Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [99]
Dietrich moved toward the furnace room. He stuck his flashlight and gun into the room at the same time, sweeping the light left into the coal bin.
"Nothing, not even coal," he whispered to himself.
He brought the beam of light down to the ash bin below the furnace's iron lip. The ash was gray and fine and a film of it lay on the furnace room floor. A trooper squeezed by Dietrich and thrust his bayonet twice down into the ash box, the weapon sinking each time until the front sight was below the ash.
Dietrich lowered himself to his knees to peer into the furnace's combustion chamber. He couldn't see up into the furnace, but nothing was on its floor. And he couldn't think of a way a man could get into it, anyway.
The bass cracking of a Schmeisser filled the basement. Dietrich turned to see the water heater leaking from eight holes. When he stepped away from the furnace, the same trooper used his weapon to perforate the furnace, up and down, then back and forth.
"Don't fire that again unless [ order you to," Dietrich said wearily. "I want to talk to this American first."
"I take my orders from Kriminalrat Koder, sir," the trooper replied.
"This is my goddamn investigation. I run it my way. I search a house my way."
Koder stared at him.
Dietrich detested the weakness in him that compelled him to explain further, "There might be evidence here we can collect. There's no sense destroying the house during this search."
"Evidence?" Koder appeared genuinely at a loss.
"And we don't know how involved this woman is."
"We have learned her name is Katrin von Tornitz," Koder said. "She is the wife of an executed traitor."
"But that doesn't mean she herself is a traitor. And so we shouldn't be in such a hurry to destroy her home. There's a less destructive way to search a house than to shoot up everything."
Koder smiled. Then he snapped a finger at the troopers.
Three of them turned their submachine guns on the cartons and bins. The roar pushed Dietrich back against a wall. Wood splinters leaped into the air. Masonry chips shot out from the walls. The boxes shattered inward, revealing old clothes and bric-a-brac from prior household moves. Bullets spun the bicycles and then threw them on the floor. The water heater and furnace were further perforated. A collection of bottles from the last century and three old vases blew apart. A glass-front bookcase ruptured. A duffel bag containing rags was shot through. The ringer washer was almost cut in half. A storage closet danced under the onslaught, and its door sagged open, revealing old clothes that were further punctured. Spent shells skittered across the floor. Gray gunsmoke gathered along the ceiling.
Then the troopers picked through the debris and pulled aside the bullet-riddled clothes and kicked in the boxes.
One of them said unnecessarily, "The American isn't here."
Dietrich's ears were ringing. He crossed the basement and climbed the stairs. Three Gestapo agents were in the kitchen, and four more in the good room, all of them rooting around, pulling items off shelves, flipping through a stack of letters and examining a pen-and-ink set.
Peter Hilfinger had been searching through back rooms, and he joined Dietrich at the door. He returned his pistol to his belt. "I feel like I've been run over by Blackshirts."
"It's clear to me now," Dietrich said in a low voice, "that although I was given control of the search for Jack Cray, and even though I've got Himmler's letter in my pocket, the Gestapo has also been given their orders, and when they and I conflict, I'm expected to give way."
Hilfinger followed Dietrich from the house and down the front steps. They walked between the two armored cars. The crews had climbed out of their vehicles and were sitting on the hoods and turrets. More equipment had arrived, filling the street, including a light tank, a bulldozer, and more troop trucks. More than three hundred soldiers and policemen now surrounded the house.
"So where is Jack Cray?" Hilfinger asked.
Dietrich turned abruptly so that he could