They were almost in the foothills of the Tyrol. If they could skirt the mountains all the way to the Bodensee it was probably only forty kilometres away. Then all they had to do was find the motor launch, which MacPherson had arranged to have placed on the German side for them. Once darkness fell they would cross the Bodensee and the border, and rendezvous with MacPherson on the Swiss side of the lake. It seemed tantalisingly close, yet impossibly far away.
“Would you help me?” Leni called out, and he looked round at her. She was by the edge of the bank, holding out her right arm. Otto got up and stepped down to her. He grasped her hand and pulled her up. She came out of the water in a fluid movement and Otto found her cold wet body pressed up against his own sun-warmed skin. He suddenly wanted to kiss her, properly, like in the films.
Then she let go of his hand. “Thanks,” she said, and stepped past him. He stood there for a moment, quite still.
“What about me?” Angelika was staring up at him from the river.
He grabbed hold of her hand and hauled her out. When he turned round, Leni had slipped her skirt and shirt back on, and she was wringing out her ponytail. She caught his eye and smiled. It was a different kind of smile to any she'd given him before, thought Otto.
As he walked across to the underside of the bridge to retrieve their packs, he found himself smiling, too – just as he heard the sound of approaching vehicles.
“Quick! Under here!” he shouted.
Leni grabbed Angelika's hand and they ran to join him. In less than a minute, the first vehicle was rolling over the bridge. The wooden supports creaked and groaned. Otto leant out just enough to see a grey army Kübelwagen, full of SS troops, with their distinctive black helmets, silver skulls on the side. Then came a troop-carrying lorry.
“Are they looking for us?” Leni whispered.
He felt her warm breath on his ear, droplets of water from her ponytail spotting his shirt sleeve.
“Yes,” he said, turning his face to hers.
Her face, her lips, were only millimetres from his. Her mouth was slightly open, her breathing fast.
“We're in so much trouble,” Angelika whispered.
All sorts of trouble, thought Otto.
CHAPTER 33
HIDING OUT
They had been walking for several hours and the three of them were exhausted. So exhausted that Leni and Angelika were lying flat out just inside the tree-line, away from the road. Otto had gone ahead to reconnoitre a tiny hamlet to see if there was somewhere they could rest and hide till nightfall. Then they would strike out for the border and the lake and, God willing, safety.
They had decided to travel all night because it was not getting dark, really dark, until after ten o'clock. And then there were the road blocks. They had nearly walked straight into the first one after their swim in the river. It was made up of the vehicles they had seen crossing the bridge. The truck had been parked across the centre of the road and the Kübelwagen on either side. The troops were stopping and searching every vehicle extremely thoroughly. People were being turned out of their cars, bonnets and boots inspected, identity cards perused. Children in particular were being carefully scrutinised. Fortunately, Otto, Leni and Angelika had managed to get off the road before they were seen. They gave the soldiers a very wide berth.
When they had met another roadblock just a few kilometres on, they had decided to leave the road entirely and instead follow alongside it in the nearby woods. It was the old mountain road, known as the Alpenstrasse, and it took them west towards the border, zig-zagging through the foothills and valleys. But the going was tough. The rough paths trodden down by locals suddenly gave out and they had to climb over fallen trees and thick spreads of ferns. Every time they stopped for a rest, Leni and Otto would scan the road with their binoculars and, sure enough, there would be more roadblocks, or military vehicles filled with troops heading west for the border. They'd both exchanged anxious glances but said nothing, conscious of the need not to alarm Angelika. But it was clear that there was an organised search. And that someone knew where they were heading. The woman on the train had no doubt alerted the authorities, who had put two and two together.
Leni opened her eyes now and sat up, feeling better for the rest. Why wasn't Otto back? It was funny, they barely knew each other but she missed his presence keenly. The way he had held her at the river, the look in his eye, the hotness of his breath against her cheek, had made her feel as though something incredibly exciting was about to happen. She put it out of her mind. She wished she'd been able to talk to him more about Angelika, but there hadn't been the opportunity. Perhaps later. She knew one thing for sure: all these troops racing to find them meant Angelika was someone very important.
Leni leant over and nudged the girl awake.
She opened her eyes, stretched and yawned. “I'm hungry,” she said.
“Here, drink some water.” Leni handed her the water bottle. She wanted to keep what little food they had left till the evening.
“Isn't Otto back?” Angelika asked.
Leni shook her head.
“He's all right though, isn't he?”
“He's fine. He'll be back soon.”
“If anything happened to him, I don't know what I'd do.”
“You like him, don't you?” said Leni softly.
“Yes,” she replied, matter-of-factly. “And so do you.”
Leni felt herself blushing. “No, I don't,” she protested.
“Well, he likes you,” she said. “Do you think he likes me?”
Leni nodded. “Of course he does.”
“Has he told you?” Angelika was looking at her, hopefully.
“Well, not in words, but I can see he does. He's very protective.”
Angelika smiled. “He is, isn't he?” She glanced at Leni. “I mean, I know you are too.”
But it's not the same, is it? thought Leni. She used to wish she had older brothers, but now she didn't care. All she wished was that Jacob and Isaac were safe somewhere and that she'd see them again one day.
There was a sudden sound of footsteps and Leni pulled Angelika down. She reached into her backpack and put her hand on her pistol, putting her finger to her lips to indicate silence. The footsteps stopped. Then a single-note whistle rang out. Leni smiled with relief and whistled the three-note response. Moments later Otto was squatting down beside them.
“We have to be quick. There's a cow barn about three-quarters of a kilometre from the village. It's empty. We can approach it from the woods without being seen. It'll be a perfect place to lie up until it's dark. Then we can carry on.”
Angelika sighed. She looked worn out. “I'm so tired. Can't we just wait here?”
Otto looked at her. “How about if I give you a piggyback?”
“A piggyback?” Angelika was smiling now. “What's that?”
“You've never heard of a piggyback?” said Otto, and Angelika shook her head. “It's simple, silly, you jump on to my back . . .” He knelt down and took off his pack, handing it to Leni.
“Thanks a lot,” she said. She'd drawn the short straw.
Angelika jumped on to Otto's back.
“You're as light as a feather,” Otto said as they set off.
The barn did look ideal. It was set at the top of a field looking down on to the small hamlet. The cows were up on the high pasture at this time of year, so it was empty. Best of all, it was only fifty metres or so from the woods, with the doors at the back.
They crept in and wedged the doors firmly shut using a thick piece of timber.
“Let's get up into the hay-loft,” Otto said, pointing to a ladder.
They clambered up, Otto pulling the ladder up after them, then scrambled over mounds of straw to the front of the barn. From there, they could watch the hamlet through cracks in the shutters.
Angelika lay down in the hay and closed her eyes. She looked flushed.
“Go to sleep,” said Leni. “We have a long walk tonight.” She hoped the litt
le girl would be asleep soon. She was desperate to talk to Otto about her. He was by the shutters, staring out. She crawled over and sat next to him.
“By my reckoning we're only about twenty-five kilometres from the Bodensee,” he said. “If we set off after dark we could probably make it in seven hours.”
Leni did the mental arithmetic. “And then what? Lie low for the whole of tomorrow?”
“Yes, once we've located the boat. It's moored in an inlet just south of Bregenz. We can approach it from the hills above. As soon as it's dark we cross the lake to the rendezvous point. It's our best bet. Admiral MacPherson said he would wait for as long as it takes.”
“All right.” Leni pulled her knees up to her chin. “They're closing in on us, aren't they?” Time, she felt, was running out.
“If we keep off the roads, we've got a good chance,” Otto replied, not answering the question.
He took out the binoculars and peered towards the hamlet. There were about six houses on one road, a tiny church at one end and a small inn in the middle of the houses. A farm track led from the hamlet to the barn, across a meadow.
“I think she's asleep, don't you?” Leni said.
Otto glanced at Angelika and nodded. “Why? What is it?” he asked.
Leni realised her heart was beating faster. “I've been thinking about her, about who she could be. If Hess is her so-called uncle, who do you think is her father?”
They both looked at the sleeping Angelika. The late-afternoon sun had cut through a hole in the roof, bathing her in a mote-filled shaft of light. Although her cheeks were flushed from the heat, her face was relaxed and her expression calm. It made her look so peaceful, even ethereal.
“Oh, come on, you're not saying . . .” Otto sounded incredulous.
“Yes, I am. That's exactly what I'm saying.”
“Hitler?” Otto said the word so softly.
“Yes. I think that's why the Germans all want her so badly. That's why the British want her, too.”
Otto looked at her, appalled. Then, very slowly, he nodded. For the first time, Leni could see he was afraid.
She went on. “Angelika has spent half her life living in a convent, cut off from the outside world. She has no parents. At least, no one she remembers. The Mother Superior tells her every week how special she is, how they must look after her. And Hitler's deputy comes to visit her every year on her birthday.”
“And she remembered being at Hitler's house in Munich. She must have been sent away to the convent before she could ask questions – or before questions could be asked about her.” He put his head in his hands. “Angelika was right – we're really in a lot of trouble.”
“Don't you think I know that?”
“They're never going to let us get away.” Otto was struggling to control his panic.
“Stop it, Otto,” Leni said firmly.
“It's Hitler's child, Leni. His daughter. What are we going to do?”
“I don't know . . . I'm thinking.”
They sat there in the stifling heat. Silence.
“Seems to me we've got only two options,” Otto said after a while.
“Which are?”
“We leave her here with a note for her to walk to the hamlet. We take off now, make for the border. We can make up some story for MacPherson.”
Leni shook her head. It was the surest way for the two of them to survive, but she hated the idea – and she knew Otto did, too. “No. How do we know what the Nazis will do to her? They might lock her up for ever, or worse.”
“That's not our problem.”
“Isn't it?” Leni looked at him, hard. “Do you really want to do that? Cut and run?”
Otto glanced over at Angelika, who stirred slightly in her sleep, a lock of blonde hair falling across her face. Leni could see him twisting inside, wrestling with it all. Finally he looked back at her. “Then we complete the mission, get her over the border tonight. Hand her over to Macpherson,” he said.
“And what's he going to do with her?”
“I don't know and I don't care. Leni, those are our orders.” Otto tried to close off further discussion.
“And what about her? Do we tell her who she is?”
Leni and Otto looked at her again, then at each other. She was no longer just a girl to them. She was their little sister now. A reminder of the younger siblings they had both lost.
“She thinks she's meeting her parents in Switzerland,” Leni said slowly, remembering the girl's hope. “Let's leave it like that.”
She could only imagine what a bombshell the truth might be to the girl. Angelika hadn't chosen to be born, to be the child of that man.
CHAPTER 34
STRANIAK DIVINES
They were in the helicopter heading west when Straniak began shouting and gesticulating wildly for the pilot to land. They descended rapidly and found a level spot in the middle of a valley where two rivers converged at roughly right angles.
Straniak hopped out and rushed towards the meeting point of the rivers. Sticking out of the ground was a series of boulders, no doubt washed down at some point from the mountains above. One in particular, a large slab of granite, had attracted his attention. He stood next to the stone for thirty minutes or so and then hurried to a nearby yew tree. Breaking off a low branch, he fashioned a Y-shaped dowsing twig and started to walk in tight circles around the slab, holding the twig with the tips of his fingers.
Heydrich watched with growing irritation.
“Herr Straniak, I don't wish to hurry you but we are losing the light.”
“We have three more hours of light today,” Straniak replied, and he continued his circling.
“Not for safe flying.”
Straniak closed his eyes and sighed deeply. “I will be as quick as I can.”
“Can I assist you?” Heydrich asked.
“Silence would be helpful.”
Heydrich wanted to strike this silly man for his arrogance, but he held himself in check. There would be plenty of time to teach him respect once the girl had been found. He shifted his weight and felt the perspiration running down his back, soaking his shirt. Straniak had better prove his worth if he valued his neck.
“I think you will find my presence valuable in your search,” Straniak murmured.
Was he a mind-reader, too?
Before Heydrich could say anything more, Straniak continued. “We are standing directly on a very strong ley line.”
“And that is good?” Heydrich had only a vague idea what a ley line was. Mystical pseudoscience, as far as he was concerned.
“Very good for tracing psychic energy.” Straniak leant down and opened his brown attaché case, extracting a number of items. First he spread out a map of the area, and dropped a gold coin over their current location. Then he placed the original photograph of the girl on the map. Finally he picked out a small brass pendulum attached to a fine black silk thread. This was his great expertise, the reason the German navy had given him an entire department in Berlin: to seek out Allied battleships and cruisers on the naval charts of the world's oceans.
Very delicately he held the pendulum over the photograph with his thumb and forefinger. After a few seconds, seemingly of its own volition, it began to turn, spinning slowly around, the revolutions gradually getting faster and faster. The pendulum became just a golden blur, the sunlight bouncing off it in tiny blinding flashes.
Now Straniak began to trace the pendulum over the map in a neat, mathematical grid. Heydrich watched, transfixed. If nothing else, the display was the most remarkable trick. The pendulum kept moving west across the map towards the Bodensee, criss-crossing north to south in a wide arc.
Quite suddenly, the pendulum stopped spinning, rooted over a particular spot, a slight vibration emanating from it.
“That is where the child is,” said Straniak quietly.
Heydrich scrambled forward, dropping to his knees to read the name of the place on the map. It was a tiny hamlet near the village of Weiler.
If Straniak was right, he had truly found the needles in the haystack.
CHAPTER 35
HEYDRICH ARRIVES
Otto stared up at the strange flying machine as it appeared over the hamlet with its peculiar thud-thudding noise. It was not like a normal plane with wings, but instead seemed to hover in the air by some sort of spinning blade. He had never seen anything like it before. He watched with growing unease as it flew in a wide arc over the place. He could see three people in the open cockpit, all wearing leather flying caps and goggles. He felt his heart start to thump. Then as quickly as it had appeared the machine shot away, the sound of the engine fading against the mountains.
Otto immediately roused Leni and Angelika. The little girl protested at being woken. She seemed very tired now – there were deep shadows beneath her eyes.
“What's wrong, Otto?” Leni mumbled.
“Some sort of a flying machine came over. I think it was looking for us.” He tried to sound calm.
“What do you mean?” Leni sat up, fully awake now.
“Just get ready to go.” Otto kept his voice clipped, but his stomach was dancing with nerves. “It may be nothing.”
“Of course it's nothing. How would anyone know we were here?” Leni was trying to sound calm, too, but Otto could see she knew it was serious.
He went back to the shutters, and lay on his stomach, scanning the village through the crack in the shutters with his binoculars. After ten minutes he'd seen nothing. Perhaps he'd overreacted? Then his heart skipped a beat. There. At the back of the village. Movement. He moved the binoculars. There it was again. His breathing stopped. It was a soldier, an alpine soldier in camouflage gear, the broken green-and-brown mountain pattern that blended him into the scenery so effectively. And another . . . and another. They were crawling across the fields on the far side of the village. Scores of them.
He ran to the ladder and slid down it. The girls were by the back door.
“Soldiers. Go!” He raised his voice as loud as he dared. He lifted the timber barricade and pushed open the door. It was a straight dash to the wood behind.
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