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The guard captain called, "What has happened? Report."

A scream came from down the hallway, then an answering scream, and a shout for order. Panic was again stirring.

Cray pushed through the green-gray blur, straight across the hall—he had been told the route with precision—to the opposite wall, where he turned right. The SS crew had failed to pry open the steel door and were looking about for further instructions, one holding the bar. A guard held a submachine gun in front of him, pointed at the door.

"New code," Cray said. He pressed the buzzer. Five short, two long.

Instantly bolts scraped and the door opened. Wearing a mask, Ulrich Kahr stepped into the hallway. He cried, "The ventilators have failed. Where's the mechanic?"

Cray said, "Come on." Short clipped words, hiding his accent. The Schmeisser-wielding guard hesitated.

Blood from his neck wound soaking the front of his tunic, Gestapo Müller rushed by the SS guard. He stabbed a pistol at Kahr. "You. I'm taking you upstairs."

Cray shot the Gestapo chief in the stomach. Müller folded and sank to the floor. The Schmeisser guard saw Cray's gun hand come around, and the guard ducked back into the smoke. Cray fired again at other SS guards. One sank to the floor and the other leaped back and was quickly swallowed by the haze. Cray yanked Sergeant Kahr toward the exit, cutting through the smoke. From somewhere in the smoke, the submachine gun fired. Bullets pocked the wall where Cray had been an instant before.

Shrieks and shouts came from all directions. Sounds of running footsteps and scuffling. Gray haze hid everything but suggestions of movement. Wild faces appeared and disappeared in the smoke. Glimpses of armbands and peaked caps.

Cray was four steps to the stairwell door, Kahr on his heels, when a general's hand found Cray's shoulder.

"You," Eberhardt demanded. "Where did you come from? From the Führer's rooms just now?"

Cray stepped up to the general so their noses almost touched, and stabbed the pistol barrel at Eberhardt's solar plexus.

"Say another word and I'll kill you," Cray spat. "Go out the door and up the stairs."

When Eberhardt hesitated, Cray said, "Don't you read your own posters ? I'm a bastard. Get up those stairs."

Eberhardt turned for the door, Cray and Kahr right behind. Cray's pistol once again disappeared. They walked through the haze into the stairwell, past the SS guards, who did not give them a look because they were peering through the smoke into the corridor trying to discover the source of the resurgent furor. A second TeNo crew was noisily descending the stairs, and they brushed by Eberhardt and Cray and Kahr. The RSD general's back was rigid as he climbed the stairs.

At ground level in the blockhouse, the pistol was in Cray's hand again. "Go back down the stairs, General."

Eberhardt did not look relieved at the dismissal. "I have failed to protect the Führer, haven't I? I have failed in my duty."

Cray grinned. "And will you count to a hundred before you alert anybody?"

The general's voice was full and bitter. "You are a cocky son of a bitch, just like Dietrich said." He started down the stairs, but turned back to Cray. "What did you do to Inspector Dietrich?"

Another smile from the American. "Go back down the stairs, General."

Cray and Kahr waited thirty seconds before stepping through the blockhouse door into the smoke-blanketed garden, the guards nervously pacing at their posts, speculating about the green-gray smoke rising from the bunker, indifferent to the Rescue Squad man and the Wehr- macht sergeant who walked by them and then across the garden toward the motor court entrance.

27

CRAY STEPPED into a foyer in the ruined west end of the Chancellery. The all-clear sirens were still quiet, and no Chancellery workers were aboveground. He held up a hand, indicating Sergeant Kahr should wait for him there. Then Cray opened a door that had a shattered glass panel and walked into an office, pushing aside rubble hanging from the splintered second floor. Cray