Page 166

There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and a moment later, the sound of a key in the lock.

Professor Friedrich Dyer stepped into the room.

“The door was not locked,” he said, and then he saw Fulmar. “You have a guest, I see.”

Fulmar motioned for him to close the door.

"Don’t go in the living room, Daddy,” Gisella said.

“Why not?” he asked, and walked across to the living room.

“Did you do that?” he asked Fulmar matter-of-factly.

“It was necessary,” Fulmar said.

Professor Friedrich Dyer leaned over Peis’s body and spat. Then he turned to Fulmar.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m Erich von Fulmar.”

Dyer nodded, as if that too came as no surprise.

“What do you plan to do with that swine’s carcass?” Dyer asked.

“As soon as you throw a couple of things in a bag,” Fulmar said,“we are going to take Peis’s car and drive to Frankfurt. We will leave the body here. It should be a day or two before it’s discovered.”

Dyer looked at his daughter.

“Are you all right, Liebchen?”

She nodded.

He turned to Fulmar.

“And what if we are stopped at a roadblock?”

“I have passports and travel authority for you,” Fulmar said. “And my SS-SD identity card.”

“Do we have time to go by my office?” Dyer said.

“No,” Fulmar said immediately.

“Don’t answer that so quickly,” the old man snapped. “I have given a good deal of thought to why all this effort is being made on my behalf, and I have concluded it is my work that makes it worthwhile, not an old man.”

“Work?” Fulmar asked. “What kind of work?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Dyer said impatiently. “Work on the molecular structure of metals.”

“Nothing was said to me about papers,” Fulmar said.

“I would like to either take them—some of the more important papers, not everything—or destroy them.”

“We are not going to the university,” Fulmar said. “Discussion closed. Put a couple of shirts in a bag, Herr Professor.”

Chapter TWO

Organization Todt Bureau Hoeschtwerk,