Colin Forbes - The Leader And The Damned

'Four o'clock. Train leaves in thirty minutes. Get something inside you. I brought breakfast up.'

Breakfast was one slice of dark bread which tasted like sawdust sprinkled with charcoal. There was a chipped mug containing some liquid he couldn't identify. Sitting at a small table he looked at Paco.

She was wearing a faded head-scarf tied under her chin which hid her blonde hair. A heavy bolero-style jacket and a cheap skirt which billowed out completed the new ensemble. It made her look plumper.

He finished the bread and swallowed the rest of the liquid. The battered old suitcase stood on the floor. He gestured towards it.

'We take that?'

'Yes, you carry it. We change clothes again when we arrive at the refuge in Graz. Any talking needed at the station you leave to me. I've already got our tickets. Ready?'

'No! So let's go…'

He picked up the working man's cloth cap and pulled it down over his forehead. The clothes felt strange – and not only from sleeping in them. The material was stiff and unyielding. He had picked up the case when he caught sight of himself in the cracked wardrobe mirror.

'I haven't had a shave…'

'I want you whiskered, you clot! You're a peasant. Some people can't think of the simplest things…'

'Oh, stop your nagging, for Christ's sake!'

'That's better,' she told him. 'I want you alert. We go out by the fire-escape – the receptionist says a policeman is watching the front entrance…'

The fire-escape was a rusted contraption clinging precariously to the side of the rear of the building. It led down into the narrow alley Lindsay had seen from the bedroom window when they had arrived.

'I don't like the look of this…'

'Go on!' she hissed.

One of the metal treads gave way under his weight, then stabilized at a slant. Bora and Milic were waiting for them in the alley. Lindsay noticed Bora also carried an ancient suitcase. Both men were clad in peasant garb. Paco pushed past them and Lindsay followed her out of the alley into the open.

Smoke. In the pre-dawn atmosphere the whole district appeared to be shrouded in smoke. It was the relics of the overnight fog. They passed the silhouettes of slum tenements and then he had his first glimpse of the grim building which was the Sudbahnhof. More like a prison than a railway station.

Stooped figures like ghosts drifted towards the building. He followed Paco inside the booking-hall where more figures huddled in the cold, formed queues behind the ticket windows. They went through the door on to the platform. A train stood waiting with destination plates attached to the coaches: Graz. At this moment he saw Gruber, the Gestapo chief from the Berghof.

'Do as I tell you and don't bloody argue…'

Lindsay grabbed Paco by the arm and held on tightly. She was compelled to stop and he knew she was furious. He didn't care. Gruber! Suddenly he was alert. The taste of his filthy breakfast was forgotten. He glanced both ways along the crowded platform.

'What the hell do you think you're doing?' she whispered.

'Keep still a minute!'

He kept hold of her arm, forcing her to do his bidding. Two youths who had been strolling towards him stopped in their tracks. They were the youths who had attacked him with an iron pipe. Lindsay, sensing Gruber's closeness to his left, stared hard at them.

The one who had run away saw him first, said something to his companion, who then also stared back at Lindsay. They turned away. They began to run, knocking down an old woman in their haste. It became a commotion.

' Halt! ' Gruber's voice, a harsh shout. 'Halt, I say – or we fire!'

Gruber rushed straight in front of Lindsay, a Luger in his right hand, followed by two more men also holding pistols. The three men stopped, aimed their weapons. Lindsay counted six shots. One of the youths flung up both hands like an athlete at the winning tape and crashed forward on to the platform. The second youth screamed, stopped, grabbed his left leg and sank down on one knee.

'Come on! Now!'

Lindsay hustled Paco aboard the train, glanced back, saw Milic and Bora close behind, and pushed Paco along the corridor. She found an empty compartment and sank into the corner seat next to the corridor. He closed the door as Bora and Milic moved on to another compartment.

'That was Gruber of the Gestapo,' Lindsay said quietly, heaving the case on to the rack. 'He questioned me before we escaped from the Berghof…' No point in telling Paco about the existence and location of the Wolf's Lair. 'Those two thugs thought I was going to point the finger at them. They saw me, they saw Gruber – Gestapo written all over him. They panicked – as I hoped. The perfect diversion for us. Any comment?'

He sat down and she leaned her head back and studied him. Her breasts were heaving as she struggled to get her breath back. She smiled.

'You really have learned fast, haven't you, Lindsay?'

It was all over Vienna in no time – the news that the Gestapo had shot one of the two murderers of a German soldier and had the other in custody. Gruber saw to it that the triumph was broadcast. This put the Gestapo one up against the SS and the Abwehr. What he did not foresee was that within twenty-four hours this would bring Hartmann to Gestapo headquarters where the surviving deserter was to be interrogated.

Hartmann had no difficulty in persuading the officer on duty to give him access to the prisoner. He simply waved Bormann's document under his nose.

At that moment Gruber was preoccupied in his office trying to get through to the Berghof.

'I am Major Hartmann,' the Abwehr officer informed the deserter who was lying on a bed in a cell with his leg bandaged. 'You realize your position? You will be tried and sentenced on the evidence of the soldier who survived your brutal assault…'

'It was Gerd who killed him…' the youth protested.

'If I am to help you,' Hartmann interrupted, 'you must tell me what happened at the Sudbahnhof. I cannot understand why you panicked. No one had seen you…'

'The man and the girl had spotted us…'

The youth stopped as though he had said too much. Hartmann leaned forward as he raised a warning finger.

'I am short of time. I am the Abwehr. Once I leave here you are alone – with the Gestapo. What man, what girl?'

'The previous night we stopped them near the Sudbahnhof. The funny thing is they were dressed so differently I might never have recognized them at the station – but the man kept staring at me…'

Hartmann had the whole story out of him in ten minutes. The youth had seen the man and the girl boarding the Graz train. Hartmann stood up, called the guard, left the cell and left Gestapo headquarters.

Reluctantly he decided he had better report his findings to Bormann before he headed for Graz.

The Bureau Ha, the section of Swiss Intelligence which dealt with Lucy, was based in the Villa Stutz, eight and a half kilometres from the suburb where the Roesslers had their apartment.

This three-storey, stucco-faced building was tucked well out of the way in a discreet location on a lonely cape projecting into Lake Lucerne. From the outside it had the appearance of being the residence of a wealthy Swiss. No uniformed soldiers were ever seen in the vicinity; its wrought-iron double gates were guarded by men in civilian clothes.

It was to the Villa Stutz that Roger Masson summoned Roessler to an interview in his office at midnight. The late hour was chosen deliberately. It enabled Roessler to make the trip to the Bureau's headquarters without being seen. At that time – as Masson knew – Switzerland was swarming with German agents who had slipped across the frontiers.

Masson sat stiffly behind his desk as the stooped figure of Roessler was shown into the room. This alone made Roessler nervous – it was unlike Masson who normally greeted him in the most friendly manner. The Swiss launched his verbal onslaught as soon as Roessler was seated opposite him.