Harbicht hurried from the office….
There he was. Going back into the shack. What the hell was he up to? Goddamned foreign bastard. Likely as not a Frenchman. Ought to be strung up for slowing up important work for the Reich. Zander could taste the gall of frustration in the back of his mouth. There was nothing he could do about it…
He was just about to put his binoculars down when he stiffened in surprise.
Careening down the service road came a military truck. It skidded to a gravel-spurting stop at the watering tower, and a bunch of SS troops armed with Schmeisser machine pistols leaped to the ground, quickly fanning out to cover the tower and the signal.
Hardly had he recovered from his astonishment when he heard a second truck screeching to a halt on the service road below, directly in front of his tower station. He leaned out to look down. He could hear the shouted orders as armed SS troops tumbled from the truck and cautiously started to approach the old storage sheds.
He was thunderstruck.
Günther?
All that to capture a malingering foreign worker?
He glued the binoculars to his eyes. This he did not want to miss….
He trained his sight on the shack — just in time to see the loafer duck out of the door and sprint for the cluster of damaged rolling stock on the sidings. He was carrying his burlap sack.
He leaned out the window.
“Hello!” he shouted. “Hello!” But the SS soldiers were already too far away. Only one man stood at the truck below. Looked to be a civilian. “Hello!” he called. “At the truck! He's over there! At the cars! Over there!..”
Eichler was apprehensive. All right — frightened. They'd hauled him out of his cell, pushed him into a truck and taken him on a wild ride to a railroad yard. The Obersturmführer had ordered him to stay put at the truck and not move until they came for him. What was it all about? And now some excited fool was shouting at him from a tower on metal stilts: He's over there!
Who? Over where?
Eichler turned to look toward the damaged railroad cars. He was able to see down the aisles between them. And suddenly he saw him. In the distance.
Recognition knifed through him.
It was one of the black-marketeers! The one who had said he served with Konrad. Who said he had been Konrad's friend! Lies! Lies he had told them. Lies about Konrad. Black rage roared in his ears. It was all his fault, damn him to hell! All this trouble he, Eichler, was in. Get him!
He looked around for the Obersturmführer and his men. They were already over by the sheds.
He ran toward the group of railroad cars. He ran around them, hoping to alert the soldiers from the other truck.
“Hierher!” he shouted hoarsely. “Over here!”
Harbicht's SS men were just approaching a broken-down shack.
Suddenly a man screaming something unintelligible came running around a railroad car in the distance, flailing his arms.
Even as Harbicht shouted “Don't shoot!” the soldiers opened fire.
The slugs from their machine pistols tore into Eichler, spinning him around, cutting him nearly in half.
He was dead before he hit the ground….
Helmut Zander was shocked to the core. He stared in uncomprehending horror at the body sprawled grotesquely below.
He looked toward the round-up of rolling stock on the running-repair sidings. He could see nothing.
He picked up his binoculars. He searched among the cars.
There!
Climbing into a gutted boxcar, hauling his sack with him, was the Ausländer!
He started to shout. He stopped. There was no one near enough to hear him.
He glanced at his stump. He cursed. He would never be able to get down in time. He looked around. Somehow. Somehow he had to let them know what he had seen.
Dirk gulped air in short, painful breaths. His chest ached like hell. He was stunned. What had gone wrong? Had the others been caught? Oskar? Given the show away? Gisela?… He rejected it. Anyway — it was not important now. Only one thing. That he get away.
He glanced around the burned-out boxcar. There were gaping holes in both sides. Obviously he could not stay. It would be only a matter of minutes…
His thoughts were interrupted by a rumbling sound. A train.
Cautiously he peeked out. The boxcar was standing on a siding next to a working track. A train approaching from the terminal was heading out of the yard. Flatcars loaded with damaged armor on the way to be repaired. Probably in Stuttgart. It would pass right by his boxcar.
He estimated the distance between the siding and the track; the speed of the oncoming train. A fleeting thought went back to Rosenfeld and his damned obstacle course. Bless him! It was possible. Just barely.
He had no choice.
The locomotive passed him, hissing and laboring to gather steam and speed.
The first few cars lumbered by.
He took a good grip on his sack with his right hand.
Now!
He jumped.
He landed heavily on the rear end of a flatcar. The jar rattled his teeth. Desperately he grabbed hold with his free left hand. And felt himself slipping. Pain seared his injured arm. He grabbed hold with the other hand just in time to keep himself from falling between the cars to the tracks below. As he did, the heavy sack hit the edge of the car and was bounced from his grip, plummeting down. In despair he saw it hit the rail. Saw the wheel of the following car roll over it, crushing the transmitter inside, mashing it into junk….
He hauled himself up onto the flatcar.
He hid under a chained-down tank that was badly scorched and had both tracks missing….
Helmut Zander desperately cranked the handle on his telephone. “Hello!” he shouted into the mouthpiece. “Hello! Verdammt nochmal! — Dammit! Answer! Answer!” But the phone remained dead. Where the hell was Günther? Where the hell was everybody? Taking in the show?
He'd seen the lousy foreigner jump onto the moving transport. He'd seen him clear as day through his binoculars. He'd seen him drop his sack. He had to tell somebody!
He turned the handle vehemently. Goddamn it! Answer!
He could reach no one.
He hobbled to the ladder and looked down. He had to get to someone. He cursed his missing leg. But it was the only way. He'd have to get down the damn ladder as quickly as possible.
He grabbed his crutches and threw them out the door to the ground below. He hopped to the ladder, turned his back to it and made an awkward, one-legged hop down the first rung. He clung to the handrail. Precariously, as quickly as he could, he hopped down, one rung at a time….
Halfway. He looked down. The sweat was dripping from his forehead into his eyes. His hands were getting slippery. His foot ached.
Two more rungs.
Hurry.
Suddenly — in his haste — his foot slipped. He tried to hold himself upright with his sweaty hands, but he could not get a firm grip. His leg slid in between two rungs of the iron ladder. He felt himself falling backward. The leg bone — the tibia— snapped with an audible crack — and he fell heavily to the ground at the foot of the ladder.
He blacked out.
Harbicht was cold with fury. He'd had his prey within his grasp — and the man had slipped through his fingers. He found it difficult to excuse himself. In his mind he cast about for reasons. Why? Where had he made the mistake that cost him his quarry? Deliberately he suppressed those thoughts. For now.