Five Past Midnight (38 page)

"How do you know?"

"We found some blood—quite a lot of blood—where Cray climbed the base's second fence. Paw prints showed that the patrol dogs were in a frenzy there. From Cray's boot prints, my tracker determined that after Cray was inside the second fence he was favoring his right foot. So one of the dogs must have gotten hold of the American's foot or leg as he was going over the fence. But that's not the point I find interesting."

"No?"

"My tracker found Cray's prints again as Cray was leaving the base, by then carrying the sniper rifle, we believe."

"Who is your tracker?"

"Senior Hunting Master Werner Eismann, who is in charge of the Schleswig-Holstein forest preserve north of Hamburg, near the village of Volsemenhusen. He is employed by the Office of the Forest Master."

"One of Goring's subordinates?" Eberhardt asked skeptically.

"But competent. I've worked with Eismann for years. He could track a man across pavement three days after it happened. Eismann thinks Cray was injured by one of the Dobermans. He was limping badly. Then, a while later, when he's leaving the base, he's not limping at all."

"You sure those were Cray's prints leaving the base?"

"Same boots with the odd nail. And everybody walks a little differently, Eismann tells me. These tracks had the same distance between steps. Same gait, rolling a certain way. Eismann swears it's the same man. But Cray's limp goes away as he walks."

"So what do you make of it?"

Dietrich chewed on his lower lip a moment. "I saw the wound on Cray's arm."

"When he was giving you that affectionate bear hug?" Eberhardt laughed.

"You laugh because it wasn't you," Dietrich said bitterly. "The chateau killer's knife under your chin, him casually deciding whether you are going to meet God today."

Eberhardt flicked his fingers by way of apology. "So what about the wound in his arm?"

"It was a bad one, a gaping hole put there by a bayonet. It would've meant time in a hospital for any soldier. And I'd bet his foot was hurt just as badly by those Dobermans." Dietrich leaned against a panel that contained dials and switches for the generator. "And we know from interviewing the Colditz commandant that Cray was severely injured trying to escape. Dogs got him there, too. And Cray refused a stay in the castle's hospital. After he was cleaned out and sewn up, he went straight to the isolation cell."

"So you have concluded that Cray is tough. I already knew that."

"It is more than being tough. I believe the American is indifferent to pain."

"How is that possible?"

"I don't know," Dietrich replied. "But I've met one or two people like that. Criminals. They don't allow pain to affect them. Nor bad weather, nor being tired, nor being under the pressure of being hunted. All they care about is reaching their goal."

General Eberhardt ran his hand along the metal table, flicking away unseen dust, his expression hard with thought. "That's bad news for us, Otto."

"And here's more bad news." Dietrich unbuttoned the rifle case to bring out a rifle with a scope mounted on it. "The base commander loaned me this Mauser. It's identical to the one Jack Cray took off the young sniper." He passed the rifle to General Eberhardt, then said, "I don't know whether Jack Cray is a trained marksman. But even an average shooter has a range of five hundred meters with this weapon, and with any training at all, his range would be seven or eight hundred meters."

Eberhardt's expression suggested that perhaps his boots were too tight. "Do you realize how vastly more complicated my job has become, with Cray having a sniper's rifle— "

The general was interrupted by the sudden blare of an air-raid siren on a pole just outside the Funkwagen. Even though the vehicle was armored with steel plate, the noise filled the cabin.

Eberhardt muttered, "Goddamn, I get sick of this, every day and every night, never failing, as regular as the postman. Let's go." He reached over to the bulletproof window to signal to the driver to follow them, then opened the Funkwagen's door.

The vehicle was parked near the Stadtmitte U-Bahn station. Dietrich and Eberhardt and the RSD driver and radio operator joined the flow of people heading for the subway entrance. Berliners poured out of office buildings and shops. The office workers and military personnel walked without panic, but steadily, converging on the subway station. The station was near the government quarter, and many who converged on the subway station carried briefcases and notebooks with them, intending to work during the air raid. Turnstiles had been removed at the entrance so as not to impede the foot traffic. In a stream of people Dietrich and Eberhardt descended the stairs and entered the long concrete cavern.

Four yellow subway cars were already parked next to the platform, the drivers having been alerted of the impending raid by signal lights in the tunnel. Earlier in the struggle dozens of benches had been brought belowground, and many iron double cots, manufactured especially for air-raid shelters, were against the gray wall, hiding the advertising billboards. People checked their wristwatches, British raids lasted forty-five minutes. The Americans took much longer, the raids often two or three hours, which many Berliners viewed as a glimpse of the American character, spending all the time necessary to make sure they killed you properly. No sense hurrying such a task.

Dietrich found a place on a bench, then ceded it to an elderly woman wearing a scarf around her head. She smiled at him with gray teeth. He leaned against a wall next to Eberhardt. No deference was paid to Eberhardt's uniform. No salutes, no one offering space on a bench, not when there were probably twenty generals in the station, and not with the war going so poorly.

Lights on the ceiling cast the station in an amber glow. Many of Berlin's children had been taken to the country, but a few were underground, running around, treating the raid as a recess from school. A lady near Dietrich breast-fed her infant, the baby's head hidden by a scarf. Office workers sat in circles, speaking in low tones, anxiously glancing at the ceiling, as if they could detect the approach of the bombers through the concrete and earth. A Kriegsmarine captain in a blue reeferjacket with four gold stripes on each sleeve walked along the platform.

"There aren't any boats left in the navy," Eberhardt said under his breath. "I wonder what that captain does to earn his pay."

Dietrich chuckled, liking the RSD general.

Both men stared for a while at a striking brunette in a Luftwaffe Signals Auxiliary uniform. The navy captain had also let his eyes settle on her.

Eberhardt said, "You know, in a way, I owe you for my son's life."

Dietrich's back was pressed against the station's chilled wall. He stood upright to get away from the cold. "I'd be interested in learning how you figure that."

"My boy—his name is Ritter—used to follow your exploits in the Berlin newspapers. He'd read about some ghastly crime, and your capture of the perpetrator. He followed your career with some relish. And he became a policeman, maybe due to your unwitting influence. He is now a police officer at the Prenzlauer precinct. So he has been spared the front lines."

Dietrich shook his head. "Don't know him. But I'll accept your thanks, however faulty your logic." He hesitated, then added, "And in return I'll ask a favor."

"Sure."

"Can you get Müller off my back? Him and one of his agents, an idiot named Koder?"

Eberhardt took a long breath. "Otto, I've got my own problems with Müller. Severe problems. I'll try, but I don't think there's much I can do."

Dietrich rubbed his hands together. The station was colder than the Berlin streets. He said softly, "I'm afraid of Müller."

"So am I," Eberhardt admitted after a moment. "You met with the Führer. Talked with him personally. You've got Hitler's ear, sort of. Doesn't that make Müller hesitate?"

"Not that I've seen." Dietrich searched for a handkerchief in a pocket, but found none. He sniffed loudly. "Hitler thanked me, sure. But maybe he also wants me to still be terrified of the Gestapo."

The walls abruptly shifted, then shivered. Bombs were falling. The station fell silent, except for a distant rumble that was fed into the station from the subway tubes. Berlin was built on alluvial sand, and so bombs had a rippling side effect through the earth. These explosives might be falling a kilometer away. The platform bucked, and people grabbed bunks and signposts and walls for support. Mortar dust fell from ceiling cracks, and in a few places water began seeping down the walls. Women hugged their children. Some Berliners stared at the ceiling, holding their hands up against the dust. Others closed their eyes, grimacing. The sounds coming from the subway tunnels eerily changed pitch and timbre. The smell of cordite drifted from the tunnels into the station, mixing with the scents of concrete dust and oiled railroad ties.

Eberhardt asked, "Did you know that in America underarm deodorant is advertised on the radio?"

The detective looked at him. "Really?" He pondered that a moment, then said, "Well, they sure make good bombs."

The long moments passed, Dietrich with his hands jammed into his pants pockets, staring at the back of a bench, watching it tremble. Finally the quivering stopped, and a few minutes later the all clear sounded from speakers on the wall. Berliners rose from the floor and the benches and cots and surged toward the exits. Dietrich again followed General Eberhardt, swept along by people desperate to leave the tomb of the subway and return to whatever was left aboveground.

Dietrich and Eberhardt stepped through the doors into a cloud of smoke and ash that hid buildings fifty meters away. The government quarter had not been hit — no new debris or fires — but it was downwind of today's target. The smoke was harsh in the detective's throat. He walked toward the Funkwagen, squinting to keep the drifting ash out of his eyes, almost running into a fire hydrant that emerged from the smoke. The sky was so low he could not see the tops of lampposts. Ash the size of envelopes curled out of the sky. The sharp scents of high explosives and ruptured sewage lines carried in the breeze.

From the haze came the sound of an automobile's worn brakes, metal on metal, or so it sounded to Dietrich. Then it came again, an agonized wail, more a bleating, and so out of place among the rums that the detective could not identify it. A vast patch of the haze shifted, and then was pushed aside by a mammoth presence. A trunk and tusks formed out of the smoke, then the rest of the elephant, moving fast, throwing one enormous foot out in front of the other.

Even though the animal was more than fifty meters from them, Dietrich and Eberhardt jumped back. Wisps of smoke trailed behind the animal like wake from a boat. The elephant bleated again, at once fierce and pitiful.

"It's Fritzi, from the Tiergarten Zoo," Dietrich said. "He's gotten out of his pen."

"Goddamn it, he's been hurt." Eberhardt stepped toward the elephant, as if he could help him, but the creature continued to run, first one way, then the next, perhaps looking for his tormentor, or looking for help.

A gash the size of a door was open on the elephant's side, running diagonally from the shoulder behind his ear down to his hind leg. White ribs were visible, and torn muscles, and blood was gushing from the elephant, leaving a wide trail. Fritzi bleated again and again.

"My boy and I used to feed Fritzi peanuts," Dietrich said emptily. "Damn it to hell."

"My children and I did the same thing," Eberhardt said. "Everyone in the city did."

The same bomb that had ripped open Fritzi's pen had ripped open Fritzi. The elephant had been running in fright and pain for blocks, but was now at his end. He lurched against an automobile, righted himself, and raised his trunk to cry out. He sank slowly and ponderously on his front legs, shuddered, and then toppled onto his side. His huge chest rose and fell once, and then the animal was still.

Emerging from the veil of smoke and ash, Berliners gathered around the animal. Fritzi had been the star attraction of the Berlin zoo for twenty years, a favorite of Berliners. Now the terror flyers had killed him. Men and women began to weep openly, and gently touched the giant animal, trying to comfort him in death.

Dietrich touched the dampness at the corner of his eye. He said quietly, "It's not like losing your wife, is it? A dumb zoo elephant."

Eberhardt stared sadly at the elephant. "This'll all be over soon. All of this destruction."

The detective glanced at Eberhardt. "Are you and I lengthening the war or shortening it, General? By trying to catch Jack Cray."

"That's not for us to worry about, Otto." Eberhardt turned toward the Funkwagen. "We've been told to catch Cray, and that's what we'll do."

12

"You DON'T look any better as a brunet," Katrin said, her arm in his, leaning into him as if guiding him along the sidewalk. A scarf hid her hair and much of her face.

"I used up all the countess's dye on my hair and eyebrows." Cray adjusted the bandage that hid the right side of his face.

He was wearing a Wehrmacht officer's uniform borrowed from the countess. A corner of the bandage was fitted under his peaked hat. Smoke rose from the block ahead of them, and in the east was a wide smoke column.

She said, "You've had practice with a cane, looks like."

Cray limped along, using a black walking stick and favoring his right leg.
"I
broke my foot once."

"How?"

"Trying to kick down a door. My foot broke instead of the door. I learned my lesson."

"You learned a lesson?" A trace of amusement was in her voice. "I'm encouraged. I don't suppose the lesson was to renounce all violence and to live in peace."

He looked at her. "The lesson was to use explosives on a door, not my foot."

She pursed her lips, "I keep forgetting who I'm talking with."

They walked by an automobile turned over on its back like a turtle and stepped around a fresh bomb crater, then avoided a newly killed dog—the carcass had not yet been taken away for someone's dinner— and rounded a corner to come upon an apartment house that had collapsed in on itself. Across the street from it was a burning row house. Two pumper trucks were in the street, and firemen were rigging nozzles to a hydrant. They wore Prussian blue greatcoats, and their helmets had polished metal combs centered on top and leather flaps that hung to their shoulders.