Five Past Midnight

by James Thayer

  Cray twisted violently, ducking, just as a shot sounded from the bedroom. Then the American's knife arm slashed forward, out of Dietrich's sight. Cray stepped ahead again into the bedroom, the weapon at the end of his arm coming up.

  The sound was of a melon dropped onto the floor. Then another. The commando pitched forward into the bedroom, his gun and knife hitting the rug just as he did. Dietrich moved through the smoke toward the bedroom.

  The commando was sprawled facedown on the rug.

  General Eberhardt stood near the pedestal, the bust of Frederick the Great in his hand. The general's handgun was on the floor, and his right hand was bleeding from a slash on his forearm.

  Eberhardt smiled grimly. "I hit him with Frederick."

  The detective grimaced with pain as he bent to the downed man. He rolled the commando over and pulled off the gas mask. "It's him," Dietrich breathed. "Jack Cray. I'll be goddamned. You got him."

  "We got him," Eberhardt corrected kindly.

  Hitler appeared in the smoke. He was holding a small oxygen mask close to his mouth and nose. The tube was connected to a bottle on a roller. He asked dryly, "That was a little close, don't you think, General Eberhardt?"

  Gestapo Müller rushed into the room, his face a mask of pain and rage. His uniform was dappled with blood. Shrapnel had creased his neck, and blood oozed over his shirt. He demanded, "Is he alive?"

  As if in answer, Cray moaned. His arm moved a fraction.

  Müller said, "I'm going to take care of this son of a bitch right now."

  "I want to talk to him," General Eberhardt said, his voice muffled by the mask. "See how he got this far, and—"

  "Your job is over, Eberhardt," Müller cut in. He yelled over his shoulder, "Koder, get in here."

  The RSD general returned the bust of Frederick to the pedestal. "My Führer, an interrogation . . ."

  "I'm not interested in what the American has to say, General. The commando is now Müller's." Carrying the oxygen mask, Hitler turned back to the blue sofa. He said over his shoulder, "And now that you've got the American, tell the TeNo to stop dawdling and put out the fires. It's a little warm in here."

  Rudolf Koder rushed into the room and bent to grab Jack Cray's legs to pull him away. Dietrich put his pistol into his belt. When Cray's eyes fluttered open, Müller viciously kicked him in the head. An SS guard stepped into the study to take Cray's other leg. He and Koder dragged the American through the study's wreckage and into the smoky corridor, pulled him over the bodies of two guards and an SS colonel, sliding him across the blood-soaked rug. Smoke hid even the near walls. A team of guards was using a sledgehammer on the door to the vent room, the sound a rhythmic ring of metal on metal. Speer was sitting on the sofa, wearing a detached expression. The shrapnel had missed him entirely.

  General Eberhardt stepped into the hallway. He called to the guards, "The assassin has been taken. Let the TeNo crews in to work on the fire and smoke."

  Gestapo Müller followed Koder and the SS guard as far as the antechamber. Carrying fire-fighting equipment, TeNo men again flowed into the bunker.

  Müller ordered Koder, "Do it near the south end, near the wrecked offices. A bullet in his head. Take the body to a pit in the Tiergarten." He turned back into the bunker's central corridor and was quickly lost in the smoke.

  Agent Koder paused in the antechamber, pulled his Walther to check the load. He loudly snapped the clip back into the handle.

  He and the guard pulled Cray feet-first up the stairs, the American's head bouncing on each step, the gas mask around his neck. Limping from the shrapnel wound, Otto Dietrich followed them up, leaving behind the bunker's turmoil.

  General Eberhardt gulped air through his gas mask. He had done his job, by God. Had caught the American commando. It had been close, sure. The American had made it close. But the Führer was as alive today as he was yesterday. Eberhardt's only role in the war had been to keep Germany's leader alive, and he had just succeeded in his mission. Eberhardt was giddy with relief.

  Cray had turned into the Führer's room, was bringing his pistol around, and hadn't seen Eberhardt standing near the pedestal bust hard to Cray's right. Eberhardt had fired his pistol, but the general had never been much of a shot, and Cray was moving fast and had spun out of the way, and in the smoke the general had entirely missed. Cray's knife hand swept out, catching Eberhardt's arm and sending the general's pistol across the floor. And then—enraged that he had failed and there stood the cocky American, in the safest, most secure spot in the Reich— damned if Eberhardt hadn't simply snatched the bust and lashed out at the commando. Smashed it twice into Cray's head. And down went the American. Eberhardt would have laughed aloud had the wound on his arm not hurt so much.

  A sofa had caught fire, and was pumping black smoke into the green-gray haze generated by the grenade. Eberhardt stepped over the body of a TeNo man toward the ventilation room door. The guard captain was overseeing the crew trying to pry open the steel door Gestapo Müller was now there, an SS guard at his elbow, pointing a Schmeisser at the door.

  Müller said to the RSD general, "The ventilation technician is going to meet the American's fate up in the garden. Just as soon as we open this goddamn door."

  A heavier pry bar had been found, and the corner of the steel door had been bent several centimeters, enough for the bar to gain purchase higher on the frame. A TeNo man heaved on the bar. The door groaned but didn't give.

  That was their problem. Eberhardt turned away from the door. The ventilation equipment had apparently been sabotaged, and the smoke was still so thick that he could not see as far as his hands. The bunker was still in loud confusion, with shouted orders and calls for medics and ragged gasps and shrill screams, the fire still working on the rugs and pictures and some furniture. TeNo men and SS guards rushed about, appearing and disappearing in the haze.

  But it was over. The American was upstairs, dead or dying. The Führer was safe. General Eberhardt had never been to the front in this struggle. But the front had come to him. And he had prevailed. Right before the Führer's eyes. To the RSD chief, even the acrid, blinding, swirling smoke in the bunker corridor was sweet.

  26

  THE LAST RESCUE SQUAD member to enter the bunker could see no better than any of the others, with the smoke acting as a film across his eyes, so he turned right and took six steps to the wall, then followed the wall passed the cloakroom door and the conference room door to the third door. Bodies lay in front of the door. Like other TeNo troops, this Rescue Squad member wore a herringbone white uniform. The gas mask hid his face.

  The American commando had been captured. The Rescue Squad's job was now to secure the bunker against fire and offer aid to the injured. This TeNo man walked into the room, brushing by another Rescue Squad member who had checked the room and was now leaving it. No one else was in the study. He stepped over the ruined furniture and blackened pieces of maps and reports, and walked into Hitler's bedroom.

  The Führer was sitting on the blue sofa, a small mask covering his face, with a tube to an oxygen bottle on a stand near his feet. He was wearing the field-gray jacket that symbolized his role as supreme commander of the German armed forces. Hitler flicked his hand to dismiss the Rescue Squad member, silently indicating he did not need help. He turned back to the document in his hand.

  Then Jack Cray removed his gas mask. He brought out a pistol from the folds of the Rescue Squad uniform.

  Hitler again looked up. He pulled off the mask and put it aside. His face was blank. With difficulty, he stood.

  "You are back. The Vassy Chateau killer," the Führer said, his voice echoing in the concrete room. The Iron Cross on his chest, won in the trenches during the Great War, testified to his bravery. He showed it now. "I thought I was rid of you. But I underestimated you. You got past them all, again. Got into the bunker, again. How did you do it?"

  Cray smiled. "I'm not much at chatting."

  He fired the pistol. The sound was a flat clap. A hole o
pened between Hitler's eyes and his brains dappled the portrait of Frederick the Great. Hitler collapsed to the blue sofa, his arm hanging to the floor, blood streaking the fabric.

  Cray spun to a movement at the corner of his eye, bringing the pistol around. A soft cry came from a woman in a blue print dress who had appeared from the adjacent dressing room. She was wearing a gas mask, and her hand came up to the mask, and then she flew across the room to the body, ignoring the killer.

  Cray returned the gas mask to his head, then backed out of the room and sidestepped the table in the study. The pistol was back inside his uniform when an SS guard rushed into the room.

  "What's happened," the guard demanded.

  "The Führer," Cray yelled.

  As the guard hurried into Hitler's room, Cray reentered the central corridor. He could see little through the smoke, and instantly was lost among the other Rescue Squad troops and others. The corridor was still in a noisy uproar. No one was yet tending to the wounded or taking away the dead. Blood was everywhere. Fires still burned. Some had heard a shot, others had not. In the echoing hallway few could determine the shot's direction.

  Lost in the smoke, someone cried out, "Who fired?"

  The guard captain called, "What has happened? Report."

  A scream came from down the hallway, then an answering scream, and a shout for order. Panic was again stirring.

  Cray pushed through the green-gray blur, straight across the hall—he had been told the route with precision—to the opposite wall, where he turned right. The SS crew had failed to pry open the steel door and were looking about for further instructions, one holding the bar. A guard held a submachine gun in front of him, pointed at the door.

  "New code," Cray said. He pressed the buzzer. Five short, two long.

  Instantly bolts scraped and the door opened. Wearing a mask, Ulrich Kahr stepped into the hallway. He cried, "The ventilators have failed. Where's the mechanic?"

  Cray said, "Come on." Short clipped words, hiding his accent. The Schmeisser-wielding guard hesitated.

  Blood from his neck wound soaking the front of his tunic, Gestapo Müller rushed by the SS guard. He stabbed a pistol at Kahr. "You. I'm taking you upstairs."

  Cray shot the Gestapo chief in the stomach. Müller folded and sank to the floor. The Schmeisser guard saw Cray's gun hand come around, and the guard ducked back into the smoke. Cray fired again at other SS guards. One sank to the floor and the other leaped back and was quickly swallowed by the haze. Cray yanked Sergeant Kahr toward the exit, cutting through the smoke. From somewhere in the smoke, the submachine gun fired. Bullets pocked the wall where Cray had been an instant before.

  Shrieks and shouts came from all directions. Sounds of running footsteps and scuffling. Gray haze hid everything but suggestions of movement. Wild faces appeared and disappeared in the smoke. Glimpses of armbands and peaked caps.

  Cray was four steps to the stairwell door, Kahr on his heels, when a general's hand found Cray's shoulder.

  "You," Eberhardt demanded. "Where did you come from? From the Führer's rooms just now?"

  Cray stepped up to the general so their noses almost touched, and stabbed the pistol barrel at Eberhardt's solar plexus.

  "Say another word and I'll kill you," Cray spat. "Go out the door and up the stairs."

  When Eberhardt hesitated, Cray said, "Don't you read your own posters ? I'm a bastard. Get up those stairs."

  Eberhardt turned for the door, Cray and Kahr right behind. Cray's pistol once again disappeared. They walked through the haze into the stairwell, past the SS guards, who did not give them a look because they were peering through the smoke into the corridor trying to discover the source of the resurgent furor. A second TeNo crew was noisily descending the stairs, and they brushed by Eberhardt and Cray and Kahr. The RSD general's back was rigid as he climbed the stairs.

  At ground level in the blockhouse, the pistol was in Cray's hand again. "Go back down the stairs, General."

  Eberhardt did not look relieved at the dismissal. "I have failed to protect the Führer, haven't I? I have failed in my duty."

  Cray grinned. "And will you count to a hundred before you alert anybody?"

  The general's voice was full and bitter. "You are a cocky son of a bitch, just like Dietrich said." He started down the stairs, but turned back to Cray. "What did you do to Inspector Dietrich?"

  Another smile from the American. "Go back down the stairs, General."

  Cray and Kahr waited thirty seconds before stepping through the blockhouse door into the smoke-blanketed garden, the guards nervously pacing at their posts, speculating about the green-gray smoke rising from the bunker, indifferent to the Rescue Squad man and the Wehr- macht sergeant who walked by them and then across the garden toward the motor court entrance.

  27

  CRAY STEPPED into a foyer in the ruined west end of the Chancellery. The all-clear sirens were still quiet, and no Chancellery workers were aboveground. He held up a hand, indicating Sergeant Kahr should wait for him there. Then Cray opened a door that had a shattered glass panel and walked into an office, pushing aside rubble hanging from the splintered second floor. Cray ducked under a broken beam and dangling floorboards, stepped way around a masonry wall that had collapsed into the room, and trod carefully over a shattered umbrella stand and a flattened desk and a cluster of overturned chairs, making his way toward an interior door.

  He entered a second office and said, "Let's go, Inspector."

  Otto Dietrich was holding his pistol on Rudolf Koder and the S S guard who had helped Koder drag Cray up to the garden. Koder and the guard were sitting on the edges of chairs, bent slightly forward because Koder was wearing his own handcuffs behind his back, and the guard was wearing Dietrich's. The room was filled with file cabinets spilled onto their sides. Smoke from the garden seeped in through the shattered wall. Rudolf Koder glared malignantly at Dietrich.

  "So you got back into the bunker?" Dietrich asked.

  "In and out like grain through a goose."

  Dietrich shifted his glance to the American. "And?"

  Cray looked at him with mock incredulity. "Slick as a whistle."

  "What does that mean?"

  "The trouble with you Germans," Cray said, "other than that you are a warrior race, is that you don't have enough slang."

  Rudolf Koder's voice was tight with hatred and fury. "You are a traitor, Dietrich. A traitor to the Fatherland."

  Russian shells landed on the plaza outside, and cobblestones rained against the Foreign Ministry's wall.

  Cray lifted a finger toward Koder. "This fellow know you, Inspector?"

  Dietrich nodded. "His name is Rudolf Koder, a Gestapo agent. He is my case officer. He had my wife arrested and sent to a camp, where she came down with typhoid fever and died."

  Koder bellowed, "A traitor to the Führer and to your homeland." He jerked against the handcuffs, his face the color of blood.

  "And he tortured me in a prison cell, day after day, until I was released to chase after you." Dietrich breathed heavily, and then ran a hand down his face, fighting the memory. "He almost killed me, reduced me to nothing, nothing human. I'd like to shoot the bastard." The detective spoke slowly, convincing himself of the correct and lawful course. "But I've spent too much of my life hunting down murderers to kill somebody in cold blood. It would haunt me the rest of my life."

  "It's not going to bother me at all." Out came Jack Cray's pistol. He pulled the trigger, and Rudolf Koder bucked back in the chair, then spilled sideways. Blood pumped from the hole in his chest and leaked from the exit hole in his back. Twisted sideways, his hands still behind him, Koder stared in surprise, stared without seeing.

  "What about the other one?" Cray asked. "The SS trooper?"

  "I don't know him," Dietrich said. "Never seen him before."

  Cray wagged his pistol at the trooper. "Lucky for you, eh?"

  The American used a key to unlock the trooper's handcuffs from one hand. The trooper's eyes da
rted between Cray's hands, searching for the fabled knife. Cray attached one cuff to an exposed pipe, the trooper still sitting in the chair.

  The American picked up his pack, then led Otto Dietrich through the wing's maze of ruin.

  As they reached Sergeant Kahr in the lobby, the all clear sounded, and Cray looked at his wristwatch. "There'll be another air raid in thirty minutes. We'd better be there."

  He didn't say where, and Dietrich and Kahr had to satisfy themselves by following him. They turned south to Leipziger Strasse, then onto the plaza, then past the Hotel Esplanade, heading for the Tiergarten.

  Detective Dietrich could not help himself. "Look around. Your bombers did this."

  They were walking through a sea of rubble, along a narrow path cleared to allow pedestrians to pass. On both sides of them fire-blackened building facades stood like tombstones. Wreckage filled the eye to the horizon without the relief of a single undamaged structure or bit of color or a standing tree. Gray and brown debris and nothing more.

  Cray said, "Well, you did your part to stop it, back there, letting me go."

  Dietrich stepped around a pile of books that had been tossed onto the street by a bomb's concussion. "Agent Koder was right. I'm a traitor to the Fatherland."

  "Yeah, maybe so." He led them around a delivery truck lying on its side.

  Dietrich raised his voice in exasperation. "Isn't it incumbent on you to argue that I'm a patriot and not a traitor?"

  "It's incumbent on me to see that we don't die in the next few minutes. I'll worry about your feelings later." Cray narrowed his eyes, searching the next intersection. He had heard something.

  Searching for deserters, an SS patrol rounded a mound of rubble, three storm troopers, two of them carrying submachine guns. One trooper signaled for Cray and Dietrich and Kahr to stop.

  Cray shifted his pack to his other shoulder, then said under his breath, "Unless you have a better idea, Inspector, I'm going to kill all three of these fellows five seconds from right now."