The explosions seemed to continue but the small-anns fire was subsiding.
Considerably.
There were shouts now; from across the field by the stables. He looked
between and over the grass. Men were running with flashlights, the beams
darting about in shafting diagonals. David could hear shouted commands.
What he saw made him stop all movement and stare incredulously. The
flashlights of the men across the wide pasture were
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focused on a figure coming out of the stable – on horseback! The spill of a
dozen beams picked up, the glaring reflection of a white Palm Beach suit.
Franz Altmilller I
Altm(Wer had chosen the madness he, David, had rejected.
But, of course, their roles were different.
Spaulding knew he was the quarry now. Altinfiller, the hunter. There would
be others following, but AltmWler would not, could not wait. He kicked at
the animal’s flanks and burst through the opened gate.
Spaulding understood again. Franz Altmflller was a dead an if David lived.
His only means of survival in Berlin was to produce the corpse of the man
from Lisbon. The Fairfax agent who had crippled ‘Tortugas’; the body of the
man the patrols and the scientists in Ocho Calle could identify. The man
the ‘Gestapo’ had unearthed and provoked.
So much, so alien.
Horse and rider came racing across the field. David stayed prone and felt
the hard earth to the east. He could not stand; Altinfiller held a
powerful, wide-beamed flashlight. If he rolled under the railing, the tall
weeds and taller grass beyond might conceal him but just as easily might
bend, breaking the pattern.
If… might.
He knew he was rationalizing. The tall grass would be best; out of sight.
But also out of strategy. And he knew why that bothered him.
He wanted to be the hunter. Not the quarry.
He wanted Altmifller dead.
Franz Altmftller was not an enemy one left alive. AltmOller was every bit
as lethal in a tranquil monastery during a time of peace as he was on a
battlefield in war. He was the absolute enemy; it was in his eyes. Not
related to the cause of Germany, but from deep within the man’s arrogance:
Altmaller had watched his masterful creation collapse, had seen ‘Tortugas’
destroyed. By another man who had told him he was inferior.
That, Altmiflier could not tolerate.
He would be scorned in the aftermath.
Unacceptable!
Altnitiller would lie in wait. In Buenos Aires, in New York, in London; no
matter where. And his first target would be Jean. In a rifle sight, or a
knife in a crowd, or a concealed pistol at
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night. Altmigler would make him pay. It was in his eyes.
Spaulding hugged the earth as the galloping horse reached the midpoint of
the field, plunging forward, directed by the searchfight beam from the
patrols back at the stables a quarter of a mile away. They were directed at
the area where the Doberman was last seen.
Altmaller reined in the animal, slowing it, not stopping it. He scanned the
ground in front with his beam, approaching cautiously, a gun in his hand,
holding the straps but prepared to fire.
Without warning, there was a sudden, deafening explosion from the stables.
The beams of light that had come from the opposite side of the field were
no more; men who had started out across the pasture after Altmifller
stopped and turned back to the panic that was growing furiously at the
bordering fence. Fires had broken out.
Altmtlller continued; if he was aware of the alarms behind him he did not
show it. He kicked his horse and urged it forward.
The horse halted, snorted; it pranced its front legs awkwardly and
backstepped in spite of AltmMer’s commands. The Nazi was in frenzy; he
screamed at the animal, but the shouts were in vain. The horse had come
upon the dead Doberman; the scent of the fresh blood repelled it.
AltmUller saw the dog in the grass. He swung the light first to the left,
then to the right, the beam piercing the space above David’s head. AltmMer
made his decision instinctively – or so it seemed to Spaulding. He whipped
the reins of the horse to his right, toward David. He walked the horse; he
did not run it.
Then David saw why. AltmiJJler was following the stains of the Doberman’s
blood in the grass.
David crawled as fast as he could in front of the spill of Altmiffler’s
slow-moving beam. Once in relative darkness, he turned abruptly to his
right and ran close to the ground,back toward the center of the field. He
waited until horse and rider were between him and the bordering
post-and-rail, then inched his way toward the Nazi. He was tempted to take
a clean shot with the Lliger, but he knew that had to be the last
extremity. He had several miles to go over unfamiliar terrain, with a dark
forest that others knew better. The loud report of heavy-caliber pistol
shot would force men out of the pandemonium a quarter of a mile away,
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Nevertheless, it might be necessary.
He was within ten feet now, the Lager in his left hand, his right free. .
. . A little closer, just a bit closer. Altmaller’s flashlight slowed to a
near stop. He had approached the point where he, David, had lain in the
grass immobile.
Then Spaulding felt the slight breeze from behind and, knew – in a terrible
instant of recognition – that it was the moment to move.
The horse’s head yanked up, the wide eyes bulged. The scent of David’s
blood-drenched clothing had reached its nostrils.
Spaulding sprang out of the grass, his right hand aimed at Altmiiller’s
wrist. He clasped his fingers over the barrel of the gun – it was a Colt!
a U.S. Army issue Colt .45! – and forced his thumb into the trigger
housing. Altmtiller whipped around in shock, stunned by the totally
unexpected attack. He pulled his arms back and lashed out with his feet.
The horse reared high on its hind legs; Spaulding held on, forcing
Altmiffler’s hand down, down. He yanked with every ounce of strength he had
and literally ripped Altmdller off the horse into the grass. He slammed the
Nazi’s wrist into the ground again and again, until flesh hit rock and the
Colt sprang loose. As it did so, he crashed his Lfiger into Altmiffler’s
face.
The German fought back. He clawed at Spaulding’s eyes with his free left
hand, kicked furiously with his knees and feet at David’s testicles and
legs and rocked violently, his shoulders and head pinned by Spaulding’s
body. He screamed.
‘You! You and … Rhinemann! Betrayal!’
The Nazi saw the blood beneath David’s shoulder and tore at the wound,
ripping the already tom flesh until Spaulding thought he could not endure
the pain.
AltmOller heaved his shoulder up into David’s stomach,’and yanked at
David’s bleeding arm, sending him sprawling off to the side. The Nazi
leaped up on his feet, then threw himself back down on the grass where the
Colt .45 had been pried loose. He worked his hands furiously over the
ground.
He found the weapon.
Spaulding pulled the hunting knife from the back of his belt and sprang
across the short distance that separated him from Altmiffler. The Colt’s
barrel was coming into level position, the small black opening in front of
his eyes. –
As the blade entered the flesh, the ear-shattering fire of the
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heavy revolver exploded at the side of David’s face, burning his skin, but
missing its mark.
Spaulding tore the knife downward into Altmimer’s chest and left it there.
The absolute enemy was dead.
David knew there was no instant to lose, or he was lost. There would be
other men, other horses … many dogs.
He raced to the bordering pasture fence, over it and into the darkness of
the woods. He ran blindly, trying desperately to swing partially to his
left. North.
North by northeast.
Escape!
He fell over rocks and fallen branches, then at last penetrated deepening
foliage’ lashing his arms for a path, any kind of path. His left shoulder
Z numb, both a danger and a blessing.
There was no gunfire in the distance now; only darkness and the hum of the
night forest and the wild, rhythmic pounding of his chest. The fighting by
the stables had stopped. Rhinemann’s men were free to come after him now.
He had lost blood; how much and how severely he could not tell. Except
that,his eyes were growing tired, as his body was tired. The branches
became heavy, coarse tentacles; the inclines, steep mountains. The slopes
were enormous ravines that had to be crossed without ropes. His legs
buckled and he had to force them taut again.
The fencel There was the fence!
At the bottom of a small hill, between the trees.
He began running, stumbling, clawing at the ground, pushing forward to the