Jack Ludlow - A Bitter Field

He had to put the box down on the top step, where there was a bare light bulb, to look at the napkin and get his bearings — which was a bit of luck, since he heard a creaking himself; it was an old building cursed with loose boards. Someone was coming along from what he had identified as the main part of the building to the passage that led to the staff quarters.

There was no time for subterfuge. Cal headed for the first door and was relieved it opened to reveal a deep cupboard which, by the smell, he reckoned was full of linen. The door he closed behind him as soon as he laid the box on the floor, and he had the knife out and ready, prepared to kill and hoping that if someone came in it was not a maid.

That he would have to take a life he knew; this was too important to let anything like finer feelings intrude, and besides, he was in the frame of mind he had been in many times in his life: when it came to kill or be killed there was not much room for sentiment.

The creaking had become boots, which thudded as they reached the bare floorboards, rising then falling off as they passed the door, a slight shadow coming under where there was a gap that let in light. He waited for silence, then sheathed the knife and opened the door to peer out. Sure it was clear, he picked up the box and tiptoed off.

Going to his own room first was a risk but he wanted that Mauser in case he was disturbed. He would use the knife for preference but up against anyone armed only a bullet would save him. The weight of that in his jacket pocket dragged it down to one side in a way that would show anyone who saw him what he was carrying — that had to be accepted.

To see the lobby deserted was a surprise, but as Veseli had said, even the guests had gone to the event in the square, it seemed, and where he might have been seen by the guards had they looked round, he was safe from that for the same reason.

He was halfway across when the sound made him stop dead, that was until he realised it was snoring, and when he looked behind the desk there was the porter who had taken his luggage to his room, slumped in a chair fast asleep.

‘You, old son, are in for a very rude awakening,’ he said very quietly to himself as he walked away.

Where would Hitler be by now? He looked at his watch, mildly surprised at how little time he had used to get this far, a mere twenty minutes; the Fuhrer would have hardly got going. Access to the office suite was by a heavy five-bar lock that, had he not had the key, would have needed some of Mr Nobel’s finest to get it open.

How the hell Veseli had got such a key he did not know, but then he had no idea how long they had been planning this operation. He went through and locked it behind him. That napkin had told him where the emergency exit was, at the end of the corridor, and he checked that first.

The heavy wooden door to Henlein’s own office was locked too, and that was a setback solved by the blade of his hunting knife, not without a tearing sound that had him still and listening for half a minute before he entered to find that the large windows gave him enough light from the street to see.

First stop was the radio, which he switched on to warm up, turning the volume dial right down low even before any sound emerged. Then he put the Mauser on top of the safe, butt out, where he could get at it easily. Next he took the bulb out of the overhead light and put it in his pocket, then put on the gloves, using his knife to cut into the explosive packaging, his nose wrinkling at the increased smell.

He had no option but to employ what professional safe-crackers would call a ‘jam shot’, something he had learnt from one of Snuffly Bower’s mates, which came in very handy for blowing off the steel doors of bunkers or places where arms were stored. The Nobel 808 being malleable, he could press down the lock side of the safe in a continuous strip, jamming it into the very small gap.

It looked feeble but he knew the force even a small amount could produce: an almond-sized blob properly placed would blow any normal door to bits. The radio was warm now so he gave it a bit more volume and spun the tuner till he heard that rasping voice from Deutsche Rundfunk. Ear close to the speaker, he could hear that Hitler was getting a bit hoarse; by the end of his peroration he would be rasping.

What 808 he had left he packed as close to the lock as he could, which created a mass into which he could insert a detonator, that then connected to wires, they in turn being threaded into the terminals on the plunger. Carefully he took that and opened the door to the hallway, placing it outside where he would fire it, using the solid wall of the old building to protect him from the blast. Then he settled down to wait.

Peter just made his train by a hairy taxi ride from the Gare du Nord to l’Est and was able to settle down to sleep in a comfy couchette, this while Vince was fuming and still being denied access through the last checkpoint. It had taken all day for Noel McKevitt to find a hose that would fit the Humber but he was back on the road, barrelling north, using his diplomatic passport and plates to get through every checkpoint as a priority case.

Not that such progress was smooth: given the number of cars held up and the sheer quantity that had to move to facilitate his advance — not to mention the fulsome and loudly expressed curses he got for his temerity — each one took an age, so that when he arrived at the checkpoint where Vince was waiting it was dark, and fulminate as he might, it seemed the army had priority on the road ahead and not even a diplomat could make progress.

Sitting on the floor, gloves off, Cal was listening to Hitler as he started to heap insults on Czechoslovakia, which was a miserable little country which dared to call itself a democracy but was suppressing its inhabitants… in this state there were three and a half million Germans (his voice was really hoarse now)… the misery of the Sudetenlanders was terrible… Benes was a liar and a cheat… on and on he went and each part of his increasingly deranged tirade was met with great repetitive cries of ‘ Sieg Heil! ’ from the audience.

It was the climax of the speech he was waiting for, that last point where Hitler would sweep his right hand like a sword across his chest, the sweat flying from his brow, his shirt soaked and his eyes aiming off to some point beyond those who were listening to him, to a Valhalla where even the gods of the Nibelungen were sat bolt upright in amazement at his brilliance.

Cal turned the radio up a fraction and moved out of the door to where the plunger lay, closed the door as much as he could without damaging the wires, slid down so his back was to the wall and listened, his pistol near his hand, to the berserk spectators creating a din that was now so loud Hitler could hardly be heard. He then took the lever in his hand. Faintly he could hear those in the square, loud enough to echo through the streets and penetrate solid walls.

‘I’m sick of the sound of you, old cock,’ he said, then twisted and pressed hard before immediately jamming his hands to his ears and opening his mouth.

To him it sounded as if the earth had caved in, but he had no idea how it sounded outside. Perhaps the folk at the rally thought thunder or maybe, since half of them subscribed to beliefs in mythical deities, that the gods had spoken; he had no time to wonder — he just picked up the Mauser and went in.

The room was a mess: Henlein’s desk was mostly matchwood, the window panes blown out so compressively they seemed to have gone in one piece, only breaking when they hit the cobbles below. Out came the bulb to be screwed back in, and then the light could be switched on; it made no difference who saw that now.

The door of the safe was hanging open and there was the smell of burning, probably some of the contents. Hauling to get it right open he looked inside and started rifling through the mass of papers, pushing aside bundles of banknotes.