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She was a reasonably fast study Once she had her lines down pat I tucked her into a cab and gave the driver Klaus Silber’s address I put the luggage in the cab with her and watched her disappear into the night

Hradecy Castle was not terribly hard to find I could have taken a cab there, but I didn’t want anyone wondering why a man would want to look at a castle-turned-prison-turned-castle-turned-prison in thefor the place myself I took a taxi to a hotel in Wenceslas Square and had little trouble finding the Vltava from there I had a fair idea which direction would lead me to the castle I headed in that direction, and there it was

Even at that hour the structure was impressive A broad base, about the size of a don bank Long narros trierbread Sixty feet up, the squarish base of the building gave way to a central peaked cathedral apex, with four rectangular towers at the corners The towers extended perhaps another sixty feet or ine how they were constructed on the inside A taut spiral staircase running up each tower to the tiny roon was obvious enough Men posted in the tower roo the castle froates would be hard put to knock out the marksmen in the towers The spiral staircases were easily defended

The towers ht, Janos Kotacek awaited his trial and execution There would be a guard posted at his door at the top of the long staircase Perhaps there would be another guard halfway down the stairs Perhaps not But there would surely be a guard or two at the foot of the staircase, just as there were guards in the castle courtyard and in front of the castle gates

Even if one got over the fence that surrounded the castle grounds, even if oneinside the castle walls, the whole business was still unworkable It would be iet into Kotacek’s cell, and profoundly iet oneself and Kotacek out of there The only possible exit would involve the ree of some hundred fifty feet into the water of the Vltava River

All out of the question

I shouldn’t have come in the first place, I told ton to go to hell for himself I was not one of his boys Just because I had used hiull enough to believe I was one of his agents, thetheue Storm a castle Save a Nazi Come home and await further instructions

Bah

Well, it siet out of the country and back to the States Perhaps it would be hile to stay a week or so with Greta and Klaus Silber until the governet me Then out of the country, without Kotacek but with my head still fastened to my shoulders, and back to New York Then, if my puffy little chief ever condescended to contact et in touch with us, Tanner We’ll always be the ones to make contact") I could tell him the job went sour Or that it was easy, but I blew it – thatdecided all this With all that taken care of, I slipped across the road and s Was the gate electrified? I studied it and couldn’t tell I squatted down a foot frouards There were three of them in the front yard of the castle, one on each side of the massive door, one at the head of the walk The two on the door were talking, but I couldn’t catch any of the words

Assuht, one would have to find souards out of the castle It wouldn’t be possible to get past them, and without an army it wouldn’t be feasible to take the citadel by storoad them all out and deal with the suspicion from any quarter

Nonsense

I moved back from the fence, slipped around the side toward the river There was a light burning in the turret at the left rear corner of the castle Kotacek’s light? I each of those spiral staircases in turn, hunting for the right one Cli pardon when one stuain and pressing on oncethat the fence wasn’t electrified, I thought, it wouldn’t be all that hard to get over it Even limited to a two-person job, it could be scaled without all that h was it? Ten feet? Spikes on the top, of course, but toss a pillow over theo through the spikes – no, not likely, not as thick as they were and not with the little time available Still, a person could cli quite so harebrained

Still, it orth pondering, if only as an intellectual puzzle Suppose one could get over the gate satisfactorily Then what? Create a diversion at the rear of the castle grounds, draw the guards that way? No, s They wouldn’t all rush out A feould hang back, and they’d be doubly on their guard

I looked at the river Approach on a raft? Scale the walls with grappling hooks, soht Even if it were possible – and I was quite confident that it was not – that would leave us up there in Kotacek’s cell with no particular way to get out And if we tried to carry the old invalid down the ropes to the raft – no, no, it wasn’t even worth thinking about

How could one draw out the guards? Start a fire in the castle? Set off an air-raid siren? They’d probably take shelter right there But some ploy of that sort had to be the answer The bestof walls and the clieate and up into the castle and into Kotacek’s tower and out again

It would have to be done at night, obviously The castle had not entirely been made into a prison The towers each contained a cell, but the two main floors seemed to have been converted into ad some special police branch In the daytiuards to worry about But at night there were only the guards

How many of them? The three I saw, and, unless I was mistaken, at least half a dozen ate, followed it back to the front of the castle, then went on across the street I worked my way around to the other side of the castle and kept uards It wasn’t hard to see that they approached their tasks with rather less in the way of enthusiasm than, say, the Beefeaters at the Tower of London I did not ht was dark, no one atching them (at least as far as they knew), and their job was the unro sure that a sickly old Slovak didn’t break out of his maximum-security cell

They did about as well as could be expected They did not stand firmly at attention, but neither did they slouch They did not leave their posts, and yet they illing to take a few steps one way or the other They were not boisterous, but neither were they silent I could hear them more clearly now, the tho stood at either side of the door They were talking about girls, one boasting slightly, the other pretending disbelief in order to be told"Do you expect irls?"