Fourth Reich Death Squad

Hank Frost thought that for once in his life he actually looked presentable — a new black patch on his left eye, his dark brown hair combed, dark blue three-piece suit clean and pressed and black loafers shiny. In fact, he thought, he was dressed quite similarly to the man standing just outside the pneumatic doors leading into the main floor of the passenger terminal, right down to the bulge under the left armpit. Frost wasn’t terribly worried — a lot of people in the Chicago area carried guns, though admittedly not many did around O’Hare Field because of the relative efficiency of the metal scanners installed in the vast halls leading to the flight gates.

Frost snapped up the collar on his London Fog raincoat and turned back toward the specially built Lincoln Continental limousine, gave a nod to the other two men on the security detail with him, and then took up a guard position a few feet away from the door through which their current charge would exit the car.

Pete Rocca got out first, taking a position flanking the door by the trunk side opposite Frost. Then Doctor Shalom Balsam stepped out. Balsam was in his middle sixties, a bit potty and possessed of an amazingly full shock of curly white hair. Gold wire-framed glasses — obvious bifocals — that constantly seemed to slip down the bridge of the professor’s nose gave Balsam the appearance of some old Jewish sage. Frost reflected that the latter was relatively appropriate since Balsam was old, Jewish and beyond two Ph.D.s, considered generally one of the most astute persons in the field of European geopolitics.

As Balsam stepped out onto the Pavement — Frost’s good right eye ever once leaving the man he’d spotted with the gun — Frost said, “Professor — let’s get inside quickly; the driver can take care of the luggage.”

“Excellent, Captain Frost,” was the reply, the voice seemingly brimming with Balsam’s usual unflagging cheerfulness and politeness. His voice dropping then, Balsam added, “You are watching that man there wearing the blue suit, standing by the doors? Is this not so, Captain?”