Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [10]
Bell demanded, "Why have we been told to spring you from this place?"
"Did the message say?" The burns on Cray's arm were covered with gauze.
SAO Hornsby said, "We thought you might have a clue." Cray shook his head.
Glowering, Major Bell shifted on his seat. "I suspect you do know, goddamn it, and..."
Hornsby interrupted, "There have been almost no gone-aways from POW camps in the past half year. It's just not worth it anymore, with the Allied armies getting closer every day. And now when there is an escape, the Gestapo takes over the facility."
"Things are hard enough here without letting the Gestapo have an excuse to run the castle," Bell said, still glaring at Cray. "Christ, our men are going to start dying if those bastards mete out a camp penalty, cutting the ration any further."
Reginald Burke poured more coffee. "Can I go with you, Yank?"
Hornsby ignored him. "Captain Cray, the Germans are no longer toying with escapees, giving out the twenty-one-day confinements. The Gestapo has issued an order that all escaping POWs are to be handed over to them. That means if you're captured you'll either be shot outright or sent to the Grandenz Military Prison, which might be worse."
"There must've been more to the message," Cray said.
Hornsby looked at him closely as if trying to divine his thoughts. "A Berlin address and a code word. Horseman. Does that mean anything to you?"
"Not a thing."
Bell asked: "Captain, why would they send you to Berlin, of all places? If you're so valuable, why aren't they getting you out of Germany, instead of further into it? And why do anything at all, with the war weeks from ending?"
Cray shrugged.
"And the message directs you to divert and distract on your way to Berlin," Hornsby said. "That's the term it uses. Divert and distract. Why, do you think?"
Cray rubbed his chin. "So the Germans will use up a lot of men and materiel searching for me, I suppose. Maybe my mission is just to be a feint."
Hornsby stared pensively at the American. Finally he said, "Well, we've got to get you out of this castle. I've got an idea, a good one. You willing to try it?"
Cray grinned widely. "Can I go today?"
4
KATRIN VON TORNITZ walked carefully along Lassler Street, stepping around a crater filled with murky water, then around an uprooted tree, torn from its planter by a high-explosive blast. It was ten in the evening, and the city was black, with no streetlights or neon. The few cars in the street had tape over their headlights. She carried a heavy suitcase, a prewar Rugieri from Milan. On Katrin's lapel was an ornate lily pin designed by the Berlin goldsmith Emil Lettine and given to her on her twentieth birthday. The case and the pin were among the last bits of the life she had once known
She ducked into a doorway to let a column of Home Guards march by some with Panzerfausten antitank rocket launchers over their shoulders, most carrying only shovels. They were old men, bedraggled and ridiculous. At the intersection to the north an apple-red post-office van also waited for the guardsmen to pass. Amid the chaos of Berlin was a berserk. Normalcy mail was delivered daily, newspapers were printed morning and evening although most had been reduced to single sheets, and telephone calls could still be made from Berlin to any part of Germany.
Like many Berlin automobiles and trucks, the van had no hood over its engine. Hoods and trunk lids had been sucked away by the vacuum that follows a bomb detonation. On a reader board on the side of the post-office van was the message THE FÜHRER'S WHOLE LIFE IS STRUGGLE, TOIL, AND CARE. WE MUST TAKE PART OF THE LOAD OFF HIS SHOULDERS TO THE BEST OF OUR ABILITIES. An elderly woman walked by, wearing