I think Koehler is a fool, but . . . it is his daughter, so I did as he asked.”

Rossett nodded. “Koehler wanted you to come to me.”

“To give you a message.”

“Go on.”

“It’s all up to you now.”

Rossett stubbed out the cigarette. “That’s it?”

Neumann reached into his pocket and then passed an envelope across.

“A travel warrant. You’ll need it to get past the checkpoints in London. It’ll be reported stolen or missing, but that won’t matter for a few days. I can’t afford to be tied to this if you fail. Do you do have a car?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t do much to help you, you understand that?”

“You could release Koehler.”

“I can’t. It would leave me embarrassed, especially with his wife being found dead. We circulated his name, stating he had assaulted me in the course of an inquiry into her disappearance. He has to be charged, at the very least, with my assault, and he’ll probably face some sort of fine and disciplinary action, but he’ll live, don’t worry.”

“So he stays in jail because you’re embarrassed?”

“Embarrassment is a dangerous thing. I have to hold him for an acceptable period, then I have to get my superiors to agree to his release.”

“Will they?”

Neumann shrugged and Rossett nodded.

“I trust you’ll be discreet?” Neumann lowered his voice.

“I will.”

“It’s time for you to go and be the hero.” Neumann leaned back from the table.

Rossett didn’t reply.

“Will you do it? Get his daughter?”

“Has he told you what is going on?”

“Enough to know it isn’t going to be easy, enough for me to question if you’re the man for the job. I still think Koehler is a fool. He has the whole of the German occupying forces to call on and he chooses you.”

“He chose right.”

The two men stared at each other in silence until Neumann nodded, picked up his hat, and stood.

“Thank you,” said Rossett.

Neumann scratched his forehead and took a half step away from the table.

“Don’t thank me. You’re his last chance.”

“Tell Koehler I’ll make it, and when I have Anja, I’ll deal with them all.”

 

CHAPTER 22

ANJA TRIED TO turn herself to take some of the pressure off her left shoulder, but failed. The weight of the boots resting on her back increased the second she tried to shift, hurting her, pushing her down.

She tried to speak through the rag that had been stuffed in her mouth, and failed all over again. She felt sick, dizzy, scared, and a long way from home.

She blinked, turning her head in the sack in the hope that gravity would help her in her struggle with the gag, but it didn’t.

She wanted to scream.

Her arms felt cramped and she couldn’t straighten her legs. The urge to scream and twist herself free tortured her as the drone of the engine squeezed her head, filling her ears.

“Is she all right?” she heard the mechanic say in front of her, but nobody answered.

They hit a pothole, and the car made another one of the thousand turns it had seemed to make for the last however long she had been in it.

However long.

It seemed so very long, and Anja felt the panic rising inside again.

She tried to look inward, tried to see the fear and reason with it.

The fear washed close to her, like a wave on the beach she was teasing, just missing her; ebbing away, about to catch her next time.

She took some comfort from Jack and the mechanic being in the car with her. Even if the mechanic had sold her out to the men who had turned up, tied her up, stuffed her head into a bag, and then thrown her on the floor of the car, he was still worrying about her.

“Are you sure she can breathe in that?” Jack had said as the bag had gone on in the garage.

Anja thought about Jack’s eyes, the last thing she had seen as the darkness was inflicted on her. He was upset and confused.

He wasn’t a bad boy. He cared.

Another pothole slammed her hard; she used the bounce from the blow to turn slightly, easing her shoulder, lessening the pain, lessening the panic.

The feet pushed again.

The gag shifted.

She wanted to cry.

The brakes whined, the car slowed, and she felt herself rolling in the footwell as it lurched to a halt. The engine died. Silence, then the handbrake ratcheted and Anja forgot about the gag, the pain, and the fear.

She’d arrived.

“Get her out,” someone said outside the car, and all of a sudden the doors all around her opened as one. She felt the feet pushing down one last time as the person they belonged to got out.

Anja shivered. It was cold, and the draft from the door next to her head seemed to claw its way through the bag.

Someone grabbed her and dragged her. She tried to kick with her legs to push herself free, but whoever was pulling was too quick. Another hand under her arm and then she was pulled from the car and dropped a few inches.

The ground was hard, solid, and flat, and there was no snow. She wondered if she was under a shelter or maybe inside. What little light made its way through the hood gave no clues, so she rolled onto her back, searching under it, looking down toward her feet without bending her neck, desperate for a clue as to where she was.

She didn’t need to bother. Someone ripped the hood off her head and Anja closed her eyes against the sudden light.