Slowly, steadily they moved up the slope toward the forest edge. Dirk was aware of shadowy forms advancing on his right and left. Any second he expected a burst of enemy fire to erupt from one of the bunkers and sweep across them — although he knew they were all but invisible in the darkness….
They were halfway across More…
Suddenly he heard it.
For the span of a single thought frame he was back in a bombed-out V-2 assembly plant. Damn Jan!…
The sound knifed through his mind. The muffled click of the detonator mechanism on an anti-personnel mine being set off!
Abu.
He'd stepped on a Bouncing Betty!
He heard the Moroccan swear. One low word.
“Merde!”
“Mine! Hit the dirt!” Dirk hissed at Sig as he threw himself to the ground. He knew that in three seconds the mine would be catapulted eight feet into the air from its shallow tomb in the earth and explode a lethal hail of steel balls and metal fragments in all directions. They were certain to be hit!
Sig was standing frozen. Dirk grabbed at his partner and yanked him down.
The second Abu hit the dirt the mine would shoot from the ground….
But Abu did not move. He stood rooted to the spot.
Dirk felt himself go cold. He knew with sudden lucidity what the Moroccan was doing.
The man stood erect, his foot firmly planted on the deadly device. The mine would not shoot up. It would explode in the ground! It would—
Dirk was on the ground, his face close to the earth. He threw his arms up to protect his face — in the exact instant the mine went off and the raw blast of the explosion slammed across his ears.
Abu's booted foot disintegrated in a crimson splatter. His uniform ripped open as the steel balls tore from the ground up through his mangled leg and through his jacket. Two long red gashes appeared on Abu's face, gone gray with shock, as fragments from the mine gouged the flesh away and sheared off an ear.
Almost at once Dirk heard the machine-gun fire from the forest ahead of them.
He hugged the ground, pressing himself into the soft dirt to get away from the probing bullets….
He took his arms from his face.
Sig was lying next to him — his face ashen, his haunted eyes fixed in horror on Abu.
The Moroccan was huddled on the ground. One of his men was already slashing the tattered, bloodied pants leg from his raw stump, using the long knife. White-knuckled, Abu's strong hands held his leg tightly encircled above the knee, stemming the flow of blood as best he could until his comrade could apply a tourniquet. He seemed oblivious to his injuries as he turned to Dirk and Sig.
Off to the left, the Moroccan patrol was returning the fire from the German MG position. The black night was rent with streaks of fire and reverberated with the sounds of death.
“You go,” Abu said, his voice surprisingly strong. “Get through alone. When you hear grenades explode, you go quick.” He winced as his comrade tore at the blood-soaked cloth stuck to his stump. “You go right.” He nodded. “That way. Stay low. Move fast.” He pointed. “The forest will hide you.”
Sig crawled closer.
“We can't leave you here like this,” he said hoarsely, his voice indignant. “We'll get you back!” He turned to Dirk. “We'll—”
“No!” Abu spat out the word with startling vehemence “No! They said to me it was important you get through. And you will!”
“But—”
“Do not argue!” Abu snarled his order in a fury. “Men will die on this foul earth. Here. This night. So that you may get through,” he growled. “My men. I — perhaps…” His dark eyes bore into. Sig's “There will be no prisoners. No one to betray you. Have no fear!” His voice was bitter. “It shall not have been for nothing! Go on—damn you!”
Suddenly, at a distance, two explosions in quick succession blasted the night air — followed by yet another. The German MG fire died abruptly, to be replaced almost at once by fire from the bunkers. Heavy MG's, searching for this new source of danger…
“You go! Now!” Abu raged. “Now!”
For a brief moment Dirk and Sig stared at the Moroccan; then they jumped to their feet, making for the edge of the forest in broken-field run. Behind them the fire from the bunker guns raked the clearing. Within seconds the din was punctuated by the carunching blasts of exploding mortar shells.
Where there was one mine there would be others. Racing through the pasture, Sig close behind him, at every step — every time his pounding feet hit the ground — Dirk expected the explosion. He had to fight down his impulse to stop and stand— just wait….
Thirty more feet… The firefight raged with renewed fury behind them.
Abu…
The Moroccan goumiers… How many would return?
Dirk felt his eyes smart. Damn — trying to see in the fucking dark…
And the underbrush closed in around them.
They kept running. The forest thinned. Ahead of them stretched a patchwork of fields. Close to the edge of the woods stood a barn.
They ran to it, entered it cautiously.
It was deserted.
They sank down on a pile of hay inside the door.
For a moment they sat in silence — each with his own thoughts.
Sig's face was pale, his eyes bleak. He looked out through the open barn door — out over the night-darkened land before him.
Germany.
Their passage into enemy country had been dearly bought.
Dirk stood up, walked over to the wall.
“Look,” he said. “Look what I found!”
He hauled out a rusty man's bicycle, wheeled it into the faint light from the doorway, examined it.
“Two flat tires,” he said “Otherwise as good as new.” He turned to Sig. “How are you on riding the bar?” he asked.
It was rough going on the flat tires. Sig was perched uncomfortably on the bar of the frame. It cut into his buttocks His rucksack was fixed to the handlebars. Dirk was pumping along the country road. They were a couple of miles from the deserted barn. A broken signpost had read: LANGENWINKEL, 2 KM.
The rolling hills on either side were cultivated. Fields and pastures lined the roadway. Ahead they could make out the darker shapes of farmhouses and barns. That would be the village of Langenwinkel.
They were coming up on a little roadside shrine There would be the painted figure of a Madonna under the peaked roof, Sig thought.
Suddenly two figures stepped out from behind the shrine They planted themselves firmly in the middle of the road, effectively blocking it. One of them, a burly, powerfully built man, raised a gun, aiming it directly at the two riders.
“Halt!” he commanded.
Dirk stopped at once. He almost lost his balance, but managed to steady himself. He was staring down the two black holes of a double-barreled shotgun.
“Get off!” the man ordered. “And raise your hands High!”
14
Standartenführer Werner Harbicht was tired. Tired and irritated. He glanced at the sallow-faced, middle-aged man sitting stiffly perched on the straight-backed chair across from him. Beads of perspiration stood out on the man's bald pate and glistened on his upper lip Distasteful.
It was getting late. Past 2300 hours. He had spent hours questioning the frightened little milksop And had learned nothing. The man had come prepared with reams of records and sheaves of invoices documenting the fact that the gramophone-records company Electrola Musikplatten had used its ordering-number code system for years. With charts and graphs the man had explained their marketing methods ad nauseam. Harbicht had a sinking feeling that he was getting nowhere. But why the devil had that page been torn out? There had been no new developments in the Decker case; the man had vanished without a trace, and now his hunch concerning the Electrola code seemed to be thoroughly refuted.