by Eddy Shah
'Now.' She sensed his urgency and looked towards him. He nodded. She put the magazine back and followed him out of the shop. He didn't wait for her. The Audi Quattro was parked at the far end of the small, packed car park.
'What's happened?' she asked as she caught him up.
'Our pictures are in the papers.'
'Oh no!'
'Our people will have released them. It's the only way the press could've got them.'
'So everybody's after us.'
'Looks like it.' He unlocked the car and they climbed in, Adam throwing his bag into the back.
'Why not contact them? Tell them what we know.'
'What do we know? That's not going to change anything. We have to keep going, Billie. Just keep going and hope something turns up. Unless...' Adam paused.
'Unless I contact them and leave you to go on. Alone.'
He didn't answer, just switched the engine on and backed out of the car space.
'No,' she continued. 'Not now.'
They joined the evening traffic.
'You must promise me...that if anything goes wrong, you'll run for cover.'
'Not if you need help.'
'Especially if I need help. If I worry about you, if we're in real danger, I won't be able to protect either of us. I want your promise.'
'Okay.'
'Don't lie to me, Billie.'
'I said...' she replied tetchily.'...I said I promised.'
'Good.'
He followed the signs out to the airport to the north. It was a simple route, left onto the Einheit Strasse, up to the Platz Einheit, across the vast square and straight up the 97.
But Adam didn't cross the Platz Einheit, turning left instead into Frederich Engels Strasse. He followed it for two blocks, in the inside lane, then suddenly cut across the traffic to the centre, executed a left U-turn and returned to the Platz Einheit. The traffic he had cut into blared behind him for his boorish driving.
'I've seen this in the movies,' she joked.
He didn't answer right away but kept his eyes on the rear-view mirror. The headlights of another car swung across the central reservation and followed him down the Frederich Engels Strasse.
'Bet it doesn't work as well as in real life,' he replied.
She swung round, but only saw the myriad jostling headlights behind them. 'Is somebody following?'
'I think so.'
'They don't let up, do they?'
'Never do.'
'What next, tough guy?'
'Let's tickle them.' As he turned left at the Platz Einheit and north onto Otto Buchwitz Strasse he explained what he wanted her to do.
'One hour thirty,' she said, when he finished.
'One hour thirty. To the minute.'
'Okay. And if you're not there?'
'Give me no more than five minutes. Then get out of here and go to Berlin. Straight to your people.'
'Five minutes isn't long.'
'It's enough.'
'I love you, Adam.'
He reached over with his free hand, wrapped his fingers round hers and squeezed them. She squeezed back.
Twenty five minutes later they saw the high blue concreted wall on the right, the barrier that had kept the secrets of the Red Army from the citizens of Dresden. The traffic slowed to a halt once again. 'Come on,' he said. 'Now.'
He put the handbrake on and waited for her to slip her legs across the centre console, then lifted himself so that she could slide under him. He fell into the passenger seat and heard her squeal.
'Sorry,' he said. You all right?'
'I'm fine.'
A car honked from behind, the traffic was moving again.
'Where's the handbrake?' she shouted.
'Here.' He released it for her from between the seats.
She put the car into gear and edged forward.
'Remember the route. Stay with the traffic,' he reiterated, opening the Falkplan for her and putting it above the glove compartment.
'Damn it, Adam. Stop treating me like a kid.'
He laughed. 'You take care. And no more than five minutes.'
'You take ca...'
It was too late. As the traffic slowed, he had thrust the door open and rolled onto the tarmac between the lines of cars.
'Adam,' she shouted after him, but the door had already been pushed shut. 'Damn you, tough guy,' she whispered to herself. She glanced in the rear view mirror and saw the headlights of the traffic behind her. Which of those lights were following them? She looked into the back. Which was when she realised the brown holdall was gone.
A car honked from behind, the traffic was beginning to move again.
Adam kept low and dodged between the slow moving cars as he ran to the pavement. Once there, he kept close to the wall and walked northwards. There were few pedestrians about and the dimly lit pavement afforded him the cover he needed. He could see the Quattro's tail lights drawing slowly away from him in stop-start jerky movements. He didn't turn his head to identify the car that was tailing it in case he was recognised. He hoped she'd be all right. Then he switched her out of his mind. He needed Marcus. He needed all the strength he had.
Three hundred yards farther on he neared the double steel gates and the Stermabeitalung who guarded it. He hadn't spotted them standing deep in the shadows.
There were two on duty, both in dark brown, ankle length, leather coats. To the outsider they would be mistaken for smartly uniformed security guards rather than the trained storm troopers they were. They leant against the gate, not expecting trouble as they joked amongst themselves.
He kept walking; there was little point in making them suspicious by turning round and retracing his steps. He knew they were watching him, but he ignored them, was just a worker on his way home. As he drew level with the double gates, they swung open. He heard the whine of electric motors. He slowed to look inside the complex as a black BMW 5 Series swept out and joined the traffic jam going north. Before the gates closed again, Adam had seen the gatehouse and guards on the other side, and the tarmac road that led into the woods behind. He continued up the road until he was well clear of the gate and its watchers.
The wall was topped with rolls of barbed wire and jagged glass stuck into the eight foot concrete slabs. Every fifty metres there was a television camera scanning the road. It didn't take a great mind to work out that this was some security conscious area.
He looked down the road and decided on his course of action. It was unusual, but worth a shot. The traffic had started to move more freely now and he walked to the bus shelter at the road side, and waited
It was five minutes before he saw what he wanted.
A single decker yellow-and-black bus was travelling fast in the inside lane, its headlights dipped and no traffic immediately in front of it.
When it was some ten metres away and was obviously not going to stop at the shelter, Adam stepped right into its path. As he did so he frantically waved it into the side.
The driver, travelling at some eighty kilometres per hour, had little alternative but to stand on the brakes and swing the bus hard right. It swerved wildly towards the wall, bounced over the pavement and came to a stop four feet from the concrete wall.
The driver, swearing loudly as his passengers picked themselves up from the floor and out of each other's laps, opened the front door and jumped down to see what had happened to Adam. There was no sign of him. The driver walked round the bus, then checked the road once again. Satisfied that there had been no accident, he cursed loudly to himself and went back inside.
Adam watched him from the top of the bus. He had scoured up the ladder at the back and now lay flat on the roof. He heard the hiss of the door closing and knew the driver was checking his passengers, making sure that there was no damage. After some time, he finally started the engine and crunched into reverse gear.
Adam came up into a kneeling position and waited for the bus to start moving. As soon as it lurched backwards, he stood up, ran the length of the coach as fast as he
could and jumped over the wall. The coach stopped sharply as the driver heard the footsteps above him and listened. There was no more sound, so he slowly reversed back into the road as the Stermabeitalung from the gate came up to investigate. But there was nothing to see and they soon returned to their posts as the bus continued on its way.
Adam had landed in the clearing between the tree line and the wall. He rolled as soon as he hit the soft earth and crashed into the base of a tree. The impact winded him and he lay still, breathing deeply. When he was satisfied that he was all right and that no-one had heard him, he picked up the brown bag and moved into the safety of the trees.
Within a hundred metres he came across the first tank paths, ghost-like trails that appeared to be already overgrown now, ever since the Russians had pulled out and taken their exhaust belching tanks home on the low loader trains. He'd seen similar paths near Farnborough, But when he knelt down and tested the earth with his hands, some of the tracks seemed fresh. There were fourtrack and wide wheel indentations. He wondered what sort of vehicles had made them.
He followed the widest of the paths northwards and eventually came to a deserted airfield. There were three hangars on the far side, buildings with curved roofs that extended down to the ground so as to camouflage against cameras in the sky. The runway, running east to west, had individual taxiways leading off it from all sides, taxiways to the circular parking bays where Russian helicopters had once parked. He recognised the pattern. He reckoned the guards were in the small building at the easterly end of the runway. There were bright lights inside, and smoke bellowed from the chimney.
He found the two armoured personnel carriers that had made the fourtrack trails, four Jeeps, five cross country motorbikes and two army trucks in the first hangar.
The second, lit by a single row of fluorescent lights, was stacked with large wooden crates from end to end. He crossed over to the side wall where he could watch the entrance while he opened one of the crates. He prized the sealed top open and found Army uniforms, with no insignia marks on them.
A job lot, Marcus. A fucking job lot.
He checked three other boxes before he left. They were the same, full of khaki shirts, khaki socks and khaki singlets.
Someone was buying army surplus, enough surplus to dress an army.
He went into the third hangar. Two Jet Ranger helicopters, two twin engined Piper light planes, one single engine Cessna fourseater and a six seater CitationJet. They all had civilian markings and were German registered. He mentally clocked in all the registration letters; it would make tracing the owners easy when he got back to his own people.
He left the hangars and worked his way towards the centre of the Heidi. He kept to the edge of the tree line and saw nothing until he reached the blocks of apartments that stood in an incongruous group in the forest area. They had obviously been the Russian barracks, with officers and men quartered there. In the centre of the buildings was a square parade ground with a forlorn flagpole. He surveyed it all from the safety of the trees.
Some of the flats housed families, but most seemed occupied by single men. They were identical, skinhead clones with square faces and frightening brutish expressions. Millwall and England football supporters, Marcus. Hard men. Looking for violence. Many of them wore uniforms, even at this time of night. Mustard brown shirts, dark brown breeches, black leather boots. The insignia, a cross with the ends linked up and an eagle's head at the centre, wasn't far from the old Nazi swastika.
Keeping under cover, Adam followed a group who were setting off from their barracks.
Two hundred metres down the road they came to a big old house standing in its own grounds. Though it was brightly lit, it had a forbidding aspect. Next to it was a modern block that the men headed for. Adam approached as closely as he could. It was a large, tiled canteen and was obviously the main social gathering place for the troops. For that's how Adam saw them now. Troops. Men of war.
Storm troopers, Marcus. Brown shirts. Fucking Nazis.
Then he thought of Billie and hoped she was safe. Neither of them had expected this. Nothing on this scale. This was an organisation of trained killers. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of them. And he knew the effectiveness of small forces. The SAS was one. He knew how every SAS trooper counted as twenty or more ordinary squaddies.
Be safe, Billie. Stay with the traffic. Don't disappear into the darkness where they might come after you. Stay with the traffic. He felt the blackness return, felt its clamminess across his brow as he started to sweat. Only this time it wasn't for him, but for Billie.
Stay with it, Adam. He suddenly felt Marcus very close, felt him taking over. Stay with it, Adam. For both of you.
For all three of us, Marcus. For all three.
He checked his watch. He still had forty minutes to run before he met Billie. He was less than five minutes from the road, and he needed another five to get over the wall. He'd seen enough trees close to the boundary to know he could use them to scale over, and his coat would protect him against the barbed wire. Traversing walls like that was part of his standard training. It gave him ample time to check the house.
He watched the canteen building for a while. The men inside, whom Adam had already christened storm troopers, had a close camaraderie. He watched them joking with each other, sharing in the songs. They'd be a tough bunch to deal with, these skinheads.
Then he circled the building and crossed over to the big house. It was lit up like a Christmas tree. Like the other built up areas, the sections immediately surrounding it were floodlit. Even here, this far from the road and behind the protection of the barbed wire wall, security was of the utmost. The entrance to the house was guarded by three storm troopers, all with pistols strapped to their waistbelts. One of them was cradling a sub machine gun in the crook of his arm.
Heavy duty skinheads, Marcus. This is where it's at.
He skirted the house to the rear, but there were guards there also. Two of them this time, both carrying holstered pistols.
Not now, Marcus. Not the time to show our hand. Get out and report back. Tell them this is where Trimmler's road ends. In a boy's camp for Nazis.
There's got to be arms here, Marcus. Dig deeper. You've still got twenty minutes.
Three men came out of the rear of the house. Two seemed ordinary storm troopers, the third was different. He wore a black uniform, black breeches and a flared jacket. The new National Socialist emblem was emblazoned on his armlets and on the badge on the peaked hat he carried. His blond hair wasn't short cropped like the others', but was curly and fell over his collar. At that distance Adam couldn't see the scar that ran down Kaas' cheek.
They moved away from the house complex down one of the narrower paths. Adam followed them from the security of the trees, watched the senior officer talking as the others listened and followed him. There was about them a closeness borne of familiarity.
This is a team, Marcus. These bozos are different.
There were warning signs now to deter people from going farther. The path led to a log cabin with a chalet-style sloping roof in the middle of a clearing. There was no floodlighting here, only a small fluorescent light over the entrance. It was a most secret place.
The three men entered the chalet, the others standing back to let Curly Top in first. Adam circled. There were no windows he could look in; whatever horrors went on within those wooden walls were kept well secluded from prying eyes.
He decided to investigate further, to see if he could gain entry and crossed the clearing towards the front door. There was sand on the ground, about four inches deep, completely surrounding the building.
No-one challenged him.
Carefully he peeked through the glass window in the door. A long corridor ran down the length of the building with doors leading off on both sides.
Go or stay ? Follow my logic or my nose. Shit, why can't I keep out of trouble, Marcus ?
As he turned the door handle to enter the building he saw a storm t
rooper come out of one of the side rooms. He stepped back quickly and slipped into the darkness. He traversed along the long wall, keeping in the shadows.
He wasn't sure whether the klaxon blared first or the perimeter floodlights snapped on, saturating the clearing with harsh blinding light. He must have triggered off one of the alarm beams that ran along the side of the chalet. No wonder they didn't need lights, the alarm system was warning enough. As he ran into the trees, he heard the chalet door open and the shouts of those coming out to investigate. He kept going, didn't stop to see what his hunters were up to.
'Over here,' shouted one of the Stermabeitalung and the others, six to start with, but soon joined by more from inside the building, ran to where he had found the tripped alarm.
'That way. Look,' said one, pointing at Adam's deep footprints in the mixed sand and snow.
The men started to follow when Kaas shouted after them. 'Wait. Get some weapons.' His own revolver was already in his hand. 'And spread out. Oberlieutenants, take charge of your groups. Spread out and find him.' The footprints told him it was only one person. 'And I want him alive. Get going.'
As his men fanned out, Kaas went back into the building and called the east and west gatehouses on the internal phone. Once he had warned them, he contacted Kragan in the main house.
Two minutes later, as Kaas joined his men in the forest, the klaxon alarm sounded at the barracks and canteen buildings. At the same time, the forest path and road lights were switched on and lit up vast tracts of the Heidi.
Adam was under one of the lamps as it burst to life. He moved deeper into the trees. The distant klaxons told him the whole camp was being mobilised. He knew they'd be armed. He dropped the brown bag and took out the Heckler and Koch MP5K sub-machine gun. He pushed a clip into it and rammed four more into his jacket pockets. The Browning was already holstered under his shoulder. He took out the remaining hand grenade that Frankie had given him in New Orleans and slipped that into his inside pocket.
Okay, Marcus. Let's give as good as we get. Time to take the initiative.
He changed direction and started to move north. He could hear vehicles moving along the road, dropping storm troopers off at regular intervals as they started to search the forest. There was a lot of shouting, helping him pinpoint where the search parties were. They had too many people out; there was a good chance they would trip over each other.