Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [156]
At first Eberhardt's plan was to hide in the Teller Building's cellar during the bombing run. Then he determined that was probably where Cray would keep himself safe—-presuming this building was his firing site—and so the general had chosen the nearby Air Ministry. And now he had to hurry. He stung his ankle on a brick, but kept running, turning left and right through a maze of overturned automobiles and skirting a new crater at the intersection of Wilhelmstrasse and Kaiserhofstrasse. He passed a human torso—no head, no legs—belonging to someone who had risked that the bombers would not hit the government quarter today. Glass shards lay over the street like dew on grass.
An RSD sergeant from the other team was already at the Teller Building's front door. He held his submachine gun like he knew how to use it. It was not for a general to be the first through the door, and Eber- hardt knew it and so did his men. He did not have their proficiency, which he had made sure was unequaled in the German services. When Eberhardt nodded, the RSD troops rushed into the building and began up the stairs, their weapons in front of them. The rear of the building— which was a wall shared with the neighboring restaurant—had been exposed by the bomb that ruined the restaurant, explaining the scent of horse stew in the Teller Building's lobby.
Eberhardt was breathing through his open mouth when he reached the sixth floor. His men—younger and more fit—were already inside the room that overlooked the Chancellery's motor entrance. The general swore to himself when he saw they were milling about, their weapons at ease. Desks and filing cabinets filled the room. He had been wrong. Cray had chosen another site. Other RSD men were searching the rest of the floor. Through the window Eberhardt could see the Chancellery's motor entrance three blocks away.
He put the handset to his mouth and dispensed with radio protocol. "This is Eberhardt. Anything at number two?"
A crackling voice. "No, sir. Nobody."
Eberhardt demanded, "Number three?"
A different voice, made weak by the reception. "Nothing, sir."
He called out the other numbers, each a potential firing site, his scowl deepening as each team reported seeing nothing.
Then one of his soldiers entered the room, holding a scoped sniper's rifle, a Mauser with a thick barrel. Eberhardt groaned, but only to himself.
"I found the rifle two rooms down, sir. This was with it." The soldier handed Eberhardt a piece of paper.
The general read aloud, " 'You can have this rifle back. I won't be needing it.'"
And then—his face crimsoning—General Eberhardt understood why Dietrich had taken a personal dislike to Jack Cray. And Eberhardt knew he and Dietrich had been wrong—perfectly and wildly wrong— about Cray's plan.
22
THE INTERCOM on Sergeant's Kahr's desk was buzzing and the telephone there was ringing and it sounded as if SS guards were working on the steel door with a pry. Kahr had helped design the door, and he knew it would hold for the few more minutes he needed. Black smoke was coming through the ventilator grates, the same smoke that was pouring into all rooms of the bunker, and it was getting thicker.
Kahr coughed into his mask. The two filter canisters hung almost to his belly. With levers he engaged the fan box that pushed air through tbe red system. He played with a dial until the fan was moving air at half capacity. Then he twisted the valves on the water pipes, closing down the bunker's sprinkler system.
He opened a grate over the uppermost red pipe on the wall. Air flowed through the pipe in a steady stream, but it too was smoky because the red backup system was drawing air from the bunker and returning it to the same place. Kahr ripped open a flour sack, glanced for the last time