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And ere alone, alone with Kotacek, and there were sos she did not understand

"Don’t worry about it," I said

"He is dead"

"Yes"

"They were going to kill him, weren’t they? The Jews?"

"Yes"

"I wondered what you were going to do I thought you ood plan, but then all at once he died It was his heart?"

"Probably"

"My father will be very sad to hear that He was so proud of reat importance He had hoped ould succeed, and now I must tell him of our failure"

She looked exceptionally appealing just then There was a little-girl tone to her voice, a look of abiding innocence in her blue eyes And that, incredibly, was the girl’s chief quality – her innocence No amount of furious and forbidden activity, whether sexual or political, could triumph over it She remained, despite it all, a blonde and blue-eyed child

"It was not a failure," I told her "Not entirely"

"No?"

"Certainly not Kotacek was in jail He would have had a dreadful trial followed by a public hanging We spared him that Then the Israelis had hih another trial And, unless we ed him So instead what happened?"

"He died"

"He would have died anyway, sooner or later He was an old man, a sick old ed to spirit him from under the noses of the Czechs, and then cheat the Jews of their revenge We have not failed, Greta"

She looked at me "Then I have done my part"

"Your part and more You onderful at the castle, you know"

"Was I?"

"You were excellent The guards-"

She giggled "The poor th of their desire They wanted me very badly, you know"

"I know"

"To expect to et hit over the head for your troubles They ake up with headaches and with no pleasant ht perhaps we could wait until they had finishedlove, and then knock them out"

"It would have taken too much time"

"Oh, I know, but it seemed more kind, don’t you think?" She walked over to the fallen Kotacek "Ah, but look what they have done to him I had alondered hoas done, you know? And if it was painful Of course there can be no pain when it is performed upon a dead man, can there? What did they do with it?"

"They took it along"

"Back to Israel? Why?"

"As a trophy Like a deer’s head, or a stuffed fish"

"How odd"

"They got the idea from the Bible"

"Like the haircut for Samson?"

"A different part of the Bible"

"Oh It is a shame you were unable to hypnotize him before he had his heart attack That was your plan, was it not? And thus you ht?"

"You noticed that?"

"Of course And you were not translating what they said I don’t know Slovak, but much of it is like Czech So hiht, were you not? It is unfortunate that it did not work"

"Unfortunate"

"Oh, Evan," she said What was I going to do with her? She thought that Kotacek was dead, and that was just what I wanted her to think She could tell her father and he would spread the word, and the Stern Gang would leak the news in Tel Aviv, and the ht he was dead, the feould be looking for him I couldn’t keep her around and I didn’t have the time to take her back to Pisek What was I supposed to do with her?

She said Oh, Evan a second time, and I looked at her, first at her eyes and then at the rest of her I rerounds of Hradecy Castle and the way she had felt in my arms in her father’s house in Pisek And I sa she looked now, flicking her pink tongue over her lower lip, standing with shoulders back, breasts pressing against the front of the sexiest dress in Prague, legs longer than ever in high-heeled black pu that had been drained from me by the tension of the rescue mission had returned to e of it, had been completed And my eyes must have showed it, because she said Oh, Evan a third time, and took a quick step forward and was in my arms

"You look pretty in your uniform," she said

I kissed her

"You would look prettier without it"

I kissed her again She ground her hips into led, took a quick step back and out of my arms "They have left mattresses all over the floor for us," she said "Wasn’t that considerate of them?"

"Very"