Read The Angry Mountain for Free Online Page B

stood a man in a grey trilby. I was certain he was from the S.N.B. At last my turn came. “Name, please?”
    â€œFarrell.” My mouth felt dry. The man in the grey trilby looked at me with cold, hostile eyes. The attendant made a tick against my name. I hesitated. The man in the trilby made no move. My leg seemed more awkward than usual as I negotiated the three steps of the ladder. I found a seat well up towards the front of the fuselage and slumped into it. I was sweating and I wiped my face and my hands with my handkerchief.
    I got my paper out then and pretended to read. The crew came in and went through to the cockpit. The connecting door slid to. I sat there waiting. I could feel the draught from the open door of the fuselage blowing on my back. Would they never close it? The suspense was frightful. To get so far…. The devil of it was that I knew this was just the sort of cat-and-mouse game they loved. It was all part of the softening-up process.
    The port engine turned over and started into life. Then the starboard engine. The door to the cockpit slid back and one of the crew looked in and ordered us to fix our safety belts. Now was the moment they’d come for me. I heard a sudden movement by the entrance door. I couldn’t control myself any longer. I swung round in my seat. To my amazement thesteps had been taken away. The door shut with a clang and was closed on the inside. The engines roared and we began to taxi out to the runway.
    The feeling of relief that flooded through me was like the sudden plunge into unconsciousness. There was a pleasurable chill feeling along my spine and the back of my eyes were moist. I don’t remember taking off. I felt too dazed. I only know that the roar of the engines changed suddenly to a steady purr and the seat was pressed hard against the base of my spine. Automatically I fumbled at the locking device of my safety belt, only to find that I’d never fastened it. Through the window at my side all Pilsen was spread out below me, tilted at an angle as we banked. I could see the onion-shaped dome of the water tower of Pilsen Brewery and the miles of sidings alongside the big factories. Through belching smoke I caught a glimpse of the Tu č ek steel works. Then Pilsen vanished beneath the plane as we straightened on to our course.
    My sense of relief was short-lived. There was still Prague and Vienna. At each of these stops they could arrest me. But nobody disturbed me or even asked for my papers, and as we rose into the clear sunlight over Vienna with the snow-capped gleam of the Alps ahead I lay back in my seat, relaxed for the first time in two days. I was the right side of the Iron Curtain. They couldn’t touch me now. I slept then and didn’t wake until we were in Italy.
    The plane skirted the foothills of the Dolomites and then we were on the edge of the Po Valley headed west towards Milan. I began to think of what lay ahead, of my meeting with Reece. It was odd that it should be at Milan, so close to Lake Como. It was there, at the Villa d’Este, that I had last seen him.
    It had been in April, 1945, that he and Shirer had escaped. And it was that little swine of a doctor who was so like Shirer who’d fixed it for them. He’d helped them to escape and then he’d blown his brains out.
    The mere thought of him brought the sweat prickling out on my forehead. Giovanni Sansevino—
il dottore
, they’d called him. I could hear the orderly’s voice saying, “Il dottore is coming to see you this morning, Signor Capitano.” How often had I heard that, and always with a sly relish? The orderly—the one with the wart on his nose who was called Luigi—he’d liked pain. “Il dottore is coming to see you.” He’d stay in the ward after that, watching me out of his unnaturally pale eyes, watching me as I lay sweating, wondering whether it was to be one of the doctor’s little social visits