Excerpt #1

Steeg's demeanor throughout this exchange had not revealed the full depth of the jealousy he had instantly formed towards Erich Behrndt. This jealousy stemmed from the simple fact that Behrndt had everything that Steeg coveted but did not have, including youth, good looks, personal charm, a gift for communicating with people, and now, evidently, the very job in Brussels that Steeg had applied for.

Steeg was consumed by two passions. The first and stronger of these was the desire for power and success. The second was lust, not the simple kind of lust that could be satiated by prostitutes-he had long ago lost interest in his wife, and had to settle most of the time for prostitutes-but a lust that demanded nothing less than copulation with the most exquisite sort of mistress, in fact, as Steeg dreamed of it, with a goddess. Prostitutes, common ones, and the women he craved were to him the same, yet paradoxically completely different. They both took you from A to B, but oh, the trip was all the difference! In Steeg's imagination, the one was as different from the other as sitting up all night on a hard wooden bench in a crowded third-class train compartment was from the blue wagons-lits he had glimpsed speeding by in the night where people slept on luxurious sheets in opulent private compartments and dined on tables set with linen, crystal, and expensive silver.

These two desires, of power and of lust, did not reside in separate parts of Steeg's brain. His sexual ambitions were merely another aspect of his craving for power; women to him were not there to be cherished, but to be mastered.

It galled him particularly that the job Behrndt was slated for would be such a sinecure. It would mean living in relative luxury, and in Belgium of all places. Some of Steeg's proudest moments had taken place in Belgium during the war. Steeg also knew that the job in Brussels would mean women, the kind of women he wanted.

Although Steeg had not known until a few moments ago that Behrndt even existed, he already hated the cocky young swine.

Excerpt #2

A bell was ringing, somewhat like a doorbell, but far away. Then some voices. It did not seem to concern her. Lise started to roll over, but the voices got louder. She recognized one of them as belonging to the middle-aged man who had let her in. She heard him shout, "You have no right!" Then a louder voice gave some sort of command which she could not make out. Then there were footsteps stomping down the hall, coming closer. Then a knock on her door.

"Who is it?" Lise said, through the door.

"It's me." She recognized the middle-aged man's voice.

"You'd better come out."

"What is it?" His voice sounded strained. "You'd better come."

She got up and opened the door. The man stood before her, looking to one side with a terrified expression. She followed his eyes. A couple of meters down the hall stood a uniformed policeman, his gun drawn and pointed at the owner. Behind him stood a second policeman.

"What is this?" Lise said. "What do you want?"

"Lise Hermann?" said the policeman with the gun.

"Yes?"

"You are under arrest. Come with us."

"What do you mean? What do you want with me?"

"Criminal charges. You will find out."

Everything — her miraculous escape, Hilda's unexpected but providential help, these kind people's efforts, the thoughtful note from André — it was going to be as if none of that had ever happened.

Lise turned to the policemen. "This is a mistake," she said, almost in a shout. Her face was flushed. They paid no attention to what she was saying.

"What is this nonsense?" she asked the middle-aged man.

He was staring at the gun still pointed at him. He looked helpless.

"Stop them!"

"I can't."

"You can't? Why not? It's a mistake. You know it."

"Can't you see? It's the police. I tried, but they have orders. I'm sure you can get it straightened out at the police station."

"I won't go. They have no authority. I'm just here on a visit. You have no authority." She was shouting.

The second policeman grabbed her elbow.

"Let me go! Let me go!" She demanded. She was struggling to get away from him. For a moment she almost seemed to break loose from him, but his hand tightened on her elbow like a vise. Her face had turned puffy and red, and she was kicking him.

At the top of her lungs Lise yelled, "Let me go! Let me go, damn you! You have no right!"

The policeman jerked Lise off balance, pulled her out of the doorway, and pushed her down the hallway to the front door. Lise never stopped struggling, but he kept his tight grip on her elbow. Finally the officer pulled Lise out into the street, as she still fought vigorously, and then he shoved her into the back of the police car.

From inside the house came a loud sound, like a gun being fired. Then the policeman with the gun came out, still holding the weapon. He put it back in its holster.

"What was that?" asked the other policeman.

"I took care of him."

"What in hell for? You didn't need to do that."

"He argued with us. People like that are dangerous."

Introduction to Excerpt #3

The scene in this excerpt takes place between André Laroche, a Belgian, and Trevor Exenby, an Englishman, who met on the front, and were both wounded, in the carnage of the First World War. The meaningless deaths of so many millions of innocents affected them greatly, and made them vow to do all that two mere men could do to prevent another war. It is now 1935, eighteen years later. They have kept in touch, but have not met, since that war. Both appalled by the unmistakable harbingers of the outbreak of another World War, to which the world around them seems blind, they come together to renew their friendship and exchange information that will be crucial to the great rescue that André has undertaken.

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