Alistair MacLean - Where Eagles Dare by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub

Alistair MacLean - Where Eagles Dare

Smith lined up his gun on Carraciola's chest and said softly: 'Keep quiet or I'll make you quiet, you damned 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 massive 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

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