Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [142]
"How would the Führer travel to them? Could he walk to the SS bunker?"
"Of course. It's just across the garden."
"Would he drive there?"
"It would take longer to drive, especially if it were an emergency and the driver and bodyguards hadn't been given advance notice, hadn't brought the cars up from the garage."
"Can the Führer get from the bunker where he is now—the garden bunker—to the SS bunker through an underground corridor?" Dietrich asked.
"At one time the SS was planning on connecting the two with a fortified tunnel, but it was never completed." Eberhardt repinned the map with his hands.
Dietrich continued, "And to get to the Zossen bunker, he would have to drive, of course. It's quite a distance."
"My men have practiced such an evacuation many times. But the roadways are always a surprise these days. Each day I send a driver to survey the escape route to Zossen. And he never fails to report that he had to take a new route because of new rubble or a new crater."
Cray traced a route with his finger. "So if Jack Cray can force the Führer out of the garden bunker, the only place Cray can count on the Führer being in the open will be as the Führer walks across the garden toward the SS bunker, or when he is at the motor gate or the Marble Gallery entrance. Is that right?"
"Yes, but you are supposing Jack Cray knows these things, that Cray has learned of the bunkers and the Chancellery entrances the Führer uses, knows the Führer's escape routes."
Dietrich said, "We speak of Cray as if he were one person, as if just one commando were closing in on the Führer. But we must presume that the Americans and English have put a vast intelligence machine at Cray's disposal. And so we must assume Cray knows the Führer's escape routes." Dietrich's face creased into a grin. "And you have told me you always anticipate the worst."
The RSD general nodded. Every part of this conversation had been spoken before by these two men over the last two days, and more than once. They acted as each other's cross-examiner, searching for Cray through the power of their intellects, sifting through the meager clues Cray had left behind. And Dietrich and Eberhardt talked to buck each other up. They were working on little sleep and no encouragement and the prospects of a bleak future should they fail.
"And another thing, Otto." Eberhardt had begun using the inspector's first name and the familiar du. "These three places where Hitler might emerge—should Cray somehow force him up from underground—are several hundred meters apart. The garden, the Wilhelm- strasse gate, and the Marble Gallery exit. Cray can't know where Hitler will come out, and Cray can't cover them all, not even with the long- range rifle, because it can't shoot around corners."
Dietrich began folding the map. "There's a chance the sniper rifle is a ruse, Eugen." The detective began folding the map.
Eberhardt drew in a quick breath.
"Maybe Jack Cray stole that rifle as a smoke screen. And his plan is something else entirely."
"We can only work with what we've got." The general pursed his lips. "If we assume it's a ruse, what do we do then, Otto? Go home and make a fire in the grate? We simply don't have anything else to work on. And Cray went to a lot of trouble to get that rifle, and was injured in the process. I don't think it's a ruse."
An RSD man blew his whistle twice, then yelled a final warning through a bullhorn. Down Behrenstrasse other whistles sounded, indicating nearby buildings and roads were clear of people. Another RSD man pulled a last sandbag from the back of a truck, and added it to a low wall of them.
The man with the bullhorn called, "Ready when you are, General Eberhardt."
Dietrich pulled at his chin, letting the map flutter. "I'm stumped by that, too, Eugen. Even if Cray knows of the three exits, he can only cover