Where Eagles Dare

by Alistair MacLean

  There was a brief and uncomfortable silence, then Kramer nodded to Anne-Marie who put down her glass and moved off to a side door leading off the gold drawing-room. It was obvious to everyone that Anne-Marie wasn’t feeling in the least uncomfortable: the half-smile on her face was as near to that of pleasurable anticipation as she could permit herself in the presence of Rosemeyer and Kramer.

  Again Smith and Schaffer exchanged glances, no longer thoughtful glances, but the glances of men who know what they have to do and are committed to doing it. Carefully, silently, they eased themselves up from the choir-stalls, adjusted the straps of their shoulder-slung Schmeissers until the machine-pistols were in the horizontal position then started slowly down the stairs, well apart and as close as possible to their respective banisters, to minimize the danger of creaking treads.

  They were half-way down, just beginning to emerge from the dark gloom of the gallery, when Anne-Marie re-entered the room. She was carrying a small stainless steel tray: on the tray were a glass beaker, a phial containing some colourless liquid and a hypodermic syringe. She set the tray down on an occasional table close to Jones and broke the phial into the narrow beaker.

  Smith and Schaffer had reached the foot of the stairs and were now advancing towards the group round the fireplace. They had now completely emerged from the shadows, and were in full view of anyone who cared to turn his head. But no one cared to turn his head, every seated person in the drawing-room was engrossed in the scene before him, watching in varying degrees of willing or unwilling fascination as Anne-Marie carefully filled the hypodermic syringe and held it up to the light to examine it. Smith and Schaffer continued to advance, their footfalls soundless on the luxuriously deep pile of the gold carpet.

  Carefully, professionally, but with the trace of the smile still on her lips, Anne-Marie swabbed an area of Jones’s forearm with cotton wool soaked in alcohol and then, as the watchers unconsciously bent forward in their seats, picked up Jones’s wrist in one hand and the hypodermic in the other. The hypodermic hovered over the swabbed area as she located the vein she wanted.

  ‘Just a waste of good scopolamine, my dear,’ Smith said. ‘You won’t get anything out of him.’

  There was a moment’s frozen and incredulous stillness, the hypodermic syringe fell soundlessly to the floor, then everyone whirled round to stare at the two advancing figures, carbines moving gently from side to side. Predictably, Colonel Kramer was the first to recover and react. Almost imperceptibly, his hand began to drift to a button on a panel beside his chair.

  ‘That button, Colonel,’ Smith said conversationally.

  Slowly, reluctantly, Kramer’s hand retreated from the button.

  ‘On the other hand,’ Smith went on cordially, ‘why not? By all means, if you wish.’

  Kramer glanced at him in narrow-eyed and puzzled suspicion.

  ‘You will notice, Colonel,’ Smith continued by way of explanation, ‘that my gun is not pointing at you. It is pointed at him’ – he swung his gun to cover Carraciola – ‘at him,’ – the gun moved to Thomas – ‘at him,’ – it covered Christiansen – ‘and at him!’ Smith swung round abruptly and ground the muzzle of the Schmeisser into Schaffer’s ribs. ‘Drop that gun! Now!’

  ‘Drop the gun?’ Schaffer stared at him in shock and baffled consternation. ‘What in the name of God –’

  Smith stepped swiftly forward and, without altering his grip on his gun, lifted the barrel sharply upwards and drove the butt of the Schmeisser into Schaffer’s stomach. Schaffer grunted in agony, doubled forward with both hands clutched over his midriff, then, seconds later, obviously in great pain, began to straighten slowly. Glaring at Smith, the dark eyes mad in his face, he slipped the shoulder strap and the Schmeisser fell to the carpet.

  ‘Sit there.’ With the muzzle of his gun Smith gestured to a chair half-way between Rosemeyer’s and the couch where the three men were sitting.

  Schaffer said slowly, painfully: ‘You goddamned lousy, dirty, double-crossing –’

  ‘That’s what they all say. You’re not even original.’ The contempt in Smith’s voice gave way to menace. ‘That chair, Schaffer.’

  Schaffer lowered himself with difficulty into his chair, rubbed his solar plexus and said, ‘You –. If I live to be a hundred –’

  ‘If you live to be a hundred you’ll do nothing,’ Smith said contemptuously. ‘In your own idiom, Schaffer, you’re a punk and a pretty second-rate one at that.’ He settled himself comfortably in a chair beside Colonel Kramer. ‘A simple-minded American,’ he explained carelessly. ‘Had him along for local colour.’

  ‘I see,’ Kramer said. It was obvious that he did not see. He went on uncertainly: ‘If we might have an explanation –’

  Smith waved him negligently to silence.

  ‘All in good time, my dear Kramer, all in good time. As I was saying, my dear Anne-Marie –’

  ‘How did you know her name was Anne-Marie?’ Kramer asked sharply.

  Smith smiled enigmatically, ignored him completely, and continued: ‘As I was saying, scopolamine is a waste of time. All scopolamine will do, as you’re all aware, is to reveal the truth about our friend here, which is that he is not Lieutenant General George Carnaby, Chief Coordinator of Planning for the Second Front, but a certain Cartwright Jones, an American actor being paid precisely twenty-five thousand dollars to impersonate General Carnaby.’ He looked over to Jones and bowed. ‘My congratulations, Mr Jones. A very creditable performance. Pity you’ll have to spend the rest of the war in a concentration camp.’

  Kramer and Rosemeyer were on their feet, the others leaning far forward on the couch, an almost exactly identical expression of disbelief showing in every face. If Cartwright Jones had been earth’s first visitor from outer space he couldn’t possibly have been the object of more incredulous consternation.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ Smith said with interest. ‘Surprise, surprise, surprise.’ He tapped Kramer on the arm and gestured in the direction of Carraciola, Thomas and Christiansen. ‘Odd, wouldn’t you say, Kramer? They seem just as astonished as you are?’

  ‘Is this true?’ Rosemeyer demanded hoarsely of Jones. ‘What he says? Do you deny –’

  In a voice that was no more than a whisper, Jones said: ‘How – how in God’s name – who are you, sir?’

  ‘A stranger in the night.’ Smith waved a hand. ‘Dropped in in the passing, you might say. Maybe the Allies will let you have that twenty-five thousand after the war. I wouldn’t bank on it though. If international law allows you to shoot a captured enemy soldier dressed as a civilian, maybe the opposite holds good too.’ Smith stretched and politely patted a yawn to extinction. ‘And now, Anne-Marie, if I could – with your permission, my dear Kramer – have a glass of that excellent Napoleon. Clinging to the roofs of cable-cars works the devil with my circulation.’

  The girl hesitated, looked at Kramer and Rosemeyer, found neither encouragement nor discouragement, shrugged, poured a glass and handed it to Smith, who sniffed the bouquet approvingly, drank a little and bowed again to Jones.

  ‘My congratulations, sir. You are a connoisseur.’ He sipped again, turned to Kramer and said sadly: ‘To think you have been wasting such excellent liquor on enemies of the Third Reich.’

  ‘Don’t listen to him, Colonel Kramer, don’t listen to him!’ Carraciola shouted wildly. ‘It’s a bluff! He’s just trying –’

  Smith lined up his gun on Carraciola’s chest and said softly: ‘Keep quiet or I’ll make you quiet, you damned traitor. You’ll have your chance – and we’ll see who’s bluffing.’ He lowered his gun to his knees and went on tiredly: ‘Colonel Kramer, I don’t fancy talking and having to keep a gun on this unlovely trio all the time. Have you a guard you can trust? A man who won’t talk afterwards, I mean?’

  He sat back in his chair, sipped his brandy and ignored the malevolent stares from his four erstwhile colleagues. Kramer looked at him for a very long moment, then nodded thoughtfully and reached for a phone.r />
  The armoury – now converted into a Kaffeestube– of the Schloss Adler was very much in keeping with the remainder of the castle, something out of a medieval dream or nightmare, according to how individual tastes and inclinations lay. It was a large, darkly-panelled, stone-flagged room with enormous adze-cut smoke-blackened beams and walls behung with ancient and rusty suits of armour, ancient and rusty weapons of all kinds and scores of armorial bearings, some of which could have been genuine. Three-sided half booths lined the walls and half-a-dozen slab-topped monastery refectory tables, flanked by massive oak benches, paralleled the shorter axis of the room. The oil lamps, suspended by iron chains from the ceiling, were turned low, lending the atmosphere in the armoury an air of intimacy or brooding menace, according to one’s original mood on entering. There was no doubt in Mary’s mind as to its effect upon her. Her gaze followed half-a-dozen heavily armed and jack-booted men who were just leaving the armoury, then came back reluctantly to the man sitting close beside her in the corner booth.

  ‘Well, what did I tell you?’ von Brauchitsch said expansively. ‘Coffee to match the surroundings!’

  Coffee to match the surroundings, Mary thought, would have tasted of hemlock. She said: ‘What did those men want? They seemed to be looking for someone.’

  ‘Forget them. Concentrate on von Brauchitsch.’

  ‘But you spoke to them. What did they want?’

  ‘They say there are spies in the castle!’ Von Brauchitsch threw his head back, laughed, and spread his hands palms up. ‘Imagine! Spies in the Schloss Adler! The Gestapo HQ! They must have flown in on their broomsticks. The military commandant is an old woman. He has spies in about once a week. Now what was I saying about Düsseldorf?’ He broke off, glancing at her empty coffee cup. ‘My apologies, my dear Fräulein. Come, more coffee.’

  ‘No, really. I must go.’

  Von Brauchitsch laughed again and put his hand on hers.

  ‘Go where? There is nowhere to go inside the Schloss Adler. Nonsense, nonsense.’ He turned in his seat and called: ‘Fräulein! Two more coffees. And with Schnapps, this time.’

  While he was ordering, Mary glanced quickly at her watch and a momentary expression of desperation crossed her face, but by the time von Brauchitsch turned back she was smiling sweetly at him. She said: ‘You were saying about Düsseldorf –’

  The company in the gold drawing-room had now been increased by one, a tall, cold-faced and hardeyed sergeant who held a carbine cradled in a pair of strong and very capable-looking hands. He was standing behind the couch on which Carraciola, Thomas and Christiansen were seated, and he was giving them his entire attention, apart from a frequent sideways glance at Schaffer. He had about him a reassuring air of competence.

  ‘A very much more civilized arrangement,’ Smith said approvingly. He rose, leaving his Schmeisser lying on the floor, crossed to the brandy decanter on the sideboard, poured himself another drink and made his way back to the fireplace where he placed his glass on the mantelpiece.

  ‘This will take but minutes, only,’ Smith said in a soft and ominous voice. ‘Anne-Marie, bring in three more capsules of scopolamine.’ He smiled at her. ‘And I needn’t remind you to bring the hypodermics.’

  ‘Colonel Kramer!’ Carraciola said desperately. ‘This is madness! Are you going to allow –’

  ‘Guard!’ Smith’s voice was harsh. ‘If that man talks again, silence him!’

  The guard jabbed his carbine muzzle none too lightly into Carraciola’s back. Carraciola subsided, fuming, his fists clenched till the ivory showed.

  ‘What do you take Reichsmarschall Rosemeyer and Colonel Kramer for?’ Smith demanded cuttingly. ‘Credulous fools? Little children? Imbeciles of your own calibre, who imagine you can get away with a cretinous masquerade of this nature? The scopolamine will be used after I have established my own bona-fides and after I have disproved yours. Anne-Marie?’

  Anne-Marie smiled and marched away. It was not every night that she got the chance to administer three injections of scopolamine. Then she stopped and turned, eyebrows raised in interrogation, as Smith called her name again.

  ‘One moment, Fräulein.’ Smith, brandy glass in hand, was staring unseeingly into the middle distance and the watchers could see a slow smile coming to his face, a smile obviously heralding the birth of a new idea and one that pleased him very much. ‘Of course, of course,’ Smith said softly. ‘And bring three note-books will you, my dear?’

  ‘Three note-books?’ Colonel Kramer’s tone was neutral, his eyes watchful. ‘Three capsules? You give the impression that we have four enemies of the Reich here.’

  ‘Only three enemies that matter,’ Smith said in weary patience. ‘The American?’ The fact that he neither bothered to glance at Schaffer nor even permit a trace of contempt to creep into his voice showed unmistakably his opinion of the American. ‘He doesn’t even know what day of the week it is. Now then.’ He picked up a cigar from an inlaid marquetry box, lit it and sipped some more brandy. ‘Let’s be fair and establish my bona-fides first. Pointers first, then proof. In the best judicial fashion.

  ‘First, why did I invite another guard in and lay down my own gun?’ He paused and went on sarcastically: ‘Of course! Because I wanted to increase the odds against myself. Secondly, why didn’t I kill Colonel Weissner and his men when I had them at my mercy – if, that is, I’m an enemy of the Third Reich – earlier this evening? I had some difficulty, I might tell you, in restraining our fire-eating young American here from turning himself into a one-man firing squad. Very aggressive, he was.’

  ‘I’ll damned well tell you why,’ Carraciola said viciously. ‘Because you knew the shots would be heard!’

  Smith sighed, lifted the flap of his jacket, produced an automatic and fired. The sound of the impact of the bullet thudding into the couch inches from Carraciola’s shoulder completely blanketed the soft plop made by the automatic itself. Smith carelessly threw the silenced Luger into a nearby empty chair and smiled quizzically at Carraciola.

  ‘Didn’t know I had that, did you? I didn’t kill Colonel Weissner because German does not kill German.’

  ‘You are German?’ Kramer’s eyes were still watchful but the tone perhaps a shade less neutral.

  ‘Johann Schmidt, at your service.’ This with a little bow and click of the heels. ‘Captain John Smith of the Black Watch.’

  ‘From the Rhineland, by your accent?’

  ‘Heidelberg.’

  ‘But that is my home town.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Smith smiled his interest. ‘Then I think we have a mutual friend.’

  Momentarily, a faraway look came to Kramer’s eyes and he said softly, apparently apropos of nothing: ‘The columns of Charlemagne.’

  ‘Ah, and the fountain in the courtyard of the dear old Friedrichsbau,’ Smith said nostalgically. He glanced at Kramer, and the nostalgia gave way to a pseudo-mournful reproof. ‘How could you, my dear Colonel? To proceed. Why – third point, I think – why did I stage this elaborate car accident – because I knew those three impostors wouldn’t dare come into the open until they thought I was dead. Anyway, if I were the impostor, would I have come back when I knew the game was up? Anyway, to come back for what?’ He smiled wearily and nodded at Jones. ‘To rescue another impostor?’

  Kramer said thoughtfully: ‘I must say I’m rather beginning to look forward to hearing what our three friends here have to say.’

  ‘I’ll tell you now what I’ve bloody well got to say.’ Christiansen was on his feet, ignoring the guard’s gun, his voice shaking with fury. ‘He’s fooling you, he’s fooling all of us. He’s a damned liar and you’re too damned stupid to see the wool over your eyes. A tissue of – lies, from beginning to end –’

  ‘That will do!’ Kramer’s hand was up, his eyes bleak, his tone icy. ‘You condemn yourselves from your own mouths. Every statement made so far by this officer is demonstrably true. Sergeant Hartmann’ – this to the guard with the carbine – ‘if any of those men
speak again, do you think you could silence him without silencing him permanently?’

  Hartmann produced a small woven-leather truncheon from his tunic and slipped the looped thong over his wrist.

  ‘You know I can, Herr Colonel.’

  ‘Good. Pray continue, Captain Schmidt.’

  ‘Thank you. I hadn’t finished.’ Smith felt like pouring himself another brandy, a celebration brandy or, alternatively, pinning a medal on Christiansen for having so unerringly if unwittingly exposed the chink in Kramer’s armour, a wounded intellectual vanity, the lacerated professional pride of a brilliant man being reminded of his capacity for being duped by one of those who had already duped him. ‘For the same excellent reason I came here by the roof of the cable-car – they’d never have come into the open if they’d known I was here – and alive. Incidentally, Kramer, hasn’t it occurred to you that it’s impossible to enter the Schloss Adler from the roof of the header station without the assistance of a rope and someone inside?’

  ‘Damnation!’ Coming so soon after Christiansen’s reminder of his fallibility, Smith’s question left Kramer’s self-confidence badly shaken. ‘I never thought –’

  ‘Von Brauchitsch,’ Smith said carelessly. ‘He had his orders direct from Berlin.’ He placed his glass on the mantelpiece, walked across and stood before the three spies. ‘Tell me, how did I know Jones was an impostor? Why did you not know he was one? And if I’m not what I claim to be then what in God’s name am I doing here at all? Perhaps you would like to explain that?’

  The three men glared up at him in baleful silence.

  ‘Perhaps they would indeed,’ Kramer said heavily. He came and stood by Smith, staring down at the three men with an oddly expressionless gaze that was more disturbing than any show of anger could ever have been. After another and longer silence he said: ‘Captain Schmidt, this has gone far enough.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I require no more,’ Kramer persisted.

  ‘I promised you proof – those were but the pointers. A proof to satisfy the Deputy Chief of the German Secret Service – and that proof is in three parts. A yes or no, Colonel Kramer, if you please. Do you or do you not know the name of our top man in Britain?’ Kramer nodded. ‘Then suppose we ask them?’