He bent down, picked up a piece of brick, and hurled it right toward the broken pipe, a desperate ring toss. It hit. A sharp clang, with the flashlight beams jerking back, another burst of shots. Without even testing his ankle, he bolted left toward the gap, hearing the crunch of broken plaster under his feet, more shouts in Russian. Just a few more steps. Endless. Then the light was back, shining against the wall and the shelling hole, drawing fire again. He crouched down in a feint, making the light follow him, then leaped away from it and dived into the gap, rolling downward on his bad shoulder and covering his head as the bullets ripped into the plaster at the opening, a furious ricochet whistling, just a foot or so too high. His whole body shaking now, finally in the war.
He rolled again, away from the opening, on a floor covered with glass and scattered papers, office litter. Bullets still tore into the room, one of them hitting metal with an echoing zing. He took his hand away from the back of his head, sticky with blood, opened when he’d hit the ground in the fall, and thought of Liz’s throat, gushing. Just one bullet. All it would take.
And then suddenly the bullets stopped, replaced by more shouting. He kept rolling until he reached a hulk of metal, a filing cabinet, and crawled behind it, raising his head to look out. There were heads at all the windows now, looking at the yard, yelling to each other, but none at Sikorsky’s, the machine guns redeployed, no doubt racing down the stairs, already after him.
He felt his way through the dark room to another, heading toward what he thought must be Wilhelmstrasse, a diagonal from the Adlon wing. Keep going away from the Linden. The next room was lighter, open to the sky, and he saw that he had left the standing part of the building behind. Now there was just a small hill of rubble, then an open patch to the ruined shell of the front. He started running toward the street. They’d come through the courtyard behind. He’d have a few seconds to get out, melt into the ruins while they searched the back of the Adlon. But when he came to an opening, ready to spring, he could hear the boots clomping in the street. Front and behind.
He headed right, snaking his way around another mound of bricks, still parallel to the street. They’d go first to the room with the filing cabinet, hoping to find him dead, not down Wilhelmstrasse. He took in the street again through the building shell. Just keep going. Another room, big, with twisted girders sticking up like teepee frames. Behind him, he could hear the boots entering the building. All of them? One more room, quietly. He stopped. Not just rubble; a small mountain, even the shell collapsed in, a dead end in the maze. He’d have to go back. But the boots were there again, crunching, fanning out through the building. He looked up toward the dark sky. The only way out was over.
He started up the pile, terrified that a slip would dislodge the bricks, send them tumbling down like alarms. If he could make the top, he could get to the next building, breathing space while they searched this one. He reached up, shoulder aching, scrambling on all fours. Bricks moved, settling and falling away as he found one foothold after another, but no louder than small clinks, not as loud as the Russians, still yelling from room to room. But what if the mound dropped sheer on the other side, propped up by a standing wall?
It didn’t. When he reached the top, lying down, he saw that it became one of those aprons of rubble that spilled into the street, without a connection to the next building. He also saw, ducking his head, lights sweep into the street, an open Soviet military car, Sikorsky jumping out, gun in hand, then pointing the car down the street, away from the Linden. Sikorsky stood for a minute, looking everywhere but up, and it occurred to Jake that he could just lie here, perched on his mountain, the one place they’d never look. Until when? The morning sun caught his white shirt and they surrounded him with guns? Another car came down the street, idled while Sikorsky gave a direction, and moved on to Behrenstrasse, the next cross street down, blocking that route. Now the only way out was the unbroken western side of Wilhelmstrasse, if he could get there before the headlights lit up the street. He watched Sikorsky take one of the soldiers and head into the building. Now, while the car was still turning into Behrenstrasse.
