cake rolled out of his mouth. The plate of strudel clattered on to the floor, followed by Nebe himself. Scrabbling on top of him, I tried to wrestle the automatic from his grasp before he could fire it and bring Mnller and his thugs down on my head. To my horror I saw that the gun was cocked, and in the same half second Nebe's dying finger pulled the trigger.
But the hammer clicked harmlessly. The safety was still on.
Nebe's legs jerked feebly. One eyelid flickered shut while the other stayed perversely open. His last breath was a long mucoid gurgle smelling strongly of almonds. Finally he lay still, his face already turning a blueish colour.
Disgusted, I spat the lethal pill out of my own mouth. I had little sympathy for him. In a few hours he might have watched the same thing happening to me.
I prised the gun free from Nebe's dead hand, which was now grey-skinned with cyanosis, and having unsuccessfully searched his pockets for the key to my handcuffs, I stood up. My head, shoulder, rib, even my penis it seemed were hurting terribly, but I felt a lot better for the grip of the Walther P38 in my hand. The kind of gun that had killed Linden. I thumb-cocked the hammer for semi-automatic operation, as Nebe himself had done before coming into my cell, slipped off the safety, as he had forgotten to do, and stepped carefully out of the cell.
I walked to the end of the damp passageway and climbed the stairs to the pressing and fermentation room where Veronika had died. There was only one light near the front door and I went towards it, hardly daring to glance at the wine press. If I had seen him I would have ordered Mnller into the machine and squeezed him out of his Bavarian skin. In another body I might have risked the guards and gone up to the house, where possibly I could have tried to arrest him: probably I would just have shot him. It had been that kind of day. Now it would be as much as I could do to escape with my life.
Switching out the light I opened the front door. Without a jacket, I shivered.
The night was a cold one. I crept along to the line of trees where the Latvian had tried to execute me and hid in some bushes.
The vineyard was bright with the lights of the rapid burners. Several men were busy pushing the tall trolleys which carried the burners up and down the furrows to positions which they apparently judged important. From where I sat, their long flames looked like giant fireflies moving slowly through the air. It seemed as if I would have to choose another route to escape from Nebe's estate.
I returned to the house and moved stealthily along the wall, past the kitchen towards the front garden. None of the ground-floor lights were on, but one at an upper-floor window lay reflected on the lawn like a big square swimming-pool. I halted by the corner and sniffed the air. Someone was standing in the porch, smoking a cigarette.
After what seemed like forever, I heard the man's footsteps on the gravel, and glancing quickly round the corner I saw the unmistakable figure of Rainis lumbering down the path towards the open gates where a large grey BMW was parked facing the road.
I walked on to the front lawn staying out of the light from the house, and followed him until he got to the car. He opened the car boot and started to rummage around as if looking for something. By the time he closed it again, I had put less than five metres between us. He turned and froze as he saw the Walther levelled at his misshapen head.
'Put those car keys in the ignition,' I said softly.
The Latvian's face turned even uglier at the prospect of my escaping. 'How did you get out?' he sneered.
'There was a key hidden in the strudel,' I said, and jerked the gun at the car keys in his hand. 'The car keys,' I repeated. 'Do it. Slowly.'
He stepped back and opened the driver's door. Then he bent inside and I heard the rattle of keys as he slipped them into the ignition. Straightening again, he rested his foot almost carelessly on the running-board, and leaning on the roof of the car, smiled a grin that was the shape and colour of a rusting tap.
'Want me to wash it before you go?'
'Not this time, Frankenstein. What I would like you to do is give me the keys for these.' I showed him my still-manacled wrists.
'Keys for what?'
'Keys for handcuffs.'
He shrugged, and kept on grinning. 'I got no keys for no handcuffs. Don't believe me, you search me, you find out.'
Hearing him speak, I almost winced. Latvian and soft in the head he may have been, but Rainis had no idea of German grammar. He probably thought a conjunction was a gypsy dealing three cards on a street-corner.
'Sure you've got keys, Rainis. It was you who cuffed me, remember? I saw you put them in your vest pocket.'
He stayed silent. I was beginning to want to kill him badly.
'Look, you stupid Latvian asshole. If I say jump again you'd better not look down for a skipping-rope. This is a gun, not a fucking hairbrush.' I stepped forward a pace and snarled through clenched teeth. 'Now find them or I'll fit your ugly face with the kind of hole that doesn't need a key.'
Rainis made a little show of patting his pockets and then produced a small silver key from his waistcoat. He held it up like a minnow.
'Drop it on the driver's seat and step away from the car.'
Now that he was closer to me, Rainis could see by the expression on my face that I had a lot of hate in my mind. This time he didn't hesitate to obey, and tossed the little key on to the seat. But if I had thought him stupid, or suddenly obedient, I made a mistake. It was fatigue, probably.
He nodded down at one of the wheels. 'You'd better let me fix that slack tyre,' he said.
I glanced downwards and then quickly up again as the Latvian sprint-started towards me, his big hands reaching for my neck like a savage tiger. A half second later I pulled the trigger. The Walther fed and cycled another round into the firing chamber in less time than it took for me to blink. I fired again. The shots echoed across the garden and up the sky as if the twin sounds had been bearing the Latvian's soul to final judgement. I didn't doubt that it would be heading earthwards and below ground fairly quickly again. His big body crashed face first on to the gravel and lay still.
I ran to the car and jumped into the seat, ignoring the handcuff key underneath my backside. There was no time to do anything but start the car. I turned the key in the ignition and the big car, new by the smell of it, roared into life.
Behind me, I heard shouts. Collecting the gun off my lap, I leaned out and fired a couple of rounds back at the house. Then I threw it on the passenger seat beside me, rammed the gear stick forward, hauled the door shut and stamped on the accelerator. The rear tyres gouged at the driveway as the BMW skidded forward. For the moment it didn't matter that my hands were still manacled: the road ahead lay straight and down a hill.
But the car veered dangerously from side to side as I released the steering for a brief second, and wrestled the gear into second. My hands back on the wheel I swerved to avoid a parked car and almost put the BMW into the side of a fence.
If I could only get to Stifstkaserne and Roy Shields I would tell him all about Veronika's murder. If the Amis were quick they could at least get them for that.
Explanations about Mnller and the Org could come later. When the MPs had Mnller in the cage, there would be no limit to the embarrassment I was going to cause Belinsky, Crowcass, CIC the whole rotten bunch of them.
I looked in the wing mirror and saw the headlights of a car. I wasn't sure if it was chasing me or not but I pushed the already screaming engine even further and almost immediately braked, pushing the wheel up hard to the right. The car hit the kerb and bounced back on to the road. My foot touched the floor again, the engine complaining loudly against the lower gear. But I couldn't risk changing into third now that there were more bends in the road to negotiate.
At the junction of Billrothstrasse and the Gnrtel I almost had to lean over in order to steer the car sharp right, past a van hosing down the street. I didn't see the roadblock until it was too late, and but for the truck parked behind the makeshift barrier that had been erected I don't suppose I would have bothered to try and swerve or stop. As it was, I turned hard left and lost the back wheels on the water on the road.
For a moment I had a camera obscura's eye view as the BMW spun out of control: the barrier, the US military
