"Save your breath," the girl in the front seat advised. "Don't you understand, you little fool, he's one of us!"
"One of…?" Susan's voice trailed away into silence. She was thunderstruck.
"Of course, he's one of us!" the blonde continued inexorably. "Why d'you think he's been hanging around you all this time, for God's sake? D'you imagine he just happened to be sitting in that beer-garden in Siegsdorff when you chose to walk by? Don't make me laugh! We'd been following you ever since you left school yesterday!"
The dumbfounded teenager sank back on to a seat with her mind in a whirl. "You… you mean… everything… everything he said… and did… it was all some kind of a set-up?" she queried with a sob in her voice.
"What do you think?" the blonde answered contemptuously.
"But…"
"Look baby, be your age! Do you really think a good-looking kid like him is going to get hot pants all of a sudden for a sixteen year old American brat. You've been on a string for weeks. We thought we'd lost you when your old man cut up rough and refused to let you see him. But we kept tabs on you and then when another deal misfired we came back, and you played right into our hands! You quit school early, went home and came running out into the rain as if the end of the world had come! We followed you to the hospital and then back to Siegsdorff – and we'd just time to plant Stefan before you walked right into the trap!"
Susan was speechless. She didn't understand all this talk of being "on a string" and "deals" and "planting" but one thing was agonizingly clear: Stefan, her adored Stefan, had been deceiving her all the time! It was all a part of some obscure plot; he hadn't meant a single one of all those things he had said! And last night – she felt a hot flush of shame flooding her petite young body as she remembered – last night hadn't meant a thing to him either. It was all part of the plan, a means to make sure she would agree to hitch on the autobahn today!
No wonder he had refused the offers of lifts from the two other cars! He'd been waiting for the mini-bus and nothing else! No wonder he'd known she had thumbed a ride to the hospitaclass="underline" he'd been following her there himself! No wonder she had run into him in the beer garden: he was waiting there just for her! He must have been in that car that passed her just before she got to the village. And finally, no wonder the three youths had so providentially appeared to rescue her from the two hussars and the pirate. They were part of the gang, and it would have upset their plans if she had been spirited away by anyone else! Their role had been simply to eliminate the interlopers and hand her back to Stefan, so that he could get on with the big seduction scene… Feeling more cheated and disillusioned and heartbroken than she ever had before in her whole life, she bit her lip hard to check the tears that threatened to overflow her eyes.
"But why?" she burst out suddenly, struck by a sudden thought. "Why, why, why? What good's it going to do you, after all? Okay, so you tricked me into this truck. Maybe you can take me to Hamburg, if that's where you're going. Maybe the police won't catch up with you when my father finds out I'm missing. But it won't do you much good, I promise you. He's not rich: all he has is his pay. You won't get much ransom out of me."
The girl laughed. "You're not being held to ransom, sweetie," she said.
"Then why…"
"We've got plans for you," the girl said curtly.
And she turned around to the front again and refused to say anymore. Susan looked desperately over her shoulder and saw to her horror that the windows of the Volkswagen had been covered while her back was turned, with Venetian blinds. The youths must have lowered them while she was talking to the blonde in front. They were sitting now, one on either side of her, quite close, staring at her in a speculative way that she found more alarming than anything she had experienced yet. Now she would be unable to fling herself at the glass as they passed slow-moving traffic and mime frantically her appeal for help.
If they were really going all the way to Hamburg, they would have to stop for gasoline – at least twice – probably. Perhaps she could scream for help then. Although, judging from the ruthlessness with which they had dispatched the revelers in Siegsdorff last night, they were quite capable of forcibly silencing her or even binding and gagging her. Her only hope – and one that she had mercifully remained silent about when talking to the girl – was the fact that they did not know she had been in Siegsdorff without her parents' knowledge or consent. They would think, therefore, that she would only be missed when she failed to return last night or this morning, whereas, the alarm would have been given late yesterday afternoon.
If they were trading on this in the hope that they would be well clear of the area before Colonel Templar took any steps to inform the police, there was a chance – a slim one, but it was there – that they could be caught unexpectedly in a road block somewhere along the autobahn. And then suddenly, with a sickening pang of dismay, the frightened girl saw in her mind, as clearly as if she had been looking at a photograph, the breakfast room at home. With her school books on the table. In her distress at the scene she had witnessed from the balcony, she had run straight out of the house without giving them another thought. As soon as her mother saw them there she would know that Susan had come home early for some reason… and she would guess at once that she must have seen or heard something of the debauch with the Burgomaster and the unknown man in her bedroom. Knowing, or believing that she knew, that Susan's absence was because of this, she would do everything in her power to reassure Colonel Templar that there was nothing suspicious about it. She might even say that she had allowed Susan to go and stay with friends for the night.
Her father might not even miss her until this evening when she failed to arrive from school again. And even if her mother had confided in him the fact that she had run away, she would have taken care to disguise or gloss over the real reason, so that in any case he would imagine it was simply some school girl excess rather than a case of foul play. So the police might not be looking for her at all!
Feeling more frightened and more alone than she ever had in her life, the voluptuous young brunette shrank back against the cushions as she cast frenziedly about her for some ray of hope, some idea, however farfetched, that might offer a way out of her predicament.
"Hey, Lisa!" the bulky youth sitting opposite her called out suddenly to the blonde in the front seat. "Don't you think maybe it's time our friend here started her training sessions?"
The blonde turned around, her wide lips curving into a sadistic smile and her eyes glinting.
"Klaus," she said, "you're right! Stefan – take over the wheel at the next pull-out… and you, Heinz, go and help Klaus and Kurt in the back."
Susan's lips were trembling. What could they mean? She watched in dread as Stefan rose and stood swaying slightly, crouched between the front seats while the boy with the unlit cigarette steered the mini-bus at full speed into a wooded parking area at the side of the turnpike. They passed a line of heavy trucks, slackened speed, and then, as Heinz took his foot from the throttle pedal, changed places adroitly before the Volkswagen had rolled to a standstill. Seconds later they were speeding down the curving slip road to rejoin the autobahn. As Lisa turned around to kneel on the passenger seat with her arms crossed on the back, Heinz moved into the rear of the vehicle and stood, his head bent forward by the roof, towering above the fearful girl.
"Take your clothes off," he said quietly.
"W-w-what did you say?" Susan gasped.
"You heard me. Take them off."
"I'll do no such thing!" the captive brunette flared with a pathetic attempt at defiance. "Why, I never heard… I've never…"
She broke off with a cry of pain as Heinz brought up his hand and slapped her viciously across the face. Instinctively she raised her arms to ward off the blow, but Kurt and Klaus moved up quickly behind her and pinioned them to her sides. Heinz shifted his unlit cigarette to the other side of his mouth and began methodically to slap her again, using both hands to assault each side of her face alternately… short, hard, cruel blows that rocked her head on her shoulders, brought tears spurting from her eyes, and made her ears ring intolerably. Once, twice, three times, four times, five times, six times he brought his open palm cracking across her tender flesh.