Rhinoceros

'Keep it moving,' Tweed urged.

'Which way now?' shouted Newman as he came to a fork.

'Take the right turn.'

Paula leaned forward. As far as she could tell this lane would lead close to the windmill. They topped a rise and saw a smaller copse very close to the windmill on the edge of the road.

'Get under those trees, then stop,' Tweed ordered.

'Like me to turn a somersault?' asked Newman.

He drove along a track under the trees, came to a glade, turned the car round so they faced the way they had come but were still sheltered under the trees. They could all now hear the sound of a large aircraft beginning its descent. Tweed grabbed his binoculars, looped them round his neck, dived out of the car. He called out to Paula to bring her camera.

Out in the open they were hidden but perched high up, looking down on the other copse. Paula stared, then whipped up her own binoculars, pressed them against her eyes. She was aiming the lenses at the edge of the larger copse below. She sucked in her breath.

'Look at the edge of those trees down there. A tall man. Not in uniform but I'm sure it was Danzer.'

'Where?' asked Tweed.

'He's gone now. I just caught a fleeting glimpse. He's slipped back out of sight inside the wood.'

'Pretty unlikely that Danzer would be in this part of the world.'

'I know it was Danzer,' she said stubbornly. 'The same dark hair, the same figure, the same way of standing very erect, the same way of moving. What more do you want?'

'A photograph would help…'

'If we'd damned well got up here earlier I might have been able to take a shot of him with my camera.'

'Cool it,' Newman advised. 'There's a lot more to watch if you'd just look.'

The large helicopter was landing very slowly on a round pad. Then from nowhere a horde of Americans came running to the pad, some in uniform, some in civilian clothes. They were careful to stand well back while the rotors slowed, stopped. Then the wind returned, blowing strongly. Paula could feel its warmth on her face. Now the Americans were moving forward to the landing pad.

'I don't know that the Germans would be pleased at having a load of uniformed American troops on their soil,' Newman remarked. 'Unless they've got permission. And they're all carrying automatic rifles. We'd better stay just where we are.'

Tweed and Paula had their binoculars focused on the machine. A door opened, a staircase, electrically operated, descended. The wind was blowing Lisa's hair all over the place. A man, carrying an executive case, walked gingerly down the steps. As he did so the lid of his case fell open. A paper flew out, was caught by the wind, carried up the hill close to where they stood.

'Get that if you can,' snapped Tweed.

Harry took off. Close to the road they had driven up was a gully, which looked as though water flowed down it during wet weather. He slid down the gully, out of sight, reached the errant sheet, grabbed it, worked his way back up the gully. He handed it to Tweed who, holding his binoculars with one hand, took the paper with the other, folded it once and put it in his pocket.

'That was Gavin Thunder who lost a sheet from his case. Here, behind him, comes the American Secretary of State, followed by the German Deputy Chancellor and the French Prime Minister. The gang's all here. The Elite Club has arrived.'

'A limo's driven up,' Newman reported, 'to take them to Sylt. At the back of the train there's a ramp the limo can go up to put them aboard the train. Hang on…' He paused. 'Before getting into the limo Thunder's giving some instructions to a small stocky man in civvies. He's pointing up this way.'

The limo drove off, heading for the ramp. A crowd of men in boiler jackets and wearing baseball caps had flooded out of nowhere. The stocky civilian went to meet them, pointed up the hill to the wood where Tweed and his team were sheltering from view. Several of the men in boiler suits, accompanied by uniformed troops, started climbing up the hill. At that moment the pilot of the helicopter started up his rotors – checking the engines prior to maintenance. The engine row was deafening.

'They're coming up here,' warned Newman. I'm going to back the car out of the other end of this wood. The track goes right through it…"

'He's chosen the right moment to move the car,' Paula said, her mouth close to Tweed's ear. 'The roar of the rotors will drown the sound of the engine – and we'd better get moving…'

The Americans, with the stocky man in the lead, were coming up the hill fast. Tweed and the others ran deeper into the wood, following the Mercedes which was backing at speed. Reaching the end of the track they emerged into the open, dived inside the car.

'Head for that windmill,' Tweed ordered. 'There's nowhere else to hide,'

Paula agreed. Below the hill a vast flat area spread out, a plain which went on and on and which she felt must be Denmark. To the left they could see the brilliant blue of the North Sea stretching away to a distant horizon.

'That windmill may be occupied,' Newman objected. 'The sails aren't moving and there's a strong wind.'

'Just do it,' ordered Tweed. 'They'll be here in a minute and won't like our presence.'

The windmill, very large, was six-sided and on the ground floor were windows. Tweed imagined they were the living quarters. The tips of the giant motionless sails were suspended only a few feet above the ground – at least two of the sails were in this position. The front door was closed. Tweed thought the mill looked deserted.

'The ground floor is where people live,' he told Paula. 'It also has the machinery which operates the sails in a wind.'

'You sound as though you've been inside one.'

'I have. Once stayed twenty-four hours with a friend in a mill he owned in East Anglia.'

'There's a big shed next to it,' she called out. 'Maybe we could park the car inside.'

'Provided it's empty,' Newman told her.

'Hurry it up.' snapped Tweed, who had glanced back.

There was still no sign of the Americans coming through the wood. But they would appear soon, he felt sure.

'I'm going as fast as I can over this rough ground,' Newman retorted.

It was a race against very little time, if this windmill was to be a refuge. Newman pulled up close to double wooden doors at the end of the shed. Tweed jumped out, followed by Paula. Running up to the heavy wooden front door he looked for a bell push. There wasn't one. He turned the handle, pushed the door inwards and there was a musty smell. Stepping a few paces onto a wooden floor he called out.

'Anyone at home? We're English.'

A brooding silence in the half-light. No sound of movement. And a place like this would creak if occupants started to walk about.

'I think it's empty,' whispered Paula.

'Everyone inside here. Move like lightning,' Tweed shouted from the doorway.

As the team was piling inside Marler opened both doors of the shed. It was empty. He stood aside, motioned to Newman to drive forward. With the Mercedes inside they shut the doors, fastened the crude latch, ran into the mill and Tweed closed the front door.

'Watch yourselves,' he called out. 'There's dangerous machinery in this place.'

'We're going up to the top,' said Nield.

With Harry at his heels, he began cautiously climbing a crude wooden staircase circling the wall of the mill. With no protecting rail on the open side it felt hairy the higher they climbed. Looking down was not a good idea.

'Don't show yourselves by a window,' Tweed called up to them.

Reaching a platform high up, again without a protective rail, Nield peered quickly through a tiny window covered with a net curtain. He nudged Harry.

'See what I see?'

What they had feared had appeared. Rushing into the open, from the end of the track through the wood, were American uniformed soldiers, holstered guns at their hips, led by the stocky civilian. One very big soldier had attracted Nield's attention. It was the American they had encountered back in Hamburg on the pavement not far from the Atlantic Hotel.