Hitler's Secret (23 page)

Since the sun had come up over the Bodensee, MacPherson had taken to scanning the shoreline every fifteen minutes or so with a pair of powerful naval binoculars. They were still moored up on the swimming pontoon, and Durand had arranged a couple of fishing rods off the stern of the launch. The children had not appeared, as he had hoped they would, and he was becoming increasingly anxious. Several German police launches had been patrolling at first light, but they had headed back to shore some time ago and it was then that MacPherson had first got a sinking feeling.

As he put the glasses down and took out his pipe, he heard the sound of a motor launch coming towards them. Turning, he immediately made out the speedboat from the boathouse.

“It’s your pilot!” exclaimed Durand. She quickly tipped her
coffee away over the side and hurried towards the stern rope tying them up to the pontoon.

Bracken came racing up, throwing the speedboat hard into reverse to avoid a collision.

“Urgent information from London, sir, radio intercept from Berlin to the Swiss authorities.” He was breathless.

“Well, go on, spit it out, man!” shouted MacPherson.

“Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop has informed the Swiss that German paratroopers have crossed the border in the Engadin. They are conducting search-and-rescue operations and any attempt to resist or interfere will result in the gravest consequences for the Federation.”

“The Engadin?” Durand frowned. “That’s miles from here.”

MacPherson knew the message had to be about the children. But why had they crossed the border so far south of the rendezvous point?

“You have a car at the villa?” he said to Durand.

“Several,” she replied. The launch was already floating free of the pontoon as she hit the starter button.

“Then let’s get a bloody move on,” barked MacPherson.

Durand punched the launch into gear and opened the throttle wide. The launch rose up and blasted across the lake, Bracken giving chase.

As soon as the boat touched the jetty, MacPherson leaped off and strode up the lawn towards the villa. Durand was right behind him, leaving Bracken to moor both boats.

MacPherson’s lungs were on fire by the time they reached the garage block. A series of elegant cars was lined up inside.

“We’ll take the Rolls,” Durand said. “It’s fast and tough.”

“Guns?” MacPherson’s own Webley was strapped across his chest.

The woman opened the trunk of the claret Rolls-Royce Phantom III. Beside a wicker picnic basket and a tartan-patterned thermos flask lay two Thompson submachine guns with a dozen fifty-round drum magazines, and a sawn-off pump-action shotgun.

“Good girl,” said MacPherson softly, and climbed into the car. Durand jumped behind the wheel and backed the car out of the garage at speed, the wheels shrieking on the concrete. Then she spun the wheel and the massive limousine swung round in a squealing one-eighty-degree turn and leaped across the driveway, spraying gravel from its tires.

MacPherson had understood Ribbentrop’s message for what it was. Search and rescue was one way of putting it. Seek and kill was another.

“How fast can we get to the Engadin?” he said to Durand.

“Maybe an hour, if there’s no traffic.”

An hour.

He prayed it would be enough.

Leni lost count of how many times they fell flat on their faces. Each time they had to drag themselves out of the deep snow and keep struggling down the mountain. It was so hard. There was an icy crust but it had weak spots, and suddenly you broke through and sank three feet down into the powder beneath. They all had to keep pulling each other out.

Right now, Otto was helping Angelika as best he could. Leni made her way a little ahead of them. Yet again she plunged up to her waist in the snow.

“Help me,” she cried, her teeth chattering.

“In a minute!” Otto shouted back, getting Angelika free again. They were woefully underdressed for this altitude. Unless they got themselves down the mountain soon they
wouldn’t last long.

The first of the paratroopers had landed about five hundred yards above them by the shattered glider and were expertly and swiftly pulling in their chutes. The others were dropping onto the mountainside every few seconds. Some began to strap on snowshoes while others were using skis. They would be down with them in minutes.

“Up ahead, look!” Otto shouted to Leni. He was plowing forward now, leaving Angelika behind, racing to reach a long gray cylinder that was lying in the snow. It was an equipment canister that had been dropped by the plane for the troops, and its parachute was still attached and billowing in the breeze.

Leni heaved herself up and stumbled towards him, helping Angelika.

“Don’t give up,” she said.

“I’m trying,” said Angelika weakly. She looked awfully tired and cold.

By the time Leni had reached him, Otto had cut the parachute free and got the canister open. Above them, the troops were spreading out across the snowfield in a semicircle. He started pulling everything out as fast as he could: a light machine gun, ammunition and grenade boxes, medical supplies, rations. At last he found what he was looking for — a short entrenching spade. He folded the blade out and locked it into position. Then he handed Leni the machine gun and a box of ammunition.

“Keep them busy!”

Leni dropped to the ground, folding out the bipod legs on the gun, just as she’d been taught at Wanborough Manor. She flipped open the top of the ammunition box, grasped the top of the belt, and fed it into the gun. Then she showed Angelika how to keep the heavy chain of bullets level with the receiving slot to stop it jamming. The little girl looked hesitant, but did as Leni said.

Leni flipped up the back sight and turned the wheel to five hundred yards. With her eyesight the paratroopers appeared as blurry blobs in the white snow. She took a breath, slowly let it out, and squeezed the trigger. The bullets spewed out, with almost no recoil, the machine gun sucking them out of the box, the brass belt sliding over Angelika’s hands like it was alive.

Behind her, Otto raised the spade high above his head and brought it down as hard as he could on one of the canister’s hinges. The spade sliced through the thin steel. He raised the tool again and cut through the second. The cigar-shaped canister was now severed in half.

“I’m out of ammo!” Leni cried. She gazed through the smoke drifting back from the gun. A number of paratroopers were now lying in the snow. Others were racing down the mountain on their snowshoes and skis.

“Jump in!” shouted Otto, and she turned to see him pointing to the top half of the canister resting on the snow.

Leni understood instantly. “Brilliant!” she said. She jumped up and grabbed Angelika’s hand, then helped her into the canister.

Otto was rummaging through the equipment again.

“Let’s go,” yelled Leni. “They’re getting close.”

But Otto was holding up some type of assault rifle and a funny-looking grenade, which he dropped into the cup-shaped holder attached to the end of the barrel. A grenade launcher.

“Leave it!” Leni was panicking now. The paratroopers were almost on top of them. Bullets whizzed past their ears.

“Wait, I’ve got an idea,” said Otto. “Get some more of these grenades.” Leni knew there wasn’t time to argue. She dived towards the canister and grabbed the ammunition box.

He kneeled in the snow and dug the butt of the launcher into it, then pulled the trigger. With a sharp crack the grenade was away. It exploded loudly amongst the paratroopers, a deep boom resonating around the mountains. More soldiers now lay still in the snow. “Reload!” shouted Otto.

Leni dropped another grenade into the holder.

Bang!
It was away. “Keep them coming!”

An incoming bullet clanged off the side of the canister. Otto fired again. Then a third, fourth, and fifth time. It sounded like a thunderstorm.

“What are you doing? You’re aiming too high!” Leni pointed to the smoke above the line of soldiers.

“No, I’m not.” Otto threw the launcher away into the snow as a deeper boom echoed around them. A much deeper boom.

“Oh my God, you haven’t …” Leni was staring up the mountain with terror.

“Quickly, into the canister,” urged Otto.

Leni scrambled aboard with Angelika between her legs.

“I’m s-s-s-o cold,” was all Angelika could say, her teeth chattering.

There was another tremendous noise, like a giant cracking sound. Otto was at the back of the canister, pushing it with all his strength. It slid forward a little, then dug in.

“What have you done, Otto?” Leni yelled at him. He was going to kill them!

“Stop shouting!” he yelled as he ran around to the front and lifted it up out of the snow and back onto the hard surface. He went back and started pushing again.

Another deep boom seemed to shake the whole mountain.

“Avalanche!” Leni screamed.

Otto gave a final, superhuman push and then the canister was running free and he was scrambling aboard, his legs around Leni’s waist. Above them the top of the snowfield had slid away from the mountain and was rolling down, an enormous wave of white that seemed to grow and grow.

The canister hurtled down the slope, shot over a ridge, and was airborne before it slammed back onto the snow and raced away. Behind them the paratroopers were desperately trying
to out-ski the massive wall of snow at it increased in size and speed. It was like a living thing about to consume them whole.

“It’s going to get us!” screamed Leni.

“It was our only chance!” Otto shouted in her ear.

He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her tightly in. Leni did the same with Angelika. The roar of the avalanche was deafening now. The front edge of it, a cloud of snow, filled the air all around them.

“We’ll make it!” he yelled.

“Only if we reach the tree line in time!” she yelled back.

Leni took one last look around and saw the remaining troops sucked into the maw of the advancing white wave. It swallowed them, then thundered on, hungry for more. They were like a tiny boat at the bottom of an enormous crashing breaker. But then they reached the tree line, the canister hurtling through the closely packed pines. Behind came the roar and thunder of trees being snapped and smashed. The wave was almost upon them when the canister clipped the side of a boulder and flipped over, hurling them onto the ground. Leni rolled onto her back and looked up. All she could see was white, and then it enveloped her, covering her completely.

Finally there was silence.

She lay in the darkness for a second, the air knocked out of her; then she realized her arms could move slightly across her chest. She freed first her right, then her left. Her heart
was pounding and she couldn’t breathe, but instinctively she started scrabbling at the snow above her, scrabbling until she met daylight and fresh air, and she gasped it in greedily. In less than a minute she had freed herself and was out of the snow.

“Otto! Angelika!” She stood up on shaky legs and looked around. She called again.

A hand shot out of the snow to the right.

She plowed her way down to it and started gouging out handfuls of snow. She worked feverishly, relentlessly, going down three feet or so, until Otto suddenly shot up towards her, gasping for breath, spitting out snow. Leni grabbed hold of him and pulled him free.

“Where’s Angelika?” she asked.

Together they called out Angelika’s name, then waited, listening for any sound. Finally, after the longest of pauses, they heard a faint whistle coming from the snowdrift just below them. They ran, stumbling and falling, towards it. The whistling became even fainter. They looked around desperately, trying to locate it. Then it stopped.

“No!” screamed Leni.

Otto waded into the drift to his right. “Here! I think it came from here!”

Together they started digging, shoveling the snow back between their legs like dogs unearthing a buried bone. Nothing.

“There!” said Leni, pointing to another spot. They didn’t have long. She was beside herself, oblivious to the aches and
pains racking her body. She kept digging, furiously, frantically, with Otto beside her.

“I’ve got her,” he yelled. “I’ve got her foot.”

Sure enough, there was Angelika’s booted foot. They both worked even harder, until they could drag her out of her snowy tomb. Angelika’s face had turned a ghastly blue.

“Let me,” ordered Leni and pushed Otto aside. She rolled the girl over onto her stomach, turned her face to the side, and then started to apply strong downwards pressure across Angelika’s shoulder blades. It was the latest version of the classic Silvester resuscitation technique, which they had been taught at the manor.

Otto crouched helplessly beside her. “She can’t die, not after all this, it’s not fair.” His voice was strangled with emotion.

“Come on, Angelika, stay with us,” gasped Leni.

It was hard work. It was also having no effect. The girl lay there motionless. Leni kept going for another minute, but it made no difference. She stopped and sat back on her haunches, her eyes filling with tears.

“I’m sorry, Otto …” She leaned down and rolled the girl over so she was lying on her back again.

“No,” said Otto. “No …” He raised his good arm and brought his fist down hard on Angelika’s chest.

“What are you doing?” cried Leni.

He struck her again. It was an instinctive attempt to shock her back to life.

And it worked.

Angelika gave a violent, wracking cough and vomited out a spray of snow and water. Then she sat up, coughing and spitting and gasping for breath. Leni threw her arms around the girl and looked at Otto, the tears in her eyes spilling over now.

After a moment, the three of them lay back in the snow, letting their beating hearts slow.

“Do you think the soldiers are all dead?” said Leni at length. All of a sudden she felt very, very tired.

“Let’s hope so,” said Otto dully.

Leni nodded. Maybe fifty men had been killed behind them, but all she felt was relief.

“But what about the bad man, the one who hurt Otto?” Angelika asked quietly.

Leni glanced at her. She could see that Angelika was frightened of Heydrich, too.

“I don’t know,” she said.

But she did know. He was somewhere on the mountain, and he was coming for them.