The Leader And The Damned (21 page)

'We will talk some more at the Berghof,' Hartmann said, straightening up and adjusting the belt of his trench coat. 'You knew the Fuhrer before the war?'

'We met in Berlin..'

'As an outsider, you sense something peculiar about the atmosphere at the Wolf's Lair?'

'Since you arrived, yes! And Gruber..'

'A mood of distrust, people looking over their shoulders at men they have known for years – as though treason stalks the compounds very close to the top?'

'You would know more about that than me...' 'Would I?'

On the verge of leaving, Hartmann turned, his hand on the handle of the outer door. His expression had become stern and he stood very erect as he stared at the Englishman while he spoke rapidly.

'Would I!' he repeated. 'Wing Commander, you are nobody's fool. I have only arrived here for the first time in my life. You have been here over two weeks! The Fuhrer has what we call in Germany fingertip-feeling — the ability to sense something wrong before he has located the source of his unease. I, also, in all modesty, am credited with something of the same ability. Is it really the possible presence of a Soviet spy?' He walked a few paces closer to Lindsay. 'Or is it something quite different I sense — without knowing what I detect? Your plane took you to the Berghof before you were flown here. What is it you have noticed? Help me, Wing Commander. I can be a useful ally.

'I haven't the least idea what you're talking about,' Lindsay replied without hesitation.

'Very well! But I warn you — we will talk again …'

The Fuhrer's train, curiously called
Amerika
, travelled at high speed. The icy blast from an open window —or door — funnelled down the corridor as Lindsay peered into the distance and saw the vague silhouette of a slim figure at the end of the coach. He began running. The silhouette looked like Christa.

They were somewhere in the mountains — many hours from Rastenburg in East Prussia. It was nearly midnight. Because of the wartime blackout the corridor was feebly lit by overhead blue lamps which cast a ghostly glow. All the compartments he passed had the blinds drawn. The occupants were sleeping.

Lindsay had been unable to sleep and so he had seen the familiar figure of a girl slip past his window on the corridor side. Opening the door quietly, he had closed it again. There had been something furtive about the girl's movements which had aroused his curiosity. Now he was alarmed.

The cold chilled his face. There was a feel of snow in the icy air. He suspected they were crossing Czechoslovakia, maybe the Tatra Mountains. The deserted corridor remained empty — except for the silhouette. And it was the
door
at the end of the coach which was open...

Christa Lundt was framed in the doorway, one hand clutching a rail, the other holding the door back against the train. She was so absorbed in gazing into the night she never saw him coming. The sight of her poised there scared him.

He reached her. She saw him. She took a step into oblivion. He grabbed her upper arm, hauled her back and threw her to the other side of the coach. Reaching out, he grasped the heavy door, swung it inwards and shut. Confined between the lavatory and the end of the coach she was now pressing down the handle of the door opposite. He grabbed her again roughly, with both hands.

'Christa! You stupid little fool! Are you trying to kill yourself...?'

'Ian!' She 'trembled with relief. 'I thought you were Hartmann. I have to leave the train - before Gruber receives details of that file from Berlin. There are guards at every stop. Only while the train is between stations can I get away..'

'Inside here...' He opened the lavatory door. 'Guards patrol the corridors at intervals. Bit cramped, but it will have to do.' He closed and locked the door. Beneath them the heavy wheels of the train beat out a steady, hypnotic tattoo. He perched her on the closed lid and by the glow from the blue light brushed flakes of snow from her coat and hat.

She was wearing leather, knee-length boots, a fur coat and a Russian-style fur hat. Warmth from the radiators in the adjoining compartment had percolated into the lavatory and the snow he had brushed on to the floor was already beginning to melt.

-'Now,' he demanded, 'what were you really up to? Attempting to commit suicide I'd have thought - with the train moving at this speed..

'It was moving quite slowly when I reached the door and opened it,' she said bitterly. 'Then it suddenly speeded up. When you arrived I was sure it was Hartmann so I decided to risk jumping - it would come to the same thing soon..'

Lindsay studied the fine bone structure of her face, the defiant tilt of her head as she stared up at him. This was the girl he had made love to. And what she said was borne out by the facts, he remembered now.

The train
had
been moving very slowly when she passed his window, climbing a steep gradient. He had been standing up sliding open his compartment door, when the speed had unexpectedly increased. The train had reached the gradient summit and the track had changed to a downgrade angle. She appeared to read. his thoughts as she continued watching him.

'I just got the door open when the damned thing picked up speed. If I'd jumped at once I might have managed it - I'm pretty athletic...'

'I found that out not long ago,' he interjected.

'I'm serious,' she snapped. 'But you know how it is - you're not sure, so you hesitate. At least I did. By then the train was going very fast. I was hoping it would slow down again. We're close to the Austrian border - and since my language is German...'

'You're crazy - you do know that? The temperature outside must be sub-zero. You'd do better to wait until we reach the Berghof. How long do you reckon you've got before that file lands up in Gruber's greasy paws?'

'Three days' minimum... if they rushed it through.'

'Then we have to be on our way in less than three days..'

Lindsay prayed. He watched her like a scientist studying a slide under a microscope. He had said it, revealing himself to her. If there was one chance in a hundred he was wrong - that she had been playing him on the end of a string for Gruber - then he had only one option. To throttle her until she was dead. Then throw her corpse from the train while it continued through this isolated corner of Europe.

Lindsay was aware his palms were sweating. They would slip when he tried to get a grip on her slim, lovely neck. He would have to bang the back of her skull against the vertical water-pipe just behind where she sat. Oh God...'

'You mean I was right about you all the time? You can provide me with an...'

Tears of relief, wonderment, exhaustion? Lindsay had no idea - but tears welled in her eyes and then she gritted her teeth as she felt under her coat, found a handkerchief and cleaned herself up. It could still be an act...'

'Why do you have to use an escape route?' he demanded harshly. 'I need the truth - no more play-

ing with words. The honest-to-God bloody truth...'

'They could link me to the anti-Nazi underground. Kurt was suspect. So they sent him to Russia. But no one knew. She was talking in short gasps, still apparently in shock, watching him closely. It was extraordinary, Lindsay reflected, the way women gripped by some powerful emotion could still - presumably with another part of their mind - check the effect they were having on a man. Doubtful about her sincerity again, he probed deeper.

'You say you belong to the anti-Nazi underground..'

'I went over after Kurt's death. Not that I've done much so far..'

'Just what have you done? Which underground? Communist?'

She looked startled, frightened. 'Christ, no! I'm talking of General Beck's people - the military. Occasionally Beck manages to send one of his people to the Wolf's Lair. They always ask for details of the security system..'

'You could be a Soviet spy,' he hammered.

'God! You're a Nazi. You're going to hand me over..'

'Shut up a minute while I think. No one is handing you over to anyone.'

Lindsay was faced with the most difficult decision of his life. He could trust her. She could be very useful in helping him to escape from Germany. But two on the run more than doubled the dangers. Once he committed himself he'd feel responsible for her. There would be no turning back.

And Lindsay was a loner. Instinctively he shied away from sharing any tricky situation with another
man - or woman. You could never tell how they would Goddamn react at the moment of crisis - and there would be moments of crisis, maybe involving killing, he reminded himself grimly.

'Do you know the rail route from Salzburg?'

Still cautious, he phrased the question carefully. She nodded.

'To Vienna? I know it well,' she said. 'And the other way back to Munich. I lived there before the war. Once we go up to the Berghof we'll never escape..'

'We could steal transport,' he suggested.

'It wouldn't work - too many checkpoints. They'd know the road we were using once the alarm was raised - and it would be raised before we got clear. One phone call to a checkpoint we hadn't yet passed..'

'It has to be Salzburg then?'

'It has to be Salzburg. That's our last chance..'

Chapter Sixteen

The pudgy hand had made a hole in the frost-coated window. The hole framed a picture of the nearby Austrian mountains. Stirring restlessly in his armchair inside the dining-coach of the Fuhrer train, Martin Bormann stared at the view without seeing it. The rumble of the wheels was slowing: they were approaching Salzburg.

'I want you to carry out this order personally,' Bormann told the man sitting opposite across the table.

'Your wish is my command,' Gruber replied.

With Bormann you laid it on with a trowel. No display of respectful awe was too great. No man, Gruber had observed, was more conscious of his position than the Reichsleiter. They were alone in the luxuriously appointed coach.

The swivel armchairs were button-backed and made of leather. The Reichsleiter was almost swallowed up inside his chair. The top of his round head did not reach the top of the chair back. Seen from behind, the chair appeared empty. Bormann let his mind wander.

They would soon be inside The Berghof where the privacy was far greater than at the benighted Wolf's Lair. Married, with nine children, he had not bedded another girl for several weeks. He craved the haughty, distant Christa Lundt. He couldn't get the girl out of his mind. At the Berghof...

'I'm worried about this bloody English Wing Commander,' he told the Gestapo officer. 'And the Fuhrer is still convinced we have a Soviet spy among his entourage gnawing at our vitals...'

'I am continuing my investigation...' Gruber protested.

Bormann shut him up with an impatient gesture. 'I am holding you personally responsible for security at Salzburg when we leave the train and transfer to the motorcade to drive to Berchtesgaden. You will take command — including the SS detachment...' He leaned forward and stared at Gruber over the small pink-shaded lamp on the table laid for breakfast. 'You will be watching for anyone trying to leave the train without joining the motorcade..'

'With the complete SS detachment under my control I assure you, Reichsleiter, no one will escape...'

'Listen to me! I have not finished,' Bormann snapped. 'I want you to arrange it so the SS leave the train the moment it stops.
Discreetly!
They must conceal their presence. That way we shall trap anyone who tries to slip away. Understood?'

'Of course.' Gruber rose -hesitantly. 'With your permission I would like to begin the preparations at once...'

'The SS commander has been instructed...'

Bormann dismissed Gruber with a curt gesture, still staring out of the window. He was tired and would normally have been in bed. The Fuhrer had kept him up in his compartment talking before retiring, a routine Bormann had accustomed himself to duplicate..