by Jack Higgins
As Chavasse started to struggle, Hans slid one forearm across his throat and squeezed and Chavasse started to choke. Steiner’s first blow landed in his stomach and was followed by another and still another until Chavasse slid to the floor.
Steiner kicked him in the side of the neck, and as he drew back his foot again, Nagel said sharply, “That’s enough. We want him alive for the moment.”
Chavasse kept his eyes closed and breathed deeply, fighting the pain that flooded over him, fighting to stay conscious.
He was aware of Muller’s groans as they dragged him from the bed and strapped him to the operating table.
Nagel said, “Muller, can you hear me?” There was a moan and he continued. “Muller, I’ve been very patient with you, but I’m beginning to run out of time.”
“Shall we start?” Steiner said.
Chavasse forced open his eyes. Steiner and Hans were both stripped to the waist and holding long rubber truncheons.
Nagel leaned over the table. “We know about your sister, Muller,” he said. “Katie Holdt she calls herself, I believe. She’s got the manuscript, hasn’t she, Muller? Tell us where she lives. I only want the manuscript. I’ll see nothing happens to her.”
Again there came that curious rattling sound in Muller’s throat. Nagel gave an exclamation of annoyance and stood back. “Carry on!” he said to Steiner and Hans, and turned away.
Chavasse closed his eyes again at the first sound of a rubber hose curling around flesh and bone, and then Muller screamed and the blows and the screaming seemed to mingle endlessly, and Chavasse gritted his teeth and tried to shut out the sounds and then slid into darkness.
CHAPTER 10
He regained his senses slowly and lay unmoving on the floor, eyes tightly closed. He could not have been unconscious for long because they were all still in the room.
The sound of the beating had stopped and Nagel seemed angry. “Are you sure he’s all right?” he asked.
There was a moment’s silence before Kruger replied, “He’s still alive, if that’s what you mean.”
“The stubborn fool,” Nagel said angrily.
“Shall we start again?” Steiner said.
Nagel made an impatient sound. “He’s no use to us dead and he will be if you give him any more. Leave him alone for now. We have important things to talk over, remember.”
“What are the plans for tonight?” Kruger said.
“That is what I propose to discuss,” Nagel told him. “The reception starts at seven. Dinner will be at eight, and Hauptmann will make his speech at nine-thirty precisely.”
“At what time do you wish me to be there?” Steiner said.
“Nine o’clock. You will wait in the bushes below the terrace of the ballroom. There will be a table on the terrace especially prepared for Hauptmann. I shall take him out there at nine-fifteen, on the pretext that it will give him a chance to collect his thoughts while we are getting the other guests seated for his speech.”
“Can you be absolutely sure he will go out onto the terrace?” Kruger said.
“Of course,” Nagel told him. “I have known Hauptmann for several years now and he never uses prepared speeches. He always does it in this way.” He turned to Steiner. “I want no mistakes about this, Steiner. You have been selected because of your proven reliability. Hauptmann must die tonight.”
“It shall be as you say, Herr Nagel,” Steiner said confidently.
“Hauptmann’s connection with the Office for the Detection of War Crimes at Ludwigsburg has made him into something of a national hero. We must teach people a lesson. Let them know our movement is still a force to be reckoned with.”
Nagel crossed the room and stirred Chavasse with his foot. “You were really extremely rough with our friend here. He seems to be in a bad way. I trust he’ll be in a fit state to answer a few questions when I return tomorrow.”
Kruger moved over beside him. “I’ll give him an examination later this afternoon. Are you staying for lunch?”
“I don’t think so,” Nagel said. “I really must get back to Hamburg. Such a lot of preparations for tonight’s little affair.”
They moved to the door, and Chavasse opened one eye slightly and watched them go. Hans opened the door, and as they went out, Kruger said, “You’d better stay on duty at the end of the gallery, Hans, until the other two have had their meal.” The door closed and the key turned in the lock.
Chavasse sat up slowly and gingerly touched the side of his neck with his fingertips. It was lucky that Steiner had been wearing nothing heavier than crepe-soled shoes. His stomach muscles were bruised and tender to the touch, but it was his face that caused him the most pain. It somehow felt lopsided and heavy and his right cheek was swollen and sticky with blood.
Muller groaned slightly, and again there was that uncanny rattle in his throat. Chavasse got to his feet and went across to the operating table. As he looked down at that poor broken body, Muller opened his eyes and stared up at him vacantly.
He seemed to be trying to speak and Chavasse leaned down. “My sister,” Muller croaked. “Did I tell them where to find her?”
Chavasse shook his head. “No, you didn’t tell them a damn thing.”
Something resembling a smile appeared on Muller’s face. He closed his eyes with a long sigh of relief. Suddenly, Chavasse realized that Muller’s breathing had stopped.
For a long time, Chavasse stayed there, looking down at a dead man. After a while, he sighed. “Well, you had guts, Muller. I’ll say that for you.” He went across to the bed for a blanket, which he took back to the operating table and draped over the body.
He started to examine the room. There was no fireplace and the only window was crossed with iron bars set firmly in solid stone. He next tried the door, but a close examination of the locks made it clear that escape by that way was out of the question.
He glanced at his watch. It was almost two-thirty, and he sat down on the bed and considered the situation. He had to get out somehow. From the look in Kruger’s eye when he had first seen Anna, it wouldn’t be very long before he paid her a visit.
And then there was the Hauptmann affair. He tried to remember what he had read of the man. A liberal politician who was immensely popular with the people – possibly even a future chancellor. His death would be a world sensation. How ironic that it was to take place at the United Nations Peace Conference.
The very fact that Nagel and his associates dared attempt such a deed indicated the strength of their movement. If they got away with it, there was no telling what the ultimate effect would be on the German political scene. If the Nazis obtained any kind of government control, then everything would swing out of balance, including relations between East and West Germany. The repercussions on world politics could be immense.
He slammed a fist into the bed and started to get to his feet. It was then he noticed one of the long rubber truncheons that had been used to beat Muller.
Obviously, either Steiner or Hans had dropped it carelessly to the floor and it had rolled under the operating table. It was sticky with blood when he picked it up. He wiped it on one of the blankets and then stood in the center of the room, bending it in his hands. It was about two feet long, a horrible and deadly weapon, and as he examined it, a plan slowly formulated in his mind.
He opened his mouth wide and screamed. He allowed the sound to die away and then repeated it. As he listened, footsteps approached along the corridor and halted outside the door. Chavasse started to groan and whimper horribly.
Hans shouted through the door, “Stop that noise or I’ll come in and make you shut up!”
Chavasse groaned horribly as if in great pain, and quickly crossed the room and flattened himself against the wall behind the door.
Hans said angrily, “Right, my friend, you’ve asked for it.”
The key rattled in the lock and the door swung open. Hans moved forward into the room, his great hands clenched, and Chavasse said from behind him, “Her
e I am.”
As Hans turned, Chavasse swung the truncheon with all his strength, catching the man full across the throat. Hans made no sound. His eyes retracted and he fell backward as if poleaxed. His beard was flecked with foam, and for a little while his fingers scrabbled uselessly at the floorboards as he fought for air, and then he was still.
Chavasse dropped onto one knee and searched him quickly, but he was out of luck. Hans had not been carrying a gun. Chavasse went out into the gallery and listened, but all was quiet. He quickly locked the door and pocketed the key, and then, as he turned to move down toward the room in which Hardt was imprisoned, a woman screamed somewhere close at hand.
He moved along the corridor quickly and then she screamed again, the sound coming clearly through an oak door at the end of the gallery. He turned the handle and opened the door.
ANNA was crouched in the corner by the fireplace, her dress torn down the front and a livid weal glowing angrily across one bare shoulder. Kruger stood in the center of the room, a small whip twitching nervously in his right hand.
“You won’t get away from me, my dear,” he said, “but please continue to resist. It adds a certain spice.”
Chavasse slipped in through the door and closed it quietly behind him. As he started to move forward, Anna saw him and her eyes widened. Kruger turned, an expression of alarm on his ravaged face, and Chavasse slashed him across the back of the hand that held the whip.
An expression of agony flooded Kruger’s face. He fell to his knees and started to whimper like a child, and Chavasse lashed him across the head with the truncheon.
Kruger bowed his head like a man in prayer and keeled over slowly. Chavasse raised the truncheon again, and Anna flung herself forward and caught hold of his arm, “That’s enough, Paul!” she said, fiercely holding him with a grip of surprising strength.
He lowered his arm reluctantly. “Has he harmed you?”
She shook her head. “He’s only been with me for ten minutes. Most of the time he spent talking the most unutterable filth.”
“We must thank God for the fact he’s only half a man,” Chavasse said, and pulled her toward the door. “We haven’t got much time to waste. We must release Hardt and then find a way out of this place.”
“What about Muller?” she said.
“Muller won’t be going anywhere ever again,” he told her.
They paused outside the door of the room in which Hardt was imprisoned, and Chavasse tried the key that he had taken from Hans. The door opened noiselessly to reveal Hardt sitting on the edge of the bed, head in hands.
He looked up slowly and an expression of amazement appeared on his face. “How the hell have you managed this?”
“I had to get a little violent,” Chavasse told him. “How do you feel? Well enough to make a move?”
“I’d walk to China to get out of this place.”
“No need to go to extremes,” Chavasse said. “If we can successfully negotiate the main hall and reach the cellars, our troubles are over. They keep a launch down there in an underground cavern with direct access to the lake.”
“And what about Muller?”
“I’ve just spent the last hour with him,” Chavasse said. “Steiner and Hans laid it on a bit too thick during the last beating. I was alone with him when he died.”
“Did he tell you anything?” Hardt asked.
Chavasse nodded. “Apparently, Bormann died some months ago. Muller was just trying to make himself a little cash on the side.”
“And the manuscript?”
“That’s genuine enough,” Chavasse said. “His sister’s looking after it. She’s the one we’ve got to find now.”
He took Anna’s hand and led the way out of the room and along the gallery. The hall was completely deserted, the only sound the peaceful crackle of the logs in the great fireplace. He smiled reassuringly to the other two and they began a cautious descent.
When they were halfway down the staircase, one of the doors was flung open and Steiner entered the hall. He was lighting a cigarette, the match in his cupped hands, so that for a moment he did not see them, and then he looked up and an expression of astonishment appeared on his face.
As Chavasse turned and started to push Anna back up the staircase, Steiner pulled out a Luger and fired. The bullet chipped one of the marble pillars at the head of the stairs and Chavasse pushed Anna forward and followed her, half-crouching.
They ran along the gallery, Hardt at their heels, and Steiner fired again. They plunged down a narrow flight of stairs and entered a lower corridor with a door at the end of it. When Chavasse tried to open it, he found that it was locked.
“We passed a door on the left,” Hardt said, and he turned and went back the way they had come.
The door opened to his touch and they entered into what looked like a servant’s bedroom. At that moment, Steiner paused at the top of the flight of stairs and fired along the corridor. Chavasse slammed the door shut and pushed the bolts into place, securing it for the moment.
“Now what do we do?” Hardt demanded.
Chavasse moved across to the window and opened it. The waters of the lake splashed against the stone wall of the castle twenty feet below them. He turned to Hardt. “It’s only about a hundred yards to the shore. Do you think you could swim that far?”
“Sink or swim – what does it matter in a situation like this?” Hardt said simply.
“And you, Anna?” Chavasse said.
She smiled. “I’ve been swimming all my life.”
At that moment, Steiner kicked on the door. “You’d better come out of there,” he bellowed angrily.
Chavasse made a quick gesture toward the window, “After you two,” he said, “and good luck.”
Hardt went first and then Anna. As Chavasse pulled himself up onto the sill, Steiner fired several times through the door. Chavasse took a deep breath and jumped.
He hit the water with a solid, forceful smack and surfaced almost immediately. It was bitterly cold and he was aware of Anna floating beside him. “Are you all right?” he gasped.
She nodded and gulped. “Fine.”
Hardt was already disappearing into the mist as they struck out after him. As the castle disappeared from view, Chavasse heard a sudden, impotent cry of rage and a bullet sang over the water, and then they were alone in a dark world that seemed to enclose them completely.
They swam together in a triangle, with Hardt leading. He looked very white and strained, and Chavasse gasped, “You managing all right?”
Hardt spit out a stream of brown lake water and managed a tired grin. “My arm doesn’t feel too good, but don’t worry. I’ll reach the shore.”
Chavasse turned to look at Anna, and heard the engine of the launch shatter the silence with a roar as it emerged from beneath the castle. They kept on swimming, increasing the stroke as the launch passed them nearby, and then returned again.
They moved together and stopped swimming, treading water as they listened, and then the launch seemed to be right on top of them and its roaring filled their ears.
“Down!” Chavasse gasped desperately, and they ducked under the water.
He felt himself thrash about helplessly like a fish in a net, and then he erupted to the surface, lungs bursting.
Anna appeared first and Hardt a little later and they huddled together, tossed about by the turbulence, and listened as the sound of the launch died away in the distance. After a while, Chavasse nodded and they started to swim again.
The boathouse loomed out of the mist five minutes later, and they waded through the shallows and mounted the slipway. The wooden doors were not locked and Chavasse opened them and they passed inside.
Anna slumped down onto a pile of old sacks and pushed a damp tendril of hair back. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt so cold in my life.”
Hardt ran a hand wearily across his face. “What do we do now?”
Chavasse shrugged. “Play the cards as they fall, but whatever happe
ns, one of us must get to Hamburg. Steiner’s going to assassinate Hauptmann at Nagel’s reception for the peace conference delegates.”
“Oh, my God,” Anna said. “Hauptmann! He’s a good man, one of the finest men in Germany.”
At that moment, a dog howled suddenly from the direction of the causeway leading to the castle. A little later, the sound came again, muffled by the mist, but definitely coming nearer.
Hardt turned quickly, his eyes somber. “Steiner has set the dogs on us. I saw them early this morning when they brought me here. Three black-and-tan Dobermans, trained to kill. We don’t stand a chance.”
“We do if we split up,” Chavasse said. “One of us can lead the dogs off while the other two get away. Somebody must go to Hamburg.”
“Whom do you suggest?” Hardt inquired ironically.
“I’m in better shape than you are. I could probably lead them a longer dance.”
“But you’d be a damned sight more useful in handling these people when you get to Hamburg,” Hardt said.
Chavasse started to protest, but Anna caught him by the hand and pulled him round to face her. “Mark’s right, Paul. You are the only one who can save Hauptmann’s life and that is the main thing now.”
Behind them a door banged, and when Chavasse turned, Hardt was gone. They could hear him crashing his way through the fir trees, making no attempt to hide the noise of his progress, and then there were confused cries as the search party from the castle heard him. A moment later, the dogs started to howl, and as Chavasse and Anna listened breathlessly, the sounds faded into the distance and they were alone.
CHAPTER 11
“He’s quite a man,” Chavasse said out of the silence.
Anna nodded. “I found that out a long time ago. Where do we go from here?”
“Back to the inn,” he said. “There’s always the Volkswagen. With any luck, we can be on the way back to Hamburg in fifteen minutes.”
