The Titanic Secret Read Online Free PDF Page B

even have been capable of coherent thought.’
    Neumann nodded. ‘You may well be right. But you should be aware that the traitor Klaus Trommler has admitted he told the Englishman your name at their last meeting that evening. He has also said that he read part of the report I prepared, and passed some of the other details on to the English spy.’
    Voss stared at him angrily. ‘I thought our arrangements were secret?’ he snapped. ‘Why did you have to write anything down?’
    Neumann shrugged. ‘We have our procedures. I am required to document meetings and record any information which I am given. That is the way the Preußische Geheimpolizei operates.’
    ‘And then you let a clerk – of all people – read what you had written?’
    ‘All of our employees are checked for reliability and honesty. Nothing like this has ever happened before.’
    Voss snorted. ‘But this Trommler man proves that your checking procedure is a waste of time.’
    ‘He was an exception, I agree. It won’t happen again.’
    ‘What will you do with him?’
    Neumann smiled and glanced up at the large clock on the opposite wall of his office. ‘You can watch if you like,’ he said. ‘They should be ready now.’
    He stood up and walked back to the window, beckoning Voss to join him. Neumann’s office was on the second floor of the building, and the window looked down into a large courtyard surrounded by a brick wall fifteen feet high. In one corner a group of half a dozen uniformed policemen were standing talking together, each with a rifle slung over his shoulder.
    As Neumann and Voss looked down, two other men appeared from the ground floor of the building, one either side of a man who had his arms lashed behind his back, and a gag over his mouth. He was writhing and struggling in their grip, but clearly his efforts to escape were futile. They walked briskly across to the corner of the courtyard and forced the prisoner to stand against the wall. One of the men did something behind the prisoner’s back, and then both men moved away, leaving the man twisting against the wall.
    ‘There’s a ringbolt at waist level just there,’ Neumann explained. ‘It saves having to erect a wooden post to tie them to.’
    ‘That’s Klaus Trommler?’ Voss mused.
    Neumann shook his head. ‘No, it’s not, actually. That’s one of my officers. He was the man who was stupid enough to let Trommler get his hands on the report.’
    Down below, the two men who’d escorted the prisoner into the courtyard had just re-entered the building. After a few moments, they reappeared. This time, they were carrying a stretcher between them, on which another man lay. His body was secured to the stretcher with three leather straps tied tightly around his chest, waist and knees, and with individual straps securing his wrists to the side rails.
    Voss looked puzzled. ‘Why can’t they make him walk to the wall?’ he asked.
    ‘Our questioning was a little – robust – shall we say. One of our interrogators broke both of Trommler’s legs when he proved somewhat reluctant to tell us what we needed to know.’
    The two men carried the stretcher across to the wall and propped it up there, just a few feet from where the other man was still struggling futilely, trying desperately to get free. Then they turned and walked away without a backward glance.
    Another police officer walked out of the building and crossed to the two men. He took a piece of paper from his pocket and said a few words to each of the prisoners.
    ‘He’s reading the death sentences,’ Neumann explained. ‘Both men are lucky, really, that they’re being shot. Execution by firing squad is generally considered to be an honourable death.’
    Voss stared at him. ‘So what other form of execution would you use?’
    ‘The Fallbeil . The word translates as the “falling axe”. It’s like the French guillotine, and it’s the punishment we reserve for traitors and criminals. But there wasn’t