World War 2 Thriller Collection: Winter, The Eagle Has Flown, South by Java Head by Len Deighton & Jack Higgins & Alistair MacLean

Author:Len Deighton & Jack Higgins & Alistair MacLean [Deighton, Len]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-12-11T23:00:00+00:00

‘Who was the Swedish fellow?’

The Bodensee is a large gloomy-looking lake that forms the boundary between southwestern Germany and the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland. Its waters are frequently made dangerous by storms that spring up quickly from the snow-tipped Alps that serrate the southern horizon. From Friedrichshafen – a small town on the German side – a ferryboat goes regularly to the Swiss town of Romanshorn. This June evening the air had turned suddenly cooler, and the water had the curious milky look that local people say is the presage of a storm. The air was full of tiny flying insects, and there were birds swooping low over the smooth lake water preying upon them. The threat of rain had kept everyone indoors except two men. The waterfront was theirs alone.

The men were strolling along under the trees. One was shortish, plump, and in his mid-forties. An untidy-looking fellow, he wore a good suit of the same black worsted as lawyers favour throughout the world. His blond hair was going white, and he moved his hands a lot as he spoke. The other man was slightly older, a thin-faced man with eyeglasses; he was shabbily dressed but tall and slim, and he carried himself more gracefully, the way an actor or a dancer might walk. When they got to the wall, they turned and started coming back towards the big black BMW with the Berlin registration plates that was parked near the church.

‘The immigration officer on this side is named Schanz,’ Pauli told his brother. ‘A tall fellow with a moustache …about sixty years old. He used to work for Papa at the factory here in town. He’s friendly. Tell him you are going to Switzerland for the company. If there’s any trouble I will intercede, but let’s hope it will be all right without me.’

‘I don’t want to get you into trouble,’ Peter said.

‘I can look after myself,’ said Pauli.

‘I wouldn’t have got out of Berlin without you.’

‘Who was the Swedish fellow?’

‘A seaman. He was trying to sell me tins of butter and bacon.’

‘He slipped away very quietly,’ said Pauli.

‘Black market. He was afraid of getting picked up, I suppose.’

‘I thought I knew his face,’ said Pauli.

‘Perhaps he’s sold you butter and bacon.’

Pauli smiled. ‘That must be it.’ He looked across the water again. They were on the strand near the Schlosskirche, at the very spot where Mama had sat in Papa’s wonderful Italian motorcar watching the zeppelins so many years ago. Where was the old car now? Pauli wondered. In a museum, perhaps. Once, during the Berlin fighting in 1919, he’d glimpsed it driving through the Tiergarten with half a dozen soldiers piled in it. ‘You say you’ll be all right on the other side…. If you have any trouble there, ask for a man named Becheler. He’s a police inspector who is always somewhere near the customs office. Tell him you know me. He’s a sullen young bastard, but we pay him.’

‘The Gestapo?’

‘Yes. He helps us from time to time.

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