Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [155]
A swath of chaos and destruction on the ground chased the planes' shadows. Upper Wilhelmstrasse buckled and then turned over as if by a giant plow. The Science and Education Ministry disappeared in a cloud of dust and fragments. The Justice Ministry received two bombs through its roof, and every window and door blew out in bursts of fragments, followed by its front wall, the stones crashing down onto Wilhelmstrasse.
On Mauerstrasse the Paris Restaurant ceased to exist in a white flash, nothing remaining larger than twisted forks. The House of Furniture also vanished, leaving only a crater filled with furniture splinters and shiny brass drawer handles. On Wilhelmplatz a water main was exposed, and torrents of water swept across the plaza toward the Chancellery. The walls of the Chamber of Culture cascaded to the street, and the floors sank one on another like spoons placed in a drawer. The Finance Ministry was hit for the second time in the war. Half of the building was blown out onto Kaiserhofstrasse, and fire swept through the remaining half, fueled by rows of document-filled filing cabinets. The enormous Postal Ministry building was instantly transformed into a knot of wreckage. Hotels and shops and apartments were shaken or blown or vacuumed apart, and then fire swept into the remains.
The earth lurched and reeled. Shock waves sped through the ground like a shaken blanket. Superheated air swept along the street, yanking off awnings and signs, sucking out windows, and carrying deadly debris. Power lines collapsed and lay across the street, sparking and hissing. Automobiles were tossed about like windblown leaves. Cobblestones and bricks rained down. Some light poles were bent double, others were ripped from the ground. The iron picket fence with its gilded spikes that had protected the Propaganda Ministry flew through the air like spears. Timbers and pipes and masonry shrieked and groaned. Ribbentrop's Foreign Office—just next to the Reich Chancellery—was torn in two. And just south of the Chancellery, the Transportation Ministry suffered three direct hits, gutting the building. The trees on Kaiserhofplatz—opposite the Vossstrasse motor entrance to the Chancellery—were stripped of their new spring leaves.
Then the planes were gone and the bombs had spent their fury. An eerie quiet settled over the area, broken only by the crackle of fire and the occasional beam or post giving way. Scents of cordite and sewage and plaster dust and newly turned dirt were carried away from the target area by the wind.
Berliners hiding belowground could not have known then of the careful placing of the bombs. Ruin had been vast in the Mitte, but not one bomb had sailed into the Reich Chancellery or its garden.
They were left alone. They were left for Jack Cray.
21
GENERAL EBERHARDT ran up the steps from the bomb cellar below the Air Ministry, four RSD men behind him. They emerged at a service entrance on Leipziger Strasse. They sprinted east along the street toward the intersection, dodging the new debris and craters. Eberhardt carried a radio in one hand and a pistol in the other. His troops were armed with Schmeissers and rifles. The air contained the sharp odor of high-explosive residue. The all clear had not yet sounded, and no one else was on the street. Eberhardt knew another team would be closing in on the Teller Building from the other direction, further east on Leipziger Strasse.
Eberhardt personally could cover only one of the five potential firing sites, as he well knew. But he prayed Jack Cray would choose this one, the six-story office building with a view of the Chancellery's motor court entrance. This building was Eberhardt's best guess, the most likely of the five sites, the one Eberhardt would choose were he up to such business. He wanted to be the one to waylay the American commando.
With a combat team, Otto Dietrich was covering another site, and was hoping with a fervor equal to Eberhardt's