The Golden Fleece Affair (From The Files Of Lady Dru Drummond Book 2)

by CW Hawes

  Once inside, Dunyasha whispered, “I could have shot the lock out. I was expecting you to open the door with your shoelaces or something.”

  “Those are for crossing canyons,” he replied

  I suppressed a giggle.

  There were no lights on. Branson flipped the switch on his torch and a narrow beam of light cut through the darkness.

  He continued, “The place looks empty. Sounds empty, too.”

  Dunyasha added, “Right. Looks can be deceiving.”

  He nodded.

  “What was it that caused you two to think something was going on here?” I asked.

  “Noises. Lights,” Branson said.

  “But nothing sustained,” Dunyasha added. “A brief glow through the stained glass windows. What sounded like muffled conversation.”

  “That could be anything,” I said. “A janitor or even a guard.”

  “It could be nothing more than that,” Branson said. “We won’t know until we check the place out.”

  “We should probably stick together with weapons at the ready,” I said.

  Branson nodded.

  Dunyasha and I took our STEN guns out from under our coats and pulled back the cocking levers. We were ready. At least as ready as we’d ever be. The question that ran through my mind was why was I here with a submachine gun, instead of my pencil and reporter’s notebook?

  We were in a large room which was probably behind the sanctuary. It looked something like a second narthex. The room was fairly shallow and wide; running nearly the width of the building. There were no doors in front of us. On either side there was a single, heavy wooden door. Branson played his torch around the walls. There appeared to be no artificial lighting in the room. I suppose they used candles or oil lamps.

  Branson pointed at both doors with a questioning look on his face. I pointed right and Dunyasha pointed left. We suppressed our laughter. Branson headed for the door on the right and we followed. The door opened when he tried it. Before us was a long corridor running to the front of the church and a stairwell with steps ascending and descending. The corridor was illuminated by a few small windows in the wall. I pointed at the stairwell and indicated to go down. Branson nodded and we began to slowly descend the stairs to find out what was beneath the church. To be honest, I didn’t want it to be anything more than a storage space as was beneath the church I was in last year further north. Dim electric lights illuminated the stairwell, which indicated the building was probably occupied. Although we heard no sound.

  Down we went and ended up on a landing. There was a door and the stairs kept on going down. I indicated we should keep going. Branson listened at the door, shook his head, and we moved on. We reached the bottom. The staircase ended in a large room, which was dark. Branson turned on his torch and played it around. The room was largely empty. The floor was hard-packed earth. The walls were made of stone, the mortar crumbling away in spots. There were two other doors. The wood had been heavy timbers once, now, though, they were largely rotten.

  “Let’s pick one and get on with it,” Dunyasha said.

  Branson led us to a door, lifted the latch, and pulled. The door opened quietly.

  I looked at the hinges. “Someone’s oiled these and I’d say recently.”

  Inside the room, a very large room, was a mountain of supplies. Food, clothing, office equipment, radios, cots, bedding, tents, and more. All of German manufacture. We left the room and closed the door. Behind door number two we found weapons, ammunition, grenades, anti-tank weapons, mines, and more mayhem. We helped ourselves to three grenades each and left the room, pushing the door closed.

  “A German supply depot,” I said.

  “Must be Leiprecht’s doing,” Dunyasha added.

  Branson scratched his head. “Is the Georgian president working against his own people?”

  “Who knows?” I replied. “This looks awfully suspicious.”

  “It does,” Dunyasha agreed.

  We ascended the stairs and at the landing, tried the door. It opened. Branson played the torch around. There were several lightbulbs burning and more which had not been turned on. We were looking at a barracks with at least fifty cots.

  “Looks like we stumbled on a major operation,” Dunyasha said.

  “But where is everyone?” Branson asked.

  “Good question,” I said, “and I’m not sure I want the answer.”

  We closed the door and ascended the stairs. Back on the ground floor, Branson asked if we go up, leave, or check across the way. I looked at Dunyasha, lifted my chin to indicate up, and she nodded. So up the stairs we climbed. The stairwell ended in a corridor running the length of the church. There was a door near us and one further on down the corridor. The lights were on. I had a feeling at some point we were going to run into somebody and I wasn’t eager to do so.

  I pointed at the nearer door. Branson nodded and opened it just a crack. Red lights started flashing and an alarm, not loud, started buzzing. We turned and raced down the stairs. At ground level, we burst into the large rear narthex. Pouring out of the door opposite us were German troops. Behind us came a voice that sent shivers down my spine.

  “Going somewhere Lady Hurley-Drummond, Lady Bobrinsky, Mr Branson?”

  How the hell did he know Branson’s name? Franzen? Or the spy in Hall’s office, if Branson isn’t the spy?

  We turned around. There were more soldiers and in front of them stood Count Neratoff and SS-Sturmbannführer Leiprecht.

  Twenty-Five

  A Desperate Attempt

  The Old Church in Kutaisi

  Thursday, 22 April 1954

  I quipped, “Rather stuffy in here. We thought a breath of fresh air would do us some good.”

  Neratoff displayed his thin smile. “No doubt it would. I am afraid the fresh air will have to wait.”

  Leiprecht ordered, “Er greift sie!”

  Soldiers came forward and relieved us of our weapons. The soldier giving me a pat down lingered a bit on my breasts and crotch. The one giving Dunyasha a pat down apparently did the same, for Dunyasha said, in German, “Herr Leiprecht, you should let your men get out a bit more. They act like they’ve never seen a woman or felt one.”

  Leiprecht smiled and said in English, “I’ll note your advice, Baroness, although with you here they may not need to go out at all.”

  “The willing are so much more fun than the unwilling,” Dunyasha replied.

  Leiprecht said, “Any port in a storm, as the English say. Is that not right, Lady Hurley-Drummond?”

  “If you say so, Herr Leiprecht. When it comes to port, I’m rather fussy.”

  “Lady Hurley-Drummond continues with her jokes,” Neratoff said. “You do realize, this is no joking matter?”

  Branson spoke, “We all want the same thing. Perhaps it would be best if we worked together.”

  “That will only delay the inevitable, Mr Branson,” Neratoff said. “Now is the time to start eliminating the competition.”

  “So are you going to eliminate the Sturmbannführer here?” I asked and Dunyasha finished with, “Or is Herr Sturmbannführer going to eliminate you?”

  “Enough talk,” Neratoff said. He walked up to me and pulled out a knife.

  I must’ve flinched, for he said, “Don’t worry Lady Hurley-Drummond, your time is not yet. I merely want a lock of your hair. It will make a most convincing argument to Herr Weidner when combined with your pistols.”

  He took hold of a section of hair and cut through it with the knife. Leiprecht then gave an order in German and we were shepherded to the other set of stairs and taken to the sub-basement where we were locked in a room.

  Branson checked the door. “This one, unlike the others we saw, is quite solid.”

  “And I don’t have so much as a nail file,” Dunyasha said.

  I looked at the naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling. It didn’t give us much light. I followed the wire along the ceiling, down the wall, to a tiny hole through which the wi
re disappeared. The wire was secured by small eye hooks. I didn’t think we’d be able to use the eye hooks for anything; on the other hand, the electric wire might be of some use. The door to our room opened out into the larger room, which prevented one of us from hiding behind the door when it opened.

  Dunyasha and Branson were watching me and Dunyasha finally quipped, “If only you had a pencil and paper.”

  “What?” I said.

  She continued, “You could write a story. Then the great eyes and ears of Hall Media would discern a story needed to be published and would send someone to retrieve it and secure our escape.”

  Branson burst out laughing.

  “Very funny, Dunyasha,” I said. “I’m taking stock of our situation and you’re poking fun.”

  “I’m sorry, Dru. You’re right. We need to see if we can engineer an escape. It’s too bad Kit isn’t here. He may have been able to bribe the guards with the promise of a Graham.”

  We laughed.

  I said, “Although Branson still has his shoelaces.”

  He winked, “I’m giving them great thought, Lady Hurley-Drummond.”

  “Look, Branson, call me Dru. It’s shorter and much more handy than all the formality.”

  “Okay. ‘Dru’ it is.”

  “Now how do we get out of here with your shoelaces?”

  Branson lifted his foot and from the sole extracted a knife. He lifted the other foot and took out another knife. “For starters, we now have two knives to go with the shoelaces.”

  Dunyasha smiled. “Our former Airborne Ranger does indeed have a few tricks up his sleeve.”

  “And in his shoes,” I added.

  “Unfortunately, Dee, nothing up my sleeves.”

  I snickered at the nickname and Dunyasha shot daggers at me with her eyes. I laughed all the more and said, “Save those daggers. We can use them.”

  Branson started chuckling and Dunyasha shook her head.

  “What about this electric cord?” I asked. “If we cut the cord at the wall, we’d have a nice length with which to do something.”

  “If you don’t electrocute yourself,” Dunyasha said.

  “Possible,” Branson said. “Might also blowout other circuits and alert someone we are up to something.”

  “We can keep it on the list of maybes,” I said. “Otherwise we can just unhook the cord from the eye hooks.”

  Branson and Dunyasha both nodded, seeing the possibilities the cord offered. Branson was thoughtful. I guessed he was maybe trying to figure out what to do with the electric cord, two knives, and shoelaces to secure our escape. He finally spoke.

  “We have some tools. To use them to their maximum effectiveness, we’re going to have to know our jailers’ routine. If we don’t escape the first time, we probably won’t get a second chance.”

  “The floor is dirt,” I said. “We can dig some up to throw in the guard’s face.”

  Branson smiled. “For a reporter, you sure have the mind of an escape artist.”

  Dunyasha laughed. “That is all she thought about last year when she was Neratoff’s prisoner. Brave and bold is our Little Kitten.”

  The dirt idea seemed to be the extent of our available resources. We picked a corner and jabbed the knives into the hard packed floor to loosen the dirt. When we had enough for several handfuls, we sat and waited. Waited to see what opportunities our jailers’ routine might afford us.

  And we waited. Dunyasha looked around and said, “I have to pee and there isn’t even a bucket.” She went to the door, pounded on it, and yelled, “Ich muss zur Toilette gehen!”

  A voice came and instructed her to wait. In a couple minutes the door was unlocked, opened, and a pail tossed in. The door closed and the click told us we were locked in once again.

  “Now I can pee and we have another weapon,” Dunyasha said.

  Branson added, “By the time we’ve all taken our turn at the bucket, someone will be getting a bath.”

  Dunyasha and I started laughing. She said, “I hope one of us takes a crap.”

  She put the bucket in a corner and we turned away to give her some privacy. Having nothing with which to wipe ourselves, the situation was next to barbaric. At least we had the bucket. When she was done, Branson and I made our contributions to the pail of piss. We now had a bucket of pee awaiting delivery.

  “Do you think they’ll feed us?” I asked.

  “I just wish they’d give us some water,” Dunyasha said. “I’m thirsty.”

  I looked at my watch. “It’s lunchtime. If they are going to feed us they’ll be doing so fairly soon, I should think.”

  “Our only chance will be when they open that door,” Branson said.

  “Yes,” Dunyasha agreed and added, “It would be nice to know how many are out there.”

  “When you roll the dice,” I said, “you have to play the numbers you get.”

  “This isn’t backgammon, Dru,” Dunyasha replied.

  “Close enough,” was my response.

  We talked it over and concocted a plan. Probably half-baked, at best. But half-baked was better than not baked at all. So we sat and waited; waited with our half-baked plan of escape.

  I was beginning to think we wouldn’t get lunch, when we heard the key go into the lock. We sprang into action and the door slowly opened. It wasn’t opened very wide, just a couple feet perhaps, enough to slide a tray through.

  Branson charged the opening and the guard on the other side. He knocked the door wide open, barreled into the guard standing between us and freedom, and knocked him into the guard behind him who was holding a submachine gun. The machine gun fired, bullets hitting the walls. Branson and the two guards were sprawled on the floor. A third guard, by the stairs, was hugging the floor to avoid getting hit by his fellow’s wild gunfire.

  Dunyasha raced out of our cell and tackled the guard taking cover. She and Branson had the knives. I had the trusty piss bucket. The one who’d fired the submachine gun was getting up. Branson and the other guard were wrestling and someone was hurt because blood was visible and there was a coppery tang to the air.

  I hurled the contents of the piss bucket at the guard getting up, catching him off guard, his arms flying up to protect his face. I kicked him in the sternum as hard as I could. He sprawled back on the floor and as he started to get up I swung the bucket with all my strength and hit him in the face. He fell back onto the floor. I then kicked him in the head just below his helmet. He went limp. I unclasped his machine gun from the shoulder strap and went to Dunyasha’s aid.

  Turned out she didn’t need my help. She’d gotten the knife into the soldier’s neck and he bled out pretty quickly. She was unclasping his machine gun from the shoulder strap. Branson had dispatched the soldier with whom he’d been wrestling and joined us. He also had a submachine gun, courtesy of the Wehrmacht.

  Soldiers were pounding down the staircase. Evidently they’d heard the machine gun fire. Dunyasha and I started shooting, our weapons pointing up the stairwell. A soldier came tumbling down and sprawled on the floor. Another got hung up on the stairs and didn’t make it to the floor. A third was firing his rifle at us. Branson got each of the fallen soldiers’ pistols, timing his retrieval while the soldier worked the bolt on his rifle. The soldier fired again and while he worked the bolt, Branson got off three rounds. The rifle came clattering down the stairs.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  We bounded up the stairs, dodging the fallen soldier entangled in the steps, reached the landing, where we found the other soldier, and were shot at from someone higher up the stairwell. The door wouldn’t open. We retreated back down the steps to get out of the line of fire.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  A grenade dropped onto the landing. We covered as best we could. Thank God the landing was above us. The explosion was deafening. The concussion from the blast had me disoriented. My ears were ringing and my whole body hurt. My arms and legs felt as though they were made of lead.

  Bran
son was above me on the stairs. I became aware of someone prodding him with a rifle. From behind me a machine gun fired. Dunyasha. The sound of the gun was a hundred miles away. All I could think of was my hearing was ruined and I’d never be able to hear Karl’s soft-spoken voice again.

  Dunyasha was nudging me and saying something, only she sounded as though she was under water. I pointed to my ears and shook my head. She pointed at Branson. I nudged him and he began to move. I nudged harder and he began to get up. We stood. I couldn’t hear much and my head was killing me. Up the stairs we went and right into the arms of a dozen soldiers and Count Neratoff.

  He was talking, although for all the world I couldn’t understand him. He sounded as though he was speaking through a mouthful of oatmeal. Dunyasha repeated his words. She might have been yelling in my ear.

  She said, “He says you are as annoying as ever.”

  God, my head hurt and all I could manage was a weak smile.

  Once again we were relieved of our weapons. When they found one of Branson’s knives on Dunyasha, they searched and found Branson’s other knife. We were herded back downstairs and locked in the room.

  We lay on the dirt floor or leaned against the walls. No one said anything. I’m sure we all hurt too much. Finally I spoke.

  “Now we’re worse off,” I said. “No knives and not even a bucket in which to pee.”

  Dunyasha shrugged. “It could be worse.”

  “How so?” Branson asked.

  “We could be dead,” she replied.

  At least I could hear what they were saying. Although they sounded far away.

  Yes, we could be dead. At the moment, I felt worse than dead and Branson looked worse than I felt. At this point, our only hope lay with Karl mounting a rescue attempt. Which didn’t seem to have any more chance of succeeding than our feeble attempt. We were outnumbered and outgunned. The whole thing looked hopeless. Maybe because it was. And then I remembered Ernest.

  Twenty-Six