Where Eagles Dare

by Алистер Маклин

  Schaffer had already the back door open and the two packages of plastic explosives in his hands before the bus stopped. Five seconds after hitting the road he was back on the bridge again, skipping nimbly over a dozen dislodged sleepers until he had arrived at the main supports of the central trestle. It took him less than twenty seconds to tape one package to the right hand support, cross the bridge and tape the second package to the left hand support. He heard the deepening roar of a rapidly approaching engine, glanced up, saw the swathe of unseen headlamp beams shining round the corner they had just passed, tore off the ignition fuse, crossed the bridge, tore off the other and raced for the bus. Smith had already the bus in gear and was moving away when Schaffer flung himself through the back doorway and was hauled inside by helping hands.

  Schaffer twisted round till he was sitting on the passage-way, his legs dangling through the open doorway, just in time to see the headlamps of the,pursuing car sweep into sight round the corner. It was now less than a hundred yards from the bridge, and accelerating. For a brief, almost panic-stricken, moment, Schaffer wondered wildly if he had cut the fuses short enough, he hadn't realised the following car had been quite as close as it was: and from the tense and strained expressions on the faces of the two girls and the man beside him, expressions sensed rather than seen, he knew that exactly the same thought was in their minds.

  The two loud, flat detonations, each fractionally preceded by the brilliant white flash characteristic of the plastic explosive, came within one second of each other. Baulks of timber and railway sleepers were hurled forty feet into the air, spinning lazily around in a curious kind of slow motion, many of them falling back again on to the now tottering support structure with an impact sufficient to carry away the central trestle. One moment, a bridge: the next, an empty ravine with, on the far side of it, the wildly swinging headlamp beams as the driver flung his car from side to side in a nothing-to-be-lost attempt to prevent the car from sliding over the edge of the ravine. It seemed certain that he must fail until the moment when the car, sliding broadside on along the road, struck a large rock, rolled over twice and came to a halt less than six feet from the edge of the ravine.

  Schaffer shook his head in wonder, rose, closed the rear door, sat in the back seat, lit a cigarette, tossed the spent match through the smashed rear window and observed: “You're a lucky lot to have me around.”

  “All this and modesty, too,” Heidi said admiringly.

  “A rare combination,” Schaffer acknowledged. “You'll find lots of other pleasant surprises in store for you as we grow old together. How far to this airfield now?”

  “Five miles. Perhaps eight minutes. But this is the only road in. With the bridge gone, there's no hurry now.”

  “That's as maybe. Schaffer is anxious to be gone. Tell me, honey, were all those beer bottles empty?”

  “The ones we threw away were.”

  “I just simply don't deserve you,” Schaffer said reverently.

  “We're thinking along the same lines at last,” Heidi said acidly.

  Schaffer grinned, took two beer bottles and went forward to relieve Smith, who moved out only too willingly with the bus still in motion. Smith's right hand, Schaffer saw, hadn't a scrap of bandage left that wasn't wholly saturated in blood and die face was very pale. But he made no comment.

  Three minutes later they were out of the forest, running along through open farm-land, and five minutes after that, acting on Heidi's directions, Schaffer swung the bus through a narrow gateway on the left hand side of the road. The headlamps successively illuminated two small hangars, a narrow, cleared runway stretching into the distance and, finally, a bullet-riddled Mosquito bomber with a crumpled undercarriage.

  “Ain't that a beautiful sight, now?” Schaffer nodded at the damaged plane. “Carnaby-Jones's transport?”

  Smith nodded. “It began with a Mosquito and it will end—we hope—in a Mosquito. This is Oberhausen airfield. H.Q. of the Bavarian Mountain Rescue pilots.”

  “Three cheers for the Bavarian Mountain Rescue pilots.” Schaffer stopped the bus facing up the length of the runway, switched off the lights and turned off the engine. They sat silently in the darkness, waiting.

  Colonel Wyatt-Turner glanced through the side-screen and breathed with relief as, for the first time that knight, the ground fell away sharply beneath the Mosquito. He said sarcastically: “Losing your nerve, Wing Commander?”

  “I lost that September 3rd, 1939,” Carpenter said cheerfully. “Got to climb. Can't expect to see any recognition signals down among the bushes there.”

  “You're sure we're on the right course?”

  “No question. That's the Weissspitze there. Three minutes' flying time.” Carpenter paused and went on thoughtfully. “Looks uncommon like Guy Fawkes night up there, don't you think.”

  The Wing Commander was hardly exaggerating. In the far distance the silhouette of the Weissspitze was but dimly seen, but there was no mistaking the intensity of the great fire blazing half-way up the mountain-side. Occasionally, great gouts of red flame and what looked like gigantic fireworks could be seen soaring high above the main body of the fire.

  “Explosives or boxes of ammunition going up, I'd say,” Carpenter said pensively. “That's the Schloss Adler, of course. Were any of your boys carrying matches?”

  “They must have been.” Wyatt-Turner stared impassively at the distant blaze. “It's quite a sight.”

  “It's all of that,” Carpenter agreed. He touched Wyatt-Turner's arm and pointed forwards and down. “But there's a sight that's finer far, the most beautiful sight I've ever seen.”

  Wyatt-Turner followed the pointing finger. Less than two miles away, about five hundred feet below, a pair of headlamps were flashing regularly on and off, once every two seconds. With a conscious effort of will he looked away and glanced briefly at Carpenter, but almost at once was back on the flashing headlamps. He stared at them hypnotically and shook his head in slow and total disbelief.

  Schaffer had the headlights switched on main beam, illuminating the runway, and the post-bus engine running as the black squat shape of the Mosquito, air-brakes fully extended, lined up for its approach to the runway, and had the bus itself moving, accelerating quickly through the gears, as the Mosquito sank down over the top of the bus and settled down beautifully without the slightest suspicion of a bounce. Within a minute Schaffer brought the bus to a skidding halt only yards from the now stationary plane. Half a minute later, with all five of them safely inside the plane, Carpenter had the Mosquito turned through 180° and was standing hard on the brakes as he brought the engines up to maximum revolutions. And then they were on their way, gathering speed so rapidly that they were air-borne two hundred yards before the end of the runway. For the first mile of their climb Carpenter kept the plane heading almost directly towards the blazing castle that now redly illuminated the entire valley, then the funeral pyre of the Schloss Adler vanished for the last time as the Mosquito banked and headed for the north-west and home.

  Wing Commander Carpenter took the Mosquito up to five thousand feet and kept it there. The time for dodging around among the bushes was past for, on the outward journey, Carpenter had been concerned only that no German station pick him up long enough to form even a rough guess as to where he was going. But now he didn't care if every radar station in the country knew where he was going: he was going home to England, mission accomplished, and there wasn't a warplane in Europe that could catch him. Wing Commander Carpenter pulled luxuriously at his evil-smelling briar. He was well content.

  His five newly-acquired passengers were, perhaps, a fraction less content. They lacked Carpenter's well-upholstered pilot's seat. The interior of the Mosquito made no concessions whatsoever to passenger comfort. It was bleak, icy, cramped—it didn't require much space to carry a 4,000 lb. bomb load, the Mosquito's maximum—and totally devoid of seating in any form. The three men and the two girls squatted uncomfortably on thin palliasses, the expressions on thei
r faces pretty accurately reflecting their acute discomfort. Colonel Wyatt-Turner, still holding across his knees the Sten gun he'd had at the ready in case any trouble had developed on the ground or the flashing lights of the truck had been a German ruse, was sitting sideways in the co-pilot's seat so that he could see and talk to the pilot and the passengers at the same time. He had accepted without question or apparent interest Smith's brief explanation of the two girls' presence as being necessary to escape Gestapo vengeance. Colonel Wyatt-Turner had other and weightier matters on his mind.

  Smith looked up from the bleeding mangled hand that Mary was re-bandaging with the plane's first aid kit and said to the Colonel: “It was good of you to come in person to meet us, sir.”

  “It wasn't good of me at all,” Wyatt-Turner said frankly. “I'd have gone mad if I'd stayed another minute in London—I had to know. It was I who sent you all out here.” He sat without speaking for some time, then went on heavily: “Torrance-Smythe gone, Sergeant Harrod, and now, you say, Carraciola, Christiansen and Thomas. All dead. A heavy price, Smith, a terrible price. My best men.”

  “All of them, sir?” Smith asked softly.

  “I'm getting old.” Wyatt-Turner shook his head wearily and drew a hand across his eyes. “Did you find out who—”

  “Carraciola.”

  “Carraciola! Ted Carraciola? Never! I can't believe it.”

  “And Christiansen.” Smith's voice was still quiet, still even. “And Thomas.”

  “And Christiansen? And Thomas?” He looked consideringly at Smith. “You've been through a lot, Major Smith. You're not well.”

  “I'm not as well as I was,” Smith admitted. “But I was well enough when I killed them?”

  “You—you killed them?”

  “I've killed a traitor before now. You know that.”

  “But—but traitors! All three of them. Impossible. I can't believe it! I won't believe it!”

  “Then maybe you'll believe this, sir.” Smith produced one of the note-books from his tunic and handed it to Wyatt-Turner. “The names and addresses or contacts of every German agent in southern England and the names of all British agents in northwest Europe who have been supplanted by German agents. You will recognise Carraciola's writing. He wrote this under duress.”

  Slowly, like a man in a dream, Wyatt-Turner reached out and took the note-book. For three minutes he examined the contents, leafing slowly, almost reluctantly through the pages, then finally laid the book down with a sigh.

  “This is the most important document in Europe, the most important document I have ever seen.” Wyatt-Turner sighed. “The nation is deeply in your debt, Major Smith.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Or would have been. It's a great pity it will never have the chance to express its gratitude.” He lifted the Sten from his knees and pointed it at Smith's heart. “You will do nothing foolish, will you, Major Smith?”

  “What in God's name—” Carpenter twisted in his seat and stared at Wyatt-Turner in startled and total disbelief.

  “Concentrate on your flying, my dear Wing Commander.” Wyatt-Turner waved the Sten gently in Carpenter's direction. “Your course will do for the present. We'll be landing at Lille airport within the hour.”

  “The guy's gone nuts!” Schaffer's voice was a shocked whisper.

  “If he has,” Smith said drily, “he went nuts some years ago. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the most dangerous spy in Europe, the most successful double agent of all time.” He ;paused for reaction, but the silence remained unbroken: the enormity of the revelation of Wyatt-Turner's duplicity was too great for immediate comprehension. Smith continued: “Colonel Wyatt-Turner, you will be court-martialled this afternoon, sentenced, removed to the Tower then taken out, blindfolded and shot at eight o'clock tomorrow morning.”

  “You knew?” Wyatt-Turner's affable self-confidence had completely deserted him and his voice, low arid strained, was barely distinguishable above the clamour of the engines. “You knew about me?”

  “I knew about you,” Smith nodded. “But we all knew about you, didn't we, Colonel? Three years, you claimed, behind the German lines, served with the Wehrmacht and finally penetrated the Berlin High Command. Sure you did. With the help of the Wehrmacht and the High Command. But when the tide of war turned and you could no longer feed the Allies with false and misleading reports about proposed German advances, then you were allowed to escape back to England to feed the Germans true and accurate reports about Allied plans——and give them all the information they required to round up British agents in north-west Europe. How many million francs do you have in your numbered account in Zurich, Colonel?”

  Wing Commander Carpenter stared straight ahead through the windscreen and said very slowly: “Frankly, old chap, this is preposterous.”

  “Try batting an eyelid and see just how preposterous that Sten gun is,” Smith suggested. He looked at Wyatt-Turner again. “You underestimated Admiral Rolland, I'm afraid. He's had his suspicions about you and the four section leaders of Department C for months. But he was wrong about Torrance-Smythe.”

  “Guess away.” Wyatt-Turner had recovered his composure and most of his self-confidence. “It'll pass the time till we get to Lille.”

  “Unfortunately for you, there is no guess-work. Admiral Rolland recalled me—and Mary—from Italy: he could no longer be sure of anyone in London. You know how corruption spreads? Played it very clever, did the Admiral He told you he had his suspicions about one of his section leaders, but didn't know which. So, when General Carnaby crashed, he put up to you the idea of sending the section officers to the rescue—and made damn sure that you never once had the opportunity of talking to any of them in private before they took off.”

  “That—that was why I was called in?” Schaffer looked as if he had been sand-bagged. “Because you couldn't trust—”

  “For all we knew, M.I.6 was riddled ... Well, Colonel, you weren't too happy until Rolland asked you to pick the leader. So you picked me. Rolland knew you would. You'd only just met me for the first time, but you knew from Kesselring's military intelligence chief, through your pal Admiral Canaris, that I was their top double agent. Or thought you did, Rolland was the only man on either side who knew I wasn't. For you, I was the ideal choice. Rolland made certain that you didn't have the chance of talking to me either, but you weren't worried. You knew that I would know what to do.” Smith smiled bleakly. “I'm happy to say I did. It must have been quite a shock to your system this afternoon when he told you what I really was.”

  “You knew that? You knew all that?” Wyatt-Turner's newfound composure had vanished, his voice was quiet and vicious. He lifted the Sten slightly. “What goes on, Smith?”

  “All pre-arranged to force your hand. We had everything—except proof—about you. I got that proof this evening; Colonel Kramer knew that we were coming, knew we were after General Carnaby.” He nodded towards Jones. “Incidentally, meet Cartwright Jones, an American actor.”

  “What?” Wyatt-Turner forced out the word as if a pair of powerful hands were squeezing on his wind-pipe.

  “General Carnaby is spending a quiet weekend at the Admiral's country house in Wiltshire. As a stand-in, Mr. Jones was quite admirable. He had them all as deceived as that faked plane crash—you will have realised by now that it was a deliberate crash-landing.” Wyatt-Turner tried to speak, but the words failed to come: his mouth was working and the colour had drained from his ruddy face. “And why did Kramer know? He knew because you had informed Berlin as soon as Rolland had put the plan to you. Nobody else had the chance to. And he knew that we would be in ‘Zum Wilden Hirsch’ this evening. He knew because I told you on the radio broadcast this morning and you lost no time in passing the good word on.”

  “Are you sure?” Heidi asked. “Couldn't the informant have been whichever of the men—Carraciola or Christiansen or Thomas—who killed Torrance-Smythe. There's a phone box just outside the inn.”

  “I know. No, he di
dn't have time. I left the inn for exactly seven minutes. Three minutes after I'd left, Torrance-Smythe did the same—to follow one of the three others he'd just seen leaving. Smithy was clever and he knew something was far wrong. He—”

  “How did he know?” Schaffer demanded.

  “We'll never be sure. I think we'll find that he was a highly-skilled lip-reader. Anyway, he caught the man he'd seen leaving in the phone booth outside the Post Office—before he'd had time to get through to either Weissner or Kramer. There was a fight to the death. By the time the killer had dragged Smithy around to the back and returned to the booth, someone else was occupying it. I saw him. So the killer had to go back into the inn. Kramer it was who told Weissner—and the Colonel here who told Kramer.”

  “Very interesting.” There was a sneer in Wyatt-Turner's voice, but a sneer belied by the deep unease in his face. “Fascinating, in fact. Quite finished, Major Smith?”

  “Finished.” Smith sighed. “You just had to come to meet us, hadn't you, Colonel? This was the last door to life left open to you. In my final broadcast I told the Admiral ‘I have it all’. He told you what that meant—all the names, all the addresses. We could never have got at you through Carraciola, Christiansen or Thomas—they were too close to you in M.I.6, you were too cagey and they never knew who they were working for. You used intermediaries—and all their names are in that book. You knew they'd put the finger on you—when it's a choice between taking a walk to the gallows and talking—well, it's not much of a choice, is it?”

  Wyatt-Turner didn't answer. He turned to Carpenter and said: “Lay off a course for Lille airport.”

  “Don't bother,” Smith said.