They were both silent for a moment, then Wilde put his arm around Heck. ‘Come on, we have to get out of here.’

‘I’m lost, Wilde. My arm . . . it’s bad.’

*

They took it slow, going deeper and deeper into the woods before circling back towards the road and the corner where Wilde had hidden the Harley-Davidson. It was after midnight, almost two hours since the events at Schwarzenkirche, and the gunfire and calls of the hunters had died down then ceased.

Wilde’s companion was weak, but he couldn’t take the risk that the bike had been discovered and ambushed, so he made Heck sit against a tree while he watched the road from cover.

‘Stay here,’ he said. ‘Come out when you hear the engine fire up.’

Heck was barely awake. Wilde slapped the sides of his face. ‘Don’t black out on me, Lieutenant.’

The bike hadn’t been found by the pursuers. He quickly inspected the damage sustained on the mountain road. The front wheel was slightly buckled but the tyres were still sound. She roared into life straightaway.

Heck stumbled from the undergrowth. Wilde helped him onto the pillion, and they were gone.

*

Colonel Appache was not pleased to be woken in the early hours of the morning. He was a great deal unhappier when he discovered what had been happening at Schwarzenkirche.

‘You mean you staked out the place without telling me, and then that goddamn Heck tried to kill Julius Boden? Are you totally insane, Wilde?’

‘It wasn’t the way we planned.’

‘Where is the Dutch bastard now?’

‘Sickbay. He suffered a bad wound.’

‘Shame they didn’t kill him. Goddamn amateurs the pair of you.’

Wilde wasn’t going to take this. ‘We’ll talk about this later if you want. Lieutenant Heck made an error, but he showed extreme courage and I won’t have him called an amateur by you or anyone else. For the moment, we have to plan our next move. We have to go in force to Schwarzenkirche and pick up Boden, if he’s alive.’

‘No chance, Wilde. We did that before, if you recall, and it was a fiasco. Anyway, do you really think Julius Boden’s people would be dumb enough to keep him there?’

Wilde turned on his heel and left the room without a word.

*

He grabbed a bottle of rye whiskey from the PX then borrowed another motorbike from the pound and rode the three miles to Apfelwald. He found Angie Gray doing her last rounds and about to turn in for the night.

‘Care to share a couple of glasses with me? I need company.’

‘My bottle not good enough for you, huh?’

They sat together in her office, drinking steadily into the night. Wilde told her the whole story and she listened in silence. Only when he had finished did she put forward a thought.

‘What about Lilly? What’s happened to her?’