Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [143]
"So is Cray accepting a thirty-three percent chance of getting the Führer in his crosshairs? Is the American just hoping to get lucky? Or maybe he has accomplices. We know he's working with the woman, Ka- trin von Tornitz. I've got a lot of my men looking for her."
"Nothing in her background indicates she can use a rifle."
"Other people then. Maybe the Allies sent three Jack Grays, and each will cover a bunker exit."
Dietrich shook his head. "We'd have crossed their trails by now. There's just one commando, I'm convinced."
"And, Otto, how—just how—is Cray going to make the Führer flee the bunker? A massive bombing? That doesn't seem likely. It's not sure enough."
"I don't know how Cray will do it. I just trust that he will."
The detective followed General Eberhardt toward the sandbags. An RSD man waited there, one hand on the plunger of a detonator and the other around a pair of binoculars.
As he walked, Dietrich said in a low voice, "You saw him down there, the Führer."
"I see the Führer rather frequently," Eberhardt replied, a touch of the bureaucrat in his voice. "It's my duty."
"It's insane up here, on the streets of Berlin, Eugen. Look at these streets, look at every street in this city. Fires and craters and smoke. Satan's hell will be just like this."
"What's your point, Inspector?" At the whiff of defeatism, Eberhardt reverted to using Dietrich's title.
"It's also insane down in that bunker."
"You shouldn't speculate…"
"For God's sake, you heard him down there, Eugen. Talking of traitors and cowards, talking of his loyal soldiers like that, soldiers who've given their lives and families and homes to Germany. And their leader is raving and rolling his eyes, spit flying from his mouth."
"Otto, these are dangerous things you are saying. Said to the wrong people…"
"I always wondered about the Führer's war aims, Eugen. Wondered about almost everything he did. It all seemed insane. Now I know why."
"Otto…"
"It's because he's crazy, down in that bunker." Dietrich found his voice rising, just as Hitler's had. "He's a certifiable lunatic. You saw it yourself. You must see it every time you meet with him. I never knew it until now, and…"
The RSD general gripped Dietrich's arm with more force than required. With an effort that strained his every muscle from toe to temple, Dietrich shut off the flow of words.
"Otto, listen to yourself. If the wrong ears hear you, you'll be back in that dungeon before the hour is out. Get hold of yourself."
Prickly sweat had formed on Dietrich's back. His view of General Eberhardt and the street was through the fine red mist of suffused anger. Eberhardt counseled, "Let's do our jobs, Otto. The rest of it is beyond us. Let it be."
Dietrich was having trouble breathing.
"Are you going to help me now?" Eberhardt asked quietly, the priest inquiring of the penitent.
"Yes." Dietrich wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. "Yes, of course."
They stepped behind the sandbag wall. Eberhardt held his hand out for the field glasses, then peered through them down Behrenstrasse, to the century-old church with its high steeple, high enough so that a man could stand on the bell platform and see over the Old Chancellery into the garden, to the walkway in front of the blockhouse entrance to the bunker. Many other buildings along the street were in ruin, but the church had so far escaped the explosives. Not this day.
Eberhardt nodded at the RSD man, who pushed the plunger handle. The grind of the small generator inside the box was immediately followed by the roar of dynamite from the church's roof. Smoke and splinters erupted from the base of the bell tower, and the tower sank, then toppled forward. The church's roof line snagged the spire, flipping it so it fell top-first. The tower landed on the cobblestones, crashing and falling in on itself, trailing smoke and bits of debris and raising dust, quickly obscuring itself, its bell tolling a last mournful note. The bell tower had become a trifling scrap of rubble in a city that was little else.
Dietrich