“My brother built well,” Maas called back.
“Let’s hope he didn’t forget the egress,” I muttered.
I estimated the tunnel to be sixty meters long. As I crawled I tried to figure out how many square yards of dirt the Schmidt-Maas family had funneled into the sacks made from sheets and carted off in the family transportation. The fractions threw me and I gave up.
Maas stopped crawling. “We are at the end.”
I passed the word back to Symmes.
“Is the opening there?” Padillo called.
“I’m trying to move it,” Maas grunted. He was standing now. I could see only his legs protruding from his raincoat. I crawled on and poked my head into the opening where Maas’s legs were. I looked up. Maas was bowed; his neck, head and shoulders were pressing up against a round piece of corrugated metal that looked like the top of a garbage pail. His hands, palms up, strained against the metal. Nothing happened. He stopped. “It will not move.”
“Let’s see if we can change places,” I said. “I’m taller. I can get more pressure from my legs.”
We squeezed past each other. Maas’s breath was something that somebody should have told him about, I looked up. The metal plate was about five feet above the floor of the tunnel. I spread my legs as far as they would go. My knees, were half bent. I placed my head, neck and shoulders against the plate. I got the palms of my hands flat against it. Then I started slowly to straighten up, using the muscles in my thighs, calves, and arms. They hadn’t been, used that much in a long time. I hoped they could remember what they were for.
Nothing happened. I could feel blood rushing through my head. The sweat began to drip from my forehead. I stopped and rested. I resumed the position and started the pressure from the legs up, I felt something give and hoped it wasn’t my neck. I gave one last effort and the sweat trickled down my forehead and into my eyes. The metal plate moved. I increased the pressure, slowly straightening my knees. There was the sound of a soft plop and I felt the cold air. I shoved again, this time with my arms only, and the metal plate lifted up and fell away. I looked up. I couldn’t see any stars.
CHAPTER 17
I hauled myself out of the tunnel and blundered into a thicket of branches and leaves that scratched my face and stung my hands. The leaves felt soft and scaly. I could hear Maas stumbling behind me. When I broke out of the foliage I could see the wall, 150 feet or so away, where the park met it with the tip of its triangle. The wall seemed to squat, ugly and black and damp-looking against the beginning of a dawn. A hand touched my arm and I jumped. It was Max Vess.
“Where are the rest?” he asked.
“On their way.”
“So it did exist.”
“Yes.”
Maas broke out of the arborvitae wiping his face and hands and brushing off his raincoat. Behind him came Symmes, Burchwood and Padillo.
“The truck is this way,” Max said, gesturing to his right.
Maas turned to Padillo. “I will leave you now, Herr Padillo,” he said. “I am confident that your associates will be able to transport you and your charges to Bonn. But if you run into difficulty … you may reach me at this number.” He handed Padillo a slip of paper. “I will be there part of today only. Tomorrow I will drop by your cafe to settle our account.”
“Cash,” Padillo said.
“Ten thousand.”
“I’ll have it for you.”
Maas nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I am sure that you will.
The truck was a Volkswagen panel. We followed Max to it and climbed in through a side door. Before he closed it, Max said, “You won’t be able to see out, but nobody can see in either.”
“How far?” Padillo asked.
“Fifteen minutes.”
It took seventeen minutes actually. Symmes and Burchwood sat on one side of the panel, their heads cushioned on their arms, which they rested against raised knees. Padillo and I sat on the other side and smoked the last of the East German cigarettes.
The panel stopped and we could hear Max getting out of the driver’s seat. He opened the door and Padillo and I jumped out. Symmes and Burchwood followed, not speaking either to us or to each other. They looked pale in the dim light and Burchwood needed a shave.
I looked around. We were in a courtyard of some kind. A tall red brick wall covered with dusty ivy made three sides of the court, with a gate built of rough gray lumber providing the entrance. The pavement was of irregular slate slabs. The wall joined a four-story building stuccoed with gray plaster that had recessed windows. The ones on the ground floor had iron bars over them.
Max led the way into a doorless corridor that ended at a steel panel that had no hinges and no handle. Above it was a round hole covered with fine wire mesh. Max stood in front of the panel and the rest of us lined up behind him. We must have waited fifteen seconds before the panel slid silently open. I could see that it was two inches thick, and it looked as if it were made of solid steel.
Max led on down another corridor. At its end stood a small elevator, it’s door open, just large enough for five
