Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [30]
All German police and military personnel knew of the Vassy Chateau disaster. On a moonless night last August, the 4th Company, 3rd Lancers of the Wehrmacht's 15th Light Division was bivouacked in a vineyard's chateau near St. L6. Sleeping soldiers were scattered about the main room, some on davenports, some on a Turkish rug. An enemy commando crawled into the chateau, put his hand over the first sleeping soldier's mouth and slit his throat. It was believed the commando was in the room less than ten minutes. He knifed eight Germans, every other one he came to. He dispensed death and granted life alternately. Soldiers woke up sandwiched between two dead comrades. The Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS began fearing the night. They went to watch and watch, where fully half the soldiers served as sentries each night. OKW had not expected irregular warfare behind its line. The German army was forced to divert enormous resources to protect itself.
Eberhardt leaned slightly toward the projected photo and said, "One of the sentries patrolling the chateau that night is now posted to the Lechfeld airport. He reports that the American snuck up behind him and spun him around."
Dietrich now realized that he had been released from prison for his investigative skills. He was determined to prove himself to avoid a return to his cell. He asked quickly, "Why would he bother to do that? Wouldn't the American have been smarter to blindside the sentry?"
Eberhardt replied, "The American gave the sentry two seconds to look at his face before he smashed him with the pommel of his knife, knocking him out. The sentry believes the American deliberately let him see him."
"And the American let the sentry live?" Dietrich asked, "Why?"
"I don't know, Inspector."
Director Golz speculated, "Perhaps he wanted his description to become known, as a terror tactic."
Himmler nodded. "That is an American trait, you know. I have studied our enemies. Soldiers reflect their homeland's national peculiarities. British soldiers are courteous even when killing you. French servicemen refuse to fight on empty stomachs. Wanting to become famous for his exploit is certainly American."
"Thank you, Herr Reichsführer." It was far too dangerous for Eber- hardt to allow the slightest inflection of sarcasm to touch his words. "This same American single-handedly sunk a Kriegsmarine submarine at the base at Lorient." The general described the sabotage at Lorient. Then he added, "This man belongs to an American army unit called the Rangers, and he .. ."
The room went dark as electricity in the building was interrupted, for perhaps the tenth time that day. The slide projector blinked off and Jack Cray disappeared from the screen. When Eberhardt reached for the table to get his bearings, he brushed the slide projector.
"Our generator will come on momentarily," Müller said, a disembodied voice in the murk.
Himmler snapped open the pill vial. "I've got to take these for my breathing. It's the dust and ash."
The lights flickered back on. The projector came to life, throwing Jack Cray's face onto the screen in stark blacks and whites. Because Eberhardt had nudged the projector nearer to the screen, the American was closer, as if he had moved up on them in the dark, a perilous presence in the room. His countenance seemed even more fierce. Himmler was heard to gasp, a slight sound he covered by clearing his throat.
General Eberhardt centered the projector on the table to reduce Cray's image. "We have another report about the American, this from a professor at Berlin Polytechnic. Jack Cray was his student for two terms in 1936. Cray was taking postgraduate work in mechanical engineering." He glanced again at his notes. "He took the fluid dynamics course from Professor Jorgen Hock, who remembers him well."
"Tell Inspector Dietrich of the information on the American's enrollment forms," Director Golz said.
Eberhardt lifted several sheets of paper from the table. "Cray was born in the western