Black Cross

30

McConnell had been waiting alone in the cellar of Anna’s cottage for eight hours when he heard someone knock at the front door. He turned off the gas lamp and sat completely still in the darkness. He knew the knocking might be Stern, but Stern had taken off without a word and he could find his own goddamn way back in.

Besides, it might not be Stern. Stern could have been caught by a German patrol ten minutes after he left the cottage and been tortured ever since. He could have given up its location only minutes ago. The sound of the knocking was faint, probably because there was a staircase and a heavy door between McConnell and the kitchen, and then the foyer beyond that.

The knocking stopped.

McConnell didn’t try to relight the gas lamp. He took several deep breaths and tried to slow the pounding of his heart. He wasn’t sure if it was light or dark outside, but he figured dark.

Where the hell was Stern?

After his dramatic dawn exit, Anna had shown McConnell through a narrow door in the corner of the kitchen that led to the cellar. Down a steep flight of wooden steps was a low-ceilinged room stacked with bellied boxes and rusted farm machinery. There was a sofa at the back, and a couple of old duvets. He’d collected the bags from the foyer and hauled them down the steps one piece at a time while Anna watched him with a hopeless look in her eyes. She’d spoken a few puzzled words, then left for Totenhausen.

During the first two hours McConnell had jumped at every sound, expecting to hear sirens or gunfire or whatever alarms might result from Stern gassing the prison camp. After that, he’d begun having visions of Stern in the hands of the SS, trying to hold out against God only knew what kind of tortures. But when no storm troopers arrived to break down the cottage door and arrest him, he calmed down enough to eat some cheese from his bag and consider his situation.

Brigadier Smith had proved to be even more devious than McConnell had given him credit for. The moment McConnell climbed out of that Lysander onto German soil, he had become an accessory to the mission, helpless to stop Stern except by killing him or turning him in to the SS — both moral impossibilities.

Smith had counted on that.

So here he was, cowering in the cellar of a frightened German nurse, unable to escape Germany without Stern’s help. The nurse intrigued him. She was the furthest thing imaginable from his idea of a spy. Had it been she who smuggled out the sample of Sarin that he’d tested in his Oxford lab? It was certainly possible. But if so, what had motivated her to take such a risk? In the absence of facts, he found himself certain that Anna Kaas had endured some great tragedy at the hands of the Nazis. Why else would she risk her life to fight them? Very few Germans had.

Her reluctance to embrace Brigadier Smith’s plan had surprised and pleased him. She must have been excited at the prospect of action, especially after months or even years of living a double life, always under threat of discovery yet never seeing any benefit from the risks she took. But now that the day had arrived, she seemed appalled by what “London” had decreed must be done. Before leaving the cottage, she’d looked back at him and said, “It’s odd, isn’t it? The Nazis say we must kill Jews to save the German people. Your Brigadier Smith says you must kill Jews to save the Jewish people. I wonder . . . do any of these men care about saving individual human beings?” A simplification, perhaps, but she had gotten to the heart of the matter. Maybe together they could convince Stern to abandon the idea of killing the prisoners.

Perhaps they could work out a compromise.

McConnell gripped the arm of the sofa. Something had made a crashing sound upstairs. He heard a quick scream, then voices. He felt along the sofa cushion until his left hand closed over the folding stock of his Schmeisser. He’d never thought he would really use the weapon, but if SS men were coming for him—

A shaft of light sliced down through the darkness.

He pointed the submachine gun at the top of the stairs.

“Are you down there?”

A woman’s voice. Anna. But she was not alone.

“Come on, Doctor!”

Stern.

McConnell exhaled in relief. Keeping the Schmeisser in his hands, he climbed the steps to the kitchen. He arrived in time to see Anna pour a glass of vodka and drink it in a single swallow. With trembling hands she poured another.

“What’s the matter?” McConnell asked. “What happened?”

“I frightened her,” said Stern, leaning in the foyer doorway. “I tried to get in earlier, but you wouldn’t answer the door. I didn’t want to break in, because I thought you might shoot me. I waited for her, then shoved in behind her when she opened the door.”

“Where the hell have you been all day?”

Stern walked over to Anna and drank a shot of vodka from her bottle. “Rostock,” he said, and wiped his mouth.

Anna’s glass clinked on the countertop. “You are insane! Why did you go there?”

Stern took another swallow of vodka. “It was too windy to make the attack. Besides, I knew we’d never reach the coast without being caught if an alarm was raised. Not in daylight.”

“But how did you get to Rostock?”

“I stole a car from the village.”

Anna shook her head. “You are mad.”

“I returned it to its owner,” Stern said casually. “But never mind that. When you got here, you dropped your bicycle and ran to your door. Something had frightened you long before you saw me. What was it?”

Anna looked away from him and drank from the glass. “You were right last night,” she said. “Totenhausen must be destroyed, whatever the cost. It is an abomination.”

McConnell stared at her in confusion.

“Tell me what happened,” Stern demanded.

She took a step back, retreating from Stern’s sudden intensity. “There was a killing today.”

“Is that unusual?”

“Only because it was a prisoner who killed an SS man.”

“What?”

“It was a woman. The Blockführer of the Jewish Women’s Barracks. She stabbed a corporal in the neck with a gardening spade. The biggest brute in the camp.”

“Why did she do that?”

“The guard was beating another prisoner to death. A Jewess from Amsterdam.”

Stern shook his head angrily. “This Blockführer was also a Jew?”

“No. But she and the Jewess were friends.”

“Did the Jewish woman die?”

“No. I got her away and sent her back to her block.” Anna half-turned away and looked at the floor as she spoke, as if she were being forced to reveal some terrible family secret. “Hauptscharführer Sturm went berserk after seeing that his man was really dead. With Brandt and Schörner gone, he was the senior officer in camp. He ordered immediate reprisals. Two women were hanged from the Punishment Tree, and eight more shot by firing squad. Ten people murdered.”

Stern grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. “Jews?”

“No,” she said, her voice barely audible. “Polish Christians.”

Anna pushed past him and sat down at the table, the glass still clenched in her hand. “If Schörner hadn’t returned from Peenemünde, I think Sturm and his men would have murdered every prisoner in the camp.”

“Major Schörner imposed order?” Stern asked, standing right over her.

“More than that. He ordered Sturm confined to quarters. That man has the nerve of the devil.”

“But why would he do that?”

“I think it’s something personal between him and Sturm. Something to do with the woman.”

“The woman who killed the SS man?”

“No, the Jewess who was beaten. I think Schörner has pressured her into some sort of sexual arrangement.”

Stern looked pointedly at McConnell, as if to say, You see what these Nazi pigs are capable of? “And this sergeant disapproves of the major’s sexual arrangement?”

“I don’t think he cares about that,” Anna said. “There is something else between him and Schörner. Sturm really hates him.”

“What kind of crazy camp is this? Is there no discipline?”

She shook her head slowly, unshed tears pooling in her eyes. “It’s worse than anything you can imagine. Herr Doktor Brandt is in charge. Technically he is a lieutenant-general in the SS, but he has no military training. It is said he’s a personal friend of Himmler. There are three other SS doctors — two captains and a major — to fill out the officer complement. Major Schörner is head of security. After that it drops to Hauptscharführer Sturm and his men.”

“No midlevel officers?”

Anna shook her head. “That’s the way Brandt likes it. He wants doctors around him, not soldiers.”

At last Stern moved away from her and began pacing around the table. McConnell sat down so he wouldn’t have to keep stepping out of his way.

“What would happen if I attacked the camp now?” Stern asked.

“The same as last night,” Anna said in an exhausted voice. “You’d miss half of the SS garrison because Schörner has them out searching for parachutists, but you’d kill all of the prisoners. Not only that, since you told me about the wind I’ve been thinking about it. The wind at the camp blows faster than on this side of the hills. It blows down the river.”

Stern made a frustrated sound in his throat.

“Also, Brandt had not returned from Berlin when I left.”

“Verdammt! Will he be back tonight?”

“Probably, but it could be quite late.” Anna stood up and went to the sink, where she ran some water over a cloth and held it against her face. “The whole camp has gone mad,” she said through the rag. “Himmler’s visit set all this off. The very next night, Sturm and his men raped and murdered six women brought from Ravensbrück. Schörner used to be drunk all the time. Now he’s like a hawk, watching everything. It’s like something woke him from a deep sleep. Brandt abusing the children . . . it’s madness, I tell you. Like the end of the world.”

“What was that about children?” McConnell asked.

Anna hung the cloth on the basin and turned to him. “Brandt performs experiments on children. He calls it medical research, but it’s unspeakable. Three times in the past ten weeks he’s had boys brought to his quarters. Little boys. He keeps them there for a while, a week or so, then . . . then the gas, I suppose. Oh, God forgive me, I don’t know.” She wiped more tears out of her eyes. “I don’t know and I don’t want to.”

Stern stopped pacing and stared at McConnell, his face contorted with rage. “And still you won’t help me destroy this place?”

McConnell found himself eyeing the vodka bottle with more than passing interest. “Listen, you want to kill this man Brandt. I understand that. I do. A man who tortures children doesn’t deserve to live. But you’re asking me to kill every innocent prisoner under his power as well. Does that make sense to you?”

“We’re talking about the outcome of the entire war!”

“If you believe Brigadier Smith.” McConnell tried to summon his most persuasive voice. “Look, Stern, we need to hash this thing out. We’re in a pretty tough spot here. Maybe we can find some kind of middle ground if we just calm down—”

Stern kicked over one of the chairs and took a step toward him. “You should have come with me to Rostock today, Doctor. Perhaps you wouldn’t be so calm yourself. Are you interested in what I saw there?”

McConnell suppressed an urge to pick up his Schmeisser in self-defense. “Sure,” he said softly.

“Our pilot was wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“My family’s apartment building was still standing. In fact, I went inside and asked a few questions.”

Anna closed her eyes and moved her lips silently, a gesture McConnell read as the equivalent of a Catholic crossing herself.

“Oh, I wasn’t in any danger,” Stern said in a sarcastic voice. “A policeman stopped me in the city, but when he saw the SD uniform he nearly pissed his trousers. He couldn’t wait to get away from me. Being an SD colonel in this country must be rather like being God.”

More like the devil, thought McConnell, but he didn’t say it.

“Yes, our building is still there,” Stern went on, “but things aren’t quite the same. No bloodstains or anything unpleasant like that. Only when I lived there it was a Jewish building. Now it’s full of little blond girls and boys, miniature versions of Fräulein Kaas here.”

McConnell saw Anna flinch.

“No one seemed to remember my family,” Stern said. “And why should they? It was mostly children. Little Aryan princes and princesses, all living happily in flats haunted by the ghosts of little dark-haired children. I do not think they are troubled by ghosts, though. Do you, Doctor?”

“Stern—”

“Are you troubled by them, Doctor?” Stern banged his Schmeisser against a cabinet, startling Anna. “Of all the men in the world, I had to be stuck with you! This woman has more courage than you!”

He stalked down the cellar stairs, but quickly returned with his personal bag, which held the supplies he’d stolen from Achnacarry.

“Where are you going now?” Anna asked anxiously.

Stern slung the bag over his shoulder. “I’m going up that hill to end this madness. The wind is blowing again, but as soon as it dies I’m sending down those cylinders.”

“Jesus,” said McConnell, coming to his feet. “Just give me a minute to think, for God’s sake.”

“You’ve been thinking for your whole life, Doctor. Would another minute make any difference?”

McConnell knew there was no stopping him. “Are you going for the sub afterwards?”

“Since you’re not going to help me, there’s really nothing I can do in the factory after the attack. I wouldn’t know what I was looking at, much less what to take pictures of. I’ll steal the nearest vehicle I can find and make a run for the coast.”

“What about us?”

“You mean you?”

“We can’t leave Anna to face the Gestapo.”

Stern barked a short laugh. “We can’t take her back with us. Smith was plain about that. The sub wouldn’t take her on board. You know the British.”

“Every man for himself, eh, Stern?” McConnell shook his head in disgust. “That’s been your style from the beginning, hasn’t it?”

Stern pulled open the door. “Don’t worry, Doctor. I’ll get you back to your warm little laboratory, even if it kills me. I want you to explain to Smith why you couldn’t compromise your sacred principles to save the Allied invasion army.” He hefted the leather bag over his shoulder. “I wish you had to explain it to your dead brother.”

McConnell went for him then, but Stern simply slipped out and pulled the door shut after him. By the time McConnell got it open again, he had vanished into the darkness.

Wolfgang Schörner clicked his boot heels together with the report of a parade ground inspection. Before him, seated at an obsessively tidy desk, was Doctor Klaus Brandt. The commandant of Totenhausen had returned from Berlin an hour earlier. He looked up from a piece of notepaper he’d been studying when Schörner entered and regarded him over a pair of rimless reading glasses.

“You asked to see me, Herr Doktor?” Schörner said.

Brandt pursed his lips as if mulling over a complex diagnosis. Schörner felt the familiar discomfort he always experienced in Brandt’s presence. It wasn’t only the man’s perversions. After four years at the sharp end of the war, Schörner found it irksome to be around men who worried more about their careers than the survival of the Reich. He was depressingly certain that whether Germany won or lost, Klaus Brandt would be a millionaire after the war, while the barbed wire on the Fatherland’s borders would be tangled with the corpses of men like himself. Yet, ironically, Klaus Brandt was one of the few who held in his hands the means for German victory.

After what seemed an age to Schörner, Brandt said, “You heard Reichsführer Himmler say that he intends to give the Führer a demonstration of Soman Four?”

Schörner nodded. “In three days’ time, yes?”

“Correct. I have just learned that Erwin Rommel will be there as well.”

Schörner felt a thrill of surprise. Of course it made perfect sense: Hitler had just put Rommel in charge of his Atlantic Wall. It would be the Desert Fox’s responsibility to destroy the Allies on the beaches of France.

“Is the demonstration still to take place at Raubhammer Proving Ground, Herr Doktor?”

Brandt sniffed peevishly. “Yes. The test will take place in three days. The Raubhammer engineers claim they’ve finally perfected a lightweight suit that can insulate a man from both Sarin and Soman.”

Schörner raised his eyebrows. “I would like to see that suit, Herr Doktor.”

“So would I, Schörner. And we will. They’re sending over three for our inspection.” Brandt took a very thin cigarette from a gold case on his desk and lit it with almost feminine delicacy. “This demonstration will be quite a show, it seems,” he said, leaning back and blowing smoke to the side. “Concentration camp prisoners from Sachsenhausen will be dressed in captured British uniforms and made to charge across a mock beach where Soman has been deployed. SS volunteers defending the ‘beach’ will be wearing the new protective suits. It should really be something to see. A fitting reward after all our hard work.”

“And well-deserved, Herr Doktor.”

“Quite so, Sturmbannführer. The Reichsführer believes this demonstration will at last overcome the Führer’s irrational — but quite understandable — aversion to chemical weapons.”

Brandt held the cigarette between his lips while he examined the manicured fingernails of his left hand. “This will be quite a feather in Himmler’s cap, Schörner. And he knows how to reward loyalty.”

“I know it well, Herr Doktor.” Schörner waited for further information, but Brandt had lapsed into silence.

“Will that be all, Herr Doktor?”

“Not quite, Schörner. This matter of the British parachutes. You have the situation under control? I would hate to think anything might interrupt our production schedule, with the test so near.”

“Herr Doktor, Standartenführer Beck and myself believe the parachutists had their sights set on the Peenemünde complex. Most of the sensitive rocketry equipment has been moved into Poland or the Harz Mountains to keep it out of reach of the Allied bombers, but the Allies may not know this. Beck has deployed a great deal of his strength between here and Peenemünde. If by some remote chance these commandos are attempting to penetrate our facility, my patrols will catch them long before they get close.”

“See that they do, Sturmbannführer.”

Schörner clicked his boot heels again.

Setting the cigarette aside, Brandt adjusted his reading glasses and looked down at the paper he had been studying when Schörner entered. “One more thing, Sturmbannführer. I understand that you have placed Hauptscharführer Sturm under house arrest?”

Schörner stiffened. “That is correct, Herr Doktor.”

“Why?”

“The Hauptscharführer instigated the incident that resulted in the death of Corporal Grot, as well as that of the kapo of the Jewish Women’s Block, Hagan.”

“And his motive?”

“I believe his motive involved some diamonds, Herr Doktor. Sturm has a habit of trying to loot prisoners as they are brought in from the Occupied Territories. I warned him once, but he apparently did not take the warning to heart.”

“Looting is a serious charge, Sturmbannführer.” Brandt looked up over his glasses. “The Reichsführer himself has mandated the death penalty for profiteers.”

“The basis of my action, Herr Doktor.”

“However,” said Brandt, tapping his fingers on the desk, “when I returned from Berlin, I found a note on my desk giving a somewhat different version of events.”

Schörner felt blood rising into his cheeks. “Was this note signed, Herr Doktor?”

Brandt smiled, but the effect was more like a grimace. “Yes, it was. By four noncommissioned officers. This note contained some serious charges of its own. Charges leveled at you, Sturmbannführer. Charges relating to infractions of the Nuremberg racial laws.”

Schörner did not flinch. He knew Brandt was on thin ice himself here. “I am prepared to stand in an SS court on any charges you see fit to authorize, Herr Doktor.”

Klaus Brandt instantly raised his hands in a placating gesture. “At ease, Sturmbannführer. I don’t think it will come to that. Still, it might be better if you released Sturm under his own recognizance. For the good of the corps. You understand. The last thing any of us want is a pack of SD officers down here turning over every stone and bed.”

A hot wave of revulsion washed over Schörner. He wouldn’t be surprised if Sturm’s comrades had made some oblique reference to Brandt’s perversions in their letter. He pressed down his disgust. “As you say, Herr Doktor.”

“I’m sure Hauptscharführer Sturm has seen the error of his ways.” Brandt patted the desk with both hands. “Let us concentrate our energies upon the upcoming test, Sturmbannführer. Destiny is at hand.”

Schörner fired his boot heels together and marched out.

Jonas Stern moved swiftly through the trees, his steps almost soundless in the newly fallen snow. He’d moved uphill after leaving the cottage, away from the village of Dornow, toward the power station. Toward the cylinders. Twice he had heard patrols pass within thirty meters of him, but he found it easy to avoid them. Usually the orange light or smell of cigarettes betrayed the SS men. Thirty minutes after leaving Anna Kaas’s cottage, he was standing beneath the tall wooden pylon where the gas cylinders hung.

He stood in the darkness beside the two great support poles and stared up through the foliage. It took some time for his eyes to adjust, but eventually he made out the silhouettes of the steel cylinders hanging in a neat row from one of the outermost electrical wires. He felt a sudden dizziness when he realized that the heavy tanks were swaying in the treetops. Even without the portable anemometer, he was certain that wind sufficient to move those cylinders was moving faster than the ideal speed for the attack.

He stomped on the snow around the base of the support leg nearest him. Buried beneath his feet, in a box with the anemometer and the emergency radio and the submarine signal lamp, were the climbing spikes and harness that would carry him to the top of the pylon. Within five minutes he could initiate the nerve gas attack on Totenhausen. The brisk wind might dilute the gas’s effects, but if the British nerve agent worked at all, it should certainly kill some SS men. On the other hand, if he waited for a while, the wind might drop off to nothing.

As he stood there in the snow, the hum of the nearby transformer station buzzing in his ears, he felt something even stronger than his hatred for the Nazis turning inside him. Something he would never admit to McConnell or the nurse or anyone else. Something he could hardly admit to himself. The visit to Rostock had dredged it up, and the longer he stood there, the more powerful it became until, to his surprise, he found himself moving again. Down the hill, away from the power station. Away from the cylinders.

He was moving toward Totenhausen Camp.