Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [25]
And this POW was not the usual inmate. He seemed to have surrounded himself in mystery, telling neither the guards nor his fellow prisoners anything about himself. Even his name was unknown. All that Janssen knew of him was that he had been a frenzied escaper. And he had courageously rushed into a burning shed to rescue the castle's Lageroffizier.
The general's deputy, Major Gustav Busse, came to the office door. Busse was also wearing his uniform overcoat. He held a yellow TDX sheet. "Sir, AWA has just sent another report. The Colditz POW was spotted at Bohlen, a village ten kilometers north of Colditz. An elderly woman found him in her house, eating pastry."
General Eberhardt had never heard of the town of Bohlen. "You say north of Colditz? North?"
"Yes, sir"
American and British and Canadian POWs were incarcerated in the eastern parts of the Reich to make their potential escape routes longer So these escapees, from camps in Saxony and Thunngia and Brandenburg, usually headed east toward the Soviet line. It was known among POWs that the Red Army would gladly assist them in getting home and, in fact, treated them as honored guests, sating them with brandy and caviar. An Allied escape organization in Odessa sent the escapees to Leningrad, then Stockholm. Then why had this Colditz escapee journeyed north toward the heart of the Reich, not east?
"There's more, General," Major Busse glanced at the TDX. "It seems the old lady and the POW had something of a talk. She said the POW belongs to an American army unit called the Rangers."
"Rangers?" Two deep clefts formed between Eberhardt's brows. "That unit climbed the cliff at Pomte-du-Hoc, on the Normandy coast last June."
"And this one claims to have sunk the submarine in the pen at Lonent Remember that? Our office was alerted about that sabotage."
"Could the POW have been lying to impress the old lady?"
Busse added, "He knew the submarine was the U-495 and that it was captained by Rolf Strenka."
"Why is this American Ranger chatting with an elderly German lady, telling her this?"
Busse shrugged. "She was charmed by him, sounds like So maybe he's just talkative and friendly and a bit of a braggart. You know how Americans are."
"I've never met one," Eberhardt said dryly "And neither have you And why is this American escaping when the war — pardon the treasonable defeatism — is weeks or months from ending?"
"I don't know, sir."
The general's expression shifted as he glanced again at the POWs photograph. Eberhardt was the Führer's last shield against his enemies. Adolf Hitler's very life testified to the general's skill. Eberhardt had not lasted for twelve years as Hitler's personal security chief by being tentative. His method — the means by which he had kept the Führer alive all those years — was simple: apply overwhelming force immediately to the slightest of suspicious circumstances. And the general had learned to heed his hunches.
He held out the photograph to Major Busse. "I want this enlarged, then I want five thousand copies made. Do it immediately." Busse's eyebrows climbed his head. "Five thousand, sir?" Eberhardt dipped his chin. "Our enemies are up to something with this POW. So I'm going to flush him out."
10
OTTO DIETRICH woke to the rasp of the key. He was on the metal cot, rolled into a ball under the frayed blanket. He had become attuned to the rhythm of Lehrterstrasse Prison. The sound at his cell door was out of turn. He pushed himself to his feet and brought his wristwatch up. It was an hour past noon. He had been to the blade and back an hour before. Now they were coming for him again. The precious pill was in his hand He put it under his tongue so they wouldn't find it. Dietrich had promised the doctor he would