Berlin Burning by Damien Seaman Page A

by little, various sounds rolled back in. Cattle snorting and shuffling in the yard out of sight. The murmur of Schupomen. The clanking of their equipment. Laughter from somewhere.
    Trautmann kicked his door open the rest of the way and got out of the car: ‘Kessler!’
    The sergeant turned to him, a glint in his grey eyes that had more to it that just the reflection of the morning sun. Sweat rolled down his cheeks and he was grinning.
    â€˜Bastard won’t come out,’ Kessler said. ‘We’ve given him plenty of warning.’
    â€˜What about the girl? Is she there?’
    Kessler frowned.
    â€˜Fleischer’s niece,’ Trautmann said. ‘Is she in there?’ Roth stood next to him, and Trautmann willed his assistant not to say anything out of turn.
    â€˜Oh.’ Kessler’s grin returned. ‘Good idea. Won’t do any good though, you’ll see.’ He raised the loudhailer: ‘Fleischer! If the girl is in there with you, send her out. You have my word she won’t be harmed.’
    Fleischer said nothing. Assuming he was in there – and still alive.
    â€˜See?’ Kessler said to Trautmann.
    Roth nudged the kommissar and pointed out some Schupomen who’d snuck up to the shed. Some splashed kerosene about while others set the walls alight with burning brands.
    â€˜Kessler, you fool!’ Trautmann said. ‘Let us try to talk them out of there first.’
    â€˜This is hardly the time for talk, Mule,’ Kessler said, before using the loudhailer again: ‘This is it, Fleischer! If you don’t come out of there now with your hands aloft, we’ll burn you out!’
    Flames licked the sides of the building.
    Trautmann turned, his pulse thick in his ears.
    â€˜Sir?’ Roth said, his voice seeming very distant, though Trautmann could see how close he was out of the corner of one eye.
    â€˜Back in the car, Roth,’ he said.
    â€˜Sir?’
    â€˜I thought I was the deaf one.’
    Trautmann grazed a shin on the still-open door before sliding in behind the wheel. Roth settled into the passenger seat. He looked unhappy. Trautmann didn’t blame him, though he still found it annoying.
    â€˜And you needn’t think I want to look at your pouting face for the rest of the morning,’ he snapped, pulling his door shut.
    He turned the ignition and the motor coughed into life. He backed up the auto a little way and then paused.
    â€˜Brace yourself against something, Roth. We’re about to jeopardise our pensions.’
    Chapter 13
    â€“–––––––
    T rautmann jammed the gearstick into first and floored the accelerator. The auto juddered forwards, bouncing bluecoats off the bonnet.
    They coursed across the patch of dry grass between the curb and the flaming shed walls and then smashed through. What little remained of the roof tumbled down behind them.
    They drove through a room that was all smoke, then into a connecting room. It was clearer in the second room, but darker. The front wheels jammed hard against something Trautmann couldn’t see. He hit the brake pedal and the auto slid into a long, shallow gutter.
    Roth smacked against the windscreen as the engine stalled. The glass cracked but it held, and when Roth leaned back in his seat he was honest-to-God smiling, blood slicking his teeth.
    â€˜I told you to brace yourself,’ Trautmann said.
    â€˜I’ve never seen you this upset,’ Roth said. ‘It’s fun.’
    Trautmann applied the handbrake – something of an academic exercise. This time when he kicked his door open it was because the door was stuck and he had to.
    â€˜They shouldn’t have made me shoot that boy back in the club,’ he said.
    Black smoke drifted around them, most of it clinging to the floor like a drunken English ukulele band. The roof was still on this part of the building, and flickering electric lights cast jagged shadows,