River of Death

CHAPTER NINE

Inside the smaller wooden house was a large dining-cum-living-room. The walls were much behung with flags, banners, portraits, swords, rapiers, guns and pictures, all German. Behind a table a large, rather red-faced, heavily jowled man was eating a solitary meal to be washed down by beer from a pewter litre mug beside him. He looked up in amazement as the door crashed open.

Hamilton, pistol in hand, entered. He was followed by Smith, then the others.

'Guten abend, Hamilton said. 'I've brought an old friend along to see you.' He nodded towards Smith. 'I think old friends should smile and shake hands and say "hallo", don't you? You don't?'

Hamilton's pistol fired, gouging a hole in the seated man's desk.

'Nervous hands,' Hamilton said. 'Ramon?'

Ramon went behind the desk and removed a gun from an already half-opened drawer.

'Try the other drawer,' Hamilton said. Ramon did so and came up with a second gun.

'Can't really blame you,' Hamilton said. 'There are thieves and robbers everywhere these days. Well. Embarrassing silences bother me. Let me introduce you to each other. Behind the desk, Major-General Wolfgang Von Manteuffel of the S.S., variously known as Brown or Jones. Beside me, Colonel Heinrich Spaatz, also known as Smith, also of the S.S., Inspector General and Assistant Inspector General of the north and central Polish concentration and extermination camps, thieves on a colossal scale, murderers of old men in Holy orders and despoilers of monasteries. Remember, that's where you last met — in that Grecian monastery where you cremated the monks. But, then, you were specialists in cremation, weren't you?'

They weren't saying whether they were or not. The stillness in the room was total. All eyes were on Hamilton with the exception of those of Von Manteuffel and Spaatz: they had eyes only for each other.

'Sad,' Hamilton said. 'Very sad. Spaatz came all this long way to see you, Von Manteuffel. Admittedly, he came to kill you, but he did come. Something, I believe, to do with a rainy night in the Wilhelmshaven docks.'

There came the sharp crack of a small-bore automatic. Hamilton looked at Tracy who, gun loose in an already nerveless hand, was sinking to the floor and from the state of his head it was clear he would never rise again. Maria had a gun in her hand and was very pale.

Hamilton said: 'My gun is on you.'

She put her automatic back in her bush jacket pocket. 'He was going to kill you.'

'He was,' Ramon said.

Hamilton looked at her in bafflement. 'He was going to kill me, so you killed him?

'I was waiting for it.'

Navarro said thoughtfully, 'I do believe the young lady is not all that we thought she was.'

'So it would seem.' Hamilton was equally thoughtful. He said to her: 'Whose side are you on?'

'Yours.'

Spaatz at last looked away from Von Manteuffel and stared at her in total incredulity. She went on quietly: 'It is sometimes quite difficult to tell a Jewish girl from other girls.'

Hamilton said: 'Israeli?'

'Yes.'

'Intelligence?'

'Yes.'

'Ah! Would you like to shoot Spaatz too?'

'They want him back in Tel Aviv.'

'Failing that?'

'Yes.'

'My apologies, and without any reservations. You're becoming quite unpopular, Spaatz. But not yet in Von Manteuffel's class. The Israelis want him for obvious reasons. The Greeks' — he nodded to Ramon and Navarro in turn — 'those two gentlemen are Greek army intelligence officers — want you for equally obvious reasons.' He looked at Hiller. 'They supplied me with those gold coins, by the way.' He turned back to Von Manteuffel. 'The Brazilian government want you for dispossessing the Muscia tribe and for the killing of many of them and I want you for the murder of Dr Hannibal Huston and his daughter, Lucy.'

Von Manteuffel smiled and spoke for the first time. 'I'm afraid you all want a great deal. And I'm afraid you're not going to get it.'

There came a loud crashing of glass and simultaneously the barrels of three sub-machine-guns protruded through three smashed windows.

Von Manteuffel smiled contentedly. 'Any person found with a gun on him will be shot out of hand. Do I have to tell you what to do next?'

He didn't. All guns were dropped on the floor, including two that Hamilton had not known that Spaatz and Hiller were carrying.

'So.' Von Manteuffel nodded in satisfaction. 'So much better than a blood bath, don't you think? Simpletons! How do you think I have survived for so long? By taking endless precautions. Such as this little press button my right foot rests on.'

He broke off as four armed men entered and watched them in silence as they searched the captives for further weapons. Predictably, they found none.

'And the rucksacks,' Von Manteuffel said.

Again the search failed to turn up any weapon.

Von Manteuffel said: 'I would have a word with my old friend Heinrich, who would appear to have come a very long way for nothing. Ah, and this man.' He indicated Hiller. 'I gather he's an accomplice of my dear ex-comrade in arms. The rest — take them and their pestilential luggage I across to the old grain store. Perhaps I shall be subjecting them to some intensive and, I fear, very-painful questioning. On the other hand, perhaps not. I shall decide after I've had my chat with Heinrich.'