Алистер Маклин - River of Death

At the Wilhelmshaven airfield a dimly seen plane, later identifiable as a Junkers 88, made so violently bumpy a touch-down that its undercarriage could well have collapsed under the impact. The bumpiness was understandable, the drifting smoke being so intense that the pilot could make only a blind guess as to his height above the runway. Under normal conditions he would never have dreamed of attempting so hazardous a landing but the conditions were far from normal. Colonel Spaatz was a man of a highly persuasive cast of mind. Even before the plane had rolled to rest he had the door open, peering anxiously for his waiting transport. When finally he saw it – an open Mercedes staff car – he was aboard it within twenty seconds, urging the driver to make all possible haste.

The smoke surrounding the submarine was, if anything, even denser and more acrid than it had been minutes before although a sudden gusting wind, no doubt the result of the firestorm, gave promise of an early amelioration of the conditions. But choking and half-blinding though the smoke still was it didn’t prevent von Manteuffel from seeing what, despite his coolly relaxed calm, he had so desperately wanted to see.

‘That’s it, then, Captain Reinhardt, that’s it. The last chest aboard. And now your men aboard, Captain, and let the devil ride on your back.’

Captain Reinhardt was hardly in the frame of mind to require any second bidding. Shouting hoarsely to make himself heard above the still thunderous din, he ordered his men aboard, ropes to be cast off and engines slow ahead. The last of his men were still frantically climbing up the sliding gangway as the submarine inched away from the quayside. It hadn’t moved more than a few feet when the sound of a motor car screeching and skidding to a halt made von Manteuffel turn sharply and look at the quay.

Spaatz had leapt from the Mercedes while it was still moving. He stumbled, recovered himself, and stared at the still very slowly moving submarine, his face contorted in desperate anxiety.

‘Wolfgang!’ Spaatz’s voice wasn’t a shout, it was a scream. ‘Wolfgang! God’s sake, wait!’ Then the anxiety on his face yielded abruptly to an expression of utter incredulity: von Manteuffel had a pistol lined up on him. For some seconds Spaatz remained quite still, shocked into a frozen and uncomprehending immobility, then comprehension came with the crack of von Manteuffel’s pistol and he hurled himself to the ground as a bullet struck only a foot away. Spaatz dragged his Luger from its holster and emptied it after the slowly moving submarine which, apart from giving vent to his feelings, was an otherwise futile gesture as the conning-tower was apparently empty, von Manteuffel and Captain Reinhardt having obviously and prudently ducked beneath the shelter of the steel walls off which Spaatz’s bullets ricocheted harmlessly. And then, abruptly, the submarine was lost in the swirling banks of smoke.

Spaatz pushed himself to his hands and knees and then stood upright and stared in bitter fury in the direction of the vanished submarine.

‘May your soul rot in hell, Major-General von Manteuffel,’ Spaatz said softly. ‘The Nazi Party’s funds. The S.S. funds. Part of Hitler’s and Goering’s private fortunes. And now the treasures from Greece. My dear and trusted friend.’

He smiled almost reminiscently.

‘But it’s a small world, Wolfie, my friend, a small world, and I’ll find you. Besides, the Third Reich is gone. A man must have something to live for.’

Unhurriedly, he reloaded his Luger, brushed the mud and moisture from his clothes and walked steadily towards the Mercedes staff car.

The pilot was in his seat, poring over a chart, when Spaatz clambered aboard the Junkers 88 and took his seat beside him. The pilot looked at him in mild astonishment.

Spaatz said: ‘Your tanks?’

‘Full. I – I didn’t expect you, Colonel. I was about to leave for Berlin.’

‘Madrid.’

‘Madrid?’ This time the astonishment was more than mild. ‘But my orders–’

‘Here are your new orders,’ Spaatz said. He produced his Luger.

The cabin of the thirty-seater aircraft was battered, scruffy, unclean and more than a little noisome, which pretty accurately reflected the general appearance of the passengers, who would never have made it to the ranks of the international jet-set. Two of them could have been classified as exceptions or at least as being different from the others although neither of them would have made the jet-set division either, lacking, as they did, the pseudo-aristocratic veneer of your true wealthy and idle layabout. One, who called himself Edward Hiller – in this remote area of southern Brazil it was considered poor form to go by your own given name – was around thirty-five, thickset, fair-haired, hard-faced, obviously European or American and dressed in tan bush-drills. He seemed to spend most of his time in moodily examining the scenery, which, in truth, was hardly worth the examining, inasmuch as it duplicated tens of thousands of square miles in that virtually unknown part of the world: all that was to be seen was an Amazonian tributary meandering its way through the endless green of the rain forest of the Planalto de Mato Grosso. The second exception – again because he seemed not unacquainted with the basic principles of hygiene – claimed to be called Serrano, was dressed in a reasonably off-white suit, was about the same age as Hiller, slender, black-haired, black-moustached, swarthy and could have been Mexican. He wasn’t examining the scenery: he was examining Hiller, and closely at that.

‘We are about to land at Romono.’ The loudspeaker was scratchy, tinny and the words almost indistinguishable.

‘Please fasten seat-belts.’

The plane banked, lost altitude rapidly and made its approach directly above and along the line of the river. Several hundred feet below the flight-path a small, open outboard motorboat was making its slow way upstream.

This craft – on closer inspection a very dilapidated craft indeed – had three occupants. The largest of the three, one John Hamilton, was tall, broad-shouldered, powerfully built and about forty years of age. He had keen brown eyes, but that was about the only identifiable feature of his face as he was uncommonly dirty, dishevelled and unshaven, giving the impression that he had recently endured some harrowing ordeal, an impression heightened by the fact that his filthy clothes were torn and his face, neck and shoulders were liberally blood-stained. Comparatively, his two companions were presentable. They were lean, wiry and at least ten years younger than Hamilton. Clearly of Latin stock, their olive-tinged faces were lively, humorous and intelligent and they looked so much alike that they could have been identical twins, which they were. For reasons best known to themselves they liked to be known as Ramon and Navarro. They considered Hamilton – whose given name was, oddly enough, Hamilton – with critical and speculative eyes.

Ramon said: ‘You look bad.’

Navarro nodded his agreement. ‘Anyone can see he’s been through a lot. But do you think he looks bad enough?’

‘Perhaps not,’ Ramon said judicially. ‘A soupçon, perhaps. A little touch here, a little touch there.’ He leaned forward and proceeded to widen some of the already existing rents in Hamilton’s clothing. Navarro stooped, touched some small animal lying on the floorboards, brought up a bloodied hand and added a few more artistically decorative crimson touches to Hamilton’s face, neck and chest then leaned back to examine his handiwork critically. He appeared more than satisfied with the result of his creative workmanship.

‘My God!’ He shook his head in sorrowful admiration. ‘You really have had it rough, Mr Hamilton.’