Kolkhagen Internment Camp stood on the west side of the village of Barnstedt, fifteen kilometres from the city of Luneburg in Lower Saxony. Cohen had found it, guided by the precise instructions given to him over the phone in Chartres.
He had parked his Citroen in a lane off the main road which led to the camp and watched the steady stream of military vehicles in both directions. He had to get into the camp–had to find out where Himmler was.
Cohen followed an army jeep which had just passed the top of the lane on its way toward Luneburg. To get into the camp, he would have to assume the identity of a British soldier and for that he needed off-duty personnel.
After a few kilometres the jeep turned into a street and pulled up at a large, red brick villa. Cohen drove past and parked then he watched. The front passenger door of the jeep opened, and a soldier with a rifle got out. He opened the rear passenger door and barked an order. A handcuffed, disheveled man in a faded dark, blue jacket and trousers got out followed by another armed soldier and marched into the house. Realizing that this was where the British were interrogating top Nazi personnel, Cohen started the car and drove off.
As the birds heralded in a new dawn Cohen lowered the field binoculars from his eyes and rubbed them. The night had been a long one, watching the coming and going at the ivy clad villa of interrogation from behind a thorny hedge in a nearby field. As he was about to pack in his observation a Jeep pulled up, and two soldiers marched a short, plump man into the house. Cohen raised the binoculars to his eyes and was amazed to see that the prisoner was naked save for a grey blanket wrapped around him. He was even more amazed to recognise the face of Heinrich Himmler.
Cohen’s heart beat faster. He had to get into the villa. But how?
As he pondered, a dark, brown car drove up to the house, and a figure in a white coat emerged. A doctor, thought Cohen—that’s it!
As Doctor Alan Carstairs made his way to the door of the red villa he rose into the air. He began frantically to push up at the air as if this would stop his ascent. But he rose further and further into the sky until, in an instant, he was lying, crumpled, next to Cohen.
Trapped on the top concourse of the Magna Plaza Matthew looked at one approaching man then the other. The thug who came from the top of the up escalator seemed the lighter of the two. He grabbed Jane’s arm. “Come on follow me!” he shouted. Then he charged at Caron, releasing Jane’s arm just before impact. As he crashed into the man’s body Matthew felt a surge of unlimited power flow through his system, and Grondin’s man flew over the balustrade.
The screams of the falling Caron echoed through the building until they cut off as he smashed into the grand piano on the main concourse. The tuxedoed piano player screamed at the bloody site in front of him, and the stunned shoppers gazed on in curious disbelief.
“Let’s go Jane!” Matthew shouted, as he looked past her at Lagrange who was running back to the escalator he had come up upon. He was planning to cut them off at the bottom of the up-escalator. Our only means of escape, thought Matthew.
“Your eyes Mattie–they’re red!” Jane screamed, as she was being tugged along by Matthew.
When they got to the top, a few shoppers were trying to board the moving stairs in the ensuing confusion. Havoc erupted as there were still people coming up the escalator. Matthew looked around the concourse. “Over there!” he shouted, pointing to a fire escape exit.
They ran to the doors, and Matthew shoulder charged them open. Lagrange was too occupied throwing hapless shoppers out of his way as he stormed down his escalator to notice that Matthew and Jane had taken an alternative route.
There was no one else on the stairs to hamper their progress as the two fugitives glided over the slate grey steps; the polished banister and the worn treads aided their quick descent. At the bottom they had to turn left, which took them onto the marble steps at the front of the main concourse and then out onto the street.
A tram loomed up in front of them.
“Let’s take it Mattie.” said a tired Jane.
They hopped onto the vehicle, at the rear, as the doors were closing. Mathew pulled Jane into the centre as the crowded tram moved. Any sense of relief the pair had, however, was short lived as the vehicle came to a shuddering halt.
Matthew looked toward the front of the tram, but could see no obstruction. He then looked to the rear; traffic which used the track area of the road while empty built up behind the vehicle.
Jane tapped Matthew on the shoulder and pointed toward the front. The driver was struggling with the controls. A rising dread within told him that the man’s labours were futile. The screams of people from the pavement side of the vehicle made Matthew look out the windows of that side, past the other standing passengers. He saw a figure in a light-coloured raincoat walk menacingly by confirming his fears. The figure glowered into the tinted windows of the tram with blazing eyes before walking around the end of the vehicle and coming up the side where Matthew and Jane were.
“Oh! Mattie it’s that… that monster with red eyes!”
“Come on Janey.” Matthew said, ducking down and motioning for her to do the same. He then took her hand, and they crept through the throng of frightened passengers toward the doors on the other side. When they reached them, Jane pressed the emergency exit button, and the doors hissed open. Luckily for the pair many of the passengers around the door ran through the exit which provided them cover for escape.
Matthew and Jane ran toward the car, but when they cleared the back of the tram, they saw Lagrange standing by the passenger door. They ran on along the crowded street past curious spectators.
“Down here!” Matthew shouted, running into a lane lined with dark cafes and bars.
After they had run half a kilometre, they found that they could not move; it was as if heavy air had moulded itself around their bodies.
“Mattie!” Jane screamed.
Matthew painfully turned his head through ninety degrees, and out of the corner of his eye he could see a grinning Grondin strolling toward them.
I’ve got to do something, Matthew thought. But what? Where’s David? Why’s Grondin the only one to return from the chase? He’s not… but David’s a demon!
Grondin was getting closer. Matthew couldn’t turn his head back and round to face Jane to reassure her. What was he thinking? He couldn’t reassure her. He could only watch helplessly as the confident Grondin closed in on them.