“Take your time, Karl,” he said to his driver, an SS sergeant who’d served with him for two years now. “We’re a little early. I said I wouldn’t be there till three and you know how she hates surprises.”
“As you say, Standartenfiihrer.” Karl smiled as he drove away.
Kaufmann opened a copy of a Berlin newspaper which he had received in the post that morning and settled back to enjoy it. They moved through the outskirts of town into the country. It was really quite beautiful, orchards of apples on either side of the road, and the air was heavy with the smell of them. For some time Karl had noticed a motorcycle behind them,, and when they turned into the side road leading to the village ofChaumont, it followed.
He said, “There’s a motorcyclist been on our tail for quite some time, Standartenfiihrer.” He took a Luger from his pocket and laid it on the seat beside him.
Kaufmann turned to look through the rear window and laughed. “You’re losing your touch, Karl. He’s one of ours.”
The motorcyclist drew alongside and waved. He was SS Feldgendarmerie in helmet, heavy uniform raincoat, a Schmeisser machine pistol slung across his chest just below the SS Field Police metal gorget that was only worn when officially on duty. The face was anonymous behind the goggles. He waved a gloved hand again.
“He must have a message for me,” Kaufmann said. “Pull up.”
Karl turned in at the side of the road and braked to a halt and the motorcyclist pulled up in front. He shoved his machine up on the stand and Karl got out. “What can we do for you?”
A hand came out of the raincoat pocket holding a Mauser semiautomatic pistol. He shot Karl once in the heart, hurling him back against the Citroen. He slid down into the road. The SS man turned him over with his boot and shot him again very deliberately between the eyes. Then he opened the rear door.
Kaufmann always went armed, but he’d taken off his overcoat and folded it neatly in the corner. As he got his hand to the Linger in the right pocket and turned, the SS man shot him in the arm. Kaufmann clutched at his sleeve, blood oozing between his fingers.
“Who are you?” he cried wildly. The other man pushed up his goggles and Kaufmann stared into the darkest, coldest eyes he had ever seen in his life.
“My name is Martineau. I’m a major in the British Army serving with SOE.”
“So, you are Martineau.” Kaufmann grimaced with pain. “Your German is excellent. Quite perfect.”
“So it should be. My mother was German,” Martineau told him.
Kaufmann said, “I’d hoped to meet you before long, but under different circumstances.”
“I’m sure you did. I’ve wanted to meet you for quite some time. Since nineteen thirty-eight, in fact. You were a captain at Gestapo Headquarters in Berlin in May of that year. You arrested a young woman called Rosa Bernstein. You probably don’t even remember the name.”
“But I recall her very well,” Kaufmann told him. “She was Jewish and worked for the Socialist Underground.”
“I was told that by the time you’d finished with her she couldn’t even walk to the firing squad.”
“That’s not true. The firing squad never came into it She was hanged in cellar number three. Standard procedure. What was she to you?”
“I loved her.”Martineau raised his pistol.
Kaufmann cried, “Don’t be a fool. We can do a deal. I can save your life, Martineau, believe me.”
“Is that so?” Harry Martineau said, and shot him between the eyes, killing him instantly.
He pushed the heavy motorcycle off its stand and rode away. He was perfectly in control in spite of what he had just done. No emotion-nothing. The trouble was, it hadn’t brought Rosa Bernstein back, but then, nothing ever could.
He rode through a maze of country lanes for over an hour, working his way steadily westward. Finally, he turned along a narrow country lane, grass growing so tall on either side that it almost touched. The farmhouse in the courtyard at the end of the lane had seen better days, a window broken here and there, a few slates missing. Martineau got off the bike, pushed it up on the stand and crossed to the front door.