The Good German (55 page)

And then it gave. Either the radiator handle or the other buckle, impossible to tell which, broke off, and he plunged with the belt, his feet hitting the pipe and bouncing off, his hands reaching out for anything on the wall until they met the pipe and clutched, stopping his body with a wrench of his shoulders. He held on, his body jerking, trying to stop his legs from flailing, and then he was going lower again, the pipe bending, weakened, too light for his weight, a groan at the joint near the corner and then a crack, like a shot, as it snapped and a loud crash as he went down with it, metal clanging against the rubble and his own cry as his body smashed against the ground. For a moment he seemed to black out, an absolute stillness between breaths, then another piece of pipe clattered down and he heard shouts from the window, the air filled with noisy alarm, as if dogs had started barking.

Move. He raised his head, wet at the back, a flash of nausea, and rolled slightly on his shoulder, wincing from a sharp pain. His feet, however, seemed all right—just a dull ache in one of the ankles,

throbbing with the shock of the fall but not broken. A white shirt anyone could pick out in the darkness. He rolled toward the wall and pulled himself up, bracing against it so that if he fainted he’d be falling backward, not into firing range. Louder shouts now, probably the guards. He sidled toward the recess of a doorway, still in shadow, then jumped, startled at the sound of the blasts, a machine gun firing at random down into the yard. The first thing he’d learned about combat—how the sound exploded in your ears, loud enough to reach inside you, right into the blood.

He pressed into the doorway, away from the bullets. Was it open? But the hotel was a trap, the last place he’d be safe. And what if they weren’t out yet? Head away from the Linden, a few more seconds of diversion. He looked around the yard, trying to fix its layout. An unbroken wall to the corner, then another, seamless. No, a gap where it had been damaged by shelling. Which might not lead anywhere, a rat hole. But the yard itself was impossible—one streak of his white shirt and the bullets would have him. And now there was more light, slim shafts from flashlights, darting in confusion, then raking steadily across the rubble, strong enough to poke into corners, picking up piles of debris and the dull gleam of the pipe, coming toward him. In a minute he’d be in the beam, trapped, like one of the boys huddling against the Volga cliffs, easy target practice.

He bent down, picked up a piece of brick, and hurled it right toward the broken pipe, a desperate ring toss. It hit. A sharp clang, with the flashlight beams jerking back, another burst of shots. Without even testing his ankle, he bolted left toward the gap, hearing the crunch of broken plaster under his feet, more shouts in Russian. Just a few more steps. Endless. Then the light was back, shining against the wall and the shelling hole, drawing fire again. He crouched down in a feint, making the light follow him, then leaped away from it and dived into the gap, rolling downward on his bad shoulder and covering his head as the bullets ripped into the plaster at the opening, a furious ricochet whistling, just a foot or so too high. His whole body shaking now, finally in the war.

He rolled again, away from the opening, on a floor covered with glass and scattered papers, office litter. Bullets still tore into the room, one of them hitting metal with an echoing zing. He took his hand

away from the back of his head, sticky with blood, opened when he’d hit the ground in the fall, and thought of Liz’s throat, gushing. Just one bullet. All it would take.

And then suddenly the bullets stopped, replaced by more shouting. He kept rolling until he reached a hulk of metal, a filing cabinet, and crawled behind it, raising his head to look out. There were heads at all the windows now, looking at the yard, yelling to each other, but none at Sikorsky’s, the machine guns redeployed, no doubt racing down the stairs, already after him.

He felt his way through the dark room to another, heading toward what he thought must be Wilhelmstrasse, a diagonal from the Adlon wing. Keep going away from the Linden. The next room was lighter, open to the sky, and he saw that he had left the standing part of the building behind. Now there was just a small hill of rubble, then an open patch to the ruined shell of the front. He started running toward the street. They’d come through the courtyard behind. He’d have a few seconds to get out, melt into the ruins while they searched the back of the Adlon. But when he came to an opening, ready to spring, he could hear the boots clomping in the street. Front and behind.

He headed right, snaking his way around another mound of bricks, still parallel to the street. They’d go first to the room with the filing cabinet, hoping to find him dead, not down Wilhelmstrasse. He took in the street again through the building shell. Just keep going. Another room, big, with twisted girders sticking up like teepee frames. Behind him, he could hear the boots entering the building. All of them? One more room, quietly. He stopped. Not just rubble; a small mountain, even the shell collapsed in, a dead end in the maze. He’d have to go back. But the boots were there again, crunching, fanning out through the building. He looked up toward the dark sky. The only way out was over.

He started up the pile, terrified that a slip would dislodge the bricks, send them tumbling down like alarms. If he could make the top, he could get to the next building, breathing space while they searched this one. He reached up, shoulder aching, scrambling on all fours. Bricks moved, settling and falling away as he found one foothold after another, but no louder than small clinks, not as loud as the Russians, still yelling from room to room. But what if the mound dropped sheer on the other side, propped up by a standing wall?

It didn’t. When he reached the top, lying down, he saw that it became one of those aprons of rubble that spilled into the street, without a connection to the next building. He also saw, ducking his head, lights sweep into the street, an open Soviet military car, Sikorsky jumping out, gun in hand, then pointing the car down the street, away from the Linden. Sikorsky stood for a minute, looking everywhere but up, and it occurred to Jake that he could just lie here, perched on his mountain, the one place they’d never look. Until when? The morning sun caught his white shirt and they surrounded him with guns? Another car came down the street, idled while Sikorsky gave a direction, and moved on to Behrenstrasse, the next cross street down, blocking that route. Now the only way out was the unbroken western side of Wilhelmstrasse, if he could get there before the headlights lit up the street. He watched Sikorsky take one of the soldiers and head into the building. Now, while the car was still turning into Behrenstrasse.

He inched down the rubble on his back, as if he were sliding down a sand dune, but the bricks rolled with him, a small avalanche, not sand. In a few seconds they’d hear the clattering over their engine. He crouched, then took a breath and started running down the slope, pitched forward by gravity, flying, so that he thought he’d reach the pavement face first. He staggered from the jolt of hitting flat ground, then hurled himself down the street. How long before they turned? His shoes smacking the pavement now, in shadow and racing south, putting space between him and the wrecked ministry. Getting away with it. Until the air exploded again with a spray of bullets. The Behrenstrasse car, catching his shirt in its lights. He ducked but kept running, looking frantically for another open space in the wall of rubble. Shouts behind him, more boots—probably Sikorsky and his men responding to the gunfire, back in the street.

One long dark stretch, the other Soviet car visible now at the end, standing in the middle of the Voss Strasse intersection, by the Chancellery. Head right somewhere, behind the buildings, the wasteland near Hitler’s bunker. But the rubble ran in an unbroken line here. Shouts in the dark. There would be guards at the bunker, even at night, watching for looters. Who would they think he was, running away from guns? The street would end any second now, with the roadblock, and someone had started firing again, maybe at random, maybe at the pale glow of his shirt.

He swerved right off the pavement into a dark space in the rubble. A cul-de-sac, like a moon crater, one of its rims backing onto the Chancellery itself. He thought of Liz snapping pictures. The long gallery and then the smashed office opening out to the back. No one would be collecting souvenirs now. He clambered up another apron of rubble to the ground-floor window and vaulted through, finally out of the street. He stayed down for a minute, his eyes adjusting to the dark, and started across the room, hitting his shin against an overturned chair, then retreated back to the wall, feeling his way toward the next window. More light here, just faint enough to see that the long gallery was still a mess, a minefield of broken furniture and fallen chandeliers. He moved farther along the wall, avoiding the booby traps of debris in the center. Shouts outside again. They would have reached the roadblock, would be doubling back now to pick their way through the ruins, a rat hunt. Get to the end of the room somehow, toward the bunker. Maybe the guards hadn’t been alerted yet. The element of surprise.

He had reached another chair, stuffing spilling out of the ripped upholstery, when the tall doors banged open, flung back in a hurry. He dived behind the chair, holding his breath, as if even a slight rasp would give him away. Sikorsky with a few men, one of them a Mongol guard from outside. Machine guns and flashlights waving around the still hall. Sikorsky motioned with his hands for them to spread out. For another second no one moved, letting the noisy echo of their entrance die down, then Sikorsky took a step toward the wall with the chair and Jake froze, the back of his neck tingling. Not fear; a trickle of blood running down, soaking into the shirt. How much had he lost?

“Geismar!” Sikorsky shouted into the air, another echo, looking now toward the end of the gallery, where the office and garden windows were. “You cannot leave here.” Not through the garden anyway, and not back into the street either. “No more shooting. You have my word.” All the while motioning to the others to begin their sweep, guns ready. In Stalingrad they’d fought building by building, a war of snipers. “We have Brandt,” he said, cocking his head to hear a reply. Jake let out a breath, half expecting it to echo. But did they? No, they’d raced around the Adlon too fast, not stopping for anything. A poor chess player.

Sikorsky nodded and his men began to move with their flashlights, only one of them left stationed by the door. But armed. Jake followed

the lights. They’d sweep to the end, then back, until they were sure. No way to get to the garden. He raised his head a little, glancing out the window. Distract the Mongol, make a break for it across Voss Strasse. But the open car was there at the corner, ready to fire, maybe a second Mongol still posted on the steps. Back the way he had come, to the moon crater? Every step echoing in the giant room, no weapon except a splintered armrest. Endgame.

The Russians were nearing the end of the hall, shining lights into the office where GIs had chipped off pieces of Hitler’s desk. Two of them dispatched to check the room, then back, returning now toward Jake’s end. How many? Four, plus Sikorsky. He heard the crunch of glass, a chandelier globe caught underfoot. Minutes. Then they stopped, heads swiveling, alert to a sound. Had Jake moved, paralyzed behind his chair? No, a different sound, not in the room, getting louder—a pop, a grind of motors, raucous whoops. Jake strained a little closer to the window, looking out. Rumbling down Wilhelmstrasse, almost in the headlights. “It’s over!” he heard in English. “It’s over!” Football game yelling. Then he could see the jeep, soldiers standing with beer bottles, fingers raised in Churchill Vs. In the light now. Americans, like some phantom rescue party out of Gunther’s westerns. If he could get through the window, he’d be almost there. The Russians at the roadblock, too stunned to react, looked around in bewilderment, not knowing what to do. Then, before Jake could move, the GIs, still whooping, started firing into the air, victory fireworks. “It’s over!”

But all the Russians heard was gunfire. Startled, they started firing back, a machine gun strafing the jeep, one GI flung back, then whirling, falling forward over the windshield.

“What the fuck are you doing?” a GI screamed, the reply lost under another barrage of shots.

Then the GIs were crouching, firing too, into the roadblock, and Jake saw, horrified, that it was the Potsdam market again, a confusion of screams and bullets, real combat, men actually going down in the crossfire.

Inside the Chancellery, Sikorsky’s men raced toward the doors, stumbling over pieces of debris, shouting to each other. Gunfire must mean that Jake was out there. They ran out onto the steps, saw the American jeep at the roadblock, and started firing. The Russians in the street, caught by surprise shots from the side, automatically swerved and fired back. Open stairs, nowhere to hide. The Mongol was hit first, falling headlong, the others ducking. Sikorsky yelled out something in Russian, then clutched his stomach. Jake watched, amazed, as he sank to his knees, bullets still raking the columns behind him. “Fuck! Ed’s hit!” somebody yelled. Another round into the blockade from the jeep. Then a hoarse scream in Russian from the steps, and all at once it stopped, the soldiers in the roadblock looking, dazed, at the Chancellery, Sikorsky still kneeling there, his uniform finally visible to them as he rolled over.

“Are you fucking crazy?” the GI yelled, bent over his friend. “You shot him!”

The Russians, crouching for cover, held their guns out, waiting to see what would happen, not ready to believe they weren’t under attack.

“You shoot!” one yelled in broken English.

“You idiot! We’re not shooting.
You’re
shooting. It’s over!” The soldier took out a handkerchief and waved it, then stepped tentatively out of the jeep. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

A Russian stood up beside the car and took a step toward him, both holding their guns. Then no one said anything, a stillness you could touch, the others beginning to move from their places in slow motion, staring at the bodies in the street, appalled. The Russian looked toward the steps, terrified, as if he expected to be punished, still not sure what had happened. The Mongol, not dead, called out something, and the Russian just kept looking, stupefied, not even moving when Jake limped out of the building, went over to Sikorsky, and picked up the revolver near his hand.