning to do it!’

  ‘But something is bothering you.’

  Eddie chuckled. ‘It’s that obvious? Yeah, a bit. We had an argument about it this morning, actually. She …’ He hesitated.

  Natalia gave him an apologetic look. ‘You do not have to tell me if you do not want to.’

  ‘No, it’s okay,’ he said, wanting to get it off his chest. ‘It’s not that she’s spending all her time working that’s the problem – I’m used to that. It’s … the way she’s writing it.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘There were other people involved in finding all that stuff, but she hardly mentions them. That’s what we were arguing about. I don’t think she was trying to steal the credit,’ he added, time and reflection having softened his earlier accusation. ‘It just felt like she was trying to avoid thinking about them. Which considering what happened to some of them I shouldn’t be surprised about, but still …’

  She understood his meaning without having to enquire further. ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said quietly. Neither of them spoke for a long moment, until the silence was interrupted by his phone. ‘That’s probably her.’

  But the call was from an unknown number. ‘Hello?’ he said, expecting it to be a telemarketer.

  It was not. ‘Eddie, is that you?’

  He instantly recognised the young man’s voice. ‘Jared? Yeah, it’s me.’ Jared Zane was an agent of the Mossad, the feared Israeli intelligence agency, who had joined forces with Eddie and Nina to locate and destroy the enclave of escaped Nazi war criminals in Argentina. ‘How’d you get this number?’

  ‘The Mossad has everyone’s number.’ Jared had a genially mocking relationship with the Englishman over their age difference, there being the better part of twenty years between them – but today there was no humour in his voice, which immediately put Eddie on alert. ‘Eddie, listen, this is urgent. We didn’t get all the Nazis. There was a survivor. And he’s in New York.’

  Eddie felt a sudden coldness. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. We recovered Kroll’s computer from the Enklave – it had been burned, but we were still able to get most of the data from its hard drive. There was a file from Frederick Leitz’ – a middleman through whom the Nazis had dealt with the outside world – ‘with a list of all the fake passports he’d arranged for Kroll’s people. One of them, a US passport, was used to enter JFK yesterday.’

  ‘And he got in? Why wasn’t he arrested when his passport came up as flagged?’

  ‘It hadn’t been flagged. We only recovered the files a few days ago. And,’ faint frustration entered his voice, ‘the list wasn’t sent to Interpol until today. My superiors didn’t think there was any rush – we believed all the Nazis were dead. The passport was flashed up immediately, but its holder was already in the States.’

  Eddie snorted. ‘Shut the stable door, will you? The horse’s buggered off. An’ I thought Mossad were supposed to be efficient!’

  ‘We’re telling you now,’ Jared replied spikily. ‘Or rather, I’m telling you, as a friend. I might get into trouble for it, but I’ll take it if it keeps you and Nina safe.’

  ‘You think this guy’s coming after us?’

  ‘He knows who you are – or rather, he knows who Nina is. When Kroll was about to execute us at his rally, he told his people her name and that she worked for the United Nations. There isn’t any other connection to New York that I can think of. Eddie, you both need to be careful. I’ll send you this man’s passport photo so you’ll recognise him if he finds you.’

  A horrible thought came to Eddie. ‘Shit, what if he already has?’ Fear rose in him: Nina was out in the city alone, and with no idea of the potential threat. ‘Jared, I’ll call you back!’

  He hurriedly ended the call, telling the driver to turn around and head for Little Italy, fast. ‘Eddie, what is happening?’ Natalia asked in alarm.

  ‘Nina might be in trouble,’ he replied. He tried to call her, only to go straight through to voicemail. ‘Fuck! Her phone’s off!’

  Nina continued her leisurely stroll along Mulberry Street. The crowds grew as more people came out to enjoy the sun and the food, which she decided was both an annoyance and a blessing; the latter because the longer the lines at each stall, the more it would discourage her from stuffing her face. ‘Sorry, kid,’ she said, putting a hand on her abdomen as she passed one particular stand. ‘No biscotti for you today. Although …’ She gave a longing look at the delicacies. ‘Well, you do need me to eat so you’ll grow up big and strong, don’t you?’

  She reversed course, swerving around a pudgy elderly couple following her. Someone behind them complained loudly as a blond man made a sharp change of direction away from her, pushing past them. Thinking no more of it, she joined the line.

  The stall was popular; it took her a few minutes to be served. While she waited, she listened to snippets of conversation from passers-by. A young boy asked his father when ‘the big flying ship’ was going to arrive, and was told that the airship’s overflight was due in ten minutes. She smiled at the child’s literalism, and at the thought that if all went well, it would not be long before she would be fielding similar enquiries of her own.

  She finally bought her chocolate and hazelnut biscotti and resumed her walk. Her mood had improved no end, to the point that she had almost got over her earlier infuriation with Eddie. There was still a lingering resentment of his accusation that she was refusing to face up to Macy’s death, however. If he had any idea what she endured every night, he would know how utterly unfair that was …

  In her preoccupied state, she didn’t notice that the blond man had once again taken up position behind her, using the crowd to hide himself. His eyes never left her as he followed his target down the street.

  Eddie made another attempt to call Ni
na, only to get her voicemail yet again. ‘Turn your bloody phone on!’ he barked before hanging up. ‘How much further?’

  ‘Almost there,’ said the driver. ‘Two more blocks.’

  Natalia peered down the street. ‘There are a lot of people,’ she said, seeing pedestrians heading along East Houston Street towards the festival’s northern end. ‘How will you find her in the crowd?’

  ‘Good question,’ he replied, having already worried about exactly that. He had checked the festival’s website on his phone during the cab ride, finding that the closed section of Mulberry Street was over half a mile long, and also extended into several side streets. ‘Looks like I’ll be doing a lot of shouting.’

  ‘I will help you,’ she offered. ‘Does she still have red hair?’

  ‘Yeah, of course,’ said Eddie, slightly surprised. ‘Why wouldn’t she?’

  Natalia’s eyes widened. ‘Oh! I am sorry. Her hair is so bright, I thought it was fake.’ She blushed.

  He managed a brief smirk. ‘I’ll tell her you said that.’

  Now she looked mortified. ‘No, please do not!’

  The taxi pulled up at the intersection of East Houston and Mulberry; the Englishman hurriedly paid the driver and jumped out. The young German grabbed her bag and followed him. ‘Where do we go?’

  He pointed across the street, where a banner and innumerable Italian flags marked the festival’s northern entrance. ‘Down there.’ They hurried over the crosswalk, pushing into the crowd. ‘Nina!’ he yelled, drawing annoyed looks from those around him. ‘Nina, are you here?’ He searched for anyone with red hair. There were a few, but none were his wife. It struck him that not only had she been here for some time, but she might not even have entered the festival at this end of Mulberry Street; she had probably come by subway, and there were several stations nearby. ‘God, she could be bloody anywhere!’

  ‘I cannot see her,’ said Natalia.

  ‘Me neither.’ Eddie forced his way through the throng. Stallholders shouted from either side of the street as they hawked their wares. He spotted a stand selling gelato, but there was no time to indulge himself – that would have to wait until Nina was safe.