Page 34 of Clive Cussler The Iron Storm
Holmes nodded. “Noncombatant shooting down two Germanplanes and a balloon. Sorry, mate, but you’ve got a date with the hangman.”
“Yup.”
Before Bell and Holmes could further discuss the situation, guards started down the hallway from the reception area, their boots clacking loudly on the old stone floor.
17
With just seconds before beingtaken away for what had been described as light torture, Bell pulled his boot knife from his jacket pocket and handed it to a startled Liam Holmes. He’d snuck the weapon into the lockup by slipping it into the pocket of a guard’s overcoat when he’d arrived in the basement and then retrieved it on the way to the cell when he’d jostled the man a second time with his flight suit. He’d always been of the mind that being a putpocket, able to secrete something onto another person, was far trickier than being a pickpocket and taking it away. Still, he’d practiced both for many years as a way to better understand the criminal mind.
“I’ll take it back later,” he said as the prisoners moved to the back of the cell and raised their hands. “And tell the men to be ready, we’re escaping tonight.”
There were two guards, neither the one who’d unknowingly smuggled the knife. Once the door was open, one stayed just outsidethe cell, while the other came in with a pair of heavy manacles. He secured them around Bell’s wrists and led him out. The cell door closed with a crash behind them.
One guard kept a hand clamped on Bell’s arm as they escorted him out of the basement, past the main working room, and up another flight of stairs, these broad and elegant, but still dim. The second floor was a long hallway with doors on either side and a window at the far end providing light. The sun was moving closer to the horizon and actually made the passage glow. The guard knocked at what would be a corner room, waited for a bid to enter, and then opened the heavy wooden door.
Inside was an antechamber with an arrow slit for a window. A young soldier was behind a tidy desk sorting papers into open folders. On the desk was a small sign identifying him as Erich Cussler. The assistant stood and knocked on the door of an inner chamber and opened it when instructed.
The room was broad and well lit, with heavy timber beams in the ceiling and wide plank floors. The Gothic windows had ancient glass that let in light, but weren’t fully transparent. Behind a desk large enough to land a dirigible sat an officer in a dark beribboned uniform. He was in his fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair cropped close to his skull. He had a Teutonic bearing that he clearly cultivated, what with the monocle like the Kaiser sometimes favored and the walrus mustache.
Standing in the corner of the large office was the guard Holmes had warned Bell about, Schmidt. He was a slab of a man with an almost square head and his hands reminded Bell more of anvils than hams.
Bell set himself the task of surviving the next hour or two and drawing up a plan to escape.
“You are the new flyer shot down today by Baron Captain von Richthofen?” the major asked, his English accented but understandable.
“Not exactly. I was given the choice of surrendering or being shot down. Obviously I chose the latter, and for the record, though I am a flyer, I wasn’t the pilot.”
“What is your name?”
“I am Archie Abbott, a reporter for theToronto Sun. I was being given an aerial tour of the battlefront for my readers back home when we were jumped by your Red Baron.”
The major’s eyes flicked over to Schmidt in an oft-used signal and the man came at Bell with a lightning-fast slap to the face that nearly corkscrewed him into the floor. The detective worked his jaw to realign it properly and massaged away the worst of the sting.
“That was a warning about lying. Do it again and he will close his fist. Keep it up and he will use brass knuckle-dusters and finally a wooden baton. Clear?”
“Yeah, ah yes, sir.” Bell’s jaw finally clicked into proper alignment.
The German continued. “My name is Deiter Kreisberg. I am commander of this facility and in charge of interrogating downed pilots before they are processed back to Germany. I already have reports of an observation balloon being destroyed and the deaths of two pilots fromJasta11. Tell me the truth.”
“I really am a reporter,” Bell said. “And I was being given a tour of the front. That is the whole truth. During our flight, my pilot spotted an observation balloon being sent aloft on your side of the line. I guess it’s standard procedure to go after them no matter what because the next thing I knew we were strafing it with everything we had. Itwas after it exploded that we were jumped by your fighters. My pilot managed to shoot down two of them before he himself was killed.
“I’ve been a pilot for several years now and understood what I had to do to save myself. I managed to dump his body from the plane and took the controls. I knew I had no chance fighting a combat pilot let alone a legend like von Richthofen. He recognized my predicament and like a gentleman allowed me to land unscathed.”
Bell saw Kreisberg’s flick to Schmidt and had time to prepare for the punch swung at his head. He managed to turn enough to only get a graze, but the punch would have been one of the hardest he’d ever taken had it struck clean. Schmidt followed up with a shot to the gut that Bell didn’t think he had the time to really throw and so was unprepared. He dropped to his knees. It almost wasn’t an act.
He gasped and wretched for nearly a minute, using the time to catch his breath. He had to survive this with relatively little damage if he hoped to make it out of the Germans’ grasp. Schmidt seemed to tire of his weakness and hauled Bell back up to his feet.
“That was the truth,” he wheezed at the commandant.
“Perhaps,” Kreisberg said mildly. “Perhaps not. When I was informed of the destroyed balloon and fallen airmen, I was also told that Baron von Richthofen himself will be coming here tomorrow after the dawn patrol. If his narration of the events differ from yours, Herr Abbott, you will likely die at sundown as a foreign spy. What squadron were you flying from?”
Bell had a split second to answer and weighed his options. This facility was clearly part of German intelligence with a focus on aviation and would undoubtedly know the disposition of enemy forces in the area. It seemed to Bell that Captain Crabbe and the rest of his pilots had been using the old farm as an airfield for some months atleast. Surely Kreisberg would know of them and so there was no need for subterfuge.
“The 22nd Squadron,” Bell told him.
He missed the signal because the next thing he knew he was back on the floor again with an aching kidney that would doubtlessly pass some blood the next morning. Schmidt’s meaty fist would also leave a bruise the size of a salad plate.
“Next time, don’t think before answering me,” the German officer scolded.
