Hornet Flight

burned it. He’s lying, isn’t he?”

“I have no idea.”

“I believe the photographs were of the military installation on Sande.”

“Do you?”

“They were your pictures, weren’t they?”

“No.”

Peter felt he was at last beginning to intimidate Arne, and he pressed his advantage. “Next morning, a young man called at Jens Toksvig’s house. One of our officers answered the door-a middle-aged sergeant, not one of the force’s intellectual giants. The boy pretended to have come to the wrong address, looking for a doctor, and our man was gullible enough to believe him. But it was a lie. The young man was your brother, wasn’t he?”

“I’m quite sure he was not,” Arne said, but he looked frightened.

“Harald was bringing you the developed film.”

“No.”

“That evening, a woman in Bornholm, who called herself Hilde, telephoned Jens Toksvig’s house. Didn’t you say you had picked up a girl called Hilde?”

“No, Anne.”

“Who is Hilde?”

“Never heard of her.”

“Perhaps it was a false name. Could she have been your fiancee, Hermia Mount?”

“She’s in England.”

“There you are mistaken. I have been talking to the Swedish immigration authorities.” It had been hard to force them to cooperate, but in the end Peter had got the information he wanted. “Hermia Mount flew in to Stockholm ten days ago, and has not yet departed.”

Arne feigned surprise, but the act was unconvincing. “I know nothing of that,” he said, too mildly. “I haven’t heard from her for more than a year.”

If that had been true, he would have been astonished and shocked to learn that she had certainly been in Sweden and possibly in Denmark. He was definitely lying now. Peter continued, “The same night-this is the day before yesterday-a young man nicknamed Schoolboy went to a waterfront jazz club, met with a small-time criminal called Luther Gregor, and asked for help to escape to Sweden.”

Arne looked horrified.

Peter said, “It was Harald, wasn’t it?”

Arne said nothing.

Peter sat back. Arne was badly shaken now, but overall he had put up an ingenious defense. He had explanations for everything Peter threw at him. Worse, he was cleverly turning the personal hostility between them to his advantage, claiming that his arrest had been motivated by malice. Frederik Juel might be gullible enough to believe that. Peter was worried.

Tilde poured tea into a mug and gave it to Arne without consulting Peter. Peter said nothing: this was all part of the prearranged scenario. Arne took the mug in a shaky hand and drank thirstily.

Tilde spoke in a kindly voice. “Arne, you’re in over your head. This isn’t just about you anymore. You’ve involved your parents, your fiancee, and your young brother. Harald is in deep trouble. If this goes on, he’ll end up hanged as a spy-and it will be your fault.”

Arne held the mug in both hands, saying nothing, looking bewildered and scared. Peter thought he might be weakening.

“We can make a deal with you,” Tilde went on. “Tell us everything, and both you and Harald will escape the death penalty. You don’t have to take my word for that-General Braun will be here in a few minutes, and he will guarantee that you’ll live. But first you have to tell us where Harald is. If you don’t, you’ll die, and so will your brother.”

Doubt and fear crossed Arne’s face. There was a long silence. At last Arne seemed to come to a resolution. He reached out and put the mug on the tray. He looked at Tilde, then turned his gaze to Peter. “Go to hell,” he said quietly.

Peter sprang to his feet, furious. “You’re the one who’s going to hell!” he shouted. He kicked his chair over backward. “Don’t you understand what’s happening to you?”

Tilde got to her feet and left quietly.

“If you don’t talk to us, you’ll be turned over to the Gestapo,” Peter went on angrily. “They won’t give you tea and ask polite questions. They’ll pull out your fingernails, and light matches under the soles of your feet. They’ll fasten electrodes to your lips, and throw cold water over you to make the shocks more excruciating. They’ll strip you naked and beat you with hammers. They’ll smash the bones of your ankles and kneecaps so that you can never walk again, and then they’ll carry on beating you, keeping you alive and conscious and screaming. You’ll beg and plead with them to let you die, but they won’t-not until you talk. And you will talk. Get that into your head. In the end, everyone talks.”

White-faced, Arne said quietly, “I know.”

Peter was taken aback by the poise and resignation behind the fear. What did it mean?

The door opened and General Braun came in. It was now six o’clock, and Peter had been expecting him: his appearance was part of the scenario. Braun was the picture of cold efficiency in his crisp uniform with his holstered pistol. As always, his damaged lungs made his voice a gentle near-whisper. “Is this the man to be sent to Germany?”

Arne moved fast, despite his injury.

Peter was looking the other way, toward Braun, and he saw only a blur as Arne reached for the tea tray. The heavy earthenware teapot flew through the air and struck the side of Peter’s head, splashing tea over his face. When he had dashed the liquid from his eyes he saw Arne charge into Braun. Arne moved clumsily on his wounded leg, but he knocked the general over. Peter sprang to his feet, but he was too slow. In the second for which Braun lay still on the floor, gasping, Arne unbuttoned the general’s holster and snatched out the pistol.

He swung the gun toward Peter, holding it two-handed.

Peter froze. The gun was a 9mm Luger. It held eight rounds of ammunition in the grip magazine-but was it loaded? Or did Braun wear it just for show?

Arne remained in a sitting position but pushed himself backward until he was up against the wall.

The door was still open. Tilde stepped inside, saying, “What-?”

“Stay still!” Arne barked.

Peter asked himself urgently how familiar Arne was with weapons. He was a military officer, but in the air force he might not have had much practice.

As if to answer the unspoken question, Arne switched off the safety catch on the left side of the pistol with a deliberate movement that everyone could see.

Behind Tilde, Peter could see the two uniformed policemen who had escorted Arne from his cell.

None of the four policemen was carrying a gun. They did not bring weapons into the cell area. It was a strict regulation imposed to prevent prisoners from doing exactly what Arne had just done. But Braun did not consider himself subject to the regulations, and no one had had the nerve to ask him to hand in his weapon.

Now Arne had them all at his mercy.

Peter said, “You can’t get away, you know. This is the largest police station in Denmark. You’ve got the drop on us, but there are dozens of armed police outside. You can’t get past them all.”

“I know,” Arne said.

There was that ominous note of resignation again.

Tilde said, “And would you want to kill so many innocent Danish policemen?”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

It all began to make sense. Peter remembered Arne’s words when Peter had shot him: You stupid pig, you should have killed me. That fitted with the fatalistic attitude Arne had displayed since his arrest. He feared he was going to betray his friends-perhaps even his brother.

Suddenly Peter knew what was going to happen next. Arne had figured out that the only way to be completely safe was to be dead. But Peter wanted Arne to be tortured by the Gestapo and to reveal his secrets. He could not let Arne die.