Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [140]
And when Dietrich—feeling like a thief for having glimpsed this woman—quickly turned back to the barber's chair, Hitler startled the detective by raising an eyebrow, just fractionally, but plainly and purposefully nonetheless. It was the silent and common question one bachelor asks of another: she's something, isn't she? Eberhardt continued with his briefing, and might not have seen it.
The familiarity and bawdiness of Hitler's little motion pushed everything useful from Dietrich's head. He stood there at attention, as straight as a shinbone, while Eberhardt talked about the rifle and all that the weapon connoted. The detective wondered if he would be able to escape Hitler's sway this time. Last time—down here in the bunker—it was very close.
"So he will try to flush me out of the bunker?" Hitler was again all business.
Dietrich's attention returned to the conversation.
"There is no other reason to obtain a sniper's rifle." The RSD general spoke succinctly, a professional briefer.
" How will he do it, Inspector ? How will the American try to make me flee to the open air?"
The barber waited until Hitler had finished the question before scraping the blade across his chin. Strip by strip, the Führer's face was emerging from the foam.
"Perhaps a massive bombing raid on the garden above us, and on this structure."
Hitler raised a hand from under the bib to point at the nearest wall. "This place is impregnable."
"The Allies have a new weapon," Eberhardt countered. "A bomb that penetrates several feet of concrete before exploding. It has been used with success on airplane runways. Perhaps it works on bunkers."
"This roof is considerably thicker than a runway, and on top of all the concrete is another ten meters of earth," Hitler said as the barber drew a damp towel across his face, wiping away the last specks of lather.
Eberhardt said, "Perhaps the bombers' goal will not be to destroy this facility entirely, but to chase you from it, to make it uninhabitable and dangerous, so you will be forced to emerge."
"Where Jack Cray will be waiting," Dietrich concluded. "With the sniper's rifle."
The barber used an index finger to tilt Hitler's head, searching for missed spots. Then he snapped the towel to one side, his signal that his mission was accomplished.
Hitler rose unsteadily from the barber's chair. His face was pink and shiny. He pushed aside his forelock using his entire hand, the out- sized gesture of a boy. "My engineers tell me this bunker cannot be pierced by a bomb, any bomb. I trust them to be correct. So I will stay in this place. Forever."
"You are never leaving?" Dietrich asked.
"Last time you were here, Inspector Dietrich, I told you I would never leave Berlin. Now I am telling you I am never leaving this bunker. Even if the terror flyers have a bomb big enough to make the bunker come down around my ears."
Dietrich moved his jaw, his face impassive.
Hitler read it anyway. "I've just made your task easier. Yes?"
The inspector nodded.
"This American . . . what is his name again?" Hitler asked.
"Jack Cray," the detective replied.
The blond woman crossed the room to sit in the blue davenport. She picked up a magazine. She was either entirely bored with this business or superb at hiding her interest.
"Jack Cray won't have a target." The Führer's blue eyes were as flat as paint. "He'll be out there, with his new rifle, waiting and waiting, and he'll never have anything to shoot at. And so all you need do, Inspector, is catch him. You don't need to concern yourself about me."
The barber lifted the chair with one hand and the table in the other. He crisply bowed to the Führer and left the room.
Thinking himself dismissed,