They sat in ordered rows, chained to the benches where they had worked and where they had died, some slumped forward, others reaching up, their backs permanently arched in agony from the moment the bullets had struck. The disarticulated remains of still more lay in scattered heaps on the concrete floor below the point where they had hung lifeless for years until time and gravity combined to snap their sinews. He imagined the screams of terror, the shouts of defiance as the SS men had walked along the ranks with their pistols and machine guns barking, the blood staining the work bench thick. Was the woman closest to him the first or the last? Did she know her fate before she was chained to the cold steel bench? He looked at the face again. Oh, yes. She knew.
‘To defend the Great Secret. The Wonder of the World.’
‘This was Walter Brohm’s doing?’
‘Shhhh!’ He clicked off his torch and forced her back into the corner as the first flickering beams reached the main hall. A brusque voice issued whispered instructions. Jamie crouched low and risked a glance from the doorway. Through a gap in the mountains of metal he counted them. Six, at least, and the leader hadn’t been fooled by the tracks in the dust. Jamie had hoped to lead them all down the main aisle, but whoever was giving the orders had held them back and split them into three groups. Two to take the outer passages and one to go through the centre. Once the dispositions had been made they started forward, moving with deadly intent. A torch beam swept across his hiding place, forcing him to duck back.
He pushed his head against Sarah’s so that his mouth touched her ear. ‘Listen.’
Gustav had been irritated by the enforced delay while his men investigated the office which was of so much interest to Saintclair, but he couldn’t take the chance that the Englishman had found or left something there. The empty space in the dust on the wall was intriguing, but the only thing that mattered was the journal and it was only a question of time before he had it. The scream that had just echoed through the corridors proved it. There was no escape from the bunker, apart from the way they had come.
When they reached the main production hall, a hunter’s instinct told him this was where his prey had gone to ground. They always went to ground. Fear and hopelessness robbed them of their energy and their courage. But they could still be dangerous.
‘Muller and Krauss sweep the left, Schmidt and Ritter the right. Kempner and I will take the centre. This time we take no chances. If you see them, shoot to kill.’
Very slowly they worked their way forward. Gustav allowed Kempner to take the lead, while he provided cover with the MP5. In the torch beam he noted where the two sets of footsteps had turned into one. Did they really think him such a fool to be taken in by a cheap trick like that? Well, they would learn. Away to his left one of the torch beams deviated and he noted approvingly that Muller was searching some sort of side room. Yet the further they moved into the great mounds of twisted scrap, the more the scale of the place worked against his confidence. Should he have secured the bunker and waited until they could rig up some kind of generator? No, Frederick wanted results. It had to be now. It might cost him another man, but the price was worth paying.
One more step and it was as if World War Three had broken out. Gustav whipped the machine pistol round as two shots reverberated like cannon fire around the vast echo chamber of the concrete room. The shocked silence that followed was broken by a burst of almost hysterical laughter.
‘What the fuck is going on?’ he demanded.
Krauss appeared from another side room backlit by the wavering beam of a torch. ‘Just a bunch of soaps who were resettled during the war. Muller almost shit his pants.’
Gustav cursed beneath his breath. ‘The only corpses we are interested in are Saintclair and the girl.’
He gestured to Kempner to move on. That was when he saw the silken strand of the spider’s web tauten and bend against the knee of his partner’s combat trousers.
The two figures slumped at the end of the row of corpses slowly raised their heads. Jamie’s ears rang from the incredible noise of the shots in the confined space and Sarah’s hand shook as she reached for the comfort of his in the darkness. They had taken their places on the bench where two of the dismantled skeletons had fallen to the floor, frozen in position as the torch flicked from skull to skull and the panicked German began firing. Sarah had almost cried out as a bullet shattered the jaw of the dead man next to her and spattered her with teeth and shards of bone, but some deep-set instinct for survival kept her silent.
With the men gone, Jamie pulled her to her feet and retrieved the rucksacks and the bubble-wrapped painting from below the table. Together they crept back towards the door. The closest torches had moved on, but the pair in the centre were taking more care and Jamie could see the glow of another set on the far side of the biggest hill of metal. His heart told him they should make a break for it, but his brain said wait. Ten seconds passed that felt like an hour. They must have reached it by now. What if they’d seen the nylon? He squeezed Sarah’s hand as a signal to get ready.