Five Past Midnight

by James Thayer

  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."

  "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 Vol
semenhusen. 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 a
sked, "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.