Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [109]
Goebbels added exuberantly, "Frederick was suicidal, his armies were about to be annihilated."
"And then Frederick's archenemy Empress Elizabeth died on the Russian Christmas Day," Hitler said. "Her nephew and successor, Czar Peter III, was an admirer of Frederick, and the first thing he did as the new czar was to order the Russian armies home. Frederick was saved."
"The death ofjust one person can rescue a civilization," Goebbels concluded. "That's Frederick's lesson to us."
Hitler rasped fervently, "It was foretold to me, Goebbels. I have long known I would be taken up from these ashes. And now it has happened."
"We go forward from here, my Führer."
Hitler turned away, back to his study. Goebbels followed him like a lapdog.
Dietrich had been instantly forgotten. He stepped into the long corridor. Keitel's face darkened when Dietrich indicated he should enter Hitler's rooms. Dietrich was oddly satisfied by the general's reaction. The orderly escorted Dietrich back up the stairs, and back out the blockhouse door. Dietrich stepped between the SS guards into the garden.
Peter Hilfinger was waiting for him. "You returned. I had my doubts."
"So did I." Dietrich filled his lungs with the outdoor air. "President Roosevelt is dead."
Hilfinger chewed on the news a moment. "It won't make any difference."
Dietrich nodded. "Not to you. Not to me. Not to anybody below- ground in that bunker. Not to Germany."
They walked away from the concrete structure, toward the empty fountain. The British had come and gone, hitting a neighborhood somewhere upwind. Soot and smoke carried in the breeze.
Hilfinger asked eagerly, "What's he like? The Führer."
Dietrich stared at the framed photograph. "He almost convinced me, almost had me."
"What?"
Dietrich pulled at an earlobe. "I don't really know what happens in his presence, but..." His voice trailed off.
Hilfinger stepped around a puddle on the walkway. "What do you mean?"
"I almost fell for him, like some schoolgirl." Dietrich glowered, then tossed the framed photograph onto a pile of gravel near the concrete mixer. The glass shattered, a tiny sound by Berlin standards. "Like some goddamn swooning schoolgirl."
4
DIETRICH SLID HANGERS along the pole in the closet. "Cray would take a military uniform, if there was one. Anything on that? A husband or son in the military?"
Hilfinger looked at his notes. "She was a widow Husband dead fifteen years. So even if she didn't throw his clothes away, there probably wasn't a modern uniform here, something that wouldn't stand out."
"There's some man's trousers in here. Civilian. So maybe he's dressed again as a civilian."
Dietrich and Hilfinger and Egon Haushofer occupied most of the small bedroom, and they picked through the old lady's belongings, looking for evidence of Jack Cray's destination. During the night Dietrich's detectives had searched city records for Katrin von Tornitz's relations, and had found that she had two sets of uncles and aunts and two adult cousins living in the city, at least at the start of the war. The detectives had driven to the addresses, and all of them had been destroyed, reduced to piles of debris. Then the policemen had dug further into the records, this time at the Berlin Graves Registration Office, and had found more evidence of Katrin von Tornitz's relations, including a great-aunt who lived in the city, information that was waiting for Dietrich and Hilfin- ger when they returned to the station at three in the morning.
They had rushed to Dahlem, Dietrich wondering again whether the American was part of a feint, an intricate ruse designed to tie up the Reich's scarce resources. Sometimes Cray left an obvious trail. Other times he moved invisibly. Thousands of men and women were looking for him. Perhaps this was the American's only purpose.
The great-aunt's home was a brick structure from the last century, covered with vines, and still standing. It was dark—all Berlin houses were dark—but not shuttered. Dietrich had sensed they were too late and, after spending almost an hour approaching