Read Five Past Midnight Online

Authors: James Thayer

Tags: #Fiction, #General

Five Past Midnight (50 page)

BOOK: Five Past Midnight
9.42Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

The pilot pushed back the side window. "Who is that? I wasn't told about a third man."

"A friend of mine," Cray announced.

Ulrich Kahr climbed through the Skytrain's hatch, then turned to pull up Dietrich. Cray shoved and prodded, and between the two of them and the crewmen Dietrich was put quickly into a flight seat.

The pilot turned to look at them as they strapped themselves in. "I just saw you coldcock that fellow there. You sure he's a friend?"

"He's a pal of mine, all right," Cray said over the engine nose.

The pilot wound up the engine, and the crewmen strapped themselves in, ogling Katrin. The Skytrain began down the runway. It bounced once, then again, and lifted into the air. Within seconds it was over the Brandenburg Gate, where it turned north. Mustangs hovered around it.

Cray looked at Dietrich. The side of the detective's head around his ear was purpling. "Though he might not know it yet."

 

 

28

 

As THE SKYTRAIN approached the airstrip near Witten- berge—field headquarters of the U.S. Ninth Army—Sergeant Kahr began rocking back and forth in his seat, as if that might hurry the plane. The Skytrain sank toward a field of tanks and self-propelled guns and armored cars and a checkerboard of tents, a staging area for the next push west. At the north end of all the equipment was a landing field with mobile AA batteries along its perimeter.

Ulrich Kahr's forehead was pressed against the side window. "I don't see him. Where is he?"

Cray opened and closed his jaw against the increasing air pressure. Otto Dietrich was slumped in his seat, rubbing his temple, looking only at his knees. Katrin was pressing a towel to her head and glaring at Cray. When she had come around, he had told her—with a grin that gave the lie to his words as he spoke them—that a Russian mortar round had blacked her out, and he couldn't just leave her lying there on the runway.

Dozens of pilots and mechanics were at work below. Rows of Mustangs and Thunderbolts lined the field, and trucks and tool carts were between the planes. The Skytrain touched down, then taxied toward the north end of the field, where three soldiers stood, two with M-ls and the third in a tattered Wehrmacht uniform, cramming food from a bowl into his mouth as quickly as he could swallow.

"That's him," Kahr shouted. "That's Max. My God, look how thin he is." Kahr turned in his seat to look at Cray. "You did it, by God. That's my boy there. You sprang him from the Bolshevik camp." Kahr might have been about to add his thanks, but his eyes were abruptly damp, and he could say no more, so he roughly patted Cray's knee. Then he shouldered open the door and leaned out of the plane, gripping a hatch frame until the Skytrain had stopped. He leaped to the ground and sprinted toward his son.

Perhaps Max Kahr had not been told why he had been plucked from a POW camp in Russia and brought to this airfield. Or maybe his hunger was such that he could not force his
gaze
up from his bowl until his father's arms were around him. But then he held his father tightly, still holding the bowl. The American guards smiled.

The air was calm, so the pilot could take off from either direction. He braked the plane into a half circle, then shoved the accelerator knob forward. The Skytrain bumped down the runway until its wheels lost contact with the ground.

Cray looked down as the plane banked north. Sergeant Kahr and his son were still standing next to the field, and still in each other's arms.

 

 

29

 

THE SKYTRAIN was pointed toward the airfield near Eastwell Manor in Kent. Cray could see the rose garden with its trellises to one side of the building, and the topiary bushes and fountains on the long grassy slope behind the manor. The pilot said something into his radio.

"They'll never let it out," Dietrich said abruptly, more to himself. The blood on his pants was dry and caked.

"What?" Cray asked.

"That the Führer was assassinated. It doesn't fit into the legend that he carefully crafted for himself. He told me so himself. He said he couldn't meet his end at the hands of an assassin. So they'll say he committed suicide." Dietrich thought again about the pretty blond woman who shared the Führer's bunker suite. She knew Hitler had died at the hands of an assassin, rather than by noble suicide. Dietrich suspected she would not be allowed to tell the tale, and would never leave the bunker alive.

Cray shrugged. "What're your plans, Inspector? Where you going to go?"

"You mean I'm not a prisoner of war? I'm not going to a POW camp somewhere in England?"

"Why would you become a POW? You're a policeman, not a soldier."

Dietrich said just above the sound of the Skytrain's engines, "Then I'll be a policeman. That's all I know how to do. I'll go back when things have settled down. Maybe work for the occupation forces. They'll need homicide detectives in Berlin after the war."

Cray said, "The war won't have made much difference to murderers
I
suppose."

"And you won't be in Berlin, so it'll be safer."

"I'm going back to Wenatchee, Washington. Ever heard of the place?"

"Only in my file on you."

"I own an apple orchard there," Cray said. "Inherited it from my parents. I've leased it to a neighbor, but I might take it over again. Might try apple-growing."

"You? Growing apples?" Katrin laughed from the seat behind Cray, then winced and gently touched her head. "That's not an image that comes easily to mind."

He turned to her. "Well, I'm sick of all this engineering I've had to do in the army, I'll guarantee you that."

The Skytrain's engine dropped to a purr, and the plane began its gliding approach, flying toward Eastwell Manor's twelve chimneys, descending quickly.

Cray announced to Dietrich, "Katrin is coming with me. To help me out in the orchard. Eat some of my cooking. See what happens."

"What?" From the backseat.

"Come with me to Wenatchee."

"To Wenatchee, Washington. I can't even pronounce the name."

"It's a good idea, it seems to me."

"A stupid idea," she said, but without heat. "I'm a German."

"Germany doesn't exist anymore. It's been destroyed. Everything you ever loved about your country is gone." Cray looked out the window at the reception awaiting them. Three people in suits. No uniforms. He had no idea who they were. An ambulance was also there. He twisted in his seat back to her. "And what else are you going to do, Katrin ? When this plane lands in a few seconds, where do you go?"

"Me, helping you raise apples in rural America?" Katrin laughed again. "That's a crazy notion. Besides, I can just barely tolerate you."

"I grow on people." Cray grinned again. Goddamn that grin. "I can be a pretty good convincer. All we need is a little time together."

"I've already spent a little time with you. It seemed like half a century." But her eyes were pensive. He looked back at her. That optimistic and brash and compelling American face. That beat-up face. Someone who cared for her, even if he was crazy. And an American.

She exhaled suddenly, loudly, her mind running away from her, running into absurd territory. Those wild thoughts, and what they abruptly revealed to her about her heart, had a force that pushed her back into her chair, as if the plane were taking off rather than landing.

The plane touched down on the plowed field, and the ruts grabbed the wheels and guided the Skytrain along. The plane pulled up to the three men waiting for them, and the pilot shut down the engine.

The pilot was first out of the plane, and was immediately surrounded by the men, who were all grinning and who one after another shook his hand. Dietrich followed the pilot out of the hatch.

Cray had a foot on the ladder, about to climb down, but Katrin touched his shoulder. "What kind of apples, did you say?"

NOVELS BY JAMES THAYER

Five Past Midnight

White Star

S-Day: A Memoir of the Invasion of England

Ringer

Pursuit

The Earhart Betrayal The Stettin Secret

The Hess Cross

BOOK: Five Past Midnight
9.42Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Nurse with a Dream by Norrey Ford
Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
Like A Hole In The Head by James Hadley Chase
The Accidental Bride by Jane Feather
Significance by Jo Mazelis
One Night with a Rake (Regency Rakes) by Mia Marlowe, Connie Mason
Taming the Rake by Monica McCarty
The Perilous Sea by Sherry Thomas