“Well don’t leave it too late. Come up in good time to change the cylinders.”
The FBI agent smiled through blue lips.
“I doubt that’ll be necessary. It’s too cold to stay down much longer.”
He readjusted his mask, bit on the mouthpiece and dived to rejoin Dingle.
*
“They’re going to be cold when they come up,” said the Director. “I’ll go back to the truck and make some soup. I’ll put it in flasks and bring it back here. We should have thought of that before and fetched it with us.”
Jones nodded, his teeth chattering.
“I’ll go if you like sir. I might be able to move more quickly than you – and the exercise would warm me up. You could watch this line until I get back.”
“Are you suggesting that I’ll have trouble climbing the hill?” demanded the SS(0)S chief ominously.
“No sir. I just thought…”
“Well I think you’d better stay here. They might want some help soon, so you’d better be prepared to go in.”
“Yes sir.”
As the Director walked away, Jones sighed and began to fix on his cylinder pack, mask and other equipment. It took him almost five minutes to fit a fin satisfactorily over his false foot, but at least the exertion warmed him a little.
Down below, things were going well and the two divers made rapid progress.
The flotation bags were quickly fixed to the safe which, since it weighed one hundredweight, they had worked out would need about two cubic feet of air to lift it.
Holding their breath, Dingle and Ritchie took out their mouthpieces and inserted them into the necks of the bags.
The bags inflated – and up went the safe, looking like a cube-shaped space capsule swinging from twin parachutes.
Once again, they had misjudged the diminished gravitation and the safe began to run away to the surface. It hit the ice, but didn’t break it, with a thump that startled Jones nearly forty feet away on the surface and deafened the men in the water.
The divers reached the safe quickly and tilted the bags to spill some of the air and make the safe more manageable. They wanted it to float just below the surface, so they could push it easily to the exit hole.
They had just achieved this state when Dingle felt the three tugs on his arm… the emergency signal from Jones.
*
The Director was just about to light the stove when he heard the shots.
He dropped the matches and, snatching up a rifle which had been hidden under one of the bench seats in the back of the truck, began to run back towards the lake.
From the road, he could look down at the lake over the tops of the trees. He could see the sledges and the hole in the ice – but there was no sign of Glyn Jones.
Suddenly, a movement attracted his attention. He raised the binocular to his eyes. A diver, fully kitted up, was walking awkwardly across the lake from the trees towards the hole. He was followed by another, and then another. Behind them came two more men dressed in ski jackets and trousers. One of them the SS(0)S chief had never seen before. The other was Kohner.
The Director swore softly. He’d been right. Kohner had headed for the lake – but he’d taken them by surprise. The Director had not expected the Germans to arrive until much later. But that was no excuse. He cursed himself for his carelessness. He should have guarded their rear. Now, Jones had probably been shot and had fallen into the water, while Dingle and Ritchie were trapped beneath the ice.
The SS(0)S chief lifted the rifle to his shoulder. The men were just within range. He knew he could pick off two, possibly three of them, but the remainder would have time to regain the cover of the trees. He hesitated, wondering if the better tactic would be to get down to the shoreline and catch them all out in the open.
The trouble with that plan, he reasoned, was that by the time he got into position the three divers might have taken to the water… and Dingle and Ritchie, outnumbered and taken by surprise, would be in grave danger.
He took up the first pressure on the trigger, the leading diver in his sights… and then the decision was taken away from him. The five figures on the lake were blotted from view by the snowstorm, which had threatened for hours.
Climbing the wall at the roadside, the Director dropped into the snow on the other side and half ran, half slid down through the trees.
The snow was still falling when he reached the edge of the ice, but not so heavily. Visibility was good enough for him to see the hole… and to see that only two men were there.
The big man’s heart sank. That meant that the three, divers were in the water. Blind fury rose in him as he thought of Glyn Jones and James Dingle, his two best agents.
Soon, possibly at the conclusion of this operation, he had intended to retire; and he had intended that either Jones or Dingle would take over from him. Now it seemed neither would.
He thought of Dingle, the lean, hard, cold man of action. Would an executive desk have restricted him too much?
And Jones, the little Welshman who was always terrified before a mission, but who was always cool in a crisis. Would he have been too soft-hearted? Would the demanding job of head of SS(0)S have destroyed his sensitive soul completely?
The Director smiled as he remembered how he used to pretend to be angry with Jones; and he guessed that the Welshman’s fear of that anger was not as real as it seemed.
The smile faded as he remembered another loyal friend of years ago… Jamie Macleod, the man who had given his life to save the Director.
All those men, those friends, had died because of one man – Gerhard Kohner.
The SS(0)S chief was filled with hatred as he sighted the rifle on the bulky figure of his old enemy. Gently, he took up the first pressure then slowly, deliberately, squeezed the trigger.
Kohner jerked back and sat on the ice. Through the telescopic sight the Director could see the look of fear and amazement on the SSD man’s face before he fell back, with his head hanging over the edge of the hole, and lay still.
Quickly, the British secret service chief swung the rifle to cover the second man. The man’s frightened expression filled the telescopic sight as he took up the first pressure.
And then hatred died. Reason took over as the Director remembered what he had told the Israeli Intelligence colonel in London: “There is a time for vengeance. But first, for my country, there are other things to be considered.”
There were still other things to be considered. The job wasn’t finished yet. Somehow, even without Dingle, Jones and the American, the Director had to get that safe.
Kohner’s companion was standing now, hands held high, and he was shouting something.
The Director released the pressure on the trigger. Why not? he thought. He could do with some help. At gunpoint, he might be able to persuade this man and Kohner’s divers to land the safe for him.
Slowly, the SS(0)S chief walked across the ice, towards the hole, rifle at the ready.
Chapter Twenty-One
When the first bullets thwacked the ice near Jones’s feet and the echoes of the shots rang out, he didn’t hesitate. He gave three sharp tugs on the guideline and dropped through the hole.
Even as he jumped his experienced ear told him that he was being fired at by a 9mm. Schmeisser machine-pistol switched to fire single shots… which was why they’d missed him. Careless of them, he thought, to open fire too soon. Sub-machine guns are accurate only at pistol ranges up to about fifty yards. The trees, where the shots came from, were at least seventy-five yards away.
Quickly, he followed the line towards Dingle, cursing because he hadn’t had time to anchor the end in the ice at the hole. He hoped they’d be able to find their way out.
Dingle and Ritchie came to meet him; the Welshman pointed upwards and then swung both hands in an arc in front of him, imitating a man firing a machine-gun.
The three men swam back to the hole. Through the open
ing they could see the sky, the backdrop of snow-covered trees – and five men, three of them in diving gear, walking towards them.
Dingle unsheathed his knife and signalled to his companions to separate. The three waited at various points around the hole, with knives ready. The plan was to take each diver as he entered the water.
But the newcomers were smarter than that. They stood around the hole, facing outwards; and at a given signal jumped in together, back to back, so that they formed a tight defensive circle. All of them were armed with seven-inch stiletto knives, and one of them – the one nearest to Glyn Jones – had a ready-charged spear gun.
Jones was vaguely aware of the threshing bodies around him as his companions joined in battle with their opposite numbers. And he was vividly aware of the spear, which was snaking towards him.
He saw it coming in a slow-motion nightmare as he tried to turn away. He almost got clear, but not quite; the wicked point skewered the shoulder of his wet suit and sliced the length of his arm.
He felt the shock of the impact and the icy, numbing water rush into the ripped suit. Then he was trying to turn to meet his enemy, who had thrown away the spear gun and was descending, with knife poised, to finish him.
The force of the spear had spun Jones too far around, the cold water in his suit slowed him down and, despairingly, he knew he could never make it. Then the German was upon him, riding on his back with a fierce arm lock round his neck.
He struggled frantically and broke the hold – but the man’s arm slid up over his face and shifted his mask. The water poured in and Jones kicked out wildly in a literally blind panic.
With water in his mask, he could not see; a little had gone up his nose, and he thought he was drowning. He was completely at the mercy of the German now, and it could be only a matter of time. A very little time.
And suddenly, amazingly, he was free. The weight on his back lifted.
Jones drifted for a moment; then he felt someone tapping hard on his face mask and a strong, friendly hand gripped his wrist.
Panic subsided, and the Welshman knew what he had to do. Holding the top of the mask he breathed hard through his nose, forcing the water out of the bottom.
He could see again – and there was Jason Ritchie, peering anxiously at him through the window. He could see him only dimly, because they seemed to be floating in a cloud of mud.
Jones raised a thumb to indicate that he was all right, but Ritchie pointed urgently to the Welshman’s left arm, and he realized where the cloud was coming from.
He was swimming in his own blood from the spear wound.
Something brushed past him and he turned to see the body of the man who had so nearly killed him. His air pipe had been cut.
Jones realized that the big American must have dealt speedily with his own opponent, seen him in trouble and hurried to help.
The FBI man pointed upwards, and Jones looked up to see two bodies writhing in deadly combat. Dingle still had a fight on his hands.
Ritchie and the Welshman ascended quickly and circled the contestants for a moment to identify them. They were easily distinguishable; Dingle was wearing a twin pack while the German had a single cylinder.
And then Jones noticed that Dingle’s movements were sluggish. He thrust himself forward to grasp the German’s ankles while Ritchie moved in from above to slice his air pipe. It was all over in a flash.
Anxiously they moved alongside Dingle, who was pointing at his cylinders. In the exertion of the fight, he had used up his air rapidly and it was almost exhausted.
Ritchie pointed towards the hole, but Jones shook his head, miming. The American nodded. He’d forgotten the man with the Schmeisser.
The Welshman sucked in huge lungfuls of air, held his breath and thrust his own mouthpiece into Dingle’s mouth. They moved up to the surface, taking it in turns to breathe Jones’s air – and to attack the ice with their knives.
A few feet away Jason Ritchie was also hacking at the ice with his knife. He knew his own air supply was dangerously low.
It was slow, tiring work, and it took nearly five minutes for them to cut two holes – and for Ritchie, it was just in time. He and Dingle stuck their snorkels up through them.
The two men were now immobilized, spread-eagled against the underside of the ice. But at least they could breathe.
Jones, free to move again, swam cautiously towards the exit hole.
He stopped uncertainly when he saw the face of Gerhard Kohner staring down at him. There was bright red blood trickling over the rim of the ice, and at first, he thought the SSD chief was dead, until he saw his eyes move.
Kohner still had the Schmeisser hugged to his chest and his finger was even now tightening on the trigger. Jones watched helplessly as the bulk of the Director loomed in the aperture.
Kohner spun around suddenly, and Jones heard the shots. Then the German was staring down into the water again; but this time the face was lifeless.
The shots had come not from the Schmeisser, but from the Director’s rifle.
From Jones’s position, it was like gazing up into a two-way mirror in which he saw the Director’s face… a terrifying mask of loathing and hatred of an intensity that he had never before witnessed. He watched, mesmerized as his chief walked slowly up to Kohner’s body to kick it deliberately into the water.
Only when the gross object had sunk out of sight beneath him did Jones surface to gaze into the barrel of the SS(0)S chief’s rifle.
He spat out his mouthpiece and raised the mask.
“Don’t shoot sir,” he said. “It’s only me.”
The Director leaned forward quickly to help him out.
“Thank God!” he said quietly. “What about Dingle and Ritchie?”
The Welshman pointed out across the ice to two little black sticks which poked up a couple of inches.
“Those are their snorkels. They’ve used up all their air. I think it’ll be safer if we smash the ice over there and bring them straight up.”
He looked across at the remaining German, who was still standing with his arms over his head.
“Who’s he?”
“I haven’t had time to find out yet,” replied the Director. Then, raising his rifle and turning to the German: “Who are you?”
“I was Herr Kohner’s deputy. My name is Rudolf Scherl.” The SSD man was shivering, more from fear than the cold. “Don’t shoot. I want political asylum.”
“You mean you want to defect?”
“Call it what you like – but I daren’t go back to East Berlin.”
“You won’t do that,” the Director promised ominously.
“I can help you.”
“And you can start right now,” Jones interrupted. “Pick up that axe and help us to break the ice.”
*
Within twenty minutes the two men had been released, the safe had been hauled up successfully and Jones’s badly gashed shoulder had been bound up.
Dingle blew the safe with plastic explosive.
“Can you fetch another crowbar from the sledge?” he asked Ritchie. “This door is a bit stiff.”
“Sure.”
The American turned away, and Dingle immediately opened the door. He removed a blue envelope and handed it quickly to the Director, who stuffed it inside his anorak.
“Okay Son,” Dingle called out. “I’ve managed it, but can you bring a container to put these papers in?”
“I’ve got a funny feeling,” said the FBI agent sourly, as he helped to empty the safe, “that these documents have got damn all to do with the case I’m working on. On the other hand,” he eyed Scherl speculatively, “I’ve got an idea that he can help a lot.”
“Yes, yes. I’ll help,” Scherl said eagerly.
“Would you happen to know anything about an East German operation to raise money on the American and British markets by offering pre-war German bonds for sale.”
Scherl nodded. “Yes.
Yes. I can give you a list of all our agents who are handling them. It was an SSD operation, and I helped Herr Kohner to plan it.”
“Okay buddy boy. You and me are going to have a long chat when we get back to civilization,” said Ritchie.
The Director beamed. “And then everyone will be happy. You can pass on the information to our Mr. Dyer at the Yard.”
He looked at the safe, which was now empty, and added: “Get that thing back into the water and then stow everything back on to the sledges. I don’t want anything left to connect us or our German colleagues with any of the goings-on here. Don’t forget that when this ice melts in the spring, there are going to be a few bodies floating around in this lake.
“Let’s get a move on, and then we can get back to the truck and the soup I was going to heat before I was so rudely interrupted.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“A VERY satisfactory operation, wouldn’t you say?” The Director, back in West Berlin’s Bristol Hotel, was in a jovial mood. “I think everything went very well, don’t you?”
Jason Ritchie turned away from the window and cleared his throat nervously.
“Well… er… I hate to mention it, sir, but my orders are specific.”
“What is it man? Come on, out with it.”
“The list sir. I’m told to insist that the United States Government is given a copy. I imagine it’s the blue envelope Mr. Dingle smuggled to you on the lake sir. If you don’t give me a copy, an official request will go to your Government.”
*
Mueller walked down the corridor. He seemed to be in a daze.
“I’ve been locked in that room for so long, I thought you’d broken your word. You found the safe?”
“Yes,” replied the Director. “I found it.”
“And it contained what you wanted?”
“It did.”
“And now I’m free?”
“Yes.”
“Free.” Mueller breathed the word again and his eyes gleamed with excitement. “And Hilde? Is she here? I haven’t seen her since the day you brought me here.”
A Time for Vengeance Page 11