The Leader And The Damned (25 page)

'Look for concealed wires, mate. No wires, no alarm system. If it's the SS you're up against they rely on brute force — they think no further than a man with a gun. The Abwehr? A tricky bunch, that lot. They've got tradition, which means they rely on patience. Finally, our old friends the Gestapo. They'll use anything, including alarm systems...'

But the Gestapo had no permanent control of security at the Berghof. Lindsay grasped the large handle of the right-hand door and eased it downwards. Slowly he eased open the massive door on its well-oiled hinges. At any moment the muzzle of a machine-pistol would be shoved in his face.

Nothing...

Lindsay peered out and the cold came in and met him, chilling his face. There was no one anywhere in sight. They must be relying on the checkpoints lower down the road on the way to Salzburg. He closed the door and heard a slight sound behind him. What a fool he had been to assume the main entrance would be deserted.

He turned round, thankful he was at least on the inside of the doors, his mind juggling with reasons for his presence. Christa Lundt stood staring at him, framed in an open door. She wore ski pants and a weatherproof suede jacket. One finger raised to her lips warned him to remain silent. She gestured for him to join her.

Closing the door behind her, she leaned against it and let out her breath as Lindsay walked round a large anteroom, checking the room he had not been inside before. There were no other doors, no open fireplace which might conceal a hidden microphone.

When he turned round Christa was in the same position, with a certain look which disturbed him.

'I think we could make the attempt today,' she said. 'There is a car outside. I suppose you saw it from the corridor window upstairs?'

'No, I didn't. And I came downstairs only a few minutes ago...'

Puzzled, Lindsay went over to the window and stared. A large green Mercedes with snow on the running-boards was parked to one side of the window. The vehicle was empty, the windscreen frosted over.

As he studied the car Christa joined him, linked arms and nestled close to him. He remembered the affectionate way she had watched him from the door and felt even more disturbed. Was she growing too fond of him?

He cursed himself for indulging in the passionate act they had performed at the Wolf's Lair. Because that was all it had been for him -- a reaction to the extreme tension he had laboured under. For her, had it been something more?

'Lucky we both got up so early,' she murmured. 'There is no need to start up that car and risk someone hearing the engine as we leave. Don't you see!' She tugged at him impatiently. "The front wheels are perched at the edge of the road where the slope begins. We put it in gear, release the brake, give it a push and jump aboard. The momentum will carry us a kilometre down the hill before you have to switch on the motor..'

'I didn't see that car from the corridor window upstairs because it is parked just out of sight. If it was further to the right - so I could have seen it - then it would not be at the top of the slope..

'What are you on about, for God's sake? I know there is a most appalling risk but..'

'I'm wondering when it was parked there,' he speculated.

'Oh, I can tell you that. Not ten minutes ago. Two SS guards pushed it round from the garage at the back, then went away - to their barracks, I suppose.'

He stared down at her. 'I'd like to get this clear - exactly what happened. You say the guards pushed the Mercedes? Why the needless expenditure of energy? Why not drive it from the garage to park it here?'

'Because then they might have woken up the Fuhrer, silly! You know he goes to bed at the ridiculous hour of three in the middle of the night and doesn't rise until about eleven in the morning. And his bedroom suite is round the side, right above where they would have had to drive the car..

'There's no one about. No sign of a guard. Is that usual at this hour in this part of the Berghof?'

'How should I know? I'm not usually up myself this early. And I'm in another part of the Berghof except when I arrive and leave.'

Lindsay was in a quandary. He could feel the warmth of her body pressed into his side. He liked her - but that was all, and her behaviour unsettled him. Her explanation about why the car had been pushed made sense. Everyone in the Fuhrer's staff was house-trained to avoid causing him the slightest inconvenience or discomfort.

'It's all pretty convenient,' he commented. 'That car just waiting for us to take off..'

'I've brought a small case down. You'd better pack your things quickly so we can leave before someone does arrive.'

There was a sense of her rising impatience - due, he guessed, to her taut nerves. She wanted to get on with it. At least she was not one of those women who hesitated at a crucial moment.

'I wonder how much petrol is in the tank,' he mused while he decided whether she was, after all, right. 'Christ! Go out and find out!'

'Stay here,' he warned. 'Under no circumstances leave this room until I get back. Where is your case? Behind that cupboard? You leave it there for the moment. If I'm caught and they find you, say you couldn't sleep and were going out for a walk..'

The marble-floored entrance hall was still deserted and eerily silent as Lindsay padded across to the entrance. Standing by the great door he listened, his head cocked on one side. He waited three minutes by the second hand on his watch. If there was anyone about they couldn't remain still for that period if they were watching.

An intake of breath, the squeak of a shoe brought on by a cramped leg, there had to be some tiny, betraying sound. Finally, Lindsay was convinced he was alone. He opened the door and stepped out into the snow.

The surface was solid, crisp and he moved with long strides to the side of the Mercedes. Who was it waiting for? With his hand on the front passenger door handle he paused. Suddenly he looked at the upper floors overlooking the car, searching for any sign of sudden movement - a shadow stepping back from a window, the twitch of a curtain.

Nothing.

It was uncanny. Had they struck lucky? It did happen - especially in wartime. Then you didn't waste a moment. You
moved
- so maybe Christa was right. He turned the handle and the unlocked door opened.
Unlocked?
A lousy kind of security they operated in this neck of the woods.

Leaning inside he checked the gauge. The petrol tank was full. There was even a pile of road maps on the passenger seat. And on the - back seat lay a Schmeisser machine-pistol with a loaded magazine. He closed the door without touching anything.

Before returning to the Berghof he smeared his isolated footprints, carefully leaving intact the faint imprint of the two SS men who had pushed the car to this point. And Christa was right. The merest shove, with the brake released and the gear in neutral, would propel the Mercedes down the sloping road to where it curved round the mountain and disappeared in the distance.

He returned to the entrance hall, his hands frozen. He heard the sound as he perched against the closed door to slap snow off his boots with a handkerchief. A faint grinding sound like the creak of a slowly- approaching tank track.

He grabbed for the door handle and glanced over his shoulder. In the far distance across the valley a puff of white showed where massive snow had slipped. Spring was on the way. He went inside. Christa would be waiting, keyed up for their great gamble.

Colonel Jaeger stood behind the open barracks window, a pair of binoculars pressed to his eyes. The lenses were focused on the point where the road descending from the Berghof curved in a wild hairpin before disappearing behind a mountain wall.

Beside him stood his deputy, Alfred Schmidt, a tall, thin man with an intellectual appearance who wore rimless glasses. Schmidt moved his feet restlessly, grinding a heel into the floor. With an irritable gesture Jaeger lowered the glasses and let them dangle from the loop round his neck.

`Well, Schmidt, what is it?' he demanded.

`I'm worried the Englishman may never even see the car. If we had moved it a few metres further he would have looked straight down on to it from that window in the corridor..'

'Which would have been bloody obvious,' Jaeger snapped.

'If he is anxious to escape he will grab the first chance which comes to hand.

'You have not spoken with him. I have!' Jaeger rapped harshly. 'Make it too obvious and he will smell a trap. It is always a mistake to underestimate your opponent.'

'Well, if he does take the bait, he won't get far,' Schmidt observed.

He looked outside the window where a file of two motorcyclists and a further back-up of two motorcycles and side-cars waited with armed SS in position. The passengers in the side-cars held their machine- pistols at the ready.

'If!' Jaeger exploded. 'You worry like an old woman...'

'I still think we should be in a position to observe what is going on at the front of the Berghof,' Schmidt persisted. 'We could have placed a man in one of the upper rooms overlooking the exit doors..

'Everything depends on our target feeling sure he is not observed. When the car reaches that bend we take off. Now shut up and let me concentrate, for Christ's sake!'

Chapter Nineteen

'We take that car! We leave within ten minutes..'

Inside the large anteroom Lindsay and Christa were in the middle of a ferocious argument. The Englishman made no reply to what she had just said as she fought to drive him into a decision. She had been alternately pleading and berating. Now she grasped both his lapels, stood up on her toes so their faces were level and tugged hard as she went on speaking.

'Listen to me! Did you see anyone while you were outside?'

'No

'Did you look to see if anyone was watching the car?'

'Yes, but..'

'No "buts", for God's sake! That file on me Gruber has sent to Berlin for will reach here any day now. Do you want me to end up in a concentration camp?'

Gently he took hold of both her wrists and released himself from her grasp. Still holding on, he pushed her into a chair, motioned to her to stay put.

'It's all too easy and convenient,' he said. 'No one

about inside the place, no one outside..

'It's Sunday...!'

It was so bloody tempting, Lindsay thought. The timing was right. If they got away today, tomorrow was Monday - the day for contacting Paco. And with luck Christa - with her local knowledge - could get them through to Munich from Salzburg. He began thinking aloud.

'Having met Jaeger I have some idea of what makes him tick. If he were setting a trap he'd do it something like this..'

'He'd at least have parked the car where you could see it from the corridor window upstairs. You said you couldn't see it.

'I couldn't..'

'Well then!'

'If I were Jaeger,' Lindsay persisted, 'I wouldn't make it that obvious. And I wouldn't post watchers where they could be seen, I'd stay back and wait...'

'Wait! Wait! Wait! That's all you can think of!'

'I remember when I met Hitler before the war. We had a very long conversation. He told me that in any crisis he always waited until events developed, until something gave him a sign as to which was the direction he should move in. I'm a bit like Hitler.

'You lack his resolution,' she retorted bitterly.

'I've noticed there's a big laundry truck which arrives daily - to collect dirty linen and deliver fresh. The guards have become used to that truck. I've watched them from my corridor window. What I don't know is does it call on Sunday?'

'How should I know?' she asked sulkily. 'I'm kept occupied the other side of the Berghof. Why are you wasting time on this truck?'

'It arrives each day with commendable Teutonic promptness at the same time -- exactly eleven o'clock in the morning.' Lindsay was walking slowly backwards and forwards while Christa fidgeted on the chair. 'There is only one man with that truck, no guards, just the driver, a short, fat man in overalls who heaves inside great bales of fresh laundry. Then he takes out the dirty stuff in white sacks, dumps them in the back, hauls down the door and drives off. There's the name of some firm in Salzburg on the side. Salzburg is where we want to go...'

'Where do we go from there?' she asked.