To our right there were three sharp explosions. They were followed by bright flashes of light. “That’s the diversion on the right,” Padillo said. “Now on the left.” Two seconds later there were three more blasts followed again by the light. “They’re a hundred and fifty yards to our right and left. Molotov cocktails. They should draw the Vopos. Their machine pistols are good for only a hundred and ten yards. Watch the blind.”
I watched the building that was 150 feet away. It could have been 150 miles. We could hear the police shouting orders to the left and right, their voices distant but penetrating. Somewhere a siren began. The blind that we had been watching began to rise slowly. It seemed to inch its way to the top of the window, it paused, and then suddenly it dropped.
“Now!” Padillo barked.
Searchlights began to play fitfully on the wall but lost their effectiveness in the dusk. I took my gun from my pocket and ran. A machine pistol chattered from my left. I kept running, scanning the top of the wall. I could hear Burchwood and Symmes panting and scrambling behind me. We pushed through the wire and were at the wall. “Where’s the goddam ladder?” I whispered to Padillo. He stared up the rough gray blocks.
Suddenly a blond head poked over the wall. “Be right with you chaps. I had to snip the wire,” the head said; “now just let me get the pallet over the glass.” A thick brown pallet made of two blankets sewn together, thickly stuffed and padded, was flopped over the top. Then the head reappeared with a reassuring grin. “Just a moment,” it said. “Have to straddle the thing to get the ladder up.”
He was young, not more than twenty. He got one leg over the wall and sat astride the stuffed pallet. “Embarrassing if any of that glass worked through,” he said calmly. “Here comes the ladder.” It started up over the wall. “My name’s Peter,” the blond kid said. “What’s yours?”
He had it balanced on the wall when the shout came. It couldn’t have been from more than forty feet away. Then the faint, not quite yellow light settled on the kid. His mouth opened to say something more, something casual perhaps, but the bullets slammed into him. He teetered for a moment on the wall as if trying to make up his mind which way to fall. But he was past caring. The ladder balanced crazily for a moment and then tilted up slowly and slid out of sight on the other side. The kid fell forward on the pallet, rolled to his left, and followed the ladder.
Padillo turned and fired three shots at the light, which was still focused at the top of the wall. I got off three more in the same direction. The light went out and there was a yell. More shouts of command were coming from both our right and our left. There was another burst of machine-pistol fire. “Back to the car,” Padillo ordered.
“I can’t move,” Symmes said.
“Are you hit?”
“No — I just can’t move.”
Padillo slapped him sharply across the face. “You’ll move or I’ll kill you.” Symmes nodded and Padillo shoved me ahead. “You first.” I ran back to the building and down the passageway to the street. Max’s face, a white blob of pure fear, was peering out of the window. I jerked open the back door and held it for Symmes and Burchwood, who threw themselves in. Padillo paused at the entrance to the passageway and fired three shots. A machine pistol answered him. He darted around the front of the car and lunged for the door as Max raced the engine. Before he had the door closed the Wartburg was at its peak in low gear and Max was noisily wrestling it into second.
“The garage, Max,” Padillo said. “It’s only a half a mile away.”
“What happened?” Max asked.
“They got lucky or Kurt’s people got careless. The bombs went off O.K. and they gave us the signal. We got to the wall and there was this blond kid—”
“Very young?” Max asked.
“Yes.”
“That would be Peter Vetter.”
“He was on top of the wall, pulling the second ladder up and making introductions, when a spare patrol dropped by. They shot him, and the ladder went with him. On the other side. Either Mac or I shot out the light, and we ran like hell.”
“My God, my God,” Max murmured.
Symmes buried his head in his arms on his lap and started to weep uncontrollably. “I can’t do any more,” he sobbed. “I don’t care what happens — I just can’t. You’re all awful, just awful, awful!”
“Shut him up,” Padillo ordered Burchwood.
Burchwood gestured helplessly. “What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know,” Padillo said irritably; “just shut him up. Pat him on the head or something.”
“Don’t touch me!” Symmes screamed.
Padillo reached back and grabbed a handful of the long blond hair. He jerked Symmes’s head up. “Don’t flake out on us now, Jack.” His voice crackled harshly. His eyes seemed to burn into Symmes’s face.
“Let go of my hair, please,” the blond man said with a curious kind of dignity. Padillo released him. Symmes slumped back into the seat and closed his eyes. Burchwood patted his knee tentatively.
Max made the half-mile in two minutes. He pulled down a side street and honked the horn in front of a none-too-prosperous-appearing Autozubehör. He honked the horn twice more and the grimy door slid open. Max drove the car inside. The door closed behind us. Max killed the motor and rested his head wearily on the steering wheel.
“I’m like our friend in the back seat,” he said “I can’t do much more. It’s been a very long day.”
A fat man, wearing dirty white coveralls and wiping his hands on a piece of waste, walked up to Max. “You’re back, Max?”
Max nodded wearily. “I’m back.”
“What do you want?”
Padillo got out of the car and walked around to the fat man.
“Hello, Langeman.”
“Herr Padillo,” the man said. “I did not expect you back.”
“We need a place to stay tonight — four of us. We also need food, some schnapps, and the use of a telephone.”
The fat man threw the waste into a can. “The risk has increased,” he said. “So has the price. How long will you be staying?”
“Tonight — maybe most of tomorrow.”
The fat man pursed his lips. “Two thousand West German Marks.”
“Where?”
“There is a basement. Nothing fancy, but dry.”
“And the telephone?”
The man jerked his head toward the rear of the garage. “Back there.”
Padillo took out his revolver and casually transferred it to his slacks waistband. “You’re a thief, Langeman.”
The fat man shrugged. “It’s still two thousand Marks. You can call me some more names if it makes you feel any better.”
“Pay him, Max,” Padillo said. “Then take those two down to the basement. Be sure Langeman gets you the food and schnapps. For that price, he can throw in some cigarettes.”
Max, Langeman and the two Americans moved toward a door at the end of the garage. I got out of the car and walked around it slowly. I was old and tired. My joints creaked. A tooth hurt. I leaned against the front fender and lighted a cigarette.
“What now?”
“You still have Maas’s number?”
I nodded my head carefully. There was danger that it might drop off.
“Let’s call him and see if he still wants to do a little business.”
“You trust him?” I asked.
“No, but have you got any better ideas?”
“I ran out last night.”
“His price was five thousand bucks — right?”
“It was. It’s probably gone up, if I know Maas.”