As he left the shadows for the back of the weather-beaten house he saw a staff car parked in the shadows. Memling froze in mid-step. After a moment he detected the reddish glow of a cigarette where a bored guard stood beside the vehicle.
For an instant panic threatened to send him into headlong flight, but fierce exhilaration quickly replaced it. They must be waiting for him inside the house, he decided. He watched for several minutes. Not even a window shade moved.
Memling circled through the trees until he could approach the driver from behind. The man carried a shoulder weapon and, as Memling drew the silenced pistol from his belt, knelt to light a second cigarette, unaware that he had signed his death warrant with the first. Memling shot him through the spine.
He hunched into the shadow of the car to wait for his eyes to readjust after the muzzle flash, then examined the area again. Once certain that no other soldiers were about, he dragged the body beneath the vehicle, then moved cautiously to the house to check each window. There were three soldiers inside: two in the front room and a third in the single bedroom. The Zinns were still a lump beneath the blanket. Obviously, the SD had not believed them.
The girl was his major concern, and Memling eased back to the dubious protection of the automobile. His fear had vanished, and he was now thinking coolly and logically. Whoever was in charge inside knew what he was doing; they were waiting for him to walk into the trap, and there was no way he could reach the girl without first killing all three. Spread out as they were, it would be impossible to take them all.
An idea came to him then. He dragged the dead soldier into the trees and searched his pockets until he found a box of matches and the man’s paybook. Using the body as a shield, Memling struck a match.
According to the paybook, the dead driver, one Erik Grubbe, was an unterscharführer, an SS rank equivalent to a sergeant. Good enough, he muttered, and stripped tunic and helmet from the body. The cloth was sticky with blood, and he rubbed a handful of dirt into it to hide the sheen. He slipped his Fairbairn knife from its sheath and a few minutes later was standing beside the bedroom window.
‘Hst! It’s me, Grubbe. Be quiet and come here. There’s someone moving through the trees.’
A shadow appeared beside the window. ‘Where?’
‘There, behind the greenhouse.’ Memling pointed towards a moonlit structure partly concealed by bushes. As the man leaned out for a better look Memling yanked his helmet forward and drove the knife into the base of his skull. He pushed the man’s head and shoulders down, lifting his boots clear of the floor so they would not drum on the wood, and eased the body through the window. A moment later he was standing inside. There had been some noise, though less than he had expected, drawing only a muted order for silence from the front room. He smiled to himself.
The moon rising above the trees was beginning to brighten the bedroom. He bent over the bed and Frau Zinn’s eyes bulged when she saw who it was. He rested the bloody knife against her throat. Her eyes rolled up as she fainted. Herr Zinn was sound asleep.
Memling moved to the doorway. One guard was standing in the centre of the floor, a machine pistol slung over his shoulder, waiting patiently. Judging by his posture, the man was an expert at this business. Good, Memling thought. His actions would be predictable. The second man was sitting at one end of the couch, which had been moved to provide a clear view of the road through the open window. He was relaxed, one arm over the back. As Memling’s eyes adjusted to the gloom he saw that Francine lay, unmoving, in the space next to him. Occasionally he stroked her thigh.
Memling eased back until he was deep in the shadows. The moonlight was now bright enough to cast a patch of silver light through the open window. Deliberately he kicked the washstand, waited a few moments, then did it again. This time the noise drew a sharp order for quiet. He remained motionless for nearly five minutes, then skittered a hairbrush across the floor. The order was louder this time, and to encourage the officer in the other room, he knocked against the porcelain washbasin. That seemed to do it; he heard the sound of boots hurrying across the floor.
As the officer came through the door he would have seen a shadow and felt stiffened fingers thrust into his mouth to prevent a cry, and the searing pain of a knife as it drove into the unprotected flesh below his breastbone and up into his heart. He might have glimpsed his killer in the instant before he died of massive haemorrhage.
Memling eased the man down, mumbling loudly enough for the remaining soldier to hear, then walked into the other room, shaking his head and muttering about incompetence. The soldier had turned as he came through the door, then swivelled back to the window as Memling knew he would. He veered without breaking stride and in a single paralysing stroke drove the knife down into the man’s neck. The soldier went rigid, his back arched. Memling released the knife and put his entire weight behind a chopping blow to the throat. The man was dead before his knees buckled.
Memling had to go back into the bedroom to search the officer’s body for the keys to Francine’s handcuffs. The girl fell against him, barely conscious, and Memling eased her around into the moonlight. They had beaten her badly. Her blouse had been slashed with a knife, and they had used burning cigarettes on her chest and stomach. Memling slipped the gag back on, lifted her on to one shoulder and slung the dead guard’s machine pistol across the other. Francine was like a deadweight as he crossed the yard to the staff car. He had no idea how long it would be until the four dead SD men were discovered, but he knew that both of them had better be damned far away by that time.
He laid the girl on the rear seat and hurried back to the trees for the radio. He started for the house, then hesitated. If the SD knew where to find him, they would certainly be listening for transmissions. If he tried now to get through to London, they would know something had gone wrong. He tossed the radio on to the floor beside the machine pistol – an MP40, he noticed, almost an old friend – and settled into the unaccustomed left-hand driving seat.
The road was deserted, and he drove on until the trees closed in on either side. It took only a few minutes to reach a point where the road ran above the river for a short distance. Opposite, a spit of land divided the river Peene. The channel was deep but rather narrow here, and he stopped the car and lifted out the girl and the machine pistol. Memling then reversed for some distance, put the engine into first gear, and shot towards the bluff. He rolled out at the last moment, and the heavy car leapt the bank, landing nose-first several metres into the river to settle beneath the surface with a sullen belch of air.
Memling covered the tyre marks as best he could, picked Francine up, and shouldered the machine pistol. The water was cold but the current less swift than he had expected. Francine gasped and struggled, but he forced her to swim the stretch of deep water to the island.
Memling allowed them only a few minutes’ rest in the shelter of a clump of willows. Francine was exhausted and wanted only to sleep, but Memling dragged her with him through the trees to the far side. The channel was not as wide here, and they crossed easily. The girl was confused and on the verge of hysteria, but Memling knew that the best antidote was to keep her moving. Relentlessly he drove her along the riverbank, north towards the village of Freest.
The stillness had grown palpable; nothing moved in the night. The moon had been hidden by a bank of cloud moving swiftly out of the north, and the darkness was intense. The storm was signalled only by a blinding flash of lightning and an earsplitting crack of thunder. Wind howled suddenly across the marsh, and the deluge was total; rain lashed by the wind blew at them from every direction. Francine’s fingers dug at his arm in terror, and he hunched down, trying to shield her with his body. The storm front seemed to take hours to pass, and even when it had done so, the rain continued to pour down unabated. The howling wind was unnerving, and without the river as a guide, Memling would have lost direction.