The Leader And The Damned

by Colin Forbes

  He had dropped the suitcase. The Astrakhan-clad figure who had given him the abrupt order still clung to his left hand with an iron grasp. With his right hand he hauled out the Luger and aimed it. He was

  beside himself with terror.

  The SS man - the short, fat-bellied swine with the machine-pistol - was pointing the muzzle at Lindsay to cut him down. But Christa was standing in the way - deliberately Masking his line of fire. 'Oh God, oh God, oh dear God...!'

  The SS man pressed the trigger, emptied half the magazine into her. She slumped forward, both hands holding her stomach. The blood was drenching the pavement. Above her drooping body the fat SS man appeared. He raised the muzzle of his weapon. Lindsay shot him twice in the face, his aim true, his hand steady as a rock.

  He fired a third time but the hand gripping his other wrist had jerked him at the same moment and the shot went wide. It made no difference. The SS man had fallen alongside his victim.

  'If you don't get into this car I'll shoot you myself,' the voice in English snapped. 'She's dead - can't you see that ….'

  He climbed inside the car, slamming the door shut, aware now that other things had been happening. The road-sweeper had grabbed his case, dived into the front passenger seat and shut the door. The car took off.

  Lindsay twisted round and stared through the rear window. He had only one last glimpse. Christa's shattered body lying crumpled on the pavement. He hoped she had died immediately. Her slim legs were sprawled at a strange angle.

  'She saved my life,' he said.

  No one seemed interested. The powerful engine of the Mercedes carried them through the streets of Munich at manic speed. The Astrakhan-clad figure by his side had a machine-pistol in its lap, an open violin case on the floor which presumably had concealed the weapon.

  Lindsay felt he no longer cared whether they got away or not. He couldn't stop thinking of Christa acting as a human shield to save him. Minutes earlier he had called her a bloody fool. The car slowed down as it entered a deserted street and then swung left into a cul-de-sac.

  A hand closed over his own. He looked down and realized he was still clutching the Luger. He'd forgotten all about the blasted thing - the gun Christa had provided. His companion's tone of voice was critical.

  'The safety catch is still off...'

  'All right! All right!'

  He put the safety on and stared ahead. They were nearly at the end of the cul-de-sac. Now he saw a garage was open. The car slid inside, stopped. The chauffeur jumped out, closed the doors. Nobody said anything as he climbed out on to a concrete floor and an overhead light came on. A stench of petrol.

  The figure in the Astrakhan coat and hat walked round the car and stared at Lindsay. The same height as the Englishman, the wearer's voice was abrupt when it asked the question.

  'The mission was to collect you. Who was the girl?' 'A German secretary of Hitler's. Without her help

  I would not have been there for you to collect.' 'C'est la guerre...

  The figure removed the Astrakhan hat, revealing thick blonde hair, a well-shaped nose and chin - strong bone structure - and greenish tinted eyes. Lindsay was staring at a girl. She would be about twenty-seven, held herself very erect and was extremely attractive.

  'I'm Paco,' she said. 'Now all we have to do is get you back to the Allied lines. Simple? Yes? No?'

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  'We establish a battle headquarters! Its sole objective — to track down the two fugitives! I shall take personal command..'

  Bormann, clad in his normal uniform, his trousers thrust inside jackboots, his squarish face flushed, stopped in mid-sentence as the Fuhrer made a gesture of disagreement.

  'Really, Bormann,' Hitler commented mildly and with some amusement, 'we are not fighting Zhukov and his Soviet divisions. Not here, anyway. We are talking about two people.'

  It was a muddle and the Reichsleiter had caused it. What should have been a military conference had been side-tracked by Bormann bringing up the problem of Lindsay and inviting the wrong people to attend the meeting. Eight men were seated in the huge living room with the famous picture window at Berghof.

  Keitel and Jodl sat side by side on a sofa, scarcely bothering to conceal their annoyance. The other four were Colonel Jaeger with his deputy, Schmidt; the Gestapo representative, Gruber; and Gustav Hartmann of the Abwehr.

  'I understand, mein Fuhrer,' Bormann agreed hastily.

  He leaned back in his chair and crossed his short, stocky legs as the phone began ringing shrilly. Bormann practically leaped on the phone and pressed the receiver to his ear.

  'Yes, Mayr, this is Bormann. You have caught them?'

  There was a pause while he listened and Hartmann, watching his expression, felt certain he knew what had happened. He was also dying to light his pipe but there could be no smoking in Hitler's presence. Still, Bormann's face was a picture...

  'Mayr, this is impossible,' Bormann protested. 'I made no call to you about any Lindsay rendezvous with an Allied agent. What's going on here? Why didn't you check back? Wait a minute..'

  He cupped a pudgy hand over the speaker and stared at the seated men. 'Someone here at the Berghof impersonated me when they called Mayr.' His gaze rested on Keitel and Jodl.

  Keitel, his chin perched on the point of his baton, looked into the distance as though Bormann did not exist. Jodl folded his arms and regarded the Reichsleiter with a saturnine expression. The atmosphere was tense. Bormann continued the call.

  'Listen, Mayr!' he exploded. 'You say someone pretending to be me told you about this rendezvous, that you acted on the information, that Lindsay did turn up -- so presumably you have now got him... All right, go on..'

  The other men in the room remained silent. The Fuhrer studied his fingernails with a bored expression. Hartmann kept his face blank, enjoying the whole incident.

  'This morning, you say...' Bormann sounded incredulous. 'Wait a minute,' he repeated. He stared at the others. 'There has been a massacre outside the Frauenkirche, soldiers killed.'

  'Give me the phone!' Hitler snapped.

  His passive manner changed in one of his unpredictable switches of mood. He stood very erect, the phone pressed to his ear.

  'The Fuhrer speaking. This is taking too long. Tell me in a few words what happened..'

  Hitler listened intently, occasionally acknowledging what was being said to him with a simple 'Yes' or 'No'. This was another myth about the Fuhrer, Hartmann reflected as he reached for his pipe and put it in his mouth without lighting it. The myth that Hitler could never listen. When he was intrigued by a subject, the Fuhrer was one of the world's most attentive listeners.

  'Do what you can, Mayr,' the Fuhrer said eventually. 'Spread a massive dragnet as you suggest. The Englishman must not leave Germany. I prefer he should be taken alive. Report regularly to Bormann about your progress. Do your best, Mayr.'

  He put down the phone and began pacing the wide spaces of the room in an agitated manner, hands clasped behind his back. It was several minutes before he spoke.

  'There has been a terrible accident. Christa, Lundt, my favourite secretary, has been shot dead.'

  'By the Englishman, Lindsay. Bormann jumped in.

  'No!' Hitler glanced at him with a look of contempt. 'I would greatly appreciate it if you could keep quiet until I have finished speaking. And you may be interested to hear Christa was shot by a member of the SS..'

  Hartmann looked at Colonel Jaeger and actually saw the blood drain from his face at the news. One by one, the Fuhrer was using the event to unnerve almost everyone present. He stopped in front of Gruber who started to rise to his feet.

  'Sit down!' Hitler snapped. 'Apparently on the basis of information received a trap was laid this morning. The Gestapo were conspicuous by their absence. They don't seem to know what is going on even in Munich...'

  He turned on his heels and stared down at Hartmann. The Abwehr officer stared back, his unlit pipe clenched between his teeth. Hitler's mood ch
anged again with the same startling abruptness and he addressed Hartmann in a calm manner.

  'Did the Abwehr have any knowledge of this — something to do with a rendezvous in the centre of Munich?'

  'Not a word, mein Fuhrer. Otherwise you would have been the first to hear...'

  Which was not, strictly speaking, necessarily true - but the opportunity to score over Gestapo and SS was too good to overlook. He watched as the Fuhrer nodded - as though to say that is exactly what I would have expected. Hitler made a dismissive gesture.

  'Deal with it in any way you like, Bormann. I leave the whole sorry business in your hands. Make sure flowers and condolences are sent from me on my behalf to Christa's relatives. I am going to my room to rest.'

  It became a battle royal after Keitel and Jodl followed Hitler out of the room - with two organizations fighting for supremacy in the struggle to hunt down the Englishman. Gestapo and SS - Gruber and Jaeger - confronted each other while Hartmann sat listening.

  It was a typical ploy of Bormann's - learned from the Fuhrer - to set different power groups competing against each other. Bormann laid down the ground rules by phoning Mayr again to issue fresh instructions.

  `Mayr, the Englishman, Wing Commander Lindsay, is a spy and is to be shot at the first sighting.

  Understood? By order of the Fuhrer!'

  He slammed down the phone and Hartmann almost expected him to give the Nazi salute. He made one of his rare interventions.

  'Reichsleiter, that order is wrong. Hitler himself told Mayr, "I prefer he should be taken alive.'

  'That was earlier,' Bormann snapped. 'Later, when he became aware of what had happened he specifically told me to deal with it in any way I liked. You, also, are involved. You interrogated Lindsay, you know the man. From now on you will devote all your waking hours to locating this English spy. You will pursue him - to the ends of the earth if need be..'

  'Then I'll need a lot of money,' Hartmann said quickly.

  'Unlimited funds will be placed at your disposal. Gruber, what measures do you propose we take?'

  'Seal off the entire city of Munich. All exits must be closed.'

  'That is not enough,' Jaeger interrupted. He unfolded a map of Bavaria on the table and stabbed at it with his finger. 'Where is Lindsay likely to head for? That is the key to the whole operation and I believe I know the answer.'

  'Well?' Bormann demanded.

  'Switzerland! We must flood the area between Munich and the Swiss frontier with troops. All trains to that area must carry special plain-clothes inspection teams. It requires concentration of our forces. Road-blocks must be set up on,every route leading to the Swiss border. All airfields must be discreetly guarded -- discreetly since we are setting up a whole series of traps.'

  'Why bother about airfields?' Gruber enquired.

  Jaeger looked at him with a hint of contempt. 'Have you forgotten Lindsay is a Wing Commander? That he was originally flown to the Wolf's Lair from the Berghof in a Junkers 52? He may have spent his time observing how the plane is operated...'

  'I see what you mean,' Gruber mumbled and subsided.

  Sitting quietly, puffing his pipe, Hartmann had to admire the SS colonel's energy and organizing ability. A successful criminal lawyer in peacetime, Hartmann placed great value on evidence. He asked a question.

  'You are banking everything on the logic that Lindsay has to be heading for Switzerland?'

  'Well, is it not logical?' Jaeger turned on him aggressively. 'I have put myself - as I always did at the front - inside the mind of the enemy. You have a comment?'

  'I prefer to listen to your meticulous planning,' Hartmann replied ambiguously.

  'In any case,' Bormann broke in, 'you are a strictly one-man show, Hartmann. We rely on you to contact via Berlin the Abwehr agents inside Switzerland. Any information you obtain should be passed to Colonel Jaeger.'

  'Tell me, Bormann, precisely what happened in Munich this morning? You used the word "massacre”.'

  'Mayr botched the operation. As to what happened..'

  Hartmann listened intently as Bormann recalled in detail his phone conversation. Colonel Jaeger was already on the line to Mayr. in Munich firing off a series of orders. Hartmann frowned as Bormann came to the end of his story, an expression which irked the Reichsleiter.

  'What is the matter now, Hartmann?'

  'I find it disturbing. This rescue of the Englishman was planned brilliantly - like a military operation. The road-sweeper who hurled grenades and smoke bombs at our troops - a masterly touch.'

  'You call it that!' snapped Bormann. ' A number of our men were killed.'

  'Furthermore,' Hartmann continued, 'we have no descriptions of this three-man group who snatched Lindsay from under the noses of our elaborate trap. The leader sounds to be the man who wore the Astrakhan hat and coat. No description. Then there was the road-sweeper and the uniformed chauffeur who drove the Mercedes - again, no descriptions. How the hell did they get hold of a Mercedes?'

  'Obviously they stole it!' interjected Gruber who was feeling he was being ignored.

  'Possibly, Gruber,' Hartmann agreed amiably. 'Now, the Gestapo spends vast sums and has I don't know how many men on its staff. So tell me, what information have you about an underground group operating in the Munich area?'

  Gruber, now he was the centre of attention, looked uncomfortable. Bormann stared at him. Jaeger had just finished his phone call to Mayr and also stood watching.

  'There are so many rumours we have to check. It is wartime...' he rambled.

  'Gruber!' Bormann's voice dripped sarcasm. 'I could have told you myself it is wartime. We all labour under that same handicap but we still do our duty.'

  'A specific group, I mean, Gruber,' Hartmann persisted gently. 'They could be saboteurs - in which case you may have discovered explosives. They could be spies - in which case your signals section may have detected unauthorized radio transmissions. They could be subversives - in which case you may have found anti-Nazi propaganda. Well?'

  Even Bormann felt a grudging admiration for the way the Abwehr officer was spearing Gruber to the wall. Gruber sucked in a deep breath, his palms moist with sweat as he replied.

  'We know of no such group,' he snapped. 'Obviously these assassins came into the city from a long distance, rescued the Englishman and departed..'

  'Obviously!' roared Jaeger. 'How could they be sure when Lindsay would escape? He has been inside Germany for some time - and most of that time he was at the Wolf's Lair! Clearly these men have been waiting inside Munich for him to make his break - and the Gestapo hadn't an idea they existed! Criminal incompetence!'

  'I shall report that slander to Reichsfuhrer Himmler, blazed Gruber. 'Your remark verges on treason.

  'So!' Jaeger made a contemptuous gesture. 'While you enjoy a cosy chat with Himmler I will devote my energies to tracking down not only the Englishman — but also we will scoop up in our net this trio of subversives and spies who have been operating under your nose!'

  Only Hartmann observed the smug satisfaction on Bormann's face. Divide and neutralize the power of all potential rivals. He sat motionless as Gruber and Jaeger glared at each other and Bormann intervened, his tone of voice now reasonable and soothing.

  'I do agree that Colonel Jaeger's plan for sealing off the Swiss border sounds reasonable. On the other hand, I am sure with all the resources at its disposal the Gestapo has a major contribution to make. This meeting is adjourned.'

  The three men walked out of the room, leaving Hartmann alone. Standing up, he crouched over the large-scale map Jaeger had spread on the table. A solitary man, Hartmann had developed the habit of murmuring to himself to clear his mind.

  'The last thing anyone would expect would be for Lindsay and his rescuers to move from Munich to Salzburg... After all, Lindsay has just left Salzburg... It depends on how good their intelligence is..'

  He used his pipe stem to trace the route from Munich to Salzburg and let it continue on. The next destination w
as Vienna.

  'Now, Wing Commander Lindsay, you are safe - you fit the description we have been given,' Paco told him. They had also exchanged the quaint password Browne had provided in London.

  'And if I hadn't?' Lindsay enquired.

  'I would have 'strangled you. It is quieter and saves bullets.'

  The man who had acted as chauffeur gave this morale-raising reply. Paco, who seemed to command the group, turned on him.

  'You will not talk like that again to our guest. He is a very important man. The nephew of a British duke.

  Half an hour had passed since Lindsay was bundled into the Mercedes and taken on the mad drive through Munich which ended inside a garage. A concealed door inside a cupboard at the back of the garage led to a staircase which they had descended to a basement - a large room with two double-tiered bunks against separate walls.

  Once the concealed door had been closed - it was made of sheet steel faced with heavy wood so no amount of tapping inside the garage would have produced a hollow sound - Paco introduced her companions.

  'This,' she said, indicating the hard-faced `chauffeur', 'is Bora. He speaks good English. Shake hands, Bora...'

  He was as tall as Lindsay, about thirty years old, his eyes were hostile and the Englishman instantly disliked him. Fortunately he had the foresight to stiffen his hand because Bora had a grip like a wrestler's and exerted full pressure.

  `Do behave, Bora,' Paco said softly. 'I saw that. 'Bora is the name of a strong dry wind which blows up the Adriatic,' Lindsay observed.

  'Now you know why we gave him that code-name.' She turned to the second man - maybe forty years old with a weather-beaten face and a humorous glint in his shrewd eyes. 'This is Milic. He also speaks English, but do not expect perfection.'

  'Milic is most pleased to meet the Englishman... the girl bulleted by the Nazi was very close friend?'

  'He means, Paco interjected in her direct manner, 'were you in love with her. Were you?'

  'No,' Lindsay said tersely.

  'But I think she was in love with you,' Paco continued. She had a soft, appealing voice which contrasted strangely with her poise, the erect way she held herself. Her slow-moving, wary eyes watched him closely.