The Thief by Clive Cussler (pocket ebook reader .txt) 📕

a touch of panic, at the hospitals, too. And as the night wore on and the streets and bars and restaurants emptied, they would stop any man still about.

The French border, four hundred and fifty miles west, was a fantasy. He could barely walk. Nor could he go home to his Pension. It was filled with busybody boarders and a nosy dragon of a landlady. Anyone who saw him in the lighted foyer would report his condition. Kicking himself for not trading the convenience of the boarding house for the privacy of a furnished apartment, and with panic rising, Arthur Curtis convinced himself that he could hole up in his office. There he could rest, regain his strength, and then light out for the border in the morning—or maybe the North Sea coast. A million and a half people lived in Berlin, and when they all rushed to work in the morning the railroad stations would be too crowded for the police to check everyone. Concentrating on placing one foot after another, he headed for the tram. They stopped running at eleven. He had time. He pulled himself aboard with a herculean effort, staggered off at his stop, managing not to fall, and walked toward his office.

A man in a macintosh was standing across the street.

Art Curtis reached deep into his pocket and closed his hand around his Browning, which had a round in the chamber and two left in the magazine. He looked for the man’s partner and spotted him in a doorway. He veered off the sidewalk into the street, drawing both from their cover. They exchanged looks and moved quickly. He let them come close. When they drew their weapons—Army Lugars again—he fired twice through the cloth of his coat, dropped both men, and staggered into his building. He hauled himself up the steps, fumbled his key into his lock, pushed inside, and locked the door, wondering whether he still had the strength in his hands to reload. There’d be more of them coming any minute.

The desk lamp flared on, and he whirled to fire his last bullet.

“What happened?” asked Pauline. Her eyes were clouded with sleep, her face creased where she had rested her cheek on her sleeve.

“NOTHING. GO HOME. GO ON. GET OUT OF HERE!”

“I’m sorry. I was doing my homework, and I fell asleep. I can’t go home, my mother’s friend—”

“Get out of here!” Curtis roared. The girl flinched and tears of hurt filled her eyes. Curtis started coughing. He pressed his hand to his mouth, and it came away full of blood.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “You’ve been shot.”

“Turn out the light.”

She did, instantly. “Are they coming?”

“Soon,” he said. “Get out. Use the window.”

She had jumped up from the chair and was standing behind his desk. He could see her silhouetted against the light in the alley. She stood stock-still.

“Quickly,” he urged. “Get away.”

“I can’t leave you like this.”

“Go!”

“Come with me.”

“I wish I could. I can’t move another step, much less climb down that ladder. Go. Please go before they come.”

“I can’t leave you.”

“They’ll kill you, Pauline.”

She rummaged in her book bag and pulled something out. He heard the sharp click of a hammer cocking.

“What the devil is that?”

“I bought a gun.”

Arthur Curtis felt a part of himself die. This silly child, he thought, is going to stay here like I’m Sherlock Holmes and die with me, and I cannot think of a worse way for a man to leave this earth than drag a child with him.

There was only one way to get her to leave.

“Give that to me!”

She handed it over, butt first. It was a little revolver. He could feel rust on the trigger guard.

“Draw the window shade. Stand to one side as you do it. Good. O.K., now. Bend the desk lamp down until it just lights the desk. Turn it on.”

It cast a dim glow.

“Let me sit there.” He lurched to the desk and sank into his chair. He shoved her pistol aside, drew his own from his coat, and laid it on the desk. “Watch this.”

He removed the magazine and the cartridge from the chamber and took the slide and return spring from the barrel. He swabbed the parts clean with a rag he took from the cleaning kit in his desk. Then he reassembled the pistol, inserted a fresh magazine, and shoved it toward her. “Now you do it.”

Pauline mimicked the field stripping of the little Browning, step by step. Curtis was not surprised. She was as sharp a cookie as he had ever met.

“Good. Remember, always check there’s no bullet in the chamber, or you’ll blow your head off by mistake. O.K. Pick it up. Here’s how you cock it.”

He guided her hands and saw to his relief that she was strong enough to move the slide and chamber a round. “You have small hands, like me. It fits you fine. Keep it clean. Here’s a spare clip.” He took it from the drawer. “O.K. You got fourteen bullets.”

“You’re giving me your gun?”

“If anyone ever tries to take it away from you—they will, because you look like a little girl—here’s what you do. You point the gun at his face. And then you look through him, like he’s not there. Like you can’t see him, like he’s made of glass. Then he’ll believe you’re willing to kill him. Understand?”

She nodded solemnly.

“Still want to be a detective?”

“More than anything.”

“Starting this minute, you are a Van Dorn apprentice detective. Here’s your first assignment: report to the Van Dorn field office in Paris.”

“Paris?”

“On the Rue du Bac. My old pal Horace Bronson ramrods it. He’ll take care of you. He’s a top man. Used to run the San Francisco office. Here. Here’s money, you’ll need it.” He emptied the notes from his billfold and coins from his pockets into her hands. Then he yanked open another desk drawer. “And here’s some French francs. Tell Mr. Bronson you have a message for Van Dorn’s chief investigator in America…” He