Five Past Midnight (6 page)

Heydekampf rolled the body over.

"Damn," he said softly. "Damn it to hell. It's the crazy American."

Blood was coming from the American's ears, which Heydekampf knew from his Great War service was evidence of a fractured skull. The blood was gathering at the American's neck, staining his coat and flowing onto the ground. One of the American's eyes was blackened and filling with blood. A ruptured eye socket. The POW's arm must have crashed into the ground first, because it projected behind his shoulder at a twisted, unnatural angle. The American lay on the cobblestones like a rag doll.

Commandant Janssen and Group Captain Hornsby came to the front of the crowd.

Heydekampf opened the suitcase. A spare sweater was inside, along with ration tins containing escape fudge, a treacly molasses, raisin, and chocolate mix made by the POWs for cross-country journeys.

Heydekampf reached for the POWs wrist. He waited a long moment with the American's wrist between his finger and thumb before he announced, "No pulse. He's dead."

"Of course he's dead, Lieutenant," Group Captain Hornsby said bitterly. "He fell five bloody stories and hit your goddamn stone courtyard."

A sentry on the catwalk over the yard gate called out, "Halt. Hands up."

Heydekampf spun to the new sound. The guard had his rifle at his shoulder, aimed at the roof above the Saalhaus. Heydekampf moved quickly through the crowd and across the yard almost to the chapel door across from the Saalhaus, where he could see to the roof.

POW Burke was hanging from the ridge line of the roof with one hand. A suitcase was in his other hand. His feet were scrabbling for purchase. He managed to catch the peak with a heel, and he levered himself to a sitting position. A track of missing moss indicated where the American's body had slid down the roof before pitching into space.

Burke raised his free hand and yelled,
"Schiessen Sie nicht. Ich ergebe mich."

Don't shoot. I give myself up. It was a lifesaving phrase memorized in German by all would-be escapers.

Heydekampf waved at three guards. "Go get POW Burke from the roof." He returned to the Saalhaus wall.

Colonel Janssen was kneeling next to the American's body. He, too, was searching for a pulse, his hand wrapped around the POWs other wrist. He exhaled heavily. ''He's dead."

"Scheisse,"
Heydekampf muttered.

Dabbing at a tear, Ulster Rifleman David Davis turned away. The American had been a good sport, someone to enliven an evening with a story or two. Ike and Monty were coming as fast as they could, but the war had not ended quickly enough for the American.

Janssen ordered a nearby guard, "Get a bag from the infirmary."

Heydekampf moved along the crowd of POWs to the senior allied officer. "Your fight over the bagpipes was a ruse, was it not, Captain Hornsby? A little choreography to distract my guards?"

Hornsby said nothing.

Anger clipped Heydekampf's words. "You see what has resulted from your game? A good soldier is dead, thanks to your escape pranks. You live with that for a while." The German's voice carried emotion he could not control. "And why in the world would you try to free this man when your troops are days or weeks away? You can hear your own guns every day as well as I can."

Commandant Janssen also addressed the SAO. "Tell me what you saw, Captain Hornsby."

Hornsby stuck his chin out.

"I am asking you if you witnessed any German action in this matter. Any brutality? Any involvement by a guard?"

Hornsby's voice was brittle with contempt. "Protecting your record, Colonel? Hoping none of us will testify at a war crimes trial in a few months?"

"You have been treated as civilly as possible by me and my staff. You know that and so do I. Now 1 demand that you clarify in front of these British and American and German witnesses what was seen here."

The RAF officer looked along the line of the prisoners. "I didn't see anything untoward," he admitted. "Anybody else see anything?"

The prisoners murmured they had not.

"Good." The commandant walked rapidly between the POWs across the yard toward the underpass to the German yard.

Lieutenant Heydekampf said quietly, "We'll bury him today, Group Captain Hornsby. I will issue some wood and white paint from the shop if you will have one of your men construct a cross."

Heydekampf glanced again at the American, a pile of broken bones, a parody of a human. The lieutenant began toward the gate, stepping through the crowd of POWs. But he was brought up by David Davis, who would not get out of the German officer's way.

Davis glared at the German, then slowly drew a finger across his own throat.

Heydekampf shuddered. He brushed past the POW and hurried toward the shop.

7

SS PRIVATE BRUNO PATZER knew the garden had once been a lovely atrium, with fountains, a tea pavilion, and a greenhouse full of hyacinths and jasmine, the blossoms the Führer preferred on his table. The garden would have offered little solace on this bitter night, though, even if bombs had not destroyed it. The private shuffled his feet, trying to keep warm. His post was the camouflaged guard tower that had a clear view of the entire Reich Chancellery garden. His sentry box was fifteen feet above the ground. It was unheated, but a roof was over his head. The day had been unusually cold for April, and now rain was falling heavily.

It was nearing ten o'clock in the evening. Landscaping lights had once illuminated the cherry and linden trees, boxwood hedges, and azaleas, but the lights were subject to blackout regulations. A wind was picking up, pushing the rain sideways onto Patzer. The Führer had personally designed a yellow-and-white standard, and earlier in the war it had flapped on its pole above the New Chancellery whenever he was in Berlin. Now that enemy armies were near, the standard never flew.

Patzer heard footsteps in the gravel. He straightened his back and brought his rifle to the ready. A conversation carried to him on the wind.

"The Führer should go at once. There is no sense remaining."

Patzer recognized the voice as that of the Führer's secretary, a stocky bulldog of a man named Bormann. The private knew nothing about the secretary, not even whether he held a rank in the military or the Party. He wore no insignia on his ill-fitting brown uniform. Patzer had been told by his captain to stay out of Bormann's way, but the captain had not clarified his warning. Bormann was walking with Dr. Morell, the Führer's physician. They made their way toward the blockhouse.

Private Patzer shifted his hands, trying to keep his cold fingers away from the colder steel of his Mauser, gripping instead its wooden stock. He blew air into a hand. Christ, it was frigid in the watchtower, standing still, hour after hour. The Reich Chancellery was across the garden from Patzer. The facade on Vossstrasse was intact, but Patzer's view was of the back of the vast building, and it had been heavily damaged by bombs. From his watchtower perch most of Private Patzer's view was ruin. The greenhouses had been destroyed by a bomb blast, and glass splinters littered the garden. Uprooted trees and broken statuary seemed to have been tossed casually about. The wooden cistern containing water for fire fighting had been repeatedly repaired by the air-raid wardens, and was still on its stand. A wandering trench had recently been dug in the garden for the guards to jump into during the Allied bombings. A cement mixer had been abandoned near the shattered greenhouse, and had been there, forgotten, ever since Patzer was first assigned to the Chancellery. The largest structure in the garden was the blockhouse, a thirty- foot cube of concrete near the rear of the Old Chancellery. The blockhouse's steel door led to the Führer's bunker. The private had never been through that door.

Patzer smiled to himself. Two LSSAH men—members of the Lieb- standarte-SS Adolf Hitler, an elite SS bodyguard unit—were stationed at the door, and even that pompous ass General Keitel was asked for his pass each time he entered the bunker.

From his tower Patzer could also see the damaged Foreign Ministry's office across Wilhelmstrasse. The ministry's windows overlooked the garden and had been boarded up. The SS patrolled the vacant building, insuring that no one would be able to find a window looking into the garden. Silhouetted against the purple sky was an antiaircraft battery on top of the New Chancellery. The fifteen-man crew of No. 1 Flak Division were behind their weapons at the division's duty station.

SS Private Patzer was one of fifteen guards on duty in the garden. Two SS patrols were responsible for the east and west sections. An additional guard, called the
Hundführer,
roamed the western portion near the blockhouse with a German shepherd.

The private was proud of his service in the Liebstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler. LSSAH soldiers took a personal oath of obedience to the Führer, and on that day two years ago when Private Patzer had taken his oath, Hitler had walked down the line of soldiers, shaking each hand and looking into each pair of eyes. When the Führer reached him, it was the greatest moment of Patzer's life. Patzer and other soldiers had sworn they could see a halo around Hitler's head. Although the Führer had not spoken to him that day or any day since, Patzer was as close to the German savior as he was to his mother. He loved the man. And knowing where Hitler was—in the Chancellery or the bunker or the garden— when few in Berlin had any idea, fed the familiarity. The guards referred to Hitler as Grofaz, short for
Grassier Feldherr allerZeiten
(the greatest general of all time), and even with the Soviet barbarians on the Oder and their American, Canadian, and British dupes marching into central Germany, there was not a trace of irony or mockery in the guards' voices when they used the nickname.

A guard at the blockhouse blew a bosun's whistle. Patzer's thoughts instantly returned to the garden. He quickly squared his helmet and his belt, and brought his Mauser in line in front of him. He cleared his throat, not that he would have occasion in the next few minutes to use his voice But, perhaps, someday.

The blockhouse guards jerked themselves to a rigid attention, a snap that would have broken most backbones. From the black doorway, emerging slowly, his figure congealing out of the darkness, walked the Führer. Beside him was Blondi, his white Alsatian. The dog leaped to the end of his leash, eager for the trees and bushes of the garden. Hitler let the animal lead him along the gravel path. The Führer was wearing a gray greatcoat, a scarf, black gloves, and a field-gray peaked cap.

He moved slowly, cautiously, as if testing each step. Patzer wanted to weep for the man. The private had seen Hitler walk up the long flight of steps to the podium at the 1938 Nuremberg SS rally. Now Hitler wobbled like a drunken sailor when walking, and lurched to the right with each step. He used his right hand to both grip the dog's leash and to hold his dead left arm close to his body. In better days Patzer had seen him guide Blondi over a two-meter wooden wall, then up a ladder where the dog would beg for a treat. Hitler kept the treats in his coat pocket. He shuffled along the gravel path In the darkness. Patzer could not see his face, only a small glint off the nickel-rimmed spectacles he always wore except when in front of cameras.

Blondi danced in a circle, almost pulling the Führer off his feet. At the fork in the path the dog pulled Hitler south toward Patzer's tower. The private could see Hitler's breath in the cold air.

Patzer removed his gaze from the man to stare precisely ahead, as ordered when the Führer passed. The private stiffly held his rifle at present arms.

Hitler's awkward footsteps sounded in the gravel, yet closer. Then they stopped. At tense attention, Patzer braved a look down the side of the tower.

The Führer's head was tilted back, and he was peering straight up the tower at Patzer. Even in the dim light Patzer could see the blue eyes. Astounded, the private swayed on his feet and let his mouth drop open. "It's cold up there," Hitler said. "Much too cold for April." Patzer tried to bark out his response as he had been trained Instead, his voice was tremulous. "Yes, my Führer."

"Your hands are wet and are going to get blue."

"Yes, my Führer." A little better. Almost the proper tone of absolute attention, utter subservience, and panting eagerness.

"Here." Hitler peeled off his gloves, juggling the leash between his hands. "Can you catch these?"

"Yes, my Führer." Patzer lowered his rifle.

Hitler tossed the calf gloves skyward. Patzer could catch only one of them. The other fluttered back down to the snow. Blood rushed to the guard's face.

Hitler stepped off the path into the mud to retrieve the glove. "We Germans don't play cricket like our enemies. So you can't blame me for a lame toss."

"No, sir."

Hitler reared back again and launched the glove. Patzer snatched it easily.

"Put them on your hands," Hitler lectured lightly. "Don't stick them into your pocket to keep them for a museum somewhere."

"Thank you, my Führer." Patzer shoved his fingers into the gloves. The rabbit-fur lining still radiated Hitler's warmth. Patzer was giddy with the intimacy.

"And thank you, SS-Private." Hitler tottered off, following his dog, the gravel snapping under them.

Patzer lifted his rifle up again. He breathed deeply of the sweet moment. He had taken his SS oath in the presence of his leader. Now he took another one, in silence, to the Führer's back as Hitler hobbled away. The end of the struggle was coming. If the Führer stayed in Berlin at the Chancellery, Patzer swore he would stay with him to the end, to the very end.

8

THE FARMHOUSE was fifty yards off the road, down a dirt drive. Cray walked toward the house, avoiding ruts and potholes. An apple orchard was to the north, the trees new in their spring leaves. Poles for supporting the apple-laden branches in autumn were stacked alongside the driveway. On the other side of the drive was a moss-covered stone wall that might have been two centuries old.