by Nick Carter
The shorter man, a square fellow with a broken nose, waved his automatic at the radio. "Put the radio on the floor between us along with your purse…" he glanced at me — "and your gun."
"Then step away from them," the taller man ordered.
Ursula looked at me, and I nodded assent. With two guns aimed at us, there was little room for argument She stepped forward and set the radio and her purse with the Webley in it on the floor. I slowly pulled the Luger from my jacket, watching for any kind of opportunity to use against them, but both guns were now centered on my chest. I placed the Luger on the floor beside the radio and purse. I still had Hugo up my sleeve, but it looked as if there would be little opportunity to use it.
"Very good," the tall Topcon agent said. He had dark hair and a very thin face. He motioned to the other man, who stepped forward, opened Ursula's purse, and removed the Webley. He stuck that and Wilhelmina in his jacket pocket. Then he picked up the radio.
"Now come with us," the tall man said.
Ursula looked at me again. "We'd better do what the man says," I told her.
They got us out of the building without anyone noticing and took us to a gray Fiat sedan outside. Ursula and I were told to get into the rear of the car. The tall man got behind the wheel, and the one with the broken nose got in beside him, but he faced us with the automatic aimed at my chest.
"We will go for a little pleasure ride now," the one with the gun told me with a great deal of satisfaction.
The car entered the stream of morning traffic. I saw that both rear doors were locked with special locks. It seemed there was no way to beat the man with the gun. Richter had apparently decided that it was best to get rid of us so that he could continue his negotiations without interference. I was beginning to understand how he had eluded all kinds of police and government agents for so many years: he was intelligent, efficient, and completely free of conscience.
We were driving out of Belgrade. We went along the Brankova Prizrenska Boulevard until we got to the river, then followed the Kara Dordeva out of town to the south. In a short while, we were in open, rolling country.
"Where are you taking us?" I finally asked.
"You will know very soon," the broken-nosed one said, giving me a harsh grin. His accent was German, while the tall man's was French. It was quite a cosmopolitan outfit, this Topcon.
His prediction was correct. In another fifteen minutes, after winding around a couple of country roads, we came to an isolated country house. The driver pulled to a stop before it and ordered us out.
Ursula and I climbed out of the Fiat. I had no idea where we were; I only knew that we were south of the city. It made sense that Richter would leave Belgrade, since the police were combing the city for him. By now it was impossible for him to travel by public transportation. I wondered whether he knew about Lubyanka yet.
"Into the house," the tall man ordered, waving his revolver at us. Both guns were pointed at us again. I followed orders.
Inside, the house looked even smaller than it had appeared from the exterior. But it was all Richter needed. In a moment, after the tall gunman had called for him, Richter came into the room from the kitchen.
"Well," he said when he saw us, "What a pleasant surprise." He reached for the radio that the tall man had placed on a table. "You almost got it, didn't you?"
"So far you've been just a step ahead of us," I said. "But your luck can't hold out forever, Richter."
I saw the hirelings glance at me when I used his real name. Apparently he was known to them only as Blücher. Richter grinned at me and then moved over and slugged me in the face.
I fell heavily to the floor. Ursula gasped and bent over me. A trickle of blood ran from my mouth. I lay there and looked up at Richter and hated him. That hatred would make me try a little harder if I ever got any chance to move against him.
Ursula looked up at Richter. "Nazi butcher!" she hissed.
Anger flushed Richter's face. He slapped her hard across the face, and she fell down beside me.
Richter turned to the men who had brought us. "Handcuff them there and there." He pointed to a room divider that had a series of thin iron bars built adjacent to the doorway of the kitchen, and to an old iron radiator on a side wall. "So they are separated."
The broken-nosed man cuffed both of Ursula's wrists to the radiator, and the tall man chained me to the outside post of the room divider. My hands were in back of me, with each wrist cuffed and the connecting chain around the bar. I had to stand and Ursula was obliged to sit on the floor, her back against the radiator.
"All right, get it," Richter ordered to the tall gunman.
The tall man disappeared into a small bedroom and returned a moment later with a home-made bomb. There was enough dynamite attached to it to blow up two houses the size of the one we were in. Richter glanced at me with a grin, took the bomb from the tall man's hands, and set the device on a table in the center of the room, about halfway between Ursula and me.
"André is very good with these things," Richter remarked as he set the clock that was the trigger for the bomb. "A bullet would be neater, of course, but this is so much more complete. It is highly unlikely that the authorities will be able to identify your bodies after the explosion and fire. I hope this example will be a warning to any who might come after you."
"I expect it will make them think," I said. I looked carefully at the bomb, which was set and ticking. Richter was right. There would be little left for examination if that thing went off.
"We will never give up until you are in the custody of the people whose name you blemished," Ursula said in a tight voice.
Richter glanced at her. "I blemished?" he said acidly. "It is too bad you were not around when it was all going on, fräulein. The Third Reich did not depend on me alone to accomplish its goals. All of us were Nazis then. When we were defeated, a few weak ones turned on the rest and suddenly became anti-Nazi.
"You're a lying dog," Ursula hissed.
"Now it is fashionable to befriend former enemies and run about with socialists and betray old ideals," he continued slowly.
"And Nazis end up working with Communists," I reminded him.
He turned hard eyes on me. "That is business, pure and simple. It is what a man has to do when he is hunted like a dog by those who turned on him."
"Killing us will not save you, Herr Richter!" Ursula said loudly. "You will be apprehended, and you will pay for what you have done."
He gave her a bitter grin. "You now have less than twenty minutes to convince yourself of that." Without waiting for an answer, he turned to his henchmen. "Disable the Lamborghini. We will take the Fiat down to the Dragoman Pass station at Crveni Krst. It should be safe to get aboard the train there."
"Yes, Herr Blücher," the tall man said. The two turned and went outside.
As the gunmen tampered with the Lamborghini outside, Richter turned once more to me. "You have temporarily aborted my deal with the Russians. But only temporarily. For that you will now pay with your lives."
So he knew about Lubyanka.
"When I leave here, I will not only have all the time I want in Sofia to resume negotiations for the sale of the satellite monitor, but I will have the Bonn government off my neck for quite some time. You see, everything works out very well for me, as usual." He walked to the door. Outside, the Fiat engine was started. "Auf wiedersehen. Or perhaps I should just say, goodbye?"
He turned and was gone. In a moment the Fiat pulled away, and the sound gradually diminished as they drove back to the main road.
Ursula and I looked at the ticking bomb simultaneously and then at each other. Ursula was biting her lower lip and shaking her head. "I should have killed Richter the moment I recognized him."
"Cool it," I said. "We have less than fifteen minutes left now. That doesn't leave much time for deep thinking."
"I can't move," Ursula said, rattling her handcuffs against the radiator.
"Try to relax," I told her, calmly
. "Your anxiety can be contagious, and I have to work something out here."
The damned ticking of the bomb on the table was like our heartbeats ticking out their last. I tuned it out and twisted to look at the bars behind me. I pulled on the one I was attached to, and it bent and then sprung back. I frowned and scraped the chain of the handcuffs against the bar. It made a soft sound, not the sharp, grating one that metal makes. The bars were not metal after all, but wood painted to look like black iron. Then I remembered Hugo. They had not found Hugo, my stiletto.
Hope sprung into my chest and caused my gut to tighten even more. I moved my right arm, but nothing happened. I was greatly handicapped in my movements. I moved around facing Ursula and leaned away from the slim wooden bar.
"What are you doing, Nick?"
"Trying to save our lives," I said curtly. I had no time for chatter.
I moved my arm again, and Hugo slipped down into my palm. I worked the knife into position so that my grip was firm on the handle. Twisting my wrist sharply, I managed to apply the sharp edge of Hugo's blade to the wood of the bar just under my hands. I cut at the bar and felt the knife blade bite into the wood. The wood was hard, but Hugo was honed to a fine edge for cutting. I made small whittling motions with the blade and could feel a couple of chips fall away.
I glanced over at Ursula. "I'm trying to chop this damned bar down," I explained. I could not see the face of the clock on the bomb. "How much time is there?"
"Just over ten minutes," Ursula said, craning to see the face of the clock.
"Jesus," I said, angry that so much time had elapsed.
I whittled away. I did not care to cut all the way through the bar. I just wanted to weaken it. There were a lot of chips on the floor. I stopped chopping and pulled hard on the bar. There was a tiny crackling noise, but the wood did not break. The cuffs had now cut deeply into my wrists. I whittled some more until I could finally feel a deep gash in the wood. I steeled myself for the pressure of the cuffs against my wrists and looked over at Ursula.
"Time," I said.
"Six minutes."
I braced my feet under me and pulled with all my strength. There was a loud cracking noise as the wooden bar splintered. I plunged headlong onto the floor and almost hit the table where the bomb was resting.
My hands were still cuffed behind me, but I struggled to my feet. I could feel blood on my wrists. I stood beside the table to get a look at the bomb. If I knew Richter, and I thought I was beginning to, he would have the bomb rigged so that any jarring of it such as picking it up would set it off ahead of time. I leaned down to check out the wiring and saw that I was right. I either had to disarm the bomb without moving it or get Ursula free somehow of the radiator.
The bomb was set to go off when the minute hand reached the half hour, and there were only four minutes to go. I didn't have much time.
"We've got to get you off that thing," I said as I turned to Ursula. "I can't move the bomb."
"But how can I get free?" she asked, trying to keep the panic from her voice.
I leaned down and examined how she was shackled to the metal. There was only one way to free her, and that was to pick the lock of the handcuffs. But that operation would require several minutes, even if I had my hands in front of me. I slipped Hugo into a back trousers pocket; I would not need it. Then I examined the radiator carefully.
The pipe from the basement that joined the radiator was all rusted out. It looked as if the radiator had not been in use for years. Also, the plates that anchored the radiator to the wooden floor appeared old and loose.
I stepped back and surveyed the scene from a short distance. The radiator was placed about a foot from the wall. There was enough room for what I had in mind. I positioned myself squarely before the radiator and glanced at Ursula.
"Brace yourself," I said. "I'm going to give this thing a hard kick."
"All right, Nick," she said.
I glanced at the clock. There were two minutes to go. Raising my leg and bending my knee, I kicked out viciously at the radiator with my right foot.
There was a wrenching of metal and wood as I connected, and Ursula was thrown backwards against the radiator. I heard her make a sharp sound in her throat. When I looked to see the results, I found a pile of rust on the floor. The radiator had come off the pipe completely and was leaning back against the wall. The plates that had held it to the floor had been torn loose, but they still had rotten wood attached to them. One of the plates was still clinging to the wooden floor at the anchor, so I kicked out again and freed it completely.
Ursula was bruised and covered with rust.
"I'm afraid you're going to have to lug your end of this thing," I told her. "Get up. Fast."
She struggled to her feet, lifting one end of the radiator with her. It was heavy for her, but her adrenalin was flowing. I moved sidewise, grabbed the other end with my cuffed hands, and hoisted the radiator to thigh level. I looked at the clock on the bomb. There was less than a minute left.
"Move!" I said. "Out the door!"
Ursula stumbled out of the open doorway, still hooked to the big piece of accordion-shaped metal. I followed her, having to walk almost backwards.
"Walk very fast," I said. "Don't run. We have to make at least fifty yards. To that depression in the ground over there."
She obeyed orders, grunting and sweating. It was awkward as hell. Once Ursula fell to her knees while I almost lost my end of the radiator. "Get up," I said in a calm voice.
She did. The clock in my head told me that we had only about fifteen seconds. We moved quickly to the shallow depression in the field adjacent to the house, and stumbled into it Just as we fell to the ground, a deafening explosion ripped the calm day behind us.
The shock waves hurt my ears and blew our hair into our faces. Then we were assailed by a welter of dirt and debris. Big, heavy pieces of timber rained down around us. In a moment it was over, and we looked toward the house. A big cloud of smoke curled skyward, and the little that was left of the cottage was in flames.
"My goodness," Ursula exclaimed, evidently imagining what would have happened to her if the radiator had not come loose. Her blonde hair was straggly, and there was dirt on her face.
"We were lucky," I said.
I got Hugo and went to Ursula's end of the radiator to begin picking the lock on her cuffs. It required over ten minutes. When she was finally free, she rubbed her wrists for a long moment and drew a deep breath. Then she set to work with Hugo to remove my cuffs. It took her about the same time, with her hands free. My wrists had been cut by the cuffs, but the blood was already caking over the wounds.
"Now what, Nick?" Ursula asked.
"Now we head for the Dragoman Pass after Richter."
"They have a headstart on us," she said. "And we don't have a car. They took some parts from the Lamborghini."
"I know," I said, glancing toward the Italian car near the house. Some of its glass had been broken, and the paint had been blasted off one side by the explosion. "But Richter made it clear that he is getting back aboard the Orient Express at the Pass. He intends to cross the border into Bulgaria at Dimitrovgrad. So we don't have to concern ourselves with getting to Crveni Krst when Richter gets there, but before the train leaves. It might just be possible, if we get down to the main road and catch a ride right away."
"Then let's start walking," Ursula said.
Twelve
It was quite a hike to the road. Ursula did not complain, but I could tell that the strain of the past twenty-four hours was telling on her. About a half hour after we left the scene of the burning cottage, we reached the only road that passes through that part of the country.
"It looks pretty lonely," Ursula said.
The road stretched out flat along the river valley in either direction for as far as the eye could see, but there were no cars on it. It was so quiet that it was difficult to believe that any traffic would ever come past.
"It makes me want to forget Richt
er and just enjoy the peace and quiet," I said.
"Yes," Ursula agreed. She went and sat on the grassy bank by the roadside, and I joined her there.
Ursula leaned back in the long grass with her elbows propped under her. She closed her eyes and listened to a bird in a nearby field. It was a soft, sunny spring day with an enervating magic in the balmy air. A clump of poplars, green buds decorating their lacy branches, whispered nearby, and the breeze that moved the trees also gently rippled the long grass in the field that paralleled the road. It was the kind of day and place, and the kind of company, that makes an agent wonder what the hell he is doing in his particular profession.
Ursula's short, dark skirt was hiked up around her upper thighs, and she looked very good lying there. A bedroom is not the only perfect setting for love-making, as I had discovered on other happy occasions. Often I find a perfect place in the most unexpected circumstances. But this opportunity, considering we were hoping for a car any minute, was less than favorable.
"Nick! It's a car!" Ursula pointed.
It was a Citroen sedan, approaching us at high speed.
"Good," I said. "I'll try to stop it." I climbed out on the roadway and waved my arms in a wide arc. The car began to slow down immediately, and in a moment it had pulled over onto the shoulder beside us.
Two young Italian men were inside, and they were headed toward the border themselves.
"Are you going as far as Crveni Krst at the Dragoman Pass?" I asked.
They were both thin young men with long hair. The driver glanced at Ursula and apparently liked what he saw. "We will make a point of going to Crveni Krst," he said in a thick accent. "Please get in."
We did, and the car roared away down the highway. I was glad that they enjoyed driving fast, because our time was short. In fact, we might have already lost our chance to get there in time.