in such situations. He charged it straight on.
Without warning Marner made an about turn and began walking directly towards the man who had been watching them at the café, who was visibly a complete amateur in the technique of tailing people. Visible, because their follower was clearly thrown into indecision by this abrupt change of direction. An experienced agent would have kept moving smoothly without interruption and deviated gradually away from Marner’s head-on collision course approach, or even have passed shoulder to shoulder, turning later to reverse course and pick up Marner’s trail again. However, this fool faltered and stopped, dithered on the spot for several moments making half steps and turns, before finally leaning back against the stone wall beside him and feigning to search in his coat pockets for something, a cigarette perhaps.
Marner kept looking straight ahead and walked a half step past the man before stopping and turning back to face him. Smiling, Marner raised his left hand up to eye level between them, holding in it his own expensive gold pen, a present from his father on his graduation from the police academy. Marner saw surprise and confusion in the man’s eyes, the focus shifting back and forth between Marner’s friendly smiling face, and this glittering bauble. The fool started to form a word, perhaps the start of a question, but never delivered more than the first syllable. Because down below Marner hammered his unseen right fist into the man’s solar plexus.
The body went down like a dead weight and hit the gritty concrete pavement with a thump that Marner felt resonate through his boots, leaving him smelling spice and garlic and rotting, badly cared for teeth in the air driven from the man’s lungs. Ignoring for a moment the body writhing at his feet, Marner looked up and down the street to verify what he had concluded before launching his attack: that this individual was alone, no one was coming to his aid. The only other people in sight, a middle aged woman and a young girl, perhaps a granddaughter, had seen the altercation. The woman scowled at him but immediately turned and walked rapidly away, tugging the confused girl by the arm.
Marner went to work, filing away details in his mind. The man was of North African origins, in his early twenties. Marner’s fist had gained the impression of a muscled torso and so it would probably be necessary to keep applying debilitating blows to keep his prey subdued. Rifling through pockets, Marner first encountered a heavy leather sap, apparently full of small solid balls, probably steel ball-bearings. Another pocket gave up a wallet holding a considerable amount of money in large denomination notes, but no identity papers.
He looked again up and down the street. Those few who entered and spotted the SS officer standing over the fallen man had all rapidly about-turned and fled away. Good. The man was now beginning to breath regularly, if still shallowly, but he had also stopped writhing and Marner decided that it was now time to bend down and land a well-aimed blow into the lower back with the appropriated sap. This sent him writhing away, trying to hug the wall to get away from the blows and the pain, foul brown teeth bared in a silent scream. Marner followed in, pushing his knee into the man’s lower back, pinning him hard and face-first against the wall. His questions barked close up into a grimy ear elicited nothing more than a squeal to be taken to Avenue Foch.
From anyone else this would have been an unbelievable request, but the fact that it had been made told Marner everything. This had to be one of the Carlingue thugs, certain in the knowledge that influential contacts within the Gestapo would reach out and rescue him from Foch. It also told him that that this man feared someone else far more than he did Marner. Leaving him with few options. He could not take his prisoner
Without warning Marner made an about turn and began walking directly towards the man who had been watching them at the café, who was visibly a complete amateur in the technique of tailing people. Visible, because their follower was clearly thrown into indecision by this abrupt change of direction. An experienced agent would have kept moving smoothly without interruption and deviated gradually away from Marner’s head-on collision course approach, or even have passed shoulder to shoulder, turning later to reverse course and pick up Marner’s trail again. However, this fool faltered and stopped, dithered on the spot for several moments making half steps and turns, before finally leaning back against the stone wall beside him and feigning to search in his coat pockets for something, a cigarette perhaps.
Marner kept looking straight ahead and walked a half step past the man before stopping and turning back to face him. Smiling, Marner raised his left hand up to eye level between them, holding in it his own expensive gold pen, a present from his father on his graduation from the police academy. Marner saw surprise and confusion in the man’s eyes, the focus shifting back and forth between Marner’s friendly smiling face, and this glittering bauble. The fool started to form a word, perhaps the start of a question, but never delivered more than the first syllable. Because down below Marner hammered his unseen right fist into the man’s solar plexus.
The body went down like a dead weight and hit the gritty concrete pavement with a thump that Marner felt resonate through his boots, leaving him smelling spice and garlic and rotting, badly cared for teeth in the air driven from the man’s lungs. Ignoring for a moment the body writhing at his feet, Marner looked up and down the street to verify what he had concluded before launching his attack: that this individual was alone, no one was coming to his aid. The only other people in sight, a middle aged woman and a young girl, perhaps a granddaughter, had seen the altercation. The woman scowled at him but immediately turned and walked rapidly away, tugging the confused girl by the arm.
Marner went to work, filing away details in his mind. The man was of North African origins, in his early twenties. Marner’s fist had gained the impression of a muscled torso and so it would probably be necessary to keep applying debilitating blows to keep his prey subdued. Rifling through pockets, Marner first encountered a heavy leather sap, apparently full of small solid balls, probably steel ball-bearings. Another pocket gave up a wallet holding a considerable amount of money in large denomination notes, but no identity papers.
He looked again up and down the street. Those few who entered and spotted the SS officer standing over the fallen man had all rapidly about-turned and fled away. Good. The man was now beginning to breath regularly, if still shallowly, but he had also stopped writhing and Marner decided that it was now time to bend down and land a well-aimed blow into the lower back with the appropriated sap. This sent him writhing away, trying to hug the wall to get away from the blows and the pain, foul brown teeth bared in a silent scream. Marner followed in, pushing his knee into the man’s lower back, pinning him hard and face-first against the wall. His questions barked close up into a grimy ear elicited nothing more than a squeal to be taken to Avenue Foch.
From anyone else this would have been an unbelievable request, but the fact that it had been made told Marner everything. This had to be one of the Carlingue thugs, certain in the knowledge that influential contacts within the Gestapo would reach out and rescue him from Foch. It also told him that that this man feared someone else far more than he did Marner. Leaving him with few options. He could not take his prisoner
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