Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [92]
"That's as far as we go." The driver disengaged the gear. "Now what?"
Cray unlatched the turret hatch, and rose to stand on the commander's chair to push open the hatch. Plaster and lathe fell away from the cupola. He pushed away debris, then grabbed the rim to lift his legs out. Here, inside the fractured building, he was protected from gunfire as he exited the tank.
Cray quickly surveyed the ruined room. The tank filled it. A family portrait was still on one wall, but darkness hid the rest of the room. Shots came from outside, from across the street in the park. More orders were called. Armored vehicles rushed along the street.
He bent back through the hatch. "Don't try to follow me, driver."
The driver shook his head. "The notion hadn't occurred to me."
Cray slipped off the turret to the fender, then down to the room's floor. The tank's weight had bent the room's back wall, revealing beams and sky above. The treads and wheels had sunk into the floor as if it were water. Exhaust from the tank's engine filled the room. Carrying his pistol, Cray stepped over a lampshade and through a door to a kitchen where utensils were scattered over the floor, then out a back door. He sprinted along the alley, then onto a side street where the night took him in.
PART THREE
1
OTTO DIETRICH'S desk was cluttered with tokens of appreciation. He would diminish them with a shrug when asked about them. But he was too proud of them to consign them to a box on a closet shelf. The largest was a glittering brass fire nozzle. Etched into the brass was To DETECTIVE INSPECTOR OTTO DIETRICH WITH ETERNAL GRATITUDE FROM THE FIREMEN OF CHARLOTTENBURG STATION No. 2, OCTOBER 12,1938. Dietrich had caught the gem-setter who in a fit of pique resulting from a denial of a raise had burned down his employer's jewelry store. Three firemen had died when a floor collapsed.
A bronzed glove was on a polished walnut stand. The glove—before being bronzed—had been floating on the Wannsee, the first trace of evidence that Baroness Maria von Hinton had done anything but journey to Baden-Baden, as was her routine at that time of year. When the lake was dragged, her body was found wrapped in enough chain to anchor the Bismarck. The coroner, Dr. Wenck, had determined that the baroness was alive when dropped into the water. Her family had presented the glove to Dietrich upon conviction of the notorious playboy Count Erich von Stoln, who had wrapped the baroness in iron and thrown her in the lake, two bottles of brandy having altered his perception of an acceptable frolic. Also on Dietrich's desk were an inscribed pair of brass knuckles inlaid with diamonds, a silver-plated hatchet head, a crystal decanter containing a human ear (a row of teeth marks clearly visible), and other mementos.
Dietrich seldom sat at his desk, but he did now, still weak from his time in the prison. He asked mildly, "How many Jack Grays are out there now?"
Detective Peter Hilfinger stepped to the window overlooking Alexanderplatz. The day was fading, with red in the sky, some from the sunset, some from that day's bombing-raid fires. "Nine, looks like With some of the Jack Crays in uniform, it's hard to tell them from their guards."
Hilfinger's back was to the desk, but Dietrich knew he was working to suppress a laugh. Dietrich picked up a gold-plated letter opener that at one time had also opened a kidney. "I hadn't anticipated this, Peter."
"Perhaps both of us should have," Hilfinger said charitably. "But with the American's face covering almost every vertical surface in Berlin, we are getting an average of fifteen sightings and three arrests an hour."