Five Past Midnight (45 page)

The sergeant let it warm up for the prescribed sixty seconds before pulling the clutch lever that engaged the belt to the first diesel engine, which began a low grinding. In a moment the diesel would be warm enough to run without the aid of the starter engine.

Kahr withdrew a service knife from the desk drawer, then pulled the mattress from its cot onto the floor. He stabbed into the mattress and raked the ticking with the blade, then again and again, shredding it, his arms throwing outsized shadows on the pool of light from the flashlight. He lay the knife aside to tug out the stuffing, all of it, until the mattress cover was limp.

He interrupted himself to disengage the starter motor. The diesel hummed satisfactorily. He pressed the kill button on the starter engine and threw the main switch. The overhead bulta flickered on in the room, and throughout the bunker, not as brightly as with outside power, but adequately.

The sergeant carried the mattress wadding the few steps to the second generator, this one not running. He put most of the wadding to one side, but retained a handful. He lifted his helmet from the desk. The fuel line was interrupted by a drain valve near the filter. He held the upside-down helmet under the valve, then opened the line. A thin stream of diesel oil fell into the helmet. Kahr dropped the stuffing into the helmet, and let the fuel soak the fabric. When it was saturated, he put it aside on the floor and dipped another tuft of wadding into the diesel. After a few moments he had soaked all of the fabric, and it lay on the floor, oozing fuel.

The lightbulbs abruptly regained their full brightness, and then a buzzer at the control panel indicated power had been restored to the bunker. Normally, Sergeant Kahr would now shut down the diesel generator. This time he left the big machine — all green and brass and glorious — droning along.

He looked at his watch. The room continued to twitch and ripple as the earth carried bomb shock waves to the bunker. He was to wait five minutes from the first blasts. A few more seconds. The entry buzzer sounded with the correct sequence. Two, one, one. Kahr ignored it. The canaries sang unknowingly.

Another glance at his watch. At the control panel he threw five switches, each engaging an electric motor that closed a gate in the ventilation system. After a few seconds signal lights on the panel indicated all five gates had worked. Instead of bringing in fresh air, his system was now recycling old air, taking it out of the bunker, circulating it through his pipes, and returning it again to the bunker. If Kahr were to do no more, and if the air purification system remained off, it would be several moments before occupants of the bunker noticed that their air was becoming warm and foul.

But he had more to do. He opened a service gate on one of the green pipes, then pushed wads of the damp and reeking mattress stuffing into the pipe. He compressed them a bit, making sure the wet wads were not entirely blocking the pipe. Then he opened another green gate, and stuffed another wad of diesel-impregnated fabric into it. He repeated the procedure nine more times, until each green pipe contained his preparations.

He unbuttoned his pants and yanked on the matchbox. He grimaced as hairs came away with the tape. He opened the box to fish out a match. Again he checked his wristwatch. The time had come. He struck the match against the box, and it flared to life. He pushed the small flame into the opening of a green pipe until it was against the fuel-soaked wad. The material caught fire. He quickly closed the gate, trapping the fire inside the pipe. It would burn slowly until it had new air.

He set another clump of fabric on fire in a second pipe, then flicked his hand to extinguish the match when it began to cook his fingers. He tossed it aside and lit another, and in the next few minutes set all the wadding on fire.

Next, Sergeant Kahr engaged the fans, but at a low speed, not so fast as to extinguish the pipe fires, but enough to move the black diesel smoke from his fabric fires through the system and into the bunker. He pulled his gas mask from its box and put it over his head.

And now he waited. The entrance buzzer sounded again, and he heard a muffled, "Sergeant Kahr. Open the door."

But still he waited, listening to the fans as they filled the bunker with smoke. Black haze began pouring into his room through the grates. Once again up came his wristwatch. Five minutes more, and he would turn his attention to the green pipes. He sank into his chair and glanced at the bags of flour. Pounding at the door became louder. "Sergeant Kahr." One voice, then three voices, all yelling his name. Fists beat on the metal door and the buzzer sounded again and again. He waited.

20

THE BOMBERS had come from the northwest, then wheeled over the Havel River, and had followed its tributary, the Spree, into the center of Berlin. The city offered a bomber pilot's dream: unmistakable landmarks close to the target. Dead center in the vast expanse of the Tier- garten was the Victory Monument, and at the northwest corner of the Tiergarten was the burned-out Reichstag and, just south, the Brandenburg Gate. These structures stood out like beacons. The target—the government quarter—lay at the east end of the Tiergarten, and the route to the quarter was as clear as the creases on a B-24 navigator's palm.

The bombing run was unusual for the Americans in the spring of 1945. They came in low—at two thousand feet, unheard of for B-24s— and they came with only twenty planes. And these twenty planes aligned themselves like ships of the line, rather than in their box formation. They roared over the Reichstag and over Joseph Goebbeb's home and across Unter den Linden, right into the Mitte between Wihelm- strasse and Mauerstrasse, precisely on target, bomb bays open and sticks falling.

A swath of chaos and destruction on the ground chased the planes' shadows. Upper Wilhelmstrasse buckled and then turned over as if by a giant plow. The Science and Education Ministry disappeared in a cloud of dust and fragments. The Justice Ministry received two bombs through its roof, and every window and door blew out in bursts of fragments, followed by its front wall, the stones crashing down onto Wilhelmstrasse.

On Mauerstrasse the Paris Restaurant ceased to exist in a white flash, nothing remaining larger than twisted forks. The House of Furniture also vanished, leaving only a crater filled with furniture splinters and shiny brass drawer handles. On Wilhelmplatz a water main was exposed, and torrents of water swept across the plaza toward the Chancellery. The walls of the Chamber of Culture cascaded to the street, and the floors sank one on another like spoons placed in a drawer. The Finance Ministry was hit for the second time in the war. Half of the building was blown out onto Kaiserhofstrasse, and fire swept through the remaining half, fueled by rows of document-filled filing cabinets. The enormous Postal Ministry building was instantly transformed into a knot of wreckage. Hotels and shops and apartments were shaken or blown or vacuumed apart, and then fire swept into the remains.

The earth lurched and reeled. Shock waves sped through the ground like a shaken blanket. Superheated air swept along the street, yanking off awnings and signs, sucking out windows, and carrying deadly debris. Power lines collapsed and lay across the street, sparking and hissing. Automobiles were tossed about like windblown leaves. Cobblestones and bricks rained down. Some light poles were bent double, others were ripped from the ground. The iron picket fence with its gilded spikes that had protected the Propaganda Ministry flew through the air like spears. Timbers and pipes and masonry shrieked and groaned. Ribbentrop's Foreign Office—just next to the Reich Chancellery—was torn in two. And just south of the Chancellery, the Transportation Ministry suffered three direct hits, gutting the building. The trees on Kaiserhofplatz—opposite the Vossstrasse motor entrance to the Chancellery—were stripped of their new spring leaves.

Then the planes were gone and the bombs had spent their fury. An eerie quiet settled over the area, broken only by the crackle of fire and the occasional beam or post giving way. Scents of cordite and sewage and plaster dust and newly turned dirt were carried away from the target area by the wind.

Berliners hiding belowground could not have known then of the careful placing of the bombs. Ruin had been vast in the Mitte, but not one bomb had sailed into the Reich Chancellery or its garden.

They were left alone. They were left for Jack Cray.

21

GENERAL EBERHARDT ran up the steps from the bomb cellar below the Air Ministry, four RSD men behind him. They emerged at a service entrance on Leipziger Strasse. They sprinted east along the street toward the intersection, dodging the new debris and craters. Eberhardt carried a radio in one hand and a pistol in the other. His troops were armed with Schmeissers and rifles. The air contained the sharp odor of high-explosive residue. The all clear had not yet sounded, and no one else was on the street. Eberhardt knew another team would be closing in on the Teller Building from the other direction, further east on Leipziger Strasse.

Eberhardt personally could cover only one of the five potential firing sites, as he well knew. But he prayed Jack Cray would choose this one, the six-story office building with a view of the Chancellery's motor court entrance. This building was Eberhardt's best guess, the most likely of the five sites, the one Eberhardt would choose were he up to such business. He wanted to be the one to waylay the American commando.

With a combat team, Otto Dietrich was covering another site, and was hoping with a fervor equal to Eberhardt's that his—Dietrich's—spot would be chosen by Cray. Because of the knife at his throat near Katrin von Tornitz's home, Dietrich had gained an animosity toward the American unusual in someone as professional as he was. Eberhardt had humorously chided Dietrich about it, but the detective would not be amused.

At first Eberhardt's plan was to hide in the Teller Building's cellar during the bombing run. Then he determined that was probably where Cray would keep himself safe—-presuming this building was his firing site—and so the general had chosen the nearby Air Ministry. And now he had to hurry. He stung his ankle on a brick, but kept running, turning left and right through a maze of overturned automobiles and skirting a new crater at the intersection of Wilhelmstrasse and Kaiserhofstrasse. He passed a human torso—no head, no legs—belonging to someone who had risked that the bombers would not hit the government quarter today. Glass shards lay over the street like dew on grass.

An RSD sergeant from the other team was already at the Teller Building's front door. He held his submachine gun like he knew how to use it. It was not for a general to be the first through the door, and Eber- hardt knew it and so did his men. He did not have their proficiency, which he had made sure was unequaled in the German services. When Eberhardt nodded, the RSD troops rushed into the building and began up the stairs, their weapons in front of them. The rear of the building— which was a wall shared with the neighboring restaurant—had been exposed by the bomb that ruined the restaurant, explaining the scent of horse stew in the Teller Building's lobby.

Eberhardt was breathing through his open mouth when he reached the sixth floor. His men—younger and more fit—were already inside the room that overlooked the Chancellery's motor entrance. The general swore to himself when he saw they were milling about, their weapons at ease. Desks and filing cabinets filled the room. He had been wrong. Cray had chosen another site. Other RSD men were searching the rest of the floor. Through the window Eberhardt could see the Chancellery's motor entrance three blocks away.

He put the handset to his mouth and dispensed with radio protocol. "This is Eberhardt. Anything at number two?"

A crackling voice. "No, sir. Nobody."

Eberhardt demanded, "Number three?"

A different voice, made weak by the reception. "Nothing, sir."

He called out the other numbers, each a potential firing site, his scowl deepening as each team reported seeing nothing.

Then one of his soldiers entered the room, holding a scoped sniper's rifle, a Mauser with a thick barrel. Eberhardt groaned, but only to himself.

"I found the rifle two rooms down, sir. This was with it." The soldier handed Eberhardt a piece of paper.

The general read aloud, " 'You can have this rifle back. I won't be needing it.'"

And then—his face crimsoning—General Eberhardt understood why Dietrich had taken a personal dislike to Jack Cray. And Eberhardt knew he and Dietrich had been wrong—perfectly and wildly wrong— about Cray's plan.

22

THE INTERCOM on Sergeant's Kahr's desk was buzzing and the telephone there was ringing and it sounded as if SS guards were working on the steel door with a pry. Kahr had helped design the door, and he knew it would hold for the few more minutes he needed. Black smoke was coming through the ventilator grates, the same smoke that was pouring into all rooms of the bunker, and it was getting thicker.

Kahr coughed into his mask. The two filter canisters hung almost to his belly. With levers he engaged the fan box that pushed air through tbe red system. He played with a dial until the fan was moving air at half capacity. Then he twisted the valves on the water pipes, closing down the bunker's sprinkler system.

He opened a grate over the uppermost red pipe on the wall. Air flowed through the pipe in a steady stream, but it too was smoky because the red backup system was drawing air from the bunker and returning it to the same place. Kahr ripped open a flour sack, glanced for the last time at his wristwatch, and then started pouring flour into the pipe. It fell in a steady stream, and was just as quickly sucked away along the pipe. After only a few seconds his first bag was empty. He lifted the second bag, balanced it on his knee to yank out the thread, and spilled its contents into the pipe. And then the third bag, then the fourth, pouring steadily, the white powder disappearing down the pipe. He emptied the last bag. And now the flour began to drift back into his generator- ventilator room through the air ducts.