Hands of the Traitor by Christopher Wright Page B

the plane. It is coming closer."
    "It is, I think German, coming here to
land."
    The girl was bright. No wonder the
Germans were waving torches.
    "I will find out what is happening,"
she said. "And then I will come back and you will take me away to
England."
    Could he trust a girl who worked with
the Germans on a top security site?
    "Where is the treasure,
Sophie?"
    "It is hidden in the ground." She
pointed to the spot where she'd been bending down. "Gold candles
from the Americans' case."
    "Do you know the Americans' names?"
Any scrap of information might help.
    "They are called Heinman." She made a
deliberate attempt to sound the H, as though it was an important
part of her briefing. "They are father and son."
    "Where are they from?"
    "America, but that is all I know."
Then she moved quickly into the shadows.
    The Storch drifted in like a giant
toy, the leading edges of its wings glittering in the harsh
floodlights on the base as it settled to the ground in a cloud of
dust.
    Alec felt trapped. Five or six feet
away he could see freshly dug earth. The bright perimeter lights
glared down on him ready to reveal the slightest movement. Small
gold containers were what he'd come to find, and over there in the
ground were what the French girl called gold candles. He watched
her hurry across to the main hut where she began to talk to one of
the officers.
    The pilot of the Storch kept the
engine racing, the large propeller spinning at speed. Two Germans
hurried the older American towards the plane. It looked as though
an emergency evacuation was taking place. The young Heinman ran
from his hut holding his attaché case. He stormed over to where
Sophie was talking with the Colonel, flung the lid open and pointed
inside.
    Alec slid forward on his stomach to remove
one of the objects from the shallow hole. They were gold tubes; but
too light, far too light to be solid gold. They seemed to have a
separate cap. The top could be unscrewed. He sniffed cautiously as
he opened one.
    The contents smelt
revolting.
    One of the guards twisted Sophie's arm
behind her back as the young Heinman remonstrated with the Colonel
about the empty attaché case. Alec felt suddenly angered by what he
saw. Those Germans had no right too humiliate this French girl in
front of the whole camp. Perhaps twenty or thirty men were standing
around, watching as the Colonel slapped Sophie violently across the
face.
    The engine of the plane rose in pitch
and volume to become a roar. The pilot seemed anxious to
leave.
    A great rage welled up. Alec snatched
the short barreled Sten and fired off a frenzied burst of
nine-millimeter ammunition, spraying the soldiers and the Storch.
The pilot released the brakes and the momentum in the spinning
propeller carried the ungainly aircraft forward. It moved slowly at
first, then taxied with increasing speed towards the concrete
bunker, its tail bouncing wildly on the uneven ground. He must have
hit the pilot with a shot from the Sten.
    The burst of fire from the Sten went
unchallenged; the Germans were temporarily stunned. Alec could see
Sophie and the two Americans running towards him.
    A cry of alarm went up as the Storch
reached the open doors of the bunker. The wings sheared off,
leaving the fuselage to enter at speed.
    A flash of brilliance flattened the
grass as the explosion rocked the site. Alec remembered little
more. The massive blast shook the earth where he stood. It was
worse than the shells that had exploded close to his trench on the
beach at Dunkirk. The whole site seemed to disintegrate in a ball
of fire.
    This was torture. This was hell. He was in
hell with the Germans, and they were pounding him with bars of
iron. Beating him about the head without mercy. Smashing his brain
without stopping to rest.
    As consciousness returned, the
beatings with the iron bars started again. Then came the sweet
relief of sleep.
    Hours later, as the periods of
consciousness grew longer, he began to understand that the iron
bars were