The door opened.
“Take him away,” he said.
He sat down at his desk. He removed Sig's identification papers from the thick file and replaced them with a few other items. Dirty, dog-eared identification cards. He was ready for the next one.
For a moment he sat and stared at a paper on top of the file. It was a copy of a Führerbefehl. More than two years old. A Führer Order. Never revoked. He read:
All enemies on commando or sabotage missions, even if they are in uniform, armed or unarmed, however captured, are to be slaughtered to the last man. If it should be necessary initially to spare one man or two for interrogation purposes, they are to be shot immediately this is completed.
This last one, he mused. This “Sigmund Brandt.” Was he the one Standartenführer Harbicht so desperately wanted?
Tomorrow…
Tomorrow he would find out.
5
The big clock on the post-office wall showed the time to be just before noon. The place was crowded with people. Gisela had known it would be. It was the hour the foreign mail was available for pick-up. She had selected the time for that very reason.
She walked to the public telephone in the corner. Nervously she looked around. She deposited her coin and waited for the operator.
“Polizei, bitte,” she said, a quaver in her tense voice.
Again she waited. She shielded the mouthpiece with a trembling hand.
“Police?… I want to report two men,” she said in a low voice. “Yes. They are — I don't know — perhaps war profiteers. One is a foreigner…. Yes. I know where they are….”
For a brief moment she spoke rapidly into the phone. Police denunciations were not uncommon in Hitler's Germany, but she did not want to be overheard. She hung up and left quickly. No one paid her the slightest attention. She glanced at the wall clock. It was just past noon….
Dirk looked at his watch.
“Noon,” he said tightly.
Oskar nodded. He took the old cracked porcelain bowl from the battered washstand and half-filled it with water from the handleless pitcher.
Dirk hauled a piece of white cloth from his rucksack. He tore it in half. He rolled up his right sleeve and held a little knife to his skin. Quickly he made a small cut. He squeezed it to make the blood run.
Oskar watched him.
“Not enough,” he said. “It must look to be a bad wound.” He grabbed the knife from Dirk and quickly gashed himself deeply on his left forearm. The blood flowed freely.
He dipped one piece of the cloth in the bowl and soaked up the blood, rinsing the rag in the water. It turned bright pink. He bound the other piece of cloth tightly around his arm, stanching the bleeding.
Dirk gave a quick look around the small attic room. The heavy dead-bolt they had installed on the only door to the place was still unbolted, but the door itself was locked. The massive washstand stood close to it. He threw the rucksack into a corner. He glanced at the single window. It was open.
Again he looked at his watch. It was seven minutes past noon. He felt the tension rising. If he had guessed wrong, it might all be over in a few minutes. For all of them…. He knew the rivalry that existed between the Wehrmacht — the Regular Army — and the SS. He was counting on the same rivalry existing between the local police and the Gestapo. In fact, he was staking his life on it. His. And Oskar's. And Sig's…
Again he glanced at his watch. Nine minutes past. He looked at Oskar. Grim. Waiting…
That was always the worst The waiting…
Ten minutes passed….
Suddenly he stiffened. He listened intently. Footsteps could be heard quickly mounting the stairs.
He got up at once. Quickly he moved to the door. Oskar took up position at the heavy washstand.
The footsteps reached the landing outside. He tried to estimate how many. Three? Four?
His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden loud banging on the door.
“Aufmachen! Polizei! — Open! Police!”
At once he rammed the heavy dead-bolt home. The sound was loud and definite. At the same time Oskar shoved the massive washstand in front of the door.
Dirk was already at the window. Across a twelve-foot-wide alley was another building, a warehouse belonging to the Hechingen Textile Factory. From its gable a thick wooden hoisting beam protruded over the alley four stories below, and from the pulley block hung a rope.
The pounding on the door intensified as the men outside tried to break it down.
Dirk was aware of Oskar piling the thick mattress against the washstand and the bolted door.
And he leaped from the window.
He grabbed hold of the rope. The jar made it slip a few inches through his tightly clenched fists, the friction burning them. But he held on. The momentum of the leap carried him toward the open loading hatch in the warehouse gable. He reached for it with his feet. He let himself be carried as far as possible and then he pushed off with his legs as hard as he could. He sailed out over the alley almost to the house on the other side — and swung back toward the warehouse. This time he swung far enough. He grabbed hold of the jamb and pulled himself to safety — in the same instant he heard the submachine-gun fire.
Let the bolt hold, he prayed silently, just a little longer. Let the mattress be thick enough….
Oskar was in the window.
With all his might, Dirk flung the rope toward him.
Let him catch it!
If not — he, too, would have to jump. And he had not been trained for it.
Holding on with one hand, Oskar leaned out. He grabbed the rope as it came swinging to him. With his powerful legs he pushed off — soaring out over the alley far below. Dirk reached out and grabbed him, hauling him to safety just as the door to the attic room crashed open.
Quickly the two men raced across the warehouse loft. On the far side a grimy window beckoned. They reached it. It was stuck. Oskar kicked it out. On the brick wall outside was a rusty fire-escape.
They swarmed down.
Below stood two bikes. Oskar's. And Anna's.
They were many blocks away by the time Standartenführer Harbicht's car screeched to a halt at the Textile Factory warehouse….
Harbicht was livid.
The police had screwed up everything royally! They knew—dammit! — that the Gestapo was looking for two men, one of them a foreigner. They had strict orders to notify him at once if such men were spotted. Instead the blasted idiots rushed in themselves — and then notified him! Rushed in with half-assed preparations and no thought to covering a possible escape route. It was no damned excuse that the target room had only one exit and was on the fourth floor. Imbeciles! What the devil were they trying to do? Grab the glory? He clenched his jaws. He'd see somebody sweat blood for this!
He looked around the dingy attic room. There was no doubt. It had been occupied by the two enemy saboteurs he was hunting. For some time.
Item. The fresh blood on the rag and in the rinse water in the basin. The man with the recently healed scar on his elbow must have been the one they'd nearly caught in the railroad yard. He must have opened up his wound when he made the leap to the moving train and hit his arm. That would also account for the dropped radio.
Item. A newly installed heavy dead-bolt lock — and the elaborate escape route prepared. Precautions taken not by innocent men — but by trained agents.
Item. A rucksack, empty, left behind. A rucksack like the one carried by the infiltrators at Langenwinkel and at the Lahr roadblock. Empty — except for one tiny object, caught in a fold on the bottom. A small radio tube less than a centimeter long, probably a spare. With the markings: RCA!