The Salzburg Connection

by Helen Macinnes

  Zauner emptied both pockets of Grell’s excellent dark-grey suit with its handsome green collar and facings, searched through waistcoat and trouser pockets as well, threw their contents on the bed. “We examine that later,” he told Fritz. “But now, you watch him. That’s all you do; watch.” He picked up Grell’s keys, asked him curtly, “Which one?”

  “The longest.”

  Zauner turned abruptly on his heel. As Mathison followed him out of the room, Grell’s head sank on his chest. He had stopped straining against the chair. His face was ashen, expressionless.

  “Yet,” said Mathison as they reached the reception desk in the hall, “I have the feeling he hasn’t given up. He is still hoping for some way out.”

  Zauner half smiled. “I removed it, I think.” He opened his fist. On his palm lay a small capsule of white powder. He slipped it into his pocket, shouted upstairs, brought his men down at a run. Two of them he posted with the guards already outside, sent the third to keep watch at the Finstersee road and give warning as soon as Grell’s friends approached. Then he made quick contact with Bruno, a brief report, a request for more men immediately. And at last he turned to Karl. “We won’t wait for them. You and I will go ahead, leave them to follow. But we can’t risk the road to Finstersee. Two of Grell’s men will be using it—they are on their way to the inn, from the Sonnblick, and they don’t know this district as well as we do. Any ideas for the quickest short cut through the woods to let us reach the picnic ground near the lake?”

  “There’s a forester’s path through the trees. Not bad. Out of sight of the road, too. Dark, but—” Karl produced a hooded flashlight.

  “Could you use an extra hand?” Mathison asked.

  “What do you know of mountain country?”

  “I used to climb. I still ski.”

  “Come along.”

  “The old girl has left,” Mathison said as he looked at the empty dining-room, and then followed Zauner and Karl outside.

  “The scene of the explosion has more attractions, I suppose.”

  “Grim business.”

  “Yes.” And it might have been I who had to fix that padlock, thought Zauner. Ten minutes, they had told Elissa. They hadn’t given her even one... He looked at Mathison and Karl. They had been zipping and buttoning up tight against the night air just as he was doing. “Your eyes accustomed now? Good. And keep quiet, Karl—you first.”

  They slipped around the corner of the inn, started climbing through its back meadow. Quickly, they crossed the Finstersee road, a narrow track, unpaved, and headed into a forest. At first, it was dense. The moonlight vanished, only to filter through occasional breaks in the rows of trees. Mathison kept his eyes on Karl’s back, a solid mass of blackness scarcely visible. Whenever it disappeared from sight entirely, he would put a hand out and reach for Karl’s shoulder. He stopped worrying about his feet, but just put one down in front of the other. Wherever Karl could step, so could he. But soon this phase was over. The trees thinned out, dark spikes bathed in soft moonlight. Their pace increased to a quick walk.

  Suddenly, Zauner’s hushed voice said, “Stop!”

  They paused. Mathison took some deep breaths, unzipped the top of his jacket. It was warm in the shelter of the forest. Zauner pointed to his left, where the road cut down to Unterwald from the lake. Through the clear air, they heard voices. A man stumbled over a stone and cursed. A laugh, abruptly hushed. Footsteps grew fainter, until they became lost in the silence.

  Zauner said, “So they have obeyed orders. Now we can risk some speed.” He set off at a steady run.

  The thin figure of Frau Hitz, swollen round with her heavy clothes, came hurrying down the road to the Seidl house. The crowd began just below the house, stretched all down the side of the meadow. Oh dear, she thought, what could have happened? And there was I stuck in the inn, not knowing what to do, no one telling me anything. Her sharp eyes saw the man at the edge of the first group of people. Herr Kraus it was, who had been having dinner with Herr Grell that evening, everything so quiet and peaceful until that woman began complaining about her room. Then the others had been called into Herr Grell’s office, and after that—well, she couldn’t keep count of the comings and goings. Herr Kraus had stayed with Herr Grell, and that was natural; Herr Kraus was coming to help manage the inn, taking Anton Grell’s place. Imagine that young Anton leaving his father and such a good business to go back to the South Tyrol for the sake of a girl, did you ever hear such nonsense? Then there had been that explosion, such a noise, she had dropped two glasses and a carafe of wine. And Herr Kraus had gone running out with all the people in the Weinstüberl to see what was wrong.

  “What happened, Herr Kraus?” She tugged gently at his sleeve. He startled her by the way he swung around on her. He stared at her. “What happened?” she asked again.

  He recognised her at last—the old woman who worked up at the inn. “I don’t know.” And he didn’t know. There was talk around him of terrorists, of a cache of dynamite blown to pieces, four people killed, five wounded. There had been shots, a volley of shots, and they had set off the dynamite. Talk, talk, and his questions had got him nowhere. “The police won’t let anyone onto the meadow.” He turned to leave, looking for the last time at the Seidl house. It was well guarded. He could not guess what was going on there either.

  “My sister’s meadow?” Frau Hitz was all alarm.

  “Your sister’s?” He stopped. He looked again at the Seidl house. “Then she can tell you what happened.”

  “I’ll ask her. But first I want to see for myself—”

  “There is nothing to see.”

  “She’ll keep me talking and—”

  “Don’t let her keep you. I’d like to hear what has happened, too.”

  “Yes, Herr Kraus,” she said, hearing the voice of her future boss. She retraced her steps to the front path, approached the door. A man stepped in front of her, eyed her silently. It was one of those policemen wearing ordinary clothes who had been in and out of the inn several times tonight. “I’m just going to see my sister,” she told him.

  “Sorry. There is a wounded policeman in there. No one can enter now.”

  “But—”

  “Orders. Sorry. The man is very ill.”

  “Dying? Oh dear...” She turned away, then looked back. “What did happen?”

  “People are talking about dynamite. You are from the inn, aren’t you?”

  “I work there,” she said nervously, and retreated. At first, she thought Herr Kraus hadn’t waited, after all. But as she made her way toward the meadow through the cluster of people, her arm was grasped. “Just a policeman from Bad Aussee,” she said incoherently. “He has been wounded. He is dying. So I couldn’t get into the house. The policeman on duty said it was dynamite.”

  Herr Kraus left her so quickly that she gasped again. She couldn’t even see where he had gone. Probably standing down there near the ambulance; that’s where the best view would be. She hurried on. In my sister’s meadow, she thought again; isn’t that just the Seidls’ luck? Always the centre of attention, that’s what they like to be.

  Kraus circled around, came back to the road, decided he had better get back to the inn and report possible disaster to Grell. There was no sign of the Lang woman or of the two men who had gone with her. Their cars had been parked near the edge of the meadow when he first arrived down there, but they had driven off to Bad Aussee before he could manage to reach them and find out who actually was inside them. The Lang woman must have betrayed us, he thought bitterly. We never should have believed her or her bargains.

  “A fair bargain,” she had said. “Our interests coincide. You want the Finstersee box. We don’t want the West to have it. I know how you can get its hiding place out of Johann Kronsteiner—quickly, simply. And in exchange for my help, you must agree to let me see that box, identify it for my report to my government. That is all. The box is yours once I’ve checked it. As long as you keep it out of Western hands, w
e shall be satisfied.”

  Satisfied... And when I laughed at that, and asked why she did not want the box for her own government, she had her answer for that, too. “My agents are not yet in position here. I have only one man in Unterwald who might help me. So I have no choice but to come to you. Better that than let the West take the Finstersee box. Besides, you know very well that we already have the duplicate file of names. You lost that one from the Czechoslovakian lake. Do you want to lose Finstersee, too?”

  And Grell had listened to her. Perhaps because of her frankness. Perhaps because of her warning about enemy agents pouring into the village—she had been factual about them: Andrew, a photographer; Chuck, a climber; Bruno, a journalist, and all their supporting operatives. Perhaps because there had been no time for argument. It had been a take-it-or-leave-it proposal. And we took it, Kraus thought in rising anger, even I took it. A fair bargain.

  He had reached the intersection, was passing the schoolhouse at the corner. The inn was in sight. He stared, stopped abruptly, stepped into the deepest patch of shadow. The inn was all lit up. It was empty, and yet every light seemed to have been turned on. That old woman Hitz would never have left the inn if there had been even one customer remaining there to hand out a tip. The place was empty except for Grell, and Grell was a man who turned out unneeded lights.

  Quietly, Kraus stepped closer to the schoolhouse wall and made his way around to the side where he could have the clearest view of the inn. There he stood and watched. In the next ten minutes, he had counted four men altogether; two moving unobtrusively around the back of the inn, two patrolling its front with equal care. Guarding it. As he tried to see any sign of Grell at the lighted windows—Grell’s own room had been shuttered, he noticed—six more men crossed the village street from the rear of the post office, moving carefully, two at a time, and headed up over the meadow toward the inn. Three of them joined the hidden patrol. Three moved inside. The inn was not just being guarded; it was being occupied.

  Or perhaps Grell had escaped.

  Or perhaps he had been surprised.

  Only one thing was certain: the woman Lang had at least spoken the truth when she had said there was an army of agents pouring into the village, an army of agents moving with dangerous speed.

  He recovered his wits. So what to do? Roads out of Unterwald would be blocked, no cars would leave unchecked, no man on foot. The lower slopes of the hills, the valleys, the villages would be watched. The easy way out was impossible—too vulnerable. Then over the mountains to the east? And after that, strike north? With no map, no compass, no rope, no food, only a revolver in his pocket? The difficult way out was impossible, too, for a man alone. No, not alone. There were still two others. They must be warned. They had climbing equipment and food. Three could make it over the mountains.

  And Grell?

  Kraus turned away. He would have to circle widely, carefully, to reach the forest on the slope of the Sonnblick.

  27

  The lake was a narrow stretch of glassy calm rippled by powerful currents that snaked down its spine, shining coldly black under the faint moon. Bill Mathison halted to look down at it. The mountains guarded it so closely that their steep slopes and precipices seemed to keep plunging on far beneath that dark surface. Only the meadow below him was the lake’s one touch of kindness, with a lonely picnic table adding its innocence to the silvered grass. But even there the deep waters pressed menacingly close.

  “Not far now,” Felix Zauner said, urging him on. Up above them—for the climb was now steep—Karl was finding the last of the blazed trees with his flashlight, and moving quickly. The path was better marked than they had hoped. Zauner was hurrying ahead, nervous, excited, ready to be jubilant.

  “How did Bryant manage it?” Mathison asked in wonder. One man alone. “How the hell did he do it?”

  “He did it. You saw the proof tonight, when that box blew up,” Zauner said over his shoulder.

  Proof? What is he talking about? Mathison wondered and tried to catch up.

  “Keep behind,” Zauner told him. There’s only room for one on this path. Careful, now. One slip and you’d be down those crags.”

  “The trees would stop me, thank God.” It would be a cold and deadly plunge into that lake otherwise. “You know, the box that blew up wasn’t—” His heel slipped on one of the large stones embedded between the roots of the trees. Better stop talking, he decided, and concentrate on your footwork. Karl was fortunately being generous with his light. He’d flash it back briefly along the path once he stopped at a marked tree. Since they had heard Grell’s two men moving obediently down toward the inn, they had more freedom to move. And talk.

  Zauner had seemed to be riding on a wave of mounting exultation. He had been cautious enough to keep his voice to a low murmur, but the short sentences, the quickly related memories, kept coming out. Of Grell: “Did you hear his accent change? He is used to command, that one. He’s a German Nazi, too. SS. You were too young to know much about that. I fought his kind all through the war. Yes, this is like old times.” Of Grell’s men: “They’ll follow orders, right to the last letter. No problem there.” Of Johann: “He joined my resistance group. Made his way out of Vienna, just a kid of fifteen or so. We raided, and ambushed, and ran; and raided again, all the way down to the Italian border. He was a good courier. Never got caught.” Of Grell again: “How do I know he belonged to the SS? Remember that large wardrobe in his room? He had an old coat at the back of it. Insignia cut off. But unmistakable cut and colour.” Of Grell once again: “He reminds me of one of their colonels I caught. Important man. We were given orders to take him south, hand him over to the Americans for questioning. It was late in the war... My one failure,” he added softly, almost inaudibly.

  “How?” Mathison had asked.

  “We were ambushed ourselves. My men killed. I was left for dead. He escaped.”

  “Well, one failure—”

  “A big one,” Zauner had said slowly. He fell abruptly silent. Then they had come to the lake, passed around the meadow, started the climb through the forested mountainside to the crest of the Sonnblick.

  Zauner stopped, pointed to Karl’s brief signal just ahead of them. It seemed to come from the tops of the trees themselves.

  “How the hell did he get up there?” Mathison asked. The answer to that came as he reached the trees themselves. They were backed up against a cliff. Karl shaded the beam of his flashlight but kept it aimed steadily down at the few steps, cut out of the rock, that led to the small natural-looking platform on which he stood. His left shoulder was almost touching what seemed a dark crevice. As he directed the light on it, they could see a door, narrow, small, built of rough timbers to blend with the trunks of the trees that screened it.

  There was no talk now. They looked at the door, they looked at each other. There was only one question in their minds as Karl’s flashlight found the lock and Zauner plunged the long key into it. Karl pushed the door open. It was dark inside, and completely silent. They looked at each other again and entered.

  Johann was lying stretched out on the stone floor against one rough-hewn wall. His eyes were closed, his body scarred and half-naked. If he was alive, he had not heard them. He lay unmoving.

  “Find the lights; they must have lights,” Zauner said in a tight hard voice that sent Karl searching around the small room with blundering haste.

  Johann’s eyes opened. He stared at Zauner. “I thought they were coming back. I thought it was—”

  “Don’t talk,” Zauner told him, touched his wrist to feel the strength of his pulse. There was a scream of pain. Zauner let the wrist go gently.

  The lights came on. Karl said, “They’ve broken his wrists. And his legs—they’ve smashed his knees. Why, he will never—” He broke off.

  In silence, they stood looking down at Johann. His eyes closed once more. “That’s right, Karl,” he said. “I’ll never climb or ski again.”

  Ten minutes vanished in hec
tic activity. Zauner had come prepared for trouble, even if not quite to the extent of Johann’s injuries. Karl administered the shot of morphine, then lit two kerosene stoves, while Zauner made contact with the Seidl house where Bruno was waiting for his report. Mathison found a blanket to cover the chilled body, trying not to put any weight on the broken kneecaps by rigging up supports on either side of Johann’s legs. He managed this with a couple of large heavy stones he had discovered in a gallery leading out of the room. Stretched over these, the blanket formed a tent across Johann’s knees and was tucked under the stones to keep it secure. That ended his ingenuity; all he could think of next was to light a cigarette and hold it to Johann’s lips, while Karl went searching for drinkable water and found a bottle of schnapps, too.

  Zauner’s radio contact was over. He stowed the small transmitter-receiver into one of the deep pockets of his loden cape and came over to look down at Johann.

  “Trudi?” Johann asked with an effort.

  “They didn’t touch her.”

  “They kept their bargain.” He relaxed a little, but tried to fight off sleep. “Anna?”

  “In Salzburg.”

  “They got the box.” His voice was slurring.

  “No. It was blown to bits. Now stop talking. I’ve sent for the ambulance and a couple of guides who know how to get you down this hill on a stretcher. They are on their way. They will be here as quickly as possible. Can you hang on?”

  “I’ll—” Johann nodded as he drifted into a mixture of sleep and unconsciousness.

  Mathison dropped the half-finished cigarette, ground it out under his heel. He glanced at Zauner, decided this was not the moment to tell him about the box. Zauner was instructing Karl to get down to the picnic ground and guide the others up here by the short route. Some of them might even be arriving there from the inn any moment now: they had caught the two Nazis, Bruno had reported; Grell’s men had walked into the trap, hadn’t even time to draw a weapon. Now, along with Grell, they were already on their way to Salzburg under heavy guard. “That leaves only one of them free. Keep your eyes open, Karl. He might wander up here to find shelter for the night, lie up safely for a few days or take enough supplies to head over the mountains with his two friends. Unless he knows they have been caught. Even so, he might head here. He needs food and equipment if he wants to climb his way out of this country. He won’t be stupid enough to try the roads. So keep your eyes open and your revolver ready. Now get going! And take care.”