Black Cross

He had awakened in jail with ribs so bruised he could barely breathe, and a new American slang term added to his growing list. Shitbird. He railed at his jailers to call Brigadier Smith—and they claimed they had—but the Scotsman never showed up. Either the police were lying, Stern decided, or else he was precisely where the brigadier wanted him. Yesterday he had used Peter Owen’s handcuff key to unlock his manacles and attempt an escape, but the coppers had been ready. That escapade had caused his transfer to his current accommodations.

His body jerked at the harsh clang of metal against metal.

“Shove yer bucket through the bars and make it quick!” barked a jailer. “If you spill any, you’ll clean it up wiv your shirt!”

Stern rolled over and faced the stone wall. He couldn’t decide whom he hated more, Brigadier Smith or Doctor Mark McConnell.

At that moment McConnell was going over some notes in his laboratory in Oxford. When the telephone rang he tried to ignore it, but the caller was persistent. McConnell glanced at his watch. Ten P.M. Perhaps it was Mrs. Craig, the woman of the house he billeted in, offering him a late supper. He picked up the phone.

“Yes?”

“Yeah, hey,” said a male voice with a Brooklyn accent. “Is this Dr. McConnell?”

“Yes.”

“I need to see you, Doc. I got a problem.”

“Excuse me, I think you have the wrong number. I’m a medical doctor, but I don’t see patients. I’m associated with the university.”

“Right,” said the caller. “You’re the one I want. I been patched up pretty good already. It’s something else. I really need to see you.”

McConnell wondered who in God’s name had recommended him to a man with mental problems. “I’m afraid I’m not a psychiatrist either. I can recommend a good man in London, though.”

The voice on the phone grew agitated. “You got it all wrong, Doc. It’s you I need to see. Not a sawbones or a head-shrinker.”

“Who is this?” McConnell asked, bewildered. “Do I know you?”

“Nah. But I knew your brother.”

“You knew David?” McConnell felt his heart thump. “What’s your name?”

“Captain Pascal Randazzo. Dave just called me Wop, though. I was his copilot on Shady Lady.”

McConnell’s heart rate was still rising. A member of David’s crew had survived? “Where are you, Captain?” he asked excitedly.

“Right here. Oxford.”

“My God. How did you get out of Germany? Do you have word of David?”

A long pause. “That’s what I need to talk to you about, Doc. Do you think we could meet tonight?”

“Hell yes, Captain. You can come to my lab, or I could buy you supper somewhere. Have you eaten yet?”

“Yeah. I’ll come to you, if you don’t mind. Sooner the better.”

“My lab’s sort of tucked away in the university. Do you think you can find it?”

“I’m from New York, Doc. Long as it’s streets and buildings, I can find it. It’s trees and woods that screw me up.”

McConnell couldn’t help but smile. What a strange pair Randazzo the Wop and David the Georgia redneck must have made. “Where are you now, Captain?”

“The Mitre Inn.”

He gave Randazzo detailed directions, then hung up. What the hell was going on? If there was word of David’s crew, why hadn’t the Air Force called him? Five days ago he had made the most difficult telephone call of his life, to tell his mother that her youngest son was presumed dead. Had that status changed? He paced the floor while he waited for Randazzo to arrive. What could the copilot’s survival mean? No chutes had been sighted by the other bomber crews on the raid, but that didn’t necessarily mean there weren’t any. In the last four years he had heard stories of miraculous survival that defied all explanation. Perhaps David had managed to crash-land