Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [169]
"You joined up?"
"Some TeNo men were injured, most confused. I walked out of the smoke into their midst, wearing a gas mask like many of them. I crossed the plaza with them, covered by smoke from the bombing run. I wasn't given a second glance."
"Where's the plane?" Ulrich Kahr asked urgently. They were walking across sawdust, where Tiergarten trees had been sawed into fireplace-sized pieces. "I can't see anything. Too much smoke."
Cray led them to an area in the park west of Bellevue Allee, a road that cut diagonally across the Tiergarten. A short landing strip was wedged between craters. The strip had been cut into the park at the beginning of the war, and bulldozers immediately repaired the runway each time it was bombed. The Allies had guessed that this tiny field would be used by Hitler to flee Berlin. Cray and Dietrich and Kahr approached a copse of shattered trees, their trunks broken and split like trodden straw.
Katrin stepped from the trees. Her arms were across her chest. She was not carrying anything, didn't bring anything to take with her. Cray knew then he had failed to convince her to leave Berlin.
Cray said, "I'm glad you've come."
"To say good-bye. And to see what other strange things you'll say, to prolong my amusement a little more. Sort of an antidote to the war." She paused, then added, "And I have nothing else to do."
Cray slipped the pack off his shoulders and unbuttoned it. "Put on these shirts." He handed the Germans large white dress shirts, and began putting on one himself.
Kahr nervously looked over his shoulder, across the park to the row of ruined buildings on Tiergartenstrasse. "These white shirts will make us conspicuous."
"Anyone not wearing a bright white shirt or any vehicle which approaches our plane is going to have a world of trouble," Cray's shirt — from the Countess's closet of unclaimed tailoring — was much brighter than his Rescue Squad uniform. The tails hung out. Katrin declined to put on a shirt.
Dietrich asked, "This woman—Katrin von Tornitz—won't join your escape?"
"No."
Dietrich looked at her. "I heard reports from Danzig and Stettin. Terrible things have happened to German women. Russian soldiers won't treat you kindly. You'd better go with the American."
She shook her head.
Dietrich shrugged, then held out the white shirt. "I'm not going, either."
"The Gestapo is going to hunt you down if you remain here." Cray buttoned his shirt. "And then there'll be the Russians after the Gestapo is gone."
"I'm not going to England or the United States. I'm a German."
"You'll be a dead German in short order, if you don't come along."
"I have a few places I can hide."
Cray argued, "You can't hide from the Gestapo. You told me so yourself. There's no point martyring yourself when the end of the war is so near."
Dietrich shook his head. "I'm not going."
Cray said only "Suit yourself."
"There they are." Ulrich Kahr pointed north.
The wind had torn great windows in the smoke. A bomber wing was approaching the Spree from the north. The B-17s were escorted by a dozen or more fighters, looking like gnats hovering around the bombers. At the Spree the bombers veered west to do their business elsewhere, maybe Spandau. But most of the fighters maintained their southerly course, flying right at the Cray and the others in the Tier- garten. The fighters—P-51 Mustangs—grew quickly, the roar of their Rolls-Royce Merlin engines racing out ahead of them.
Otto Dietrich looked back at Tiergartenstrasse. "Cray, they've found us."
Two black automobiles were making their way along the street, winding around clusters of rubble.
An armored car emerged through a gap in the rubble and fell in line behind the cars.
"A bulletin must have gone out from the bunker." Dietrich pulled out his pistol, but it looked tiny and useless in his hand, so he returned it to the holster under his jacket. "Maybe a call from the bunker. That SS unit we came across probably reported our direction. Or maybe someone recognized you. Or maybe