The Chair (10 page)

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

I
removed the cardboard tube from the vent and Ara kept staring at me waiting for an explanation of what was being said.

I whispered in her ear. “We need to get out of here, get back downstairs where we first arrived and I’ll tell you what I heard.”

Carefully opening the door, we both moved stealthily down the hallway still smelling the smoke from the SS officer’s earlier cigarette. Just as we turned the corner to descend the stairway, the apartment manager was dismissed by them, came out of the room and began walking in our direction.

We descended the first flight of stairs to the main floor where his desk was, turned left and down another flight of steps to the basement level. A short, stout middle aged woman with curlers carrying a bundle of clothes was just coming out of the laundry nodding and smiling as we came near. Staring at us as we passed with a semi inquisitive face, she looked as if trying to recognize us as tenants but was immediately distracted trying to balance her laundry goods. Then, Ara and I slipped back in the laundry and closed the door, where I explained to her all I had heard.

“So this Führer, as they call him, doesn’t intend on letting Anders go and continues pressing him to expose his method of transportation here; that fool… He’s gotten himself into more trouble than he knows!”

“Your bloody right! These men look dangerous and I’d hate to think of what will happen if they get hold of the chair.”

Ara leaned on the doorway. “Richard we have to find it! It’s in this building somewhere.”

“I know and we better find it fast; from the sound of it, they weren’t exactly the patient types!”

Just as we were about to begin looking for the chair, we heard two of the German’s dragging Anders down the stairs kicking and screaming for them to let him go.

We backed up closing the door of the laundry and held our weapons at ready as they passed in the hallway and down further to the next room. The door slammed shut and we heard their muffled voices talking loudly. It was now or never; we had to find the chair’s location before they beat it out of him. Stepping out into the hallway, we heard him grilling Anders. We figured he must be another SS interrogator that could speak and understand English.

“I hear your memory is somehow indistinct as to how you traveled here and when you arrived. Do you have your passport with you Mr. Anders, heh?”

There was silence for a moment. “Passport?”

“Search him.”

“Let go of me; what is a passport? No, I don’t have one!”

“He has nothing on him.”

“Maybe Walter here can help to refresh your memory.”

We heard a scuffle and then a dull thud with a gasp of breath, then another and another. Anders cried out in pain as he was being pummeled while still holding out. We kept listening for him to finally break and give the location of the chair.

“Mr. Anders, we have no wish to keep this up! It is needless for you to endure that much pain and I’m sure it is tiring for Walter here. We just need the information and you are free to go.”

“Ok, ok just let me sit down and rest a minute in that chair over there .”

“Mr. Anders, where are you going? You will sit down
here
in front of me, now sit down.” He took out a pair of handcuffs and clamped one end to the heavy table leg and the other on one of Anders wrists.

“I Just…urgh… want to sit over there for a minute or so to catch my breath.”

Ara put her lips to my ear and whispered. “Now we know where the chair is! It’s in there and he’s trying to use it to escape!”

“Ahh, Mr. Anders, I see you want to sit in that nice comfortable chair over there. Just tell me how you arrived in Germany and you can sit down and collect yourself anywhere you want.”

“Look all I want to know is if your Führer wants to do the deal with me or not?”

“The Führer has stated he very much intends to do business with you, as soon as you tell us what we want to know. If you continue to refuse, we will have to take the next unpleasant measure.”

We looked at each other wondering what he meant by the next measure, some sort of truth serum? Being beat up more severely?

I whispered. “If we wait here any longer we’ll be caught, let’s get back to the trackers.”

Just as we turned to go back, two more security SS stepped out from around the far corner with their pistols pointed at us firing two shots over our heads as we tried to run.

“Halt, halt!”

We both stopped and raised our hands in the air dropping our weapons. A thought crossed my mind; there goes our “harmless bystanders” excuse, along with our only means of defense. The foremost card we had up our sleeve now, was the element of surprise with the power of the chair and the trackers. If we could somehow get to either, we could be bloody gone in a flash.

Just then, the men interrogating Anders, heard the shots and came out quickly. They looked at us and spoke to the two guards “Who are these two?”

 One of them answered. “They were listening at the door and they were armed with these unusual pistols.”

“These weapons are the same type as the one we found on Anders. Take them up to the apartment
across
from the Führer and do not bother him with this. I will be up shortly to question them.” Then he spoke to us. “Englanders, yes?”

“Yes we are English.”

“Go with these men.”

They quickly began to march us down the hallway and up the first flight of stairs; then continuing on up to the third floor and to a room across from their Führer, Hitler.

This wasn’t the best scenario for us. We now had no weapons and were about to be questioned in an unappetizing way. We would just have to see this through till some means of escape presented itself. After being shuttled to the room we waited for almost two hours until finally the interrogator opened the door and stepped in. He was a scrawny little weasel of a man dressed in the same black uniform with that armband. Wearing large bifocals and smacked down hair, he had a pencil thin mustache over his top lip, and looked as if he would be totally defenseless without guards by his side. He slowly began to reach into his coat and we braced ourselves for the worst.

“Cigarette?”

We both heaved a sigh. “No, no thank you.”

“Ahh, you don’t smoke I see, some whiskey?”

“No thank you. Are you going to do the same thing to us as that man down on the basement floor?”

“Do you know Mr. Anders?”

“No we don’t, who is he?”

Sitting down, he lit a cigarette blowing some smoke in our direction. “Someone who is very stubborn, but he will talk sooner or later.

“Right now we only need to see
your
passports and you will kindly tell us the nature of your visit; after all, you
were
spying on us weren’t you?”

I held Ara close to my side and spoke up. “Well we heard some altercation going on in that room and were very curious that’s all.”

“And you just happened to have the same peculiarly manufactured weapons with you that we found on Mr. Anders.”

“Look, our passports were stolen.”

“What are your names?”

“Richard Cantwell.”

“And the girl?”

“My name is Ara Gratten.”

“Gratten? You’re name is Gratten?”

“Yes why, do you know that name?”

He puffed on a cigarette and began shuffling his papers. “No, no the name sounded familiar at first, but I must be mistaken.”

I didn’t buy that. He seemed too surprised for it to be a mistake. He seemed to recognize that name immediately signifying something curious was going on here, but I needed to know exactly what. He abruptly stood up. “You two stay here. I’ll be right back.”

It was time we made some kind of move before this got to the point of no return. I had noticed behind us, a rather large copper fire extinguisher and pointed it out so Ara couldn’t miss it, then I whispered. “When he comes back I’ll use this on him and you grab his pistol.”

Several minutes passed as we stood at the door and when it opened I blasted him in the eyes with the chemical extinguisher. Reeling back he covered his eyes while Ara yanked the pistol away from him, slammed the door and locked it. I held the pistol to his head and shouted. “How do you know the name Gratten, tell me now or I’ll shoot!”

“Alright, alright don’t shoot! I’ll tell you, just don’t shoot. He is our most recently acquired research scientist from London, now working here for us.”

Guards appeared at the door immediately trying to break in. I grabbed onto his coat. “Tell them to back off or I’ll shoot!”

“Shouting in German, he yelled. “Stop! Stay back, stay out, they have a pistol!” He began to squirm immediately and was obviously the type who valued his own life over any and all principals or, bluntly put, a coward.

I thought I had better use his cowardice to my full advantage and held the pistol to his temple. “His name, what is his full name?”

“Professor Gratten, Professor Timothy Gratten!”

“Oh my god, its father; he’s
here
in Germany!”

CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

W
e essentially had a standoff at this point. German SS guards at the door ready to break in on command held at bay by the weasely interrogator we had as hostage.

“Where is my father, where are you keeping him?” Ara began to demand.

“I assure you he is safe young lady; and working for us of his own choice.”

“I don’t believe that for a minute, now tell us where my father is, or so help me
I’ll
blow your head off.”

I added, “Don’t think we don’t mean business!” and fired a shot in the ceiling. “Now talk!”

Firing another shot in the wall, I pressed the pistol to his temple a little harder which seemed to do the trick.

 “Alright, alright he is working for us at a warehouse close by, the old Grünewald Warehouse on Trogerstraße.”

“Tell the guards to back off this floor and go to the one above us, now!” He shouted the orders and after a short time we could hear them leaving. I pointed to the far corner of the room. “Sit down back there and don’t move!”

Opening the door slowly, I held the pistol ready, glancing up and down the hallway. It seemed   clear and we had to take the chance. I then signaled Ara for us to go and she followed me down to the floor at street level, then to the end of the hallway where I opened the window. We both climbed out, ran down an ally way and jumped a small fence toward another street. When the bellowing of alarm whistles began to blow, we knew they must be scrambling to find us. We really didn’t know where the Grunewald Warehouse on Trogerstraße was, but we had to find it quickly.

Moving across from one street to another we found a lone woman walking her dog. She seemed pleasant enough and approachable so we decided to try and ask her. “Trogerstaße?”

At first she looked puzzled and then understood what we were trying to ask her. Pointing to the right of us, she muttered something else in German. I answered, shaking my head, trying to tell her my German is not so good repeating a phrase I’d heard a few times before; “Meine deutsch ist nicht zu gut,” and trusted she would understand.

She picked up on it right away and began to answer in the same clumsy English. “Trogerstaße… you go that way, two streets,” then nodded her head with a smile.

I’ve always had bad luck with dogs and this one was no exception; he bit my ankle; but we both smiled and thanked her running off in the direction she pointed. After carefully checking the street signs, we quickly found Trogerstaße. People were busy walking up and down the street and we didn’t have a bloody clue as to where this old Grunewald Warehouse was, which was why it was nothing less than a miracle for us to stumble right into it. “Keep walking Ara,” I motioned.

 As we walked past the front of the warehouse, we could see there was a guard sitting at a desk in the small office at the main entrance. Ara froze for a moment. “But this is it, I’m sure of it!”

“I know, but whoever is looking for us would be sure to head for the warehouse and are certain to be on their way right now. We need to hide out around the corner for awhile, at least until nightfall when we can come up with a way to get past the guard.”

As we rounded the corner we could tell the whistles had finally stopped, but I knew all too well they would still be looking for us. We stopped in a little neighborhood soup kitchen where they were dishing out a small amount of food to the hungry. Sitting at an inconspicuous table in the back, we began to plot how we should enter the warehouse without causing a distraction.

 The kitchen looked to be full of impoverished folk receiving what could well have been their first meal of the day. Germany, we were beginning to perceive, must be still going through a terrible post war period of hunger and economic chaos. But where did this so called Führer, Hitler come into play? He must not have been
that
important, living in a small apartment as he was.

Just then two men wearing brown shirts, with the same arm band sporting the curious black symbol on their sleeve, came bursting in the door with their weapons drawn and stood there for a few moments scanning the room. One of them shouted. “Englisch! Englisch?”

We turned our heads away and kept them down until they finally left.  Ara grabbed my hand across the table.  “They were looking for
us
weren’t they?”

“Yes, they bloody well were! We’ll stay right here for now, it should be safe since they have already checked the place.”

The evening crept up on us quickly and we decided to make our move on the warehouse in the hope that her father would be there.

The lights and sounds of the city began to suddenly come to life in Munich. The damp air and the smell of various combinations of food drifted through the streets. Ara knocked at the door of the warehouse office as I stood by the door unseen by the guard. When he opened the door, we both walked in and I pointed my pistol at him discretely motioning for him to go back in the office.