Butcher of Belgrade Page 12

  At first the young men made overtures to Ursula. They offered cognac and wanted to stop for a rest. But when they saw that Ursula was not one for group sex, they went back to enjoying the sunny day. We arrived at the mountain village of Crveni Krst, where Richter had undoubtedly headed, by around two p.m. The Italians took us right to the train station, and I hurriedly thanked them for the ride. Then Ursula and I went inside.

  It was not a big place, and it had the stark gray look of most stations along that line in Yugoslavia. We looked quickly around the waiting room and saw that neither Richter nor his two henchmen were there. As I glanced out at the station platform, I saw a train moving away.

  "Come on," I said to Ursula.

  By the time we got out there, the train was already at the end of the platform, picking up speed. It was the Orient Express.

  "Damn!" I said.

  I looked down to the end of the building to an open area where a couple of cars were parked, and I saw the Fiat that Richter had driven from the country house outside Belgrade.

  "Look," I said. "His car. He is aboard that train."

  I grabbed Ursula's hand and started pulling her after me as I ran down the platform toward the car.

  "What are we doing, Nick?" she asked as we ran.

  "We're going to get the Butcher of Belgrade," I told her.

  We stopped at the Fiat, and I looked down the track. I had to catch that train. If Richter got into Bulgaria, my chances of getting him and the radio were slim indeed. He would have all the KGB help he needed there.

  I jumped into the low sports car and grabbed at some wires under the dashboard. The train was slowly disappearing around a bend in the track. I crossed the wires, and the engine leaped into action.

  "Get in and drive!" I yelled at Ursula above the noise of the car.

  I moved over to the passenger's seat, and Ursula got in behind the wheel.

  I pointed to the place where the Orient Express was disappearing around the curve of track. "Follow that damned train!" I said.

  She glanced at me for just a second. Then the car shot out of the parking area and headed along the shoulder of the track.

  I looked ahead of us and saw that although the bank was steep on either side of the track near the village, there was room for the narrow sports car if Ursula could steer well enough.

  "Switch over to the other side of the track at this crossing up here," I told her as we bumped along with the left wheels on the ties. "I want to be next to the train if we catch it."

  She did as I told her, and we bumped along on the left side of the track now. Ursula's eyes were wide as she fought to keep control of the car. The ties under the wheels on the right shook the car considerably, and there were ruts under the other wheels, but Ursula kept the Fiat on the shoulder of the tracks. In just moments the train was in sight again, and we were gaining on it.

  "Faster," I urged her.

  Ursula pressed the accelerator, and we shot ahead. The train was only yards away. It was gliding along smoothly in comparison to our own wild ride. We hit a bump, and the car swerved to the left. For a moment, I thought we were going over the embankment. But Ursula fought for control, and finally we were moving along well again. The rear platform of the dining car was now within twenty feet. I opened the door of the Fiat and glanced over at Ursula.

  "When I get aboard, drive back to town and wait at the station for me. I'll try to take him alive for you if he lets me."

  She nodded desperately, her knuckles white over the steering wheel. I took one last look at her and stood up on the step of the open door of the car. We were alongside the rear platform of the train. The open door of the car prevented our getting too close, but I needed another foot.

  "Closer!" I yelled back at her.

  The car bumped and swerved and moved away from the train. Then we were right up against the train, the open door clanging against the structure of the platform. It was now or never. I jumped across the four feet of rushing ground, grabbed at the railing of the platform, and found it. I pulled myself up on the platform and climbed over the rail. Then I looked back and saw that Ursula was already slowing the car. I gave her a wave, and she blinked the headlights at me as she drove slowly to the next crossing.

  I straightened my clothing and brushed my hair back off my forehead. I had gotten aboard without killing myself or Ursula. Now I had to find Hans Richter before we reached the border.

  I entered the dining car and scanned the faces of the few people who were there for an afternoon drink. None of them was Richter or his men. I moved through the car casually as if I were just taking a walk along the train. If a conductor stopped me for a ticket, I could purchase one on board — maybe a second class ticket, but I could care less, for I had no expectation of relaxing and enjoying this trip.

  I walked through the two sleeping cars slowly, watching for any sign of Richter, but I saw none. I didn't see anything in the day coaches, either. The only faces I saw on the train were those of happy holiday travelers. If Richter were aboard, he was playing it safe and hiding. He had probably managed to procure one or more sleeping compartments for him and his men, and they would be inside them, waiting to cross into Bulgaria at Dimitrovgrad.

  There was an advantage I had gained since my experience on the last train, however. I was now sure of Hans Richter's identity, and I knew what he looked like. I could describe him to the train officials.

  It took me ten minutes to find a porter, but when I did, he was very cooperative.

  "Let me see," he said in Serbo-Croatian, "a man such as you describe did board at Crveni Krst, I believe. Yes, now I remember. I just saw the fellow entering Compartment 8 in the next sleeping car."

  In a moment I stood outside the door of Compartment 8. I pulled out Wilhelmina and prepared myself mentally for whatever might come. I told myself that Hans Richter was not going to get away this time; he was not going to leave this train alive. I stepped back from the door a moment, lifted my right foot, and kicked savagely at it.

  The door crashed into the compartment and I followed it. The Luger was ready to fire. I stopped just inside the door and scanned the interior. It was empty.

  I moved in quickly and closed the door behind me. My guess about Richter's taking two or more compartments was undoubtedly correct. He had probably acquired another compartment under the name of one of the other men, and he was probably there right at this moment, planning his next move to sell the satellite monitor in Sofia.

  I looked around. There was no luggage and no radio, but there was a jacket lying on the bunk It was the one that Richter had been wearing earlier.

  I could wait for him here, or I could try to find where he and his men were hiding. I turned to the bunk and pulled down the covers to make sure he had not hidden the radio somewhere there. While I was turned away from the door, I heard a click of the handle. I whirled back to face the sound as I reached for the reholstered Luger.

  The broken-nosed Topcon agent stood in the door, and his tall companion was right behind him.

  The man with the broken nose went for his gun, but I beat him. While his hand was still in his jacket, Wilhelmina's ugly muzzle was already pointing at his surprised face. His tall companion didn't even try.

  "Take your hand out of your coat. Carefully," I said.

  He did.

  "Now both of you, step inside."

  I stepped backward two paces, and then edged into the compartment. I ordered the tall man to close the door behind him. When he had done that, I carefully disarmed both men.

  "How did you do it?" the broken-nosed one asked. "How did you get out of the cottage?"

  "Never mind that," I said, keeping them both together in front of me. "Where is Richter?"

  "Ah," the tall man said, grinning. "You have followed the wrong men, my friend. He did not get aboard this train."

  He was closest to me. I swung the Luger at the side of his head and connected. He grunted and fell against the compartment wall.


  "You want to try again?" I asked.

  The tall man was shocked and dazed. The other one spoke for him. "He is aboard," he said. "But we don't know where. We left him at the other end of the train."

  "This compartment is for one person," I said. "Did you two take a separate compartment?"

  The broken-nosed man hesitated while the tall one looked at him darkly. "Yes."

  "What's the number?"

  "Don't tell him!" the tall man shouted loudly. I kicked him in the lower leg, and he yelled.

  "Well?" I asked the other one.

  "It's the next compartment," the man said softly, jerking his thumb toward a wall.

  "Fool!" the tall man said through clenched teeth.

  "Okay, let's get going," I said. "To the platform. Out."

  The one with the broken nose opened the door and went into the corridor, and I shoved the tall one after him. There was nobody in the corridor, so I kept the Luger out.

  "Move," I ordered, jamming the gun into the tall man's ribs.

  In a moment we reached the platforms between the cars. I stood well behind them and held the Luger on them. "Okay, jump," I ordered.

  They gave me hard looks.

  "The train is moving very fast," the broken-nosed gunman said.

  "Not as fast as the slug from this gun," I warned him.

  After a brief hesitation, the broken-nosed thug opened the door and jumped. In the next instant, the tall man threw himself desperately at me. I met the assault with the barrel of the Luger, smacking it hard into his midsection. He groaned and fell heavily to the metal floor at my feet, unconscious. I holstered the Luger, dragged him to the open door, and threw him off the train.

  I saw his limp form hit the gravel and then bound out of sight in tall grass. He was probably better off than if he had been conscious, but either way I would not have wasted much sleep over it After all, he had tried to blow me into little pieces.

  Now there was Richter. He was on this train, and I had to find him. I was rather looking forward to it.

  Thirteen

  There was little choice left. The train would be nearing Dimitrovgrad and entering Bulgaria soon, and then my job would get much tougher. I could not just sit back and wait for Richter to show himself. I had to make a methodical search of the sleeping compartments, knocking on each and every door. The tactic might get me in trouble with the porter, but I had to chance that.

  I decided to go to the far end of the first sleeping car, the one toward the front of the train. I would start my search at its far end and work my way back through both cars. But that plan became suddenly and dramatically unnecessary. As I reached a point about halfway through the first sleeping car, a compartment door opened, and there was Hans Richter in the corridor just a few feet from me, staring at me as if I were an apparition.

  "You!" he hissed.

  I noticed that he was carrying the radio.

  "Call it quits, Richter," I warned. "You're not making it to Sofia now."

  But Richter had other ideas. He uttered something under his breath in German, then he whirled and started running down the corridor away from me.

  He was heading toward the sleeping car I had just left, toward the end of the train. The train was too crowded to attempt a shot. Instead I gave chase.

  A couple of moments later Richter was on the rear platform of the train. He had gone as far as he could go in that direction. When I got to the door, Wilhelmina out, he was waiting for me. The door slammed back against me as I tried to move through its opening on the platform. I almost lost my footing as the door struck my chest and arm. Richter had given it a hard shove. I stepped warily through the doorway and just got a glimpse of Richter disappearing up a ladder that led to the top of the car.

  "Give up, Richter!" I shouted above the noise of the train. But he had disappeared from view.

  There seemed little to do but follow him.

  I leaned out over the tracks, looking up the ladder, and just in time I saw Richter aiming at my head with a small Belgian revolver. The gun barked out, I ducked back, and the slug spent itself on the speeding ground under the wheels. Then Richter was moving along the top of the car toward the front of the train.

  I swung quickly onto the ladder and climbed it to the top of the car. Richter was already at the far end, leaping from the dining car to the last sleeper. He lost his balance momentarily, as he landed on the top of the next car, but he kept his footing.

  I ran along the top of the dining car after him. When I reached the end of it, I leaped the distance between it and the sleeper without pausing and kept running.

  Richter turned and fired two more shots at me. I saw him aim and ducked low. Both shots went wild, although the second one chewed at the car roof under my feet. I returned fire with Wilhelmina, but with the train moving under us, my aim was bad, too, and the slug sang harmlessly past Richter's head. Then he was running again.

  Richter jumped another space between cars. He was getting better at it. I followed; we ran and leaped the length of several more cars. Richter was now getting close to the front of the train.

  As Richter made another jump between cars, the train swerved, and he fell to one knee. When he turned and saw me closing on him, he aimed the small revolver again and fired two more shots. I flattened myself on the top of the next car, and the slugs chewed up wood on the superstructure beside my head and arm. Richter pulled the trigger of the revolver a third time, but nothing happened. Then he angrily hurled the gun at me. It bounced off the car top and disappeared over the edge.

  Richter was turning and running again. I rose, holstered the Luger, and followed. Then I saw a mountainside loom ahead and a black opening yawning in it — tunnel The train rocketed into the tunnel, and Richter flattened himself just in time as his car disappeared into the blackness. I threw myself face down, too, and then I was immersed in darkness. In a moment I saw the disc of light growing at the other end, and emerged from the black tube into daylight again.

  Richter was already moving toward the engine. I got to my feet and ran after him. I wanted to prevent him from getting back down to the interior of the train. He jumped onto the first day coach behind the engine and kept going. When I made the jump, the train lurched around a sharp bend in the tracks. I fell to my right and almost slipped off the top of the car.

  I waited until the tracks straightened again. Then I moved on toward Richter. The train swayed again over some uneven track as Richter neared the front of the car. He fell and dropped the radio. It slid to the edge of the car roof, but Richter grabbed it before it went over.

  Richter was at the front end of the car now. He was looking at the engine as I moved to close the small distance between us. He decided against jumping to the engine and moved instead to the ladder leading over the side of the car. I reached him just as he got one foot on it.

  I grabbed him with all my strength and pulled him up to the car roof. He glared at me as he struggled to break free.

  "Let me go!" he yelled. "Do you think I have created all this for nothing?"

  His words were almost whisked away by the wind before I could grasp what he was saying. But his eyes told me everything. I was succeeding where everybody else had failed, and Hans Richter was finally trapped. In a few short days, I had become his nemesis.

  I slammed a fist into his square face and broke his nose.

  Richter fell to the roof of the moving car. The countryside slipped past below us at a dizzying pace. I grabbed at him again, but he kicked out and knocked my legs from under me, and I fell beside him and rolled to the very edge of the roof.

  I glanced at the rush of ground below me as I grabbed at the edge of the roof with my hands and legs. While I inched away from the edge, Richter regained his feet Then, as I turned to rise, he kicked out at my head.

  I evaded the kick, and Richter lost his balance again, and slipped to his knees. We both struggled to our feet together, but I had the edge this time. I slammed a fist into his midsection, and h
e doubled under the impact. Then I swung hard at the side of his head and connected. He staggered backward and almost fell down again.

  I was now between Richter and the front edge of the car's roof. With a last desperate effort, he swung the radio at my head. This time I saw it coming and side-stepped as Richter came at me. The momentum of his charge carried him past me to the end of the car and over it. As he flew by, I grabbed at the radio and snatched it from his grasp. Richter plummeted into the open space between the car and the engine.

  I had no chance to save him. I almost went over myself as I grabbed at the radio. In another instant, Richter was falling between the car and the engine, and then he had hit the tracks below. In a split-second, the car rolled over his crumpled form.

  It was not a pretty sight. Richter did not even have time to scream. The body disappeared under the moving car. Then as I glanced over the side, I saw a torn leg and another part of the body that was not identifiable tumble away from the track bed. The Butcher of Belgrade had been chopped up.

  The train was slowing. We were obviously nearing Dimitrovgrad, and I could not be on that train when it got there. I climbed down the ladder that Richter had tried to use earlier, and as the train slowed even more, I jumped to the rushing ground.

  I tried to keep my legs under me, but I could not. I turned head over heels twice, scraping flesh and tearing cloth as I rolled. Then, miraculously, I ended on my back at the bottom of a small embankment, and I saw the observation platform of the train recede down the track.

  I felt for broken bones, but I found none. I had lost the radio, but that was lying within fifteen feet of me. I moved over to it, and in the light of a late afternoon sun, opened it at the back and looked inside. There it was as I had concluded, set into the works of the radio so that it looked like part of the circuitry — the satellite monitoring device.

  I closed the radio as I shook my head. My left hand and cheek burned where they had been rubbed raw by gravel along the track bed. I wiped at my face with a handkerchief and looked down the track toward the place where Richter had fallen off the train. It was a good mile or so back there, and I could see nothing.