She paused for a second or two then shouted, “Arrêt!”
The response was immediate. One of the figures ran off to Sybilla’s right while the other charged towards her and fired a shot which whistled past. Sybilla threw herself down flat, cocked her pistol and aimed, praying that all those hours on the firing range hadn’t been wasted. Another round thudded into the ground about a foot to her left. Sybilla fired. She saw her assailant jerk, then drop to his knees before falling forward onto his face in a crumpled heap. She kept her aim on the attacker until a rustling to her right warned her of danger. The second shadow was emerging from the bushes, his pistol levelled at her. Sybilla rolled onto her side and took aim, but before she could fire, a black-clothed figure sprang from behind one of the ruins, simultaneously grabbing the assailant by the throat with one hand and the pistol with the other. Rahn. Sybilla stared in astonishment as Rahn, clutching the gunman’s throat, lifted him clear of the ground.
The effect of so startling an attack coupled with the strength of his attacker, and the look of diabolical fury on Rahn’s face, was enough for the gunman. He stopped struggling and dropped his weapon. Rahn lowered him, grabbing his collar as he did so, then stooped down and retrieved the discarded gun. As he made his way with his prisoner towards Sybilla, three figures crashed their way through the bushes, causing Rahn to swing around, pistol aimed from behind the prisoner towards the new threat. When he saw two gendarmes and a man in plain clothes, he visibly relaxed and changed course to meet them.
A brief conversation ensued, during which Rahn handed over the prisoner to the gendarmes and the gun to the plain-clothes man. While the authorities were engaged in arresting and handcuffing the detainee, Rahn ran over to Sybilla, who was just picking herself up from the ground.
“Give me your weapon!” he hissed.
“Wha—” she began.
“Now!” insisted Rahn. “I fired the shot, understand?” Sybilla nodded and slipped him the weapon, which he stuffed into the front of his belt. Sybilla gave him a meaningful glance to the rear to indicate the imminent arrival of the plain-clothes man. Rahn nodded imperceptibly and turned to meet him.
The plain-clothes man gave a curt nod to Sybilla, then glanced at Rahn, raising his eyebrows slightly as he did.
“Ah, you haven’t met, have you? Chef, this is Agent Skadi from British Intelligence. Agent Skadi, this is Chef d’Escadron Paul Fournier of the Gendarmerie.”
Sybilla, smiling, held out her hand, which the detective took and shook formally and briefly. The faintest of smiles flitted across his face before he turned and walked towards the downed gunman, his pistol in his hand, the firing mechanism cocked and the gun levelled at the man on the ground. He prodded the man with his foot, always having his gun ready. Receiving no response, he forced his foot under the body and turned it over. Reaching down, the gun still levelled, he felt for a pulse in the neck. Finally, he stood erect, made his weapon safe and slipped it into his overcoat.
Walking back to Rahn and Sybilla he asked, “He’s dead. Which of you fired the shot?”
“I did,” said Rahn. “He was coming towards us and had fired two shots. I returned fire in self-defence.”
“I will need to take your weapon, Wolf,” said the inspector. “Normal procedure, as you know.”
“Of course, Paul,” said Rahn as he pulled the Browning out from his belt. Ejecting the magazine and pointing the weapon at the ground, he pulled the slide back two or three times, clicking the trigger each time to ensure the weapon was safe before sliding the magazine back into the pistol and handing it to the detective. Fournier was about to slip the gun into his pocket when he did a double take. He shone his torch onto it and looked up at Rahn.
“This is a Browning. I would have thought you would have a MAC 50 or a Model 35?”
Rahn shrugged and grimaced. “I like the balance of the Browning, and you can get twice as many rounds in the magazine as you can in the Model 35. Who knows when that might be important?”
Fournier slipped the pistol into his pocket and continued to study Rahn for a few seconds before turning to Sybilla. “Your weapon, madame?”
“I’m not carrying one,” said Sybilla truthfully.
“Agent Skadi is here for identification purposes,” interposed Rahn. “She has met Müller in person.”
Not quite true, thought Sybilla, but I have certainly studied his photographs until his features are imprinted on my mind.
“Is either the dead man or the prisoner Müller?” asked the inspector.
“The one I caught certainly isn’t,” said Rahn. “Too young. Agent Skadi, would you care to look at this one?” he suggested, indicating the dead man.
The three of them walked over to the corpse and Sybilla studied the features while Fournier shone his torch on the dead man’s face. Kneeling, she motioned Fournier to bring the light closer, then lifted one eyelid wide. The eyeball had rolled upwards in death, but sufficient of the iris remained visible to check the colour. Standing up, she shook her head.
“This is not Müller,” she confirmed.
They made their way together to the main gate which now stood open, thanks to a conscientious gendarme who had extracted a grumbling, unhappy key holder from his cosy evening at home. Fournier stopped and indicated his car parked at the side of the road.
“Do you wish a lift back to the gendarmerie?”
“No, thank you Paul, my own car is just a little way along the road,” answered Rahn.
“I will wait here a little while until the coroner comes to deal with the body,” said the detective, “and I currently have two gendarmes scouring this place to ensure that that we haven’t missed Müller. I should get back to the gendarmerie in about an hour. You will call in tonight to make a statement, yes?” It was more of a demand than a request.
“Of course, Chef, we’ll drive directly there,” confirmed Rahn, starting to walk down the road.
“A moment, Madame?” said the detective as Sybilla turned to walk with Rahn. Sybilla returned and stood at his side. “Are you amenable to a little advice, Agent Skadi?”
“Of course, Chef.”
“In the type of enterprise in which you are engaged, I would have thought it a wise precaution to carry a weapon. Why don’t you ask Agent Rahn if you can borrow one of his? He appears to carry a newly acquired Browning in the front of his trousers and a Model 35 stuffed into the rear of his belt. I’m sure he can spare one or the other.”
With a brief smile, Chef d’Escadron Paul Fournier sauntered back into the pottery.
Release from Plötzensee
Kelly entered the interview room in the security block at Plötzensee Prison and sat in the chair directly across the table from Horst Manteufel.
He observed the German closely. He looked tired and sad. The blond hair lank and dishevelled, receding at the temples, the powder-blue eyes watery and red-rimmed, the high cheekbones now accentuating the hollow cheeks. Worry and stress had carved deep lines across his brow and parallel to his nose. Manteufel looked fifty. He was, in fact, only in his mid-thirties.
Kelly should have hated this ex-Nazi and everything he stood for. A people trafficker, he was responsible for the escape from Germany of some of Europe’s most wanted war criminals. But he didn’t hate him; he felt sorry for him—a luxury which Kelly knew he could not afford.
Himself something of a loner, Kelly probably knew Manteufel better than anyone in military intelligence. He had studied him, interviewed him, read all of the documentation and personnel files relating to him and, prior to Manteufel’s arrest, had ‘befriended’ him as part of an undercover operation.
He had met Manteufel’s family, witnessed how desperate they were for food and clothing, seen how painfully thin Frau Gudrun Manteufel had become, choosing to feed their two young children rather than herself. He had happened upon her by accident one day when visiting the house and had found her in tears as she tried to repair and adjust a jacket that had long ago become irreparable, a
hand-me-down from the elder child to the younger. She had begged Kelly not to tell Horst of her weakness.
Manteufel’s clients were few and becoming fewer. When he did have a payday, he handed every pfennig of the money over to Gudrun, who tried to eke it out for as long as possible.
Yes, Kelly was sorry for Manteufel, but it was more than that. Deep down, he admired him. An ex-paratrooper in the Fallschirmjäger, he had fought in Poland and France and had parachuted into Crete before being posted to North Africa to face the resurgent power of the British Eighth Army, revitalised under Montgomery. Then, finally, humiliation as Stabsfeldwebel of the detachment defending the Führer’s bunker in Berlin, staying firm at his post until the very last minute before retreating from the advancing Russians and melting into the underground.
Running and hiding, he had managed to evade the communists until the Allies had established their bases in the western sectors of Berlin, after which he had found his wife, still occupying their small flat in a side street off Prenzlauer Allee, shocked and terrified, but still alive.
And then, of course, thought Kelly, there was the small matter of Manteufel saving his life.
Kelly had used Manteufel to lead him to Müller, at one time the right-hand man of Reinhard Heydrich. It was to be Kelly’s biggest catch, but things had moved faster than Kelly had anticipated.
Posing as a document specialist in Manteufel’s team, he had found himself in the car park of the Olympic Stadium with Manteufel and three of Müller’s henchmen. Heading towards the stadium for a meeting with Müller, Kelly had realised that this was a one-off chance—there wouldn’t be another opportunity of taking the Gestapo chief—but he was hopelessly outnumbered. A moment of inattention by the three bodyguards had allowed Kelly to have a snatched conversation with Manteufel, during which he passed the German a pistol and a promise of amnesty if he cooperated. In the gunfight that followed, Müller’s bodyguards were disposed of and Müller himself captured.
Kelly was in no doubt that Manteufel had been the difference between success and failure—and probably death—and he was acutely conscious of the fact that he had not yet fulfilled his side of the bargain.
“I need further information, Horst …” he began, but didn’t finish. Manteufel was slowly but deliberately shaking his head.
“There is a problem, Horst?”
“There is a big problem, Colonel. Two of Müller’s ‘friends’ are in this same cell block. If they can get at me out of sight of the guards, I am a dead man, so if you want information you had better get me out of this shithole, and quickly!”
Kelly nodded. “I came to tell you that I have arranged for your release. The paperwork will be ready this afternoon. I’ll pick it up and then return tomorrow morning and take you to a safe place. In the meantime, I will arrange for a guard to be posted by your cell for the remainder of your time here. Do not leave your cell!”
The following morning Kelly was at the gate of the prison at 10.30 a.m. precisely. He was aware of the dreadful reputation of Plötzensee. This had been the main execution centre used by the Nazis against the ‘enemies of the state’. Despite visiting the prison several times recently, he had never gone to see the execution chamber. As he was early, he decided that today he would investigate. It was easy to find: a standalone single-storey building with two double doors, looking for all the world like an old farm shed. Situated just inside the main gate, he had passed it on previous visits to the prison but had never had time to inspect it.
Morbid curiosity, he thought as he crossed the courtyard, when his progress was arrested by a voice calling him.
“Colonel?”
Kelly turned to see a young Military Police corporal approaching at a brisk march. The corporal halted in the precise military manner and threw up a smart salute.
“Colonel Kelly?”
Kelly raised his hat in acknowledgement of the salute, the normal procedure when in civilian clothes, and answered with a smile, “The very same.”
“Corporal Hopkins, sir. I’ve been detailed to escort you to the SS Block.”
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t just an SS block; there were others there as well. Nazis who may or may not have been members of the SS, but whom the authorities had rounded up in Berlin as possibly having been involved in war crimes. They would remain here until the military authorities decided whether or not they had grounds to bring a prosecution. If yes, then they would be flown to West Germany where, these days, they would face trial in a civilian court. If no charges were brought, they would be released.
“Thank you, Corporal, I thought I might just wander over yonder and have a look in the shed,” said Kelly, nodding in the direction of the execution block.
Corporal Hopkins hesitated briefly, then fell in alongside Kelly as he walked to the building. “I suppose you know what it is, sir?”
“Yes,” said Kelly, “I know what it is.”
The doors of the building were slightly ajar and required minimum effort to open fully. Standing in the first doorway, Kelly found himself looking into a non-descript room from which virtually everything had been stripped. Moving to the next set of doors, he opened them apprehensively. This, the corporal confirmed, was the actual execution room. The guillotine had been removed, and all that remained to testify to its previous use was a row of hooks hanging from a metal beam which stretched the width of the room. Kelly counted five hooks. At one time there would have been eight, each of which would have had a short length of piano wire suspended from it, the end of which would have been formed into a noose. The Nazis favoured the short drop method of hanging. The bound prisoner would be bodily lifted by two guards whilst the executioner placed the noose over his or her head and tightened it. The two guards would then lower the prisoner, allowing the piano wire to take the weight of the victim.
Using this method, the neck was not broken as in long drop hanging. Instead, the unfortunate victim slowly choked to death while the piano wire cut deep into the flesh. It must have been an excruciating form of death; unconsciousness would have come as a blessed relief.
During the Nazi regime, around three thousand prisoners were executed in this shed. Most by hanging, the lucky few by guillotine.
Kelly removed his hat and bowed his head in silence until the stillness was disturbed by the corporal.
“Sir …” said the young NCO in a hushed voice, “we really need to go.”
Kelly nodded and followed him out of the building. As they made their way towards the temporary Hochsicherheitstrakt, the special secure unit, or ‘HS’ for short, known colloquially to the young squaddies seconded here from their infantry units as the ‘High Sick Unit’, the corporal turned to Kelly with a grim look on his face.
“Gruesome, isn’t it, sir?”
Kelly managed a wry smile. “Yes, it is. I seem to be making a habit of going into gruesome places at the moment!”
Kelly was met at the HS admin office by the unit commandant, an RMP major, who suffered from the unfortunate name—for a British soldier in occupied Berlin—of Siegfried Vogel. He had explained on one of Kelly’s previous visits, that his grandfather was a German immigrant. He had considered changing his name to Fred Bird but decided on balance that he would prefer to be known as Siegfried Vogel. Rather that, he said, than suffer the nickname ‘Dicky’.
Kelly was then introduced to the unit sergeant major, Warrant Officer Fraser from the Black Watch, the regiment supplying the guard on a two-monthly turnabout basis. Fraser looked like a handy chap to have with you in a tight corner.
“Did I see several civilians in the courtyard as we walked over, taking measurements and making notes?” asked Kelly.
“Ah yes,” responded the commandant, “that would be the surveyors. They’re knocking us down, Colonel. Flattening the whole prison with the exception of the execution chamber, which is destined to become a memorial. They then intend to build a borstal on the site.”
“What about the prisoners?”
“A
ll to be transferred to Moabit Prison on Lehrter Strasse within the next two weeks, our HS lot included.”
Vogel set about scrutinising Kelly’s paperwork which he duly signed, handing one copy to the sergeant major for filing and the second back to Kelly.
“You’ll need that copy to get Manteufel past our German friends on the gate,” he said and nodded to the sergeant major.
“Right, sir!” said Fraser in a broad Scots accent, as Kelly tucked the release slip into the inside pocket of his ‘British Warm’. “If you’d like to come this way?”
Kelly fell in beside Fraser as they walked down the corridor.
“I had a couple of my lads watch his cell yesterday, turn and turn about as you suggested. I caught a couple of unsavoury characters sniffing around, so I gave them a piece of my mind. We had no more trouble after that.”
Kelly winced. He could imagine that a piece of Sergeant Major Fraser’s mind would be an excellent deterrent.
“We’ve tidied him up as best we can for you, sir,” continued Fraser. “One of the boys pressed his trousers and polished his shoes. He looks a little better.”
“I’m really grateful to you, Sarnt Major.”
“Least we could do, sir. If he’s an innocent man, let’s treat him reasonable and get him out of this place and away from the rest of these heathens.”
Kelly decided that it was ‘least said, soonest mended’ in respect of Manteufel’s past. After all, hadn’t the Black Watch fought in Crete and North Africa?
The sergeant major showed Kelly into Manteufel’s cell. He was stood up ready, with a little brown paper parcel of his belongings neatly tied with string. He certainly did look better. As well as the pressed trousers and polished shoes, his suit had been given a thorough brush, he had shaved that morning, his hair was neatly combed on one side—and he was smiling. Kelly wondered if that was the first time he had ever seen him smile. He looked ten years younger.
Shadow Of Evil: Cold War Espionage Thriller (Dragan Kelly Book 2) Page 3
