The Prisoner

by Robert Muchamore

  Now what?

  Marc reckoned he had ten minutes – twenty at best – before the alarm went up and there were teams of Germans hunting a killer. On the upside, with Fischer dead, Osterhagen unconscious and the other two guards never having known him, it would probably be much longer before the Germans knew exactly who they were looking for.

  So Marc had a window. Central Station was only a fifteen-minute walk, but Marc doubted any passenger trains ran at this time of night. Even if they did, he had no ticket money and there was heavy security at major stations even when someone hadn’t just killed a bunch of prison guards.

  If Marc had been fit, running into hiding somewhere outside town would have been possible, or he might even have swum across the river. But he could barely walk, so his only realistic route out of town was sneaking aboard a truck or cargo train.

  Großmarkthalle was less than three hundred metres from where Marc had ditched the bike, with goods sidings branching off behind. Only a dozen or so trains left the sidings per day, so he’d need luck to find one departing any time soon.

  A cart or truck seemed a better bet. Local factories worked through the night and the market hall stayed open to accept their deliveries. Marc had never been inside the hall much after 10 p.m., but he knew that a shift of prison labourers came on duty at around 6 p.m. and worked through the night.

  Marc’s first thought was to walk to the rear of Großmarkthalle and sneak in through the railway sidings. But he’d entered the building hundreds of times with no hassle from the guard on the entrance, so being sneaky was probably the riskier option.

  Fischer’s kidney punch meant Marc clutched his sides as he walked, but he took a deep breath, straightened up and tried disguising his limp as he approached the gate.

  ‘Haven’t seen you in a while, son,’ the guard on the gate noted.

  It would have been better not to have been remembered, but Marc was happy enough as he trotted down eight concrete stairs and along a short corridor before passing into the main hall.

  To save electricity the cavernous space was barely lit. The high ceiling and shafts of light had an eerie stillness, as did the endless pallets, drums and boxes stretching over several football pitches worth of concrete floor.

  ‘Haven’t you heard of a shower?’ a pot-bellied Frenchman grumbled, as he buried his face behind his arm.

  He was having a sneaky cigarette break with two fellow prisoners, who pinched their noses shut like five-year-olds smelling a fart. Marc couldn’t smell himself, but it was an unwelcome reminder that the filth soaked into his clothes made him stand out.

  He cut between the piles of goods, moving as purposefully as his physical limitations allowed. If tonight was anything to go by, prisoners working the nightshift at Großmarkthalle had an easier job than most. About a dozen men were rolling huge drums of copper wire on to a goods wagon, but twice that many seemed to be sitting about.

  There was no sign of a train steaming up ready for departure. Even more disappointingly, all but one of the doors where trucks and carts backed in to deliver goods were shuttered, so his chances of sneaking out that way were nil.

  Nobody had paid much attention so far, but it was only a matter of time before someone asked Marc what he was up to. He did his best to look purposeful and had almost walked the entire length of the market when noise broke out on the metal stairs leading up to the offices.

  It was near dark, but Marc still dived behind a stack of boxes, before peeking up to see a dozen agitated Gestapo men bolting down from their fourth-floor offices.

  Clanking treads drowned most of what they said, but they were clearly men in a hurry and Marc caught the German words for perimeter and guard, so he was sure they’d been sent out looking for him.

  The streets would be much more dangerous now, and with four guards either dead or seriously wounded Marc knew they’d use round-up tactics, where everyone on the streets would be scooped up on sight and brought in for detailed interrogation.

  But it was no less dangerous hanging about on the market-hall floor and if Marc couldn’t leave, the only choice was to hide. His first thought was to sneak under a pile of sacks, or make a crawl space between boxes, but it was a short-term solution at best, and his smell would work against him.

  Then Marc considered the fifth-and sixth-floor offices where he used to work. He couldn’t decide if it was genius or the worst idea ever. But his kidney was burning, his knees were getting weak and alternative plans weren’t exactly forming a queue.

  After giving the Gestapo team half-a-minute to clear out, Marc cut around the edge of the empty Gestapo prisoner pen and started up the stairs. He was on the fifth flight of twelve when a trio of Gestapo men started belting down the stairs, one with a machine gun slung over his shoulder.

  ‘It’s Baron Von Osterhagen’s grandson,’ one of them said, as they closed on Marc. ‘He owns half of Frankfurt. Heads are going to roll.’

  ‘Serves the rich little prick right for draft dodging,’ another officer said harshly.

  ‘You might be right, but I wouldn’t voice that opinion too loudly. Nobody messes with the Baron in this town.’

  Marc paused on the next landing, trying not to shudder as the three Gestapo men swept past, giving him looks of utter condescension. He half expected to hear a gun click, or someone to turn back and say, hang on a minute, but Marc’s undernourished teenage frame clearly didn’t fit the officer’s mental image of someone who’d just taken down four guards in a daring escape.

  Marc walked to the sixth floor, because the archives were always quieter than the busy Labour Administration office downstairs and had the additional benefit of access to the roof. It was no surprise to find the door locked. Even if he’d had the strength, smashing the lock would give Marc’s presence away, so he had to pick it.

  He quickly tapped down his pockets, but found no obvious pick and realised he’d have to strip the pistol. There wasn’t much light up this high and Marc wasn’t familiar with the design of Fischer’s automatic. But all automatic pistols have a recoil spring inside, and after half a minute’s fiddling, Marc got the weapon’s outer casing off and freed the elusive spring.

  Marc’s grip was weak and he felt nauseous as he used all his strength to stretch one end of the spring into a length of thickish wire, with a slight L bent into one end. He crouched on one knee, turned the lock handle with one hand, then pushed his freshly made lock pick into the hole.

  Mercifully it was a simple lock. It only took a few jiggles, followed by a sharp hammer on the end of the pick with the pistol. The door opened inwards, taking Marc with it. After the undignified entrance, he nudged the door shut with his rubber boot, then spent several seconds sprawled on the floor, clutching his chest, while close to blacking out from pain and exhaustion.

  When Marc started to move it was a half stoop, half crawl towards a tiny windowless washroom. He flipped on the light, let the gun parts clatter in to the sink and made a long dry heave over the toilet. His kidney was on fire. Too weak to keep standing, he dropped trousers, sat on the toilet and started pissing something the colour of red wine.

  ‘Bastard,’ Marc muttered to himself, as he thought about Fischer.

  But it was good knowing Fischer was dead and he even raised half a smile at the thought that if he got caught and executed, he’d taken a few Germans with him.

  After a long drink of water from the cold tap, Marc studied himself in the mirror. He’d not seen a mirror since he’d left hospital. His eye was the only bright spot: the surgeon had done a good clean-up job, and despite all the sewage he’d been exposed to there was no sign of infection, just a little swelling and an X-shaped scab above his eye.

  The other news wasn’t so good. Marc’s shirt and jacket were crusted with dried sewage and his skin was filthy and wrinkled like an old man’s. Unbuttoning his shirt revealed a mass of bruises and semi-circle cuts made by the ring Fischer wore on his right hand.

  Marc knew it would be a couple of h
ours before the caretaker arrived to unlock the office. It gave him a breathing space, but he had no idea how to pull off the next stage of his escape.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Marc put the pistol back together. There were three bullets in the clip, but with no recoil spring he’d have to load each shot manually.

  With time to think and get his strength back, he was able to put his espionage training to proper use. Escape routes were a priority, so he found an emergency bolt hole behind two cabinets, then opened the door out on to the balcony.

  The cool, still air sent a shiver down his back as he turned around. His fingertips could reach the edge of the flat roof, but he wasn’t currently strong enough to pull himself up, so he put a wooden chair outside to make the climb easier.

  With hiding and escape plans in place, Marc’s thoughts turned to documents. He didn’t dare turn on the electric light in the main office because it would be seen from below, but he found and lit one of the paraffin hand lamps that office workers used during Frankfurt’s all-too-frequent power cuts.

  It seemed Commandant Eiffel had ordered no new security precautions beyond Marc’s sacking. Valuable documents such as blank prisoner record cards and travel permits were still piled up in an unlocked cupboard, just like when he’d worked here.

  Marc grabbed a couple of each, then headed towards the cabinets to retrieve his own prisoner record card, hoping he’d be able to use the photo on a travel warrant. But his replacement card was only a few days old. His new photograph was still being processed and the only things written on it apart from Marc Hortefeux and a false date of birth was a message in block capitals stating that ALL MATTERS RELATING TO THIS PRISONER MUST BE REFERRED TO COMMANDANT EIFFEL.

  ‘Shit,’ Marc said, deterred, but not beaten.

  The cabinets contained thousands of cards. Pictures were usually taken when prisoners were first arrested. The resulting photographs depicted men and women who were noticeably plumper and hairier than they’d be after a few months’ captivity.

  Marc flipped through rapidly. Within minutes he’d picked out the photos of two teenaged prisoners who looked quite like he’d done before he’d lost twenty pounds and had his head shaved.

  The next job was to type up the false prisoner record and travel warrant, then he’d have to sneak down to the fifth floor where he’d find the rubber stamps that validated documents and a fountain pen to forge signatures.

  But before Marc reached the typewriter, he heard a key in the lock. After quickly snuffing out his lamp, he bolted towards the balcony at the rear of the office, making it out of the door as someone flipped on all the lights.

  Marc had the chair ready, so that he could get up on to the roof if he needed to, but for now he crouched on the balcony, peeking down the rows of filing cabinets towards three figures who’d entered the archive room.

  Two were Gestapo men. One plain clothes, one the local Gestapo boss, decked out in his black uniform. The third person was Commandant Eiffel, but the way the men stood slightly behind on either side gave Marc the impression that she was in trouble.

  Eiffel led the way to the exact drawer that Marc had been in moments earlier. He could see wisps of paraffin smoke where he’d hastily extinguished the lamp, and hoped they weren’t noticed.

  ‘Is your toilet blocked?’ the Gestapo chief asked, as he sniffed suspiciously. ‘It smells vile up here.’

  ‘I’ve never noticed before,’ Eiffel said, as she pulled the draw open. ‘But it’s quite a smell. I’ll get the caretaker to take a look at the plumbing … Oh, damn.’

  Eiffel had pulled Marc’s record card and discovered that his photograph hadn’t been processed.

  ‘This is unacceptable,’ the Gestapo chief yelled, as he snatched the card and read it. ‘How can your photographic records not be up to date?’

  ‘There’s a shortage of photographic paper,’ Eiffel explained. ‘A delivery is expected within the next week, but Reich Labour Administration stands well below the military and many other departments when it comes to items in short supply.’

  The Gestapo commander turned towards his plain-clothes colleague. ‘I want everyone who’s had contact with the escaped prisoner rounded up for interrogation. People he works with now, people he worked with in this office, guards, people he met while he was in hospital, his former cabin mates on the Oper. One of them will know where he’s heading.’

  Eiffel slouched like a little kid about to get yelled at by her dad as she led the Gestapo officers towards the door and switched the lights back out. Marc felt bad, knowing that old mates like Richard, and Vincent, along with friendly co-workers like Ursula and Leonard now faced interrogation, possibly even torture because of what he’d done.

  Marc’s biggest worry was someone working out why the sixth-floor office stank when they met his co-workers on gang sixty-two, but there were no risk-free choices and hiding out here remained a better option than trying to skip town through heavily policed streets.

  Having decided to stay here for at least a few hours, Marc prioritised checking the roof for hiding spots and escape routes over typing up documentation. Using the chair as a step, Marc clambered on to the flat roof of the offices, which overlooked the huge vaulted roof of the main hall a few metres below.

  The only comfortable hiding place was an open-sided wooden shelter, built next to the turntable for an anti-aircraft gun. Frankfurt was at the outermost edge of British bombing range, so although Großmarkthalle was a high-value target, the gun had been removed to another location where air raids were more frequent.

  The shed was such an obvious hiding place that Marc scouted the edge of the roof looking for a plan B. All he found were antennas and a couple of precarious ledges where roof gutters met rainwater pipes. He reckoned he could climb on to one of these and crouch down out of sight for a few minutes, but one slip would send him plummeting six storeys, so it was strictly a last resort.

  Marc’s next two priorities were washing his clothes and finding food. German civilian rations weren’t much better than what prisoners got. Marc knew he wouldn’t find much food lying around the office and the matter of filling his belly would require further thought.

  Washing his clothes was simpler. There was no soap, but Marc found a bucket in the cleaners’ cupboard along with a pack of chlorine powder used for scrubbing the office floors. He didn’t want to get trapped in the bathroom if someone came in, so he filled the bucket and waddled to the balcony, careful not to splosh water on the floor.

  It took half an hour and two fresh buckets of water, starting at the top with his hair, scrubbing his body, then he washed his shirt, trousers and socks before finishing off by wiping down his rubber boots. The chlorine powder was the same stuff used in swimming pools, but Marc used it at a higher concentration. He had to avoid breathing the fumes, which reddened his eyes and burned the small cuts on his hands and torso. But after the demoralising effect of being covered in raw sewage, the stinging cleanliness was almost therapeutic.

  The cleaning cupboard had spare towels for the commandant’s bathroom, and since prisoners weren’t issued towels, this was the first time Marc had towelled off since the day he’d been arrested. He wrung out his clothes, but couldn’t let them drip all over the floor so he hopped back inside naked.

  He dried the inside of the bucket so that the cleaners didn’t suspect anything, then carefully replaced everything he’d used except for the damp towel, which he thought might make a good pillow. As he walked back to the balcony, Marc peeked over the filing cabinets and glanced down through windows that overlooked the inside of the market hall.

  The lighting had been turned up and the wooden pen where the Gestapo usually kept prisoners awaiting deportation was filled with the fifty-odd men with whom Marc had shared a cabin on the Adler. They stood to attention in five short rows, with a Gestapo officer shouting so fast that a prisoner enlisted to translate into Polish couldn’t keep up.

  ‘I want you to think carefully,’ the Ge
stapo officer shouted. ‘Telling me what you know is in your interest. If Hortefeux is not found, I shall draw lots and every third man will be sent to punishment camp.’

  Marc couldn’t hear all that was said, but the situation was clearly farcical. Most of these Polish and Flemish speaking prisoners couldn’t have held a conversation with Marc if they’d wanted to. The Gestapo officer changed tack and asked who spoke French, but nobody was prepared to admit a skill that would apparently lead to further interrogation.

  At the same time, Marc saw the arrival of all the secretaries who worked downstairs. The two old battleaxes came fully dressed, but the younger women looked very different without their hair and makeup done. Some were even barefoot or in nightclothes, where the Gestapo had dragged them out of bed for maximum intimidation.

  Marc became engrossed and got caught out when the door opened again. This time a pair of middle-aged police officers came in. They were lumbering creatures, clearly unhappy to have been dragged out of bed to join a city-wide search.

  Marc scrambled away from the window and ran naked to the balcony. He scooped up his boots and wet clothes, then threw them up on to the roof before stepping on to the chair and climbing up after them.

  A police siren down in the street made Marc even tenser as he lay flat on the roof, looking down at the balcony with grit sticking into his bare skin.

  He waited more than ten minutes and was starting to think that the cops had left when the door out on to the balcony finally opened. As the cop shone his torch, Marc saw that the balcony floor had several damp footprints where he’d washed and one of his soggy socks balled up close to the chair leg.

  ‘Nice view up here,’ one officer noted, switching his torch off as he stepped out on to the balcony. ‘That’s the church where I got married, across the river.’

  The other officer was younger, but still bald and the wrong side of forty. ‘Didn’t know you were married, boss.’

  ‘My marriage is too traumatic,’ the older officer laughed, as he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered one to his colleague.