And from the puzzle of memory, an old, leathery, white-bearded face, the lips opening to whisper: Live free.

He sat up on his haunches and realized then that he had been lying not in his bed but on the cold stone floor before the fireplace. A few embers drowsed in the darkness, waiting to be stirred. He stood up, his body naked and muscular, and walked to the high bay windows that overlooked the wild hills of northern Wales. The March wind was raging beyond the gla.s.s, and scattershots of rain and sleet struck the windows before his face. He stared from darkness into darkness, and he knew they were coming.

They had let him alone too long. The n.a.z.is were being forced toward Berlin by a vengeful Soviet tide, but Western Europe-the Atlantic Wall-was still in Hitler's grip. Now, in this year of 1944, great events were in motion, events with great potential for victory or terrible risks of defeat. And he knew full well what the aftermath of that defeat would mean: a solidified n.a.z.i hold on Western Europe, perhaps an intensified effort against the Russian troops and a savage battle for territory between Berlin and Moscow. Though their ranks had been thinned, the n.a.z.is were still the best-disciplined killers in the world. They could still deflect the Russian juggernaut and surge again toward the capital of the Soviet Union.

Mikhail Gallatinov's motherland.

But he was Michael Gallatin now, and he lived in a different land. He spoke English, thought in Russian, and contemplated in a language more ancient than either of those human tongues.

They were coming. He could feel them getting nearer, as surely as he sensed the wind whirling through the forest sixty yards away. The world's tumult was bringing them closer, to his house on this rocky coast that most men shunned. They were coming for one reason.

They needed him.

Live free, he thought, and his mouth curled with the hint of a smile. There was some bitterness in it. Freedom was an illusion, in the shelter of his own house on this stormy land, where the nearest village, Endore's Rill, lay more than fifteen miles to the south. For him, a great part of freedom was isolation, and he had come to realize more and more, as he monitored the shortwave broadcasts between London and the Continent, listening to the voices speak in codes through the blizzards of static, that the bonds of humanity had chained him.

So he would not refuse them entrance when they arrived, because he was a man and they would also be men. He would listen to what they had to say, might even consider it briefly before he refused. They had come a long way, over rough roads, and he might possibly offer them shelter for the night. But his service to his adopted homeland was done, and now it was up to young soldiers with mud-grimed faces and nervous fingers on carbine triggers. The generals and commanders might bark orders, but it was the young who died carrying them out; that was the way it had been throughout the ages, and in that respect, the future of warfare would never change. Men being what they were.

Well, there was no keeping them away from his door. He could lock the gate, way up at the end of the road, but they would find a way over it, or cut the barbed-wire fence and walk in. The British had a lot of experience in snipping barbed-wire. So it was best just to leave the gate unlocked, and wait for them. It might be tomorrow, or the day after that, or next week. Whenever; he would still be here.

Michael listened to the song of the wild for a moment, his head c.o.c.ked slightly to one side. Then he returned to the flagstone floor in front of the fireplace, lay down and curled his arms around his knees, and tried to rest.

2.

"He picked a d.a.m.n lonely place to live, didn't he?" Major Shackleton lit a cigar and cranked down the glossy black Ford's rear window on his side to let the smoke seep out. The cigar tip glowed red in the gloomy twilight of late afternoon. "You Brits like this kind of weather, huh?"

"I fear we have no choice but to like it," Captain Humes-Talbot answered. He smiled as politely as he could, his aristocratic nostrils flared. "Or at least accept it."

"Right." Shackleton, a United States Army officer with a face like the business end of a battle-ax, peered out at the gray, low clouds and the nasty drizzle. He hadn't seen the sun for more than two weeks, and the chill was making his bones ache. The elderly, stiff-backed British army driver, separated from his pa.s.sengers by a gla.s.s window, was taking them along a narrow pebbled road that wound between dark, cloud-shrouded crags and stands of thick pine forest. The last village they'd pa.s.sed, Houlett, was twelve miles behind them. "That's why you people are so pale," he went on, like a bulldozer through a tea party. "Everybody looks like a ghost over here. You ever come to Arkansas, I'll show you a springtime sun."

"I'm not sure my schedule will allow it," Humes-Talbot said, and cranked down his window a turn and a half. He was wan and thin, a twenty-eight-year-old staff officer whose closest brush with death had been diving into a Portsmouth ditch as a Messerschmitt fighter screamed past seventy feet overhead. But that had been in August of 1940, and now no Luftwaffe aircraft dared to cross the Channel.

"So Gallatin served with distinction in North Africa?" Shackleton's teeth were clenched around the cigar, and the stub was wet with saliva. "That was two years ago. If he's been out of service since then, what makes your people think he can handle the job?"

Humes-Talbot stared at him blankly with his bespectacled blue eyes. "Because," he said, "Major Gallatin is a professional."

"So am I, sonny." Shackleton was ten years the British captain's senior. "That doesn't make me able to parachute into France, does it? And I haven't been sittin' on my tailbone for the last twenty-four months, I'll guaran-d.a.m.n-tee you that."

"Yes sir," the other man agreed, simply because he felt he should. "But your... uh... people asked for help in this matter, and since it's of benefit to both of us, my superiors felt-"

"Yeah, yeah, that's yesterday's news." Shackleton waved the man quiet with an impatient hand. "I've told my people I'm not sold on Gallatin's-excuse me, Major Gallatin's-record. His lack of field experience, I ought to say, but I'm supposed to make a judgment based on a personal meeting. Which isn't the way we work in the States. We go by the record over there."

"We go by the character over here," Humes-Talbot said, with a bite of frost. "Sir."

Shackleton smiled faintly. Well, at last he'd gotten a rise out of this stiff-necked kid. "Your secret service might have recommended Gallatin, but that doesn't swing a shovelful of s.h.i.t as far as I'm concerned. Pardon my French." He snorted smoke from his nostrils, his eyes catching a gleam of red. "I understand Gallatin's not his real name. It used to be Mikhail Gallatinov. He's a Russian. Right?"

"He was born in St. Petersburg in 1910," came the careful reply. "In 1934 he became a citizen of Great Britain."

"Yeah, but Russia's in his blood. You can't trust Russians. They drink too much vodka." He tapped ashes into the ashtray on the back of the driver's seat, but his aim was off and most of the ash fell on his spit-shined shoes. "So why'd he leave Russia? Maybe he was wanted for a crime over there?"

"Major Gallatin's father was an army general and a friend of Czar Nicholas the Second," Humes-Talbot said as he watched the road unreel in the yellow gleam of the headlights. "In May of 1918, General Fyodor Gallatinov, his wife, and twelve-year-old daughter were executed by Soviet party extremists. The young Gallatinov escaped."

"And?" Shackleton prodded. "Who brought him to England?"

"He came by himself, working aboard a freighter," the captain said. "In 1932."

Shackleton smoked his cigar and thought about it. "Hold on," he said quietly. "You're sayin' he hid from the murder squads in Russia from the time he was eight to when he was twenty-two years old? How'd he do that?"

"I don't know," Humes-Talbot admitted.

"You don't know? h.e.l.l, I thought you boys were supposed to know everything about Gallatinov. Or whatever. Haven't you got his records verified?"

"There's a gap in his records." The younger man saw the dim glow of lights ahead, through the pines. The road was curving, taking them toward the sparkle of lanterns. "The information is cla.s.sified, for the top echelon of the secret service only."

"Yeah? Well, that's enough to tell me I don't want him on the job."

"I presume Major Gallatin named those individuals who remained loyal to the memory of the royal circle and helped him survive. To expose those names would be... shall we say, less than prudent?" The small houses and cl.u.s.tered-together structures of a village were coming out of the drizzle. A little white sign on a post said ENDORE'S RILL. "I will pa.s.s on a bit of rumor, if I may," Humes-Talbot said, wanting to throw a smoking grenade back at the ugly American. "I understand that the mad monk Rasputin was in Saint Petersburg and enjoyed... liaisons with several ladies of breeding in 1909 and 1910. One of those ladies, dare I say, was Elana Gallatinov." He looked into Shackleton's face. "Rasputin may have been Michael Gallatin's real father."

A small cough of cigar smoke came from Shackleton's throat.

There was a tapping noise. Mallory, the driver, rapped his knuckles on the gla.s.s and put his foot to the Ford's brake. The car was slowing, the windshield wipers slapping away the sleet and rain. Humes-Talbot rolled the gla.s.s barrier down, and Mallory said with a crisp Oxford accent, "Beg your pardon, sir, but I think we should stop for directions. That might be the place." He pointed at a lantern-lit tavern coming up on the right.

"Indeed it is," the young man agreed, and rolled the gla.s.s back up as Mallory cruised the big car to a stop in front of the tavern's door. "I'll be back in a minute," Humes-Talbot said as he pulled the collar of his coat up around his neck and opened the door.

"Wait for me," Shackleton told him. "I could use a drink of whiskey to get my blood warm again."

They left Mallory in the car and went up a set of stone steps. A sign creaked on chains above the doorway, and Shackleton glanced up at it to see a painted sheep and the words THE MUTTON CHOP. Inside, a cast-iron stove burned with the sweet musk of bog peat and oil lamps hung from pegs on the wooden walls. Three men who were sitting at a back table talking quietly and drinking ale looked up from their conversation at the uniformed military officers.

"Welcome, gentlemen," an attractive black-haired woman behind the bar said with a heavy Welsh accent. Her eyes were bright blue, and they quickly examined the two visitors with a thoroughness that seemed casual. "What may I do for you?"

"Whiskey, babe," Shackleton said, grinning around his cigar. "Best poison you've got."

She uncorked a jug and poured him a murky shot gla.s.s full. "Only poison we've got, if you don't count the ale and bitters." She smiled faintly, a sultry smile with a challenge in it.

"Nothing for me, but I would like some information." Humes-Talbot warmed his hands before the stove. "We're looking for a man who lives around here. His name is Michael Gallatin. Do you-"

"Oh, yes," she said, and her eyes glinted. "I do know Michael."

"Where does he live?" Shackleton took a whiff of the whiskey and thought his eyebrows had been singed.

"Around. He doesn't entertain visitors." She stroked a cloth across the jug. "Much."

"He's expectin' us, babe. Official business."

She considered that for a moment, looking at the shine of their b.u.t.tons. "Take the road that runs through the Rill. It goes on for eight miles and then it turns into dirt, or mud, as the case may be. It splits into two. The road on the left is the rougher one. It goes to his gate. Whether it'll be open or not is up to him."

"We'll open it if it's not," Shackleton said. He took the cigar out of his mouth and, with a grin at the bartender, swallowed the local whiskey.

"Bottoms up," she told him.

His knees buckled as the whiskey seared down his throat like a trail of lava. He thought for a second that he'd swallowed crushed gla.s.s, or bits of razor blade. He felt sweat boil out of his pores, and he squeezed a cough down in his chest because the bartender was watching him, smiling knowingly, and he was d.a.m.ned if he'd fall on his a.s.s in front of a woman.

"How do you like it, babe?" she asked, all innocence.

He feared returning the cigar to his mouth, in case the smoke caught fire and blew his head off. Tears burned his eyes, but he clenched his teeth and slammed the shot gla.s.s down on the bar. "It... needs... agin'," he managed to croak, and his face flamed when he heard the men laugh at the back table.

"That it does," she agreed, and her soft laughter was like the rustle of a silk curtain. Shackleton started to reach for his wallet, but she said, "It's on the house. You're a good sport."

He smiled, more sickly than sporty, and Humes-Talbot cleared his throat and said, "We thank you for the information and hospitality, madam. Shall we go, Major?" Shackle-ford made something that might have been a grunt of a.s.sent, and followed Humes-Talbot to the door on leaden legs.

"Major, dear?" the bartender called before he went out. He looked back, wanting to get out of this suffocating heat. "You can thank Michael for the drink when you see him. That's his private stock. n.o.body else'll touch the stuff."

Shackleton went out the door of The Mutton Chop feeling like chopped mutton.

Full dark had fallen as Mallory drove them away from Endore's Rill, between the wind-lashed woods and mountains carved by the fingers of time. Shackleton, his face tinged the shade of tallow, forced himself to finish the cigar and then thumped it away out the window. It blew a trail of sparks, like a falling comet.

Mallory turned off the main road-a mud-puddled wagon track-and onto the rougher one on the left. The axles groaned as the Ford's tires plowed through potholes, and the seat springs yowled like pressured steam vents as Shackle-ton was thrown and jostled. The young British captain was used to uncomfortable roadways, and he clenched the hand grip over his door's window and lifted his rear an inch or two off the leather.

"Man... don't wanna... be located," was all Shackleton could say as the Ford shook harder than any tank he'd ever driven. Lord have mercy on my achin' tailbone! he thought. The road went on, a path of tortures, through the dense green woods. Finally, after two or three more brutal miles, the headlights found a high iron gate. It was wide open, and the Ford continued through.

The muddy road smoothed a bit, but not by much. Every so often they hit a b.u.mp and Shackleton's teeth cracked together with a force that he knew would cut his tongue off if he didn't keep it rolled up in his head. The wind swirled through the forest on both sides of the road, the sleet pelted down, and suddenly Shackleton felt a long way from Arkansas.

Mallory stepped on the brake. "Here! What's that!" Humes-Talbot said, looking along the cone of the headlights. Three large dogs were standing in the road, the wind ruffling their fur. "My G.o.d!" Humes-Talbot took off his gla.s.ses, hurriedly wiped the lenses, and put them back on. "I believe those are wolves!"

"h.e.l.l, lock the d.a.m.ned doors!" Shackleton hollered.

The Ford slowed to a crawl. As Shackleton's fist hammered down the lock on his side, the three animals lifted their muzzles to the scent of hot metal and engine oil and vanished into the dark wall of trees on the left. The Ford picked up speed again, Mallory's age-spotted hands steady on the wheel, and they took a long curve through the forest and emerged onto a driveway paved with fields tones.

And there stood the house of Michael Gallatin.

It looked like a church, made of dark red stones c.h.i.n.ked together with white mortar. Shackleton realized that it must have been a church at one time, because it had a narrow tower topped with a white spire and a walkway around it. But the truly amazing thing about the structure was that it had electricity. Light streamed from the windows on the first floor, and up in the church's tower panes of stained gla.s.s gleamed dark blue and crimson. Off to the right was a smaller stone building, possibly a workshed or garage.

The driveway made a circle in front of the house, and Mallory stopped the Ford and pulled up the handbrake. He tapped on the window, and when Humes-Talbot had lowered it, Mallory asked, a little uneasily, "Shall I wait here, sir?"

"Yes, for now." Humes-Talbot was aware the old chauffeur had been supplied from the secret service's pool of drivers, but there was no need to let him know more than was absolutely necessary. Mallory nodded, an obedient servant, and cut the engine and headlamps. "Major?" Humes-Talbot motioned toward the house.

The two officers walked from the car through the biting sleet, their shoulders hunched in their overcoats. At the top of three stone steps was a scarred oak door with a green bronze knocker: an animal of some kind, with a bone clenched in its teeth. Humes-Talbot lifted the bone and the beast's fanged lower jaw rose with it. He knocked against the door and waited, beginning to shiver.

A bolt sc.r.a.ped back. Shackleton felt his gut bubble from the witch's brew in the Mutton Chop. And then the door opened on oiled hinges, and a dark-haired man stood outlined in light. "Come in," Michael Gallatin said.

3.

The house was warm. It had oiled oak floors, and in a high-roofed, timber-beamed den a fire blazed in a hearth of rough white rock. After Captain Humes-Talbot had given Michael the letter of introduction signed by Colonel Valentine Vivian of the "London Pa.s.sport Control Office," Shackleton walked directly to the fireplace to warm his ruddy hands.

"h.e.l.l of a time gettin' here," Shackleton growled, working his fingers. "You couldn't have picked a more desolate place, could you?"

"I couldn't find one," Michael said quietly, reading the letter. "If I'd wanted to entertain unannounced visitors, I'd have bought a house in London."

Shackleton got the blood stinging in his hands again and turned to get a better examination of the man he'd come so far to meet.

Michael Gallatin was wearing a black sweater, the sleeves pushed up on his forearms, and faded, well-used khaki trousers. On his feet were scuffed brown loafers. His thick black hair, streaked with gray at the temples, was shorn in a military style, short on the sides and back. On his face was the dark grizzle of perhaps two or three days without a razor's touch. There was a scar on his left cheek that started just under the eye and continued back into the hairline. A blade scar, Shackleton thought. Close call, too. Well, so Gallatin had had some experience in hand-to-hand combat. So what? Shackleton guessed the man's height at around six-two, maybe a quarter of an inch more or less, and his weight at around one-ninety or one-ninety-five. Gallatin looked fit, a broad-shouldered athletic type, maybe a football player, or rugby or whatever the limeys called it. There was a quiet power about the man, like a heavy spring that had been crushed down and was on the edge of explosion. Still, that didn't make him ready for a mission into n.a.z.i-occupied France. Gallatin needed sun; he had the pallor of hibernation about him, probably hadn't seen a bright sun in six months. h.e.l.l, there probably hadn't been anything but murky gloom in this d.a.m.ned country all winter. But winter was on its last legs now, and the spring equinox-March 21-was only two days away.

"Do you know you've got wolves on your land?" Shackleton asked him.

"Yes," Michael said, and folded the letter up when he'd finished. It had been a long time since he'd had a communication from Colonel Vivian. This must be important.

"I wouldn't go out walkin' if I were you," Shackleton went on. He reached into the inside pocket of his coat, brought out a cigar, and cut its end with a small clipper. Then he struck a match on the white stones of the hearth. "Those big b.a.s.t.a.r.ds like meat."

"They're b.i.t.c.hes." Michael slipped the letter into his pocket.

"Whatever." Shackleton lit the cigar, drew deeply on it, and plumed out blue smoke. "You want to have a little action, you ought to get yourself a rifle and go wolf huntin'. You do know how to use a rifle, don't-"

He stopped speaking, because suddenly Michael Gallatin was right there in his face, and the man's pale green eyes froze him to the bone.

Michael's hand came up, grasped the cigar, and pulled it from between the other man's teeth. He broke it in half and tossed it into the fire. "Major Shackleton," he said, with the trace of a Russian accent softened by cool British gentility, "this is my home. You'll ask my permission to smoke here. And when you ask, I'll say no. Do we understand each other?"

Shackleton sputtered, his face reddening. "That was... that was a fifty-cent cigar!"

"It puts out half-cent fumes," Michael told him, stared into the man's eyes for a few seconds longer to make certain his message was clear, and then turned his attention to the young captain. "I'm retired. That's my answer."

"But... sir... you haven't heard what we came to say yet!"

"I can guess." Michael walked to the bay windows and looked out at the dark line of the woods. He had smelled his reserve stock of old whiskey wafting from Shackleton's skin, and smiled slightly, knowing how the American-used to bland liquor-must have reacted. Good for Maureen at the Mutton Chop. "There's a cooperative venture under way between the alliances. If this wasn't important to the Americans, the major wouldn't be here. I've been listening to the cross-Channel radio traffic on my shortwave. All those codes, things about flowers for Rudy and violins needing to be tuned. I can't understand all the messages, but I understand the sounds of the voices: great excitement, and a lot of fear. I say that adds up to an imminent invasion of the Atlantic Wall." He looked at Humes-Talbot, who hadn't moved or taken off his wet overcoat. "Within three to four months, I'd guess. When summer smooths the Channel. I'm sure neither Mr. Churchill nor Mr. Roosevelt cares to land an army of seasick soldiers on Hitler's beaches. So sometime in June or July would be correct. August would be too late; the Americans would have to fight eastward during the worst of the winter. If they take their landing zones in June, they'll be able to construct their supply lines and dig into their defensive positions on the border of Germany by the first snowfall." He lifted his eyebrows. "Am I close?"

Shackleton let the breath hiss from between his teeth. "You sure this guy's on our side?" he asked Humes-Talbot.

"Let me conjecture a bit further," Michael said, his gaze ticking toward the young captain and then back to Shackle-ton. "To be successful, a cross-Channel invasion would have to be preceded by a disruption of German communications, detonation of ammunition and fuel dumps, and a general atmosphere of h.e.l.l on earth. But a quiet h.e.l.l, with cool flames. I expect the networks of partisans will have a busy night blowing up railroad tracks, and maybe there's a place in the scheme for the Americans, too. A paratroop a.s.sault would sow the kind of discord behind the lines that might keep the Germans running in a dozen directions at the same time." Michael walked to the fireplace, beside the major, and offered his palms to the heat. "I expect that what you want me to do has a bearing on the invasion. Of course I don't know where it'll be, or exactly when, and I don't want that information. Another thing you must realize is that the n.a.z.i high command certainly suspects an invasion attempt within the next five months. With the Soviets fighting in from the east, the Germans know the time is ripe-at least from the alliance point of view-for an attack from the west." He rubbed his hands together. "I hope my conclusions aren't too much off the mark?"

"No sir," Humes-Talbot admitted. "They hit the bull's-eye."

Michael nodded, and Shackleton said, "Do you have somebody spyin' for you in London?"

"I have my eyes, my ears, and my brain. That's all I need."

"Sir?" Humes-Talbot had been standing almost at attention, and now he let his back loosen and took a step forward. "Can we... at least brief you on what the mission involves?"

"You'd be wasting your time and the major's. As I said, I'm retired."