Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [171]
Cray caught the detective as he fell. He laughed and said to Kahr, "You Germans sure are slow learners."
Kahr lifted Dietrich's legs, and Cray had him under his arms, and they retraced their route across the ruined ground toward the Skytrain. Mustangs covered them, soaring low over the transport, then rising and banking north to come around in tight circles. The Skytrain's propellers were still turning.
The pilot pushed back the side window. "Who is that? I wasn't told about a third man."
"A friend of mine," Cray announced.
Ulrich Kahr climbed through the Skytrain's hatch, then turned to pull up Dietrich. Cray shoved and prodded, and between the two of them and the crewmen Dietrich was put quickly into a flight seat.
The pilot turned to look at them as they strapped themselves in. "I just saw you coldcock that fellow there. You sure he's a friend?"
"He's a pal of mine, all right," Cray said over the engine nose.
The pilot wound up the engine, and the crewmen strapped themselves in, ogling Katrin. The Skytrain began down the runway. It bounced once, then again, and lifted into the air. Within seconds it was over the Brandenburg Gate, where it turned north. Mustangs hovered around it.
Cray looked at Dietrich. The side of the detective's head around his ear was purpling. "Though he might not know it yet."
28
As THE SKYTRAIN approached the airstrip near Witten- berge—field headquarters of the U.S. Ninth Army—Sergeant Kahr began rocking back and forth in his seat, as if that might hurry the plane. The Skytrain sank toward a field of tanks and self-propelled guns and armored cars and a checkerboard of tents, a staging area for the next push west. At the north end of all the equipment was a landing field with mobile AA batteries along its perimeter.
Ulrich Kahr's forehead was pressed against the side window. "I don't see him. Where is he?"
Cray opened and closed his jaw against the increasing air pressure. Otto Dietrich was slumped in his seat, rubbing his temple, looking only at his knees. Katrin was pressing a towel to her head and glaring at Cray. When she had come around, he had told her—with a grin that gave the lie to his words as he spoke them—that a Russian mortar round had blacked her out, and he couldn't just leave her lying there on the runway.
Dozens of pilots and mechanics were at work below. Rows of Mustangs and Thunderbolts lined the field, and trucks and tool carts were between the planes. The Skytrain touched down, then taxied toward the north end of the field, where three soldiers stood, two with M-ls and the third in a tattered Wehrmacht uniform, cramming food from a bowl into his mouth as quickly as he could swallow.
"That's him," Kahr shouted. "That's Max. My God, look how thin he is." Kahr turned in his seat to look at Cray. "You did it, by God. That's my boy there. You sprang him from the Bolshevik camp." Kahr might have been about to add his thanks, but his eyes were abruptly damp, and he could say no more, so he roughly patted Cray's knee. Then he shouldered open the door and leaned out of the plane, gripping a hatch frame until the Skytrain had stopped. He leaped to the ground and sprinted toward his son.
Perhaps Max Kahr had not been told why he had been plucked from a POW camp in Russia and brought to this airfield. Or maybe his hunger was such that he could not force his gaze up from his bowl until his father's arms were around him. But then he held his father tightly, still holding the bowl. The American guards smiled.
The air was calm, so the pilot could take off from either direction. He braked the plane into a half circle, then shoved the accelerator knob forward. The Skytrain bumped down the runway until its wheels lost contact with the ground.
Cray looked down as the plane banked north. Sergeant Kahr and his son were still standing next to the field, and still in each other's arms.
29
THE SKYTRAIN was pointed toward the airfield near Eastwell Manor in Kent. Cray could see the rose garden with its trellises to one side of the building,