Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [96]
Dietrich cupped his hand over the phone. He ordered Hilfinger, "Adam von Tornitz. A Wehrmacht captain, dead now. Lived in Berlin. Get his address."
He turned his attention again to the telephone. "That's all?... Thank you, Captain. You'll hear from me again." Dietrich lowered the telephone. He grinned meanly at the Gestapo agent. "One of my pairs of eyes saw the widow of Adam von Tornitz walking with the American near the Tiergarten."
Hilfinger ran his finger down a page of the city directory.
"Von Tornitz?" Koder asked. "I know that name. He was involved in a plot against the Führer. He was hanged, as I recall. I might have witnessed his execution on Lehrterstrasse." He waived his hand airily. "But perhaps not. They are hard to remember, one from another, after a while."
Hilfinger wrote down an address. "It's in the Nikolassee." He handed the address to Dietrich.
Dietrich dialed, then barked orders into the telephone. Still grinning, waving the address like a prize, he sped past Koder on his way out of the office, a line of detectives following him.
"HAVE YOU SEEN HIM?" Dietrich whispered, even though the house was sixty meters away. He had just gotten out of his car. Night was almost complete, with only faint purple left of the day in the western sky.
The plainclothes policeman shook his head. "I've been here ten minutes. There's someone in the house. At least I think so. A shadow crossing a window is all I saw. My men have had the house surrounded for those ten minutes, so if he's in there, he can't get out."
"You look silly, carrying that machine pistol," Dietrich chided easily. "Detectives and machine pistols don't mix well."
"Then you dash into that house withjust your puny handgun, sir." The policeman's name was Erwin Nolte. He quickly added, "With all due respect." He wiggled the weapon. "I'm going to keep this damned thing right in front of me, with the trigger half pulled back. That American scares the crap out of me."
"Me, too." Dietrich carried binoculars in one hand and a pack radio in the other. He sucked wind through his teeth as he watched three cars pull up along Kenner Street, a block west of the von Tornitz house. Peter Hilfinger and Egon Haushofer climbed out of the first car. Hilfinger gave directions to policemen who began to array themselves around the house, but at a distance, joining the police already there. More cars were arriving to the north, policemen spilling out.
"Sir," Nolte blurted, "he's coming out. On the front porch."
Dietrich lifted the binoculars to his eyes, saw nothing but black, hastily removed the lens covers, and tried again. Jack Cray was abruptly centered in Dietrich's field of vision, stepping between two potted plants down the steps to the front walkway.
Dietrich breathed. "It's him, all right."
Jack Cray must have had superb hearing, because just then his head jerked up. He cocked an ear. Dietrich heard nothing. For a moment. Then from the south came the low growl of an engine. Dietrich turned to see an armored scout car roaring down the street.
"Goddamn that idiot." Dietrich spun toward the house, in time to see Jack Cray rush back inside and close the door.
"Where'd the armor come from?" the policeman asked.
"On the orders of a Gestapo agent whom I'd murder if ] hadn't spent a career chasing murderers."
A black Horch rolled up next to Dietrich. Rudolf Koder and two other agents emerged from the car. At this stage in the struggle, Gestapo agents seldom traveled alone.
"That the von Tornitz house?" Koder demanded.
The armored car—a three-axle Mercedes-Benz with a 2-cm gun on a rear turret—came along the street, followed by two identical armored cars and three troop trucks. In the lead armored car a spotter wearing a tanker's black beret threw open the hatch and rose just enough to glance at Koder.
"You seen the American?" Koder yelled at Dietrich over the grind of the armored cars' engines.
Dietrich was silent, furious that the Gestapo agent had muscled into his police work.
Erwin Nolte replied,