The Oslo Affair (Shadows of War, #2) CW Browning (sci fi books to read TXT) 📖

stepped away from the railing at the foot of the bridge. Her eyes were on Evelyn and she hurried forward quickly.

“Oh thank God!” she exclaimed, reaching her. “I’ve been standing here for over half an hour and I don’t think I can feel my feet!”

Evelyn blinked and automatically looked down at the woman’s fashionable, but not very sensible, shoes.

“Why are you here?” she asked, bringing her gaze back to Anna’s face. “What are you doing?”

“I’ve come to warn you,” Anna said, tucking her arm through Evelyn’s and guiding her to the side of the walkway leading to the bridge. “I didn’t know where else to try to intercept you. I remembered the name of the street from the message and asked at a cafe. They told me this bridge was really the only way in and out of the old city, without going miles in another direction. So I decided to wait here, knowing you’d have to come back this way. Wasn’t that clever of me?”

“Very. But why?”

“Why, to stop you from walking into a trap, of course!”

Evelyn felt like she was trapped in some kind of practical joke. “Oh, well, of course,” she muttered sarcastically, drawing a laugh from Anna.

“I suppose that did sound rather silly,” she admitted. “Let me start from the beginning.”

“That would be good.”

“After you left, I tried to read a magazine but just couldn’t concentrate. I was too excited.”

Evelyn raised her eyebrows and Anna shrugged defensively.

“This might be normal for you, but I’ve never been part of anything so clandestine before! It’s all terribly exciting to me. I couldn’t settle down and finally decided that I would go mad if I stayed in the room. So I left to get some air and do some sightseeing.”

“That sounds reasonable.”

“Well, when I got to the lobby I saw someone I recognized.”

Evelyn looked at her sharply. “What? Who?”

“A man I saw at the Hotel Bristol when we had dinner that night. Remember when we were having drinks with those scientists? There was a man a few tables away. I noticed him because, well, I thought he was attractive.” Anna paused for a moment, then made a face. “I was a little put out because he didn’t take any notice of me, but now I’m glad he didn’t.”

“Who is he?”

“His name is Herr Renner, and he’s a German,” Anna said. “I think he might be Gestapo.”

Evelyn stared at her, taken aback, and felt the color draining from her face. She had been expecting to hear a description of her soviet companion. Hearing instead that the tall German had also followed her sent a streak of fear through her.

“Renner?”

Anna nodded, frowning at the look on Evelyn’s face. “You know him?”

“No, not really,” she said, shaking her head. “I bumped into him at the Hotel Bristol the night Herr Mayer canceled dinner. I didn’t think anything of it, until he turned up at the boarding house the night we left Oslo.”

Anna’s mouth dropped open. “He was there? At the Kolstad’s?”

“Yes. I ran into him at the top of the stairs. He was staying there.”

“That’s terrifying,” Anna said decidedly.

“I don’t know about terrifying,” Evelyn said dryly. “Unnerving, perhaps.”

“That’s because you don’t know the rest!” Anna grabbed her arm. “Listen to me! I overheard him talking in the lobby. He was talking to someone, a short little man, and they were talking about how they were going to trap ‘the Englishwoman.’”

Evelyn’s blood ran cold and her mouth went dry. “The Englishwoman? That’s what he said?”

“Yes. It can’t be a coincidence. He must have been talking about you.”

“Trap? What kind of trap?”

“They’ve got people watching all the entrances of the hotel, looking for you. As soon as you go back, they’ll notify Herr Renner and he said that he would take it from there.” Anna bit her lip, her forehead creased in worry. “I don’t know what they’re planning, but I’m frightened. I think they mean to take you.”

Evelyn leaned against the railing along the water and tried to think clearly. The cold wind suddenly felt good on her face, cooling her flushed cheeks and acting as a cold compress. If Renner had all the exits covered in the hotel, she couldn’t go back. At least, not as it stood right now. She would have to be invisible. Yet, she had to go back. She needed her toiletry bag!

A wave of panic rolled over her. The microfilm! What if they had searched her room and found it?

Turning, she grabbed Anna’s arm. “Do they know you left?” she demanded.

Anna looked startled. “I don’t know. Possibly. Herr Renner told the short man to go the room and try to get a better description of me. He wanted to know what I look like.”

“If he did, they know you went out as well.” Evelyn dropped her hand and turned her attention to stare over the water. “Damn!”

“Why? What is it?”

“Nothing. I need to get back into the hotel.”

“Yes, but how? They’ll see you and that’s what they’re waiting for.” Anna stopped and looked at her. “Even dressed as you are, you’re still recognizable. Why are you wearing those ridiculous clothes?”

Evelyn glanced down at herself and laughed shortly. “To fit in with the locals. I was told the neighborhood I was going to wasn’t a place someone of my stature would frequent.”

Anna nodded. “I was told it was a slum,” she said bluntly. “Was it?”

“It certainly wasn’t what I’m used to.”

Anna was silent for a moment, then she shook her head. “What are we going to do? Perhaps I can go back and get everything from the room?”

Evelyn was shaking her head before she had even finished.

“He’ll have got a description from one of the hotel employees by now. They’ll be looking for you as well. If you try to clean the room out, they’ll stop you.”

“Then we go without our things. That’s the only other option.”

“That’s not an option. I need my bags. There’s...something important in them.”

“What’s so important that—” Anna broke off suddenly with a gasp.