He heard shots.
Gunfire, the regular rhythm of his life.
When would it ever end?
“John, we need to get out!”
Rossett blinked again. Ruth was shouting at him as she pulled his legs, twisting him into an upright position.
Rossett wondered was he dreaming.
He wondered if he was still asleep in Fraser’s armchair, music on the radio, fire in the hearth, warm whiskey in his throat.
He thought he could hear the radio.
Was he dreaming?
“John, we need to get out!” Ruth shook him. He was on all fours in the back of the taxi, but he couldn’t remember getting into that position. He could see a white wall of snow pressed against the side window of the taxi. He stared at it, unable to understand why it was there.
“John!”
Ruth was shaking his shoulders. He realized he was wearing a shirt but had no coat on. He looked at his hands, then smoothed the front of his shirt, which was blood soaked again.
“A car crash,” he said to himself. “I’m concussed,” he said drunkenly to Ruth.
The back window of the taxi exploded to his right, and Rossett turned to look through it dumbly.
One of Sterling’s men was knocking out the sharp edges of the broken glass with the butt of a Thompson submachine gun. Rossett tilted his head. The world was on its side. He could see a building lying down through the back window of the taxi.
“Where are we?” he said out loud.
Sterling’s man reached through the back window.
“Come on, miss, we need to get you going.”
“I’m a man,” Rossett replied, as the leather bag went past him and out of the window.
He felt Ruth pushing him.
Ruth?
Clarity drifted back to him like a wave on the shore.
Ruth pushed against him.
He turned and looked at her.
Ruth, of course, Ruth, he needed Ruth.
No.
He looked at Sterling’s man, then back at Ruth as she shoved him again.
“I need to save Ruth,” Rossett said to her, patting his shirtfront looking for his pistol. “I need my gun.”
Rossett looked down at his empty hand as if expecting the gun to be there. He remembered his shoulder was hurting, except . . . it was his head.
Reality drifted away again.
“Ruth?”
There were more shots; old instincts caused Rossett to look up at Sterling’s man.
“Someone is firing a gun,” Rossett said solemnly.
The man frowned, then reached through the window and grabbed Rossett’s arm, dragging him unceremoniously through the gap.
“That hurt,” said Rossett, once he was lying in the snow, flat on his back, looking up at the sky and the snow falling out of it.
The world suddenly seemed to have turned over again. He felt dizzy and closed his eyes.
He felt cold, very cold, or was it hot?
He opened his eyes and lifted his head.
Cold, it was cold, he felt cold.
It was the snow. He was lying in snow.
He was cold.
He lifted his head and then felt a little sick. He closed his eyes and waited for the nausea to pass. He grimaced, screwing his eyes tight, feeling his senses coming back again.
He opened his eyes.
He saw the taxi lying on its side and one of Sterling’s men crouching next to it, a Thompson at his shoulder, aiming across the road at something out of Rossett’s sight.
Rossett rolled onto his side and saw the others, a few feet away, crouching next to the taxi, alongside a tall red-brick wall.
His mind was clearing. He noticed something in the snow. It was blood, his blood, dripping from a head wound.
He looked at Ruth and saw she was holding his pistol.
She needed him.
Rossett got off the ground onto his haunches, breathing deep, one hand in the snow.
Ruth needed him.
He stood up.
Uncertainly at first, he touched his temple, felt a flap of skin and then a sharp sting.
“We need to move,” he said quietly.
“We’re pinned down. It’s Koehler.” Ruth sounded calm, in control.
The man at the corner of the taxi turned his head, glanced at Rossett, then turned back toward the street.
“He’s over the road. They shunted us, made us crash,” the man said.
Somebody fired at them and Rossett saw a puff of red dust come off the wall above the taxi.
Everyone flinched.
Everyone except Rossett.
“How far to the station?”
“We’re almost at the goods entrance,” Sterling shouted. “The train will be leaving!”
“Give me the Thompson.” Rossett gestured to the other one of Sterling’s men, who had taken up position next to his boss to protect him.
The man looked at Sterling.
“Give him it.”
“No,” said Ruth.
Rossett clicked his fingers impatiently for the gun. “Go get the train; I’ll see you on it.”
“You have to come.”
“I can barely stand, let alone run, and you need to move fast.”
“But . . .”
“Go get the train.”
Ruth tried to go to Rossett, but Sterling caught hold of the back of her coat, dragging her down into cover. She struggled, showing Rossett she had his Webley.
“I can help.”
“You’re too important.” Rossett tapped a bloody finger to the side of his head. “The war machine, remember?”
She started to speak, but no words came.
She looked so terribly, beautifully sad.
Rossett smiled.
Somewhere in the station a whistle sounded.
“Go save the world,” he said as he worked the bolt on the Thompson.
Ruth nodded.
Rossett leaned down, almost overbalanced, and picked up a handful of snow. He wiped it across his face, took a deep breath, and then crouched next to the man at the corner of the taxi.
“Where is the entrance?”
“Twenty yards on this side of the road,” the man glanced at him.
“When they start moving, we both open up with the Thompsons. We pin whoever is out there down so low, they’ll need a ladder to get up again.”
Rossett checked over his shoulder at the second of Sterling’s men.
“Move fast with them, save your pistol ammo. If you’re still out in the open when we stop firing it’s your turn. Just make sure she is well clear of you if it comes to that, understood?”
He nodded.
“Get them into the station and on that train.”
“I will.”
“Go,” replied Rossett as he pushed himself up and stepped out into the road on rubber legs.
KOEHLER HAD GUESSED that Rossett would head to Fraser’s house.
A guess.
All he had left, one desperate guess, a last throw of the dice to save his life, to stay alive for Anja.
He knew that Rossett would somehow have to reach out to Sterling. He knew that Sterling had gone to ground, and he also knew that Fraser was the only link between Rossett and Sterling.
So it had been an educated guess, but a guess nonetheless.
It had taken almost an hour to get Neumann to go along with it. The policeman had cold feet, and not just because of the snow.
After witnessing the carnage at Finsbury Circus, March being shot, and the release of Ma Price, Neumann had wanted to call a halt to the whole affair and inform their superiors.
“You’re out of control!”
“I’m maintaining control; by do
ing this I’m containing this situation. We sort the scientist, we pin this on Sterling, and you’ll be a hero, in the clear and back to Germany as the man who saved the Reich.”
“We need more men. Please let me call in a team to assist us?”
“What happens if that team gets to Hartz or Sterling before us? What happens if the truth gets out before we can contain it? If it were just you and me in this, Neumann, I’d say yes, I’d say we call in every man in London to help us get back the scientist . . . but it isn’t just you and me. There is no other way: we keep this small, between us, me and you; that way we maintain control. That way we look good.”
“I can’t go on. At least let me walk away? I’ll not say anything to anyone, there is nothing to tie me into this except a forged travel warrant I can talk myself out of.”
“I need you. I can’t do it alone. Please, for Anja, just one more step.”
“My family, I—”
“If you walk away, all this was for nothing. Please . . . if you walk away, I lose her.”
They’d gone to Scotland Yard, and there they’d established Fraser’s address and booked out a car. They’d stayed away from the detectives’ floor and control rooms, being careful to avoid the Finsbury Circus fallout. Throughout their time there Koehler hadn’t left Neumann’s shoulder as they had walked through the corridors, each step leading Neumann further into the abyss.
IT HAD BEEN the snow that had given Rossett and Ruth away.
Two sets of footprints, a man and a woman’s, had led Koehler to the door on his first pass. He’d thought about Lotte, about the stories she had told him, about her father and how they had hunted together in the forests around their farm.
He had almost heard her voice, talking about reading signs in the snow, as he had turned his head and saw the fresh prints leading up the path to Fraser’s front door.
Koehler was the hunter now.
Lotte was with him, helping him save Anja’s future. He liked that thought, and he held on to it as he and Neumann sat quietly in the unmarked police car watching the house.
Waiting for the right moment.
Koehler was desperate, but he wasn’t crazy. He knew that assaulting a house with Rossett inside would be madness. Koehler was good, but he was smart enough to know he wasn’t that good.
Rossett and Ruth would eventually come out, and that would be the time.
In the open, fast, hard, then finish the job.
Koehler hadn’t doubted himself until he saw the men in the taxi. Hard men, alert men, trained men. Not the usual stumbling scruffy resistance types tied up with string. These men were good; Koehler could see it as soon as they pulled up.
He and Neumann had been crouching low, watching as one of the men went up the path and the other stationed himself by the taxi door. Hands in pockets; smartly dressed, clean-cut killers.
There was too much risk, too many chances to get pinned down, caught up in a drawn-out gunfight that would give time for others to respond.
More police, more soldiers, clogging up his plan, risking it all, coming between him and what he wanted.
Anja and him, all that mattered.
KOEHLER AND NEUMANN had driven across London, following the taxi, keeping close, waiting for the right moment to strike. Then Koehler had seen the road sign for the station and realized they had nearly run out of time.
“We can stop the train,” Neumann had tried to reason. “Down the line, we can tell them Sterling and Rossett are dangerous and should be shot on sight.”
“I can’t risk them being captured. It’s now or never.”
The side street that led to the goods entrance was quiet due to the bad weather, and it was sealed by a boxed dead end. On one side the high walls of the station, and on the other a solid office building. Halfway down on the right, the wide-open goods entrance to the station sat like a missing tooth, empty and black, waiting.
The snow, slushing and slippy from all the days’ trucks, had created the perfect conditions for the final throw of the dice.
Koehler had accelerated, closing on the cab and sensing Neumann grabbing the doorframe to brace himself. He’d swung the wheel, catching the taxi on its rear quarter and slamming it into a lazy, lurching waltz across the road.
Koehler hadn’t expected the cab to flip onto its side.
But he’d been glad it had.
His own car had slid to a halt almost sixty feet beyond the crash, across from the goods entrance of the station. Between them they had two Mauser pistols and one MP40.
Not much to stop a man like Rossett.
Koehler had climbed out of their car and looked into the goods entrance. One railway employee was standing with a trolley, openmouthed, watching the wrecked taxi up the road, one wheel still spinning.
Koehler had waved him away.
“SS! Get inside!”
The man had dropped the handles of his trolley and done as he was told.
One of the taxi’s headlamps was out and the other hung from wires, rocking back and forth, its beam like a lighthouse, occasionally shining into Koehler’s eyes as he crossed the road toward it slowly.
Someone fired from the front of the taxi.
It was close, a good shot that caused Koehler to flinch and take a step backward.
There was another shot, which kicked snow next to Koehler’s right foot. He turned and ran back to the other side of the bonnet of the police car.
“Shit,” he exclaimed.
He looked for Neumann; he couldn’t see him and wondered if the policeman was hit or, even worse, had run away.
Koehler aimed at the taxi and let off a couple of rounds, aware he only had one magazine for the MP40.
The taxi lamp stayed lit, blinding him, then lighting the snow as it swung back and forth.
Koehler saw someone climbing out the window that was on the top of the cab.
He let off a few more rounds.
They went high.
He cursed again.
“Come on,” he said out loud to himself.
He heard Neumann nearby firing a few shots. He ducked as fire was returned from the cab.
Koehler glanced toward the goods entrance: it was empty. Maybe he could block their exit, show them there was no way out, and get them to surrender?
If they dropped their weapons he could finish them off with no problem.
He looked back at the taxi, took a breath, and started to run for the goods entrance.
The snow exploded around him.
Machine gun fire, heavier than his MP40, tracking him as he moved, drawing a bead, getting closer. He stopped, dropped, and scrambled his way back to the police car.
“Fuck!” he shouted, panicked breath catching in his throat. “Neumann?”
“What?”
“We need to advance on them, work as a team.”
“Are you mad? There is sixty feet of open ground between us; they’ll cut us to ribbons. We need to wait for reinforcements!”
Another round hit the police car.
“We aren’t waiting for fucking reinforcements!”
Koehler rested his forehead against the cold metal, blew out his cheeks, and looked back toward the swinging lamp.
This couldn’t go wrong, not now, not when he was so close. There had to be a way.
He could see shadows moving on the far side of the taxi. He lifted the MP40 and rested it on the front wing. He squinted past the lamp, fired two rounds, then cursed, certain they had gone high as the machine gun lifted in his hand and then settled back on the wing, chipping the paint.
He let go of the magazine and smoothed his hair, then looked toward the goods entrance and whistled.
“I’m going to them. I’m going to end this. Cover me.”
Koehler rose, bringing the MP40 up. As if in slow motion
, he presented himself to the bright light from the lamp as it danced shadows in the snow.
He fired a round, took a step, fired a round, and took another step.
And then saw Rossett coming toward him, out of the light, lit from behind, a long shadow, Thompson at his shoulder.
Silhouetted death coming to take his due.
CHAPTER 50
ROSSETT WASN’T CRAZY, he wasn’t reckless, and he wasn’t a fool.
He also wasn’t afraid of dying.
Rossett had a role. He knew his place.
He was a protector, a policeman, a doer of what was right.
If he died, he would die well.
Rossett knew he wouldn’t stop fighting till Ruth was on that train, or until those trying to stop her were dead, or until he was dead.
He would do whatever it took.
Rossett heard the train whistle.
He saw Koehler.
His friend, walking toward him. Not scared, just determined, desperate, and definitely coming toward him.
Rossett fired and tried to move to the left.
He’d figured that with both Thompsons firing at the same time, he’d have a chance to outflank whoever was attacking them and get to a position that would enable him to shoot around the car.
And then he’d seen Koehler.
Rossett would have run if he could, but his head was still groggy and his balance doubtful.
So he walked.
As Koehler ran.
Back to the cover of the car.
Rossett adjusted his aim, turning a fraction at the waist, three rounds, three steps, slow, plodding, struggling to keep his balance as the concussion of the crash kicked the inside of his skull, and the blood loss from his wound slowed him further. He could hear the other Thompson firing at Koehler and Neumann, rhythmic shots, not too fast, just enough to keep their heads down, same as his own.
Rossett kept moving, then saw Neumann, edging out of cover, aiming at him.
Neumann fired once and then ducked, turning his back to Rossett and the car, and sinking down until he was sitting on the wet slush and cobbles.
A rattle from Koehler’s MP40 fired widely in the general direction of the goods entrance. Rossett turned and looked through the falling snow for Ruth.
Neumann reached around the corner of the car and fired again.
The British Lion Page 45
