But the enraged military man's fingers curled around the edge of the flimsy covering and yanked so savagely that the elastic straps ripped clean away from the mask and he found himself staring into the horrified eyes of his own daughter! For a timeless instant he gaped at her, thunderstruck with astonishment and total disbelief.
"Suzy!" he cried wildly. "But how…? Why…? What on earth…?"
And then, dropping his face momentarily into his hands as he remembered: "Oh, my God…!"
Susan flung herself weeping on his naked chest, her hands clasping and unclasping on his muscular shoulders.
"Oh, Daddy!" she sobbed helplessly. "Oh, Daddy…!"
Gently but firmly, Templar disengaged himself.
"We'll see about this shit!" he said grimly, striding towards the door.
"Daddy, don't!" his daughter screamed. "They'll kill you! They have a gun!"
He shook his head. "Not now," he said. "I know the way these merchants work. They've already got what they wanted. They'll be out of here in a flash if I don't stop them."
He seized the door handle and tugged. The door was locked.
"Fuck!" Colonel Templar said feelingly.
He dashed across to the corner where his clothes were neatly folded over a chair and yanked his revolver holster from the pile of garments. The holster was empty. His gun was gone. Breathing heavily, he began frantically dressing himself.
"W-w-w-what are you going to do?" his daughter quavered.
"If I can't shoot out the lock, I'll kick the door in," Templar said, drawing on his boots.
"B-b-b-b-but suppose they're waiting outside and they…"
"I know what I'm doing," Templar cut in. "They won't!"
"Do you… do you mean I'm free then?" Susan faltered.
"Yes, darling, you're free. I'm the one that's trapped now!" her father said.
"But I don't understand…" the girl began in bewilderment.
"Later," the colonel said curtly.
He picked up a black leather dress hanging from a hook behind the door and tossed it over.
"Put this on over those things. We haven't time to find your own stuff now."
As the voluptuous teenager eased the tightly shining garment over her ripely swelling breasts and smoothed the skirt down past the corset hugging her slender waist, he stepped back three paces and launched himself at the door, shooting out his foot at the last moment to crash against the woodwork just above the lock. The door shivered but held. Templar retired and hurled himself forward a second time. His heel thudded jarringly against the wood and the panel above the lock splintered. But still the door remained locked. Again the American slammed his heel against the woodwork with all his weight behind it. This time the whole panel split from top to bottom and the lock sagged drunkenly from the frame. Templar dragged the door open and charged out into the corridor.
The doors to the three rooms from which Heinz and the others had taken the photographs stood ajar. Each was lit with a low-power red bulb; each was furnished exactly like the one they had just left – a divan, a couple of chairs, large mirrors, a washbasin, an old-fashioned wardrobe. In one, huge photo blow-ups of naked fat women wrestling occupied a whole wall. In another, a rack supporting a collection of whips, canes, chains and strange appliances in leather and steel stood next to a bizarre trestle table equipped with wrist and ankle cuffs. The spy hole shutters in all three were open. But of Stefan, Lisa and the others there was no sign. Susan sniffed. There was a hint of tobacco in the air and layers of blue smoke wreathed above the crimson lamp.
"Now I know they've gone," she said. "Heinz always has an unlit cigarette in his mouth; he only lights it when the job is done!"
"We'll just make sure," the colonel said grimly.
But the other rooms on the floor were empty and unlit. So were those on the floor below. On the ground floor, the door to the front room with the exhibition windows was open… but there was nobody there and the lights were out. The front door itself was barred and padlocked. They hurried through to a kitchen and liquor store at the back. There was a cool, moist draught blowing through an open window and the back door was not quite closed. Outside, they found themselves in a narrow unlit alley parallel with Herbertstrasse. There was nobody to be seen. Templar breathed heavily.
"Just as I thought," he said. "The birds have flown! They must have taken the place over for the evening and paid Elsa to preside just as though business was as usual! I'll see she never gets the chance to operate again, the bitch!"
Standing beside him on the greasy cobbles, the bright lights from the far end of the alley casting a halo around her dark hair, Susan looked the picture of puzzled bewilderment in the sophisticated knee boots and tight leather dress that served only to accentuate her youth and innocence.
"What are you going to do?" she queried nervously.
"Do my damnedest to get my hands on those pictures!" the colonel said.
"But why? Couldn't we just… Why not go to the police? There's a precinct house just across the street. I saw it as we came in. It must be just beyond the end of this alley."
"This is not a matter for the police!" her father snapped. "Look – the place where they've been keeping you: is it far? Could you find it again?"
"I… I think so. It's not far. Just around the corner really. Across that big street with all the lights, and then about two blocks away on the left."
"Hmm… that must be off the Grosse Freiheit. The car's parked in front of the police station. You can show me the way. Let's go!" Templar said.
Seizing the girl's hand, he ran down the alleyway towards the lights. Dodging through the laughing, singing drunken crowds streaming from the Zillertal, they piled into the colonel's BMW coupe, threaded their way across the traffic choking the Reeperbahn, and drove past the neon signs flashing their invitations to the strip-clubs lining the Grosse Freiheit.
"I think it's the next on the left," Susan said. "No – the second on the left… there!"
Passing the Kleine Freiheit, dark and deserted now that the brothels were closed, Templar turned the BMW into a narrow, twisting street. As their headlamp beams illuminated the shuttered facades, they saw a pale green Volkswagen without lights pull away from the curb at the far end of the thoroughfare and disappear around a corner in the direction of the Reeperbahn.
"There they are!" Susan shouted excitedly. "That's it… that's the house! I recognize it! And that's the car they had down in Siegsdorff… I heard them say some friend was bringing it back for them!"
"Right!" her father said. "They're getting out… with the stuff, no doubt. Well, we'll see about that!"
Treading heavily on the throttle pedal, he sent the BMW hurtling after the green car. They followed the Volkswagen back into the city along the glittering, curving length of the Reeperbahn, turned left to skirt the Rathaus and the long blank wall of the Planten und Blomen, almost caught up passing the bright display windows of the boutiques at each side of Colonnaden – and then sat fuming, waiting for a taxi to turn around ahead of them in front of the floodlit neo-classical entrance to the Fier Jahreszein Hotel.
By the time Templar could squeeze the coupe past, the Volkswagen was half way across the bridge spanning the Aistere. Setting his teeth, the colonel swerved outside a bus, jumped a set of lights changing to red, and roared in pursuit. Traffic on the bridge was heavy. In the dark, still water on either side of them, reflections from the lighted windows of buses mingled with the images of long strings of street lamps garlanding the lake. A crowded ferry ablaze with lights shivered the calm surface just off the pier.
They passed the Atlantic Hotel, circled the central station, and sped along the wide, undulating Heidenkampsweg towards the eastern outskirts of the city. But it was not until they were nearing the approach road to the autobahn that the traffic thinned enough to allow Templar to use the BMW's superior acceleration and close the gap between the two cars. Then, as they passed a modernistic office block gleaming with steel and black glass, an Opel Kapitan driven by an elderly man so short that he could scarcely see, over the rim of the steering wheel pulled out of a side street and blocked their way. A hundred yards ahead, traffic signals showed green. The Opel slowed… and as it drew abreast the lights changed to red.