Captain Mueller caught the look and his face hardened suspiciously.
“What—” He broke off and wheeled as suddenly as a cat.
The girl was raising the ash tray over her head, ready to swing down with all her strength.
“So!” he snarled. “You are in with him. Did you think you could fool me?”
He swung the gun around to cover the girl. His face was brutal and dark. There was blood-lust in his small, piggish eyes.
For the first time his eyes were off Michael.
And Michael lunged forward, driving his hard shoulder with all his wiry strength into the back of the German officer’s knees. The savage suddenness of the attack hurled the captain’s heavy body to the floor in a tangled sprawl. Michael’s fist closed on the German’s gun wrist with vise-like pressure, as they rolled on the floor, locked fiercely together.
The gun fell from Captain Mueller’s hand, but before Michael could press his advantage, the German, with a savage twist, hurled him loose and staggered to his feet. He groped for the gun, but Michael lashed out with his foot, catching him in the shoulder and knocking him back against the wall of the office.
The girl kicked the gun out of reach as Captain Mueller lunged forward again. Enraged, he struck her with the back of his heavy hand across the face. A livid mark stained the whiteness of her face and she fell against the desk, her hands pressed to the angry red mark.
Michael rose, cat-like, to his feet.
His narrow face was tense and the centers of his yellow eyes were smoky pools of savage rage.
“You are effective against women, Captain,” he said softly. An inarticulate growl sounded deep in the German officer’s throat as he charged forward, his fists swinging like mallets.
Michael side-stepped and snapped a hard left into his face. Captain Mueller’s head jerked back and blood trickled from his mouth.
“Dog!” he roared.
He lowered his bullet-shaped head and rushed Michael, backing him toward a corner. Michael’s left hand flicked out, again and again, like the darting tongue of a snake, blinding the charging German. But Captain Mueller’s superior weight and strength drove the American relentlessly back until he was trapped in a corner of the room.
Ducking a round-house right swing Michael stepped in close and drove a hard, chopping right into the German’s jowls. The punch packed behind it all of his wiry power and he felt its shock all the way to his elbow.
The captain staggered back, cursing madly through his blood-frothed lips. Michael stepped in again, recklessly. He knew he had to finish this quickly or the guards would be drawn to the scene by the noise.
He swung again, but Mueller blocked the blow and countered with a vicious right, Michael’s guard was down and the blow landed solidly on his jaw, slamming him back against the wall. His head snapped back, crashing into the wall, and a million streaking lights exploded in his brain.
His knees sagged; his head slumped down on his chest. Through a red fog of pain he could dimly see Captain Mueller’s stocky figure standing in front of him, gloatingly expectant.
He tried to lift his arms but he lacked the strength. His breath was a rasping pain in his throat. He knew he was through, that this was the end.
Captain Mueller turned suddenly and crossed the room with rapid strides. He bent and picked up the gun from the floor and turned back to Michael, the ugly blue hole in the Luger barrel centered unwaveringly on his stomach.
“You have lost, Herr Faber,” Captain Mueller said, his breath coming heavily. “There will be no trial and execution for you. I will provide both.”
Michael lifted his head slowly. He saw the bestial triumph in Mueller’s eyes and he saw the twitching muscles of the hand that held the Luger; and he knew that he was facing death.
Suddenly an English voice roared in the room.
Mueller started and swung half way around. The red-haired girl, Michael saw, had flicked on the powerful receiving set; the voice in the room was that of the B.B.C. announcer. But the ruse had diverted, for an instant, the German’s attention; had given Michael one thousand-to-one chance. And he took that chance.
Gathering his fading strength, he hurled himself across the room at the German’s surprised figure. Mueller wheeled, whipping the gun about to cover Michael. But he was too late. Michael drove into his gun arm, doubling the wrist inward and, as the two men crashed to the floor, a muffled explosion sounded.
The girl screamed as a hoarse, strained gasp followed the sound of the shot. She dropped to her knees and pulled Michael from the German’s body. There was blood on his shirt front but it was from the oozing stain that was spreading slowly over Captain Mueller’s chest.
Her lips moved in a silent prayer. “Thank God,” she murmured. She pulled Michael’s head close to her and he opened his eyes and smiled faintly.
“Pleasant as this is,” he said, “we’ll have to postpone it for a while.”
He stood up and turned down the radio.
“That was a neat trick,” he said, looking down at her. “It undoubtedly saved my life, which isn’t so important, but the work I have to do is important. Thank you for that.”
He helped her to her feet.
“You fooled me again when he came in,” he said. “I thought surely I’d misjudged you. I believed you when you said you’d come here to trick me into revealing myself as a British agent.”
“It was the only thing I could do,” the girl answered. “We are lucky he was stupid enough to believe me. Now we must plan to get you out of here. Do you think the guard could have heard the shot?”
“It isn’t likely,” Michael said. “The radio was on full blast and the sound of the shot was muffled. Our luck is still holding.”
He unfolded the paper of instructions he still held in his hand and studied it intently, a faint frown forming on his lean face.
“This is urgent,” he said. “Every second, now, is precious. Get ready to leave. I’ll dispose of the body in a less conspicuous spot. It won’t be discovered until tomorrow morning. And by that time our work will be done.” Michael opened the door and glanced up and down the corridor. Seeing that the way was clear he bent and hoisted the heavy body of the dead German officer to his shoulder and stepped into the corridor. Lurching under his awkward burden he moved silently down the hallway until he reached an intersecting corridor. He followed this for several yards until he came to a small closet. Opening the door he dumped the German’s body on the floor and covered it with a tarpaulin he found hanging on the wall.
Then he closed and locked the door. As he started back a sudden, chilling scream shattered the stillness. Michael froze in the darkness of the hall, his heart pounding. A thousand speculations seemed to crowd his brain.
The scream sounded again, a helpless, terror-filled cry of anguish that chilled the marrow in his bones. He hesitated for another second, his mind working with lightning-speed, then he broke into a charging run.
Chapter V
As Michael raced toward the sound of the scream he realized with sudden helplessness that he was completely unarmed. He had left the German’s Luger lying on the floor of the radio room.
He charged recklessly around the corner of the corridor. But the sight that met his eyes brought him to a sudden, incredulous halt.
Marie was standing in front of the open door of the radio room, her body stiffened in a posture of terror and a white mask of dread stamped on her lovely features.
But there was no one else in sight. There was nothing to account for her expression of terror. She was completely alone in the dimly lighted corridor.