Colin Forbes - The Leader And The Damned

'I'm going to exercise my legs…'

'I need coffee – I'm parched,' Maisel replied and walked on.

Hartmann waited until he had disappeared, then picked up his bag and walked rapidly across to the small Fiesler-Storch parked near the runway where a pilot stood smoking. He stubbed his cigarette quickly as Hartmann approached.

'Gustav Hartmann,' the German introduced himself breezily. 'I phoned from Vienna for a feeder aircraft to take me on to Spielfeld-Strass.'

'At your service, Major. Erhard Noske. May I take your case?'

'Fuelled? Ready for immediate take-off?'

'Of course, sir! Your orders were explicit…'

Five minutes later Willy Maisel, a cup of coffee in his hand, stared out of a window as the tiny plane took off, gained height and turned on a south-easterly course. Swallowing the rest of the coffee, which tasted like real coffee – these rustics out in the wilds knew how to take care of themselves – he ran to the control tower.

The plane which just took off. Who was aboard? What is its destination?'

'All flights are subject to the most stringent security. Who might you be?' enquired the late-middle aged Austrian.

'I might be Gestapo…' Maisel produced his identity folder. 'I am Gestapo. You want me to ask you again in words of one syllable?'

'Major Gustav Hartmann of the Abwehr is the passenger. He is flying to the airstrip nearest Spielfeld-Strass…'

'Bastard!'

'I beg your pardon – I have answered your questions.'

'Not you. At least I don't think so,' Maisel replied drily.

The airstrip materialized like a conjuring trick. They had flown the whole way from Graz in a heavy overcast, grey damp clouds like the thickest of ground fogs. Hartmann – who disliked flying – had spent most of the time trying to recall that there were no mountains in the way between Graz and the border. They dropped like a stone.

The airstrip – no more than a preserved grass runway – lay beneath their landing wheels. They were down before Hartmann had time to adjust to the fact that they were landing. A Mercedes stood waiting, two men in the front seat.

'Very efficient of you, Noske,' Hartmann commented as he shoe-horned himself out of the plane and accepted his bag from the pilot. 'To have the car I ordered waiting. And a chauffeur as well, I see. The other man is a guard?'

'I have no idea who those people are,' Noske replied.

'You haven't? I see,' Hartmann responded grimly and took his time lighting his pipe.

He walked slowly to the open Mercedes, pausing to get the pipe going properly. There was an icy breeze blowing across the hard, rutted field. Let them ruddy well wait his convenience. It was Colonel Jaeger – with Schmidt beside him – who greeted Hartmann affably.

'Jump in the back seat! I'll drive you to Spielfeld-Strass. That is your destination, of course?'

'Of course.. Hartmann settled himself comfortably as though he had expected the two SS men to be waiting. He continued the conversation while Jaeger steered the car across the bumpy ground on to a nearby highway.

'Since when has the SS taken to tapping my phone calls? I used a phone at your headquarters. to avoid Gruber..

'It's by way of a compliment,' Jaeger replied. 'Your reputation for solving the insoluble is nation-wide.'

`You know something?' the Abwehr man commented. 'If we spend so much energy spying on each other, the Allies and Russia will have won this war before we realize what has happened.'

'You suspect Lindsay went over at Spielfeld-Strass?'

'Someone did,' Hartmann replied non-committally.

'We've just come from there…' Jaeger's tone changed, a bleak note entered his voice. 'It's a bloody terrible business that took place down there…'

'What do you expect? Someone tosses a match into an ammunition wagon.'

'It wasn't a match – it was a grenade,' Jaeger growled and his eyes met Hartmann's in the rear-view mirror. 'Waffen SS troops died in that holocaust…'

'A lot of people died when Goering carpet-bombed Belgrade…'

Jaeger was so furious he jammed on the brake and swivelled in his seat. 'Whose side are you on, anyway? Tito's?'

'I was a lawyer before this bloodbath we call a war started,' Hartmann said mildly. 'My job was sometimes for the prosecution, sometimes for the defence. That way you get to look at other people's point of view. Are we going to get to Spielfeld-Strass today?'

Jaeger released the brake and resumed driving at speed along the winding country road. His expression was grim. He was blazing with rage. He carefully avoided meeting Hartmann's eyes in the rear-view mirror a second time. The Abwehr officer placidly smoked his pipe.

Once Schmidt turned round and stared at their passenger briefly, the ghost of a smile on his face. Hartmann knew what he was thinking. You devious bastard…'

It was Schmidt he would have to watch, Hartmann reflected. A police chief before the war, his mind was attuned to analysing motives. Hartmann had deliberately provoked the bluff Jaeger to distance himself from the SS colonel – and Schmidt had understood his tactic.

Jaeger remained silent until he drove the car down the country lane past the railway station and pulled up in the hollow where the Spielfeld-Strass frontier post had stood.

The scene was dramatic. The catastrophe had occurred at eleven-thirty in the morning. It was now three in the afternoon. A gigantic crane mounted on a flat-car was slowly backing away towards Graz, drawn by a steam-engine. Army engineers, their work completed, stood drinking beer.

Fresh track had been laid, renewing the link between Austria and the line continuing south to Zagreb in Yugoslavia. Hartmann stepped out of the car and again threw Jaeger off balance with his opening remark.

'With organization like this we should still win this war.'

'It is essential communications be maintained,' Jaeger responded gruffly. 'Along this route travel all the supplies for twenty divisions engaging the guerrilla forces. Twenty divisions! Can you imagine what we could do with those transferred to the Russian front?'

'Perhaps the Fuhrer should have gone round Yugoslavia rather than through it,' Hartmann suggested.

'And let the Allies launch an attack on our flank?'

'They have yet to do that in Spain. Neutrals – they're worth their weight in gold. They don't tie up priceless troops. Tell me, did anyone survive?'

A large canvas structure had been erected on the edge of the hollow and Hartmann had observed a medical orderly entering the marquee. Jaeger gestured towards it.

'A Captain Brunner was the only survivor. The extraordinary thing is he was apparently inside a flimsy wooden but when hell broke loose. The but just vanished but he escaped with little more than shock. So they told me over the phone.'

'I think I'll have a word with him…'

Hartmann started to walk towards the marquee. Jaeger fell in beside him, followed by Schmidt. The Abwehr man stopped and removed his pipe. His manner was quite sharp.

'Alone, I meant. Now would it be sensible to confront a shock case with an SS colonel, an SS captain and myself? He will feel overwhelmed – may even suspect we're interrogating him prior to arrest. Bormann will certainly try and make someone responsible for this debacle. Who is made to order for the role? The sole survivor.'

'All right.' Jaeger's agreement was grudging. 'We'll see him later.' His sense of humour asserted itself. 'Unless, of course, you bring us a detailed report of every word Brunner says. Every word!'

'Of course!'

Hartmann's tone expressed amazement that Jaeger should imagine any other outcome was possible. On his way to the makeshift field hospital he checked to make sure he was carrying a pack of cigarettes. In the past they had worked wonders in interrogations. The medical orderly came out of the entrance.