*
Schmidt, sitting impatiently at the wheel of the Mercedes, saw the approaching shadows of a dozen men. Instinctively he knew the game was up and hit the horn three times. At once a shot rang out and metal clanged as a bullet smashed into the bonnet of the car. Rolling down the driver’s window, Schmidt drew his automatic and let off a shot in the direction of the approaching shadows.
Inside, Paul started at the sound.
‘You’ve been discovered,’ von Knilling said in a dull voice. ‘Escape, my boy. Get back to your Widerstand friends … Tell them, tell the Allies, but for God’s sake tell someone.’
Paul was drawing his pistol. He raised a hand in salutation to the old professor and jerked open the door of the room. Outside the sentry stood nervously holding his rifle, uncertain what to do.
‘Quick!’ yelled Paul. ‘We are under attack. Guard the professor!’
The sentry rushed into the room, leaving Paul free to hurry down the corridor. The harassed little doctor, no longer subservient, was coming towards him with a pistol in his hand. Paul hesitated only a fraction of a second as he saw the little man beginning to raise his weapon. He shot twice. The doctor dropped his pistol and collapsed soundlessly to the floor. Paul hurtled over him, running for the door.
As he opened it he saw the grotesque silhouette of a heavy armoured vehicle swinging into position in front of the Mercedes. He saw Franz Schmidt still firing, but even as he started towards the vehicle a long burst of heavy machine-gun fire came from the armoured car. It tore into the black saloon and slammed Schmidt back into his seat.
Uniformed figures were rushing forward now. Paul jerked back into the shadow of the doorway and then, realizing there was no way forward, he turned back into the medical block and hurried along the corridor opposite the one leading to the professor’s room. He thrust open the first door he came to. The room contained half a dozen beds, of which two were occupied. The figures that lay in them seemed to be either in a coma or asleep.
On the far side of the room he saw a window which opened onto the back of the medical block. Without hesitation he heaved it open and threw himself into the snow outside. In an instant he was up and running heading for the shelter of the surrounding conifers.
*
Inside the medical block, Brigadeführer Heiden entered and saw the body of Doctor Weiss sprawled in the corridor. He stepped over it and strode along the corridor to von Knilling’s room.
The SS guard stood at the foot of the bed, still holding his rifle nervously.
‘Where is the bogus SS Hauptsturmführer?’ Heiden yelled.
The sentry gaped.
‘Bogus … ?’
Heiden’s hand lashed out in a stinging blow across the man’s face. ‘Idiot! Where is the man who was in here questioning the professor?’
The sentry shrugged helplessly. Events were beyond him.
From the bed the fever-racked professor watched Heiden with a slight smile of triumph. A vein throbbed in the Brigadeführer’s temple. He thrust his Luger under the chin of the sick man.
‘There is only one thing which prevents me shooting you here and now, Herr Professor!’ he hissed. ‘That is the launch of the rockets. They will be launched on time and you will be there to see it.’
Von Knilling grinned, obviously with great effort.
‘I may cheat you of that pleasure, Heiden. I know the preliminary signs of the radiation sickness.’
Heiden was already slamming from the room.
*
Paul was crouching behind a snowbank. Unless he managed to get out of the compound, he would soon be caught. He had to find a way of getting through either the gates or the double fence. Whatever he did, he could not stay hidden forever. He rose cautiously to his feet and made his way through the trees, trying to circle around the medical block. He hoped that the guards would expect him to make for the nearest point on the perimeter fence in an attempt to escape. Going this way might buy him a little more time.
He came abruptly to the mound which protected the silos and saw the two rockets, sleek and graceful, piercing the night sky. Their strangely awe-inspiring beauty took his breath away momentarily. Could they really wipe out cities the size of Münster or Dortmund? Could they really devastate London? If so they were capable, even at this late hour, of winning the war, of swinging the balance hack in favour of Hitler’s Reich. God help the people then! He stared up at them. Nothing so evil could be allowed. If only he had some technical ability. Perhaps he could sabotage the rockets where they stood. But how? No, it needed the expertise of a technician.
‘Herr Hauptsturmführer!’
Paul wheeled round, his heart leaping wildly as he saw a squad of four SS men, led by a warrant officer, approaching from behind him.
The squad leader’s hand came up in a salute. ‘We have been ordered to report to the officer at the silo, Herr Hauptsturmführer.’
Paul almost let a wide grin spread across his features. The warrant officer had mistaken him for the officer he should report to. Paul’s mind raced as he tried to work out a way to turn the situation to his advantage.
‘Yes. Come with me.’
First he must get them away from the genuine officer, who would be somewhere nearby, and then … then what? He led the squad away from the silos into the cover of the trees, then dropped back alongside the warrant officer, lowering his voice confidentially. ‘There is a spy loose in the compound.’
‘Yes, Herr Hauptsturmführer,’ replied the man. ‘We heard a commotion.’
‘Our job is to patrol part of the perimeter to ensure he doesn’t escape. Tell the men to keep their eyes open.’
‘Very good, Herr Hauptsturmführer.’
The warrant officer didn’t question the authority of an SS captain’s uniform. He and his men followed Paul obediently.
Paul realized that the longer he delayed his attempt to get away from the site, the more dangerous was his position. But the germ of an audacious idea had formed in his mind as soon as he saw that the squad of soldiers unquestioningly accepted his authority. He turned them toward the main gate of the site and marched them past the main office block. From the corner of his eye, Paul saw the Obersturmführer who had admitted him into the compound standing on the steps of the security office talking with a senior officer, a Brigadeführer. They took no notice of the squad of SS men marching by.
At the main gate the senior warrant officer saluted Paul.
‘We are detailed to patrol the south perimeter,’ Paul said curtly. ‘It is thought that the spy might attempt to break out there. Pass us through the gates, quickly now.’
‘At once, Herr Hauptsturmführer!’
This time there was no perusal of papers. How could a single escaped spy suddenly turn into an entire squad? No question of security here. The gates opened and Paul, with his men, marched through both sets of gates without challenge. They turned left and moved down the snow-covered roadway. Easy! Paul was grinning to himself. He was free … out of the compound. But then there was the next problem to solve. How could he rid himself of his squad of SS men?
With his mind feverishly working on the problem, he marched them along the barbed-wire fencing until he came to a section that curved away from the main roadway and ran near the edge of a more thickly-wooded part of the Grunewald.
‘Right!’ he called as he halted the squad. ‘Two men will patrol this section between these two sentry towers.’
The warrant officer obligingly detailed two of his men for the duty.
Paul marched on for a further two hundred yards and then halted the warrant officer and the remaining two men.
‘The rest of you will patrol this section. Keep a careful watch on the barbed wire. Raise the alarm if you see that it has been cut or breached in any way.’
‘Yes, Herr Hauptsturmführer,’ replied the warrant officer, but now there was a puzzled look in his eye.
Paul knew the man was on the verge of becoming suspicious, but he had w
orked out how to forestall this.
‘I am … I must go into the woods for a moment,’ he said, feigning embarrassment.
The warrant officer’s face relaxed. After all, officers were human, weren’t they? ‘Very well, Herr Hauptsturmführer,’ he said, being careful not to let his voice betray amusement.
Paul strode off toward the dark woods without a backward glance. As soon as he was far enough in to be hidden from the gaze of the patrols, he let a grin of triumph spread over his features. Then he was running for all he was worth. He wasn’t sure which direction to take, but all that mattered for now was to get as far as possible from the project site. He pushed quickly into the thickening forest. The pines grew close together, tall and dark. The ground was very swampy because the falling snow had failed to penetrate the pine cover above and that which had managed to filter through had turned to icy slush.
An hour later Paul halted. He was exhausted. The tension and then the sudden exertion of the last hour had sapped his strength; he collapsed onto a fallen tree and closed his eyes, taking deep breaths.
He was suddenly startled by a dry chuckle.
He opened his eyes to find two men standing over him, both tousle-haired, unshaven and dirty. One wore an unfastened mud-stained army overcoat over the filthy remains of what had once been a Wehrmacht uniform. The man had an old brown scarf twisted over his head. The other man, equally ragged, wore a mixture of civilian and military clothes. The first man was holding a Luger automatic. Aiming its black snout at Paul’s stomach, the man chuckled once more, a dry, rasping noise.
‘Well, well, an SS captain, no less! How gratifying.’
Paul attempted to stand but the man shouted, ‘Sit still!’ He emphasized the point by jabbing the Luger toward his captive.
Deserters or escaped prisoners? Paul suddenly recalled that the Grunewald was supposed to be full of such people.
‘I’m not an SS man,’ he began, but the man holding the pistol cut him short with a laugh.
‘Most of them say that. Perhaps you are a deserter, eh?’
Paul nodded. Anything to make friends with these people. ‘I am … ’ he began.
‘A dirty Nazi pig!’ sneered the man with the Luger. ‘I was two years in Warburg. Just because I had a cousin who’d married a Jew. Denounced by my neighbours. Well, this is where I get my revenge on you … ’
The second man, who had said nothing up to now, suddenly waved him back. ‘Wait! Don’t kill him yet. We don’t want to spoil that nice uniform. We could do with it.’ He grinned unpleasantly at Paul. ‘Take off your clothes, captain.’
Paul realized that he could expect no mercy from them. They were obviously bandits. He began to undo the top buttons of his uniform coat, watching the man with the pistol carefully. The man was licking his lips in anticipation.
‘You’re right, Hans. We could use the uniform to stop some supply trucks and then … ’
Paul gave no warning. He suddenly dived behind the cover of the log, tearing out his pistol. The man with the Luger shot first. Two bullets sent pieces of rotting wood flying from the fallen tree. Paul fired one shot. It caught the man in the centre of the chest. He took a couple of steps backwards, dropping his weapon with an expression of surprise as both hands clasped his chest. Then he fell forward and lay still. The second man was beginning to run. Paul hesitated a moment and then, from a kneeling position, took careful aim. He had no option. If there were other bandits in the vicinity … His shot dropped the man in his tracks.
Paul moved first to the man with the Luger and then to the second man. Both were dead. He had become hardened to the sight of men killed in war; he did not give way to emotion now. The demand for his SS uniform had given him a new idea. He quickly stripped off the uniform, then stripped the clothes from the second man. They were a bad fit but perhaps they were better than strutting around in the SS uniform. In the pockets of the first man’s dirty overcoat Paul found a large bundle of papers. It looked as though the bandit had been collecting them from the people he had killed. There was a jumble of ration books, worker’s cards and papers accrediting the holders as workers of the Todt Organization.
Paul selected an identification card and Todt Organization pass which bore a general description that seemed to fit his own. Having done this, he put the SS uniform on the man he had stripped, noting the location of the bullet wound and firing another shot through the uniform above it. That would allay any suspicion which might arise if whoever found the body saw no bullet hole in the uniform. Also, he hoped the search parties from the project site might assume that the ‘spy’ and the deserter had encountered and killed each other, and thus end any further search for him.
He put his pistol in his coat pocket and began to hurry on through the forest. Paul’s primary concern now was to avoid encountering any more deserters. Also, he must avoid military or police patrols who might take him for a deserter. It was a short while before dawn when he emerged from the forest onto a tarmac road. He hesitated, wondering whether to use it. It would make his progress much easier, provided he didn’t encounter any patrols. Mentally he flipped a coin and decided to stick to the road and keep his eyes and ears open.
Half an hour later he came to a sign announcing the village of Freckenhorst.
‘Papers!’
He had paused at the sign, wondering what to do next, when the policeman emerged out of the shadows.
Paul started. He had not heard the man, despite his resolve to be cautious.
‘Quickly!’ snapped the policeman in an irritable tone.
Paul’s left hand closed on the butt of his pistol while his right sought the papers he had appropriated from the dead bandit.
A lamp flashed.
‘So a Todt worker?’
‘Yes.’
‘You are early. The lorry doesn’t leave for half an hour.’
Paul frowned. The lorry?’ His echo sounded stupid.
‘Yes, yes.’ The policeman sounded exasperated. ‘Over there by the church. That’s the collection point,’ he said, pointing the way. Then he turned and strode off into the grey twilight of the approaching dawn.
Paul moved toward the church, obediently. A short while later several elderly men and young boys began to converge there. Eventually a charcoal-burning lorry with Todt Organization markings came wheezing up.
‘Everyone for the Münster rail yards get aboard!’ yelled a morose-looking driver. ‘Come on, I haven’t all day to waste.’
Scarcely believing his luck, Paul scrambled in with the others. Soon they were entering the eastern suburbs of Münster and heading toward the railway yards just south of the station. It was no great effort for Paul, once the lorry had stopped outside the yards, to drift away from the crowds of workers unnoticed and head for his apartment.
Only when he had closed his own door behind him and collapsed on a chair, reaching for his last tin of cigarettes, did the full implications of what he had seen and heard strike him. For an hour he sat shivering and chain smoking, wondering what he should do.
Chapter Fifteen
The adjutant plodded wearily into Brigadeführer Heiden’s office and saluted. Heiden, feeling as tired and harassed as his assistant looked, acknowledged him curtly. It had been a long night for both men, and Berlin had been on the telephone several times demanding to know what progress had been made in apprehending the infiltrators. Heiden had not been to bed, nor been able to get any rest, since his return from the capital.
‘We think we have found our second infiltrator, Herr Brigadeführer or rather his body,’ the adjutant reported.
Heiden straightened in his chair and looked sharply at the man. ‘Body?’
‘One of our patrols found two corpses in the forest about two kilometres from here. One was in a Wehrmacht uniform, or rather the remains of one. His papers identified him as a deserter from Model’s Second Army. The other was in the uniform of an SS Hauptsturmführer. They had apparently shot each other.’
‘Oh?’
‘It could be that while our infiltrator was making off through the forest he bumped into this deserter.’
‘Where are the bodies?’
‘Outside in the truck, Herr Brigadeführer. Our patrol decided it was better to bring the bodies back here for identification.’
Heiden rose to his feet and led the way from his office. From the wooden veranda he was able to peer down into the open back of the truck. He stared curiously at the bodies and was disappointed at not being able to recognize the man in the SS uniform.
‘Do you recognize the man?’ he asked his adjutant. ‘Was he the man who asked to see von Knilling?’
The Obersturmführer bit his lip. ‘Difficult to say, Herr Brigadeführer. It was dark when they arrived, I only spoke to him briefly, and he was in the back of the car with his face in the shadow. Neither the medical block sentry nor the patrol he fooled really had a good look at him.’
‘I see. Is there anyone else on the base apart from von Knilling who had a good look at him?’
‘I’ll check, but I don’t think so.’
‘Has anything been found on the body?’
‘The medical pass with instructions to enter this base and examine von Knilling.’
‘So? Show me.’
The adjutant passed the papers to Heiden. He glanced through them. ‘Better have these sent directly to Prinze Albrechtstrasse. No doubt they are clever forgeries, but they might be traceable.’
‘At once, Herr Brigadeführer.’
Heiden stroked his nose thoughtfully. He stared at the bodies again. He’d better write a report for Berlin, but it looked as though the matter was closed.
*
Paul must have dropped off to sleep for a moment in the chair, for he was jolted awake by the sound of Ilse’s voice.
‘Where the hell have you been?’
He blinked and looked up, bleary-eyed. When he came in she had been asleep in bed and he had not wanted to disturb her. Now she was standing before him, her face pale, her eyes wide. She was staring at his dirty clothes in disgusted amazement.
The Doomsday Decree Page 13
