Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [146]
Koder glanced over his shoulder. His brows approached each other a trifle, a man irritated at a minor interruption. He dipped his chin at the agent in the doorway, who slammed the butt of his pistol into the detective's head. Dietrich pitched into a black void.
An age passed, or perhaps only a minute. The veil of darkness lifted in fits and starts, allowing Dietrich vague and puzzling glimpses of the countess's apartment as seen from the rug. Dietrich blinked, and that tiny motion sent a bolt of pain from his eyes back across his head and down his neck. He groaned, a sound that barely escaped his lips. He tried to push himself up from the carpet, but nausea surged from his belly into his throat, and he sank back to the floor.
He coughed raggedly, and again tried to rise, but his legs would not hold him, so he rolled to his seat. His head pumped agony down his neck and into his shoulders. The countess—several countesses—drifted in front of him. Her sewing basket and table shifted before him, and all of it was red. He dragged a hand over his eyes. The red haze contracted and swelled with each of his heartbeats, then began to fade. He blinked several times, and the room came together.
The countess's fingers lay across the floor like spilled cartridges. Dietrich's vision still was not good enough to count them, but he trusted the Gestapo to finish a job, and there would be ten of them lying there. The countess was still sitting in her sewing chair Her hands hung down on each side of the armrests, the frayed stumps of her fingers dripping blood like rows of little spigots.
A hand found Dietrich's shoulder. Egon Haushofer asked fearfully, "Inspector, can you stand?"
Dietrich grunted a reply.
Haushofer pulled on Dietrich's arm, wrestling him to his feet. "Take it easy, Inspector. I'll get you to a hospital. Are you all right?"
"No, hell no, I'm not all right." Dietrich tried to stay on his feet, but he swayed into Haushofer, who pushed him back to standing. The floor seemed to be rolling like the deck of a ship. Dietrich palpated his head, and brought away blood. His eyes found the countess's seamed face. Her old and leaky eyes were open, and stared at Dietrich in the sightless reproach of death. A clean, perfectly symmetrical bullet hole was centered in her forehead. Her brains were gray and scrambled and seeping down the back of her chair.
Haushofer's words tumbled out. "I wasn't away long, just while I parked the car, and I was still down the street when I saw those two Gestapo bastards leave the apartment, and ..."
His head a furnace of pain, Dietrich waved away the explanation, a flick of his fingers that said it didn't matter. He stared bleakly at the countess's body.
"Egon," he said softly, his head in so much pain his tongue hurt as he worked it, "what am I doing?"
Haushofer hesitated, searching Dietrich's expression. "You all right, Inspector? I'd better get you to a doctor."
Another toss of Dietrich's hand. "Look what they did to this poor woman."
"Do you know where you are, Inspector Dietrich?"
"Yes, I know."
"Your pupils are dilated. I think you've got a concussion." He gently took Dietrich's arm to turn him to the door. "Come on, Inspector. We'll get you patched up, then back we'll go after Jack Cray."
Dietrich touched away dampness at his eyes. "Yes, Jack Cray. The American."
Haushofer tried to lead Dietrich from the apartment, but Dietrich said, "Let's look around here. If he's been here, he's surely left things, left part of himself, though he probably doesn't know it, things the Gestapo would miss."
16
NOT ONCE in his subterranean service had Sergeant Kahr attempted to smuggle contraband into the bunker. The list of forbidden items was long, and included weapons, writing materials, cameras, food and drink, and cigarettes and matches. He was sneaking such a common item, and tiny. Kahr thought he'd be able to calmly walk up to the SS guards at the blockhouse entrance, receive the usual insults as they patted him down, and go into the blockhouse.
He had rehearsed this entry