by Joseph Silva
It was while he was thus employed that the Führer himself paid a visit to the town. He took over an entire floor of the hotel. One day the young man was called upon to carry a bucket of cracked ice up to Hitler’s suite.
He sensed a tension in the air when he was admitted into the rooms by one of Hitler’s uniformed minions.
Hitler was standing impatiently beside a round table, his fingers tapping on the polished surface. He was smaller than the bellboy had expected, and his face was sallow.
The boy also recognized a dark man in a black uniform who was standing at attention next to the table. He was the head of the dreaded Gestapo.
The great dictator paid no attention to the awed young man. Pointing an angry finger at his Gestapo chief, he shouted, “I am far from pleased, you blundering Stachelbeere!”
“But, mein Führer,” protested the other, “I have done the best I—”
“Ochse! You claim to have done the best you can, yet you fail,” cried Hitler. “When you fail me, you fail the fatherland!”
“But—”
“What am I to do?” Hitler rolled his eyes, tugged at his toothbrush moustache, groaned. “The savior of all of Germany, yet I can find none to serve me well. Must I create my own race of Aryans to . . . ?” He suddenly paused.
The bellhop swallowed nervously, and the ice in the bowl chattered. The Führer stared directly at him.
“Ja, ja,” Hitler muttered. He reached out unexpectedly to slap the Gestapo chief across one fat jowl. “Do you see that idiotic bellhop there?”
“Ja, mein Führer!”
“I wager I could teach that imbecile to be a better Nazi than you.”
“But . . .”
“You!” Hitler motioned to the now trembling young man. “Come here.”
He managed to take a step forward.
“You are null, nothing, nobody. Is that not so?”
“Ja.”
“But you believe in me, have faith in me?”
“Ja.”
Hitler laughed, a wailing sort of laugh that had a touch of madness in it. “I am going to take charge of you and change you. I shall show all these fools what can be done with a willing subject. You will serve me, you will be my right arm and my greatest creation.” Eyes narrowing, the dictator took a step back from him. “What is your name?”
“I am called—”
“No, never mind, it’s unimportant.” The exhilarated Hitler gave himself a mild hug. “When I am finished with you, I’ll christen you myself.”
So when the Führer left to return to Berlin, the young man went with him. He was given his own private apartment, an impressive allowance, good warm clothes. He had never lived like this before in his life. In the first week he gained nine pounds. And then his training began. Hitler himself supervised a good part of it.
At first the young thief didn’t think he could survive. He went through a basic training twice as rough as that of any storm trooper. He was drilled, bullied, lectured, tested. Over and over. He was subjected to torture, so that he might better understand its techniques. He was then taken to one of the new concentration camps, where he was made to do the most horrible of jobs. He administered beatings, mutilations, torture of every kind, and he killed. Once he had hesitated a few seconds before gunning down a young girl and her child. For that he was tortured again, until he screamed and cried and begged to be allowed one more chance to serve his beloved Führer. The next time he did not hesitate. He had crossed over a border on to a one-way road. He would never feel compassion or remorse again. He had become, as Hitler had promised, the perfect Nazi.
His graduation was held at one of Hitler’s hideaways. Before it began, he faced the dictator alone in his private suite.
Hitler was sitting in a straight-backed chair, a black satchel resting across his uniformed knees. “You have learned well.”
“I have,” agreed the young man with conviction.
“From this day on you will answer only to me,” Hitler told him. “You have turned out so admirably I will use you on very special missions.”
“As you wish, mein Führer.”
The satchel clicked open and the dictator reached inside it. He lifted out something horrible.
Or rather something that might have looked horrible to the young bellhop who had come to Berlin nine long months before. But to the man who stood facing this twentieth-century Napoleon, it was only a curious mask. A bright scarlet mask that had been made to resemble a grinning skull.
Hitler said, “You will wear this.” And he handed the crimson mask to his protégé.
The thick rubber disguise fit completely over his head.
Hitler stood up. “You are now . . . the Red Skull.”
“The Red Skull,” he repeated.
Thirteen
It really did work.
You actually could pick a lock with a hairpin. Caroline Crandell, kneeling by the door of the small bedroom where she’d been locked up for the night, had just discovered it.
After a few minutes of probing with the straightened hairpin, she had heard a satisfying click.
Holding her breath, she very slowly turned the handle. Then she gave a gentle, careful tug, and the heavy wooden door opened inward.
Caroline sighed. No alarms had gone off, no lights were flashing. She’d taken the first successful step toward escaping from the Red Skull’s chalet.
When they’d abducted her, Caroline had been wearing a blouse, skirt, and a light cardigan sweater. She’d chosen to put on those clothes again tonight. When she’d been brought here a few simple changes of clothes had been provided, but she had nothing in the way of an adequate outdoor coat or boots.
Even so, with her heart beating fast and the door standing a few inches open, she did the best she could to prepare herself for the snowbound country outside.
She’d already pulled on extra stockings and gotten into the most substantial of the three pairs of shoes they’d given her. It was snowing hard again tonight, and a harsh wind was scraping at the leaded window of her room. The girl folded up the quilt from her bed and tucked it under one arm. That should provide at least some protection against the cold night.
She also picked up one of the heavy metal bookends from her bedside table. She wasn’t experienced in this sort of thing, but it seemed to her that the bookend could serve as a weapon. Her determination was such that she’d be able to make a darn good try at conking someone over the head if she had to.
Caroline had no idea how far she’d have to travel to find help. For that matter, she was not even certain where she was. Not even what country she was in. There was a certain New England look to the bleak hills and sparse woodlands that surrounded the isolated chalet. But for all Caroline knew, Switzerland might look this way, too. She’d never been there.
Well, she’d worry about that when the time came. Right now the first order of the evening was to get clear of the chalet.
She would have felt much better, and more secure, if her father were coming with her. Yet she knew he’d never agree to an escape attempt. He was still much too frightened of the Red Skull.
So what she must do was get away, and get some help. There was simply no other choice.
The hallway was dark and empty.
Caroline eased out of her room, opening the door as little as possible and then closing it behind her. She stood with her slim back against it for a moment, waiting until she could see through the dimness of the long corridor. Hers was the only room on this floor.
She could hear nothing but the wind as it brushed against the drape-covered windows.
She’d waited until well after midnight to break out. Most of them ought to be asleep by now, but there would obviously be guards. Pressing the heavy bookend to her side, she began walking, slowly, into the darkness.
Somebody laughed.
No, nothing to worry about. It was a long way off. Another part of the house, a man laughing loudly and drunkenly.
Caroline g
ot her breath back under control and continued along the dark hall. She’d walked this path several times a day since she’d been a prisoner here. But it seemed much longer tonight.
Finally, up ahead, she saw the dim outline of the banister and the newel posts. That stairway would take her down to the second floor and—
Suddenly she stopped dead.
Someone was coming up those stairs.
Someone large and heavy, judging from the sound of his footfalls on the steps.
Caroline backed away, taking care not to trip.
The footsteps were growing louder. In a few more seconds, the man coming up the stairs would be in a position to see her.
The drapes! She moved quickly over to one of the windows and ducked behind the hanging drapery. It hid her completely.
He was coming nearer.
The top of the stairs.
The hallway.
He reached the spot where she was hiding.
Passed.
Caroline allowed herself one very cautious breath.
He went all the way to the end of the hall.
She heard the knob of her room door rattle.
If it opened, he’d know.
But it didn’t. Pulling the door shut she must have locked it again.
Was he going to unlock the door, make sure she was still in there?
No sound for several silent seconds. The windowpane breathed cold on her neck.
Then the footfalls again.
Coming back toward her.
Closer.
And closer.
Was he slowing down?
No, he kept going.
Away from her.
Down the stairs.
Gone.
The girl stayed where she was. She counted off the seconds. One minute. Two. When roughly five had gone by, she risked stepping out from behind the shelter of the drape.
The hall was empty again, the only sound that of the sharp night wind.
She started for the head of the stairs.
When she got there she halted and held on to the carved newel post. She felt very warm, and drops of perspiration were forming on her forehead. She peered down the stairwell.
There was no sign of activity on the second floor of the chalet. She had learned since her imprisonment that most of the staff slept on that second floor. The ground floor was where the offices and some of the labs were. There were more levels below ground, though she’d never seen them. Her father knew what went on down there. More laboratories, but other things as well. Things he refused to talk about.
Well, no use stalling any longer.
Caroline went down the stairs.
One of the steps creaked.
The girl froze, hearing her own heartbeat in her ears.
Nothing happened.
She continued downward, her grip on the metal bookend tightening.
A door was opening.
Midway along the second-floor corridor she could see it slowly swinging outward, letting out a growing rectangle of yellow light.
Caroline ran the rest of the way down the stairs and pressed herself into the stairwell alcove.
“. . . chance to get even tomorrow night,” someone was saying.
“Always happy to take your money, Kurt,” said another voice.
“No, no, I feel a lucky streak coming on.”
“Luck isn’t involved, Kurt, it’s skill.”
“Wait until tomorrow and find out, Otto.”
A thickset man stepped out into the hallway. He nodded in at the occupant of the room he was leaving, chuckled and shut the door.
He hesitated in the dim-lit hall, glanced down at the alcove where the girl was huddled.
He knows I’m here!
Apparently not. Kurt turned in the opposite direction and went striding away. In a minute another door opened and closed.
The wind howled outside the chalet, rattling the shutters.
Caroline emerged from the darkness. She knew that on this second floor, at the other end of the hall, there was a way out. A wide wooden balcony stretched across the rear of the chalet, connected to the ground by a staircase.
But do they lock the door at night or not?
She didn’t know, but it was a much less risky way out than the wide front doors. Okay, try it and see. Might be able to pick the lock if there is one.
To get to that door she must walk the full length of the hallway, pass the room where they’d been playing cards, pass a dozen rooms altogether.
No way around it. She had to try.
She noticed that her fingertips were blue and realized she’d been clutching the improvised weapon much too tightly. Relaxing her grip, Caroline left the alcove and began the long walk down the hall.
Two doors.
Four.
Six.
“Damn you!”
That came from the other side of the eighth door.
“I didn’t come to your room to be pawed, Felix,” said a woman. “I’m going to leave.”
“Berta, don’t go.”
Caroline hurried on. Should Berta ignore her suitor’s pleas she might come bursting into the hall at any second.
The tenth door.
Eleven.
Twelve.
And here was the door leading out to the balcony. It was rattling and shaking as the wind outside blew at it. A chill draft shot through, numbing the girl.
Caroline took hold of the cold knob.
It wouldn’t turn.
Try it the other way.
There! Wasn’t locked. The door opened. Snow came flurrying in out of the black night, brushing against her.
Caroline shoved against the force of the wind and scrambled out onto the snow-covered balcony. The wind was fighting her, trying to tear the door from her hand and send it slamming all the way open.
Struggling, she managed to pull it shut.
Her teeth started chattering. The wind threw snow in her eyes.
Take it easy, you’ll make it, she told herself.
Clumsily, her chilled hands shaking, she unfurled the quilt and draped it around her slim body like a cape. That was a little better.
The cold bit at her ankles as she stood on the snow-covered planking. She slogged to the stairway leading down to the back acres, her inadequate shoes filling with little piles of crisp snow.
Then she saw something that made her feel better. A long way off, through the trees on the right, she noticed a cluster of lights. Lights that meant houses and people.
Please, let there be somebody down there who can help me. Someone I can trust.
She reached the ground. No one was out here to stop her. She started toward the woods.
A new sound. It came to her through the howling of the wind.
Something crunching on the icy snow, something running.
Not a person.
An animal.
She began to run too, aiming for those tiny glowing lights so far away.
A snarling, a growling.
She glanced over her shoulder as she ran awkwardly through the nearly knee-deep snow.
A German shepherd was pursuing her. Not barking, only growling deep in its throat. It wore a spiked collar, and a spill of light from the retreating chalet made the spikes flash gold for an instant.
All at once, the quilt was ripped from her shoulders.
She stumbled, nearly fell.
The snarling dog had the blanket in its sharp teeth and was worrying it from side to side.
Caroline picked herself up and started running again.
The immense dog abandoned the quilt to come bounding after her.
She couldn’t keep it up. Her legs were going numb, and pain was squeezing at her temples. Her teeth were chattering wildly and she couldn’t stop them. She felt as though she were running in slow motion, dream-style, each step taking an eternity.
The dog was on her. Its paws hit her hard in the small of her back and shoved her violently forward. She fell flat out into the
cold snow.
The dog’s teeth sank first into her shoulder, then found her wrist. Pain flashed like lightning up her arm.
She twisted, the snow closing around her, getting into her mouth and her eyes, while the snarling creature tore at her flesh.
The bookend. She swung it, as hard as she could.
The dog yelped.
Again Caroline struck out at the animal’s skull, and again. Then once more.
Whimpering the dog let go of her.
She hit it harder.
The whimpering ceased.
Pushing out with both of her icy hands, she got clear of the beast and rose unsteadily to her feet.
There were splashes of red all down her front and fuzzy little dots of red on the snow. Her blood, some of it.
She tugged a handkerchief out of her cardigan pocket and tied it as best she could around her bleeding arm. Fortunately, the dog hadn’t damaged an artery or a vein.
She ought to go back for the blanket. Otherwise she might freeze before she reached those far-off lights.
“Rex! Rex!”
Who was Rex? This dog probably. Someone was calling for him from up at the chalet.
“Rex! Wo bist du?” Then whistling.
Yes, Rex was definitely the dog she’d killed.
Forget the quilt and get out of here as quickly she could.
Caroline ran into the woods.
Fourteen
“He was a very good animal,” observed Baron Graff from deep in his sturdy armchair. “Loyal.”
The Red Skull stood with his broad back to the roaring blaze in his office fireplace. “Only the Americans are sentimental over dogs.”
“Would it not perhaps have been wiser to—?”
“Everything is going exactly as I intended,” said the Skull firmly. Shadows were dancing along his crimson head. “The girl has been allowed to escape. She will make her way to town, where she’ll attempt to get help.”
“Then the authorities will come storming in here—”
“She will almost certainly contact SHIELD,” said the Red Skull. “She’s a very perceptive young lady, knowledgeable about the workings of the stupid American government. She is well aware that SHIELD is the agency best equipped to cope with the sort of situation her father is in.”
