The Escape - Robert Muchamore Page 0,48

with anything convincing.

‘I swear I don’t know anything,’ he said, crying now as his blood soaked into the junior officer’s sleeve.

‘We shall see,’ the Oberst said, pinching Marc’s nostrils shut, forcing him to open his mouth.

‘Please,’ Marc begged, as the arm tightened at his throat.

The Oberst pushed the open pliers into Marc’s mouth and clamped one of his upper front teeth. Blood flowed as the Oberst twisted the pliers, accompanied by a pain beyond any Director Tomas had ever inflicted on him. The tooth made a shocking crunch as the Oberst twisted it out of Marc’s jaw, then it hit the floor with a delicate clatter.

‘I demand you tell me everything,’ the Oberst bellowed, as the junior officer released the grip on Marc’s neck a little.

‘I swear I don’t know Henderson,’ Marc screamed. His words slurred because his tongue splashed in the blood filling his mouth. ‘I just got here. I’ve never even seen Henderson.’

‘Maybe you’ll remember something after I pull some more teeth.’

‘Please no,’ Marc sobbed. ‘I never did anything. I’m nothing to do with Henderson.’

The other junior officer came back into the room, holding Marc’s pigskin bag and damp clothes.

‘Herr Oberst,’ the officer said brusquely, ‘the bathroom window is missing. There’s nothing belonging to a boy in the house, except what fits inside this bag. He also has a large sum of money.’

The Oberst looked at the rolled-up francs, then back at Marc who was turning blue from blocked nostrils and the arm around his neck.

‘That’s a lot of money,’ the Oberst said. ‘Did you find it here?’

Marc shook his head. ‘It’s mine.’

The Oberst cracked a huge smile. ‘Not now it isn’t,’ he said, as he tucked the money into his tunic. Then he turned towards his three colleagues. ‘We’ll eat and drink like kings tonight,’ he joked. ‘I think our young friend is telling the truth. Let him go.’

Marc hit the floor with a thump as the junior officer released the stranglehold. He inhaled blood as he fought for breath, and coughed violently as the Oberst stepped over him.

‘If you speak to anyone about Gestapo business I’ll find you and I’ll kill you very slowly,’ the Oberst warned.

Marc sobbed with pain as he stared up at the four laughing Nazis. He felt idiotic as he remembered his fantasy of just a few minutes earlier. People like him didn’t command German tanks – they got crushed by them.

Unlike the Oberst, Herr Potente didn’t enjoy seeing a twelve-year-old boy beaten up, and had stepped outside to smoke.

‘Let me guess,’ Potente said, wincing as he stepped through the arched doorway and saw Marc’s bare torso covered with blood. ‘The boy is a refugee. He knows nothing.’

The Oberst rose up on his heels and shouted impatiently, ‘Herr Potente, if you are such an expert, kindly explain why your men let Henderson and Clarke disappear in the first place?’

The Oberst was a powerful man and Potente didn’t speak as frankly as he would have liked to. ‘Your Gestapo will have hundreds of men in Paris, Herr Oberst. I had just six, and I was working behind enemy lines. I regret that we didn’t succeed, but our options and resources were extremely limited.’

The Oberst dismissed the argument with a flick of his hand. ‘I must leave now. I have to find a suitable building and establish a Gestapo headquarters. You mentioned an excellent hotel, didn’t you, Potente?’

‘Yes, Herr Oberst,’ Potente said. ‘The Hotel Etalon in the eighth arrondissement. I’ve been staying there with Mannstein and the facilities are excellent.’

‘I see,’ the Oberst said. ‘Perhaps I shall commandeer Hotel Etalon for the Gestapo. When I was in Austria I found that hotel rooms became cells and interrogation suites with minimal conversion.’

‘What about this house?’ the officer who’d been holding Marc asked. ‘Shall we keep watch in case Henderson returns?’

The Oberst thought for a second. ‘I agree with Potente. There’s no reason for Henderson to come back. But station a lookout in the next house for a few days, just in case.’

‘And the boy?’

The Oberst looked down at Marc and shrugged. ‘There’s no need to kill him. Let him stay here a while to find his feet, then turf him out.’

‘Very good, Herr Oberst,’ the officer said, saluting.

As the Oberst turned to leave, the telephone standing on the bureau rang out. Potente rushed across and crouched in front of the microphone, before grabbing the earpiece from its hook.

‘Hello,’ Potente said, speaking in French, whilst making a fair stab at an English accent. ‘Charles Henderson speaking.’

*

Rosie