The Krone Experiment Read Online Free PDF Page B

of
corned beef, Swiss cheese, ham, turkey, and finished off with some
lettuce. From somewhere in the quiet house she heard a sound, a
muffled pop. She could not identify it, but the noise caused her to
slip into a fatigue-driven reverie.
    After six weeks of furtive, exhaustive
trekking and hiding, they slogged through the snow, eyes fixed on
the chain link fence topped with ragged strands of barbed wire.
They were in a clear, unforested area, lightly patrolled since the
approach was exposed. Then they heard that pop. A half kilometre
away, a squad of Czechoslovakian soldiers aimed at them and more
pops came. Their guides pointed at the place where the fence was
closest and ran for the copse of trees and cover. Maria remembered
her eyes almost frozen shut with tears of joy and fright during
their adrenalin-charged dash through the drifts, hauling the
ladder, planting it, scrambling up, leaping and landing. In Austria
!
    Austria. Vienna. Paul, sweeping her into a
vortex that left her head and heart swimming. Now, two years of
travel to places of which she had not known to dream, interspersed
with retreat to this magnificent isolation, a feeling of freedom so
strong it made her ache.
    Paul. Strong, excited in his high moods, his
energy drawing her like a magnet. The sudden, unexpected periods of
despondency worried her, though, and this was one of the worst. She
had learned to be patient. With time, he would bounce back.
    She put a steaming cup of coffee on the tray
next to the sandwich. She carried the tray through the living room,
past the massive adobe fireplace and into the hall leading to the
study.
    “Paul, I -”
    She froze in the doorway of the study,
gripping the tray, knowing in an instant that it was all gone. She
walked slowly across the room and set the tray on the edge of the
desk. She looked at the familiar, handsome face, the thick brown
hair laced with silver, the well-shaped head lolling against the
back of the high-backed desk chair.
    Then she forced herself to look at the small,
neat hole a few centimeters above his ear. There was hardly any
blood, but it was so dark, a bleak desolate pit that reminded her
of all she had struggled to leave behind. The hole was in such an
odd place. Not the temple, but higher, further back. Perhaps he had
flinched, his spirit rebelling even as his finger tightened on the
trigger. The small silver-plated twenty-two caliber pistol still
dangled from his forefinger. Such a trivial weapon to still such a
vibrant life.
    A month ago he was fired with enthusiasm for
this project that he had begun before they had met. He had been
working on it in Vienna. Then the depression set in, ever
deepening. Now something had pushed him over the edge. She examined
the scattered pages on the desk. They were filled with
incomprehensible calculations. What had the letters and numbers
meant to him? she wondered. Which among them triggered this
ultimate retreat? She felt what they meant to her — the end of a
freedom too good to last.
    In the stillness of the room, the faint
flutter shouted at her. Her eyes locked on him. Yes!! There it was
again! She knelt by his side, placed two fingers on his throat, and
nearly fainted with relief at the weak irregular beat that massaged
her fingertips.
     
    At midmorning Isaacs concentrated on the
report he had received from Baris the previous afternoon concerning
new arms stashes in eastern Mozambique. The photographs were
unmistakable, but the big question went unanswered. Whose were
they? Baris’s group had concluded they were not an unadvertised
ploy by the Marxist government, nor did they belong to the active
guerrilla movement. They seemed to mark a new force whose motives
and intentions were a cipher. Boswank had to get somebody in on the
ground.
    A commotion in the outer office caught his
attention. He heard Kathleen announce over the intercom and through
the door as it crashed open, “Mr. Deloach to see you.”
    Earle Deloach raced across the room