the Valhalla Exchange (v5) (23 page)

It was on the steps outside the main entrance that Canning met Henri Dubois for the first time. The Frenchman, a pistol in one hand, saluted. 'My respects,
mon General.
My one regret is that we couldn't get here sooner.'

'That you got here at all is one small miracle, son.'

'We must thank Monsieur Gaillard for that.'

'Paul?' Canning caught him by the arm. 'You've seen him?'

'He escaped from the village this morning and skied across the mountains, hotly pursued by some of these Finnish gentlemen. It was only by the mercy of God that he came across us when he did. He is in the ambulance now, at the rear of the column.'

'Thanks.' Canning started down the steps and paused. 'There was a man called Strasser in the village. He was in charge of this whole damn business. He had Madame Claire de Beauville with him. Did you get them?'

'We came straight through without stopping,
mon General.
Naturally Schloss Arlberg was our main objective, but if this man Strasser is there, we'll find him.'

'I wouldn't count on it.'

He found Gaillard on a stretcher in the ambulance at the rear of the column as Dubois had indicated. The little Frenchman lay there, a grey army blanket pulled up to his chin, eyes closed, apparently sleeping. A medical orderly sat beside him.

'How is he?' Canning demanded in French.

'He is fine, Hamilton. Never better.' Gaillard's eyes fluttered open. He smiled.

'You did a great job.'

'And the others - they are safe?'

'Claudine is fine. Justin got knocked about a bit, but he'll be all right. I'm afraid the rest makes quite a casualty report. Max is dead and Captain Howard - most of the Finns. Ritter himself. It was quite a shooting match up there.'

'And Strasser?'

'We'll get him - and Claire. Only a question of time now.'

Gaillard's face was twisted with pain, and yet concern showed through. 'Don't leave it, Hamilton. He is capable of anything that one. What he did to that girl was a terrible thing.'

'I know,' Canning said soothingly. 'You get some sleep now. I'll see you later.'

He jumped down from the ambulance and stood there, thinking of Strasser, wanting only to get his hands on his throat. And then there was Claire. Suddenly, he knew that she was by far the most important consideration now.

There was an empty jeep standing nearby. Without the slightest hesitation, he jumped behind the wheel, gunned the motor and drove out through the tunnel and across the drawbridge.

When he braked to a halt outside the Golden Eagle, the square was silent and deserted, everyone staying out of the way. There was an M1 in the rear seat of the jeep. He checked that it was loaded, then jumped out and kicked open the front door.

'Strasser, where are you, you bastard?'

It was very quiet in the bar - too quiet. He saw the bullet holes in the wall, the blood on the floor and the hair lifted on the back of his head. A stair creaked behind him. He turned and found Meyer standing there.

'Where is he?'

'Gone, Herr General. After the Finns left to hunt Herr Gaillard, he moved their field car to the rear courtyard where it was out of sight. When the French soldiers with the tanks came half an hour ago, they passed straight through without stopping. Herr Strasser drove away shortly afterwards in the field car.

'And Madame de Beauville - he took her with him?'

Meyer's face was grey, his voice the merest whisper, when he said, 'No, Herr General. She is still here.'

He stumbled along the hall, opened his office door and stood back. She lay on the floor, covered by a blanket. Canning stood there, staring down, disbelief on his face. He dropped to one knee and pulled back the cover. Her face was unmarked and so pale as to be almost transparent, wiped clean of all pain, all deceit. A child asleep at last.

He covered her again very gently and when he turned to Meyer, his face was terrible to see. 'Do you know where he went?'

'I overheard them speak of it several times, Herr General. There is an abandoned airstrip at Arnheim about ten miles from here. I understand there is an aeroplane waiting.'

'How do I get there?'

'Follow the main road to the top of the hill east of the village. A quarter of a mile on there is a turning to the left which will take you all the way to Arnheim.'

The door banged. A moment later, the engine of the jeep roared into life. Meyer stood there in the quiet, listening to the sound dwindle into the distance.

At Arnheim it was snowing again as the Dakota taxied out of the hangar. Strasser, standing behind Berger in the cockpit, said, 'Any problems with the weather?'

'Nothing to worry about. Dirty enough to be entirely to our advantage, that's all.'

'Good. I'll get out now and see to the Storch. I don't want to leave that kind of evidence lying around. You turn into position for takeoff and I'll join you in a few moments.'

Berger grinned. 'Spain next stop, Reichsleiter.'

Strasser dropped out of the hatch, skirted the port wing and ran towards the entrance to the hangar as the Dakota moved away. He took a stick grenade from his pocket and tossed it through the entrance, ducking to one side. It exploded beneath the Storch, which started to burn fiercely.

He turned away, aware of the Dakota turning in a circle out there at the end of the runway, and then a jeep swung through the entrance from the road and braked to a halt about thirty yards away.

Canning was aware of the Dakota turning into the wind out there, thought for one dreadful moment that he was too late, and then the shock of the Storch's tank exploding turned his eyes to the hangar. He saw Strasser in front, crouching as he pulled a Walther from his pocket.

Canning grabbed for the M1, fired three or four shots, then it jammed. He threw it away from him and ducked as Strasser stood up, firing at him coolly, two rounds punching holes through the windshield.

Canning slammed the stick into gear, revving so furiously that his wheels spun in the snow and the jeep shot forward. Strasser continued to fire, dodging to one side only at the very last minute, and Canning slammed his boot on the brake, sending the jeep into a broadside skid.

He jumped for the German while the vehicle was still in motion and they went over in a tangle of arms and legs. For a moment, Canning had his hands on his throat and started to squeeze, and then Strasser swung the Walther with all his force, slamming it against the side of the general's head.

Canning rolled over in agony, almost losing consciousness, aware of Strasser scrambling to his feet, backing away, the Walther pointing. Canning got to his knees and Strasser took careful aim.

'Goodbye, General,' he said and pulled the trigger.

There was an empty click. He threw the Walther at Canning's head, turned and ran along the runway towards the Dakota.

Canning went after him, forcing himself into a shambling trot, but it was hopeless, of course. Things kept fading, going out of focus, then back again. The one thing he did see clearly, and it was all that mattered, was Strasser scrambling up through the hatch. The Dakota's engine note deepened, and then it was roaring along the runway.

Canning slumped down on to his knees and knelt there in the snow, watching it flee into the grey morning like a departing spirit.

16

It was almost dawn in La Huerta when Canning finished talking. Rain still tapped against the window of the bar, more gently now, but when I got up and looked out the square was quiet and deserted.

Canning threw another log on the fire. 'Well, Mr O'Hagan - what do you think?'

'Such a waste,' I said. 'Of good men.'

'I know. They were all that. Not Strasser, of course. He was the devil walking, but Jack Howard, Ritter, Sorsa and those Finns ...'

'But why?' I asked. 'Why did they persist in going through with it? Why didn't they simply tell Strasser or Bormann or whoever to go to hell?'

'Well, Sorsa and his Finns are possibly the easiest to understand. As he said, they were fighting for wages. They'd taken the gold, if you like to look at it that way, pledged their word and stuck to it - until the final carnage, anyway.'

'And Ritter?'

'He was like a man in deep water, swept along by the current, able to go only one way. He and Jack Howard were a lot alike - opposite sides of the same coin. At the end of things, I believe now that they'd both had enough. After what they'd been through, the things they'd done for their separate countries, the future held nothing. Didn't exist, if you like.'

'You mean they were looking for death, both of them?'

'I'm certain of it.'

'And Strasser, or should I say Bormann?'

'That's the terrible thing - not being sure. Remember Berger, the pilot who brought them out of Berlin? The guy who flew the Dakota out of Arnheim in the end? I found him in Italy fifteen or sixteen years ago. Dying of cancer. He was in the kind of state where a man just doesn't give a damn.'

'And?'

'Oh, he thought Strasser was Bormann all right. Last saw him in Bilbao in June of forty-five. In the ensuing years they gave him plenty of work to do, the Comrades. They looked after him.'

'I'm surprised he didn't get a bullet like the rest.'

'Well, he was something special. A pilot of genius. He could fly anything anywhere. I suppose that had its uses.'

'But all those facts,' I said, 'about what took place in the bunker. Where did they come from?'

'Erich Hoffer,' he said simply. 'He's still alive. Runs a hotel in Bad Harzberg, and when a Russian infantry unit checked out Eichmann's hideout they found one of the assistants still alive, a man called Walter Konig. He pulled through after hospital treatment and spent twenty years in the Ukraine. When he was finally returned to West Germany he wasn't too strong in the head so they didn't take much notice of his story at his interrogation. I heard about it from a contact in German Intelligence.'

'Did you go to see this Konig?'

'Tried to, but I was just too late. He committed suicide. Drowned himself in the Elbe. But I managed to get a look at the report. The rest, of course, is intelligent guesswork.'

'So, where does it all leave us?' I asked.

'I don't know. Was it Strasser at Arlberg and Bormann in the bunker or the other way round? That's what's plagued me all these years. Oh, I told it all to the Intelligence people immediately after the events.'

'And what did they say?'

'I think they thought I'd been locked up too long. As far as they were concerned, Bormann was in Berlin right to the bitter end. Strasser was something else again.'

'And what did happen to Bormann then, according to history?'

'He left the bunker at 1.30 a.m. on May 2nd. As far as we know, he didn't attempt to disguise himself. It seems he wore a leather greatcoat over the uniform of a lieutenant-general in the SS. He met his secretary, Frau Kruger, by sheer chance on his way out. He told her there wasn't much sense in any of it now, but that he'd try to get through.'

'And from that moment the myth began?'

'Exactly. Was he killed on the Weidendammer Bridge as Kempka, the Fuhrer's chauffeur, said...?'

'Or later, near Lehrter Station, where Axmann said he saw him lying next to Stumpfegger? Those two bodies, as I recall, were buried near the Invalidenstrasse by post-office workers.'

'That's right, and in 1972, during building work, they found a skeleton which the German authorities insist is Bormann's.'

'But wasn't that refuted by experts?'

'One of the greatest of them put it perfectly in perspective. He pointed out that Bormann couldn't be in two places at once. Dead in Berlin and alive and well in South America.'

There was a long silence. Rain continued to tap at the window. General Canning said, 'As we know, that bizarre condition is only too possible. I need hardly point out that it would also explain a great many puzzling features of the Bormann affair over the years.'

He went to the bar and poured himself another drink.

'So what now?' I asked him.

'God knows. All of a sudden I feel old. All used up. I thought I was close this time. Thought it would finally be over, but now ...' He turned on me, a surprisingly fierce expression on his face. 'I never married, did you know that? Never could, you see. Oh, there were women, but I could never really forget her. Strange.' He sighed. 'I think I'll go home to Maryland for a while and sit by the fire.'

'And Strasser - or Bormann?'

'They can go to hell - both of them.'

'It would make a beautiful story,' I said.

He turned on me, that fierce expression on his face again. 'When I'm dead, not before. You understand me?'

It was an order, not a request, and I treated it as such. 'Just as you say, General.'

I hadn't heard the car draw up, but there was a quick step in the hall and Rafael entered. 'They have sent the taxi for you from the airstrip, Senor Smith. Your pilot says it would be possible to leave now, but only if you hurry.'

'That's for me.' Canning emptied his glass and placed it on the bar. 'Can I offer you a lift?'

'No thanks,' I said. 'Different places to go.'

He nodded. 'Glad we met, O'Hagan. It passed a lonely night at the tail-end of nowhere.'

'You should have been a writer, General.'

'I should have been a lot of things, son.' He walked to the door, paused and turned. 'Remember what I told you. When I'm gone, you can do what the hell you like with it, but until then ...'

His steps echoed on the parquet floor of the hall. A moment later, a door slammed and the taxi drove away across the square.

I never saw him again. As the world knows, he was killed flying out of Mexico City three days later when his plane exploded in midair. There was some wild talk of sabotage in one or two newspapers, but the Aviation Authority's inspectors turned over the wreckage and soon knocked that little story on the head.

They buried him at Arlington, of course, with full honours, as was only proper for one of his country's greatest sons. They were all there. The President himself, anybody who
was
anybody at the Pentagon. Even the Chinese sent a full general.

I was still in South America when it happened and had a hell of a time arranging flights out, so that I almost missed it, and when I arrived at Arlington, the high and the mighty had departed.

There were one or two gardeners about, no one else, and the grave and the immediate area was covered with flowers and bouquets and wreaths of every description.

It started to rain and I moved forward, turning up the collar of my trenchcoat, examining the sentiment on the temporary headstone they'd put up.

'Well, old man, they all remembered,' I said softly. 'I suppose that should count for a lot.'

I started to turn away and then my eye caught sight of something lying close to the base of the stone and the blood turned to ice-water inside me.

It was a single scarlet rose. What some people would call a winter rose. When I picked it up, the card said simply:
As Promised
.