He shook his head, and that dark gaze met mine.
“Go, now!”
He turned back and disappeared into the darkness as the light from a half dozen or more lanterns suddenly appeared and there was more gunfire.
Twenty
I fought and I kicked,and cursed. And discovered even with my training in the Far East, I was no match for a man as tall as Brodie but thicker of build, a butcher by trade, who was no doubt accustomed to handling carcasses of hogs and beef.
I was unable to throw a jab or my knee at him. I dropped my bag, however any attempt to sweep his feet was completely futile.
I continued to protest and curse, and managed to remind him that Brodie was the one who would be able to get him into England. All of it to no avail as he carried me, kicking and protesting, into the dark alleyway beside the opera house and threw me into the back of a wagon, the wood boards scraping my cheek.
How did he come by the wagon? Who did it belong to?
We had to wait for Brodie!
“A man I know in the city. He hauls things for people,” he replied as he pushed me down into the bottom of the wagon that smelled suspiciously of animals, his knee at my back.
He grabbed one wrist then the other and bound my hands, then bound my ankles as I tried to kick out at him.
“We must go.”
When I would have protested, he tied a cloth over my mouth and we left that part of the city...and Brodie.
The wagon eventually rolled to a stop. I tried to sit up, and felt a large hand at my shoulder pushing me back into the bottom of the wagon.
I caught the glow of a street lamp, and heard the familiar sounds of a train station, and knew we were quite nearby.
Brodie would be there. He had to be, however, instead of being released I was pinned once more in the bottom of the wagon. I was then rolled onto my side, a heavy carpet that smelled of grease and all sorts of other things thrown over me.
“It is best that no one sees you.” Karl said. “I know these kinds of men. They will be looking for you. I am sorry. Do not struggle.”
Do not struggle? I would have if it would do any good. It didn’t. And where was my bag with those documents?
We knew almost nothing about Karl. We were taking it on faith that he was determined to reach England. How easy would it be for him to take the documents then sell them himself?
With that, unable to protest or defend myself, I was rolled again onto my other side, that carpet tucked around me in a tight cocoon that smothered my face.
It was hot and stifling inside the carpet as I was then hoisted once again over Karl’s shoulder.
I was caught, trapped, and there was nothing I could do as I was jostled over his shoulder, barely able to breathe. I thought of the knife in my boot, impossible to reach. Yet the first chance I got…
He stopped, adjusting me in that stifling carpet on his shoulder as easily as he might have hoisted a carcass ready for the butcher’s cleaver. I caught a muffled conversation in a mixture of German and English as I struggled to breathe.
“Ja,the baggage car for this,” he told someone as he adjusted me over his shoulder.
I heard the sound of a heavy door rolled back. He clamped an arm around the rug, then continued a short way with some effort. We stopped again and he pulled the rolled carpet from his shoulder, and with a grunt of effort lowered that bundle with me trapped inside.
Were we in the baggage car?
There was a sharp slam of a heavy door, the distant sound of a train whistle muffled by that musty carpet, then a jarring motion as the train began to move.
No!
The tears came then, stinging at my eyes, then hot at my face and tight at my throat. I wanted to scream but couldn’t as I lay there bound with that tight cloth over my mouth in that moldy rotting carpet.
Where was Brodie? Had Szábo and his people caught him?
