“You haven’t seen Paul Cheval, have you, Herr Faber?” he asked.
“That name is a familiar one.” Michael said thoughtfully. “But I haven’t seen the man. Possibly he slipped through your ranks and made an escape.”
“Impossible!” Captain Mueller retorted. He glared about the room and there was a puzzled, suspicious expression on his hard features.
“Strange,” he said. “I feel that he is here now.”
“Disguised as one of your soldiers?” Michael suggested sarcastically.
Captain Mueller glared at him in rage.
“That tongue of yours will get you in trouble yet,” he stormed. He wheeled to his men. “Come! We are wasting our time here.” He gestured to Michael. “You had better come with us. Marshal von Bock will want an explanation for this matter.”
Michael followed Captain Mueller to the street. He noticed that soldiers were pouring gasoline about the wooden bases of the buildings. A worried line creased his forehead. Paul was still in the doctor’s laboratory and these buildings were veritable tinder boxes of combustion...
Marshal von Bock was standing beside his car, a pleased, relaxed expression on his swarthy, oily face.
Captain Mueller saluted.
“Marshal, there is something—”
Marshal von Bock waved him away carelessly.
“Another time. Do not bother me with details.” He took Michael by the arm and pointed down the street. “Is not that a pretty scene, my American friend?”
Michael had steeled his nerves for the sight but an involuntary shudder shook him as his eyes moved over the spectacle of human savagery.
Hundreds of machine-gunned bodies were sprawled in the dust of the street like tragic, broken dolls. Storm troopers walked among the pile of human debris with fixed bayonets, the blades stained a dripping crimson red. Blood was everywhere, splashed on store fronts, sidewalks and street.
The women of the village were being herded into trucks like cattle; their children were stripped brutally from their arms and sent stumbling to the outskirts of the village.
Michael had seen ugly brutality every day he had spent in Nazi-dominated lands. But nothing he had seen equaled this barbarous spectacle. There was something cold-blooded and unclean about this wanton butchery of innocents, this savage despoiling of homes and children, the lusting, inhuman cruelty of this scene that brought the blood pounding to his temples.
Marshal von Bock was watching him carefully.
“You do not seem particularly impressed,” he said.
Michael fought back his feelings, forced a mask of indifference over his face. He shrugged.
“It is simply a job well done,” he said.
“That is right,” von Bock said delightedly. “It is a job well done. The village of Lidice will be but a memory in a few hours. Not one man escaped and not one building will be left standing.”
Captain Mueller said, “I am not so sure that no men escaped. I am afraid that one did.”
“Who?” von Bock said sharply.
“Paul Cheval, a notorious saboteur and underground worker,” Captain Mueller answered.
“What makes you think he escaped?” Captain Mueller looked uncomfortable. “It is just a feeling I have.”
“Bah!” von Bock shorted. “You and your feelings. There is no place for mysticism in your work, Captain.” Michael was watching the wooden structure from which they had just emerged. Flames were licking up the wooden sides in greedy haste. The entire village would be a vast pyre for the men whose lives had been sacrificed in the name of the Third Reich.
Suddenly, through the curtain of smoke and flame that obscured the building, he saw a faint shadowy figure emerge. The faintly visible form paused for an instant, and Michael saw a shadowy arm raised in salute, then the vague shape moved rapidly away, disappearing around the corner of the flaming building.
“What are you looking at?” von Bock asked.
Michael smiled but his cat-like yellow eyes were as sharp and hard as pieces of flint.
“Nothing,” he said, “nothing at all.” Captain Mueller ran a puzzled hand through his cropped hair. His thick face wore a bewildered scowl.
“There is something funny here,” he said. “I still think the man we want has made an escape.”
Michael smiled and patted the captain’s beefy shoulder.
“Wouldn’t surprise me if you were right,” he said.
Captain Mueller ran a hand over his jaw and there was a thoughtful gleam in his eyes as he studied Michael Faber.
Chapter IV
The dark of late evening had settled over the city of Prague. The guard in front of the Nazi Propaganda building was leaning against his rifle when Michael Faber arrived at the main entrance.
The guard saluted hesitantly.
“I thought you had gone for the day, Herr Faber,” he said.
“Did you, now?” Michael said. “That proves that the best of us can be wrong, doesn’t it? Will you open up, please?”
“But Herr Faber,” the guard protested, “I have received very strict orders to leave no one in the building after hours unless accompanied by the Herr Minister.”
“My dear fellow,” Michael said, “the B.B.C. is at this moment broadcasting information which is vital to our armies. Are you going to stand in the way of the Third Reich’s securing that information?”
“But no—”
“Then kindly open the door. You are a good fellow, Henry, but you must be careful about thinking too much. The Fuehrer you know doesn’t like people who think. Thank you.”
Michael paused in the doorway.
“By the way, Henry, who gave you the orders not to leave anyone into the broadcasting offices after hours?”
“Captain Mueller, sir. He brought an order signed by Marshal von Bock.”
“I see. Excellent men, both. Good night.”
Michael strode briskly through the darkened corridors of the building until he came to a small office on the first floor. He opened the door, snapped on a light and entered.
The small room was completely fitted as a sending and receiving radio station. Michael tossed his hat on his desk and sat down, frowning.
It was two o’clock in the morning. The previous afternoon he had witnessed the destruction of Lidice. Now, in a few minutes, he would receive a code message, intermingled with a regular B.B.C. broadcast, giving him his next instructions.
The order of von Bock delivered by Captain Mueller, bothered him. He could easily enough arrange to have the B.B.C. messages sent in at another time, but the order might be an indication that he was no longer trusted. There had been definite suspicion in Captain Mueller’s eyes and voice the previous day, and if he had communicated his suspicions to von Bock, there might be trouble. And that was patting it mildly.
Michael stood up and closed the door, then he switched on the powerful receiving set and adjusted the delicate instruments. In a moment the voice of the English announcer flooded through the room. It was a standard broadcast to the peoples of Europe telling the truth of what was happening on the major battle fronts, and Michael knew that hundreds of forbidden radio sets were transmitting those truths to thousands of tense, hopeful men and women on the continent of Europe.
He glanced at his watch. When the hands stood exactly at 2:08 he leaned forward, and began scribbling furiously on a pad on the desk. He took the message down in English, a risky procedure, but knew he might not have time to code and decode it later. The only key to the code used by the B.B.C. was in Michael’s head, and this single fact had been responsible, largely, for his success.