A matter of time

FIAN GROLOCH

He nearly collapsed.

"Is something wrong, Doctor?"

"Right here under my nose all the time," he murmured. Off and on, he had had a dozen private detectives tearing up America for as many years, and no amount of money had been able to unearth more than one Groloch, the Fiala whose address he had obtained from a letter written fifty years ago, to the then mayor of Lidice.

He surged toward the door.

"Doctor! Without your hat?"

Neumann's question reestablished his link with reality.

German troops were already over the border at Eger. They had been for days. In hours the full might of the Wehrmacht would roll. It was too late. There was no time to do a proper job. Right now.

He resumed his business with Neumann, a plan already shaping in the depths of his mind. Its success would hinge on two eventualities: his own ability to escape Czechoslovakia before the iron grip of the Third Reich tightened, and Fian Groloch's known unfamiliarity with his nation's early history.

Had Fial been there in Lidice, Neulist's trap could never have been sprung.

His escape route led through Poland, and along the way a Czech patriot named Josef Gabiek lost his papers, identity, and life.