The Bormann Testament by Jack Higgins Read Free Book Online

Hardt said. “Listen carefully to what I’m going to tell you. Muller had a sister. Now, we know it, but I don’t think the other side do. He always thought she was killed in the incendiary raids during July 1943. They only got together again recently. She’s working as a showgirl at a club in the Reeperbahn called the Taj Mahal. Calls herself Katie Holdt. I’ve had an agent working there for the past week. She’s been trying to get friendly with the girl, hoping she might lead us to Muller.”
    Chavasse raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Is your agent a German girl?”
     
    HARDT shook his head. “Israeli—born of German parents. Her name is Anna Hartmann.” He pulled a large silver ring from the middle finger of his left hand. “Show her this and tell her who you are. She knows all about you. Ask her to take you back to her flat after the last show. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”
    Chavasse slipped the ring onto a finger. “That seems to settle everything. What time do we get to Hamburg?”
    Hardt glanced at his watch. “About two hours. Why?”
    Chavasse grinned. “Because I’ve been missing a hell of a lot of sleep lately, and if it’s all right with you, I’m going to make use of your top bunk.”
    Hardt smiled and he got to his feet and pushed the mounting ladder into position. “You know, I like your attitude. We’re going to get on famously.”
    “I think we can say that’s mutual,” Chavasse said.
    He hung his jacket behind the door and then climbed the ladder and lay full length on the top bunk, allowing every muscle to relax in turn. It was an old trick and one that could only be used when he felt easy in his mind about things.
    Because of that special extra sense that was a product of his training and experience, he knew that for the moment at any rate, the affair was moving very nicely. Very nicely indeed. He turned his face into the pillow and went to sleep at once.

CHAPTER 4
    C havasse looked at his reflection in the mirror. He was wearing a white Continental raincoat and green hat, both of which belonged to Hardt. He pulled the brim of the hat down over his eyes. “How do I look?”
    Hardt slapped him on the shoulder. “Fine, just fine. There should be a lot of people leaving the train. If you do as I suggest, you’ll be outside the station in two minutes. You can get a taxi.”
    Chavasse shook his head. “Don’t worry about me. It’s a long time since I’ve been to Hamburg, but I can still find my way to the Reeperbahn.”
    “I’ll see you later then.” Hardt opened the door and looked out and then he stood to one side. “All clear.”
    Chavasse squeezed past him and hurried along the deserted corridor. The train was coming slowly into the Hauptbahnhof and already the platform seemed to be moving past him. He passed through one coach after another, pushing past people who were beginning to emerge from their compartments, until he reached the far end of the train. As it stopped, he opened a door and stepped onto the platform.
    He was first through the ticket barrier, and a moment later he was walking out of the main entrance. It was two-thirty, and at that time in the morning the S-Bahn wasn’t running. It was raining slightly, a warm drizzle redolent of autumn, and obeying a sudden impulse, he decided to walk. He turned up his coat collar and walked along Monckebergstrasse toward St. Pauli, the notorious nightclub district of Hamburg.
    The streets were quiet and deserted, and as he walked past the magnificent buildings, he remembered what Hamburg had been at the end of the war. Not a city, but a shambles. It seemed incredible that this was a place in which nearly seventy thousand people had been killed in ten days during the great incendiary raids of the summer of 1943. Germany had certainly risen again like a phoenix from her ashes.
    The Reeperbahn was as he remembered it, noisy and colorful and incredibly alive, even at that time in the morning. As he walked