* * *
For a fraction of a second after Kempner’s knee felt the first pressure of the fishing line, the nylon stretched, its natural elasticity brought into play by the force placed upon it. But before the German could react it pulled the smaller piece of machinery from its position and there was a clatter as it fell to the floor. Gustav stiffened at the sound, but when nothing happened he breathed a sigh of relief. Then he noticed the rope.
Twenty feet above them, the weight of the smaller piece of machinery pulled the larger engine part out of its position in the jumble of metal holding together the top of the pile. At first it was just the rattle of a single piece of metal bouncing down the side of the slope, but very quickly it turned into an avalanche. Within a second the fragile shelf holding the big engine disintegrated and the enormous piece of steel alloy toppled to join the wave of tons of twisted metal plunging towards the Germans. Kempner let out a shriek and began to run, but Gustav knew there was no escape. He threw himself sideways in a forlorn attempt to find safety.
Jamie waited until the clamour of the avalanche subsided and wobbling torches had converged on the centre of the room. Moving fast and low he and Sarah crawled silently to the doorway and into the corridor. Right or left? He had no way of knowing whether the direction they’d come would be guarded, but at least he could be certain it was a way out. He chose right.
Ten minutes later they reached the waterfall and for the first time in an hour he felt it was safe to breathe. They headed downstream towards Braunlage, keeping away from the marked trails, and crossed the river at a hiker’s bridge.
Sarah was uncharacteristically silent as they walked, but just before they reached the main road she stopped him.
‘I asked you a question back there, but we were interrupted before you gave me an answer. Why?’
He hesitated. ‘Walter Brohm couldn’t afford to leave anyone alive. These weren’t ordinary slave workers. They were the scientists and technicians who had helped create the Uranverein. When the Nazi nuclear project was wound down between nineteen forty-one and ’forty-two Hitler decided they weren’t needed any more.’ He remembered David’s words. That was the year they sent many of their best scientists to Auschwitz. ‘But Walter Brohm needed them, and he had them brought here. The SS ran the bureaucracy of death, it would have been simple enough to arrange. The knowledge their heads contained was as precious as any research file, perhaps more so. They may have been his slaves, but we know from the journal that Brohm wanted above all to be admired. He would have confided in them his plans and his hopes for the future. He would have wanted them to believe that they were part of that future.’
‘But they were Jews.’
‘Yes, they were Jews. So they had no future. Not in Walter Brohm’s Germany.’
She nodded and stared at the distant bulk of the Brocken, the signpost that had brought them to this dread place.
‘Promise me something.’
‘Of course.’
‘No, wait until you know what I am asking. It’s important.’
He stared at her for a moment. Her face was unnaturally white. Pale as death. ‘Ask then.’
‘Promise me that if we find out that Walter Brohm is still alive you will use whatever money you get for the recovery of the Raphael to hunt him down.’
He didn’t even have to consider it. ‘I promise. If Walter Brohm is alive, I will follow him to the ends of the earth and bring him to justice.’
‘No, you don’t understand. I don’t want justice. Promise me that if Walter Brohm is still alive, you will kill him.’
At first, her words sent a shock of revulsion through him. The man who died at Wewelsburg had been more or less an accident and the hunter in the woods pure self-preservation. Did she really believe him capable of cold-blooded murder? Then he remembered the long rows of corpses in the chamber and the girl with the musician’s hands. Walter Brohm had been responsible for their deaths and if Walter Brohm was alive, it had been Matthew Sinclair who had kept him that way.
He took a deep breath.
‘If we find Walter Brohm, I will kill him.’
XLI
‘YOU ARE FREE to go.’
Jamie opened his eyes to find the door of the cell open. and a tall, dark-haired woman studying him with the expression of someone who had just found a dead rat in her kitchen. She was in her mid-forties and dressed in a smart business suit that was as much a uniform as anything with badges of rank. ‘Polizeihauptkommissar Lotte Muller.’ Jamie got to his feet rubbing his spine as she introduced herself. ‘And you are Mr Jamie Saintclair. You have spent a comfortable night?’