Алистер Маклин - River of Death

Von Manteuffel smiled and spoke for the first time. ‘I’m afraid you all want a great deal. And I’m afraid you’re not going to get it.’

There came a loud crashing of glass and simultaneously the barrels of three sub-machine-guns protruded through three smashed windows.

Von Manteuffel smiled contentedly. ‘Any person found with a gun on him will be shot out of hand. Do I have to tell you what to do next?’

He didn’t. All guns were dropped on the floor, including two that Hamilton had not known that Spaatz and Hiller were carrying.

‘So.’ Von Manteuffel nodded in satisfaction. ‘So much better than a blood bath, don’t you think? Simpletons! How do you think I have survived for so long? By taking endless precautions. Such as this little press button my right foot rests on.’

He broke off as four armed men entered and watched them in silence as they searched the captives for further weapons. Predictably, they found none.

‘And the rucksacks,’ von Manteuffel said.

Again the search failed to turn up any weapon.

Von Manteuffel said: ‘I would have a word with my old friend Heinrich, who would appear to have come a very long way for nothing. Ah, and this man.’ He indicated Hiller. ‘I gather he’s an accomplice of my dear ex-comrade in arms. The rest – take them and their pestilential luggage across to the old grain store. Perhaps I shall be subjecting them to some intensive and, I fear, very painful questioning. On the other hand, perhaps not. I shall decide after I’ve had my chat with Heinrich.’

The old grain store was built entirely of beautifully cut and fitted stone without any mortar whatsoever. It was about twenty feet by twelve, and had three storage bins on either side. The sides and the partitions of the bins were made of heavy adze-cut wood. A single weak and naked electric lamp, suspended from the ceiling, burned in the centre of the store. There were no windows and only one door-opening without a door, which the presence outside of a man with a cocked machine carbine made superfluous anyway. There were no furnishings of any description. Hamilton and his fellow captives had nothing to do but to look at each other or at the sentry, who faced them, his elderly but no doubt still lethal Schmeisser levelled directly at them: he had about him the look of a man who was yearning for an excuse to use it.

Navarro finally broke the silence. ‘I fear for the health of our Mr Smith. Hiller, too, come to that.’

‘Never mind about their damned health,’ Hamilton said. ‘Start fearing for your own. When he’s finished with those two who do you think is next on his list, whether or not he indulges in a little torture beforehand?’ He sighed. ‘Trust old trusty secret agent Hamilton to tell all. Von Manteuffel knows who I am, who Maria is, and who you two so-called Greek intelligence officers are. He can’t let us live and I’m afraid he can’t let Silver or Serrano live either – obviously.’

‘In the meantime,’ Serrano said, ‘could I have a word with you?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘In private, if you please.’

‘If that’s what you want.’ The two men moved to a corner of the room where Serrano spoke in a low rapid tone. Hamilton lifted his eyebrows and his face registered surprise, an emotion he had practically never betrayed. Then he shrugged his shoulders, nodded twice, turned thoughtfully away and looked at the sentry.

‘Big man,’ Hamilton said. ‘My size. Black from head to toe – beret, jacket, trousers, shoes. I want those clothes. More importantly, I want that gun. Even more importantly still, I want them both fast.’

‘Easy,’ Ramon said. ‘Just ask him.’

Hamilton didn’t reply. Savagely, almost, and to the accompaniment of the indrawn hiss of Maria’s breath, he bit the ball of his left thumb. At once the blood began to flow. He squeezed the torn flesh until the blood flowed even more freely, then smeared it over Ramon’s uncomprehending face.

‘All in the interest of art,’ Hamilton told him. ‘Brother, what a fight this is going to be.’

The ‘fight’ started in the corner of the store, just out of the sentry’s line of sight. The sentry would have been less than human not to locate the source of the sound of the heavy blows, the shouting and swearing. He moved forward into the doorway.

Hamilton and Ramon were belabouring each other mightily, fighting in apparently vicious fury, kicking and punching and obviously intent on inflicting grievous and mutual bodily harm. The sentry was clearly startled, but not suspicious. He had a heavily brutalised face behind which there lurked no great intelligence.

‘Stop that!’ he shouted. ‘You madmen! Stop it or–’

He broke off as one of the combatants received a seemingly murderous blow and came staggering to fall flat on his back, half in and half out of the doorway, eyes turned up in his head, the face masked with blood. The sentry stepped by him, ready to quell any further signs of trouble. Ramon’s hands closed round his ankles.

Four men prepared to carry three blanket-covered, stretchered forms from von Manteuffel’s room. Von Manteuffel said: ‘It can be fatal to allow an enemy to live longer than is necessary.’ He paused, briefly, for thought. ‘Over the side with them. Think of all those poor starving piranha. As for our other friends in the grain store, I don’t think they can supply me with any more useful information. You know what to do.’

‘Yes, Herr General,’ one of the men said. ‘We know what to do.’ His face was wolfish in anticipation.

Von Manteuffel glanced at his watch. ‘I will expect you back in exactly five minutes. After you’ve given the piranha their second course.’

A figure, dressed all in black, faced the grain store with a levelled Schmeisser in his hands. He heard the sound of footsteps some way off and glanced quickly over his shoulder. Four men – the four who had disposed of Spaatz and Hiller – were about thirty yards away: their machine carbines were shoulder slung. The dark figure continued to gaze at the door of the grain store, waited until his ears told him that the approaching group were no more than five yards away, then swung round with his Schmeisser blazing.

Maria said in a subdued tone: ‘You play for keeps, don’t you? You didn’t have to kill them.’

‘True. True. But, then, I didn’t want them to kill me. You don’t play footsy with cornered rats. Those are desperate men and you can bet that each one is a trained, efficient and practised killer. I don’t much feel like apologising.’

‘And no need,’ said Ramon who, like his brother, had remained unmoved by the proceedings. ‘The only good Nazi is one who has stopped breathing. So. Five guns. What do we do?’

‘We stay here because here we’re safe. Von Manteuffel may have thirty, forty men, maybe even more. Out in the open we’d be massacred.’ He glanced down at the stirring figure of the sentry. ‘Ah! Junior is coming to. I think we’ll send him for a little walk so that he can apprise his boss that there’s been a slight change in the status quo. Remove the rest of his uniform – should give von Manteuffel quite a turn.’

Von Manteuffel was making some notes at his desk when the knock came on the door. He glanced at his watch and smiled in satisfaction. Exactly five minutes had elapsed since his four men had departed, just over two minutes since he had heard the burst of machine-gun fire which could only have signalled the end of the six captives. He called out permission to enter, made a final note, said: ‘You are very punctual,’ and looked up. His self-satisfied expression surprise vanished and his eyes opened almost impossibly widely. The stumbling figure before him was clad only in his underclothes.