The Dark Frontier by A. Decker (best books to read non fiction .txt) 📕

his pocket now cradled the barrel of the firearm between its covers. Unaware of the shifting landscape submerged inside his pocket, he pulled out the document to show it to the border guard, dragging the firearm with it. The weapon crashed to the floor.

In a flash, the right boot of the border guard trapped the firearm underfoot. Suddenly Frank found himself staring into the barrel of another gun. Its owner was yelling back over his shoulder in an incomprehensible rapid-fire barrage of Italian. It took just a few seconds before two more dark navy uniforms appeared behind him. They instantly trained their own firearms on Frank, as the first border guard kicked Frank’s gun out into the corridor, pushed him head first down onto the seat and slapped on a pair of handcuffs. Frank was dragged to his feet, wincing as the metal cuffs cut into his wrists.

By now, the commotion in his compartment had attracted an audience around his carriage. His captors had to manhandle him off the train and force a way through the throng that had gathered on the platform. Beyond the crowd, further up the platform, Frank caught sight of the sports youth louts who had tracked him all the way from Breitner’s house. They stood watching the spectacle from a distance. The expression on their faces betrayed a look of disappointment that they had been deprived of their opportunity for vengeance.

They watched in silence as Frank vanished from view behind the crowd.

Chapter 24

As the wintry brown meadows and lowland streams slipped past them on the train, Ellen could not escape the feeling that Frank too was fast receding from her life. It was a sentiment that stayed with her for the entire journey, as the meadows gave way to a looming horizon of white mountain peaks, and she and Marthe changed to the narrow-gauge railway up through the twisting snow-covered landscape to St Moritz.

When eventually they stepped off the train into the crisp, cold air, Ellen took a deep breath, enjoying the freshness of the Alpine atmosphere. She was struck by the way the fading sunlight sparkled gently in Marthe’s dark hair, revealing shades of auburn she had not noticed before. It lent a new dimension to the beauty of her companion.

“The chalet is a little way out of town,” Marthe said. “So we’ll need a taxi.”

“Your hair glistens so beautifully in the sunlight,” she added, running a hand through Ellen’s strawberry-blonde locks as they climbed into the car. Ellen smiled. The coincidence of their thoughts both teased and unnerved her.

As the taxi carried them up through the town, past the luxury hotels and out to the more sparsely developed, snow-covered slopes, Ellen pondered Marthe’s remark with a growing sense of excitement intermingled with wariness. She could not help seeing in her words a confirmation of the intimacy between them that Marthe seemed keen to keep alive. The thought sent a tingle of anticipation coursing through Ellen’s body.

The drive up to the chalet took little more than five minutes. But already the sun was dipping behind the mountains when Ellen stepped out of the car and felt the crunch of snow underfoot. She was struck by the intense quiet. The deep snow around them seemed to absorb every sound – from the noise of the car as it disappeared back down the mountainside to the crack of a twig that succumbed to a squirrel darting up into the trees.

The chalet itself lay in splendid isolation close to the forest. It was a cosy little lodge. More modest than Ellen had been expecting. The perfect place to put the events of the past few weeks behind her, she told herself, when Marthe took her on a short tour of the house and showed her where she would be sleeping. It all seemed so perfect to her. The walls and floors and ceiling all of wood. The red and white gingham curtains over tiny windows that looked out onto the snowy slopes and enhanced her sense of cosy comfort all the more. And in the lounge a stone fireplace just waiting for them to sit by the log fire together in the evening to chat and contemplate the flames.

Ellen knew of course that any conversation would go deeper than mere chat. But she had come prepared. Throughout the train journey to the mountains, she had mulled over the point of her being here at all. And now, as she unpacked her suitcase and then lay on the bed to relax after the journey, her thoughts began to settle on a decision.

Marthe had taken the precaution of bringing two packets of soup and some coffee with her.

“Tomorrow, we can get in some food from the Konsum,” she said, when Ellen emerged from her bedroom and found Marthe in the kitchen opening one of the soup packets. “Or we could go out to eat if you prefer.”

“I’m happy to eat here,” Ellen replied. “It’s so nice and cosy.”

While the soup was heating up, Marthe disappeared through a side door in the kitchen, before re-emerging a few minutes later with an armful of logs, lighting the fire and opening a bottle of red wine she had brought with her.

“I’m sorry it’s only Maggi soup,” Marthe said some thirty minutes later as they settled down to eat beside what by now was a roaring log fire.

“It tastes fine,” Ellen assured her.

“It’s not so much the flavour that bothers me,” Marthe explained. “It’s more the image. The idea of consuming products from a company with such a dubious reputation.”

Ellen looked quizzically over her soup at Marthe.

“Urs insists they were pioneers. Not only in nutrition. As employers also. They provided their workers with benefits that everyone else could only dream of back in the Thirties. But all I know them for is the pact they made with the devil just before the war. Perhaps it was necessary to survive, but it left a nasty taste – until they were de-germanised by Nestlé. Even