by Mark Mills
“Is something wrong?” the professor asked.
“I’m just a cautious person,” Pippi replied. “Any news from Ilse?” Ilse, the nanny, was under instructions to call the hotel only if there was a problem of some kind.
“No.”
“Good.” Pippi checked her watch. “That means they’ll be at the boat by now. You’ll be seeing them very soon.”
The professor paced around, took a seat, paced some more. He was dabbing the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief when Pippi announced, “Okay, let’s go.” Luke gathered up the professor’s suitcase. “Luke and I will leave first. Follow us in thirty seconds. We’ll be in your car. Get into the backseat. Key?”
The professor produced the car key from a jacket pocket and dropped it into her hand.
The bland black sedan was parked directly in front of the hotel. Pippi unlocked the boot and Luke slid the professor’s suitcase inside. She handed Luke the key.
“Do you mind?”
The engine fired on the third attempt, as the professor was making his way down the front steps of the hotel. He deposited himself on the seat behind them and they pulled away, crawling toward the port at the far end of the street.
Pippi turned to the professor. “You are about to meet two men who have helped us. We trust them, but that doesn’t mean we’ve shared all the details with them. If you hear something that doesn’t make sense to you, you must say nothing. It is very important. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
Otto and Erwin were waiting on the quayside, smoking. Pippi lowered her window and signaled them over. “Get in the back.” They slid in on either side of the professor, quickly figuring who he must be.
“What’s going on?” asked Erwin.
“We’re not taking any chances.”
“But they didn’t follow you, or us,” said Erwin. “We checked.”
“It’s true,” Otto added.
“Who?” asked the professor, forgetting the promise he had made to Pippi just moments ago. “Who’s following you?”
“It’s probably nothing,” she reassured him.
As they skirted the port, Erwin leaned forward in his seat. “I thought you said the boat was north. Why are we going south?”
“Only for a bit,” said Pippi. “We’ll head inland and work our way back to it.”
Beyond the port, the town quickly petered out, giving way to open countryside. The road snaked along at the base of the vine-clad slopes, the lake lying just to their right, glimpsed every so often through the trees. When they hit a straight stretch, Luke accelerated, though not enough to alarm anyone. They had entered the gray area where every minute counted and anything could happen.
A moment later, a car came barreling around the bend up ahead, careering toward them.
“Police!” said Pippi. “Everybody down! Now! Get down!” She, too, ducked out of sight.
The oncoming sedan roared past them, offering Luke a brief glimpse of its driver, a lantern-jawed man with a pencil mustache and a Prussian haircut, close-cropped almost to stubble—details that fitted Pippi’s description of the man who kicked Johan to death. Two other suited men were in the car, and he prayed he wouldn’t see brake lights come on as the vehicle receded in the rearview mirror. He didn’t.
“For God’s sake!” exclaimed Otto. “Now you’re being paranoid!”
“You’re right,” Pippi conceded. “I need to calm down. I need to get some air.”
Good girl, thought Luke. It was a better excuse than the one they’d come up with earlier, and less likely to put Erwin on his guard, which was their most pressing concern right now.
“Here, pull in.” Pippi pointed to the right.
Beyond a screen of poplars stood the inn, tall and timber-framed, just as she had described it to him. The graveled parking area was bordered by a dirt track that ran down to the lakeside and a wooden dock. He saw the motor launch moored beyond a couple of sailboats, but only because he knew it would be there, and was looking for it. He was also expecting to see a woman and three children waiting in it. There was no sign of them. Variables. He and Pippi had thought the thing through from every imaginable angle, but they’d made no allowance for the possibility that the professor’s family wouldn’t show.
Pippi reached for the door handle. As she did, the muzzle of a pistol came to rest at the base of her skull.
The professor panicked, recoiling from Erwin. “My God …!”
“Shut up!” Erwin snapped.
“What are you doing!” Otto gasped. Awkwardly sandwiched between the professor and the door, he fumbled for something in his pocket.
“Don’t bother,” said Erwin. “I removed the bullets.” He jabbed the pistol hard into the back of Pippi’s neck. “Put your hands on the dashboard.” She did as she was instructed. “Start the car and drive back to Meersburg,” he ordered Luke.
It came to Luke suddenly, out of nowhere. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
Erwin turned the gun on him. “Just do it.”
“I’m on your side, you idiot. Haven’t you worked that out by now?”
“Shut up and drive.”
“Why do you think I’m here? Because Borodin sent me.”
“Borodin?”
“Who else? He knew Pippi didn’t trust you after the last time. I’m the insurance.”
It was just enough to give Erwin pause. “Kapitän Wilke didn’t say anything.”
“Wilke?” scoffed Luke. “You think it stops with Wilke? He is nothing.”
“You bastard!” Pippi spat, launching herself at Luke, claws bared like a wildcat. For a moment, he feared she had fallen for it, too, but he felt her hand groping for the gun tucked into the back of his waistband, and he knew they stood a chance.
Erwin was out of his depth, bellowing futile threats at Pippi while trying to separate them. As soon as Pippi had a good grip on the gun, they spun around as one, Luke lunging for Erwin’s wrist, pinning it and the pistol to the roof of the car with both hands. Pippi shoved the Browning in Erwin’s face, then changed her mind and jammed the muzzle into his crotch.
“Is this what you want, Erwin? I’ll do it. You know I will!”
The prospect of parting company with his privates loosened Erwin’s grip on the pistol enough for Luke to pry it from his fingers.
“Does somebody want to tell me what the hell is going on?” said Otto.
“He betrayed us. The last time, too. It wasn’t Borodin; it was him.”
There was a strange moment of stillness within the confined space; then Otto launched himself over the professor and landed a vicious punch to the side of Erwin’s head. After three or four more blows, Erwin lay slumped, bloodied, and almost unconscious against the door, and Otto was practically straddling the professor, who was staring in blank shock at the scene.
“Car,” Luke warned.
A vehicle was pulling into the parking area. A young couple got out. Laughing, they linked arms and took the path through the trees toward the inn, oblivious to the shadow show being played out in the black sedan nearby.
“Excuse me,” said the professor, a tremor in his voice, “but where is my family?”
“I don’t know,” said Pippi. “They should have been here fifteen minutes ago. And they didn’t leave word at the hotel that they were running late.”
“Maybe they did,” said Luke. “Maybe something happened and they couldn’t get to a phone in time.”
“We have to go,” said Otto. “We have to go to the boat.”
“The boat’s right there.” Pippi pointed. “You go. I have unfinished business.”
“A word in private,” Luke said to her in English.
He made a point of removing the key from the ignition, and when Pippi joined him outside, he noted that the gun was still in her hand.
&n
bsp; “There were three of them, Pippi. You don’t stand a chance.”
“We’ll see. It’s not your problem.”
“But it is. You promised me: nothing that jeopardizes the children.”
“They’re not here.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Give me the key,” she demanded.
“No.”
Her hand came up and he found himself staring down the barrel of the Browning.
“The key.”
There was a gleam of something dark and dangerous in her green eyes, and he tried his best to strip the fear from his voice. “You’re not thinking straight. Think of the children.” A tiny tremor in her stony gaze. “Two girls and a boy. Picture them. Can you see them?”
Pippi lowered the weapon only when Professor Weintraub burst from the car. He was in a seriously agitated state now, but his English was impeccable.
“What are you doing? What is happening? Where is my family?”
Luke turned to face him. “I’m going to go and find them.”
“You?” said Pippi.
“Who else? This … Kapitän Wilke and his cronies don’t know my face.”
A look of relief fell across the professor’s haggard features. “Thank you.”
“I can’t promise anything. And if I don’t come back with them, you have to leave. You can’t stay, not now. We’ll find another way to get them out. Agreed?”
The professor gave a single grave nod of the head.
“Good,” said Luke. “Now, tell me what they look like.”
Chapter Sixteen
It was a familiar sensation: the same stillness that used to descend on him when taxiing to the end of the landing strip before a sortie. It wasn’t so much a calm as a kind of void, a vacuum, as though his entrails had been scooped out by some unseen hand. Approaching the port, he took the Browning from the passenger seat and slipped it into his jacket pocket.
It was no surprise to find the long black sedan that had torn past them earlier now parked in front of the Schöngarten hotel. There was no sign of the three men, and Luke made no obvious show of searching for them as he drove by, although his eyes darted left and right, scanning the sidewalks on both sides of the street.
The concierge at the Walserhof Hotel greeted him with a synthetic smile and a “Guten Tag.” On the wall behind him was a bank of cubbyholes, and Luke felt his spirits lift at the sight of a note tucked into Zimmer 12.
“I’m a friend of Professor Weintraub. He’s staying with you. Room twelve.”
“He’s not here. He went out.”
“I know, I’m with him in the upper town. He’s waiting for an important message, and he sent me down to see if it has arrived.”
“Yes, I took the call.” Not even a glance behind him.
“May I?” said Luke, lifting his chin toward the cubbyholes.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t know you, and it wouldn’t be right.”
Luke fought to keep his composure. “It’s important.”
“As I say, sir, I really can’t hand over the professor’s private communications to you.”
“Ah, I see what you mean,” Luke replied knowingly, rounding the counter and reaching for the message.
The concierge tried to block him off. “No, sir, that’s not what I meant.”
But Luke had it in his hand now, and he wasn’t going to relinquish it.
“Thank you.”
He turned and strode across the lobby, unfolding the note as he went. It was from Ilse, the nanny, and although he wasn’t acquainted with the German word geplatzter, he knew that Reifen meant “tire,” which was enough for him to get the gist of it. The rest of the note posed no problem: they had been delayed by half an hour.
They must have been running ahead of schedule when the incident occurred, for as he hurried down the steps of the hotel, a car passed by in front of him, traveling in the direction of the port. The driver was a woman with straight blond hair, smooth as satin, cut high off the shoulder. A young girl rode up front, her dark tresses done in plaits, and in the rear were two more children, younger, a boy and a girl. They all were just as Professor Weintraub had described them, right down to the wire-rimmed spectacles his son wore.
Luke stood watching, willing the car onward. Another fifty yards and they’d be home free, past the port and away.
That was when he saw the tall man in the dove-gray suit. He was standing stock-still among the throng of pedestrians, his eyes fixed on the approaching vehicle. As it drew even with him, he stooped to peer inside. Then suddenly, he was running in pursuit, darting past the car and placing himself in its path, raising his left hand high.
“Don’t stop,” Luke muttered.
But the brake lights came on. The man pulled a gun from a shoulder holster and pointed it at the windshield.
And now Luke was running, sticking close to the pavement for the camouflage provided by other people. Fingers closing around the Browning in his jacket pocket, he arrived as the man was trying to haul Ilse out of the car. She was resisting, clinging to the steering wheel with both hands, and the children were wailing.
He slowed to a walk. “Excuse me.”
As the man turned to face him, Luke struck him as hard as he could on the bridge of the nose with the butt of the Browning. The blow felled him instantly, his head thudding against the cobbles.
Luke was dimly aware of a collective gasp going up from the onlookers. Then he was reaching inside the car and trying to force Ilse across the front seat. Maybe she thought he was just another assailant, pushing at her instead of pulling, but she wouldn’t give up her grip on the steering wheel.
“Ilse, I’m British. I’m here to help you.”
That seemed to do it. She was shunting along when the shot rang out—not a warning, because the bullet punched a hole in the back door, right next to Luke’s knee.
He spun around, dropping into a crouch. People were running in all directions now, screaming. The man with the gun was doing neither. There was something chilling in his measured pace as he strode purposefully toward the car. The moment he had a clear shot through the scattering mob, he fired again, going for the kill, the bullet hissing past Luke’s head and slapping into the footwell behind him.
There was no time to take aim. Luke fired twice from the hip.
The man stumbled, recovered, and then stopped in his tracks, staring down at his chest, at the spreading bloom of blood discoloring his white shirt. There was confusion in his young eyes as he looked up at Luke. He made a feeble effort to raise his pistol before dropping to his knees and falling on his face.
The engine was still running.
“Stay down,” said Luke, leaping behind the steering wheel and forcing the car into gear.
More shots rang out. The rear window disintegrated, showering the two children in the back with glass. As the car lurched away, the driver’s door slammed shut from the momentum, and in the wing mirror Luke made out a third man bearing down on them from behind at a sprint. It was the driver, Kapitän Wilke, of the lantern jaw and the stubbled head. Thankfully, he had too much ground to cover, and the best he could do was to fire off several more shots, at least one of which pinged into the bodywork, before they swung out of view around the port.
“Everyone okay? No one hurt?”
He didn’t realize he’d been speaking English, until Ilse translated. The children were crying but apparently unharmed.
“Good.”
But it was far from good. This became clear as soon as they negotiated the first bend in the road. The car struggled to hold its line, the back end sliding away, slewing toward the verge.
“Tire,” he said. They had been crippled by a lucky shot from Wilke.
“How far?” Ilse asked.
“Close.”
The tire started
thumping against the wheel arch. A few hundred yards farther on, it had peeled off the rim and they were running on metal.
It was impossible to keep the speed up. Their head start—enough to see them safely away—was being eaten into with every second. He had to assume that Wilke was hot on their tail. How long before the big sedan came swooping down on them from behind?
For a moment, he thought they had made it. Then, as they took the last bend before the inn, he glanced over his shoulder and saw a car swing into view at the end of the long straightaway. The margins had suddenly shrunk to seconds, possibly fractions of a second.
“The boat’s there. You have to run.”
He was halfway out the door even as he stopped the car in the parking lot. Scooping up the younger daughter from the backseat, he thrust her at Ilse. “Go.”
“The suitcases.”
“No time. Run!”
They did. And so did he—back toward the road.
The car was closing fast, and as he raised the Browning, he told himself to remain calm, to wait as long as he dared. He had counted the bullets in and out of the magazine back at the farmhouse; he had four left.
The first shattered the windshield. There was nothing to show for the second, and as Wilke’s head bobbed back into view, he fired again. The sedan swerved toward the deep ditch on Luke’s left. Wilke swung the wheel back the other way, but too hard. The car careened across the road and up the bank on the far side, clipping a tree and flipping over. It landed on its roof at the edge of the road with a loud crump, blowing the windows out and sending shards of glass skittering like a shower of diamonds across the tarmac.
He thought about using up the last bullet, but it would have been a cold-blooded execution, and he wasn’t built for that sort of thing.
There were two leather suitcases in the boot of Ilse’s car, large and absurdly heavy, filled to bursting. He ignored the people flooding around the side of the inn and set off as fast as he could down the dirt track. Otto saw him coming and sprinted along the jetty to relieve him of one of the cases.