The Leader And The Damned (41 page)

Jaeger was so furious he jammed on the brake and swivelled in his seat. 'Whose side are you on, anyway? Tito's?'

'I was a lawyer before this bloodbath we call a war started,' Hartmann said mildly. 'My job was sometimes for the prosecution, sometimes for the defence. That way you get to look at other people's point of view. Are we going to get to Spielfeld-Strass today?'

Jaeger released the brake and resumed driving at speed along the winding country road. His expression was grim. He was blazing with rage. He carefully avoided meeting Hartmann's eyes in the rear-view mirror a second time. The Abwehr officer placidly smoked his pipe.

Once Schmidt turned round and stared at their passenger briefly, the ghost of a smile on his face. Hartmann knew what he was thinking. You devious bastard...'

It was Schmidt he would have to watch, Hartmann reflected. A police chief before the war, his mind was attuned to analysing motives. Hartmann had deliberately provoked the bluff Jaeger to distance himself from the SS colonel — and Schmidt had understood his tactic.

Jaeger remained silent until he drove the car down the country lane past the railway station and pulled up in the hollow where the Spielfeld-Strass frontier post had stood.

The scene was dramatic. The catastrophe had occurred at eleven-thirty in the morning. It was now three in the afternoon. A gigantic crane mounted on a flat-car was slowly backing away towards Graz, drawn by a steam-engine. Army engineers, their work completed, stood drinking beer.

Fresh track had been laid, renewing the link between Austria and the line continuing south to Zagreb in Yugoslavia. Hartmann stepped out of the car and again threw Jaeger off balance with his opening remark.

'With organization like this we should still win this war.'

'It is essential communications be maintained,' Jaeger responded gruffly. 'Along this route travel all the supplies for twenty divisions engaging the guerrilla forces. Twenty divisions! Can you imagine what we could do with those transferred to the Russian front?'

'Perhaps the Fuhrer should have gone round Yugoslavia rather than through it,' Hartmann suggested.

'And let the Allies launch an attack on our flank?'

'They have yet to do that in Spain. Neutrals - they're worth their weight in gold. They don't tie up priceless troops. Tell me, did anyone survive?'

A large canvas structure had been erected on the edge of the hollow and Hartmann had observed a medical orderly entering the marquee. Jaeger gestured towards it.

'A Captain Brunner was the only survivor. The extraordinary thing is he was apparently inside a flimsy wooden but when hell broke loose. The but just vanished but he escaped with little more than shock. So they told me over the phone.'

'I think I'll have a word with him...'

Hartmann started to walk towards the marquee. Jaeger fell in beside him, followed by Schmidt. The Abwehr man stopped and removed his pipe. His manner was quite sharp.

'Alone, I meant. Now would it be sensible to confront a shock case with an SS colonel, an SS captain and myself? He will feel overwhelmed - may even suspect we're interrogating him prior to arrest. Bormann will certainly try and make someone responsible for this debacle. Who is made to order for the role? The sole survivor.'

'All right.' Jaeger's agreement was grudging. 'We'll see him later.' His sense of humour asserted itself. 'Unless, of course, you bring us a detailed report of every word Brunner says.
Every
word!'

'Of course!'

Hartmann's tone expressed amazement that Jaeger should imagine any other outcome was possible. On his way to the makeshift field hospital he checked to make sure he was carrying a pack of cigarettes. In the past they had worked wonders in interrogations. The medical orderly came out of the entrance.

'Can your patient smoke if he wants to? Can I ask him just a few questions?'

The orderly, a stoop-shouldered man in his fifties, stared. He looked as though he was adjusting to a unique experience.

'They don't usually ask, they just barge in regardless. Yes, he can smoke, in fact, he's panting for a cigarette. The shock is wearing off rapidly. I'd say you'll be good for him...'

Brunner was lying on a stretcher perched between two crates with a pile of stacked pillows to keep him upright. He watched the new arrival warily as Hartmann manhandled a spare crate to provide himself With a seat. The act of adopting a sitting position reassures the subject you are interrogating.

The injured captain's hand was bandaged, so Hartmann lit a cigarette and placed it between Brunner's lips. The eyes still had a wary look. He nodded his thanks for the cigarette.

'I'm Abwehr...'

The transformation in the atmosphere was almost ludicrous. The man on the stretcher physically sagged back on the pillows with relief.

'I was expecting the Gestapo.'

'Well, this is your lucky day - if you ignore this...' Hartmann gestured towards the bandaged hand. 'You survived.' He glanced at the loose left sleeve which contained no arm. 'The Eastern front? I thought so. And here you must have felt confident you had rendered your service to the Reich - that you could enjoy the quiet life until this accursed war ended.'

Perhaps it was his lawyer's training - more likely it was simply his natural flair for psychology - but Hartmann had a gift for saying the right thing. He saw Brunner's eyes light up, the reserves come down.

'You're so right,' Brunner agreed passionately. 'Then out of the blue this morning the world blows up. You know I'm the only survivor? I had friends in this unit. If it had been Russia... But at this dot on the map no one's ever heard of - and it was all the work of that bitch, I'm certain.'

'Tell me about... the bitch,' Hartmann coaxed.

It came flooding out, the events prior to the moment when the world had blown up. Hartmann listened without interruption and offered a fresh cigarette which Brunner lit himself. The descriptions of the couple whose papers Brunner had questioned seconds before the disaster made Hartmann uncertain.

'What colour was the girl's hair?' he asked eventually.

'No idea. She had it covered in one of those handkerchiefs these peasant women wear.'

'And she spoke German - fluently?'

'As well as you and I are talking...'

His description of the man who had accompanied her was vaguer. Hartmann felt fairly sure this could have been Lindsay - but again there was no certainty.

And no, Brunner had not seen any sign of the guerrillas who had attacked the post.

'First time they've ever come this far north,' he went on, thinking aloud. 'Can't understand the reason — probably the ammunition wagon was their objective.'

'It was common knowledge the wagon was to be loaded today?'

'God no! You wouldn't believe the security on things like that. First indication we get is when the wagon appears and the feeder truck rolls up...'

'So there would be no way the guerrillas could have known in advance the wagon would be here today?'

'Come to think of it, no.'

'Where are they sending you?' Hartmann asked as he stood up and prepared to leave.

'I've got compassionate leave. I'm months overdue. The Colonel in Graz is a decent type. It's a long way. Flensburg. Know it?'

'On the Danish border.. Hartmann smiled wryly. 'What used to be the Danish border before 1940. When you get home apply to the local military commander for a permanent discharge. You have done your bit for the Fatherland. Good luck, Brunner.'

It was pure chance that Hartmann met the medical orderly outside the field dressing station. The orderly was hurrying and his brow wad furrowed. In his hand he held a piece of paper.

'Something troubling you?' Hartmann enquired. 'The patient, Captain Brunner, has to be kept here.

I was just arranging for him to be moved to Graz...'

'Why the delay?'

'A Gestapo officer, Gruber, is on his way from Vienna to question Brunner. He is expected in three hours' time...'

Hartmann reacted instantly. 'You will move Brunner by plane to Graz immediately! Have another machine standing by to fly him on direct to Flensburg in Schleswig-Holstein via Frankfurt..

'But what about Gruber?'

'What I have instructed you to do is by order of the Fuhrer.' Hartmann produced the authority signed by Martin Bormann giving him full powers. 'Read that. Does anyone know your name?'

'No. It was all such a rush. I came straight down from Graz.'

'Travel back there with Brunner and see him safely aboard the transport to Flensburg. He is your patient. This, you never received.. Hartmann took from the orderly's hands the signal sent by Gruber, screwed it up into a ball and pocketed it. 'I cannot tell you the reason why the swift evacuation of Brunner is imperative. It goes right up to the Fuhrer himself. Understood?'

'Yes, I will do as you say at once.'

The orderly carefully handed back the Bormann document he had read, Hartmann replaced it inside his wallet and walked back to the station to enquire when the next train left for Zagreb. He had left the frontier post unnoticed by Jaeger and Schmidt who sat on the ground leaning their backs against the Mercedes while they ate army rations obtained from the engineers.

'That train departs for Zagreb in five minutes,' the station master at Spielfeld-Strass told Hartmann. 'Normal service will be resumed now the track is repaired.'

There was an atmosphere of the front line now about the sleepy little halt. Waffen SS troops armed with machine-pistols stood inside the cab with the engine-driver and fireman. One man with a heavy machine-gun was perched on top of the coal-tender. In the rear coach, a mail-van, a platoon of troops was hidden - a helmeted figure peered out briefly before slamming the door shut.

Hartmann chose an empty third-class compartment with uncomfortable wooden seats to make his presence less noticeable. Within five minutes the train started moving south. He kept his head out of sight as they chugged slowly through the hollow across freshly-laid track.

The Mercedes had gone. Presumably Jaeger, beside himself with fury at the trick played on him, was searching for Hartmann. The temporarily-erected field hospital was also gone. The orderly had spirited Brunner out of Spielfeld-Strass.

Alone at last! He lit his pipe and eased his back against the hard seat. He must get something to eat later - but Hartmann could go long periods without food. At the station he had drunk two bottles of mineral water from the tiny army canteen. He said the words out aloud.

'Well, I've done the best I can.'

'And that, I am sure, is a very good best, Major...'

Hartmann turned his head very slowly and looked up at the man staring down at him with a satisfied smile. Willy Maisel, the Gestapo official he had left behind at Graz Flughafen, looked as contented as Hartman had felt a minute earlier.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

'There will be a train for Zagreb at Maribor,' Paco whispered to Lindsay.

'Where the hell is Maribor?' he enquired.

'It is the next stop down the line from Spielfeld-Strass. Of course there will be no trains coming from Graz today with the track shattered...'

They were perched at the back of a farm wagon drawn by a pair of horses. In front of them was a pile of freshly-cut logs, and behind the farmer holding the reins sat Bora and Milic. They had caught up with Paco and Lindsay by hurrying down the country road after their break through the frontier post.

The farm wagon had emerged from a rutted side track while they trudged along the road in the early afternoon. Paco, speaking Serbo-Croat, had persuaded the farmer to give them a ride. Her story had been ingenious.

'We were taking the train to Zagreb when the engine broke down at Spielfeld-Strass. It was going to be hours before they mended it and we have a rendezvous we must keep at all costs.'

A
rendezvous
. She had spoken the words in a certain way and the moustachioed old farmer with grizzled hair had studied her for a moment. Then, without speaking a word, he had gestured them to climb aboard.

'What was all that about?' Lindsay had murmured when they were settled inside the wagon.

'He thinks we are linking up with a Partisan group. He is a patriot, like most farmers who have been robbed of their crops by the Germans. He just doesn't want to know any details...'