Five Past Midnight (8 page)

Although Heinrich Himmler often acted otherwise, the RSD was a separate Reich agency, subordinate only to the Führer himself. Gestapo leader Heinrich Müller, known as Gestapo Müller, had offered the RSD space in the Gestapo's office on Prinz Albrecht Strasse. Eberhardt might have accepted the kindness had he been able to tolerate being in the same building as Gestapo Müller, whom the RSD chief viewed with equal amounts of revulsion and fear. So Eberhardt made do with the makeshift office. His red mahogany desk had been moved just ahead of the Unter den Linden fire, and one leg was singed. An electric cord hung from the ceiling to a desk lamp. Six file cabinets lined a wall. Two telephones were in front of him, one with an outside line and the other with a direct connection to the RSD's small office in the New Reich Chancellery basement. On the wall behind him was a portrait of the Führer.

The closest General Eberhardt had ever been to suffering an apoplectic fit was in May 1942 during a midnight conference at Wolf s Lair, the Führer's military headquarters in East Prussia, when Hitler had said over the rim of his glass of mineral water, "I owe my life not to the police but to pure chance." Eberhardt had purpled and gripped the table in anger. He had opened his mouth but a hard glance from General Jodl had throttled him. Only one person in that room was allowed to rage, and it certainly was not Eberhardt. But the general still remembered the words in acid detail. Hitler's casual slight had wounded him. Eberhardt's RSD protected the Führer. Since the beginning of the war, the RSD had thwarted no less than eighteen credible attempts on Hitler's life.

The largest Allied bombing raid on Berlin of the war — over two thousand planes — had occurred the night before. The government quarter had not been hit, but ash was building up on Eberhardt's window ledges like snow. Sirens had been sounding all day.

Eberhardt's face was too narrow for his features, and his mouth and nose and eyes crowded it. In the past few years his mouth had become pinched and his suspicious eyes had moved even closer together, a face rearranged by his vast responsibilities. Eberhardt never removed his gray uniform jacket while on duty, not even during Berlin's sweltering summer days. High collars pressed his neck. On his jacket was the Golden Honor Badge, indicating he was among the first 100,000 Party members.

Eberhardt studied a photograph of the POW who had escaped from Oflag IV C at Colditz that afternoon. The photo had been taken on the prisoner's admission to Colditz. The POW stared back at him, not with the apprehension and exhaustion always displayed in camp admission photographs but with a studied disdain. The prisoner's mouth was slightly arched, and his eyebrows were lifted as if he were amused. From the black-and-white photo Eberhardt could not tell the prisoner's eye color, but the man had fair skin and short blond hair. His jaw was aggressive, and he had pug ears. A boxer's face. Each time Eberhardt returned to the photo, the prisoner's countenance seemed to have shifted slightly, from one issuing a challenge to one broadcasting enormous competence to one about to laugh. It was a chameleon's face, changing even in the stillness of the photograph.

Colditz's commandant, Colonel Janssen, had reported the escape an hour earlier to General Hermann Reinecke, who was in charge of the Armed Forces General Office (AWA) a division within OKW that had authority over prisoners of war. If more than five POWs escaped from a camp, or if only one escaped from Colditz, a national alert was issued, and Eberhardt's RSD and many other Reich organizations were notified. Copies of all prisoners' admission photographs were on file at the RSD.

General Eberhardt had just spoken with the Colditz commandant by telephone. Colonel Janssen had not determined how it had occurred, but he had apparently buried a man alive in the castle cemetery. Janssen was perhaps Germany's leading expert on POW escapes, and Colditz Castle had an escape museum toured by POW administrators from throughout the Reich. Nevertheless, Janssen and his experienced
Lageroffizier
Lieutenant Heydekampf had been fooled. Janssen had sworn again and again to Eberhardt that the prisoner had been dead when taken in a cart to the castle's cemetery.

After the Colditz prisoners and guards at the graveside service had gone back to the castle, the minister who had said words over the grave had begun searching for edible portions of apples on the ground at the orchard next to the cemetery. The minister saw the POW emerge from his grave, like a demon from the center of the earth. According to Colonel Janssen, the minister was still trembling from the ordeal.

Eberhardt idly scratched his chin, still staring at the POW's photograph. The general was suspicious of everything untoward. There had been few escape attempts from POW camps in Germany for the past half year. Eberhardt was aware of General Eisenhower's order to POWs to remain in their camps. The POWs were following the directive. Yet today a POW escaped from Colditz. The method of his ruse was not yet known, but clearly it was a plan unique in POW administration history. Was it possible that larger forces — those outside the Colditz wards — had ordered the escape ?

And this POW was not the usual inmate. He seemed to have surrounded himself in mystery, telling neither the guards nor his fellow prisoners anything about himself. Even his name was unknown. All that Janssen knew of him was that he had been a frenzied escaper. And he had courageously rushed into a burning shed to rescue the castle's
Lageroffizier.

The general's deputy, Major Gustav Busse, came to the office door. Busse was also wearing his uniform overcoat. He held a yellow TDX sheet. "Sir, AWA has just sent another report. The Colditz POW was spotted at Bohlen, a village ten kilometers north of Colditz. An elderly woman found him in her house, eating pastry."

General Eberhardt had never heard of the town of Bohlen. "You say north of Colditz? North?"

"Yes, sir"

American and British and Canadian POWs were incarcerated in the eastern parts of the Reich to make their potential escape routes longer So these escapees, from camps in Saxony and Thunngia and Brandenburg, usually headed east toward the Soviet line. It was known among POWs that the Red Army would gladly assist them in getting home and, in fact, treated them as honored guests, sating them with brandy and caviar. An Allied escape organization in Odessa sent the escapees to Leningrad, then Stockholm. Then why had this Colditz escapee journeyed north toward the heart of the Reich, not east?

"There's more, General," Major Busse glanced at the TDX. "It seems the old lady and the POW had something of a talk. She said the POW belongs to an American army unit called the Rangers."

"Rangers?" Two deep clefts formed between Eberhardt's brows. "That unit climbed the cliff at Pomte-du-Hoc, on the Normandy coast last June."

"And this one claims to have sunk the submarine in the pen at Lonent Remember that? Our office was alerted about that sabotage."

"Could the POW have been lying to impress the old lady?"

Busse added, "He knew the submarine was the
U-495
and that it was captained by Rolf Strenka."

"Why is this American Ranger chatting with an elderly German lady, telling her this?"

Busse shrugged. "She was charmed by him, sounds like So maybe he's just talkative and friendly and a bit of a braggart. You know how Americans are."

"I've never met one," Eberhardt said dryly "And neither have you And why is this American escaping when the war — pardon the treasonable defeatism — is weeks or months from ending?"

"I don't know, sir."

The general's expression shifted as he glanced again at the POWs photograph. Eberhardt was the Führer's last shield against his enemies. Adolf Hitler's very life testified to the general's skill. Eberhardt had not lasted for twelve years as Hitler's personal security chief by being tentative. His method — the means by which he had kept the Führer alive all those years — was simple: apply overwhelming force immediately to the slightest of suspicious circumstances. And the general had learned to heed his hunches.

He held out the photograph to Major Busse. "I want this enlarged, then I want five thousand copies made. Do it immediately." Busse's eyebrows climbed his head. "Five thousand, sir?" Eberhardt dipped his chin. "Our enemies are up to something with this POW. So I'm going to flush him out."

10

OTTO DIETRICH woke to the rasp of the key. He was on the metal cot, rolled into a ball under the frayed blanket. He had become attuned to the rhythm of Lehrterstrasse Prison. The sound at his cell door was out of turn. He pushed himself to his feet and brought his wristwatch up. It was an hour past noon. He had been to the blade and back an hour before. Now they were coming for him again. The precious pill was in his hand He put it under his tongue so they wouldn't find it. Dietrich had promised the doctor he would wait until he heard about Maria But now the detective did not know if he had the strength to wait. "This is against your rules," he said meekly as the door opened. "I've been to the guillotine once today."

The executioner, Sergeant Winge, entered the cell carrying two buckets of water. A towel was draped over his shoulder He worked his dappled red face into a smile. "You have an appointment. You need to get ready."

Agent Koder came next. He was holding a pair of pants, a shirt, and a leather bag. His face was hard with thought. "This is unprecedented, Sergeant. There are no regulations governing such things."

"Take your clothes off," Winge ordered.

Dietrich surprised himself by finding a reserve of dignity. "I'm not going naked to the guillotine."

The sergeant's pudding face lightened even more. "Our plumbing is out and the shower stalls don't work. So I'm going to give you a shower like we did in the trenches thirty years ago. The bucket brigade." He lowered one bucket to the stones.

Rudolf Koder's voice was bitter. "You are to go to the Prinz Albrecht Strasse headquarters as soon as possible. Would you know why?"

Dietrich removed his ragged shirt and pants. He pulled off his shoes and socks and his shredded underwear. He stood nude in the middle of the cell, his arms away from his sides. The pill was still under his tongue.

The executioner swung a bucket. Icy water doused Dietrich from face to toes. Then the sergeant gave him the towel. He lifted the other bucket to the cot.

"Here's a razor and soap and scissors," Winge said. He took the bag from Koder and put it on the cot. "You'll find shoes to fit you in this bag, along with your wallet, cop's ID, and your bridgework."

"I don't understand why I was not consulted by General Müller," the Gestapo agent complained, lowering the clothes he was carrying to the cot. "He knows I'm your case agent."

Dietrich tried to cut his beard with the scissors.

The sergeant said, "Your hands are shaking so badly you're going to stab yourself." He took the scissors and quickly cut back the beard to stubble, letting the hair fall to the stones. Then he dampened an edge of towel, rubbed soap on it, and worked it into a foam with his fingers. He dabbed the soap lather on Dietrich's face.

"My father was a barber — did I ever tell you?" the executioner asked. "I was going to enter the trade, but I found the army first. So instead of cutting off hair, I cut off heads. Funny how life works."

The sergeant rapidly shaved Dietrich, dipping the straight razor into the bucket several times. Then he wiped the detective's face with the towel. He stepped back to admire his work.

"Good as new," Winge said proudly.

Dietrich inserted his bridge, and snapped his jaw several times to test it. He was too weak to stand on one leg so he leaned into the sergeant to pull the pants on. His fingers shook, so the sergeant buttoned his shirt. Winge tried tying Dietrich's tie from the front but finally stepped behind him to knot it correctly. Dietrich pulled on the coat. Nothing quite like him. Then the sergeant pulled Dietrich's pistol — a Walther — from the bag and passed it to him. Dietrich shoved it into his belt. He had never determined how to make a shoulder holster comfortable.

Koder and the sergeant led him from the cell, along the dim hallway, through a gate manned by a guard, then up the stairs to the main floor. When they stepped through the doors, Dietrich had to bring his hands to his eyes. He had not been aboveground for three months. Daylight was blinding. The sergeant grabbed his elbow to lead him across the sidewalk to a waiting car.

Koder's face registered surprise at the automobile, a 7 7-liter supercharged olive-green Mercedes with silver swastika medallions above its fenders. He exclaimed, "General Muller's car!"

Sergeant Winge opened the door. Dietrich tried to lower himself to the seat, but his legs buckled. Winge caught him and gently placed him on the seat.

Executioner Winge said, "I like my work, Inspector, but not enough to hope to see you again." He closed the Mercedes's door.

Dietrich had smelled nothing but mold and rot and his own fear for months, and the limousine's odor of leather and cigars was intoxicating. He still could not open his eyes. He was thrown against the seat back when the car pulled away from the prison.

He blinked rapidly, his eyes slowly adjusting. He saw the black cap of an SS driver. The detective turned to the window. The car was passing through a valley of rubble that rose steeply on both sides. Dietrich could see nothing but debris, hills high enough to cast the street in shadows. At an intersection the car slowed for a tram pulled by a horse.

When he was sure the driver was not examining him in the rearview mirror, Dietrich spit out the pill and put it into his pants pocket. Then he asked, "What's that new trolley?"

"With all the wreckage many streets are too narrow for cars and trucks. So we've brought narrow-gauge locomotives and cars from the Ruhr mining valleys, and laid the tracks for them." The SS driver spoke pleasantly, almost in a rehearsed manner, as if he frequently gave tours to visiting dignitaries. "If all the rubble in Berlin were put in one pile, it would be taller than the tallest of the Harz Mountains, the Brocken, eleven hundred forty meters."