Black Cross

17

McConnell kicked Stern out of bed at nine a.m. After a quick trip to the toilet at the end of the hall, he dressed in the clothes McShane had provided: army denims, gaiters, and a heavy green cotton smock. Last, he put on the “toggle” rope, with its loop at one end and short handle at the other. He coiled it around his hand, then clipped the coil to the web belt he found in the clothes bag.

Stern was already dressed and standing by the door.

“You don’t have your toggle rope,” McConnell reminded him.

“I don’t need it.”

McConnell shrugged and led the way to the first floor of the castle. They met Sergeant McShane in the entrance hall. The Highlander wore his green beret, but he had forgone his kilt in favor of denims, a khaki shirt, and camouflaged rain smock.

“I was about to come lookin’ for you,” he said. “You missed breakfast.”

“We’re ready,” said Stern.

“Ready?” McShane stared at him in amazement. “I dinna see your toggle rope.”

“I don’t need the damned thing.”

“Oh, you’ll be needin’ it, Mr. Butler. Now, go back and get it. Move.”

When Stern returned with the rope, McShane led them outside into a gray Highland dawn. The smell of wood and peat smoke mingled with the scent of coffee and pine, bringing McConnell fully awake. At last he could see the place to which Brigadier Smith had sent them. Achnacarry itself was built of gray stone, with crenelated parapets and mock turrets at the corners. The gurgle of water from behind it announced a river he could not see, but beyond the castle roof rose wooded hills shrouded in mist like that in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in northern Georgia.

A majestic tree-lined drive led down from the castle to the glen below, where a great loch with a surface like burnished silver lay in the growing light. But the pastoral scene ended there. Achnacarry’s expansive lawns were dotted with corrugated steel Nissen huts and canvas bell tents, a metropolis of instant housing. In the center of a field McConnell saw a tent as big as an aircraft hangar, and just across the drive the long row of graves Stern claimed were empty.

Not far from the graves, a powerfully built soldier of about fifty was speaking to a tall, bearded farmer twenty years his senior. The soldier’s voice modulated quickly between apology and indignation, his accent the furthest thing imaginable from Highland Scots.

“That’s the colonel,” Sergeant McShane said.

McConnell was perplexed. “That’s Colonel Vaughan?”

“Aye.”

“But that’s a London accent. I thought he was a Highlander, like yourself. I thought he was lord of the castle.”

McShane laughed. “The laird, you mean? No, no. The real laird, Cameron of Lochiel, moved two miles up the loch to Clunes for the duration. But he keeps an eye on his place, make no mistake. It’s his duty to all Camerons around the world.”

McConnell regarded the heavy-jowled colonel. Vaughan seemed a bit on the bulky side for a commando, though he certainly looked as tough as an old army boot. “Vaughan’s a commando himself?”

McShane shook his head. “Ex-Regimental Sergeant Major in the Guards.”

“I don’t see any commandos,” Stern observed.

“They’re on their thirty-six-hour scheme. Should be in any time, though.”

“What’s a thirty-six-hour scheme?” McConnell asked.

“Exactly what it sounds like. Thirty-six hours of running up and down the Lochaber hills in full kit under live fire. Be glad you missed it.”

“They were out in that storm last night?”

“Aye. And it’s a good thing they didna run across you two—”

A cacophony of wild, primitive screams rose out of the trees from behind the castle. “What the hell’s that?” McConnell asked.

“Mock assault on the Arkaig bridge. Climax of the scheme.”

McConnell watched in amazement as over a hundred commandos wearing strange cloth caps charged out from behind the castle with bayonets fixed. “What’s that they’re yelling, Sergeant?”

“Who knows? They’re Free French blokes.”

By the time the French commandos reached the Nissen huts, their enthusiasm had vanished. As they collapsed around their tents, Colonel Vaughan marched up the drive, cursing under his breath.

“What is it, sir?” Sergeant McShane asked.

Vaughan’s face glowed red with anger. “Some fool pinched a bicycle from a crofter’s hut down the hill. Bloody beggar’s accusing one of our lads.”

“One of ours, sir?”

“Right. Claims no one local would have pinched it. Says everyone knows it’s his only transport other than his cart-horse.”

McConnell looked Stern in the eye but saw no reaction.

“If he turns out to be right,” Vaughan bellowed, “I’ll flay the man who did it. We can’t afford to offend the locals. And God forbid Lochiel should hear of it!” He glanced suspiciously down the hill at the exhausted Frenchmen. “Suppose one of the Frogs could have pinched it,” he mused. “Seems unlikely, though.”

At last Vaughan’s eyes focused on Stern and McConnell. “What’s this lot, then? Dummies for the bayonet course?”

“They’re our special guests, sir.”

Vaughan stuck out his lower lip and gave them a measuring look. “Duff’s boys, eh? Very well. Carry on as we discussed, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you look into that bicycle.”

“Aye.”

Colonel Vaughan started to go, then paused, tucked his chin into his chest and squinted at Stern. McConnell wondered what had caught his interest. The desert tan? Stern’s languid posture? The insolent curve of his mouth? The colonel leaned his massive head in toward Stern’s chest and spoke with paternal familiarity.

“You’d best get that chip off your shoulder, lad. Before somebody knocks it off.” Vaughan cut his eyes at McShane. “Happens quite often round here, eh, Sergeant?”

“Seems to,” McShane confirmed. “Now that you mention it.”

Colonel Vaughan nodded once at McConnell, then disappeared into his castle.

Sergeant McShane stared pointedly at Stern. “Know anything about a missing bicycle?”

Stern silently returned the stare.

“Right,” McShane said. “Let’s get to business. Not much daylight in winter.”

As the sergeant led them across the grounds, McConnell leaned toward Stern and whispered, “Where’d you hide the bicycle?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Stern.

Sergeant McShane eventually stopped on top of a small hillock. On the other side, a stocky man of about forty sat on a camp stool, smoking a cigarette with obvious enjoyment. A clipboard and a pen lay on the ground beside him.

“My orders,” said McShane, “are to see where you two stand as far as taking care of yourselves. We’re going to check your God-given ability first. Weapons come later. Let’s see how you’d do if you were caught without one.”

The instructor on the stool grinned up at McShane. “Funny how often that very thing tends to happen, isn’t it, Ian?”

“True enough, John. Are you busy? These two will only be with us for a few days.”

“Not at all. Just put a few Poles through their paces.”

“You’re the unarmed combat instructor?” Stern asked.

The man on the stool frowned at the sound of Stern’s voice. German accents were seldom heard in the Lochaber hills.

McShane said, “All of us are qualified to teach any part of the course. But Sergeant Lewis does specialize a bit. This part of the course is actually called Silent Killing.”

Sergeant Lewis stood up and grinned again, though this time his eyes stayed sober. “Step into my parlor, lad.”

“I’ll let my friend warm you up,” Stern said.

McConnell turned to McShane. “Is this really necessary?”

“Get on with it, Mr. Wilkes.”

McConnell eased cautiously down the bank. He felt his pulse quickening. His entire pugilistic experience consisted of one round of boxing in a makeshift ring in the Fairplay High School gymnasium. It was the week after Tunney hammered Jack Dempsey for the title in Philadelphia. The high school boys had caught a seven-day boxing fever. His opponent had been a head shorter and fifteen pounds lighter than himself. He remembered because in less than three minutes the smaller boy had hit him harder, faster, and more times than he had ever been hit in his life. Those three minutes had been an education. He suspected he was in for a similar experience now.

“Don’t be shy,” Sergeant Lewis said. “Come right in.”

McConnell held up his fists in a classic boxing stance, right arm bent slightly at the elbow, left fist brushing his tucked chin. Sensing his hesitation, Lewis stepped forward and smiled, offering his head as a target.

McConnell tried the only ruse he knew. He let his eyes drop to his opponent’s belly, feinted at the body with a left jab, then drove his right fist straight at Sergeant Lewis’s chin.

When he ceased his forward motion he was sitting on his butt four feet beyond the spot where Lewis had been standing. The instructor had apparently converted the momentum of his punch into some kind of judo throw.

“You’re no’ a fighter, Mr. Wilkes,” Lewis said. “That’s plain enough. I won’t even try to explain what I did then, because we don’t have time for you to learn.” He turned to McShane. “I’ll do what I can, Ian. But I say fit him up with a pistol and pray he doesn’t get caught without it.”

McShane nodded in agreement, then motioned to McConnell, who climbed gratefully back up the bank.

“Your turn, Mr. Butler,” Sergeant Lewis said. His voice had a rather unpleasant edge to it.

Stern walked easily down the bank, his long arms swinging lightly.

Sergeant Lewis took a step toward him. “Are you ready?”

“Ready enough.”

The instructor shook his head. “Do you hear his accent, Ian? I pegged him for a Jew when I saw him, but he’s a bloody German to boot.” He turned back to Stern. “Say something else.”

Stern straightened up to his full height. “All right, Sergeant. Shut your fucking mouth.”

Lewis’s face lit up with pleasure. “Blow me, he curses like an English sergeant!”

“He saw some action in North Africa,” said McShane.

“Did he now?” Lewis began to slowly circle Stern.

Stern stood with his knees slightly bent, hands hanging loose at his sides. McConnell thought he looked birdlike, a thin statue of brown sinew and bone, with only his eyes tracking the British sergeant. Lewis kept his hands high, open, and in front as he moved. His body gave off a frightening intensity, like a ball of knotted muscle and adrenaline, but Stern gave no indication that he planned to move for the remainder of the morning. Finally Sergeant Lewis took a step forward, daring him to strike.

Stern did nothing.

Tired of this game, Lewis feinted with a curled right hand, then fired his left foot at Stern’s head. Stern’s response baffled both his opponent and his audience. He stepped back in a motion that appeared almost leisurely, at the same time driving his left hand sharply upward at a speed barely visible. The sergeant’s whole body followed his kick skyward. He turned a half somersault and crashed onto his back at Stern’s feet.

Lewis scrambled up, his face nearly purple with embarrassment and anger. “You’re the clever-dick, aren’t you!”

“John,” Sergeant McShane cut in. “I think that’s enough.”

“Bloody hell it is! Ask Mr. Butler if it’s enough. Or is it Mr. Birnbaum? Or Rubenstein?” He shook his finger in Stern’s expressionless face. “You are a bloody four-by-two, aren’t you?”

Stern replied in a perfect British accent. “Got something against Jews, have you, mate?”

“I knew it, Ian! Knew it the second I saw his desert tan.” Lewis’s face quivered. “This is one of the bastards that crippled my brother Wally in Palestine!”

“Could have been,” Stern said quietly.

“You bloody bastard.”

McShane shouted “John!” but it was too late. Lewis was already moving toward Stern, his hands a blur. McConnell watched in disbelief as Stern allowed himself to be struck twice, three times.

“Defend yourself!” he yelled.

Stern absorbed another blow that snapped his head back and left his cheek scarlet. Taking his reluctance to fight back as an opportunity to move in for the kill, Lewis abandoned the Oriental chops and threw a curled fist straight at Stern’s throat.

Before the punch could land, Stern dropped to the ground, caught his weight on the fingers of his left hand and flung his right foot around in a great sweeping kick that snapped Sergeant Lewis’s knee like a scythe-blade. McConnell heard a crack, then a high-pitched yell as Lewis went down, both hands gripping his leg. He moved instinctively toward the injured sergeant, but McShane’s powerful hand restrained him.

“Mr. Butler! Move back up here. Right now.”

Stern looked up at the Highlander, then leaned over Sergeant Lewis and said, “An Australian taught me that. I guess you never met him.” Then he walked slowly up to where McShane and McConnell waited.

“That wasna smart, Mr. Butler,” McShane said. “Not smart at all.”

“He asked for it.”

“Maybe. But you’re not here to advertise yourself.” McShane looked down the bank. Lewis was massaging his rapidly swelling knee. “Better have the M.O. check that for you, John. I’ll stop by his quarters tonight for a report.”

“This is nothing!” Lewis yelled, and struggled to his feet. “I’m still going, Ian!”

McShane turned to Stern and McConnell and said, “Let’s go.”

“Where?” Stern asked.

“Firing range.”

“Suits me.”

McShane gave him a look of annoyance. “I thought it might.”

At first, the firing range seemed merely another venue for Stern to demonstrate his martial prowess. They arrived to find two Frenchmen wrestling with a small, roughly finished machine gun. The weapons instructor, a Glaswegian named Colin Munro, watched the spectacle sadly. The gun would spit out a burst of bullets, jam, then clear just in time to startle the wits out of its operator.

“That, gentlemen,” Sergeant McShane said, “is a British Sten Mark-Two-S. In trained hands it’s prone to jamming. In untrained hands it’s all but useless.”

“Is that what we’re taking in?” Stern asked.

“No.” McShane reached into a crate on the ground and brought out a well-oiled submachine pistol of blue-black steel with a folding metal stock. McConnell saw Stern grin with anticipation.

“This is the German Schmeisser MP.40,” McShane said. “Operates on roughly the same principle as the Sten. Much in the same way a Mercedes-Benz operates on the same principle as a Bedford truck.”

Colin Munro laughed appreciatively.

“Fires a pistol cartridge, but it’s reliable.” McShane loaded a clip and handed the weapon to Stern. “I presume you’re a dab hand with this, Mr. Butler?”

“I’ve held one.” Stern took the Schmeisser and, holding it waist-high with both hands, aimed at a man-sized pile of sandbags thirty meters away.

“Hold on!” said Munro. “That’s a close-in weapon, lad. Step out to the marker there. Give yourself a chance, man.”

Stern smiled back at McShane, then pulled the trigger. He fired four three-round bursts — all of which struck the target in the chest area — then sprayed two nearby targets with the remaining shells in the clip.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Munro shouted at the Frenchmen. “Fire discipline!”

McShane gave Stern a sidelong glance. “This is my ringer, Colin. Calls himself Mr. Butler.”

“Is he as good with a pistol?”

“Better,” Stern said.

McShane loaded another clip into the Schmeisser and handed it to McConnell. “Mr. Wilkes?”

The submachine gun didn’t feel entirely foreign in McConnell’s hands, but when he fired — missing the sandbags completely — he realized he did not have even a semblance of control over the weapon.

“What do you say, Colin?” McShane asked.

“What can I say? Give me two weeks and I’ll turn him around.”

“We dinna have one week.”

“Give him a ladies’ gun, then. Small revolver. Best results without training.”

McConnell flushed at this, though he knew he shouldn’t give a damn. While Stern laughed, he stepped back and selected a worn bolt-action Lee-Enfield .303 from the rifle rack. “Anybody down in that target pit?” he asked, pointing two hundred meters downrange.

“Don’t know,” answered Munro. “But I don’t see as it matters much.” He grinned at McShane. “If you think you’ve hit it, you can run down there and fetch the target.”

McConnell chambered a round, then raised the Enfield to his shoulder. He looked down the open sights and drew a bead on the black bullseye. It was odd, he thought, the way the body seemed to remember things the mind let slip away. He rolled his shoulders once, feeling the faintest breeze at his back, and adjusted his aim slightly for the drop of the bullet.

He squeezed the trigger.

Munro barked a short laugh. “Five quid says that was Maggie’s drawers, Ian.” Then he said more kindly, “Have another go, son.”

McConnell worked the bolt three times in quick succession, feeling better with each shot. Then the chamber clicked empty.

“Dinna worry,” McShane said, “we’ll get you a revolver.”

“Damn me, would you look at that!” exclaimed Munro.

Downrange, someone in the pit had raised the red pointer used to indicate hits. The red circle hovered over the bullseye. The weapons instructor picked up a walkie-talkie from the table.

“That you, Bill?” he asked.

“Righto, Colin,” crackled the reply.

“Fun’s fun. Now give us the real score.”

“What do you mean? I was stowing some targets down here when you opened up. You shot the bleedin’ eye out of it, as usual.”

“Wasn’t me, Bill. I think we’ve got ourselves another Alvin York up here.”

McShane looked curiously at McConnell. “Mr. Wilkes?”

“Deer hunted when I was a kid,” McConnell said. “Everybody did, where I’m from.”

“Your family obviously didna go hungry.”

McConnell enjoyed the look of puzzlement on Stern’s face. “They tell me my grandfather was a sharpshooter for Benning’s Brigade. Maybe that had something to do with it.”

“U.S. Army?” Munro asked.

“Confederate States of America.” McConnell laughed.

Sergeant McShane put the Lee-Enfield back into the rack. “Two bloody mystery men,” he mumbled. “That’s what I’ve got here.”

Stern was still staring at McConnell.

“Right,” McShane said. “One more stop this morning. The Death Ride. Get your toggle ropes ready.”

The Highlander set off across the meadow, moving almost silently through the brown bracken like the expert hillman he was. As McConnell and Stern followed, Mark saw a huge vertical rock face in the distance. Something was moving across it like small insects. Then he realized that the insects were men. He breathed a sigh of relief when McShane turned away from the cliff.

The sergeant marched until they reached the river Arkaig, which was in flood from the recent rains, then worked his way along its bank. The cold gray water tumbled over rocks and tore through thickets with a high-pitched rushing sound. McConnell saw a huge limb slide past like a boat broken free of its moorings.

“Here we are,” McShane said.

“Where?” Stern asked.

McShane pointed skyward. “The Death Ride, gentlemen.”

Fifty feet above their heads, McConnell could just make out a black cable stretched taut from a treetop to the base of another tree across the river. The angle looked to be about fifty degrees. There was no safety net. Sergeant McShane laid his hand on a plank step nailed to the tree beside them. It was one of several dozen that led up to a tiny platform in the topmost branches, like the crow’s nest of a ship.

“Death Ride,” Stern said mockingly. “I don’t see how this child’s game can possibly help our mission.”

McShane sighed with forbearance. “When you get where you’re going, Mr. Butler, I think you’ll find this exercise was a great help.”

“You know where we’re going?” Stern asked.

“I know you’d better be gettin’ your backside up this tree.”

McShane took Stern’s toggle rope and threaded the wooden handle through the loop at the other end, creating a flexible hoop. “Throw the loop over the cable,” he said. “Then twist your wrists into each end and jump. Gravity does the rest.”

With a last scornful look, Stern scaled the ladder like a fireman. McConnell followed more slowly. Once on the platform, Stern tossed the looped toggle rope over the wire as McShane had instructed. Then, without any hesitation, he seized an end in each hand and threw himself out into space.

McConnell watched him sliding across the river like a runaway cable car. Stern’s face remained confident until he reached a point halfway down the rope. At that moment someone on the opposite bank began firing a semiautomatic rifle. When McConnell saw Stern jerk his knees close up into his body, he knew something was wrong. A few blank gunshots added for show shouldn’t worry a combat veteran like Stern. Then McConnell realized what was happening.

Stern was dodging real bullets.

Sergeant McShane was signaling for McConnell to go. His conscious mind screamed that he should climb back down to the ground, but something pushed him on. He tossed his toggle rope over the cable, twisted his wrists into loops on either side of it, and leaped off the platform. He felt the wind in his face, saw the river flashing up to meet him, heard the shriek of rifle bullets passing within inches of his body. Then the river bank knocked his knees up into his chin.

Stern pulled him to his feet. “Come on! I’m going to get that bastard!”

Two bullets slammed into a tree less than a meter away. Stern dove to the ground and screamed, “Arschloch!”

“All right, gents!” McShane shouted across the river. “You’ve seen one use for the toggle rope. Plenty more to come. Back on this side, now.”

Stern beat the bushes for five minutes, but the sniper had vanished. He was still seething when they finally managed to ford the river and rejoin Sergeant McShane.

After lunch — a brief affair of beans and cabbage soup — Sergeant McShane led Stern off to receive some special instruction that apparently he alone needed. McConnell was handed a sealed box which he soon discovered held a textbook and a notebook. The textbook was a volume on colloquial German, prepared by some branch or other of British intelligence. Into it someone had inserted a loose sheet headed “Common SS Commands and Responses.” The notebook contained some very interesting handwritten information on organic phosphates — the building blocks of nerve gases — and also some schematic drawings of apparatus that would likely be involved in the production of such gases. He wondered if this information had originated in Britain or Germany.

At the bottom of the box, he found a note from Brigadier Smith. It read: This should keep you busy while Stern capers about in the forest, Doctor. Don’t let a misplaced “du” trip you up, eh? I’ll see you soon. Duff.

McConnell spent the afternoon studying in the shadow of an old stone Episcopal church. He was grateful for the books. They allowed him to focus his mind on facts, rather than giving free rein to the guilt and grief that had troubled him for the past few days. By the time Sergeant McShane rounded him up for dinner, darkness had fallen and he was starving.

Near the center of the Nissen hut village, several long mess tables had been set up. They were long wooden affairs, scarred by years of use. He was reminded of “dinner on the ground” at some Baptist churches he’d visited as a boy, but the impression did not last long.

Sergeant McShane had made the mistake of seating him and Stern with the French commandos. Stern had not spoken more than three sentences before an ex-legionnaire noticed his German accent. McConnell tried to explain in high school French that Stern was a German Jewish refugee, but the situation deteriorated much too quickly for reason to play a part. True to form, Stern did nothing to defuse the situation. When the ex-legionnaire emptied a glass of ale in his face, Stern launched himself across the table like a man diving from a cliff.

Before the astonished Frenchman could react, Stern’s thumbs were attempting to punch a hole in his windpipe. Within seconds a half-dozen French commandos had come to their comrade’s rescue, but Stern refused to let go. McConnell saw elbows thrashing as the Frenchmen mercilessly pummeled him.

Then, almost as suddenly as it began, the brawl was over. The conclusive force was Sergeant Ian McShane. The huge Highlander waded into the mob and snatched out bodies like a man yanking roots from the earth. One well-placed blow dislodged the last of the Frenchmen, and a mighty heave brought Stern to his feet, dazed and bloody. The ex-legionnaire was lying on the floor, his face white, his neck red and swollen.

“What the bloody ’ell happened here?” roared a voice McConnell recognized as Colonel Vaughan’s. “The milling isn’t for a week yet!”

The red-faced C.O. of Achnacarry sorted out the melee in a matter of seconds, his last order banishing Stern from the mess area. Without speaking, Sergeant McShane hustled both Stern and McConnell between the trainees’ huts and across the drive, then onto a dark path behind the castle. As they approached the river, the silhouette of a small Nissen hut appeared directly in the path. McShane shoved Stern up against its steel wall.

“Listen, you,” he said in a controlled voice. “That’s never happened at our mess before, and it never will again. If it does, I’ll wring your bloody neck myself.” He poked a thick finger into Stern’s chest. “And I can do it, laddie, fancy fighting or no.”

McConnell had no doubt of it.

“You’ve got a problem, Mr. Butler,” McShane said, still holding Stern to the wall. “And like the colonel said, you’ve come to the right place if you want it cured. From now on, this is where you’ll eat and sleep. I’ll have your gear sent out tonight.”

The Scot shook his head and glared at them. “I dinna ken who decided to send you two here for training, but he must be short of a full shilling. You’re about the least likely candidates for an important mission I can possibly imagine.”

Just as Stern seemed about to reply (and McConnell was praying he wouldn’t) they heard the muted thump of feet running up the path. A uniformed orderly appeared and saluted Sergeant McShane.

“What is it, Jennings?”

“Mr. Butler’s wanted at the castle, Sergeant! At the double. Colonel Vaughan’s office.”

McShane sighed. “I tried to warn you,” he told Stern. “I’ll have your bags waitin’ by the door.”

“It’s not the colonel, sir,” the orderly said. “It’s an officer from London. A Brigadier Smith.”

“About bloody time,” Stern muttered. He shouldered past McShane and headed back toward the castle.

McConnell shrugged at the Highlander and the astonished orderly, then walked into the Nissen hut and closed the door. There were two cots inside, but no blankets. A small paraffin lamp sat in one corner, but he saw no matches. He lay down on the bare cot and tucked his face into his forearms. On balance, the day’s events had disturbed him. Brigadier Smith might believe Stern’s propensity for violence was an asset, but McConnell did not. The calculated use of force to achieve an objective was one thing, explosive reflex aggression another. For whatever reason — past trauma or simply a bellicose temperament — Jonas Stern was unstable. And an unstable man was a poor leader. Wherever they were really going, McConnell decided, he would follow no orders but his own.