Free The Prisoner by Robert Muchamore Page A

trying to see what had happened.
    To Marc’s relief, the gate key was inside the hut, attached to a huge wooden key fob with Main Gate Do Not Remove written on it. As Marc walked back to the gate, a few curious prisoners had ventured as far as the gangplank.
    They seemed happy to find Fischer dead, but there was no prospect of a mass breakout. These were the exhausted, timid men that Marc was terrified of turning into. Prisoners were already heading for refuge in their bunks before reinforcements arrived.
    As the padlock popped and the gate swung, Marc noticed a silver bike resting against the fence. It was a racing bike, the kind only a rich, young gent like Osterhagen could afford to own. With a rifle over his shoulder and a pistol inside his jacket, Marc straddled the bicycle and pushed off.
    Adrenaline had got him this far, but Fischer had battered him and he was running on flat batteries as he pedalled away, with weak legs and fingers barely able to grip the handlebars.

CHAPTER TEN
    Marc’s first priority was to put distance between himself and the scene of his escape. He raced along the riverbank, heading towards Großmarkthalle for no reason beyond the fact that Osterhagen’s bike had been pointing that way.
    The hugeness of what had happened sat in Marc’s gut like a rock: deep in Germany, no money, passes, or maps. If they caught him, his death would be slow and probably in front of several hundred prisoners to make an example of him.
    Marc had no watch, but he guessed 3 a.m. There was nobody on the waterfront and no artificial light because of the air raid threat. This gave Marc some anonymity, but a Hitler Youth or police patrol might lurk around the next dark corner.
    Many prisoners worked nights, and Marc’s prisoner jacket would get him past all but the most persistent of patrols. But no prisoner ever rode a bike – especially a beauty like this one.
    Once he’d ridden a kilometre and a half, Marc rolled up to the dockside wall, took a glance around and felt sad ditching the best bike he’d ever ridden in the river. He also ditched the rifle because it looked obvious, but he kept Fischer’s pistol tucked inside his trousers.
    Now what?
    Marc reckoned he had ten minutes – twenty at best – before the alarm went up and there were teams of Germans hunting a killer. On the upside, with Fischer dead, Osterhagen unconscious and the other two guards never having known him, it would probably be much longer before the Germans knew exactly who they were looking for.
    So Marc had a window. Central Station was only a fifteen-minute walk, but Marc doubted any passenger trains ran at this time of night. Even if they did, he had no ticket money and there was heavy security at major stations even when someone hadn’t just killed a bunch of prison guards.
    If Marc had been fit, running into hiding somewhere outside town would have been possible, or he might even have swum across the river. But he could barely walk, so his only realistic route out of town was sneaking aboard a truck or cargo train.
    Großmarkthalle was less than three hundred metres from where Marc had ditched the bike, with goods sidings branching off behind. Only a dozen or so trains left the sidings per day, so he’d need luck to find one departing any time soon.
    A cart or truck seemed a better bet. Local factories worked through the night and the market hall stayed open to accept their deliveries. Marc had never been inside the hall much after 10 p.m., but he knew that a shift of prison labourers came on duty at around 6 p.m. and worked through the night.
    Marc’s first thought was to walk to the rear of Großmarkthalle and sneak in through the railway sidings. But he’d entered the building hundreds of times with no hassle from the guard on the entrance, so being sneaky was probably the riskier option.
    Fischer’s kidney punch meant Marc clutched his sides as he walked, but he took a deep breath, straightened up and tried disguising his