The Hess Cross (27 page)

Flannery punched the Cadillac's accelerator. The car leaped from the driveway into the street. The escort's driver had no time to react. The Cadillac's right fender slammed into the Chevy with a reassuring, metallic crunch. Both cars bounced back as headlight splinters peppered the concrete. Radiator water gushed from the Chevrolet. Despite his stiff-armed steering, Flannery's head struck the steering wheel. For several seconds his mind faded and wandered. The dynamite truck screeched to a halt two yards behind the car.

Hans Graf sprinted from the elm tree to the collision, where he stopped in front of the Chevy, raised his submachine gun, and waited for the dazed driver to open his mouth in horror. The Chevy's windshield exploded as Graf emptied half the clip into the car. When the crystalline shards had cleared the air, Flannery saw the bloody, mangled stumps, the remnants of the driver's and passenger's heads.

At the last instant, the back-seat passenger had flattened on the floor of the car. Now he kicked the back door open, scrambled from the car, and crouched behind the open door. He carried a sawed-off shotgun, which he hastily aimed at
Graf, whose attention was diverted by the truck's guard jumping down from the cab. Just as the shotgun's hammers reared back, Willi Lange fired a stream of bullets through the hedge and into the shotgunner, who was blown back into the car, his side ripped away. Both barrels of the shotgun erupted as the dead man's fingers convulsed. The buckshot winged harmlessly over Graf's head and tore through brittle leaves on overhead branches. Graf saluted the hedge.

Erich von Stihl stood near his auto, waiting for the truck driver to make a predictable, stupid mistake. The colonel could not risk rushing the cab, because the driver and the guard would be armed, but the driver would soon move. Just as he thought, the truck's transmission clanged as it slammed into reverse. The truck kicked back, the driver trying to escape with his payload. When the cab reached von Stihl, the German raised his Luger and squeezed off three quick shots through the side window. The driver died instantly. His truck veered sharply, backed over a garbage can, and rammed a tree on the parking strip as the body slumped over the steering wheel. The engine coughed and died.

The truck's passenger was not accounted for. Von Stihl dropped to all fours to look under the truck. The man's legs pumped wildly as he cleared the truck and broke down Ridgeland, running away from the massacre. The bald man ran like a halfback, zigzagging and low, to make himself a difficult target. Graf ran to the tail end of the truck and let loose a burst, but the bullets kicked up sparks from the concrete behind the runner.

Von Stihl yelled, "Lange, down the street."

Willi Lange stood from behind the hedge and lined his weapon on the bald man running madly down the middle of the street like a fool. Why didn't he take cover and give himself a chance? Lange thought. Lange's Schmeisser spit
an economical half-second burst. A block away, roses of blood bloomed and quickly crawled up the runner's back. He pitched forward and was dead before his body slid to a stop.

Mesmerized by the swift violence, Paddy Flannery stood by the Cadillac and watched the carnage. When the bald runner's back sieved blood, Flannery gripped the Cadillac's fender for support. He was dizzy with his involvement and its ramifications. The Irishman's last thought before Hans Graf turned to him was: I'm going to die a traitor.

Graf's hard, taunting voice reached him. "So long, mick."

Not until the SS Obersturmführer saw Flannery had focused on his face did he let loose the rest of his clip. The submachine gun squirmed in Graf's hand. Flannery felt an odd, empty, painless bloating in his chest. The Irishman's eyes closed forever as his body sank to a sitting position on the Cadillac's running board.

Von Stihl had an almost mystical faith in Lange's ability with a Schmeisser, so without looking at the fate of the bald runner he opened the driver's side door of the truck. Sharp pieces of shattered glass fell from the door frame and scattered on the ground. The colonel grabbed the dead driver's belt and hauled him from the cab. The body bounced off the running board to the street. Von Stihl swept blood and glass from the seat, climbed in, and turned the engine over. Willi Lange hurriedly got into the truck from the passenger side and slid to the middle, to make way for Graf. The truck jumped forward, swerved around the punctured escort car, and headed south on Ridgeland Street.

Over the roar of his motorcycle engine, Patrolman Bates heard the unfamiliar staccato pounding of automatic weapons. He turned onto Ridgeland a block south of the ambush in time to see the dynamite truck pull away from the curb and wind around the riddled Chevy. It rapidly gained speed. Good God, what a mess, thought Bates as he cranked
back on the accelerator and the Harley screamed toward the oncoming truck. Were those bodies? A traffic accident? What's that guy doing sitting on the Caddy's running board? Hell, he's dead. Holy damn, there's more dead bodies. And those bastards in the truck must be trying to get away.

With the truck bearing down on him, Bates jerked back on his handlebars and threw his weight to his right, putting his cycle into a sideways slide toward the approaching truck. Afraid the truck's tires would not survive a trip over the careening motorcycle, von Stihl stomped on the brakes. The patrolman rolled to his feet with his service revolver already drawn, ran to the truck window, and yelled up at von Stihl, "You're all under arrest. Get out of the truck." He thrust his pistol through the window so its blunt nose was six inches from the colonel's face.

Calmly, deliberately, von Stihl said, "Officer, if you turn around and walk away, you'll live. If not, your life ends here."

"Get out of that fucking truck before I blow your head off," Bates bellowed as he shook his gun at the German.

Von Stihl said one word, "Lange."

Willi Lange fired his Schmeisser across von Stihl's lap. The stream of bullets ripped through the truck's door and tore into the patrolman's chest. The cop dropped out of sight. Von Stihl backed the truck up several yards, swerved around the motorcycle, and drove down the street.

Only two minutes had passed since the Ridgeland Street massacre had begun. Two damaged cars, a police motorcycle, and seven bodies littered the street. The old cat owner picked up her phone to dial the police again.

XIV

T
HAT
P
ATROLMAN
F
RANK
B
ATES,
whose body resembled a cheese grater, lived for four hours after the ambush was a miracle. He was rushed to Cook County Hospital, where Dr. Felix Rinder, chief of surgery and professor of medicine at Northwestern University School of Medicine, personally took charge of the policeman's care. An hour after Bates arrived at the emergency entrance, the hospital announced he had used forty pints of blood and their reserves were dangerously low. An emergency call for blood donors went out to all police precincts.

The response was heartwarming and, at least to Dr. Rinder, predictable. Uniformed cops soon filled every available space at the hospital, while nurses extracted a pint of blood from each. Even the dental clinic's chairs and the waiting-room chairs were filled by Chicago policemen with their sleeves rolled up. Queues of cops waited near each chair and bed to give blood to fellow officer Bates. Nurses drew blood from five cops at a time, rushing back and forth
with needles, empty bottles, and cotton swabs. Medical students trotted over from the school to assist. A few officers would not take the nurses' word that they could donate only one pint, and had to be told the limit by the supervising physician. The streets outside the hospital were clogged with police cars and motorcycles as their drivers took fifteen minutes from their schedules to try to save Patrolman Bates's life.

By two o'clock that afternoon, 438 policemen had donated. The hospital had more blood than it could use in a week. Dr. Rinder rubbed his hands together with glee. What difference did it make that Bates had actually died the instant he was gunned down and that the bulletin about the policeman clinging to life in dire need of blood was a fabrication? For a week the hospital would not have to plead with a squeamish public to donate. At 2:30 the hospital announced that despite the efforts of the finest surgeons in the Midwest, Patrolman Frank Bates had succumbed to his injuries.

Von Stihl and his men had made their first mistake. All Chicago's criminal element, the professional underworld, the teenage street gangs, small-time burglars and muggers, torches, whiz mobs, pimps, and pushers, all knew the most important rule of survival in Chicago. It was obeyed above all other criminal mores. Gangsters served time rather than violate it. Addicts lost a week's fix rather than break it. The maxim was pounded into street urchins the day they joined a gang. It was the ultimate rule of survival, and it was simple: Never, ever, kill a Chicago cop.

Within thirty minutes of the Ridgeland Street massacre, the policemen of Chicago knew two things about the killing: motorcycle patrolman Frank Bates had been hit, and an Irish hoodlum was involved. The Chicago police force went to the streets. Cops on leave showed up to put in
overtime. Others worked two shifts that day, their paid shift and a voluntary one. Arson and homicide detectives dropped their cases. Traffic cops left their posts. Retired policemen asked for special duty. Cops who had phoned in sick that day were cured and reported to their precinct stations. Their purpose: to find Bates's killer and save the courts a trial.

Chicago's outlaw underbelly paid dearly for Frank Bates's death. Their regular and generous grease meant nothing. Gang members across Chicago were rousted from their homes and clubs and taken downtown. Many suffered unfortunate bruises on the way, which on official reports were attributed to accidents on stairways. Much like a Marx Brothers movie, groups of three and four hoodlums fell down stairs simultaneously, despite their police protection en route to the stations. Gangster Mickey O'Brien broke his nose while in custody. The policeman wrote on the report, "Suspect struck arresting officer's fist with his nose."

Policy depots were raided. Underworld gambling casinos were invaded and their equipment destroyed. The Twenty-second Street precinct headquarters had so many mob hookers waiting to be booked that a street vendor made a week's profit selling them hot dogs. A Department of Health official and two policemen arrived at a mob-owned restaurant on Wabash Street and closed it for having an unsanitary kitchen. Diners were forced to leave their tables in mid-bite. A gangster-controlled garbage company's garage in Cicero was closed with police padlocks so that the eight trucks within could be used as evidence in a possible future trial resulting from a possible future arrest. The streets dried up. Underworld patrons screamed at their aldermen but were told nothing could stop the purge.

Each collared hoodlum was asked about the massacre. Asked and re-asked, with force. No one knew anything.
Gang leaders, seeing their operations shrink like a slug dosed with salt, also began asking questions. Who hit the truck on Ridgeland Street? Who burned the cop? They wanted the hijackers as much as the police did. No one knew anything.

Everette Smithson paced nervously in front of the Metallurgical Laboratory. Wind blew briskly along Ellis Avenue, and a few students scurried along, their faces buried in scarves and collars. Despite the wind, Smithson's substantial bulk was sweating.

Chicago was his protectorate. For two years it had suffered fewer incidents of suspected sabotage than any other area in the country. This record was the job security Smithson needed, because he knew this job would be the last stop of his career.

Smithson had been a career army officer who retired in 1939 after twenty-five years, most of which time was served as a perimeter security officer at various bases. He had ended his army years as a major and chief of security at Fort Lewis. Because forty-five was too young to retire, he had applied to the Department of War for a job in his field. Shortly thereafter he was contacted by Richard Sackville-West, the head of a government organization Smithson had never heard of, and asked to move to Chicago to join the agency's antisabotage division.

"Division" was a misnomer. Smithson
was
the division, the only man assigned to investigate suspected sabotage in the Chicago area, which included the city, its suburbs, and, unfortunately, Gary, Indiana. It was a comfortable, secure position. Once a week he reported via coded telegram to Sackville-West in Washington. Most were single sentences announcing that no instances of suspected sabotage had occurred. Occasionally Smithson would investigate a
suspicious industrial breakdown, which he usually concluded was the work of a dissatisfied employee. His job had a routineness he enjoyed and a title he was proud of.

Now this. The dynamite hijacking occurred at 9:30 that morning. He had followed the police investigation closely, and by noon they still had no hard evidence to back their belief it was a gangland hit. When the police chief told him of the one startling fact that pointed to sabotage, Smithson had phoned Sackville-West, reviewed the evidence, and asked for assistance. Smithson was not surprised when his boss suggested John Crown help. Crown was already in Chicago, and his duties guarding Hess occupied only his mornings. Sackville-West wanted a full report in two days. And he wanted that dynamite accounted for.

Smithson clasped his hands behind his back and once again peered at the laboratory front door. The interviews usually didn't last this long. Hess's mind always fell apart before the noon hour. What was keeping them? He wanted to enter the building to deliver the Priest's message to Crown, but knew he could not. Nor was he allowed in Hess's presence. Smithson resumed his pacing.

A short, thick-set man wearing a charcoal trench coat and carrying a maroon blanket over his arm approached Smithson. The man had a strong jaw and a metal cast to his eyes. He paused in front of Smithson.

"Say, pal, got the time?"

"Sure," Smithson said as he glanced at his wristwatch, "it's twelve-twenty."