Читать книгу Double Vision - Фиона Бранд - Страница 7

December 1944, Lubeck, Germany

The steel arm of a crane, pockmarked by rust and salt, swung across the frigid decks of the Nordika. A heavy crate, a swastika and a number stenciled on the side, hung suspended, straining at aging steel hawsers as the freezing northerly gale increased in intensity.

Gaze narrowed against the wind, Erich Reinhardt, captain of the cargo vessel, watched as the delicate process of lowering the crate into the hold commenced. Loading cargo under these conditions was an act of stupidity; putting out to sea was nothing short of madness, but lately, everything about Germany was madness. To the east, Russians were massing along the border. In the west, the British and Americans had launched their offensive. There was no heating, no food; his family was starving and they all lived in fear that British and American bombers would kill them while they slept. For months he had expected to die that way or, failing that, to be torpedoed at sea. Perhaps that was better than a bullet in the brain from a cold-eyed Schutzstaffel.

“How much longer?”

The question from the SS officer who had commandeered his ship was curt, but there was no disguising the accent. Bremen, maybe, Hamburg at a stretch, and straight off the docks. Himmler might be scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one, but Reinhardt still had to be wary. Oberleutnant Dengler might have working-class roots, but he knew ships and had taken control of the Nordika with ease. “Fifteen minutes, maybe half an hour if the conditions become more difficult.”

And Reinhardt expected the weather to deteriorate. A storm front had been pounding the coast all day; a Force ten gale was predicted before dawn. He watched as another crate was lowered into place. Garish spotlights lit up the feverish activity in the hold and on the dock as the final truck was offloaded, a stark contrast to the blackout of the city behind, and all along the coast. Even the navigation lights along the channel were turned off. Loading cargo was dangerous, but attempting to navigate the channel in this weather, with no lights, was tantamount to suicide.

Dengler strode to the railing and roared an order.

The doors of a truck were flung open. Seconds later, people poured out—passengers, Reinhardt realized—and began to embark.

The first was a tall, elegant woman, bent against the wind as she clutched a baby to her chest and held the hand of a toddler. A group of older children followed, hustled on by a straggling group of women and the tall, authoritative figure of yet another SS officer. Counting the two who held his crew at gunpoint in the dining room and the four supervising the loading of the cargo, that brought the total number of SS officers on the Nordika to eight; more than Reinhardt had ever seen in Lubeck at any one time, and seven more than was needed to keep him and his aging crew in check.

A small girl, blond ringlets streaming from the hood of an expensive fur-trimmed coat, stopped when she reached the top of the gangplank and stared up at Reinhardt, her gaze expressionless, before she was hustled below.

The wind picked up, scattering ice. Cold stung Reinhardt’s cheeks and flowed around his neck, finding its way through cracked and thinning oilskin and the threadbare layers of the muffler beneath. The image of the little girl’s face stayed with him as he watched another crate swing in the wind. She had been maybe six or seven, the same age as his granddaughter, Bernadette, but for a fragmented moment he hadn’t been able to see any difference between her and the SS officer who had scooped her up and taken her below.

A gust of wind hit the starboard side of the ship. Saltwater and ice sprayed across the decks. A split second later, the crate slammed into the side of the hold. Wood splintered and Reinhardt held his breath as the damaged crate was buffeted by the wind.

The first mate joined him on the quarterdeck, huddling in the lee of a cable housing, leathery face reddened by wind and ice. His gaze was glued to the frayed hawser. “What have they got in those crates?”

“I don’t want to know.” The less they knew, the more likely they were to get out of this alive.

A second gust sent the crate spinning. Fatigued steel groaned, the hawser snapped and the crate dropped like a stone, the contents exploding across the floor of the hold, scattering the loading crew. Hidden on the quarterdeck, Reinhardt had a moment to feel utter disbelief and fear as he stared at the strewn contents of the crate. Seconds later, the SS officers who were overseeing the placement of the crates stepped out of the gloom and the flat spitting of Schmeisser machine-gun pistols punctuated the pressurized whine of the wind.

An hour later, the hold was secured and the bodies of the loading crew were disposed of over the side. The spotlights washing the decks of the Nordika were extinguished and the small glow of a kerosene lamp on the bridge became the only point of reference in pitch-blackness.

Reinhardt ducked his head as he stepped onto the bridge, a sense of fatalism gripping him as he saw Dengler and another SS officer, this one a full colonel, studying a map of the channel. He had known the three men who had been executed in the hold most of his life. Konig and Holt had both been in their late fifties, with large families to support. Breit had been a gunner in the First World War. “Where is it you want to go?”

In the glare of the lamp, Reinhardt noticed for the first time that Dengler was barely old enough to shave. The Oberst was a different matter. His cheekbones were high, his mouth thin, his gaze coldly amused. It was the colonel who spoke.

“Somewhere warm. How about Colombia?”