Hitler's Secret (21 page)

MacPherson shifted uncomfortably in his seat. In spite of the loud drone of the Grumman’s engine he had managed a few minutes of fitful sleep here and there. But he was wide awake now. They must be getting close to the Bodensee. He glanced up through the clear canopy of the cockpit, but could make nothing out in the blackness.

Then the plane suddenly banked, and MacPherson could see the outline of the lake. Commander Bracken straightened up and cut the engine. In the ensuing silence MacPherson could hear nothing but the wind whistling through the struts and wires, but he felt the plane gently slip down in a long, shallow glide. This way, it was hoped, they would be able to land on the water without raising any alarm from either the German or the Swiss authorities.

Minutes later and the pilot set the plane’s central float down on the surface of the lake, sending up a great wave. The spray slammed into MacPherson’s canopy. But at least they were down in one piece. Before takeoff, MacPherson had instructed Bracken where to land, and it looked as though he’d managed it perfectly. Ahead of them was a large villa set back in the trees, its lights blazing from the ground floor and, more important, a launch racing towards them from a large boathouse by the lake’s edge.

MacPherson had unstrapped and slid back the canopy by the time the boat pulled alongside. He slotted the little metal ladder into the lugs on the side of the fuselage, and climbed down. The boat was riding up and down gently beside the plane. MacPherson jumped onto it. He had never been so happy to be out of the air and on the water.

A young woman with blonde hair was standing at the launch’s wheel. She was wearing short Alpine trousers and a thick woolen shirt. In the moonlight, MacPherson could see the butt of a pistol poking out from her calfskin shoulder holster.

“Hello, Admiral. Safe trip?” Her voice was low and cool. She flicked her cigarette away into the darkness.

“Yes. Thanks for meeting us, Durand.”

The woman expertly attached a towline to the steel eye on the front of the plane. Then she brought the engines up and
the line snapped taut.

“There’s plenty of room in the boathouse for the plane. No one will be any the wiser you’re here.”

“Well, if it all goes to plan, we’ll be gone in a few hours,” said MacPherson.

It was a little after midnight and they had to be away before three. Otherwise it would be too light and they would have to wait for the following night to make the flight. He was desperate to set eyes on this girl and even more desperate to get her back to London. What a prize she would be.

With the plane safely moored and the boathouse doors firmly locked, MacPherson and Durand took their seats in the launch once more. Bracken had been left inside the boathouse with some sandwiches and coffee. MacPherson had given him strict instructions to contact his office every thirty minutes on the radio in case of new information. The boathouse had a speedboat if he needed to get to MacPherson for just such a reason.

“All right, take me to the rendezvous point,” MacPherson said.

The woman spun the wheel and flung the launch out across the water. As the lake itself was neutral territory, boats were constantly crossing it from the Third Reich and Switzerland, and they passed quite a few in the darkness, their running lights just visible.

They were heading for a little swimming platform a few miles out from Bregenz. Durand had selected it as an ideal
rendezvous point. The two of them rode in silence. MacPherson was happy merely to smoke his pipe and feel the cool air against his face.

“Admiral,” the woman said hesitantly, “may I ask who these children are?”

“No,” MacPherson replied firmly, “you may not ask.”

The silence returned.

It was two in the morning when they reached the end of the road. Literally. Leni had driven the bike up a small mountain track as far it would go. Fortunately they had not met any roadblocks or patrols. Perhaps the German forces were still being concentrated at the border, Otto thought.

With Otto and Angelika pushing the sidecar, they managed to run the bike into a small gully and out of sight. They snapped some low-hanging branches from the fir trees around them, and used them to brush the tire marks from the track leading back to the road.

Otto then led them off the road and squatted down with the map.

“Seems to me we’re about here.” He pointed to a spot well south of Weiler, south, too, of the Bodensee. “If we want to reach the rendezvous point we need to go north.” He pointed again, this time to a place on the southeast corner of the lake. The border was clearly marked.

“You’re right.” Leni nodded. “But that’s not what we want to do, is it?”

Angelika, who was listening intently, frowned. “Why don’t we?”

Otto could see Leni was still just as determined that they should decide the girl’s fate rather than MacPherson. He was not sure that breaching orders was wise, either. But they could have this discussion again once they’d crossed the border into Switzerland. Heading straight west now would be much quicker. It would mean the border was at least twelve miles closer.

“Excuse me, I did ask a question,” Angelika piped up again.

“Because the frontier here …” Leni marked the spot with her finger, reading Otto’s mind. “… is much closer. Once we’re in Switzerland we can make our way to where we’re meant to meet.”

Angelika nodded, satisfied by Leni’s logic. Otto folded the map away quickly. They started walking up through the foothills. It would be first light in a couple of hours and then they would have to keep out of sight, but for the moment they made good progress through the woods.

Otto walked ahead of the two girls, picking a path. He thought about Angelika, about what Leni wanted to do.

Leni was certainly right that no one had the girl’s best interests at heart. For the British she would be used ruthlessly
to win the war. But then, as MacPherson had said, their job was to carry out the mission and not concern themselves with anything else. Was that right? How could that be right? If he thought that way, he would be no different from the Nazis who had taken his family. They had just been obeying orders, but what they had done was wrong. Deeply wrong. What finally settled the matter for Otto was Angelika herself. She had made Leni go back and rescue him. He owed her his life. He would do all he could to protect hers. He looked back at the two girls.

“Come on, let’s see if we can go a little faster,” he said, almost cheerfully.

“Can I have a piggyback ride?” asked Angelika.

“Hop on!”

He felt Angelika jump up, and then she was wrapping her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist.

The sun came up to a colder morning. Large clouds were passing over the mountain’s peaks and the wind had continued to stiffen from the north. They all felt the chill in the air, getting colder still as they climbed higher. The going was getting harder. Otto had to drop Angelika from his back and instead helped her over the fallen tree trunks and large boulders. She grasped his good hand firmly, humming a tune. After a few moments, Otto recognized it.

“That’s ‘Blood Red Roses,’ isn’t it?” It was a very popular romantic song, always on the radio.

Angelika shrugged. “Is it?”

“Where did you hear that?” he asked. “At the convent?”

Angelika shook her head. “No, it’s just always been in my head.” She thought for a moment. “Perhaps my mother sang it to me when I was a baby.”

Otto could see the prospect of actually meeting her parents was now becoming more real to Angelika. He felt bad knowing that there would be no family reunion on the other side.

They walked for another half an hour before stopping for a break. It was then that they heard the distant sounds. The baying of dogs.

Otto scanned the valley below with binoculars. A large pack of hounds was racing in their direction, foot soldiers running to keep up. Behind them were special Alpine jeeps, their rear wheels converted to caterpillar tracks. Otto immediately recognized Heydrich in the lead vehicle. Somehow or other he had managed to pick up their trail.

“It’s as though they know where we are,” said Leni, panicking.

Otto felt his stomach sink as he put two and two together. “My pack back at the village. It’s given them my scent.”

There was no possibility of rest now. They had to keep moving if they were to make it to the border.

Leni refilled the water bottle from a mountain spring. She’d also found the last of the candy and shared them out. They needed all the energy they could get.

Otto squinted through the binoculars again, saw Heydrich staring up, almost directly at him. He estimated the distance at no more than nine miles. He felt the fear rising. A part of him had begun to believe they had slipped the net, but now it was tightening again. He glanced at the girls. Both of them looked exhausted.

“We have to go.” He stuffed the binoculars into the remaining pack and hefted it onto his shoulders.

“They’ll have to follow on foot eventually and we’ve got a good start,” Leni said, but her face was white. She must also have realized that their position was almost hopeless against such a determined enemy.

A fox gets a head start but he still ends up being torn to shreds by the hounds
, Otto thought.

Angelika gave a sob, then another. “They’re going to catch us, aren’t they?” She seemed on the edge of terror.

Leni grabbed her and shook her. “Listen to me, Angelika, no one’s going to catch us!” The harshness in her voice made Angelika stop crying.

“Leni’s right. We’re fast and clever and we’ve got you, Angelika, to help us.” Otto looked at her sternly. “Now come on!”

“Do you really think that?” asked Angelika.

“Of course he does,” said Leni.

“Take my hand.” Otto held out his good hand for Angelika and together they set off, climbing as fast they could, higher into the mountains.

Ten minutes later and they were already panting for breath. Leni looked back down into the valley. The dogs and vehicles were still heading their way.

“They’re gaining on us,” she said flatly.

“Quiet,” said Otto in reply, and suddenly dropped down to the ground. The other two copied him and edged up to where he was. “Look!” he said.

About three hundred yards ahead and a little below them was a large clearing in the trees. Mountain pasture led down to the valley. A circle of tents was pitched in the center of the clearing around a large communal fire. A flag was flying from a handmade pole. On it was a winged man, Icarus, with a swastika at his feet: the emblem of the NSFK, just like the one painted on the side of the truck back at Prien am Chiemsee. And there, just above the tents, was a glider. It was staked to the ground at the top of the clearing, ready to skim down the hill and soar up into the sky.

“It’s a gliding club, like the one we met in Prien,” Otto said. “There are lots of them in the mountains at this time of year.”

Leni followed his gaze. “We couldn’t. I mean …” she began.

“Look down there.” Otto pointed to the dogs and the vehicles making their relentless progress towards them. “What do you suggest we do?”

“But we don’t know how to fly.”

“I do, I mean, I read a book on it once at school.”

“You read a book?” Leni was looking skeptically at him.

“We could make the border in ten minutes — maybe less. Come on, Leni, we’ve run out of options and you know it.”

The baying of the hounds was louder now, the sound of the vehicles, too. The whole place would be alive in the next couple of minutes. It was now or never. Otto looked around the encampment. It was still quiet. But that would change in a trice. Angelika pushed in between them.

“How would you like to go flying, Angelika?” asked Leni.

Angelika gazed at Otto, eyes wide with wonder. “Really?” she said.

Otto looked back at her for a moment. Was he mad taking such a young girl on a flimsy glider?
But better a mad flight ending in disaster than a bullet in the back of the head
, he thought.

Leni began emptying the contents of her pack. Otto passed her the gun and grenade, with two spare clips of ammunition. He stuffed the compass and map into his pockets, and slung the binoculars around his neck. He handed the water bottle and a whistle attached to a strong black cord to Angelika. She smiled, hung the bottle across her body and the whistle around her neck. He could hear the sound of the hounds getting louder. Any minute now they would rouse people in the camp.

“Quick on your feet. We don’t have any time left. Give me your knife, Leni.”

She passed it to him and Otto sprinted for the glider. It was a two-seater with the wing behind the open cockpit. A rope
had been tied to the metal skid at the tail of the plane, and the other end was staked to the ground. The glider itself was sitting on a four-wheeled launching cart, which was pointing downhill.

Otto started sawing at the rope with his knife just as Leni and Angelika arrived and the first shot rang out. It was a pistol round. A neat hole appeared in the canvas tail fin just above Otto’s head.

Luckily the lip of the cockpit was only waist height. The girls clambered straight in, Angelika sitting between Leni’s legs.

The next gunfire was semiautomatic. Chunks of turf kicked up around Otto as he struggled to sever the rope. He kept sawing. Dazed and confused gliding students were spewing out of their tents in vests and undershorts.

The vehicles were about half a mile down the hill, their engines screaming as they bounced over the bumpy ground. The dogs were making better progress, leaping ahead, sensing their quarry was near.

With a final desperate slash, Otto severed the rope. He sprinted to the cockpit, put his hand against the side of it, and pushed as hard as he could. The glider immediately started to roll forward on its landing cart, and Otto had to scramble to pull himself inside. He jammed himself in the canvas seat next to Leni. The glider shot past the tents, the wingtip uprooting
one, trailing it along before it blew away as they gathered speed.

Out of the corner of his eye, Otto saw a boy leap onto a bike and cycle towards them. The glider was accelerating quickly, but the boy was clearly determined to stop it. As he came alongside the cockpit Otto stared in astonishment.

“Him!” he yelled. “It’s him!”

It was that thug from Prien, Rudi. The boy was staring at them, equally astonished. Leni shunted Angelika forward, twisted around, and pointed her pistol at the boy’s head. “Bang!” she yelled at the top of her voice. The boy’s eyes widened in fright. Then the front wheel of his bicycle hit a tree stump and he shot over the handlebars and went somersaulting down the hill, followed by the bicycle.

Angelika let out a shrill scream of warning and Otto turned back. One of the dogs had reached them. It raced along beside the cockpit and leaped into the air, its fangs bared. Otto felt a pressure wave as a bullet went past his face and hit the dog squarely in the jaw. The hound flew back, blood spurting. Otto stared at Leni in shock. The muzzle of her pistol was seeping smoke. She looked stunned at what she’d just done.

“Are you all right?” he yelled. She made no reply.

The glider was now traveling very fast and so were the army jeeps. They were facing a head-on collision. Otto could quite clearly see Heydrich in the lead vehicle, bringing his
Schmeisser up to bear on them. Otto wrenched the control stick back just as the machine gun spat flame, and the glider swooped up into the air, the rear metal skid clipping the top of the car’s windshield. The launching cart bounced past Heydrich’s jeep and crashed into the one behind. Bullets seemed to fill the air but the glider was climbing fast. Otto glanced back and caught sight of Heydrich, his submachine gun cradled in his arms, firing wildly up at them. A line of bullet holes chewed through the wing above Otto’s head.

Leni had the grenade in her hand ready to drop it, but Otto yelled, “No, save it, save it!” She nodded.

Another sharp updraft of wind caught the light wooden craft and threw it upwards like a paper dart, shooting it higher into the morning sky. They all screamed. Otto felt the bottom of his stomach falling through his feet. Up, up, up they rose, until Leni yelled something and tugged Otto’s arm. Out to their left was the blue-gray expanse of the Bodensee. Somewhere on the southern tip, MacPherson was sitting on a boat, waiting patiently for them. For a moment the sun glinted off the surface, making it shine like silver, then a dark cloud rolled in.

“We’re really flying,” shouted Angelika. Otto stared at the instruments fitted on the dashboard. Altimeter, compass, air-speed indicator. He tried to remember what he’d picked up from the book he’d read. Gingerly he pushed at the rudder pedals and the glider started to bank to the left. But the wind
kept pushing them south.
It shouldn’t matter
, thought Otto, a mental picture of the map in his head. They might end up crossing the border near the town of Davos, which was a long way from the lake but still in Switzerland. Then all they had to worry about was how to land. And what to do with Angelika.