Black Cross

40

At 6:00 P.M. Greenwich Mean Time, twelve RAF Mosquito bombers lifted off from Skitten field, a division of Wick air base in Scotland, and headed across the North Sea toward Occupied Europe. Their code name was GENERAL SHERMAN. The Mosquitoes took off just behind an RAF Pathfinder force which was leading a wave of Lancasters to the oil plants at Magdeburg, Germany. Each specially modified Mosquito carried 4,000 pounds of bombs in its belly.

GENERAL SHERMAN would remain with the Pathfinder force across the Netherlands, but when the Pathfinders turned south near Cuxhaven, the Mosquitoes would continue east, past Rostock, to the mouth of the Recknitz River. Flying by dead reckoning, they would follow the river south, ticking off the villages as they went. When they passed Bad Sülze, they would follow the line of the river with their H₂S blind bombing radars until they sighted Dornow village. There, the leading aircraft would drop parachute flares to bathe the area in light. Then the second plane would mark the Aiming Point with brilliant-burning red Target Indicators.

The “Mossies” would be near the limit of their range, but with no known antiaircraft guns to worry about, they could afford to make a slow, accurate bomb run. Their primary target was a prison camp sheltered between the hills and the river, known to them only as TARA. In tandem formation, they would pound the southern face of those hills with high-explosive and incendiary bombs until nothing remained but a fire burning hot enough to boil the nearby Recknitz River.

Jonas Stern walked into Anna’s bedroom and checked his SD uniform in the mirror. He had forgotten to remove the creosote stain he’d gotten while climbing the pylon, but that was a small thing now. He straightened his collar, checked the Iron Cross on his breast, felt the pocket that held his papers.

Staring at his reflection, Stern found it easy to believe that his father had not recognized him. Even though he had shaved in the afternoon, the face and eyes under the peaked SD cap seemed to belong to a man he did not know.

Perhaps they did. So much had happened in the past three days. The visit to Rostock had hit him hardest. Finding his father alive had been a miracle, and yet some part of him had not been surprised by it. Such miracles were not outside his experience of war. But the trip into Rostock, into the neighborhood where he had lived until age fourteen, had overwhelmed him. Even though he and his mother had fled Germany in fear, even though he knew as well as anyone the outrages perpetrated against the Jews who remained behind, some inaccessible part of him had clung to that small neighborhood, those few streets and buildings that had nurtured him. That part, that repository of memory, had remained German.

When he entered his street, expecting to find his old apartment building smashed to rubble, and then saw it standing as tall and proud as it ever had, hope welled in him. He climbed the stairs to the second floor with the unreasoning faith of a fool, shedding years with each step, his cynicism left at the curb with the stolen car. But when he knocked at the door he had once been unable to open because he could not reach the handle, it was answered not by his mother or father or his uncle or anyone else he remembered, but by a bespectacled man of sixty with white hair and soup stains on his shirt.

Stern stood mute, staring past the stranger. The furniture in the apartment was the furniture he had grown up with. His mother’s sofa and end tables, his father’s bookcase and wall clock. He swayed on his feet, his sense of time in free fall. The stranger asked if the Standartenführer was all right. Finally focusing on the face before him, Stern realized that the old man was trembling in fear. The SD uniform had worked its spell.

Even as he mumbled his apologies, Stern caught sight of the two blond children beyond the old man. The boy was only half-dressed, but the tunic hanging open on his shoulders, exposing his white chest, was the familiar black of the Hitler Youth. He wore it as naturally as a British boy would have worn a Boy Scout uniform.

Stern almost stumbled down the stairs in his haste to get back to the car. He would rather have found the whole street leveled by Allied bombs and his relatives dead under the wreckage. The sight of that apartment, filled by the furniture of his memory but empty of the people he had known, had punched like a stake into that hidden part of him that remained what he had been as a child, that remained German. As he turned the car out of the familiar street, he truly understood something for the first time. He was not German. He was a Jew. A man without a country, without even a home. A man who was only what he could make of himself, who could call home only that land he could take and hold by force of arms.

Anna’s voice rising in the kitchen brought Stern back to the present. He cocked the SD cap on his head, picked up his Schmeisser and walked into the kitchen. McConnell and the nurse were sitting at the table. They had spoken little to him since his attempt to shoot Sabine — who now lay trussed like a turkey in the basement — but he had no regrets. Leaving the woman alive was a mistake. If they couldn’t see that, so be it.

“How do I look?” he asked.

“Just like one of them,” said Anna. “Except for the suntan. Maybe you are one of them.”

Stern ignored her. He set his Schmeisser on the table and folded his arms as he stood over them. “The whole thing is timing now,” he said. “It’s seven oh-five. I’m taking Sabine’s Mercedes to the camp, and I plan to be at the gate in ten minutes. I’m going to leave the climbing spikes at the foot of the pylon on my way. I don’t plan to be inside the camp longer than fifteen minutes.”

“What are you going to tell the prisoners?” asked McConnell. “You think you can explain the situation and get them to decide who will live or die in fifteen minutes?”

“The less time they have to think, the better. If all goes well, you will hear an explosion at seven-fifty. That will be me blowing out the transformers in the power station on the hill. You will be waiting here. When you hear the explosion, take the Volkswagen and meet me where the road comes closest to the pylon. Have the gas suits with you. We’ll go to the camp together and finish the job. If you haven’t heard the grenade by seven-fifty, I’ve failed. Then you must take the car up the hill, put on the climbing spikes as I showed you, climb the pylon and release the cylinders.”

“All in ten minutes?” McConnell asked. “Why don’t Anna and I just wait on the hill?”

“Because the only thing that can stop this attack now is someone discovering those cylinders before the attack. I don’t want either of you anywhere near that pylon until it’s absolutely necessary.”

“But that’s not enough time.”

“It is. I’ve seen you run, Doctor. I’ve seen you carry logs on your back. Even if you only climbed six feet per minute, you could climb that pole in ten minutes. You’ll climb it a lot faster than that, if it comes to it.”

Stern picked up a piece of cloth from the table. It was the swatch of tartan Sir Donald Cameron had given McConnell on the bridge. “The two buried cylinders will detonate automatically at eight,” he said, rubbing the tartan between his fingers. “If you’ve had to send down the cylinders yourself, consider the job done. I’ll be beyond help and there will probably be SS reinforcements on the way.” He dropped the tartan and tilted his head toward Anna. “She knows the area. The two of you might be able to reach the sub. She can take my place.”

“It won’t come to that,” McConnell said.

“Sure.” Stern shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “Listen, if I don’t get out, and you do . . . well, my mother lives in Tel Aviv. Leah Stern.”

“It won’t come to that,” McConnell said again.

“Just promise you’ll do it. I don’t trust Smith. That lying bastard told me my father was dead.” He slung the Schmeisser over his shoulder. “Just tell my mother I was with Father at the end, okay? That I tried to get him out.”

“Smith told you your father was dead?”

Stern nodded. “He wanted me angry enough to kill anybody who stood in the way of getting this job done.”

McConnell shoved his chair back and stood up. “If the worst happens, I’ll get word to your mother. But you’re going to tell her about it yourself. It’ll be the big family story. The night Jonas saved his old man from the Nazis.”

Stern took McConnell’s hand and shook it.

“Shalom,” McConnell said, and smiled. “What do you say?”

Stern’s mouth split into a grin. He looked unbelievably young then, too young for what he was about to do. “Kiss my ass, Doctor. Is that right?”

“Close enough.”

Anna raised her eyes to Stern. He nodded at her, then moved toward the door. As his fingers touched the handle, she said, “Auf Wiedersehen, Herr Stern.”

He stepped out into the night.

Anna pulled a strand of hair out of her eyes. “He looked like a boy,” she said. “At the end.”

“He is a boy,” McConnell replied. “A boy who probably won’t live the night.”

“He’s also a killer. He’s a match for Sturm or any of them, that one.”

McConnell nodded. “He has to be.”

Airman Peter Bottomley watched the small single-engine plane float down through the dark Swedish sky and onto the abandoned airstrip. It taxied right up to the Junkers bomber and stopped, engine running. The side door opened and a one-armed man climbed down to the tarmac wearing a severe black business suit. He waved to the pilot. The light plane taxied away. The passenger hurried over to where Bottomley stood waiting.

“How was Stockholm, Brigadier?”

“Same as ever,” said Smith. “Thick with intrigue, damned little of which will ever amount to anything. Any word from Butler and Wilkes?”

“None, sir. But Bletchley got an unconfirmed report that the Wojiks have gone missing.”

A shadow of concern crossed the brigadier’s face. “Missing?”

“Apparently someone from the SHEPHERD network reported that Scarlett called the Wojiks for a crash meeting. The Wojiks left for the meeting, but never returned.”

Smith tugged at one end of his gray mustache. “Schörner may have tumbled to Weitz and the Kaas woman, then used them to draw the Wojiks in. He might even have bagged Butler and Wilkes.” Smith looked down at his dour suit. “Looks like I’m dressed for the occasion.”

“Bad luck, sir.”

Smith sniffed and looked southward across the frozen Baltic. A black channel had been smashed through the coastal ice, but it was rapidly filling with small floes. “We don’t know for certain,” he said. “Still no Ultra traffic indicating anything out of the ordinary at Totenhausen? No foiled commando attack or anything like that?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, this is the fourth night. The wind must have been calm enough for the attack by now, yet Butler and Wilkes have not attacked. The gas is nearly one hundred hours old now. It looks like they’ve failed, whatever the reason.” He patted his pockets for his pipe. “Well . . . with a little luck on the navigation, GENERAL SHERMAN will wipe out all trace of the mission. Butler and Wilkes might never have been there at all. Poor bastards.”

Bottomley raised an eyebrow and said with black humor, “Gone with the wind, eh sir?”

“Have a little respect, Bottomley.”

“Do you still want me to monitor Butler’s emergency frequency tonight? Once the Mosquitoes leave the main force, they’ll be observing strict radio silence. We couldn’t stop them if we wanted to. If you think Butler and Wilkes are done for—”

“Of course you monitor the frequency, man! Right up to the minute the bombs fall.” Duff Smith’s voice was edged with anger. “No matter how bleak it looks, one never knows in this business. Anyway, we might learn something about why the mission failed.”

“Yes, sir.”

Smith worried at his mustache again. “I thought Stern had it in him to pull it off,” he murmured. “Blast.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Nothing, Bottomley. Let’s take the radio down to that hut by the beach. You never know who might crawl up out of the surf.”

“Very good, sir.”

Jonas Stern wheeled Sabine Hoffman’s Mercedes up to the front gate of Totenhausen like Lucifer arriving in a black chariot. He’d seen the spotlights when he was still a mile away, like white fingers exploring the forest, and he had known then that trying to sneak back in would have been impossible.

He had to brazen it out.

As one of the six SS men guarding the gate approached the Mercedes, Stern prayed that Anna Kaas had given him an accurate description of the command situation at the camp. He rolled down his window and waited for the guard to arrive.

When the brown-uniformed SS private saw the SD uniform and rank badge, he reacted exactly as Stern hoped he would. He snapped to attention with eyes as big as spent bullets.

“Step up to the window, Schütze,” Stern said in an offhand voice.

“Zu befehl, Standartenführer!”

“I am Standartenführer Ritter Stern, from Berlin. I have come here to make an arrest. Possibly several arrests.”

The private’s face lost what little color it had possessed.

“I want no one but SD personnel to enter or leave through this gate for the next hour. That includes Sturmbannführer Wolfgang Schörner. Do you understand?”

“Jawohl, Sturmbannführer!”

“Stop shouting. You will tell the other guards nothing. You will tell Hauptscharführer Sturm nothing. I shall speak to Herr Doktor Brandt and no one else. Anyone who interferes with these arrests will find himself in the cellars of Prinz-Albrechtstrasse by morning. Have I made myself clear?”

The private was too stunned to muster enough voice to answer, but he clicked his boot heels and nodded.

“Get back to your post and open the gate.”

The private fled back to his comrades and obeyed the order.

Stern put the Mercedes into gear and rolled slowly forward into Totenhausen. The headquarters building looked deserted. He drove around it and onto the Appellplatz. Directly ahead of him stood the hospital, to his left the inmate blocks. Two heavy trucks were parked near the fence surrounding the large barn to his right, the barn Brigadier Smith had told him housed Brandt’s lab and gas factory. Men wearing white coats were loading boxes into the trucks.

Stern drove straight on to the hospital and parked on the side away from the factory. His watch read 7:16 P.M. On schedule. He unscrewed the SOE-machined silencer from the Schmeisser and slipped it into his right boot, then got out of the Mercedes and walked around the hospital.

The alley was empty.

Halfway up it, he turned left and moved quite deliberately down the four steps that led to the half-sunken E-Block. The door worked by means of a steel wheel set in its face, like the wheel on a submarine hatch. The wheel turned under his hand; as Anna had predicted, the door was open. Warmer air ruffled his hair as he stepped inside. A faint bluish light passed through the porthole windows set high in the walls of the steel room. Only now did he realize how desperate was their plan. The E-Block felt exactly like what it was: a chamber of death. It was a supreme irony that in just over forty minutes it would be the one place in Totenhausen where life could survive.

If the British gas worked, he reminded himself.

He closed the door, checked to make sure the alley was empty, then climbed the icy steps and walked toward the inmate blocks. He wondered how much the gate guard had told his comrades about the man in the Mercedes. Under normal circumstances, the presence of an SD colonel would move quickly up the SS grapevine. But these were not normal circumstances. How long would it take the news to reach Wolfgang Schörner?

There was a sentry standing before the wire gate of the fence surrounding the six inmate blocks. Approaching him, Stern realized that he was walking beneath the mutilated body of a naked woman. Greta Müller. He erased the Goyaesque image from his mind and pulled out the leather case containing his forged papers, flipping it open before he reached the sentry.

“I need to speak to a prisoner,” he said with perfunctory courtesy. “A Jewess. It’s a matter of Reich security. I’m not expecting trouble, so you may remain at your post. If you hear women screaming, ignore it. If you hear a man shout for help, that will be me. Come running.”

The guard barely glanced at the papers; again the SD uniform and rank were enough. Stern was through the gate in less time than it would take to light a cigarette.

“Standartenführer?”

Stern laid one hand on his Schmeisser as he turned.

“You’ll need this.”

The sentry hurried over and handed him a battery torch.

Stern nodded a curt thank-you, then stepped up into the block.

The room was totally dark. He switched on the flashlight, held it at arm’s length and shined it on his own face.

“I am the shoemaker’s son,” he whispered. “I have returned. Is my father here?”

“My son!” The answer was a joyous whisper.

“Light the candle,” Jonas commanded. “Hurry!”

There was a rustling of clothes in the darkness. A hooded yellow glow illuminated a circle on the floor. A shadow passed in front of the light, and Stern felt arms go around him and squeeze tightly. Raw emotion surged through him, so strong that he almost couldn’t bear it. All he could think of was his mother sitting alone in her tiny flat in Palestine.

“How do you do it?” Avram Stern asked. “How do you get past them?”

“Never mind. I must speak to you. Bring everyone close around me. Quickly.”

“Rachel!” Avram said sharply. “Form the Circle.”

Stern sensed a great many movements around him, like leaves in a night forest. As the women drew closer, he backed against the door. He tried to make the movement seem natural, but he did it to block the escape route of anyone who panicked.

His father and Rachel Jansen stood closest to him. The other faces were a mixture of young and old, a human map of Europe.

“Listen to me,” he said in Yiddish. “I must speak to you, and we have very little time. What I told you before was not completely true. I came here from Palestine, but not to verify reports of Nazi atrocities. I came here to help prepare for a great strike against Hitler.

“You all know what the Nazis are making here at this camp. They have tested it on people you knew, perhaps even family members. You know how deadly this gas is. I don’t need to tell any of you how devastating it would be to the troops who will soon land in France to liberate Europe. It is for that reason that the Allies intend to kill Herr Doktor Brandt and destroy his laboratory.”

There was a sudden wind of whispers. Stern gazed into the shocked faces. As much as he wanted to, he could not tell these women the truth. “In approximately forty minutes,” he said, “Totenhausen Camp is going be attacked from the air.”

Several women gasped.

“The shells that fall will be chemical shells, filled with a gas much like the one made here.” Stern took a step closer to the women. He realized that he had been silently counting them. There were forty-four, plus his father. “Anyone unprotected from this gas will probably be killed during the attack. I have come here to suggest a way that many of you might be able to survive it.”

“Why have you really come here?” asked a woman from the back. “The Allies don’t care if we live or die.”

Stern turned up his palms. “I am a Jew, not an Allied soldier. I fight for Haganah in Palestine. I fight for Israel. I have risked my life to come here. Will you listen?”

“We will listen,” Rachel said.

“The only protection from this gas is complete isolation. The bombs will fall at eight o’clock. Ten minutes before that, you must move from here to the E-Block and lock yourselves inside. It is imperative—”

“The E-Block?” someone said. “There are more than two hundred prisoners in this camp. The E-Block would not even hold all of us here.”

“I realize that,” Stern said carefully.

The women looked at each other in puzzlement.

“What are you saying, my son?” Avram asked.

“I am saying that not everyone can be saved.”

There was a long silence.

“What about the bomb shelter?” someone asked. “All prisoners could fit in there.”

Jonas shook his head. “The SS are trained to run for the shelter during an emergency. Prisoners trying to take shelter there would be shot out of hand.” He did not say that if things were working out properly, the SS shelter was already booby-trapped.

A middle-aged woman stood up in the center of the group. “Who claims the right that is God’s alone?” she asked. “Who would say who shall live and who shall die?”

Stern closed his hand around the Schmeisser. This would be the mad minute, as each woman grasped exactly what he was suggesting.

“I’m glad there are no rabbis here,” said a very old woman from the floor. “What an endless argument we would have to listen to. Sometimes one must follow the heart. And common sense.”

“And what does common sense say here?” asked the woman who had stood.

“It is simple,” said the old woman, speaking with calm certainty. “This camp is like a sinking ship. The E-Block is the lifeboat. There is a law for that. Unwritten perhaps, but sacred. Everyone knows it. Women and children first. And the young women before the old. The ones still able to bear children.”

These words silenced the block.

“You speak wisely,” Avram said to the old woman. “It is not an easy thing to do. But necessary.”

Another woman stood up suddenly. “What are you saying?” she asked in a French accent. “That we should save ourselves but ignore the Gentile women?”

“They’ve ignored us long enough,” said a bitter voice.

“And the children? Do we let the Christian children die? And what of the men? They have no right to live?”

“Of course they do,” said the old woman. “But they do not have the duty to choose. That has fallen on us. We cannot take the opinion of every prisoner in camp. The secret could not be kept. It was wise of this young man to wait until the last minute to tell us.”

“You knew about this attack two nights ago?” asked the Frenchwoman.

“Of course he did,” said another.

Avram raised his hands. “Let me speak, please. With only minutes, we would only cause a general riot by telling the other blocks. The fact is that the E-Block is the only shelter, and it will only hold a few.”

One of the women Rachel called the new widows stood hesitantly. “My daughter is in the children’s block,” she said in an almost inaudible voice. “If we are going to die, I want to be with her.”

“We can save the children,” Jonas said. “And some of you. But we must hurry and decide the issue.”

“Some of us?” It was the Frenchwoman again. “You can’t even save all the children! Now you’re going to condemn some of us?”

“Keep your voice down,” Jonas said sharply.

“How many?” asked a familiar voice. It was Rachel Jansen. “How many people can be saved in the E-Block? I have been inside it, and it is very small.”

“The E-Block was designed to conduct tests on ten men,” Jonas said. “The number that can be saved is determined by space and oxygen. They’ll need at least two hours of air.”

“How many?” Rachel asked again. “That’s all we need to know.”

Stern nodded, grateful for her pragmatism. “Fifty children,” he said. “Every child in the Jewish Children’s Block.”

“And women?”

He hesitated. “Thirty-five.”

In the tomblike silence that followed, he looked at his watch: 7:23. It was taking too long. He removed the British silencer from his boot and screwed it onto the Schmeisser’s barrel. “Talk among yourselves,” he said. “I must speak to my father alone. But I warn you: if anyone tries to go through that door, I will have no choice but to shoot.”

He took his father’s hand and led him into the darkness beyond the circle of women.

“Mother will not believe it,” he said, sitting on one of the narrow bunks. “Everyone tried to convince her that you were dead. To carry on, I told her that myself.”

“I was dead,” Avram said, taking a seat beside him.

“It doesn’t matter now. God has given us a second chance. No matter what the women decide, I am taking you out when I go. You will pretend to be my prisoner. In five minutes you will be outside that fence.”

Avram Stern looked into his son’s face. “Jonas, I told you before. I cannot go out with you. Please, listen. I cannot leave women and children here to die.”

Jonas took his father’s arm. “You’re not responsible for their deaths! It’s the Nazis! The British and the Americans!”

“I would be responsible for one death, Jonas.”

“One? Whose?”

“The child you could take out in my place.”

“What are you talking about?”

“How many people can you take out with you? Out of Germany?”

Stern heard sibilant voices rising and falling as the women argued in whispers. “I’m not supposed to bring anyone out. We’re going out by British submarine. Then from Sweden to England by plane. The plane is small. In the worst case, I’d planned to send you on from Sweden in my place and find another way back myself. Or we could both try to reach Palestine by an illegal route. I know some people.”

Avram was shaking his head. “Stop worrying. You’re going out just as you were supposed to. I’ve lived a long life, Jonas. My old friends are dead. I am not destined to go with you. But someone else is. You can take one Jewish child.”

Stern opened his mouth to argue, but his father clenched his arm with the iron grip of a man who has labored a lifetime with his hands. “Listen to your father! Even those who survive in the E-Block may die in reprisals. That’s how things work here, Jonas. The person that goes with you has the best chance for life. It must be a child. Small enough for you to carry in your arms, to smuggle into your submarine, to hold on your lap in the airplane. One child to live for all the thousands who have died in this insane country.” Avram held up his right hand and closed it slowly as if around some precious treasure. “One seed, Jonas. One little seed for Palestine.”

“You expect me to leave you to die again?” Stern said, seething with frustration. “What could I say to Mother? She would hate me forever.”

Avram shook his head. “No. Your mother is a practical woman. When I refused to leave Germany, did she stay behind to die? No. She carried you as far as she could from danger. My son, it is the fulfillment of my life to know both of you reached Palestine. I was wrong in 1935, but this time I am right. You must do as I tell you.” He looked up and motioned to someone in the darkness. Rachel Jansen appeared and knelt beside the bunk, her eyes wide with fear and hope.

“You remember her?” Avram asked.

Jonas nodded. The bright black eyes were not easily forgotten.

Avram reached out and squeezed Rachel’s hand. “Both nights since then she has smuggled her children here on the chance that you might come back. She knew you must have told me to wait here in case you returned. She is a brave girl, Jonas. She is like the daughter of Levi, who put Moses into the ark of bulrushes. And you are her ark, my son.”

Rachel’s lips quivered as she watched Avram’s face. “Is it—?”

“As I suspected,” Avram said firmly. “One child, Rachel. One can go. One must stay with you. You must decide.”

Jonas saw the young woman sway slightly on her knees. When she spoke again, her voice was barely a whisper. “How long do I have?”

Jonas looked at his watch. 7:26. “Father,” he whispered. “I beg you—”

“My decision is made.”

Jonas turned to Rachel. “Two minutes,” he said.

Rachel hesitated, as if he might say something else, might somehow offer more hope. But he didn’t. She stood up slowly and walked over to the corner bunk where her children slept.

Avram laid his hand on his son’s knee. “Come,” he said. “Let us see what the women have decided.”

“Wait a moment,” Jonas said. “We have a problem. The women can’t move to the E-Block with that sentry at the block gate.”

Avram squeezed his son’s knee. “I know what must be done. Let us see what they have decided.”