The Legion of the Lost, стр. 59

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The New Prison at Potsdamer Platz

The racket of the cycles stopped, as one engine after another cut out. The big car slid to a silent standstill. A door opened and a torch was shone on the running-board. Brian and Conroy climbed out first, and when Palfrey joined them he saw the shadowy figures of their guards standing nearby. He heard the steady tramp of a man who came into sight out of the darkness; a faint, illuminated sign showed his head and shoulders, and his fixed bayonet in silhouette.

Only then did the full significance of the truth sink into Palfrey’s mind.

This was the new prison at Potsdamer Platz, the prison where Ridzer and Machez were probably imprisoned. The fact struck him like a physical blow—with an effect like the exploding of a delayed-action bomb.

‘But,’ thought Palfrey, ‘what an opportunity!’

The lighting in the entrance hall was poor, but in the passage beyond it was too bright. In spite of that, Palfrey caught a glimpse of the door – it was fully six inches thick, and constructed of concrete. He pursed his lips, then stepped along the passage, appearing to walk vaguely while in reality looking about him. He passed several of the blank concrete doors, being stopped by two armed guards at the far end of the passage. When that door was opened they entered a wide room where a dozen men were sitting at desks and tables. Two telephones were ringing, three men were banging frenziedly on typewriters.

They were led across the room, through another door, and then to a flight of steps leading downwards. Palfrey began to understand the implications of the word ‘impregnable.’ This place seemed so solid that nothing could break it down; to get through the doors would be an impossible task unless they had the password and the full co-operation of the guards. Heavy-hearted, he counted the steps as they walked down. There were twenty in all, and for half that distance what seemed to be a concrete floor was cut away so that there was room for their heads. The floor was at least six feet deep, Palfrey judged.

Then came another passage, with others intersecting – he counted a dozen in all. He had no idea of the area covered but an awareness of the size of this underground fortress grew upon him. It added to his depression, so that he almost forgot the full dangers which would confront them when they saw the ‘friend.’

By then he had come to the conclusion that it could only be Stefan, could see no way in which he could deny their earlier association or evade the questions von Otten would put to him.

At the last passage, they turned right.

At every corner and in every passage there were guards, middle-aged men mostly, holding automatic rifles. There were two machine-gun posts put at strategic points, heavy-browed men standing by them. They were accompanied all the time by one of the guards from the entrance hall, and he called at last to one of the resident guards.

The man came forward.

‘Visitors to Cell 132,’ said their escort.

‘Cell 132,’ repeated the other; both men gave a quick Nazi salute. The resident guard took keys from his pocket – all of them long and slim, unlike a jailer’s keys. He pushed one into the door of the room outside which they were crowded like a little group of bewildered spectators, and thrust it open.

The cell was small and square, furnished with a minimum of comfort; there were chains hanging from a ring in one wall. Palfrey noticed it at first because the man who rose from a wooden – no, thought Palfrey bemusedly, concrete – bench knocked against it.

Then Palfrey forgot everything but the prisoner.

It was not Stefan, nor von Lichner, nor the club-footed youth. It was no one of whom Palfrey had dreamed as a worker against von Otten.

It was the Count’s aide, the Leutnant Karl Bohn, who stood staring at them, the expression in his eyes not unlike that when Palfrey had last seen him declaring passionately the evil purpose of the Nazis. Everything else about him was different; Palfrey caught his breath at what they had done to the man, yet even that took second place to the fact that it was Karl Bohn.

He wore trousers and a jacket which sagged open and revealed a bruised and bloody chest. He was bare-footed; on one foot Palfrey saw a clot of blood. His face was cut about, one side more than the other, and there were burn marks on his right cheek. Yet he did not give the impression of being cowed or subdued, and Palfrey was reminded of the expression in the eyes of the chemist Dross. A sudden revulsion of feeling, a realisation of the fact that Karl had worked against the Nazis instead of for them, passed through his mind; with it a full understanding of the man’s outburst to the ‘Swiss’ delegates. He had wanted to warn them.

‘My dear Count, what—what has happened? I recognise the man, of course, he was with us last night. But—’

Von Otten said: ‘It is time you understood