He fingered the tube.
The two enemy agents had once again been within his grasp. Once again they had eluded him.
They were both still at large in Hechingen….
He pocketed the tube.
He turned on his heel and left the attic room.
There was much to be done….
Dirk lay on his bed. He felt exhausted. Physically and mentally. His injured arm ached from the exertion. Now came the waiting….
The goddamned waiting…
Had the Gestapo bought it?
He looked around the stuffy basement room. It seemed oddly empty — without Sig.
And if they had bought it — would it be in time?
Had he succeeded in convincing them that all their scatter-raid captives were worthless to them? Including Sig?
He had agonized over exactly how many “clues” to leave behind. He could not afford to be too obvious. He and Oskar had to be the decoys. And from past performance, he had to assume that his adversary was a man clever enough to read much from little — and come up with what had to look like the right answers.
Had he succeeded?
He would have to wait and see.
That stupid, God-awful waiting…
There was a small knock at the door.
He started. He was getting really jumpy.
“Come in,” he called.
Gisela opened the door. In her hand she held a small bowl and some clean bandages.
“I have taken care of the cut on Onkel Oskar's arm,” she said. “He told me you were cut also.”
“It's just a scratch,” he mumbled.
“I will look at it,” Gisela said firmly. “It must be kept clean.”
She came over to his bed. She placed the bowl and the bandages on a stool. “Let me see,” she said.
Obediently he rolled up his sleeve. The cloth stuck to the clotted blood. He winced as he pulled it loose.
Gisela looked at him, a little frown of concern on her soft face. She sat down on the bed beside him. “It — it does not look so bad,” she said, her voice husky. She took his bare arm and placed it in her lap. Gently she began to bathe it, loosening the crusted blood. The water was lukewarm. It felt good. Soothing…
He moved his hand in her lap — and suddenly he was intensely conscious of her firm, warm thigh under the thin dress. A flush coursed through him.
The girl stiffened. But she did not move. She stroked his injured arm. Gently. Tenderly.
He let his hand caress her thigh. He had never known his fingertips to be so aware. He was conscious of his heartbeat pulsing in his throat.
The girl lifted her face to him. Tears brimmed in her eyes as they looked into his.
“You — you could have been killed!” she whispered. “Both of you. And I was the one who had to… had to…”
She buried her face in her hands and wept.
He reached up and drew her down to him. He cradled her in his arms. He felt an overwhelming tenderness. Her warm, soft body moved against his, seeking his strength — and all of a sudden nothing else mattered, nothing else existed.
He stroked her hair. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed the tears from her eyes, her cheeks. Her skin was soft as velvet where his lips touched. The musky fragrance of her mounting excitement fired him.
Her lips met his hungrily, and he drank their sweetness.
She strained against him.
Fumblingly, awkwardly — yet every motion a caress — they freed one another of their unwanted clothing. The cool nakedness of her body burned against his….
And they merged deeply one into the other — oblivious to all else — until that moment when the world compressed to the confines of his bed; when eternity imploded into mere seconds; when all tension crumbled, all disquiet vanished….
6
Sig sat bolt upright. In the distance he could hear heavy hobnailed boots clanging sharply on the cement floor of the cell-block corridor.
They were coming for him!
He tried to steel himself, but despair washed over him. His heart pounded. His palms were sweaty, his mouth dry. He felt weak.
The fateful footsteps rang in his ears. He prayed they would not stop at his cell. They did. The sound of the iron bolt being thrown back hit his mind like a mailed fist. The door was flung open.
Outside stood two grim SS men. One of them consulted a list.
“Brandt, Sigmund,” he snapped.
Sig nodded. He did not trust himself to speak.
Curtly the guard motioned to him. “Come!”
Numbly he walked between the two guards. He tried not to think of what lay ahead of him. But it was all there was. Fear was a cold, hard knot in his guts.
The guards marched him into a bleak courtyard. The gray morning was raw and cold. Against a far wall a group of prisoners were lined up. Twenty, thirty men. Guarded by armed SS men. His guards walked him toward the group.
Sig's legs were leaden. He stared with horror at the men in front of the wall. It — it was not possible….
One of his guards gruffly motioned him to join the group. He did, moving like a somnambulist.
They waited in silence. A few more prisoners were herded out into the courtyard and added to the group at the wall.
An SS non-com, a Scharführer, entered the yard. All eyes followed him as he approached the waiting group. He held a list and began to read names from it in an unpleasant, high-pitched voice. The men answered dully. Sig started as his name was called. He heard himself answer as from another world.
The Scharführer put his list away. He surveyed the men.
“You are being released,” he shrilled at them. “You will return to your assigned work at once! You will now form a single line and pass by the Einhaltstelle over there.” He pointed to a couple of non-coms, one with a large box at his feet, the other with a clipboard in his hands. “You will inform the Rottenführer where you work. Verstanden? — Understood?”
He did not wait for an acknowledgment. “Los!” he shouted. “Schnell! Schnell!”
Quickly the men began to file by the two non-coms.
Sig was stunned. The tightness of relief in his throat threatened to choke him. He swallowed. Hard. His eyes smarted. He was going free! He did not know how. He did not know why. He did not even want to think about it. They were letting him go!
He found himself in line with only half a dozen others in front of him. Work? Where? He suddenly grew sober. What would he tell them? It would have to be specific. He listened. He tried to hear what the men ahead of him were saying.
“… Landowski, Herr Rottenführer.”
“Arbeitsstelle?”
“Sperrzone Haigerloch, Herr Rottenführer.”
The non-com made a note on his clipboard.
“Next!”
Why not? Sperrzone Haigerloch — the restricted security zone around the reactor-cave entrance. At least he'd been there. Knew a little about the place. He'd have to play it by ear. Things were happening too fast for planning.
It was his turn.
“Name?”
“Sigmund Brandt, Herr Rottenführer.”
“Place of work?”
“Haigerloch Restricted Zone, Herr Rottenführer.”
The non-com made his note. “Next!”
Rummaging through the box in front of him, the other SS man came up with a large envelope. He threw it at Sig.
“Your belongings,” he said. He pointed to a field-gray Volkswagen parked nearby. “Go to that car. Wait!”
Sig found himself with two other men. A Pole and a Frenchman. Only these three had given the Haigerloch Restricted Zone as their place of work. They eyed one another in silence.
An SS man came over to the car.
“Get in!” he ordered.
The three men piled in.
A few minutes later Sig was on his way to Haigerloch….
Obersturmführer Rauner sat at his desk staring glumly at the order he had received late the night before. Verflucht nochmal! That truly pissed down the drain his chances of getting somewhere. He had been so sure he would be able to come up with a real hot suspect. He had marked two of the scatter-raid subjects for special interrogation this morning. He was all set. An Italian sheet-metal worker, Tittoni or something, and that Swiss technician, Brandt.
But — there it was: