Five Past Midnight (42 page)

"Other people then. Maybe the Allies sent three Jack Grays, and each will cover a bunker exit."

Dietrich shook his head. "We'd have crossed their trails by now. There's just one commando, I'm convinced."

"And, Otto, how—just how—is Cray going to make the Führer flee the bunker? A massive bombing? That doesn't seem likely. It's not sure enough."

"I don't know how Cray will do it. I just trust that he will."

The detective followed General Eberhardt toward the sandbags. An RSD man waited there, one hand on the plunger of a detonator and the other around a pair of binoculars.

As he walked, Dietrich said in a low voice, "You saw him down there, the Führer."

"I see the Führer rather frequently," Eberhardt replied, a touch of the bureaucrat in his voice. "It's my duty."

"It's insane up here, on the streets of Berlin, Eugen. Look at these streets, look at every street in this city. Fires and craters and smoke. Satan's hell will be just like this."

"What's your point, Inspector?" At the whiff of defeatism, Eberhardt reverted to using Dietrich's title.

"It's also insane down in that bunker."

"You shouldn't speculate…"

"For God's sake, you heard him down there, Eugen. Talking of traitors and cowards, talking of his loyal soldiers like that, soldiers who've given their lives and families and homes to Germany. And their leader is raving and rolling his eyes, spit flying from his mouth."

"Otto, these are dangerous things you are saying. Said to the wrong people…"

"I always wondered about the Führer's war aims, Eugen. Wondered about almost everything he did. It all seemed insane. Now I know why."

"Otto…"

"It's because he's crazy, down in that bunker." Dietrich found his voice rising, just as Hitler's had. "He's a certifiable lunatic. You saw it yourself. You must see it every time you meet with him. I never knew it until now, and…"

The RSD general gripped Dietrich's arm with more force than required. With an effort that strained his every muscle from toe to temple, Dietrich shut off the flow of words.

"Otto, listen to yourself. If the wrong ears hear you, you'll be back in that dungeon before the hour is out. Get hold of yourself."

Prickly sweat had formed on Dietrich's back. His view of General Eberhardt and the street was through the fine red mist of suffused anger. Eberhardt counseled, "Let's do our jobs, Otto. The rest of it is beyond us. Let it be."

Dietrich was having trouble breathing.

"Are you going to help me now?" Eberhardt asked quietly, the priest inquiring of the penitent.

"Yes." Dietrich wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. "Yes, of course."

They stepped behind the sandbag wall. Eberhardt held his hand out for the field glasses, then peered through them down Behrenstrasse, to the century-old church with its high steeple, high enough so that a man could stand on the bell platform and see over the Old Chancellery into the garden, to the walkway in front of the blockhouse entrance to the bunker. Many other buildings along the street were in ruin, but the church had so far escaped the explosives. Not this day.

Eberhardt nodded at the RSD man, who pushed the plunger handle. The grind of the small generator inside the box was immediately followed by the roar of dynamite from the church's roof. Smoke and splinters erupted from the base of the bell tower, and the tower sank, then toppled forward. The church's roof line snagged the spire, flipping it so it fell top-first. The tower landed on the cobblestones, crashing and falling in on itself, trailing smoke and bits of debris and raising dust, quickly obscuring itself, its bell tolling a last mournful note. The bell tower had become a trifling scrap of rubble in a city that was little else.

Dietrich and Eberhardt rose from behind the sandbags, splinters of the tower still landing all around. Eberhardt said, "I wish we could have just posted a squadron of my men at that church, and so spared the bell tower."

The detective replied, "Cray might have gotten by them, killing some, maybe."

Eberhardt sighed wearily.

"We can't cover every single firing site Cray might use."

"Of course."

A gleam entered Dietrich's faded blue eyes. "But we can cover two or three."

The RSD general nodded.

And Dietrich added with relish, "And then maybe once—just once— Jack Cray will appear where we want him and when we want him."

15

"You EVER HEARD of her, Egon?" Dietrich asked, his hand on the dashboard, bracing himself. "A Countess Hohenberg?"

"Not that I recall," Detective Haushofer replied. "She's not related to Katrin von Tornitz, then?"

"Not that we can find. I suspect the countess was a friend of Katrin von Tornitz's mother, but that's a guess."

The Mercedes lurched and sank, then bounced up and dipped again as it rolled over rubble on Heuwingstrasse. Dietrich's hat flattened against the car's roof and slid off his head to the seat.

Dietrich's men had started watching the homes of all Katrin von Tornitz's relatives days ago, figuring she and the American might be staying with one of them. They found she had several cousins in Berlin, and some north of the city in Mecklenburg, where the family once owned an estate. The decades had dispersed the family so Berlin detectives had been watching sixteen homes With no luck at any of them.

Heuwingstrasse was a narrow ravine between inclines of rubble, all that remained of the three- and four-story apartment buildings and shops that had once lined the street. It had also been a neighborhood of breweries, and the scent of malt still lingered. This street had been newly ruined, and the scree was still precarious, falling into the street when prompted by gusts of wind. A bulldozer had pushed aside the debris like snow, so smaller hillocks of bricks and boards lined the sidewalk.

Dietrich commented, "We got a break on this."

Haushofer nodded. "We needed a break."

A woman who lived on the floor below the countess happened to be peeking out her door when Katrin von Tornitz was walking up the stairs. She had recognized Katrin from the posters along the street.

"One of those old ladies who monitors the morals of her fellow tenants, I suppose," Haushofer added. He pulled on the steering wheel, and the Mercedes wound around a file cabinet and sofa in the road. A drumroll of rain sounded on the Mercedes's roof. Haushofer leaned forward to wipe his hand against the window. Haushofer's skin had a cloistered pallor. His eyes were red-lined from lack of sleep. His chin was large and uncompromising. The wiper blades beat back and forth.

"Are Cray and Katrin von Tornitz still there, you think?" Haushofer asked.

"The snoop said she hadn't seen them today, so probably not. But I want to talk with the countess." Dietrich stopped himself from rocking back and forth to encourage the car to go faster. "Hurry up, will you?"

Haushofer grinned and pressed the accelerator. The car bounced over a clot of rubble, sending Dietrich against the roof. He held up his hand like a traffic cop, and Haushofer eased the pressure from the gas pedal. The canyon ended at an intersection, and the car drove between low apartment buildings. This portion of Heuwingstrasse had been spared.

Dietrich squinted through the rain. "There's her building. Pull over."

The clouds suddenly parted, revealing the sun. The road began to steam. Dietrich left the car and ran to the door to check for her name on the mailbox. HOHENBERG. He pushed open the door, ran past an empty glass vase on a lamp stand, and began ascending the stairs. He drew his pistol. On the third floor a narrow crack between the door and the frame revealed the snoop's wide eyes. Breathing in gulps, Dietrich climbed to the fourth floor.

The countess's door was open. Dietrich could see into her apartment. Saw a hat stand and an umbrella holder. He stepped nearer, his

Walther up and ready. The old woman was in a chair against the window. Knitting needles were on her lap, and a ball of yarn and a sewing basket at her feet. Scraps of cloth were all around. She was staring through the door at Dietrich, and her mouth was pulled back in a curl
of fear.

Dietrich thought she must be afraid of his pistol, so he moved it behind his leg. He stepped to the door's threshold and leaned forward to peer inside. Nothing but old furniture and pieces of fabric, and uniforms and coats and dresses hanging across a bar. The old woman was a seamstress.

"Countess Hohenberg?"

She croaked piteously, "Please don't hit me."

Dietrich allowed himself a smile, a friendly one, he hoped. "I wouldn't think of it. I'm Detective Inspector Dietrich. I just want a few words with you. May I come in?"

Her face was white. Her eyes were old and leaking, and mirrored a wild fear.

Dietrich stepped inside the apartment. The place smelled of perfume and ironing. "Countess, I'm just a police officer here to have a few words with you. There's no reason to be afraid of me."

Rudolf Koder stepped in from the kitchen. "But she has good reason to be afraid of me."

Dietrich's pistol involuntarily swept to Koder.

The Gestapo agent grinned at the weapon. "We are on the same side, remember?"

Dietrich shoved the Walther into his pants, and only then did he notice Koder was carrying a meat cleaver, a heavy blade on a bone handle.

"Don't hit me again," the countess intoned. "Please."

Koder smiled at her and lifted a palm in a gesture of understanding and sympathy. He said to Dietrich, "She won't answer my questions about the American."

Color rose in Dietrich's face. "How did you find out about this lady?"

A vulpine smile. "We listen to your telephone. I thought you knew that."

Dietrich could see Koder's knuckle imprints on the countess's cheek.

The Gestapo agent said,
"I
know full well Jack Cray slept here last night. He left a pair of socks in a corner of the kitchen, in a bag. One of the socks had blood on it. But the so-called countess here won't tell me where he and Katrin von Tornitz are."

"Maybe I can talk with her." Dietrich sensed movement behind him. He turned to see another Gestapo agent, who had been standing on the stairs up to the next floor. This one's pistol was out, its snout pointed at Dietrich. The Gestapo agents had been expecting Dietrich, had probably been watching him from the countess's window as he arrived.

"She won't say anything. I've already tried to persuade her, but it wasn't enough." Koder brought up the cleaver. "Never let it be said that distaste for a task dissuaded me from my duty."

With speed that belied his banker's manner, he snatched the countess's hand, slapped it against her sewing table, and held it there as he viciously brought down the cleaver. The blade clapped loudly against the tabletop, and two of the countess's fingers fell to the floor where they curled like grubs.

"I must apologize," Koder said to her, still holding her hand. "No doubt that smarts. But maybe it will freshen your memory."

The countess's eyes were wild and white. She moved her jaw but no sound came. Blood dripped from her hand across the table, then fell into her sewing basket.

Dietrich rushed forward. "There's no damned reason to do that. . . ." He brought up his pistol, unsure what he would do with it.

Koder swung the cleaver in a tight arc, catching Dietrich's jaw with the flat of the blade. The detective staggered, then collapsed to his knees, dropping the Walther. A fog of pain blurred Dietrich's view of Koder and the countess. The Gestapo agent again planted her hand on the table. A trill of pain and fear escaped her.

Koder raised the cleaver. It hung in the air, shimmering with reflected light. His voice was as passionless as a cashier's. "The American was here last night, and you know where he and the woman are. Tell me."

Dietrich held up a hand. The pain in his head was echoing back and forth, and his mouth was woolly. His words were chopped with suffering. "Don't.. . don't." He tried to rise from his knees.

Koder glanced over his shoulder. His brows approached each other a trifle, a man irritated at a minor interruption. He dipped his chin at the agent in the doorway, who slammed the butt of his pistol into the detective's head. Dietrich pitched into a black void.

An age passed, or perhaps only a minute. The veil of darkness lifted in fits and starts, allowing Dietrich vague and puzzling glimpses of the countess's apartment as seen from the rug. Dietrich blinked, and that tiny motion sent a bolt of pain from his eyes back across his head and down his neck. He groaned, a sound that barely escaped his lips. He tried to push himself up from the carpet, but nausea surged from his belly into his throat, and he sank back to the floor.

He coughed raggedly, and again tried to rise, but his legs would not hold him, so he rolled to his seat. His head pumped agony down his neck and into his shoulders. The countess—several countesses—drifted in front of him. Her sewing basket and table shifted before him, and all of it was red. He dragged a hand over his eyes. The red haze contracted and swelled with each of his heartbeats, then began to fade. He blinked several times, and the room came together.

The countess's fingers lay across the floor like spilled cartridges. Dietrich's vision still was not good enough to count them, but he trusted the Gestapo to finish a job, and there would be ten of them lying there. The countess was still sitting in her sewing chair Her hands hung down on each side of the armrests, the frayed stumps of her fingers dripping blood like rows of little spigots.

A hand found Dietrich's shoulder. Egon Haushofer asked fearfully, "Inspector, can you stand?"

Dietrich grunted a reply.

Haushofer pulled on Dietrich's arm, wrestling him to his feet. "Take it easy, Inspector. I'll get you to a hospital. Are you all right?"

"No, hell no, I'm not all right." Dietrich tried to stay on his feet, but he swayed into Haushofer, who pushed him back to standing. The floor seemed to be rolling like the deck of a ship. Dietrich palpated his head, and brought away blood. His eyes found the countess's seamed face. Her old and leaky eyes were open, and stared at Dietrich in the sightless reproach of death. A clean, perfectly symmetrical bullet hole was centered in her forehead. Her brains were gray and scrambled and seeping down the back of her chair.