The Night People by Edward D. Hoch

her twice, hard, and her scream quieted to a whimper.
    Win watched Wren zipping his briefcase shut. “As easy as that,” he said, somehow still not believing what had happened.
    Sam Wren nodded. Already someone was pounding on the hall door. “German machine-pistol. Tremendous weapon at close range. That one was foolish to be using a silencer. The gases take several seconds to escape and you can never get your second shot off when it’s needed. Tell that fool at the door to call the police, will you?”
    “You want that?”
    “No way to prevent it. These three had a fight and killed each other.”
    “They’ll never swallow it.”
    “They will with a few million francs to wash it down. The American Congress allows us a certain leeway in our expenditures. Now go answer that door before he knocks it clear through….”
    Sometime later, in the dimness of a downstairs hallway, Win Chambers passed a tiny red metal star to Sam Wren’s waiting hand. “They’ll be happy to see this in Washington,” Wren said. “Those Reds’ll never learn.”
    Win was still shaky. “I’m glad I was right. It was an awful spot to put you in.”
    “I figured you were in trouble. But how did you know I was your man? Did Falconi babble that, too?”
    “Not exactly. He said his superior was in town on a visit, and with all the hotels filled I figured you were one of the American party here for the festival. Then Falconi made a sort of joke—said you two were birds of a feather. I thought you might have a bird’s name, too— Falcon and Wren —but I didn’t get a chance to check the festival list for any other bird names. I had to take a gamble on Sam Wren being the man.”
    Wren nodded. “Good gamble. What do you want done with the girl?”
    “Martha?” Win had tried not to think about her. “I don’t know. I suppose she’ll tell what really happened.”
    “Not if she doesn’t want to implicate herself. But we can spirit her away if you want. Hold her prisoner for a month or two and then release her.”
    “I’ll talk to her,” Win decided. “I have to know why she did it, why a girl like that would become a spy. Why do you think she did it?”
    Sam Wren lit a cigarette, and by the flare of the match his face seemed suddenly bleak. “I don’t know, Chambers,” he answered quietly. “Why did you do it …?”

I’d Know You Anywhere
    16 November 1942
    F ROM THE TOP OF the dune there was nothing to be seen in any direction—nothing but the unchanging, ever-changing sameness of the African desert. Contrell wiped the sweat-caked sand from his face and signaled the others to advance. The tank, a sick sad monster wanting only to be left to die, ground slowly into life, throwing twin fountains of sand from the path of its tracks.
    “See anything?” Grove asked, coming up behind him.
    “Nothing. No Germans, no Italians, not even any Arabs.”
    Willy Grove unslung the Carbine from his shoulder. “They should be here. Our planes spotted them heading this way.”
    Contrell grunted. “With old Bertha in the shape she is, we’d be better off not running into them. Six men and a battered old tank against the pride of Rommel’s Afrika Korps.”
    “But they’re retreating and we’re not, remember. They just might be all set to surrender.”
    “Sure they might,” Contrell agreed uncertainly. He’d known Willy Grove—his full name was an impossible Willoughby McSwing Grove—for only a month, since they’d been thrown together shortly before the North African invasion. His first impression had been of a man like himself, drafted in his early twenties into an impossible war that threatened to envelop them all in blood and flame. But as the weeks passed, another Willy Grove had gradually become evident, one that stood next to him now, peering down into the empty, sand-swept valley before them.
    “Damn! Where are they, anyway?”
    “You sound like you’re ready for a battle. Hell, if I saw them coming I think I’d run