by James Thayer
"It was over in two seconds," Eberhardt concluded. "Von Dehm was on the ground, his cutlass in the grass beside him, his right wrist and right collarbone broken. And Jack Cray said, ‘That's called my Babe Ruth thrust'."
Golz laughed but saw Himmler's scowl and promptly quieted himself.
Gestapo Müller asked, "Who is Babe Ruth?"
"I'll find out." Eberhardt bent over the table to write a reminder to himself. "But, more important, Jack Cray is loose and appears headed to Berlin."
"Are we certain he is not still in Bohlen, near Colditz?" Müller asked.
"AWA General Reinecke ordered a class-one search. The village was circled by over five thousand members of the Home Guard, Hitler Youth, BDM, police, and prison-service guards. Bohlen was searched house to house. The American is no longer there."
Himmler said, "This Jack Cray is coming to Berlin to attempt to assassinate the Führer."
"How do you know that?" Dietrich asked.
Himmler was so unaccustomed to questions that his mouth snapped shut.
General Eberhardt said, "At this point in the war the enemy can accomplish virtually all of its military objectives by using their bombers. There is simply no need for the Americans to go to extreme lengths to free this commando unless they had some very delicate but very important task in mind."
"Like a murder," Golz added.
"You are only making suppositions about this American's mission," Dietrich said.
"We do not preclude the possibility he may have some other mission, some other target," Golz said. "But, we must assume the worst, and so we will undertake a massive effort to find and defeat this Jack Cray. Everyone around this table will be involved."
"You have very little evidence," Dietrich persisted.
Eberhardt replied, "That's the difference between your job and mine, Inspector. As a policeman, you must find enough evidence for a jury to convict a criminal. But my duty is to protect the Führer, and I can and must act on supposition, on the slightest of suspicions, on the hint of a rumor."
"If the Reich is to survive, the Führer must survive; it is as simple as that," Himmler said. "Director Golz tells me you are the best man- hunter in the Reich. You are to stop this American."
He removed a pen from his breast pocket and opened the folder. As he wrote on a piece of stationery, he continued, "I have spoken with Jodl and Goring. They agree with me regarding the urgency of your task, and they have pledged that whatever you need for your search — manpower, communications, equipment — will be yours instantly."
He passed the letter to Dietrich, who lifted it to his eyes. At the top of the page was the embossed emblem of the Reichsführer-S S above Himmler's printed name. The letter read in scratchy handwriting: "This is Chief Detective-Inspector Otto Dietrich. You are to obey his orders as if they were my orders. Himmler."
The Reichsführer said, "This note will assist you, I trust."
Otto Dietrich would go to his grave wondering where he found the courage to next say, "Where is my wife?"
Himmler's eyebrows rose. "General Müller?"
"At a facility outside Munich," Müller said. "She is being detained pending investigation as your accomplice." His eyes had not left Dietrich since the inspector had entered the room.
"I won't do anything until she is set free."
"You are hardly in a position to bargain," Gestapo Müller said in his gravel voice.
Dietrich brought a finger around like a turret gun to Müller. "You release her from that place or I won't do a goddamn thing."
Müller colored and half-rose from his chair. His mouth opened, but Himmler's cold glance cut him off.
The Reichsführer waved his hand airily. "She will be released within one hour, and will be brought directly to Berlin. You have my assurance."
General Eberhardt handed the detective the RSD file about the American. Eberhardt said, "This American, this Jack Cray."
"Yes, sir?"
"He is a genius at military violence. It will be far too dangerous for you to try to take him alive."
"Don't let Cray even get a look at you," Director Golz cautioned. "It might be fatal."
Eberhardt advised, "Put a bullet in him. From a great distance, if possible."
"I understand, sir." Dietrich started toward the door.
He was brought up by Müller's piercing voice. "You are to report your every move to me."
Dietrich hesitated, then turned back.
Müller added, "Your wife will be released. But the Gestapo is like the Lord. What it gives, it can take away. Remember that."
Reichsführer Himmler clucked his tongue at Müller's boorish threat. But he added in a pleasant tone, chilling only if the source was considered, "Now, Inspector Dietrich, kindly begin your work, and do not fail us."
11
“AHEAD," Otto Dietrich urged. "They aren't poisoned."
Lieutenant Heydekampf translated his words to English.
Dietrich had spread out the French crullers on butcher paper on the table. The tops of the doughnuts were ridged with white icing. The ward was filled with the rich scent of the pastry.
David Davis and Harry Bell held their breaths and stared at the senior allied officer. Ian Hornsby rarely let indecision cross his face, but he was clearly agonizing.
Dietrich helped him. "Offering pastries isn't some new German interrogation technique."
Heydekampf again changed the words to English.
When Hornsby slowly reached for one of the doughnuts, Bell and Davis leaped for them.
Ulster Rifleman Davis crammed one into his mouth, then mumbled, "You almost had a bloody mutiny on your hands, Captain."
Bell chewed frantically. "I would have joined Davis. A mutiny, I swear. Christ, this is good."
The inspector said, "You, too, Colonel Janssen and Lieutenant Heydekampf. I know you don't eat well anymore."
Heydekampf could not keep the gratitude from his face. He passed a cruller to the camp commandant before taking one for himself. The skin on Heydekampf's neck was still blistered and oozing from the delousing-shed fire. Biacelets of burned skin were around his wrist. Everyone chewed in silence for a moment.
The first thing Otto Dietrich had done after leaving the Gestapo headquarters was to reenter Heinrich Muller's Mercedes. When the SS chauffeur balked at driving the inspector without further instructions from Gestapo Müller, Dietrich produced Himmler's letter. With a laugh, the driver started the engine. On the inspector's orders, the driver took him to the Adler Bakery on Hermann Goring Strasse. The bakery provided cakes and bread for senior Party members. The baker swore he had no pastries that day. Flashing Himmler's letter quickly resulted in four dozen crullers. The SS driver had then volunteered around a mouthful of pastry, "We could have a lot of fun with that letter. I know some places on Friedrichstrasse." The street was home for Berlin's elegant brothels, some of which still stood. Dietrich declined with thanks.
Then Dietrich had visited his precinct station to requisition the talents of Peter Hilfinger, his assistant for the past six years. On first sight of Dietrich, Hilfinger had grabbed him in an unprofessional bear hug, and then had been quick to drop whatever he had been working on to join him.
They had stopped briefly at an orthopedic surgeon's clinic on Krummestrasse, where Dietrich and Hilfinger conducted an interview while the driver waited at the curb. Then they drove to a haberdashery. The inspector had given the driver six more of the pastries when they arrived at the new airstrip at the Tiergarten.
Gestapo Muller's Fieseier Storch airplane had then taken Dietrich and Hilfinger from Berlin to Colditz. The inspector had eaten four crullers on the flight. The pilot had juked the plane from cloud to cloud during the flight, hiding from prowling Allied fighters. Dietrich did not know whether his nausea during the ride was motion sickness or was from the rich pastries. Between bites of crullers and bouts of nausea, he filled in Hilfinger on the assignment.
Dietrich walked around a bunk to a barred window,
giving the POWs more time to sate their sweet tooths. On Dietrich’s suggestion, Peter Hilfinger waited in the hallway so they would not give the impression they were trying to overwhelm the prisoners. Dietrich looked out into the prisoners' yard. At least a dozen guards were posted in the small area. The Gestapo had assumed administration of the prisoner camp, and six agents were also in the yard, all wearing the telltale trench coats. Colonel Janssen had been relieved of command but had not yet been arrested or ordered to Berlin, which offered him hope.
"If you will continue to translate for me, Lieutenant Heydekampf," Dietrich said over his shoulder. To help support himself, he put his hand against the window frame, hoping the POWs wouldn't notice. His legs were still weak from his time at Lehrterstrasse. The charred remains of the delousing shed were below him to his left. "Group Captain Hornsby, you are the senior allied officer at Colditz. Major Bell is the senior American officer. Colonel Janssen believes that you, Captain Davis, are the Colditz escape committee chief. He doesn't know for sure, but I trust his instincts."
Dietrich paused, allowing Heydekampf to render his words into English. Then he said, "I asked you to meet with me because you three undoubtedly planned and assisted Jack Cray's escape."
More translation. The three POWs were still eating with zest. But now their eyes were locked on the back of the German inspector as he spoke.
Dietrich turned from the window. "After your capture, each one of you was questioned at Auswertestell West at Oberursel. Techniques there are sophisticated and successful. I'm sure that you have discussed your experiences there, and now understand fully our interrogation techniques. You know the water glass trick, and the escape ruse, and the Red Cross questionnaire subterfuge, all designed to get new prisoners to divulge information."
Hornsby furrowed his brow at Heydekampf's translation, then glanced at Bell, who shrugged and reached for another cruller. Captain Davis licked icing from his fingers. They had no idea where the detective inspector was leading.
Dietrich continued, "So it would be impossible for me to trick you into divulging information about the American's escape."
"Too right," Davis said after Heydekampf's translation.
"But I don't need to." The inspector patted a bunk, then picked up a paperback copy of John Steinbeck's The Moon Is Down from a tray at the bunk's headboard. "I am going to tell you how you and the American did it."
Colonel Janssen blurted in German, "You know? How do you know?"
When Lieutenant Heydekampf translated, the three POWs stopped chewing in unison.
Ignoring the commandant, Dietrich lifted Jack Cray's baseball bat that had been leaning against a wall. He rolled it in his hands, examining it. "How do you hold this?"
Harry Bell wiped his hands on his pants before reaching for the bat. "You right-handed?"
When Heydekampf changed the words to German, Dietrich nodded.
"Right hand over left, feet a little wider than shoulder-width, a bit of a crouch." Bell swung the bat slowly a few times then passed it back. "I'd toss you a few easy ones, but we don't have a ball."
Dietrich swung awkwardly several times. He shook his head. "Balls should be struck with the feet, not a piece of wood."
Bell smiled at the interpretation, then lifted another cruller from the table.
SAO Hornsby said dryly, "You have succeeded in disarming us, Inspector Dietrich. Why don't you continue?"
Instead, Dietrich resumed his examination of the ward, not a wild flying-squad toss, but a visual inventory respecting the POWs' few possessions. He did not open the fruit crates that served as trunks near the bunks. He did not rifle through packets of letters. He stepped around a support post in the center of the ward. He still carried the American's bat. He came to the laundry bucket in which was floating a shirt. All eyes in the room followed him.
Dietrich dipped a finger into the wash bucket then brought the finger to his mouth. He inhaled sharply, then grimaced. "Needs a little more soap."
Heydekampf translated. Captain Davis laughed around a cruller.
Dietrich said, "Your challenge was to make Jack Cray look dead. A fractured skull — one smashed against cobblestones from a great height — has a certain damaged appearance."
Colonel Janssen protested, "It looks just like Cray's did."
"He had a ruptured eye socket, or so it seemed." Dietrich breathed on a hand. His cell on Prinz Albrecht Strasse had been warmer than the Colditz ward. "But what Cray did, or one of you did, was to pull down his lower eyelid and put a small slice on the inside of the eyelid with a knife. The tiny blood vessels there bleed profusely, and will fill the eye with blood. And, although Colonel Janssen and Lieutenant Heydekampf didn't report any blackening around the American's shattered eye, you POWs may have dabbed a little chimney soot on his cheekbones to make it look bruised. Altogether, it would have been a convincing replica of a ruptured eye socket."
Heydekampf had fallen into meter with the detective. He interpreted as Dietrich spoke, not waiting for pauses.
"Bleeding ears are a classic sign of a fractured skull," the inspector said. "And Jack Cray's ears had blood in them. But it wasn't Cray's blood, was it? One of you gentlemen cut yourself with a blade, on your arm or thigh or somewhere else, collected the blood in a cup, and at the right time, poured it into Cray's ears. If I were to search you, I would find such a gash."
Ian Hornsby wiped cruller crumbs from the corners of his mouth. His face was a carefully composed mask.
The detective was wearing black trousers and a fur-lined waistcoat that he had procured from the haberdashery with Himmler's letter. Dietrich's shoes were also new, and squeaked when he walked. He said, "Cray also appeared to have shattered his shoulders and arms when he hit the courtyard."
Heydekampf nodded fervently as he translated. Then he added, "His arms were bent crazily, as loose as rope. His elbows were touching behind his back."
"It must have been a difficult task, Group Captain Hornsby." Dietrich walked to the support post, a roughly milled timber felled in a Saxon forest in the eighteenth century. "Cray stood with his back against this post, or another post somewhere nearby. One or two of you pinned him in place so he wouldn't slip around the column. Then two more of you dislocated his shoulders."
Colonel Janssen's mouth opened. He shifted his gaze to Senior Allied Officer Hornsby.
Dietrich explained, "The shoulder socket is shallow. A few people can dislocate their own shoulders, called a voluntary dislocator. But it's a rare talent, and more probably you had to force Cray's shoulder from the socket. You used this post as a fulcrum."
Heydekampf held up his hand. "Inspector, I don't know the English word for fulcrum."
Dietrich flicked a finger, indicating it did not matter. "You used this post as a brace, gripped his arm, and levered the ball of his shoulder bone out of the socket. The result was a grotesque, inhuman shape, a hollow in Cray's- shoulder where the joint once was, and the aim sticking out behind The pain must have been excruciating, but I doubt Cray called out. Am I right?"
Harry Bell helped himself to a chair. He gave Hornsby the slightest of glances.
Dietrich had not expected an answer. He continued, "The Reich's Office of Medical Information gathers statistics regarding accidental deaths and suicides " The inspector brought up the bat again, peering at the label carved midway along the wood. "Who is Lou Gehng?"
"A baseball player," Bell answered after Heydckampf's interpretation. “Like Babe Ruth?"
Bell raised an eyebrow "Yes, like the Babe."
"Why would Cray carve this Gehng's name on a bat?"
"Most baseball bats have a famous player's name on them. Cray carved Gehng's name on his homemade bat to make it look authentic." Dietrich pursed his lips, examining Gehng's name. The Office of Medical Records reports that a person who falls three stories has a fifty percent chance of surviving. A person who falls four stories has a fifteen percent chance And someone who falls five stories, like Jack Cray ostensibly did, has virtu
ally no chance," Janssen nodded vigorously.
"Lieutenant Burke, who is now in the punishment ward, was escaping with Cray," Dietrich said. "Both were on the roof above us. Cray must have lost his grip, slid down the steep shingles, then fallen five stories to a certain death. But none of that happened."
"I saw him fall, Inspector," Heydekampf almost shouted. "Lieutenant, you saw him land." Dietrich moved to the barred window for the second time. The bars were iron, with a width slightly less than a man's wrist. "Cray landed in the yard below this very window." Dietrich walked along the wall to the next barred casement. "These bars would resist almost any force."
He gripped the baseball bat as Major Bell had instructed him. He brought it back, then swung mightily at the iron bars. With a ring the bat bounced off the iron. The bar left a sizable dent in the wood. Dietrich smashed the iron a second time, and again the bat ricocheted off the iron. The bat suffered a second scar. The iron was unscathed.
"But now I go to the window below which the American landed."
Dietrich moved along the wall. "This time I'm just going to yank the bars with my hand."
Dietrich lowered the bat to the floor. He gripped the bar and pulled. It easily came off in his hand. When he gripped the second rod and tugged, it also came away from the window.
The inspector held up both metal shafts. "Burke was up on the roof, five floors above the courtyard, and had two escape suitcases. Sitting on the peak of the roofline, he shoved one case down the shingles, where it fell five floors to the courtyard. It left a swath of broken moss, and the roof looked like a man had slipped down the shingles."
Janssen added in a bemused tone, "And Burke must have thrown those two loose shingles along with the suitcases to make it seem like the American had desperately grabbed at something as he slipped, and had pulled the shingles loose."
"The fistfight over the bagpipes was a planned distraction," Dietrich went on. "The instant the brawl began, Burke pushed the suitcase down the roof and, at the same instant, you POWs pulled aside the bars and Cray leaped from this first-floor window. Cray fell ten feet, not five floors."