you..'
Schmidt hurried outside the barracks to issue orders to the troops who sat with their legs astride the motorcycles, banging their gloves together to bring the circulation back into frozen hands. When he had despatched a team he returned nervously to where the SS colonel was striding up and down, pausing to warm his hands at an old-fashioned log- stove.
'They are collecting the car,' he said breathlessly.
'Bormann will be delighted with the great success of the whole idea,' Jaeger commented savagely.
'It was his idea?' Schmidt queried as he used a silk handkerchief to clean his glasses. The lenses had steamed up with condensation during his brief excursion outside. The temperature was dropping rapidly.
'Now it hasn't worked, it will become my idea – I know Bormann. He always phrases his orders obliquely. And this one was not by order of the Fuhrer'
He broke off as he heard the sound of the Mercedes being driven back towards the garage. It was a tribute to the car that the bloody motor had started up after standing outside for hours in these conditions.
'Those men were supposed to push the machine back,' he blazed.
'I'll reprimand the sergeant…'
'Oh, don't bother! What does it matter. The whole operation is a farce. I'm going to get something to eat.'
'Colonel,' Schmidt began tactfully, 'the three checkpoints are still on full alert. Shall I phone them orders to stand down?'
At the doorway to the barracks canteen Jaeger paused while he considered the suggestion. Snow flakes were beginning to adhere to the outside of the windows, masking the view. It was going to be a raw outlook.
'Good idea,' he said. 'Men kept on alert pointlessly lose their edge. Tell them to relax. And then come and join me for breakfast. I need someone to talk to – so I can contradict them!' He sighed. 'Sunday! I always hated Sunday – ever since I was a little boy…'
Lindsay heard the faint sound of a car engine being started up. He heard the sound because he had left the door of his room slightly ajar after the orderly collected his breakfast tray.
By leaving the door open he would be warned if a guard was posted outside. So far none had appeared. He had no way of knowing that, apart from withdrawing the normal guards to entice him into the trap, Jaeger had sent a large contingent away from the Berghof to reinforce the checkpoints and provide a reserve group of shock troops at a camp close to Salzburg.
Lindsay checked his watch yet again. Exactly 10 am. Another three-quarters of an hour before he joined Christa in the anteroom. He opened the door wider and peered out into a deserted corridor. Walking swiftly and silently he reached the window and looked down. The Mercedes had driven forward into view.
The vehicle was now halted with the engine warming up. Two SS men were scraping ice from the windscreen, pausing to melt a fresh area by pressing their gloves over the glass. The unseen driver turned on the wipers which operated jerkily and then settled down into a regular rhythm.
Lindsay stayed well back behind a curtain as he watched the two SS soldiers climb into the back. The car was driven in a sweeping semi-circle and headed out of sight in the direction -of the barracks. Lindsay continued to wait but there was no sign of further activity.
At 10.30 he checked the corridor, staircase and entrance hall. When he found they were deserted he slipped down with his case and went inside' the anteroom. Christa was pacing restlessly, trying to stifle a sensation of growing panic.
Lindsay watched her while he hid his case behind a huge chest of drawers standing clear of the wall. He would have been much better on his own he thought – but he couldn't leave her now. Advice he had been given by Colonel Browne in Ryder Street kept coming back.
'If you're on the run don't be tempted to link up with anyone – it multiplies the risk of, capture tenfold. Statistics show..'
Bugger statistics. He had to get Christa across the border into Switzerland. There he could leave her with a clear conscience – to sit out the rest of the war. She was German-speaking, so she could merge with the population.
'The car is gone. They've taken it away,' Christa remarked and her tone was edgy. 'I suppose you'll say that proves it was a trap they set for us..'
'I really don't know. Maybe someone was going to use it and the weather changed their mind..' 'You're just saying that to pander to me..'
He took three long strides across the room and grasped her with both hands. His voice was low and brutal, his eyes hard.
'Now listen! In less than thirty minutes we're walking out of that door – if the laundry truck ever turns up. We have to dodge the driver, hide ourselves in the back of the truck and from that moment there's no turning back..'
He let go with his right hand, reached down and pulled up the leg of his trouser, exposing the knife he had stolen from the galley on board the Fuhrer train.
'I may have to kill the driver,' he went on. 'At some stage the killing will start. So, my girl, unless you get a grip on yourself damned quick you'll be a liability.'
'I was all right at Salzburg when we got off the train,' she said quietly. 'It was just bad luck that Hartmann intervened and stopped us. I'll be all right again – once we're on the move. Ian, I won't let you down. It's the waiting which twists me into knots..'
'Join the club.'
He released her and regretted his outburst. She was, of course, right. On previous form she could be relied on. You should always go on previous form, not what people say.
'Are you staying here with me?' she asked. 'Yes.'
'You don't have to. I can wait it out on my own. If someone checks your room it would be safer for you if you were up there – if they search me I'm carrying the Luger…'
'Either way it's a risk,' he told her in a businesslike tone as though she were the last consideration. 'I've managed to get down here unseen. My door is closed. If they post a guard they'll just assume I'm inside. They always have done. But if I'm inside, then I have to get past him to get down here again. There's no ideal formula for this kind of situation.' He smiled. 'So just keep on pacing…'
At 10.45 he asked her to give him the Luger and spare magazine. He shoved the pistol under his jacket and inside his belt. They went on waiting and neither of them seemed to be able to think of anything to say.
It was debatable which of them checked their watches more regularly. The minutes crawled. 10.50. Outside it was still snowing but less heavily. Lindsay prayed it would keep on falling. Bad weather – plus the fact it was Sunday – were the two factors which might keep everyone indoors long enough. They both checked their watches at the same moment. Their eyes met. 10.59.
Time is relative the man said, whatever that might mean – whoever the man was – but one thing is certain. Sixty seconds never took longer to tick past.
Neither moved. Both stood well clear of the window overlooking the entrance. 11.00 am…
Lindsay had his head cocked to one side, listening for the first sound of the laundry truck's motor. A leaden silence. Outside the snow was falling more thickly, heavy flakes drifting down, spinning slowly in tiny somersaults. 11.01.
'It isn't coming.. Christa began.
Lindsay shushed her with a shake of his head, listening intently. Christa couldn't keep still. She clenched and unclenched her small hands. The Englishman remained quite motionless, his mouth tight as he concentrated. Waiting it out. Pure hell. A nerve-drainer.
He raised one hand to keep her quiet, held it in mid-air. The distant sound of an engine approaching fast. 'He drives like a maniac,' Christa had said. Something like that. He motioned her to keep still and moved to the window, sidling close to a curtain edge.
A shape loomed through the snow, burst through the pallid veil, swung in a wild skid through a hundred and eighty degrees so the bonnet faced the way back to Salzburg. He was staring straight at the back of the closed vehicle with a roll-top shutter door. The laundry did call Sundays.
Through an inch-gap in the slightly-opened anteroom door Lindsay looked into the entrance hall. The driver
