Five Past Midnight (37 page)

"That was
a ...
a business meeting."

"You had a couple of drinks, you can't argue that."

"Only after the sergeant forced them on me. He seemed so happy, I couldn't refuse his alcohol. I didn't want to spoil it for him."

"And we were sitting in front of a cozy fire."

She glanced at him. "The fire was heating a still."

"And the scent of spring was in the air."

"It was the smell of old goats."

"So it sounds like a date to me," he said. "You and me. A romantic evening in the Prussian countryside."

"And we weren't even alone," she protested. "The sergeant was there, and once we made our deal, he did most of the talking. About old times. No, it wasn't a date. Nothing of the sort."

"Sure it was."

"Not at all." She laughed.

"There. You laughed."

"I did not laugh. I'm a war widow. We never laugh." She laughed again.

"Sergeant Kahr's fire and liquor and hospitality. And my company." He righted her hicycle and gave it to her. "You had a good time for a few minutes. You're laughing, and that proves it."

"I'm laughing because I'm stuck out-of-doors on a cold night in the middle of a war with a crazy foreigner. I never thought my life would turn out like this, that's for sure."

Cray was suddenly sober. "That sound. It's trucks, quite a few of them. Coming this way."

Katrin turned to the sound. "What do we—"

He grabbed his bicycle. "Get behind the wall."

The sound was louder. A low growl and a deep grinding.

Cray led her off the mud driveway and into the high grass. The stone wall separated Ulrich Kahr's pasture from the road. Cray lay his bicycle on the grass and lowered himself to his haunches. She put her bicycle down and knelt beside him.

Rocks on the top of the wall had spaces between them, leaving gaps like archers' slits. Cray peered through. "I still can't see them. They've got their headlights covered. They're traveling at night so they won't be found by dive-bombers."

The noise was now a rush of engines and treads, closer every instant, a mechanical yowling. Katrin gripped her coat to herself and leaned against the wall. A frightening sound, and she closed her eyes.

"They aren't after us." Cray blew on his hands. "An armored column on the move, is all. Moving west to east, so the High Command must think the eastern lines need shoring up."

Two motorcycles sped by, then two more, and then several Horch scout cars, and then a dozen Opel Blitz half-track conversions the Wehrmacht had nicknamed Mules.

Cray rose to look through a gap in the stones. Then he leaned close to Katrin so she could hear him. "This unit has been hit hard. Their equipment is a mess. Burn marks and bullet holes. Lots of welded patches. I don't see any spare treads riding on the tank fenders. I'll bet they left most of their equipment behind as junk. A couple of the trucks are towing scout cars." He paused. "And there's a Panzerjager also being towed." A tank hunter.

Next, several trucks with mounted antiaircraft guns rolled by, and then a dozen troop trucks, the canvas sidings down. Next came Henschel 6X4 trucks pulling tanks on trailers. The ground shivered under Cray. Diesel fumes rolled over the stone wall.

Cray said, "Five tiger tanks. One of them has a turret that's skewed to the side, and showing marks of a rocket attack."

The Henschels rolled east and were followed by two more motorcycle escorts. After a moment Cray gripped several rocks on the wall and pulled himself upright. The rumble of engines and treads faded in the east.

When Katrin offered her hand, Cray helped her to her feet. She brushed the back of her coat.

Cray shook his head. "That armored column was probably once an entire brigade, and that's all that's left."

"I feel sorry for Sergeant Kahr." She tucked in her chin against the wind.

"He's lost a lot." Again he reached for her bicycle and rolled it to her. "Like you."

"Do you think the sergeant will go along with what we want?" Ka- trin asked. "He said he will, but do you think he really will, when the time comes? He's a German, and he no doubt loves the Fatherland. And he's taken an oath."

"He wants his son back. Wants him back more than he wants life itself."

Katrin pushed the bike toward the end of the wall. She stepped out from behind the wall and onto the road.

She said, "And will he have the courage?"

The sound of the receding armored column had masked the approaching Kübelwagen. It had almost come to a stop in front of the driveway before Cray saw it. The squat vehicle was the Wehrmacht's equivalent of the American Jeep, and was manufactured by Volkswagen. The passenger—an SS officer in field gray—stood at his seat, gripping the vehicle's window frame with one hand and holding a Luger in the other. Once the vehicle was stopped, the driver pulled a Schmeisser from under his seat. The passenger covered Cray as the driver climbed out of the wagon.

Cray's cap was low over his eyes. He let his bicycle fall to the road.

The officer called, "Get your hands away from your sides. Get your hands up."

Cray lifted his hands.

The officer swung the pistol to Katrin. "You, too."

The officer and driver approached them. The Schmeisser's muzzle was aimed at Cray's sternum.

Katrin stared balefully at them. "I'd heard this, but I didn't believe it until now. The SS follows army columns, looking for deserters. Shooting them."

"Your papers," demanded the officer. His collar tabs identified him as a
Hauptsturmführer,
the equivalent of a captain. "Quickly."

Katrin's voice was oddly calm, "We were just out on our bicycles."

"I will not ask again," the captain said. "Give me your papers."

Cray still carried the documents manufactured by the Colditz escape committee. He moved his hand toward his jacket pocket.

Then the captain recognized him. He barked, "Don't move, you." He stepped forward, and pushed back Cray's cap with his pistol barrel. The captain smiled meanly. "I'll be damned, Jürgen. It's the chateau killer. I'll be goddamned."

The driver—a corporal—stepped back to better cover Cray with the submachine gun. "Let's kill him now, Captain. It'll be easier to take his body back than him back."

"Maybe the general will want to talk to him."

"This American is too dangerous, Captain. You heard the same briefing I did. Stand back and let me do it. The lady, too, for all that matters."

The captain appeared to think about the suggestion. He had a smooth face, with a nose as straight as a blade and thin, bloodless lips. He asked Cray "Do you have weapons on you?"

"A few."

The captain laughed. "I would imagine so. Get up against that wall and spread your legs. You too, lady."

Cray stepped to the wall, spread out his hands, and leaned against the stones. Sergeant Kahr's farmhouse was down the lane, and was dark. Cray could see some of the goat shed behind the house, leaking strings of light through the siding. Katrin stood beside Cray, her arms out. She glanced fearfully at him. The corporal moved closer, his weapon roaming between Cray and Katrin.

The captain pressed his pistol into the small of Cray's back, then Cray could feel the man's hand begin with his boots.

The SS officer said grimly, "Here's a knife." He held it up to show the corporal. "I wonder if it's the famous one, the one you used at the chateau."

He continued his search, yanking Cray's pistol from his belt. He tossed it away, and it skittered on the mud road. After he had patted Cray's back, he moved to one side to rudely explore the crotch of Cray's pants.

"Nothing here you don't know about, that right, lady?" The captain laughed again. "All right, get over to the wagon." He stepped against the wall to roughly shove Cray toward the Kübelwagen. "Get going."

And those were the last words he ever said. The tines of a pitchfork emerged from the captain's coat, three of them in an even row, sliding out of him. He looked down at his coat, his jaw drooping, his eyes wide with the puzzle.

From the corner of his eye, Cray saw Ulrich Kahr at the handle of the pitchfork. Run through thrice, the SS captain lifted his gaze to Cray.

"Sir?" the corporal asked. Katrin blocked his view of Kahr.

The captain sagged. His hand tried for Cray's shoulder for support, but Cray was no longer there. He had lunged for the corporal. The Schmeisser was coming around, but not fast enough. Cray's fist hit the corporal squarely on the nose, the sound as loud as a shot. The corporal collapsed instantly.

Kahr had pulled out the pitchfork as his victim had fallen. Carrying the pitchfork, he walked along the wall to his driveway, then onto the road. He stood over the corporal. "He's still alive."

Gripping his fist in his other hand, Cray grinned at Kahr. "The corporal's face is going to hurt when he comes around. As much as my hand hurts, if there's any justice."

Kahr stared down at the SS corporal. The Schmeisser lay in a puddle. "When he wakes up, he talks his head off about this farm, and me and you.

"Yeah, well..."

Ulrich Kahr jabbed the pitchfork into the corporal, lifted it out and did it again, then again, moving the tines around, stirring the corporal's bowels like soup. He lifted the pitchfork, and blood dribbled down the tines. "No sense risking that."

Cray stared at him. "Christ, he was just a boy. There wasn't any need to do that."

"What were you going to do with him?"

"Well. .."

"I just solved a big problem for you." Kahr pointed the bloodied tool at Cray. "I want my son back. We've made our deal. You go and do your goddamn arranging or whatever you have to do. I'll take care of these two bastards and their wagon. I might chop them up and turn them into liquor." He laughed brightly.

Katrin and Cray walked their bicycles away from Sergeant Kahr. When Cray glanced back, Kahr was lifting the SS captain into the back of the Kübelwagen.

"You know your question?" Cray asked. "Whether Sergeant Kahr will have the courage."

She replied, "Forget I asked."

11

"THEY MATCH?" Eugen Eberhardt bent over the table. "I don't see it."

With a pencil Dietrich pointed at a portion of the photograph. The pencil trembled. "Half a centimeter in from the edge of the heel imprint, right at the back of the heel. It's the trace of a nailhead. A piece of the nailhead is missing, so the imprint looks like a half moon. The cobbler probably used the damaged nail because he was short of nails."

"And you see it on this photo, too?" Eberhardt adjusted the gooseneck lamp, centering it over the second photograph. He didn't wait for the detective's answer. "Now I see it. Looks like the same imprint, same nail print. Just like you say."

"The first photograph was taken near Katrin von Tornitz's destroyed home, near the spot Jack Cray had his little chat with me. The second photograph was taken at the rifle range, where those two snipers were attacked."

"And you're sure that the rifle is missing?" Eberhardt lowered himself to a folding chair. The truck was cramped, and his knees were pressed against a metal cabinet.

"On my instructions, Third Army military police turned the camp upside down. That boy's rifle is gone. And so are his three grenades. Two of them were TNT, and one was a smoke grenade." Next to Dietrich was a leather rifle case.

"We almost missed this, Inspector." Eberhardt pinched the bridge of his nose.

Dietrich nodded. He grabbed the table edge with both hands. Since witnessing Peter Hilfinger's murder, he had been unable to keep his hands from shaking. His old fear—his constant companion in his prison cell—had returned with such force that it was overwhelming the grief he should have felt after losing Peter. Sorrow could not surface through Dietrich's fear, and he was again ashamed of his weakness. Eberhardt had expressed his sympathy, and was now doing Dietrich the service of being briskly professional to keep Dietrich's mind on the job at hand.

"You know, there was a time when hardly a bullet could disappear in Germany without my learning of it." Eberhardt said. "It was my job to make sure that the tools of assassination were accounted for. My office knew where everything was, and when weapons or ammunition or explosives disappeared under mysterious circumstances, I learned of it immediately."

"The war has changed that, I suppose." Dietrich leaned against a bank of radio equipment.

Eberhardt and Dietrich were inside a Funkwagen, a mobile command post built for the military services by Volkswagen. The vehicle was twelve feet long, and squat, with two rod antennas and a bedstead aerial attached to its roof. An RSD radio operator was also in the cargo bay, hovering over an array of dials and switches, his face reflecting the green light from the instruments. A faint cackle came from a radio speaker. Behind him a fire extinguisher was hung above a gas-mask case. Eberhardt sat at the metal table, where a rim prevented documents or other items from sliding off when the vehicle turned tight corners. On one wall was a converted wrought-iron wine rack filled with rolled maps. Near Eberhardt's elbow was a microphone on a hook, connected to loudspeakers on the roof. A sawed-off shotgun was mounted on the back door near the handle. On another wall was a clipboard containing a cordoning-off order. Like an armored car, the Funkwagen had rifle slits cut into its sides and rear door. Behind the radio operator was a bulletproof window through which the driver's head could be seen.

Eberhardt's office on Potsdamer Platz had been destroyed the night before, and he had been promised a new one—somewhere—by noon. Until then the RSD director would conduct his business in the Funkwagen.

"With the war going the way it is, rifles disappear all the time," he said. "So do machine guns. Even explosives, trucks of them. There's no way to track it all anymore. And so I'm not protecting the Führer as well as I once did. So the Third Army's General Epp telephoning me was just luck. And I contacted you immediately."

"There's something else we found out from Jack Cray's prints at the firing range," Dietrich said. "He was limping as he crossed the base, from the fence to the firing range. He had been hurt."