He looked toward the girl.
She stood silent, rigid, quietly looking out through the large crack in the side of the barn. Looking down the little road that snaked peacefully through the wooded hills. She had stood there for hours….
Sig glanced at Dirk. He knew the anguish his friend was feeling.
By now the Haigerloch test had been run. He'd pretty near give his right arm to know what had happened. But all he knew was that they were in greater danger than ever before. A danger that grew with every passing moment….
Dirk had made the right decision. When he'd seen Oskar detained by the SS guards and bad spotted the Gestapo staff car racing into the Sperrzone, he'd known it would be only a matter of minutes before a general alarm was sounded. Not time enough for them to get out of the area without being spotted. And with Oskar caught, they could not risk returning to the house. Holing up in the barn had seemed the only thing to do. But by now eight hours had gone by. If they were to go on to Stuttgart and lose themselves in the big city as they had planned to do if it became impossible to stay in Hechingen, they had better get started. There seemed little chance now that Oskar could talk himself out of his dilemma. If he could have done so, it would have happened long ago…. Forget about escaping. They had him. And he did know of the emergency rallying place at the barn. He could be made to talk. In eight hours. Sig tried not to think about it. But all his senses were acutely alert for the first signs of approaching trouble.
He bit his lip. The mission which right now should have been completed successfully might turn out to be no more than an exercise in futility — if the Gestapo forced the truth out of Oskar. What should have been a time of triumph had become a time of uncertainty and grief.
He looked at Dirk. He felt he had to say something. The brooding silence was getting on his nerves. Any moment he expected to hear the laboring noises of approaching vehicles.
“It worked,” he said, attempting enthusiasm. “Your crazy ambulance trick. It sure worked! It was a hell of an idea!”
Dirk did not look at him.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice lackluster. “It worked. Hell, that gimmick was used a long time ago. Only the Greeks didn't use an ambulance. They used a wooden horse.”
Sig felt a momentary irritation. Shit’ He knew the Trojan Horse story as well as Dirk. He was only trying to pull them out of the doldrums. He didn't need a lecture in history, for crissake! He calmed down.
Dirk walked over to Gisela. He put his arm around her waist and drew her to him. She leaned her head against him.
“He won't come, Gisela,” he said softly.
She looked up at him, dry-eyed. “I know,” she whispered.
“We'll have to leave. Soon,” he said. “It won't be safe here much longer. Oskar knows of this place.” He cursed himself the instant he said it. Quickly he glanced at the girl.
For a moment she closed her eyes. She gave a small sob.
“You will have to come with us,” he said. “You can't return home.”
She nodded bleakly. “What about Tante Anna?” she asked.
“She'll be okay,” Dirk assured her. He hoped he sounded convincing. “There's no way they can connect her to the raid. We made sure every scrap of uniform material was removed from her shop.”
“She is Oskar's sister,” Gisela said tonelessly.
Sig joined them.
“We'd better take off,” he said.
Dirk nodded. He turned to the girl.
“Gisela,” he said earnestly. “You do understand?”
She nodded heavily.
“Look. You know this area?”
“Yes.”
“How do we get to Stuttgart?”
“This road.” She glanced out the crack in the barn side. “It runs into the main Tübingen-Stuttgart highway. Just outside Hechingen. It is only two or three kilometers.”
Dirk frowned. “Is there a way to get to the Stuttgart road without getting too close to Hechingen?” he asked. “A back road? That joins it?”
“Yes,” she said. “Over Rottenburg. It does not link up with the main road until around Tübingen” She frowned. “It is a little longer that way. Maybe ten, twelve kilometers.”
“That's okay.” Dirk looked searchingly at the girl. “Will you show us?”
She nodded.
“I will show you.”
Dirk drove the ambulance as fast as he dared along the narrow, winding mountain road toward the village of Rottenburg. Every foot traveled, every second spent out in the open, increased his edginess. Dusk was beginning to mantle the countryside. Soon he would be forced to turn on his lights or be reduced to a snail's pace.
He felt dangerously exposed. Like a tin duck moving across the target line in a shooting gallery.
They had sixty kilometers to cover before they hit the city of Stuttgart….
Gefreiter Meissner stared incredulously through his binoculars. When he and Keller had been ordered out on their bicycles to patrol an area of the hills north of Hechingen in search of a verschissene ambulance, the last thing in the world he'd expected was actually to find it!
“Donnerwetter!” he exclaimed. “By thunder’ There it is.” He pointed.
Far below on a winding road a gray ambulance, the red cross prominent on its side, was careening into the mountains.
He whipped his map from his pocket. With a stubby, dirty- nailed finger he searched and traced.
“That would be the road to Rottenburg,” he said excitedly. “And Tübingen.”
He glanced at his partner.
“Josef-Maria!” he exclaimed. “Close your mouth before a bat flies in! And get on the verdammte radio!”
He had learned nothing.
Hours of questioning, threatening, investigating had produced not a single lead. And Reichardt had not the slightest idea of why the reactor had failed! There was obviously something radically wrong with either the geometry of the pile — or the theory itself.
Harbicht clenched his teeth.
The saboteurs had vanished. And the ambulance. Had they had time to lay a false trail? If they had, he was totally unaware of it. He had no trail to follow. False or otherwise. Frustration was bitter in his throat.
He paced his office. He was not satisfied with the evaluation of the reactor failure made by Reichardt and his staff. Not at all. The nagging suspicion that there was an aspect of the case totally unperceived refused to leave him. Capturing the enemy saboteurs was imperative. When he did, he would find the answers. He was convinced of it. But he would have to wait until he had something concrete before he went to Reichardt — or over his head, preferably. Had the saboteurs had inside help? Inside information? If so, from whom? That might be another source of information to shed light on what really had happened. As it was, he was left with a single lead.
A dead man.
There was a knock on the door and Obersturmführer Rauner hurriedly entered. He had a notebook in his hand. Harbicht turned to him.