Hands of the Traitor (8 page)

"Me, I hate the Germans, monsieur. I
want to be friends with the English." For a moment she paused, just
an outline against the sky. "Take me away from here, Tommy," she
begged.

"First you must help me." He spoke in
no more than a whisper. One of the guards could be passing at any
moment. The frogs had suddenly gone quiet.

"You want the secret of the
Americans?"

"Americans?"

The girl calling herself Sophie
sounded surprised. "I thought you had come to watch the two men in
the airplane. They are Americans with a special secret."

He tried to remain calm. "You know the
secret?"

"I have stolen it, Tommy, and buried
it here for my friends in the Resistance. Look, I will dig it up
for you, and we can run away together to England."

Loud voices called to each other on
the far side of the compound. Someone blew long blasts on a
whistle, a piercing sound of danger, and then a klaxon sounded its
urgent warning.

Sophie ran forward and held his arm
tightly. "It is too late, Tommy. The treasure will have to stay
hidden. Take me with you now."

Lights snapped on in several of the
small huts. The whole camp must be waking up. The girl had been
found out, and now the soldiers were coming for her. Alec dragged
her to the ground and they lay together on the gritty soil, partly
hidden by the long grass that grew along the fence. Suddenly more
lights blazed around the compound. Bright floodlights that made
them raise their hands to shield their eyes.

"We are
finis
, Tommy. It is the end. We must
run!"

Alec held her down with a firm
arm. "
Restez
, mademoiselle," he warned in his halting French. "They do
not know we are here. Do not move or they will see us."

A lorry started up. A group of
soldiers shouted at each other as they ran towards the heavy doors
of the concrete bunker. But as they began to close them, a distant
aircraft engine broke into the general background noise of panic.
Alec looked through the tall grass in amazement as the soldiers ran
to the center of the compound with large torches, waving them into
the air. And the doors to the bunker were still open. Did they have
a death wish at this site?

"I am frightened, Tommy."

He looked at the girl and noticed a
small gold pendant catching the lights from the compound, swinging
gently on the pale skin above her white blouse. It was a crucifix,
bearing the traditional figure of the crucified Christ. "I am
frightened, too. You have another name as well as
Sophie?"

"I am Sophie Bernay. What is your
name?"

"
Je m'appelle
..." Should he use his real name? Perhaps
not. "
Je
m'appelle
... Tommy."

Sophie giggled. "All you English
soldiers are called Tommy. Give me a little kiss, Tommy, because I
am frightened." And she put her lips on his.

He had other things on his mind.
"Listen to the plane. It is coming closer."

"It is, I think German, coming here to
land."

The girl was bright. No wonder the
Germans were waving torches.

"I will find out what is happening,"
she said. "And then I will come back and you will take me away to
England."

Could he trust a girl who worked with
the Germans on a top security site?

"Where is the treasure,
Sophie?"

"It is hidden in the ground." She
pointed to the spot where she'd been bending down. "Gold candles
from the Americans' case."

"Do you know the Americans' names?"
Any scrap of information might help.

"They are called Heinman." She made a
deliberate attempt to sound the H, as though it was an important
part of her briefing. "They are father and son."

"Where are they from?"

"America, but that is all I know."
Then she moved quickly into the shadows.

The Storch drifted in like a giant
toy, the leading edges of its wings glittering in the harsh
floodlights on the base as it settled to the ground in a cloud of
dust.

Alec felt trapped. Five or six feet
away he could see freshly dug earth. The bright perimeter lights
glared down on him ready to reveal the slightest movement. Small
gold containers were what he'd come to find, and over there in the
ground were what the French girl called gold candles. He watched
her hurry across to the main hut where she began to talk to one of
the officers.

The pilot of the Storch kept the
engine racing, the large propeller spinning at speed. Two Germans
hurried the older American towards the plane. It looked as though
an emergency evacuation was taking place. The young Heinman ran
from his hut holding his attaché case. He stormed over to where
Sophie was talking with the Colonel, flung the lid open and pointed
inside.

Alec slid forward on his stomach to remove
one of the objects from the shallow hole. They were gold tubes; but
too light, far too light to be solid gold. They seemed to have a
separate cap. The top could be unscrewed. He sniffed cautiously as
he opened one.

The contents smelt
revolting.

One of the guards twisted Sophie's arm
behind her back as the young Heinman remonstrated with the Colonel
about the empty attaché case. Alec felt suddenly angered by what he
saw. Those Germans had no right too humiliate this French girl in
front of the whole camp. Perhaps twenty or thirty men were standing
around, watching as the Colonel slapped Sophie violently across the
face.

The engine of the plane rose in pitch
and volume to become a roar. The pilot seemed anxious to
leave.

A great rage welled up. Alec snatched
the short barreled Sten and fired off a frenzied burst of
nine-millimeter ammunition, spraying the soldiers and the Storch.
The pilot released the brakes and the momentum in the spinning
propeller carried the ungainly aircraft forward. It moved slowly at
first, then taxied with increasing speed towards the concrete
bunker, its tail bouncing wildly on the uneven ground. He must have
hit the pilot with a shot from the Sten.

The burst of fire from the Sten went
unchallenged; the Germans were temporarily stunned. Alec could see
Sophie and the two Americans running towards him.

A cry of alarm went up as the Storch
reached the open doors of the bunker. The wings sheared off,
leaving the fuselage to enter at speed.

A flash of brilliance flattened the
grass as the explosion rocked the site. Alec remembered little
more. The massive blast shook the earth where he stood. It was
worse than the shells that had exploded close to his trench on the
beach at Dunkirk. The whole site seemed to disintegrate in a ball
of fire.

This was torture. This was hell. He was in
hell with the Germans, and they were pounding him with bars of
iron. Beating him about the head without mercy. Smashing his brain
without stopping to rest.

As consciousness returned, the
beatings with the iron bars started again. Then came the sweet
relief of sleep.

Hours later, as the periods of
consciousness grew longer, he began to understand that the iron
bars were inside his head. It had been light for some time, but now
the sky turned black. A whole day must have passed. He'd received
head injuries and was unable to move. He closed his eyes and let
the darkness take over.

The night passed slowly until the
bright morning sky replaced the starlight, burning his eyes with a
painful intensity. Suddenly he knew where he was. The high plants
that surrounded him were the reed beds by the Nazi base.

The world had blown up. Bits of memory
returned. He'd not received these injuries from the explosion. He
had a vague recollection of the French girl, Sophie Bernay, helping
him to his feet. And the Americans called Heinman. The older man.
There was something else.

Two gold rings.

The knife.

A grenade in the American's
mouth.

The knife had been sharp.

Anger. Anger against the Germans.
Anger against the Americans. Sophie's face. Blood. Screaming. The
explosion....

Then the silence.

He made his first move since regaining
consciousness, cautiously touching his head. He could vaguely
remember someone striking him heavily.

The occasional sound of voices drifted
across the reeds. German voices mixed with the pain that wracked
his body. He guessed that his mind was beginning to hallucinate.
He'd done something terrible with the grenade and the knife. The
insanity of his fevered brain was too vivid. The memories were
confused and terrifying. Impossible, totally repulsive.

He rolled onto his side to be
sick.

Chapter
8

SECURITY LIGHTS
shone around the
site; temporary bulbs strung up on hastily erected gantries,
scarcely penetrating the darkness that blanketed the scene of
destruction. Resting had done him good. Alec Rider found he could
stand without too much pain.

Unless he'd totally lost track of
time, the MTB would be ready tomorrow night to collect him and his
colleagues from Strouanne on the French coast, between Wissant and
Cap Blanc-Nez. The long walk would be difficult in the dark, but
far less dangerous than crossing hostile territory in daylight. The
kitbag was important: it now contained something vital. He couldn't
bring himself to loosen the draw cord.

The main concrete building had
disintegrated; the wooden huts blown away like paper. Sophie Bernay
had gone. There seemed to be no one left, apart from a group of
Wehrmacht soldiers loading lorries with what little remained on
this launch site for the Führer's
Vergeltungswaffen
. The runaway Storch had ripped into
the V1 storage bunker, and the resulting explosion had devastated
the entire area.

Gold!

Suddenly he remembered Sophie's gold
candles. The corner of the compound was now under a heap of
concrete panels dumped by the soldiers clearing the debris. Major
Jackson had told him to find poison gas in gold cylinders, but it
was impossible to dig for them now. Perhaps they weren't important.
Maybe they were some form of payment from the two Americans for
services rendered. Within a few weeks, the Allies would overrun
this part of France. The gold might be a lucky find that would
change some soldier's life for ever.

Alec accepted that he'd failed. Sophie
Bernay would have known why the two Americans had been here. Sophie
was the sort of girl who'd make it her business to ask things, to
find out answers.

Just thinking about Sophie made him
tense.

He had an indistinct memory of Sophie
Bernay speaking after the explosion. And the Americans; the
Heinmans and Sophie talking together, having an argument. The blow
on his head had caused more than concussion. It had blotted
something out. Something he did not even want to
remember.

*

THE MTB CAME on time to the rescue point
at Strouanne. Six of his colleagues were waiting with him. A total
of seven SOE men -- out of twenty who'd been dropped off.
Casualties on that scale made a blow on the head seem
trivial.

He sat by himself below decks in the
cramped cabin, leaving the others above to joke and exchange
stories of their experiences in France. None had come up with any
secret warheads, but several had the locations of operational V1
sites for immediate bombing.

But Alec felt ill at ease. His site had
been the one -- and he had let Major Jackson down. That was not
strictly true. Possibly the kitbag held some evidence. Speculation
of the contents made him sweat.

*

BACK AT the base, Major Jackson tried to
sound positive as he greeted the seven SOE operatives with
hackneyed comments. They were not to worry, he told them; they'd
done a grand job. They were all brave men, and their thirteen
colleagues would no doubt be back in England within a day or two.
Perhaps they'd run into a few small problems. Alec knew he would
never see them again.

When he entered the room for the
debriefing session the first person he noticed was Major Jackson at
his desk, with two other men beside him. These two were not in
uniform and were not introduced, but they had American accents.
Alec wasn't surprised; this was a joint forces' operation. Men were
selected here for special missions irrespective of nationality.
Even Padre Hawkins was Canadian. He'd developed a special
relationship with the padre, though he rarely went to the camp
church.

"Captain Rider, we'll speak to you
first. Let's hear how you got on."

He wondered if he was to be
disciplined for his failure to retrieve the gold samples. He
lowered his eyes as he spoke. "I'm afraid my head took a bit of a
knock."

"Yes, nasty one that, but the MO
thinks you'll soon be as right as rain. Something in that kitbag
for us?"

Alec told the parts of the story he could
recall. The name of the Americans? He'd heard Sophie say it. A name
like Heinemann ... or Heinman. That was it. Two Americans called
Heinman. He remembered how Sophie Bernay had taken care to sound
the H which was normally silent in French.