She moved his hands with hers, cried with joy every time they found the perfect spot, her response reckless and candid and open. She moved with her feelings, unhampered and uninhibited, embracing and coddling her own passion without a trace of modesty or conscience. She asked him what to do, followed his whispered instructions and then experimented on her own. And she transferred her joy to him. Stroking, kissing, touching, she finally rolled over on top of him, squirming to his touch until suddenly almost by accident he was inside her.

She was stretched out on her stomach beside him, propped up on her elbows.

"Frankie," she said earnestly, "that was even better than I imagined it would be all these years."

"You mean you coveted me as a child?" he said, feigning shock.

"I was thirteen. That's not such a child."

"I'm glad I didn't know," he said. "I probably would have had a terrible guilt complex."

"Why should you have had a guilty conscience over the way I felt?"

He stared up at the ceiling for a moment and said, "That's a good point. Something subconscious, maybe. I don't think I care to pursue it."

She laughed and ran her fingernail very lightly across his bottom lip and he almost jumped out of bed.

"Tickle?" she asked.

"My nerve endings are still twitching."

"I know, isn't it terrific! Want to do it again?" she suggested eagerly.

"Give me a little while to recuperate."

"Humph," she said, pretending to pout. She leaned closer to him and put her chin on his chest.

She lay across him, her legs straddling his, her warm body pressed against him, smelling of expensive perfume. He stroked the small of her back, caressed the perfect swell of her buttocks.

"No one's ever made love to me like that before," she murmured, suddenly.

"Made love to a lot of men, have you?"

"Two," she confessed. "Little boys, always in such a hurry. I didn't know you could make it last that long, or that it would get better and better . . . 'n better . . ."

She closed her eyes, squirming a bit to get comfortable. In a few moments her breathing was deep and constant and he felt her body soften in sleep.

He slid out from under her and walked to the window. The sun was ablaze at the edge of rooftops, throwing slender crimson shadows down the wet streets. The city seemed clean and innocent and silent, its solace disturbed for a minute or two by an ice truck that rattled up the street and vanished around a corner. Then all was quiet again.

He drew the drapes and took off his robe and slid back in bed beside Vanessa. She groaned in her sleep, slid one leg across his hip and cuddled up close to him. In minutes, he too was asleep. It was eight-thirty when the phone rang for the first time. It rang every thirty minutes after that but Keegan didn't hear it. He was dead to the world.

FOURTEEN.

A loud banging on the door finally awakened Keegan. He put on a robe and went into the living room of his suite, closing the bedroom door behind him. When he answered the door, Bert Rudman rushed past him without waiting for an invitation.

"Where the hell have you been?" he demanded. "I've been calling you all morning!"

"I was tied up," Keegan groaned.

"It's almost noon."

"It was dawn before I got to bed."

"Look, old buddy, I need your help. Did . . ."

Rudman stopped abruptly and stared open-mouthed over Keegan's shoulder. Keegan turned to find Vanessa standing in the bedroom doorway wrapped in the bedsheet.

"Oh . . . I . . . uh . . . I . . ."

"Vanessa," Keegan said. "Vanessa Bromley. This eloquent person is Bert Rudman."

"How do you do?" she said and pulled the sheet up a little higher.

"Now what the hell's so important?"

"I'm onto a hot story but I can't pin anything down. I know Wally Wallingford's a friend of yours and I thought . . ."

"Not anymore," Keegan interrupted. "Want some coffee?"

"Great."

"I'll call down and order it," Vanessa said.

"What does Wally have to do with this scoop of yours?"

"You know who Felix Reinhardt is?"

Keegan hesitated. "Yes," he said. "I know who he is."

"Apparently he was arrested sometime during the night, although I can't confirm it. The way I get it, he was with an American officer attached to the embassy when he was nabbed and there's a big diplomatic stink brewing. But nobody'll talk to me."

"What was he arrested for?"

"From what I can put together, he was editing The Berlin Conscience and a man named Probst was printing it. Yesterday afternoon the SA raided Probst's print shop. A big gunfight broke out, then a fire. Probst was shot and his place burned to the ground. They had the whole damn Sturmabteilung after Reinhardt and caught up with him about two o'clock this morning."

"Where did you hear that?"

"The Nazis had a press conference and announced the details on the Probst part of it. I pieced the rest of it together, y'know, a little bit here, a little bit there, but I can't confirm anything. The Nazis are staying mum on Reinhardt."

"It didn't happen that way."

"What?"

"The Probst part of it. It didn't happen the way you said. He wasn't even armed. The SA kicked in his door, shot him in cold blood, then set his place afire."

"How do you know?"

"I pieced it together."

"C'mon, don't be a schmuck. Where did you hear that?"

"From an eyewitness. That's all I can tell you. Just don't print that official Nazi bullshit."

"When'd you find out about this?"

"I don't know, Bert, sometime during the night."

"And you didn't tip me off?"

Keegan didn't say anything. Rudman had never seen this expression in his friend's eyes.

"You consider this eyewitness reliable?"

"As reliable as you can get."

Rudman's eyes narrowed.

"It was Reinhardt, wasn't it? You talked to Reinhardt."

"I've told you all I can. Don't push me." He looked down at Vanessa. "Why don't you go put something on," he suggested.

"All I've got's my dress from last night."

"There are half a dozen bathrobes in there. Take one."

She walked out of the room, the sheet dragging along behind her.

"Phew," Rudman sighed appreciatively.

"Don't get any ideas," Keegan said.

"I've already got so many ideas I couldn't . . . ah, forget that." He stopped and waved his hand. "At least talk to Wallingford, okay? See what you can find out for me."

"Wally isn't speaking to me right now."

"What the hell did you do to him? Wally speaks to everybody."

"I didn't RSVP one of his parties."

"Ah c'mon. Take him out for a drink or something, Francis, I'm hurting for a lead right now."

"Believe me, Bert, the guy will not give me the time."

"Try."

There was a long silence. Then Keegan quietly said, "All right, I'll try."

"Thanks, buddy. I'll be at the Trib office and then the Imperial Bar."

"I didn't know the Imperial had a pressroom," Keegan said sarcastically.

"The Imperial Bar is a pressroom," Rudman said. "Everybody in the press corps hangs out there. Goebbels even drops by in the afternoon with his latest proclamation."

"Well, that's a break, you don't even have to go over to the propaganda ministry to pick up his latest lies."

"It's a starting place," Rudman said. "He gives us his lies and we boil out the truth."

Rudman started for the door, stopped short. "You know," he said, "this is the first time I've ever known you to change your mind about something."

"Maybe it's because I want to know the truth myself."

"Well, that's another first," Rudman said, and left.

George Gaines was standing inside the door of the embassy when Keegan entered. He looked up sharply, his face drawn up with anger.

"What the hell are you doing here?" the attache asked harshly.

"I came to see Wally," Keegan said quietly. "What's your problem?"

"You are," the major answered. "You're everybody here's problem."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"You know damn well what I mean. Trace spent the night in Landsberg prison. God knows what happened to Reinhardt. And poor old Wally's been recalled."

"Recalled!"

Gaines started up the stairs to the offices and Keegan fell in beside him. When one of the Marine guards stepped in front of Keegan, Gaines waved him aside. "It's okay," he said.

"That Nazi bastard lifted his passport," Gaines said as they went to the second floor. "With a little help from you . . . "

Keegan cut him off. "Look, I don't get paid to stick my neck in a noose because Roosevelt snaps his fingers," he growled angrily. "So Trace spent the night in jail. Big deal. He's okay, isn't he?"

"He's okay," Gaines begrudgingly admitted.

"If I'd been with Reinhardt I'd be dead now, I wouldn't just have to worry about my damn passport. I don't have diplomatic immunity, George."

"Tell Wally about it. He's the one whose career just got flushed." Gaines nodded toward an open door. "There's his office. Although I don't think he's too anxious to talk to you."

As Keegan started to enter the office a Marine came by carrying a large cardboard box. Keegan stepped around him. Wallingford's inner door was open and Keegan could see him in the office, taking pictures off the wall.

"It's all right, Belinda," Wallingford said. He walked back to his desk, his arms stacked with framed photographs as Keegan entered his room. Wallingford carefully placed the pictures in an open box on his desk. The rest of the room was almost cleared out.