The Company of Strangers Read Online Free Page A

against the desk. Voss kept his head down, looked at Weber through the bone of his cranium.
    ‘At least I know you can listen now,’ said Weber. ‘You’ve passed the first Rastenburg test with an A and you don’t have to worry about me and those files. I didn’t fill them. I didn’t seal them. I didn’t even sign for them. Learn something from that, Voss. They’re saying now that somebody must have accidentally pulled the self-destruct handle in the plane. We’re all in the clear. Are you hearing me, Voss?’
    ‘I’m hearing you.’
    Voss did hear him, but only through the reel of film in his head which was full of the black metal trunk with its white stencilled address. His hands lifting the trunk and taking it into the plane where he jams it between the seats so it won’t slide about – two of Zeitzler’s boxes of files on top and two on the seats by the trunk. Todt comes on to the plane, preceded by his luggage, impatient to be away from the scene of his disastrous politicking and up into the light of the sunshine and the clear air where everything is comprehensible. He straps himself into his seat, not next to the pilot but in the fuselage where he might be able to do some work. The hold darkens as the door closes. The pilot taxis to the end of the runway. The plane steadies itself, the wings rock and stabilize. The propellers thrash the icy air. The pressure kicks in behind the old man’s back and they surge down the runway flashing white, grey and black at the snow and ice patches on the strip. Then Todt sees the black trunk and some low animal instinct kicks in the paranoia and a terrible realization. He roars at the pilot to stop the plane but the pilot cannot stop. The velocity is already too great. He has to take off. The wheels defy gravity and Todt has a moment of weightlessness, a premonition of the lightness of being to follow. They bank in the steep curve, the trunk tight against the wall of the fuselage. Todt staring into the black Polish pine trees, or are they East Prussian pine trees now, Germanic Empire pine trees? Todt’s weight has come back to him and he’s in a panic now. He’s seen the trunk before. He’s seen it in his head and he knows what’s in it. He knew what would be in it the night before and he woke up with the knowledge this morning and it was further confirmed by the flight captain who told him that Speer would not be on the plane. What was Speer doing here anyway? Todt and Speer. Two men who knew their destiny and had nohesitation in obeying. The plane’s wings are still perpendicular to the ground. The black forest is still flashing past Todt’s care-worn eyes. The wings flatten. They’re going to make it after all. The pilot is hunched and roaring at the control tower. The altimeter winds its way down through three hundred to two hundred to one hundred and fifty and Todt is praying and the pilot is praying too, although he doesn’t know why and that is how they enter the biggest noise, the whitest light. Two men praying. One who didn’t like war enough and the other unlucky to be flying him.
    And then silence. Not even the wind whistling through the shattered fuselage. Pure peace for the man who didn’t like war enough.
    ‘Everything all right in there, Voss?’
    Voss looked up, dazed, Weber a blur in his eye.
    ‘There was something else…’
    ‘There was nothing else, Voss. Nothing that anybody wants to know. Nothing that I want to know. Those words stay in your head. In here we talk about military positions. All right?’
    Voss went through the decodes. The black metal trunk slid into a dark recess, the murky horror corner of his mind, and soon the white stencilled address was barely readable.
    At 1.00 p.m. Hitler sent an adjutant to bring in his first caller of the day. The adjutant returned with Speer in his wake. Fifteen minutes later the Reichsmarschall Goering appeared in the corridor smiling and resplendent in light blue, his smooth jowls, shiny