Artillery of Lies Read Online Free PDF

door clicked shut, Christian staggered to his feet, lurched to the nearest cubicle and locked himself in. He felt faint. He had just enough strength to sit on the floor before he fell down. When he woke his head was resting against the toilet bowl and he knew he was about to be sick, so he made the most of the facilities.
Perfectly normal,
he told himself.
You get hit on the head, you throw up. Correct response.
His recent lunch smelled disgusting; he wondered why on earth he had eaten it. He flushed the toilet. The gushing waters sounded wonderfully clean and healthy, so he flushed the toilet again. He had an idea. Next time he flushed the toilet, he washed his face and neck in its rushing torrent and felt a lot better.
    Christian was alive because he was strong and Adler was sloppy. If Adler had been better organized, he would have carried a knife or an ax and that would have been that. Instead he had improvised with a bottle of disinfectant which merely stunned Christian. He had come to just as Adler was fumbling and cursing at the knot of his tie. Christian kept his eyes shut. As Adler rolled him on to his face, he guessed what was coming and clutched a handful of his own shirt front and dragged it down. When Adler heaved on the ends of the tie, Christian’s right arm took much of the strain. He also had unusually strong neck muscles. He had been an above-average athlete (discus, shot, wrestling) and he had kept fit; often, in the middle of a meeting, he would wander away from the table and do a quick dozen push-ups. Adler should have remembered that. When Adler started strangling, Christian’s neck muscles were braced. Adler didn’t notice. Christian couldn’t keep up the resistance for long, and when Adler finally stood up, panting, he was semiconscious. But only semi. Adler should have rolled him over and tested his breathing or his pulse. Come to that, Adler should have used his own tie and damn the expense. But Adler was too impetuous, too sloppy, too disorganized.
    After five minutes’ deep breathing Christian felt strong enough toleave the lavatories. He reached the office of the embassy doctor without meeting any
Abwehr
staff and went straight into the examination room. The doctor, who had learned to be unsurprised by anything the
Abwehr
did, followed him.
    â€œLock the door,” Christian said. “I’m dead. Murdered. Now I want you to get me on a plane to Berlin.”
    â€œSit down.” The doctor examined the pupils of his eyes and took his pulse. He had already noticed the patches of black blood matting Christian’s hair. “How were you killed?”
    â€œKnocked out and strangled. Watch out for broken glass.” He winced as the doctor searched his scalp. “What’s that awful stink?”
    â€œDisinfectant. You’re soaked in it. Whoever killed you was very concerned not to contaminate the wound.”
    Christian found that funny. He laughed so much that he reopened the cut. Eventually the doctor stitched it up. That evening Christian’s coffin, packed with sandbags, was flown out of Lisbon. Christian was on the same plane, wearing a mask of bandages and carrying a passport that said he was Albert Meyer, fruit importer.
    Next day he telephoned
Abwehr
headquarters. Admiral Canaris, its head, was not there but his second-in-command, General Oster, was. Christian got through to Oster’s secretary and after some insistence, bluff, threats, and the casual use of a few high-powered code words, he got to speak to Oster himself. “Good morning,” he said. “Very sad news about Brigadier Christian.”
    â€œAh.” There was a signal lying on Oster’s blotter. It had come from Madrid
Abwehr
and it said that Christian’s body was being flown home for interment and would be held at Tempelhof airport mortuary, pending instructions. Nothing more. Oster had tried to telephone Madrid but the lines were down somewhere in France: