Free Jack 1939 by Francine Mathews Page B

passport.”
    “He’s a crook?”
    “No, no. He’s a killer.” Dobler’s gaze skimmed Jack’s face, and then he chose his words carefully. “You are fortunate it was a fist he jammed into your stomach this evening. Usually it’s a knife. I have seen a few of the bodies. He likes to cut his mark into his victim’s chest—a crouching spider.”
    Jack said nothing for an instant, taking it in. “Are you trying to scare me?”
    “Absolutely.
Yes.
You should be afraid of no one so much as this man.”
    “Then lock him up,” Jack said brusquely.
    “The White Spider has extremely influential friends. I could not touch him. I would die an unpleasant death if I tried.”
    Jack stared at Dobler, convinced he had stumbled into a movie. Something with Peter Lorre.
    “I’m not lying to you,” Dobler said gently.
    “Why’s he called the White Spider?”
    Dobler was examining the stateroom’s portholes, testing their bolts. He moved on to the door. “Because he survived it. It’s an ice field high on the North Face of the Eiger. Hitler is determined that an Aryan youth must be the first to conquer the Eiger’s North Face. It has never been done. He’s thrown any number of boys to their deaths because of it.”
    “I remember now,” Jack said. He slumped onto the end of his bed and unknotted his tie. “A whole bunch of Germans died on that mountain a few years back—in ’36, wasn’t it?”
    “Yes. This man claims to have been with them, and to have reached the top. But as no one else lived to authenticate the climb. . . . Good night, Jack. Lock your door behind me. And do not open it until your steward comes in the morning.”
    “Where are you going?”
    He sounded young and belligerent, even in his own ears.
    “To find out why the Spider is on this ship. I thought he was in Poland.”
    * * *
    IF YOU HOPE TO SERVE your president, Jack, learn when to shut your
mouth.
    So Willi knew Roosevelt had recruited him to spy. And when Jack pressed him about
how
he knew, he’d successfully changed the subject: telling bedtime stories about bogeymen in the mountains, who hid long knives up their sleeves.
    He was very good, Willi; he’d obviously been at this game a long time.
    Jack gave him ten minutes. Then he slipped through his cabin’s service door and moved noiselessly down the passage.

TEN. ROPE
    THE SERVICE PASSAGES that Robbie and the other stewards used to move invisibly about the
Queen Mary
were well lit, and at this hour of the night, completely empty. Passengers never entered them, if they even knew they existed; but Jack and his brother were old hands at navigating the interior of transatlantic liners. Service passages were escape routes, from the stuffiness of First Class to great parties belowdecks. During a previous crossing on the
Normandie
, Joe Kennedy had taken to locking the boys into their stateroom at bedtime. He had no idea they simply exited by the service door as soon as he turned the key.
    Jack’s instincts told him to strike upward tonight through the interior of the ship, not down into its bowels, where the kitchens and laundries and storerooms were housed. His target was the captain’s bridge.
    He passed through a bulkhead marked
Exit
and emerged cautiously onto the Promenade Deck. He glanced to left and right, half expecting a man with a knife to be waiting in the shadows; and then shrugged off Willi Dobler’s warning. He’d meant to scare Jack silly; he wanted him cowering in his stateroom. Which was reason enough to leave.
    Jack vaulted over the chain that barred his access to the quarterdeck and bridge, and mounted the stairs two at a time.
    “Oy, mate,” said a caustic British voice as he attempted to slide through the bridge entrance, “Passengers
not
allowed.”
    “Evening. I’m Jack Kennedy.” He held out his hand.
    The sailor ignored it.
    “I need to send a Morse signal. It’s something of an emergency,” he persisted. “Could you help me out?”
    “A Morse