‘Straight ahead,’ said Macke.
He drew his gun, a 9mm Luger pistol.
Werner was not armed.
There was a crash, a thud, and the roar of an explosion, all terrifyingly close. All the windows in the corridor smashed, and shards of glass rained on the tiled floor. A bomb must have landed in the playground.
Werner shouted: ‘Clear out, everyone! The building is about to collapse.’
There was no danger of the building collapsing, Macke could see. This was Werner’s ruse for giving the alarm to the pianist.
Werner broke into a run, but instead of heading back the way they had come he went on down the corridor towards the hall.
To warn his friends, Macke thought.
Wagner drew his gun, but Macke said: ‘No! Don’t shoot!’
Werner reached the end of the corridor and flung open the door to the hall. ‘Run, everyone!’ he yelled. Then he fell silent and stood still.
Inside the hall Macke’s colleague Mann, the electrical engineer, was tapping out nonsense on a suitcase radio.
Beside him stood Schneider and Richter, both holding drawn guns.
Macke smiled triumphantly. Werner had fallen straight into his trap.
Wagner walked forward and put his gun to Werner’s head.
Macke said: ‘You’re under arrest, you subhuman Bolshevik.’
Werner acted fast. He jerked his head away from Wagner’s gun, seized Wagner’s arm, and pulled him into the hall. For a moment Wagner shielded Werner from the guns in the hall. Then he thrust Wagner away from him, causing Wagner to stumble and fall. In the next moment he stepped out of the hall and slammed the door.
For a few seconds it was just Macke and Werner in the corridor.
Werner walked towards Macke.
Macke pointed his Luger. ‘Stop, or I’ll shoot.’
‘No, you won’t.’ Werner came closer. ‘You need to interrogate me, and find out who the others are.’
Macke pointed his gun at Werner’s legs. ‘I can interrogate you with a bullet in your knee,’ he said, and he fired.
The shot missed.
Werner lunged and knocked Macke’s gun hand aside. Macke dropped the weapon. As he stooped to retrieve it, Werner ran past.
Macke picked up the gun.
Werner reached the school door. Macke took careful aim at his legs and fired.
His first three shots missed, and Werner went through the door.
Macke fired one more shot through the still-open door, and Werner cried out and fell down.
Macke ran along the corridor. Behind him, he heard the others coming out of the school hall.
Then the roof opened with a crash, there was another noise like a thud, and liquid fire splashed like a fountain. Macke screamed in terror, then in agony as his clothes caught alight. He fell to the ground, then there was silence, then darkness.
The doctors were triaging patients in the hospital lobby. Those merely bruised and cut were sent into the out- patients’ waiting area where the most junior nurses cleaned their cuts and consoled them with aspirins. The serious cases were given emergency treatment right there in the lobby then sent to specialists upstairs. The dead were taken into the yard and laid on the cold ground until someone claimed them.
Dr Ernst examined a screaming burn victim and prescribed morphine. ‘Then get his clothes off and put some gel on those burns,’ he said, and moved on to the next one.
Carla loaded a syringe while Frieda cut the patient’s blackened clothes away. He had severe burns all down his right side, but the left was not so bad. Carla found an intact patch of skin and flesh on his left thigh. She was about to inject the patient when she looked at his face and froze.
She knew that fat round countenance with the moustache like a dirt mark under the nose. Two years ago he had come into the hall of her house and arrested her father. Next time she saw her father he had been dying. This was Inspector Thomas Macke of the Gestapo.
You killed my father, she thought.
Now I can kill you.
It would be simple. She would give him four times the maximum dose of morphine. No one would notice, especially on a night like tonight. He would fall unconscious immediately and die in a few minutes. A doctor who was almost asleep on his feet would assume his heart had failed. No one would doubt the diagnosis, and no one would ask sceptical questions. He would be one of thousands killed in a massive air raid. Rest in peace.
