The Dark Frontier A. Decker (i like reading TXT) 📖

“Hello squirrel.”

The voice caught Frank unawares. Such sweet cadence that had played on the edge of his impatient memory for so long. And now he trembled to hear it – and to hear the affection in that ludicrous pet name she had chosen for him. He was angry at his foolishness, almost afraid of his own desire. And at the pitch of his agitation, he hesitated to turn. But he had no need to: as she spoke, she moved around from behind him and sat down on the opposite side of the table.

“Patricia,” was all he managed in response. The melancholy sparkle in her eyes and the sensual parting of the lips pursed in a deeply seductive smile. Yet the smile was deceptive. It blew like the Föhn, melting down the Alpine snow, but too fickle to break the hold of winter. He sensed the same cool distance between them that he had felt when they first met. But it seemed different now, mingled indefinably with a certain reluctance. She seemed sadder and colder than ever before. Yet simmered with the passion of a sleeping volcano.

Her hands were like marble to the touch. He recalled the last time he had enjoyed the pleasure of their searching path across his body. So warm and so inquisitive. But that was just another brief chapter in the history books. Something had happened in the meantime to deepen her sorrow, and it disturbed him.

“When did you get back?” he asked.

It seemed a simple question, but she plainly had difficulty finding the right words in answer. While she was still searching, an elderly man with the look of arthritis in his walk and one too many glasses of marc in his cheeks shuffled up to their table with two cups of coffee, then withdrew again without uttering a sound. Frank gave up on his first question and tried another approach.

“Where’s Lutz disappeared to?”

This time the ice broke.

“He’s waiting back at the car,” she said, after testing the coffee with her lips. Her words tugged on his heart like a lead weight. Set an undefined time limit, hovered like the writer’s hand impatient to pencil in the full stop on their meeting.

“Patricia.” He touched her hand as she put down her cup. The coffee already seemed to have added a hint of warmth to her skin. “Patricia, I have so many questions I want to ask. Too many. About Lutz. About you. About what on earth we’re doing here. About so many things I don’t understand.”

Her eyes sparkled faintly with a smile of amusement. “In that order?”

“You think I might be more interested in Lutz than in you?”

For an instant her self-control evaporated, and she broke into a laugh so exquisitely fragile he wanted to take her in his arms, to preserve every atom of her curious beauty. But now was not the time. The table lay between them and they needed to talk. He suggested they start from the moment they last said goodbye – he wanted to know what had been happening to her in the intervening weeks to make her so indescribably sad. But she remained characteristically obtuse.

“I’d prefer to start from the moment we just said hello.”

These few words of contradiction breathed a bewitching hint of affection. But this was plainly not her purpose. From her guarded manner, it was clear that, while there were certain things she wanted him to know, she was keen at the same time to withhold secrets that were not for his ears. And he had the impression she found it easier to manage the disclosure process by working back carefully step by step from the moment she had Lutz bring him here across the border.

“You know, Patricia, while we were on the way here in his car, I was beginning to wonder whether Lutz and Breitner were doing a Berthold Jacob with me.”

“You can trust Lutz,” she said, dismissing his remark with an impatience he found hard to accept. He recalled how she had used that same phrase when she introduced him to her mysterious friend Léandre. Did this testimonial cast him in the same role as Lutz? Frank wondered.

“You had rather less flattering things to say of him the last time I saw you,” he replied.

“Times change.”

Lutz had always been a reluctant accomplice to Breitner’s business affairs, she explained, but he was basically a decent man. And over the last few weeks, he had been an indirect party to things that left him no choice but to cross over and saddle a worthier horse – even at the risk of his own skin.

“What sort of things?”

“You know yourself the very least that Breitner is capable of,” she said, and left him briefly to his unquiet memories. “That’s partly why you have Lutz working on your behalf.”

“What do you mean ‘partly’?”

She ignored his question.

“Tell me about your trip to Cologne. What happened?” she asked instead, feigning an interest which he felt was not there. But, with some reluctance, he gave her an outline of his abortive journey north: the betrayal of friendship and trust by Achim, his abandonment of the false mission that was left in his hands, the boat ride back up the Rhine and – without going into every gruesome detail – the disgusting carnage he had found on his return.

“There was no sign of Achim. Do you suppose Lutz knows what happened to him?” he asked. “I had the impression Silverstone thinks I have something to do with this and wants me dead as a result.”

She left him again to pause for reflection, letting him know that she was there only by the touch of her hand on his.

“But it occurs to me,” he continued. “Could he have had something to do with it? You know Breitner a lot better than I do. Is it possible that Silverstone is a traitor to his cause and is really working for Breitner?”

A peculiar look of hurt and reproach came into her eyes, which he