Where Eagles Dare

'It's too -- what in heaven's name do you mean?'

Two seconds later Carnaby-Jones was over the sill and sliding down the nylon rope. His eyes were screwed tightly shut. Mary said, admiringly: 'You really are the most fearful liar ever.'

'Schaffer keeps telling me the same thing,' Smith admitted. 'You can't all be wrong.'

The cable-car, with the three men clinging grimly to the suspension bracket, climbed slowly up into the header station and jerked to a halt. One by one the three men, under the persuasion of Schaffer's gently waving Luger, lowered themselves the full length of their arms and dropped the last two or three feet to the floor. The last of them, Thomas, seemed to land awkwardly, exclaimed in muffled pain and fell heavily sideways. As he fell, his hands shot out and grabbed Schaffer by the ankles. Schaffer, immediately off-balance, flung up his arms in an attempt to maintain equilibrium and, before he could even begin to bring his arms down again, was winded by a diving rugby tackle by Christiansen. He toppled backwards, his back smashing into a generator with an impact that drove from his lungs what little breath had been left in them. A second later and Christiansen had his gun, driving the muzzle cruelly into a throat gasping for air.

Carraciola was already at the lower iron door, shaking it fiercely. His eye caught sight of the big padlock in its hasp. He swung round, ran back towards Schaffer, knocked aside the gun in Christiansen's hand and grabbed Schaffer by the throat.

"That padlock. Where's the key to that bloody padlock?' The human voice can't exactly emulate the hiss of a snake, but Carraciola's came pretty close to it then. 'That door has been locked from the inside. You're the only person who could have done it. Where is that key?'

Schaffer struggled to a sitting position, feebly pushing aside Carraciola's hand. 'I can't breathe!' The moaning, gasping breathing lent credence to the words. 'I can't breathe. I -- I'm going to be sick.'

'Where is that damned key?' Carraciola demanded.

'Oh God, I feel ill!' Schaffer hoisted himself slowly to a kneeling position, his head bent, retching sounds

'The key!' If the need for silence hadn't been paramount, Carraciola's voice would have been a frustrated scream of rage. Half-a-dozen times, in brutal and rapid succession, he struck Schaffer across the face with the palm and back of his hand. 'Where is that key?'

'Easy on, easy on!' Thomas caught Carraciola's hand. 'Don't be such a damned fool. You want him to talk, don't you?'

'The key. Yes, the key.' Schaffer hoisted himself wearily to his feet and stood there swaying eyes half-closed, face ashen, blood trickling from both corners of his mouth. "The batteries there, I think I hid them behind the batteries. I don't know, I can't think. No, wait.' The words came in short, anguished gasps. 'I didn't. I meant to, but I didn't.' He fumbled in his pockets, eventually located the key and brought it out, offering it vaguely in Carraciola's direction. Carraciola, the beginnings of a smile on his face, reached out for the key but, before he could reach it Schaffer abruptly straightened and with a convulsive jerk of his arm sent the key spinning through the open end of the station to land in the valley hundreds of feet below. Carraciola stared after the vanished key in total incredulity then, his suffused and enraged face mute evidence of his complete loss of self-control, stooped, picked up Schaffer's fallen Schmeisser and swung it viciously across the American's head and face. Schaffer fell like a tree.

'Well,' Thomas said acidly. 'Now that we've got that out of our systems, we can shoot the lock away.'

'You can commit suicide with ricochets -- that door's iron, man.' Carraciola had indeed got it out of his system for he was back on balance again. He paused, then smiled slowly. 'What the hell are we all thinking of? Let's play it clever. If we did get through that door the first thing we'd probably collect would be a chest full of machine-gun bullets. Remember, the only people who know who we really are have bloody great doses of Nembutal inside them and are liable to remain unconscious for a long time. To the rest of the garrison we're unknowns -- and to the few who saw us arrive, we're prisoners. In both cases we're automatically enemies.'

'So?' Thomas was impatient.

'So, as I say, we play it clever. We go down in this cable-car and play it clever again. We phone old Weissner. We ask him to phone the Schloss Adler, tell him where Smith is and, in case Smith does manage to get down to the village on the other cable-car after us, we ask him to have a reception committee waiting for him at the lower station. Then we go to the barracks -- they're bound to have a

'Nary a flaw.' Christiansen grinned. 'And then we all live happily ever afterwards. Come on, what are we waiting for?'