At that moment she heard a car outside and glanced out of the window and saw Muller get out of the Citroen. It was trouble, she knew that instantly. She opened her handbag. The PPK was in there but also the little Belgian automatic Kelly had given her. She lifted her skirt and slipped the smaller gun into the top of her right stocking. It fit surprisingly snugly. She smoothed down her coat and left the room.
Muller was in the hall talking to Helen, Greiser over by the entrance. Guido was standing by the green baize door leading to the kitchen. As Sarah came down the stairs, Muller looked up and saw her.
"Ah, there you are, mademoiselle," Helen said in French. "Captain Muller was looking for the Standarten-fuhrer. Do you know where he is?"
"I've no idea," Sarah said continuing on down. "Is there a problem?"
"Perhaps." Muller took her handbag from her quite gently, opened it and removed the PPK which he put in his pocket. He handed the bag back to her. "You've no idea when he'll be back?"
"None at all," Sarah said.
"But you are dressed to go out?"
"Mademoiselle Latour was going to take a walk in the grounds with me," Guido put in.
Muller nodded. "Very well, if the Standartenfuhrer isn't available, 111 have to make do with you." He said to Greiser. "Take her out to the car."
"But I protest," Sarah started to say.
Greiser smiled, his fingers hooking painfully into her arm. "You protest all you like, sweetheart. I like it," and he hustled her through the door.
Muller turned to Helen who managed to stay calm with difficulty. "Perhaps you would be good enough to tell Stan-dartenfuhrer Vogel on his return that if he wishes to see Mademoiselle Latour, he must come to the Silvertide," and he turned and walked out.
Kelso was doing quite well with the crutches. He made it to the Kubelwagen under his own steam, and Gallagher helped him into the rear seat. "Nice going, me old son."
Martineau got behind the wheel and Guido emerged from the trees on the run. He leaned against the car, gasping.
"What is it, man?" Gallagher demanded.
"Muller and Greiser turned up. They were looking for you, Harry."
"And?" Martineau's face was very pale.
"They've taken Sarah. Muller says if you want to see her, you'll have to go to the Silvertide. What are we going to do?"
Get in!" Martineau said and drove away as the Italian and Gallagher scrambled aboard.
He braked to a halt in the courtyard where Helen waited anxiously on the steps. She hurried down and leaned in th® Kubelwagen. "What are we going to do, Harry?"
Til take Kelso up to September-tide to connect with Baum. If worse comes to worst, they can fly off into the blue together. Baum knows what to do."
2PO
"But we can't leave Sarah," Kelso protested.
"I can't," Martineau said, "but you can, so don't give me a lot of false sentimentality. You're what brought us here in the first place. The reason for everything."
Helen clutched his arm. "Harry!"
"Don't worry. I'll think of something."
"Such as?" Gallagher demanded.
"I don't know," Martineau said. "But you keep out of it, that's essential. We'll have to go."
The Kubelwagen moved away across the yard, and the noise of the engine faded. Gallagher turned to Guido. "Get the Morris out and you and I'll take a run down to the Silvertide."
"What do you have in mind?" Guido asked.
"God knows. I never could stand just sitting around and waiting, that's all."
Martineau drove into the courtyard at Septembertide and braked to a halt. He helped Kelso out and the American followed him, swinging between his crutches. The door was opened by the corporal. As they went in, Baum appeared from the sitting room.
"Ah, there you are, Vogel! And this is the young man you told me about?" He turned to the corporal. "Dismissed. I'll call you when I want you."
Baum stood back and Kelso moved past him into the sitting room. Martineau said, "There's been a change of plan. Muller came looking for me at de Ville Place. As it happens, I wasn't around at the right moment, but Sarah was. They've taken her to the Silvertide."
"Don't tell me, let me guess," Baum said. "You're going to go to the rescue."
"Something like that."
"And what about us?"
Martineau glanced at his watch. It was just after seven. "You and Kelso keep to your schedule. Getting him out of here is what's important."
"Now look here," Kelso began, but Martineau had already walked out
The Kubelwagen roared out of the courtyard. Kelso turned and found Baum pouring cognac into a glass. He drank it slowly. "That's really very good."
"What goes on here?" the American demanded.
"I was thinking of Martineau," Baum said. "I might have known that under all that surface cynicism he was the kind of man who'd go back for the girl. I was at Stalingrad, did you know that? IVe had enough of heroes to last me for a lifetime."
He pulled on his leather trenchcoat and gloves, twisted the white scarf around his neck, adjusted the angle of the cap and picked up his baton.
"What are you going to do?" Kelso demanded.
"Martineau told me that the important thing about being Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was that everyone would do what I told them to do. Now we'll see if he's right. You stay here."
He strode through the courtyard into the road and the men leaning beside the personnel carrier sprang to attention. "One of you get Captain Heider."
Baum took out a cigarette and fitted it in his holder. A sergeant sprang forward with a light. A second later Heider hurried out. "Herr Field Marshal?"
"Get through to the airport. A message for Major Necker. I shall be a little later than I thought. Tell him also that I shall leave for France, not in my Storch, but in the mail plane. I expect it waiting and ready to go when I arrive, and I'd like my personal pilot to fly it."
"Very well, Herr Field Marshal."
"Excellent. I need them all, fully armed and ready to go in five minutes. You'll find a wounded sailor in September-tide. Have a couple of men help him out and put him in the personnel carrier. And they can bring the corporal you loaned me with them, too. No sense in leaving him hanging around the kitchen."
"But Herr Field Marshal, I don't understand," the captain said.
"You will, Heider," the field marshal told him. "You will. Now send that message to the airport."
Muller had drawn the curtains in his office and Sarah sat on a chair in front of his desk, hands folded in her lap, knees together. They'd made her take off her coat and Greiser was searching the lining while Muller went through the handbag.
He said, "So you are from Paimpol?"
"That's right."
"Sophisticated clothes for a Breton girl from a fishing village."
"Oh, but she's been around this one, haven't you?" Greiser ran his fingers up and down her neck, making her flesh crawl.
Muller said, "Where did you and Standartenfiihrer Vogel meet?"
"Paris," she said.
"But there is no visa for Paris among your papers."
"I had one. It ran out."
"Have you ever heard of the Cherche Midi or the women's prison at Troyes? Bad places for a young woman like you to be."
"I don't know what you're talking about. I Ve done nothing," she said.
Her stomach contracted with fear, her throat was dry.
Oh, God, Harry, she thought, fly away. Just fly away. And then the door opened and Martineau walked into the office.
There were tears in her eyes and she had never known such emotion as Greiser stood back and Harry put an arm around her gently.
The emotion she felt was so overwhelming that she committed the greatest blunder of all then. "Oh, you bloody fool," she said in English. "Why didn't you go?"
Muller smiled gently and picked up the Mauser that lay on his desk. "So, you speak English also, mademoiselle. This whole business becomes even more intriguing. I think you'd better relieve the Standartenfuhrer of his Walther, Ernst."
Greiser did as he was told, and Martineau said in German, "Do you know what you're doing, Muller? There's a perfectly good reason for Mademoiselle Latour to speak English. Her mother was English. The facts are on file at SD headquarters in Paris. You can check."
"You have an answer for everything," Muller said. "What if I told you that a postmortem has indicated that Willi Kleist was murdered last night? The medical examiner indicates the time of death as being between midnight and two o'clock. I need hardly remind you that it was two o'clock when you were stopped on Route du Sud, no more than a mile from where the body was discovered. What do you have to say to that?"
"I can only imagine youVe been grossly overworking. Your career's on the line here, Muller, you realize that. When the Reichsfuhrer hears the full facts he'll.."
For the first time Muller almost lost his temper. "Enough of this. IVe been a policeman all my life-a good policeman and I detest violence. However, there are those with a different attitude. Greiser here, for instance. A strange thing about Greiser. He doesn't like women. He would actually find it pleasurable to discuss this whole affair in private with Mademoiselle Latour, but I doubt that she would."
"Oh, I don't know." Greiser put an arm around Sarah and slipped a hand inside her dress, fondling a breast. "I think she might get to like it after I've taught her her manners."
Sarah's left hand clawed down his face, drawing blood, only feeling rage now, more powerful than she had ever known. As Greiser staggered back, her hand went up her skirt, pulling the tiny automatic from her stocking. Her arm swung up and she fired at point-blank range, shooting Muller between the eyes. The Mauser dropped from his nerveless hand to the desk; he staggered back against the wall and fell to the floor. Greiser tried to get his own gun from his pocket, too late as Martineau picked up the Mauser from the desk.
Gallagher and Guido were sitting in the Morris on the other side of the road from the Silvertide when they heard the sound of approaching vehicles. They turned to see a military column approaching. The lead vehicle was a Ku-belwagen with the top down and Field Marshal Erwin Rommel standing in the passenger seat for the whole world to see. The Kubelwagen braked to a halt, he got out as the soldiers, carried by the other vehicles in the column, jumped down and ran forward in obedience to Heider's shouted orders.
"Right, follow me!" Baum called and marched straight in through the entrance of the Silvertide. A moment after Sarah fired the shot that killed Muller, the door crashed open and Baum appeared. He advanced into the room, Heider and a dozen armed men behind him. He peered over the desk at Muller's body.
Greiser said, "Herr Field Marshal, this woman has murdered Captain Muller."
Baum ignored him and said to Heider, "Put this man in a cell."
"Yes, Herr Field Marshal." Heider nodded and three of his men grabbed the protesting Greiser. Heider followed them out.
"Back in your vehicles," Baum shouted to the others and held Sarah's coat for her. "Can we go now?"
Gallagher and Guido saw them come out of the entrance to the hotel and get into the Kubelwagen, Martineau and Sarah in the back, Baum standing up in front. He waved his arm, the Kubelwagen led off, the whole column following.
"Now what do we do?" Guido asked.
"Jesus, is there no poetry in you at all?" Gallagher demanded. "We follow them, of course. 1 wouldn't miss the last act for anything."
At Septembertide, on the bed in the small room, Konrad Hofer groaned and moved restlessly. The sedative the doctor had given Martineau was, like most of his drugs, of prewar vintage, and Hofer was no longer completely unconscious. He opened his eyes, mouth dry, and stared at the ceiling, trying to work out where he was. It was like awaking from a bad dream, something you knew had been terrible and yet already forgotten. And then he remembered, tried to sit up and rolled off the bed to the floor. He pulled himself up, head swimming, and reached for the door handle. It refused to budge and he turned and lurched across to the window. He fumbled with the catch and then gave up the struggle and slammed his elbow through the pane.
The sound of breaking glass brought the two soldiers Captain Heider had left on sentry duty at Hinguette next door running into the courtyard. They stared up, machine pistols at the ready, a young private and an older man, a corporal.
"Up here!" Hofer called. "Get me out. I'm locked in."
He sat on the bed, his head in his hands, and tried to breathe deeply, aware of the sound of their boots clattering up the stairs and along the corridor. He could hear voices, saw the handle turn.
