Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [170]
"The Russians are within a couple of kilometers of here," Cray said. "You'd think the SS and Gestapo would clear out while they had the chance."
Dietrich looked at him. "You don't understand them. You're from America. You don't know anything."
"Where's our plane?" Kahr demanded.
He stared at the convoy, which had jumped a curb and was crossing the park. A side window came down in the lead car, a Horch, and out came a hand holding a pistol. The armored car took a new bearing, heading more westerly, to block an escape attempt. Their engines could not be heard over the rising and falling wails of the air-raid sirens and the increasingly louder bellowing of the Mustangs.
"Where's our plane, goddamn it?" Ulrich Kahr yelled. "Where's the plane you said would be here?"
It dropped out of the sky from a parting bank of smoke, smaller and more nimble than the usual hardware over Berlin. It fluttered down, resembling a leaf in autumn. A twin-engine transport made by Douglas and called the Skytrain, often used to ferry generals and their staffs around.
"That's a fine pilot," Cray said.
"Christ on his cross, Yank, the Gestapo is coming for us." Kahr's head jerked left and right, searching for an avenue of escape. "They're a hundred meters away. Eighty meters. We're going to end up on a meat hook."
"Don't worry about them."
"What?" Kahr exclaimed furiously. "Do something."
Cray smiled. "Those Gestapo agents aren't wearing white shirts."
The lead Horch was fifty meters from Cray when the ground near it began to bubble. Clots of dirt burst into the air. Then the projectiles found the car, and cut it in half, side to side, ripping through metal and glass and upholstery and flesh. The Mustang pilot lingered with the auto in his sights, letting .50-caliber bullets reduce the vehicle to scraps. Then the fighter soared overhead, the pilot wiggling his wings in glee.
Gestapo agents bailed out of the second car, but they were too late. The second Mustang in the strafing formation loosed long bursts at the car and all around it. Limbs and heads and trunks were pierced through and flicked into the air and dashed to the ground, and then the car was shredded. The gasoline tank burst and doused the car's remains in fire.
The armored car turned sharply, its driver trying to find cover behind a mound of dirt. Bullets ruptured the vehicle, turning it inside out, then dismantling it. The car sank on its axles. Not one of the SS troopers inside made it as far as the door latches.
The Skytrain miraculously pulled out of its dive and plopped down on the runway. A crewman opened the fuselage hatch as the plane was still rolling.
Katrin turned away from the smoking wreckage of the armored car. She stood there, her eyes glistening, until Cray held out his arms and she stepped into them. She tucked her chin into his neck and held him around his shoulders, and he held her tightly, but they were out of practice, and it was all a bit awkward.
She whispered into his ear, "Good-bye, Jack." Her tears were on his neck.
Cray's arm jerked. Katrin's head bounced forward, and she slumped into Cray's arms. In his hand was his pistol. He had just sent the butt into her temple.
"Help me," he ordered.
When Cray started dragging her, Ulrich Kahr lifted her legs. They carried her to the Skytrain, then handed her up to two crewmen.
Cray hollered over the roar of the plane's engines, "Buckle her into a seat."
Prop wash flattening his clothes against him, Cray returned to Dietrich.
The detective said, "You're doing her a favor, taking her out of here."
Cray said quietly, so that Dietrich had to lean forward to hear, "I'm not doing it for her. I'm doing it for me." Then he scratched his chin. "You know, I don't have a lot of friends."
"That's entirely understandable," Dietrich replied, a bit stiffly. Katyusha rockets rose into the eastern sky, as close together as piano strings.
"I'd hate to lose one." The pistol appeared again in Cray's hand, and he lashed out with it, slamming