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When he was finished, the Frenchman stepped back and smiled at Meyer. 'And now, my friend, you can serve me a very large brandy from your most expensive bottle. Nothing less than Armagnac will be accepted.'

'Do we return to the castle now, Herr Doktor?' Voss asked.

'No, my friend. We adjourn to the bar with the mayor here, who will no doubt consider your efforts no less worthy of his hospitality. We will wait there until my patient recovers consciousness, however long it takes. Possibly all day, so be prepared.'

They started downstairs and at the same moment heard a motor vehicle draw up outside. Meyer went to the window on the landing halfway down, then turned. 'There's a military ambulance outside, Herr Doktor, and it isn't German from the looks of it.'

Gaillard joined him at the window in time to see Jack Howard jump down from the passenger seat and stand looking up at the Golden Eagle, a Thompson gun under one arm.

Gaillard got the window open. 'In here,' he called in English. 'A pleasure to see you.' Howard looked up, hesitated then advanced to the door. Gaillard turned to Voss. 'A great day, my friend, perhaps the most important in your life because from this moment, for you, the war is over.'

The journey in the ambulance from the field hospital had been a total anti-climax. They had driven through countryside covered in snow, from which the population seemed to have vanished, a strange, lost land of deserted villages and shuttered farms. Most important of all, except for a few abandoned vehicles at various places, they had seen no sign of the enemy.

'But where in the hell is everybody?' Hoover demanded at one point.

'With their heads under the bed, waiting for the axe to fall,' Finebaum told him.

'Alpine Fortress,' Hoover said. 'What a load of crap. One good armoured column could go from one end of this country to the other in a day as far as I can see and nobody to stop them.' He turned to Howard. 'What do you think, sir?'

'I think it's all very mysterious,' Howard said. 'And that's good because if my map reading is correct, we're coming down into Arlberg now.'

They came round the corner, saw the village at the bottom of the hill, the spires of the castle peeping above the wooded crest on the other side of the valley.

'And there she is,' Finebaum said. 'Schloss Arlberg. Sounds like a tailor I used to know in East Manhattan.'

They drove down through the deserted street, turned into the cobbled square and halted in front of the Golden Eagle.

'Even here,' Hoover said, 'not a soul in sight. It gives me the creeps.'

Howard reached for his Thompson gun and got out of the cab. He stood there looking up at the building and then a window was thrown open and a voice called excitedly in English with a French accent, 'In here!'

Gaillard embraced the American enthusiastically. 'My friend, I don't think I've ever been more pleased to see anyone in my life. My name is Paul Gaillard. I am a prisoner with several others here at Schloss Arlberg.'

'I know,' Howard said. 'That's why we're here. Jack Howard, by the way.'

'Ah, then Schenck got through?'

'Yes, but he stopped a couple of bullets on the way. He's outside now in the ambulance.'

'Then I'd better take a look at him. I was once a doctor by profession. It has come in useful of late.'

Just then Voss appeared hesitantly at the bottom of the stairs. Finebaum called a warning from the doorway.

'Watch it, Captain.'

As he raised his M1, Gaillard hastily got in the way. 'No need for that. Although poor Voss here is technically supposed to be guarding me he has, to my certain knowledge, never fired a shot in anger in his life.' Finebaum lowered his rifle and Gaillard said to Howard, 'There will be no need for shooting by anyone, believe me. Colonel Hesser has already said that he will surrender to the first Allied troops who appear. Didn't Schenck make this clear?'

'It's been a long, hard war, Doctor,' Finebaum said. 'We only got this far by never taking a kraut on trust.'

'Like perspective, I suppose,