Where Eagles Dare Part 23

'Fifteen minutes. I guarantee it.' He s.h.i.+fted his glance to Jones. 'I don't pretend to look forward to this, General, but shall we get on with your -- ah -- medication?'

Jones glared at Carraciola, Christiansen and Thomas and said, very slowly and distinctly: 'You -- b.l.o.o.d.y -- swine!'

'Against all my principles, General Carnaby,' Rosemeyer said uncomfortably. 'But if we could only dispense with force -- '

'Principles? You make me sick!' Jones stood up and made a strangled noise in his throat. "The h.e.l.l with you all! The Hague Conventions! Principles! Officers and gentlemen of the Third Woody Reich!' He stripped off his uniform jacket, rolled up a sleeve and sat down again.

There was a brief and uncomfortable silence, then Kramer nodded to Anne-Marie who put down her gla.s.s and moved off to a side door leading off the gold drawing-room. It was obvious to everyone that Anne-Marie wasn't feeling in the least uncomfortable: the half-smile on her face was as near to that of pleasurable antic.i.p.ation as she could permit herself in the presence of Rosemeyer and Kramer.

Again Smith and Schaffer exchanged glances, no longer thoughtful glances, but the glances of men who know what they have to do and are committed to doing it. Carefully, silently, they eased themselves up from the choir-stalls, adjusted the straps of their shoulder-slung Schmeissers until the machine-pistols were in the horizontal position then started slowly down the stairs, well apart and as close as possible to their respective banisters, to minimise the danger of creaking treads.

They were half-day down, just beginning to emerge from the dark gloom of the gallery, when Anne-Marie re-entered the room. She was carrying a small stainless steel tray: on the tray were a gla.s.s beaker, a phial containing some colourless liquid and a hypodermic syringe. She set the tray down on an occasional table close to Jones and broke the phial into the narrow beaker.

Smith and Schaffer had reached the foot of the stairs and were now advancing towards the group round the fire-place. They had now completely emerged from the shadows, and were in full view of anyone who cared to turn his head. But no one cared to turn his head, every seated person in the drawing-room was engrossed in the scene before him, watching in varying degrees of willing or unwilling fascination as Anne-Marie carefully filled the hypodermic syringe and held it up to the light to examine it. Smith and Schaffer continued to advance, their footfalls soundless on the luxuriously deep pile of the gold carpet.

Carefully, professionally, but with the trace of the smile still on her lips, Anne-Marie swabbed an area of Jones's forearm with cotton wool soaked in alcohol and then, as the watchers unconsciously bent forward in their seats, picked up Jones's wrist in one hand and the hypodermic in the other. The hypodermic hovered over the swabbed area as she located the vein she wanted.

'Just a waste of good scopolamine, my dear,' Smith said. 'You won't get anything out of him.'

There was a moment's frozen and incredulous stillness, the hypodermic syringe fell soundlessly to the floor, then everyone whirled round to stare at the two advancing figures, carbines moving gently from side to side. Predictably, Colonel Kramer was the first to recover and react. Almost imperceptibly, his hand began to drift to a b.u.t.ton on a panel beside his chair.

'That b.u.t.ton, Colonel,' Smith said conversationally.

Slowly, reluctantly, Kramer's hand retreated from the b.u.t.ton.

'On the other hand,' Smith went on cordially, 'why not? By all means, if you wish.'

Kramer glanced at him in narrow-eyed and puzzled suspicion.

'You will notice, Colonel,' Smith continued by way of explanation, 'that my gun is not pointing at you. It is pointed at him' -- he swung his gun to cover Carraciola -- 'at him,' -- the gun moved to Thomas -- 'at him,' -- it covered Christiansen -- 'and at him!' Smith swung round abruptly and ground the muzzle of the Schmeisser into Schaffer's ribs. 'Drop that gun! Now!'

'Drop the gun?' Schaffer stared at him in shock and baffled consternation. 'What in the name of G.o.d -- '

Smith stepped swiftly forward and, without altering his grip on his gun, lifted the barrel sharply upwards and drove the b.u.t.t of the Schmeisser into Schaffer's stomach. Schaffer grunted in agony, doubled forward with both hands clutched over his midriff, then, seconds later, obviously in great pain, began to straighten slowly. Glaring at Smith, the dark eyes mad in his face, he slipped the shoulder strap and the Schmeisser fell to the carpet.

'Sit there.' With the muzzle of his gun Smith gestured to a chair half-way between Rosemeyer's and the couch where the three men were sitting.

Schaffer said slowly, painfully: 'You G.o.dd.a.m.ned lousy, dirty, double-crossing -- '

That's what they all say. You're not even original.' The contempt in Smith's voice gave way to menace. 'That chair, Schaffer.'

Schaffer lowered himself with difficulty into his chair,

rubbed his solar plexus and said, 'You --. If I live to be a hundred -- '

'If you live to be a hundred you'll do nothing,' Smith said contemptuously. 'In your own idiom, Schaffer, you're a punk and a pretty second-rate one at that.' He settled himself comfortably in a chair beside Colonel Kramer. 'A simple-minded American,' he explained carelessly. 'Had him along for local colour,'

'I see,' Kramer said. It was obvious that he did not see. He went on uncertainly: 'If we might have an explanation -- '

Smith waved him negligently to silence.

'All in good time, my dear Kramer, all in good time. As I was saying, my dear Anne-Marie -- '

'How did you know her name was Anne-Marie?' Kramer asked sharply.

Smith smiled enigmatically, ignored him completely, and scopolamine will do, as you're all aware, is to reveal the truth about our friend here, which is that he is not Lieutenant General George Carnaby, Chief Co-ordinator of Planning for the Second Front, but a certain Cartwright Jones, an American actor being paid precisely twenty-five thousand dollars to impersonate General Carnaby.' He looked over to Jones and bowed. 'My congratulations, Mr. Jones. A very creditable performance. Pity you'll have to spend the rest of the war in a concentration camp.'

Kramer and Rosemeyer were on their feet, the others leaning far forward on the couch, an almost exactly identical expression of disbelief showing in every face. If Cartwright Jones had been earth's first visitor from outer s.p.a.ce he couldn't possibly have been the object of more incredulous, consternation.

'Well, well, well,' Smith said with interest. 'Surprise, surprise, surprise.' He tapped Kramer on the arm and gestured in the direction of Carraciola, Thomas and Christiansen. 'Odd, wouldn't you say, Kramer? They seem just as astonished as you are?'

'Is this true?' Rosemeyer demanded hoa.r.s.ely of Jones. 'What he says? Do you deny -- '

In a voice that was no more than a whisper, Jones said: 'How -- how in G.o.d's name -- who are you, sir?'

'A stranger in the night.' Smith waved a hand. 'Dropped in in the pa.s.sing, you might say. Maybe the Allies will let you have that twenty-five thousand after the war. I wouldn't bank on it though. If international kw allows you to shoot a captured enemy soldier dressed as a civilian, maybe the opposite holds good too.' Smith stretched and politely patted a yawn to extinction. 'And now, Anne-Marie, if I could -- with your permission, my dear Kramer -- have a gla.s.s of that excellent Napoleon. Clinging to the roofs of cable-cars works the devil with my circulation.'

The girl hesitated, looked at Kramer and Rosemeyer, found neither encouragement nor discouragement, shrugged, poured a gla.s.s and handed it to Smith, who sniffed the bouquet approvingly, drank a little and bowed again to Jones.

'My congratulations, sir. You are a connoisseur.' He sipped again, turned to Kramer and said sadly: 'To think you have been wasting such excellent liquor on enemies of the Third Reich.'

'Don't listen to him, Colonel Kramer, don't listen to him!' Carraciola shouted wildly. 'It's a bluff! He's just trying -- '

Smith lined up his gun on Carraciola's chest and said softly: 'Keep quiet or I'll make you quiet, you d.a.m.ned traitor. You'll have your chance -- and we'll see who's bluffing.' He lowered his gun to his knees and went on tiredly: 'Colonel Kramer, I don't fancy talking and having to keep a gun on this unlovely trio all the time. Have you a guard you can trust? A man who won't talk afterwards, I mean?'

He sat back in his chair, sipped his brandy and ignored the malevolent stares from his four erstwhile colleagues. Kramer looked at him for a very long moment, then nodded thoughtfully and reached for a phone.

The armoury -- now converted into a Kafeestube -- of the Schloss Adler was very much in keeping with the remainder of the castle, something out of a medieval dream or nightmare, according to how individual tastes and inclinations lay. It was a large, darkly-panelled, stone-flagged room with enormous adze-cut smoke-blackened beams and walls behung with ancient and rusty suits of armour, ancient and rusty weapons of all kinds and scores of armorial bearings, some of which could have -been genuine. Three-sided half-booths lined the walls and half-a-dozen slab-topped monastery refectory tables, flanked by ma.s.sive oak benches, paralleled the shorter axis of the room. The oil lamps, suspended by iron chains from the ceiling, were turned low, lending the atmosphere in the armoury an- air of intimacy or brooding menace, according to one's original mood on entering. There was no doubt in Mary's mind as to its effect upon her. Her gaze followed half-a-dozen heavily armed and jack-booted men who were just leaving the armoury, then came back reluctantly to the man sitting close beside her in the corner booth.

'Well, what did I tell you?' von Brauchitsch said expansively. 'Coffee to match the surroundings!'

Coffee to match the surroundings, Mary thought, would have tasted of hemlock. She said: "What did those men want? They seemed to be looking for someone.'

'Forget them. Concentrate on von Brauchitsch.'

'But you spoke to them. What did they want?'

'They say there are spies in the castle!' Von Brauchitsch threw his head back, laughed, and spread his hands palms up. 'Imagine! Spies in the Schloss Adler! The Gestapo H.Q.! They must have flown in on their broom-sticks. The military commandant is an old woman. He has spies in about once a week. Now what was I saying about Dusseldorf?' He broke off, glancing at her empty coffee cup. 'My apologies, my dear Fraulein. Come, more coffee.'

'No, really. I must go.'

Von Brauchitsch laughed again and put his hand on hers.

'Go where? There is nowhere to go inside the Schloss Adler. Nonsense, nonsense.' He turned in his seat and called: 'Fraulein! Two more coffees. And with Schnapps, this time.'

While he was ordering, Mary glanced quickly at her watch and a momentary expression of desperation crossed her face, but by the time von Brauchitsch turned back she was smiling sweetly at him. She said: 'You were saying about Dusseldorf -- '

The company in the gold drawing-room had now been increased by one, a tall, cold-faced and hard-eyed sergeant who held a carbine cradled in a pair of strong and very capable looking hands. He was standing behind the couch on which Carraciola, Thomas and Christiansen were seated, and he was giving them his entire attention, apart from a frequent sideways glance at Schaffer. He had about him a rea.s.suring air of competence.