What 808 he had left he packed as close to the lock as he could, which created a mass into which he could insert a detonator, that then connected to wires, they in turn being threaded into the terminals on the plunger. Carefully he took that and opened the door to the hallway, placing it outside where he would fire it, using the solid wall of the old building to protect him from the blast. Then he settled down to wait.

Peter just made his train by a hairy taxi ride from the Gare du Nord to l’Est and was able to settle down to sleep in a comfy couchette, this while Vince was fuming and still being denied access through the last checkpoint. It had taken all day for Noel McKevitt to find a hose that would fit the Humber but he was back on the road, barrelling north, using his diplomatic passport and plates to get through every checkpoint as a priority case.

Not that such progress was smooth: given the number of cars held up and the sheer quantity that had to move to facilitate his advance – not to mention the fulsome and loudly expressed curses he got for his temerity – each one took an age, so that when he arrived at the checkpoint where Vince was waiting it was dark, and fulminate as he might, it seemed the army had priority on the road ahead and not even a diplomat could make progress.

Sitting on the floor, gloves off, Cal was listening to Hitler as he started to heap insults on Czechoslovakia, which was a miserable little country which dared to call itself a democracy but was suppressing its inhabitants … in this state there were three and a half million Germans (his voice was really hoarse now) … the misery of the Sudetenlanders was terrible … Beneš was a liar and a cheat … on and on he went and each part of his increasingly deranged tirade was met with great repetitive cries of ‘Sieg Heil!’ from the audience.

It was the climax of the speech he was waiting for, that last point where Hitler would sweep his right hand like a sword across his chest, the sweat flying from his brow, his shirt soaked and his eyes aiming off to some point beyond those who were listening to him, to a Valhalla where even the gods of the Nibelungen were sat bolt upright in amazement at his brilliance.

Cal turned the radio up a fraction and moved out of the door to where the plunger lay, closed the door as much as he could without damaging the wires, slid down so his back was to the wall and listened, his pistol near his hand, to the berserk spectators creating a din that was now so loud Hitler could hardly be heard. He then took the lever in his hand. Faintly he could hear those in the square, loud enough to echo through the streets and penetrate solid walls.

‘I’m sick of the sound of you, old cock,’ he said, then twisted and pressed hard before immediately jamming his hands to his ears and opening his mouth.

To him it sounded as if the earth had caved in, but he had no idea how it sounded outside. Perhaps the folk at the rally thought thunder or maybe, since half of them subscribed to beliefs in mythical deities, that the gods had spoken; he had no time to wonder – he just picked up the Mauser and went in.

The room was a mess: Henlein’s desk was mostly matchwood, the window panes blown out so compressively they seemed to have gone in one piece, only breaking when they hit the cobbles below. Out came the bulb to be screwed back in, and then the light could be switched on; it made no difference who saw that now.

The door of the safe was hanging open and there was the smell of burning, probably some of the contents. Hauling to get it right open he looked inside and started rifling through the mass of papers, pushing aside bundles of banknotes.

The one he wanted was easy to identify, a high-quality green folder with the gold device of an eagle with a swastika in its talons. Taking it over to what was left of Henlein’s desk, under the light, he opened it to see the top letter carried the address of the office of the Führer at the top and the Hitler signature at the bottom.

‘Hände hoch!’

There was no time to see who it was or what they had; dropping the file he just spun quickly, dived sideways and as he did so put a bullet into the chest of the porter who had been asleep downstairs, which blasted him backwards. Rolling up on to one knee, the second bullet went into his head and he died for the fact that he was old, overweight and slow and had a key to the door of the office suite; that and because he was holding a gun.

Relocking the suite door, and this time leaving his own key twisted in the lock to stop anyone else gaining entry, Cal went back to the office and jammed the file down the back of his trousers. Then, using that blanket from the Maybach, he scooped in the bundles of banknotes, knotted it and headed for the emergency exit which took him out of the back of the hotel, through a door that, once closed, locked itself.

He was out in the alley and heading for the garage before he heard the first of the thudding boots coming to find out what had happened, which risked him being caught in possession of that bundle, so he resorted to an old trick burglars use to avoid getting caught with their swag just after a robbery. Carrying it at night, when they usually do their breaking and entering, they are bound to be stopped by a copper and questioned. The solution is to find a convenient bin, preferably with a lid, and dump the goods till daylight – the back of the hotel was lined with dozens of them.

Then, coming from where his car was parked, he heard the sounds of a big engine being fired up and doors slamming, followed by screeching tyres as Henlein’s Mercedes swept out and past him, forcing him to press his body against the wall, able to see the alarmed face of the driver as it raced past and then a fleeting last glimpse of a worried-looking Henlein.

Entering the garage himself he ran to the Maybach and jammed the file of documents and the Mauser under the front seat, before locking it and heading back to the square to find Corrie.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The sound of breaking glass was almost immediate and as Cal ran towards the square he could see, in the intervening streets, small knots of Brownshirts busy attacking what he supposed must be Czech homes and businesses, so occupied they ignored him. When he got to the old marketplace, the central square was still crowded but now with a mob baying for what they saw as justice for an oppressed minority.

Veseli stood out easily, his head and forage cap visible from a distance, and Cal made straight for him, barging through a crowd that had no desire to ease his passage, passing open yelling mouths chanting either indistinct Nazi slogans or curses aimed at their Czech neighbours and foreign devils, clearly still under the spell of the euphoria created by Hitler’s speech.

They were facing some hothead who had got himself hoisted above the crowd and was waving a swastika, trying to make himself heard above the din. Cal knew by his contorted face and that flag he was not trying to calm them down but seeking to fire them up to commit some kind of anti-Czech pogrom.

He got to Veseli eventually, standing tall and looking fierce, to find Corrie close by in the company of Jimmy Garvin, the look of fearful greeting in both their eyes evidence of how uncomfortable they found it to be surrounded by a mob of excited ideologues slipping rapidly out of any sense of self-control.

It was hard to believe they could make more noise than previously but the truth was assailing his ears, making it hard to hear what was being shouted at him, and Veseli had to wait till he got closer and repeated himself to be understood.

‘Herr Barrowman, you must get Miss Littleton back to the hotel and keep her there.’