Page 20 of The Atlas Maneuver

And they needed to talk.

They made their way across the Rhine and through old town. Many of its former residences had been turned into businesses. Bright brass plaques adorned the buildings. The streets were spotless, the windows clean and bright. Flowers sprouted from sill boxes in a profusion of late-summer color. They entered the Marktplatz, the cobbled square dominated by the vivid red façadeof the old rathaus. The crowds pressed together, constantly moving. Winding alleys led off to a maze of more shopping and eateries. He headed down one of the narrow, cobbled paths and found an eclectic café with lots of windows, vaulted ceilings, and what he liked best, plenty of open space. On entering he caught the pungent scent of curry in the warm air. Not his favorite. He led the way through a series of booths spaced against winding walls, surely calculated to provide diners with privacy. Atop each table sat a small shaded lamp that illuminated white linen tablecloths. They claimed a booth toward the rear. A woman in a long tan dress took their request for two bottled waters. He told her they might order some food, but to give them a few minutes.

Once she was gone, he asked, “What happened after you left Pensacola?”

“How is Pam?”

“We’ve been divorced a long time.”

“Your fault or hers?”

“Long hours and travel played hell with both the nerves and home life.”

“As did adultery.”

Blunt, as always. “We both did our share of bad things.”

“Both? Was she a bad girl too?”

He wasn’t in the mood to relive ancient history. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Did she ever know about us?”

“I think she knew everything about all the women I cheated with. But she was good at keeping things to herself.”

It really hurt to talk about the past. He’d spent years making amends for the pain his recklessness caused. It had only been in the last few years that he’d come to fully understand all that happened. He had affairs. Pam had an affair. But from hers came a child, Gary, who he’d thought was his until learning, years after the birth, that he was not the boy’s biological father. Gary was seventeen now and they’d both dealt with the lies. All was finally good among him, Pam, and Gary.

“I thought I loved you,” Kelly said.

That was new.

“It was stupid, I know, considering the situation. You were married. But when we’re young we do stupid things.”

That we do.

“It hurt when you ended it that day,” she said. “I didn’t handle it well. I was mad. My instincts were to run, so I got a transfer to another base.”

He was hoping that talking would calm her down, take her mind off the attack. It also bought him some time until Koger provided further instructions.

“A few years after I left,” she said, “I was in a bad car accident. A deer jumped out in front of me and I went over an embankment. I was paralyzed and disfigured. It took three years before I walked again. I also got a new face from too many plastic surgeries to count. My life changed totally. So I decided to get a new name to go along with all that. Suzy Baldwin became Kelly Austin. I went back to school and earned some advanced degrees, then landed a job with the National Security Agency. They always need computer people. From there I moved to the CIA, then to the Bank of St. George.”

The woman returned with their waters. Kelly indicated she wasn’t hungry. He had been half an hour ago, but not anymore.

“That’s quite a career move,” he said to her.

She drank from the bottle. “Not really. They’re all related.”

He waited for her to explain.

“What about you, Harold Earl? What happened with you?”

“My name is Cotton.”

“Not to me.”

All of the physical changes had not altered her sharp personality, which had been one of the things that had attracted him to her in the first place. God help him, but he liked strong women. “I left the navy and went to work at the Justice Department. A special covert unit.”

“The Magellan Billet?”

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