Red snatched up the gun.
Petitjean shouted, ‘It’s the guard. You can hear their boots.’
Red joined him at the cell-block door and listened. ‘Can we stop them opening this door?’
‘Impossible.’
‘Is there any other way out?’
‘Only the elevator down to the prison garden where he takes his exercise.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘You get into it from the far end of the cell-block. The access is through the cell opposite his. We keep it locked.’
‘Have you got the key?’
‘Yes, but it would be certain death. There is a watchtower with a full view of the garden, and the garden is sealed off by a three-metre wall.’
‘Would you give me the key, chief?’
‘They will all have been instructed to shoot.’
‘The key.’
Petitjean took the bunch from his pocket and unfastened one. He was shaking his head. ‘If there was a possibility, I would tell you to take it, but this is suicidal.’
‘Delay them as long as you can. You can tell them I’m with Hess.’ Red ran back to Hess’s cell and unbolted it.
The old man was still sitting on the bed. He looked up, frowning.
‘I’m borrowing this, OK?’ Red told him, picking the overcoat off the hook below the bookshelves.
Hess gestured with a movement of his shoulders that he had no objection. He showed that he had an immediate understanding of what Red was about to attempt. ‘My old hat is in the pocket.’
‘Great.’
‘These days I walk slowly, and look at the ground.’
‘Thanks.’
‘On the left side of the garden at this end are some bushes growing against the wall. That is the way I would choose. The wall actually forms the side of some disused workshops, one storey high.’
‘If I get out—’
‘I’ll hear about it,’ said Hess with a nod. He got up and picked a brown paper bag from the lowest shelf. ‘Put this in your pocket.’
‘What’s in it?’
‘Breadcrumbs. For the birds.’
The overcoat was faintly military in style and reached to just above Red’s ankles. He took the hat from the pocket and tried it on. It was a soft, grey pillbox-type cap that effectively covered his hair. He closed the door on Hess and crossed the corridor. There was shouting from the other end.
He unlocked the cell door opposite and let himself in, closing the door behind him. The lift stood open, so he stepped in, pulled the gate shut and pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
It occurred to him that they could have cut off the power supply. He stepped out again, spotted a switch on the wall, flicked it down, and heard a reassuring hum from the lift mechanism.
Inside again, and it responded at once.
He was conveyed down to ground level, wondering whether an armed guard awaited him. He had decided against bringing the sub-machine gun with him.
When the lift stopped, he paused a moment to compose himself, turning around to face the side from which he would make his exit. He took a long breath and slowly opened the gate.
No one was waiting outside. Directly ahead, positioned at the centre of the high garden wall some sixty yards away, was a flat-roofed concrete watchtower with a clear line of fire.
With his eyes down and his hands thrust deep into the pockets, Red started his impersonation of Rudolf Hess at exercise, shuffling towards the path around which the world’s loneliest man had plodded since 1947. He tried to picture the grey figure in the film sequence that Cedric had shown the team during that now-remote weekend at Henley.
He joined the main path and turned right, in the anti-clockwise direction he had seen Hess take in the film. A 210-metre circuit. It took him towards the tallest tree in Spandau, an eighty-foot poplar that Dönitz had planted as a sapling soon after the seven prisoners had arrived there.
Mastering the impulse to hurry the routine, he stopped to scatter a few crumbs to some sparrows. He kept his eyes down, certain that he was being observed from the watchtower, knowing that the path would take him to within yards of its base. Then he resumed his slow progress. If something in his movement were to cause suspicion in the tower, his hope was that the Soviet guard up there would be in two minds about using his gun. To any young soldier on guard, the risk of mistakenly killing the world’s most famous prisoner would be a nightmarish prospect.
So Red’s slow steps took him into the shadow of the twenty-foot high red-brick wall that surrounded the prison, past overgrown, weed-infested flower-beds that had once been kept in immaculate order by Hitler’s architect, Albert Speer, and breathlessly beneath the watchtower. A few yards on, the path veered left. Red raised his eyes enough to get his first look at the bushes Hess had mentioned. To reach them, he would have to leave the path and cross twenty-five yards of open grass. However he attempted it, that guard would know at once that something irregular was happening.
He decided to stay in the character of Hess and wander across the grass, scattering breadcrumbs. A dash for the bushes would have been easier on the nerves, but suicidal. Hunched and with his back to the watchtower, he tottered off the path.
Almost immediately, there was a shout from the tower, some warning in Russian that he pretended not to hear. He continued his meandering walk towards the cover of the bushes, still scattering handfuls of crumbs.
Another shout, this time through a loud-hailer.
Fifteen yards covered. Ten to go.
He bent lower and moved in a straighter line. Five more.
He sprinted.
A burst of gunfire. But he was already in the bushes and had dived to the right, out of sight against the wall that formed the side of the workshop.
An alarm blared through the prison.
He took a foothold on the nearest bush, grasped the top of the wall and hauled himself up, to roll across the low-angled roof as the gunfire spattered around him. He had come in range of a second watchtower.
Flat to the roof, he spotted a skylight. He crawled towards it and got his fingers under the edge. A piece of tarpaulin came off in his hand, but the wooden cover wouldn’t shift. He tugged at it frantically. It wouldn’t budge. They must have made it secure with nails.
Another burst from the watchtower machine gun. He abandoned the skylight and slithered down the roof until his feet hit the guttering. He felt a stab of pain in the calf of his left leg.
He had been hit.
It was hopeless. He slid down and lay along the length of the gutter a moment, then gripped it and swung by his hands. Just below was a window into the workshop. Anything to escape the gunfire. He kicked hard at the glass, shattered it and swung himself inwards, feet first. The jagged glass at the edges of the frame ripped into Hess’s overcoat, but miraculously Red got inside without further injury.
For a few seconds he lay immobile, fighting the pain in his leg. Then he forced himself to crawl away from the window. Gripping his leg above the knee with both hands, he tried to stand. He staggered a few steps and fell across a workbench. He wasn’t going to get much further, however he tried.
The alarms screeched all over Spandau. He heard army boots on the gravel outside, orders shouted in Russian. The acute pain in his leg had subsided a little and was being supplanted by a more generalised ache. If it were only a flesh-wound … But he knew he was kidding himself. He was trapped. He could only wait and see if they wanted to take him alive.
A crash, as someone shattered another window. At the far end of the workshop, they were battering their way through a locked door.
Red heaved himself into a sitting position and raised his hands in surrender. The door burst open and two soldiers moved in with guns levelled. The man at the window also had him covered.
He didn’t move a muscle as they advanced on him. They shoved him face down on the bench, ripped off the overcoat and searched him for arms. One of them noticed the blood on his trouser-leg. They rolled it back to look at the wound.
More soldiers came in. Red thought he heard the voice of the NCO from the guardroom. He was using a two-way radio.
Someone else arrived and applied a bandage to Red’s wound. As if to correct any impression that they meant to treat him gently, two men then handcuffed him, grabbed him by the armpits and dragged him off the bench and out of the workshop. He tried to get a footing, but the pain was too severe.
He was hauled across a yard and into the main block, up one of the iron staircases and through a couple of rooms, his perceptions blurred by the agony in his leg. Dimly, he became aware of a door he recognized. The guards knocked first, and took him in. He was facing Colonel Klim, the Soviet Director. A chair was found and Red slumped into it.
‘Sit up!’ ordered Klim.
He raised his head.
‘You have committed many breaches of prison regulations. You have conspired with prison warders to attack a Soviet guard and a Soviet warder. You have gained illegal entry to the inner cell-block and spoken with prisoner Number 7. These offences will be reported to the military authorities. In my capacity as director, I shall now invite Soviet General Vanin to take you into his custody for interrogation.’
‘Vanin?’ mumbled Red. ‘That bastard from the KGB?’
He was immediately struck from behind, a vicious punch against his cheekbone that tore the soft flesh under his eye and sent blood coursing down his face. His hair was grabbed and wrenched back.
He found himself looking upside down into a pale face dominated by bulging eyes, yellow and bloodshot at the edges. He avoided looking into them. Instead, he found himself watching a blob of saliva slowly form between slightly open, fleshy lips. He was helpless as it dropped between his eyes in a dribbling string of spittle, and slid across his face. It smelt of vodka.
Klim said, ‘General Vanin speaks no English, but he can make himself understood.’
‘Sod off.’
There was an exchange in Russian. Someone opened a door behind him and a lighter set of footsteps crossed the room. A woman?
‘Sit up,’ ordered Klim. ‘The lady wants a look at your ugly face.’
Blood and spit were smearing Red’s vision, but he could see enough. It couldn’t have been worse. Heidrun Kassner was standing in front of him. They had brought her in to identify him. Dimly, his brain told him that she shouldn’t have been there. He had left her trussed up at Cal Moody’s apartment. Jane had been with her.
God, what had happened to Jane?
Heidrun’s eyes were directed downwards as if she preferred not to look at Red. Something was said in Russian. She raised her face briefly. Their eyes met. Hers were indifferent.
Heidrun nodded and told the Russians, ‘Goodbody.’
‘My name or your opinion?’ said Red.
Someone struck his head from behind.
‘Cow!’ said Red inadequately.
With that, he was dragged off the chair and bundled out of the office. On the way, he had his first full glimpse of Vanin and it was in no way encouraging. The General was not in uniform, but wore a blue three-piece suit. Overweight and in his forties, with reddish hair that he probably tinted, he had the bloated look of an ex-boxer who has hit the vodka and neglected his fitness.
The descent was agonizing. That left leg was throbbing from thigh to ankle and, handcuffed as Red was, he was prevented from using his arms to steady himself. At each step, the pain was like a chisel being turned in the wound. As they started down the second flight, an order was given and the guards supported his thighs and carried him the rest of the way. They hurried him along a corridor and out through the gates of the main prison block.
A brown Lada limousine with diplomatic plates was waiting in the yard. The chauffeur got out and opened the rear door. Red was lifted in, while one of the guards kept him covered with his gun through the open door.
After about three minutes, General Vanin emerged from the building with Heidrun. Vanin got into the back seat beside Red. He drew a small, silver automatic from inside his jacket, pressed it into Red’s ribs and spoke something in Russian.
Heidrun was getting into the seat beside the driver. She said, ‘He is telling you to lie on the floor.
‘I don’t mind lying for the KGB,’ said Red, shifting forward to obey the order. ‘Where are we going?’
‘I’m not allowed to say. They want to interrogate you.’
Red crouched on the space between the seats. Vanin gave an order and the car glided away, saluted by the guards.
They drove slowly across the cobbled yard to the first set of gates. The NCO came out to check. Noticing Red’s blood-streaked face, he started to smirk; then, at a sharp word from Vanin, came smartly to the salute and gave the order for both sets of double gates to be unbolted. The Lada edged out of Spandau Prison and turned left on Wilhelmstrasse, towards the city and the Wall.