by Vic Robbie
She dropped her hand holding the silver handgun to her side and collapsed against the frame of the car door.
The other guard wheeled away from Ben in surprise and he hit him on the back of the head with the hammer.
He ran over to Alena, who had now slumped into the seat and was crying: ‘I killed him. I killed him. I had to.’
‘It’s all right.’ He put his arms around her pulling her to him feeling the warmth of her body and the ripples flowing through her like earth tremors.
‘I’m sorry... I killed him.’
‘He’s not dead,’ he lied. ‘You had to shoot him. Did he hurt you?’
‘No,’ she snapped, defiant again. ‘Men can’t...’ she said between the tears ‘... can’t hurt me.’
Trembling so hard as if it would shake off any vestiges of her encounter with the policeman, she never seemed more helpless and vulnerable as she stared into space. Taking off his jacket, he wrapped it around her and, picking up her feet, swung her legs around and into the car. He reached over to take the gun from her, but she hung onto it as if it were an extension of her arm.
‘We must go now,’ she said in a hoarse whisper.
He went to check on the policeman. He was dead and he dragged his body onto the grass verge. The one he’d hit was still breathing although unconscious and he pulled him over to their patrol car and laid him out across the back seat.
With a backwards glance, he ran back to the Bentley, jumped in and switched on the engine. It started first time and he swung it out onto the road.
The policemen would soon be found and there would be the possibility of roadblocks ahead, then their escape to freedom would come to an end. The fascist government wouldn’t take kindly to foreigners killing their police and would be happy to make an example of them. The British would deny knowing anything about them and the Spanish would probably hand over Alena and Freddie to the Nazis. More than ever, Ben now wished he’d taken the boat to England.
They were about an hour’s drive from the Portuguese border and this was where the Bentley would have to show its paces. And he hoped there were few passers-by on the road with any sympathies for the Guardia Civil.
Freddie still hid in the back seat and every time he tried to talk to Alena she gave no sign of hearing him as if the trauma of the shooting had blinded and deafened her.
59
‘Scheisse!’
The oath from his driver on seeing the road ahead blocked by cars and police vehicles brought Weber out of his reverie.
‘Guardia Civil,’ groaned the civilian and sat upright in his seat to get a better view.
A couple of policemen guarded a patrol car parked at the side of the road facing them. Another two down on their hands and knees inspected the grass verge as if looking for tyre tracks. Others loaded a body, covered by a sheet, into the back of an ambulance. An injured policeman, his head smeared with blood, lay on a stretcher talking animatedly to a man in plainclothes who looked to be in charge of the operation.
As they joined the queue of waiting cars, the civilian jumped out to speak to two more Guardia, who were policing the new arrivals.
Weber wound down his window and lit another cigarette. This was the last thing he needed. There was no sign of the Bentley so presumably they’d got through before this incident had happened. That would give them valuable time and they would be well on their way to the Portuguese border. His hopes of catching them before they made it to neutral territory were receding.
The civilian, his face flushed, returned to the car and he looked as if he’d just lost an argument.
‘Well?’ He demanded.
‘Not good,’ said the civilian slamming the door behind him. ‘A guard was shot and his partner attacked.’
‘There’d be any number of people who’d like to do that,’ he ventured.
‘They are having problems making sense of what the injured man is saying. He has a head wound and is rambling on about a Bentley and a blonde woman who shot his partner. They’re taking him away now.’
‘Ah, so. No doubt they’ll be setting up roadblocks.’ It would mean only more problems for them. It would also slow down the Bentley, but if they were arrested by the Guardia Civil for killing a policeman, it would be difficult to get the woman back to Germany. And his family’s future depended on her being silenced before she had a chance to talk.
‘Maybe, although they think the guard’s brains are scrambled.’
‘So what do we do now?’
‘Sit tight and wait,’ the civilian said nervously.
‘Scheisse!’ He slammed his hand down on the dashboard in frustration.
The civilian was deep in thought and, as the two policemen again walked past the car, he got out and called over to them. Through the open window, he heard snatches of conversation and the words ‘terrorista’ and ‘hospital’ in an animated discussion. One of the policemen went off and spoke to the plainclothes officer and returned. The civilian shook his hand and sprinted back to the car wrenching open the door and jumping in. ‘Go,’ he ordered the driver. ‘Go now.’
In his surprise, the driver stalled the car but managed to get it going at the second attempt. The two policemen now acted as traffic cops and waved them on to overtake the line of traffic.
‘Keep driving,’ the civilian shouted at the driver who looked back at him for more guidance. ‘They’re letting us through.’
As they pulled past the scene of the incident, the plainclothes officer turned to look at them and then returned to the job in hand. Weber gave him a wave of acknowledgement.
‘For Christ’s sake how did you manage it?’
‘I’ve a police ID card from Bilbao,’ the civilian said. ‘I told them you were an important witness to a major crime affecting national security and if I didn’t get you to a hospital, you were in danger of bleeding to death.’
The civilian tapped his own head as a reminder, if he needed one, of his injury.
He turned to look out of the rear window. There was no sign of the truck.
‘What about my men?’ he demanded.
‘You can’t have everything,’ said the civilian. ‘You, I could get away with. Explaining six German troopers armed to the teeth would be a bit more difficult.’
He exhaled slowly. In one way it could make things more difficult without the backup of muscle; in another it would be to his advantage if he had fewer witnesses.
Back in the queue, a man took off his steel-rimmed spectacles and blew on the lenses and polished them with a large white handkerchief. He replaced them and tapped the top of the steering wheel with his fingers. It was a dilemma. The Guardia Civil were going from car to car checking papers and if they looked in his trunk they might be surprised to find a sniper’s rifle.
He slipped off the safety catch on the pistol in his pocket. This would be tricky. The policemen were too spread out for him to shoot them in one sweep. If he shot the two approaching his car, the others might have time to get him in their sights.
60
THE portuguese guards at the border crossing showed more interest in the Bentley’s condition than they did in its passengers. It limped to a halt at the barrier making a loud rattling noise sounding as if it could be terminal. Ben offered his American passport and a guard thumbed through it in a desultory fashion before ducking to look into the car. He glanced at Freddie in the back and stared at Alena for longer than he should have before going to a cabin to consult a colleague.
The two spoke for several minutes, the other guard all the time leafing through Ben’s passport. Eventually, the guard returned with his partner, who also looked into the car and his eyes never strayed from Alena. He withdrew chuckling and said something they couldn’t understand to his colleague and Alena averted her face with a look of thunder. With an outsize grin, the first guard returned the passport and waved them through.
‘Welcome to Portugal, Americans.’ He gave a mock salute.
Some way down the road, she rai
sed her arms and gave out a muted yelp of celebration and Freddie, catching the mood, joined in jumping up and down on the back seat.
‘Are we safe?’ The tone of her voice indicated she didn’t quite believe it. ‘Can we be really free?’
He put a hand on her arm.
‘Not quite yet.’ But he didn’t want to dampen her mood. ‘Don’t forget the Germans have the same rights as us in Portugal and if they want you as much as you say they’ll be right on our tail all the way to Estoril. You won’t be safe until you step on English soil.’
Even then, he wondered, how safe would they be there? How long would it be before Hitler and his Nazis spanned the English Channel and invaded?
Surprisingly, her mood seemed to have lightened and he realised it was part of an act for Freddie’s sake. Although it appeared as if she’d managed to shut out the memory of the incident with the Guardia she still clutched the pistol with an increasing intensity.
‘Would you like to give me the gun?’ he asked not wanting to spark any unwelcome memories.
She stared at him, debating what to do.
‘When I escaped from the castle I was given this so if the Nazis caught us I could take our own lives.’ She pushed the hair from her face with her other hand. ‘So you can understand why I have to keep it.’
He couldn’t imagine her killing her own child. ‘Surely you wouldn’t be able to?’
She glanced out of the window and back at him and there was a fierceness about her stare. ‘You don’t know what I’m capable of. I will if I have to.’
She said it with such determination he’d no doubt she would.
‘What I did to the policeman I did out of hatred and revenge. I wasn’t in control. I wanted to kill him, make him suffer for what he was doing to me. If the Germans catch us, it will be different. I’ll shoot Freddie and it will be an act of love. Escape to a better place, you understand.’
Changing the subject, she turned to him with an enquiring smile ‘So you’re a writer?’
She made it sound more like an accusation than a question.
He nodded, wondering what was coming next.
‘What have you published?’
‘Nothing yet, I’m still working on things, so I guess I’m not a writer until I’ve been published.’
‘Not necessarily.’ She stretched her arms above her head. ‘They say a writer is a person who writes.’
‘Well, I certainly do.’
‘My grandfather told me that.’ She went silent, remembering. ‘He was so sweet. Back in Russia where he came from he knew a lot of writers.’
‘Did he write?’
‘Yes, although he was really a doctor of medicine. He liked to quote the line of Chekhov’s.’
Ben turned and looked at her.
‘You must know the one ‘Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress’.’
She chuckled sexily.
‘You’ve read them?’
‘What?’
‘You’ve read all the major Russian writers?’
‘Well, not exactly.’
He glanced at her again.
‘It was my grandfather who got me into them when I was a young girl. I wasn’t so keen on reading then. I used to visit him after school each day and I’d go to his study and he would read to me. While some of the books were daunting in print, his readings made them come alive and there in his study I could see the characters playing out their lives before me. It was magical.’
‘Which ones?’
‘Oh, all of them, all the greats as I suppose you’d call them.’
He nodded in appreciation.
‘I had favourites. Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. I made him read it to me several times. Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin because it was in verse I suppose. Dostoyevsky and Chekhov’s short stories.’
She lapsed into silence as she retreated into her memories.
Bernay hoped the platinum would help France’s fight against occupation although now he was beginning to believe Alena’s importance to the British war effort might be even more important than the millions in bullion. And it made him all the more determined to get her to reveal the truth before they reached England. He deserved it at least. First, they had to outrun the Nazis to Estoril and once there they probably wouldn’t be any safer than in France.
He glanced back at her and she just stared straight ahead immersed in her own secret world, and he took another look in his rear mirror and gunned the car on its way to Estoril.
* * *
THE two Guardia didn’t know what hit them. Making their inspections of the cars in the queue, they’d sauntered up to a Citroen with French number plates, which appeared empty. It was only when they drew level with the car the driver sat up and fired just two rounds, one in each of their heads.
Immediately, people started shouting and some were screaming and several of the drivers got out of their cars to help. Two more Guardia started running towards the sound of the shots, but before they’d time to determine what was happening, they were cut down.
The plainclothes officer and the two other policemen, who’d been guarding the original patrol car, stood rooted to the spot bemusement spreading across their faces as a car sped towards them.
One of the guards lifted a rifle to his shoulder and took aim. The plainclothes officer tugged at his pistol as the driver pulled out the pin of a grenade with his teeth and lobbed the missile between the three policemen. The thud of an explosion cut short the men’s shouts of fear. And it reverberated down the line of cars making them shake and rattle as the bodies of the policemen flew into the air ending up on the roof of the wreckage of their patrol car.
61
THEY had the highest standards. the hotel palácio was the place to stay in Estoril. Emperors, kings and queens resided at the hotel and the world’s most influential and beautiful people visited on a regular basis. One didn’t expect just anyone to turn up.
It was late on a Saturday night and there were still people about. Some going out for a pre-bed stroll along the promenade or a gamble at the casino or those arriving back at the hotel perhaps to join the revellers in the piano bar until the last drinker passed out.
This couldn’t be happening.
The commissionaire’s moustache bristled. He first noticed the car when it turned in off the Avenue Clotilde and the entrance gate’s lamps caught it in their light. The car limped up the drive and at first he couldn’t understand what he was seeing. As it came closer, the lights of the hotel confirmed it to be exactly as he’d feared. A large car covered in mud and dust and as it moved part of it trailed along the ground making a scraping and grinding sound, and he believed he saw sparks. Only one headlamp worked. The number plate hung from the front and what looked like bullet holes peppered the bonnet. A large crack zigzagged down the middle of the windscreen and deep grooves ran the length of the sides of the car. Part of the hood was detached and flapped in the breeze like an injured gull’s wings. The driver had to be mistaken; he must have been looking for a breaker’s yard.
Looking around and hoping there were no witnesses, the commissionaire in his grey uniform with red flashes drew himself up to his full height, adjusted his peaked cap and prepared to order the driver to take his heap of junk elsewhere.
The car stopped just short of the main entrance as if it had expired and as he marched towards it a blonde woman alighted from the passenger door. Her clothes were soiled and torn. She wore a man’s jacket draped around her shoulders and mud and blood streaked her face, yet her beauty shone through and caused him to hesitate. He was used to seeing elegant women arrive at the hotel in their finery and it was not only their dress but also the way they carried themselves, their poise and confidence marked them apart. This one was quite different yet probably the most striking woman he’d ever seen.
Before he could gather himself, she said with a weary, yet relieved, smile: ‘I believe we’re expected.’
‘Yes ma’am,’ he replied a trifle
flustered. ‘I’ll arrange for someone to take your bags.’
Carrying Freddie, Ben followed Alena in through the doors of the hotel. And he was almost blinded by the brightness of the grand lobby with the light from its crystal chandeliers reflecting off its mirrored ceilings, marble pillars and floors, and glass doors. This felt a million miles from what they’d endured out on the road and the prospect of a bath, clean clothes and food and drink made him almost dizzy with expectation.
The sense of relief was brief.
Anxiously, he scanned the lobby, almost seeing a Nazi behind every pot plant and pillar. If the Germans had got to Bernay, they’d know to expect them here. Although it was late, the lobby bustled with any number of men on their own who could be agents, and he knew they couldn’t afford to be off guard for a minute.
He went up to reception and it amused him to see the looks on the faces of the staff behind the counter.
‘Yes, can I help?’ a receptionist smiled nervously at him and cleared her throat in surprise.
‘You’ve a reservation for us,’ he said and in an almost hoarse whisper added ‘Ben Peters.’ And he glanced over his shoulder to see if his name aroused any interest.
She stared at him for several seconds before clearing her throat again and glanced down at paperwork in front of her. She wasn’t sure how to react to the man who had a livid cut on his head and congealed blood down the side of his face. And his partner wasn’t in any better shape looking as if she’d slept in a field and with blood leaking from a cut on her lip.
A man in a sharp suit interrupted her doubts.
‘Of course, Mr Peters,’ he said unfazed by their appearance. He’d come to accept the eccentricities of the rich and famous. ‘Welcome to the Hotel Palácio. We’ve been expecting you and your wife and son. Your reservation was made by Rafe Cooper and he left this note for you.’
The man handed Ben an envelope, which he slipped into a pocket.