Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [28]
The Brandenburg Gate came into view. Its twelve Doric columns and the Quadriga — the female charioteer with her four bronze stallions — were pocked and cracked. The gate's copper roofing had been removed early in the war.
The driver said, "Remember the fog crows that always spent the winter and spring in Berlin? They're gone. Bombs chased them away. Nobody knows where they went."
Dietrich was more interested in the two policemen they passed. "When did Berlin police start wearing steel helmets and carrying carbines?"
"Two, three months ago. We'll make them fighters yet."
They drove along the once-elegant Kurfürstendamm, where the cafe society had reigned. The street was bombed out and boarded up, the restaurants' striped awnings lying along the gutters. The Kudamrn was filled with filthy rainwater. At the top of the avenue they came to the Kaiser Wilhelm Church where the tower clock had been frozen at seven- thirty since the day in November 1943 when Allied bombers destroyed a thousand acres of the city.
"The city will never be rebuilt," Dietrich said.
"That is defeatist talk," the driver said lightly. "I'm charged with arresting you and taking you to Gestapo headquarters." He laughed. "And I would arrest you, too, if you weren't already on your way there."
A wave of Dietrich's fear returned. "What for?"
The driver shrugged. "I'm a chauffeur. General Müller doesn't often consult me regarding his appointments."
"An SS trooper with a sense of humor," Dietrich said. "They must be lowering their standards."
The driver laughed again. "I'll say."
The detective was inordinately grateful for the small talk, a flicker of normalcy even if it was from an SS storm trooper. Dietrich said, "The city has changed so much since I last saw it, it's unrecognizable."
Another shrug. "I'm not going to worry until you can get to the eastern front by the underground."
"Berlin will cease to exist, I think. Farmers will plant wheat and barley here."
Dietrich continued to stare out the Mercedes's window at the disfigured city. Those features that gave Berlin its unique personality had been ravaged. While Munich embraced art, Hanover its spas, Nuremberg its fourteenth-century gables and frescoes, and Hamburg its lovely lagoons, Berlin once had the splendor of its architecture. But since Schinkel, no Berlin architect had seen his work survive his era. And so it would be again. Berlin had become a second Carthage.
The car traveled under a camouflage net strung from building to building, then stopped in front of Gestapo headquarters on Prinz Al- brecht Strasse. The structure had once been an industrial arts school, but now the business in the building's dungeon was so ferocious that Berlin mothers warned their children not to walk by the building because of the sounds coming up through the sidewalk grates.
After an SS guard opened the Mercedes's door, a Gestapo agent showed the detective into the building. The agent was in street clothes but Dietrich had long been able to identify them from their walk. He had often wondered if the Gestapo had a class that taught the peculiar gait. The hallway led straight to the back of the building, and was lined with doors, all closed. At the end of the hall was a plainclothes guard carrying a machine pistol.
Dietrich was led to the third floor, to Muller's office. Dietrich was astonished when the door was opened to reveal all of the chiefs of the Reich's criminal and political police organizations sitting around Muller's conference table, silently waiting for him.
"Please sit down, Chief Inspector Dietrich," Heinrich Himmler said.
Dietrich had never before met the man. He was smaller than his photographs portrayed. And more kindly in appearance. Dietrich had never seen a photo of Himmler without his cap, which was on the table next to a leather folder and a vial of pills. The SS chief had sparse sandy hair.