The Furies

DELIVERANCE: BERLIN

How to explain? How to tell them what it was like? The young ones are sitting across from me, all rapt attention, like children waiting for a bedtime story. Between us there is a chasm, a gulf of time that no words can bridge. It wasn't the events, it was the atmosphere, the spirit of the times. We were all drunk with it. It was a living nightmare, yes. But it was also a time of heroism and sacrifice. We had a sense of being part of something huge, a conflict in which monsters roamed the earth and the rules of civilization were thrown aside, and whose outcome would set the direction of humanity for centuries … but how to explain all this? I hardly know where to start, I tell them. The girl says, Anywhere at all. She has dark brown, intelligent eyes. Curious eyes; they say they are journalists. Maybe. Outside, the Siberian winter is closing in. But my living room is a cocoon of warmth. Why don't I start with my first day in Berlin, after I was pulled off the Eastern Front? That would be good, she tells me. Berlin was my favorite city, I say.

"Krafft. Major Krafft. I am to present myself to Stand-artenführer Brück." An overweight, uniformed woman glanced at my papers, lifted a telephone, and pointed to a broad flight of stairs without a word.

The Waffen-SS colonel was watery-eyed, wiry, and wrinkled, with close-cropped hair and an exaggerated military manner. He was short of a right arm, which no doubt explained both the desk job and the sour expression. I clicked my heels and stood to attention.

"Sturmbannführer von Krafft, I expected you yesterday."

"I had a problem getting out, sir."

Brück looked up and down my uniform. "You might have tidied yourself up."

"I'm sorry, sir. I was bundled on a truck, then straight on to a supply plane, and here I am. I haven't slept for some days."

Brück wrinkled his nose. "And you smell."

The office reeked of cigarette smoke. I must be bad if he can smell me through this. "It's been some weeks since I changed clothes."

"You probably think that's an excuse. Sit down." The colonel flicked through some sheets of paper with a single, nicotine-stained hand. "Cadet school graduate, given the dagger automatically. Time was when it was granted only to the men of the highest order. Now all you have to do is pass an exam. Still, you've acquired an interesting little display of Christmas decorations. Close Combat, Wound Badge in silver, Iron Cross, Infantry Assault …"

"The usual, sir." It wasn't false modesty; I'd seen too much real courage go unrewarded to be impressed with my own tinsel.

"Ja, ja, the usual." He looked up. "Where were you wounded? In the back?"

I couldn't believe I'd heard that. "In the thigh. A few centimeters to the right and I'd be a soprano."

The colonel chose not to smile. "And how is it with II Rangers?"

"You know conditions in the East, I'm sure. We've lost a third of our original strength. But we're still the crack corps."

Brück nodded. "Papa Hausser's exploits around Karkhov are a candle in the dark. You've blunted a major Ivan offensive by all accounts. However, it's not all sweetness and light." He leaned back in his chair and looked at me speculatively. "We've had a couple of bad reports about you."

"Bad reports?"

The colonel paused, no doubt to keep me on edge. "Insubordination. Two incidents, no less."

"I only remember one."

"And refusal to obey an order."

"I wasn't about to shoot a boy because he kept pigeons."

"You reptile, Krafft. The pigeons could have been used to carry messages."

"Not after I'd shot them."

"I would have had you executed on the spot." The colonel tossed the paper onto the desk and tried out a hard stare.

I made no response, and he tried again. "And it seems you lack enthusiasm. Not military enthusiasm — you didn't get those baubles for nothing. But it seems, I quote, ‘Sturmbannführer Krafft is not a convinced standard bearer of the National Socialist ideology.' " Another accusing look.

And still no response. He was coming to a boil, but after the front I was past caring about anything. He snapped, "I'm also informed that on entering this building five minutes ago, you used your Wehrmacht rather than Waffen-SS rank."

The fat bitch at the desk.

"This is contrary to the Reichsführer's explicit orders. Do you have some problem that we should know about?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, sir."

The colonel pretended to read some more. "Still, your behavior on the front is exemplary, and the men you command think highly of you. We can't afford to lose men like you. Unfortunately we may be about to do just that. You're being offered a chance to leave the Waffen-SS."

"What?"

Brück slid a sheet of paper toward me. "A certificate of honorable discharge. Unsigned as yet." He looked at me curiously.

"Sir?"

"They tell me that most of your company were killed."

"We were unlucky. We ran into a strong Ivan patrol. We had to shoot our way out."

"Leaving some men behind …"

"… I had absolutely no choice …"

"No matter. They're presumably now either dead or prisoners, which comes to the same thing. Reichsführer Himmler is of the opinion that you're more use to the war effort as a live civilian in Bavaria than a dead soldier on the Russian front."

"Himmler? Bavaria?" My head was whirling.

"I don't know what's going on here, either, but any soldier on the front would give his right arm to be in your place." He grinned ghoulishly. "You're being offered work that by its nature must be voluntary. The aforesaid work, I quote, may change the course of the war. This work, I quote again, is not without risk. You will retain your rank …"

"I'll be able to keep my dagger?"

"You will. But the rank will be an honorary one. In effect you'll be a civilian, whatever our Reichsheini likes to think about these honorary ranks he scatters around."

"Sir, why me? Can't you tell me more? What sort of secret work?"

"It's so secret, apparently, that you can't even be told what it is. Apparently you have some particular qualifications."

"I'm just an engineer with a science background."

"Shut up. Don't tell me any more. By the way, this extraordinary offer remains confidential under pain of death. The request for your services comes from Reichsheini himself. See, his signature."

I looked over the Reich-headed paper. The date was two days ago; they'd pulled me off the front immediately. "But it is a request, not an order."

"That is correct. You are being asked to volunteer. If you decline, you will be returned to the Eastern Front immediately. It's your decision. Go away and think about it. Just don't take all day. Mind you, I'm here until God knows when."

Dear Little Bruv …

I read my crumpled letter for the third time that day, slid it into a pocket, and took another sip of real coffee. I watched a couple of girls, lips bright red and faces white, arms linked and chattering. They passed by among the crowd drifting along the Ku-damm, paying me no attention. Real coffee, real girls. And Berlin, my favorite city.

I must have been mad. A letter like that would have had me put up against a wall. Not that it mattered when I thought I was a goner anyway, but now — I'd burn it as soon as I got the chance.

My hand was trembling and making little waves on the coffee as I lifted the cup. I wondered if it was just exhaustion or slight shell shock. Three days of noise. Three days without sleep. Three days of being hammered in that fucking town. The din! And little fat Willie being sliced in two, and Kurt getting it squarely in the chest, and …

This is a dream. I'll wake up and find myself back in Bogodukhov with Willie's guts wrapped around me and the Ivans flaming the cellar. I took a deep breath to calm down, looked for reassurance in the Berlin crowds, the familiar buildings, and the smells of coffee and pastry.

What to do? Go back to Hell? I stretched out a hand, observed its trembling dispassionately, as if it weren't a part of me. An elderly couple at the table next to me gave me an alarmed look, as if they'd found themselves next to a lunatic. Go back?

The one-armed colonel, of course, had it sized up perfectly. Most soldiers would give anything to be taken off the front, maybe even an arm. As for a posting in Bavaria! Visions of Alpine meadows and cowbells and snow-covered peaks filled my head.

No question, duty lay where Himmler wanted me to go. But I knew that if I took it, it wouldn't be duty. It would be an escape from the front. Bavaria was the coward's way out, and I knew it, and the sour colonel knew it. Which was why he'd been goading me.

Ten to three! I wanted to sit here forever, but I'd delayed as long as I dared. I brushed pastry crumbs from my uniform and made my way quickly to the waiting car. As I approached, the corporal threw down his cigarette, ground it under his polished leather boots, and jumped smartly into the driver's seat. The man fired the car into life and took off smoothly, heading for the ministry building.

"Herr colonel, I accept the assignment."

Brück slid over a form without a word. The air was thick with hostility. "I took you for a fighting man, Krafft." His tone was harsh.

"If I'm more useful in Bavaria, so be it." I scribbled my signature. Done!

"Stop shaking. Get yourself some civilian clothes with this." He tossed an envelope at me, almost contemptuously. "tonight you have a room in the Brandenburger Hof, no less — someone thinks you're worth it."

"Fantastic. I can have a bath."

The colonel looked as if he had something to say about my familiar attitude, but of course I was now a civilian. "There's a rail warrant in there. The trains are more or less keeping to timetable at the moment. Make your way to Munich first thing tomorrow and change trains for Mittelwald, which is a one-stop village in the Bavarian Alps, apparently. Be there within twenty-four hours. This evening's yours. Find yourself a couple of whores. From what I've heard of the Russian women … Now get out of here, you lucky bastard."

I emerged into the sunshine, into civilized Berlin, still half thinking I was in a dream. Whores, hell. What I need is sleep.

NIGHT TRAIN: BERLIN TO MITTELWALD

I awoke early and after breakfast found my way on to a Munich train. Not even the cold morning air shifted my feeling that I was inside a dream, that I'd waken to find Willie's guts wrapped around me and the Ivans flaming the cellar. And in a crowded compartment I promptly fell asleep again.

When next I woke up, the blackout blinds were down and the train was jolting to a halt. Doors were banging and the compartment had almost emptied. I was shivering with cold; hours of exposure to the sulfurous smoke had irritated my throat and was nipping my eyes; I could feel my lungs in outline.

"Munich! Munich!" The woman had a thick Bavarian accent, and her throat was hoarse from shouting. I made my way to the waiting room. The benches were full of huddled humanity, but coke was glowing bright red in an open fireplace. Inexplicably, crates of cabbage were piled high in a corner, creating a smell that merged revoltingly with the sulfur and sweat.

Forty minutes later, as I boarded the train for Vienna, it was almost dark and the platform was crowded with soldiers, itinerant workers, farmers and their wives; snow was threatening. A whistle blew, the train moved out in clouds of steam, and I stood in the crowded corridor for an hour, shivering in the freezing air. A group of noisy delinquents in uniform were sharing a packet of Josma, oblivious to the Reich's strictures on cigarettes. Didn't they know our scientists had found a connection with lung cancer? I spent the journey breathing in more smoke.

"Mittelwald! Mittelwald!"

The station was tiny and deserted, and I thought maybe I'd been sent to the end of the world. There was a dusting of snow, and a half-moon showed that I was at the center of a circle of snow-covered peaks. There wasn't a ticket collector or any other soul to be seen. An acetylene lamp spluttering on a wall created a little circle of white light in the gloom; snowflakes were drifting lightly down past it. The air! It was pure and fresh and exquisite, and I cleared my lungs with a few deep, icy breaths. From the dark, someone blew a whistle, and the train moved off; next stop Vienna. I hitched my kit bag onto my shoulder, wondering what would happen next.

A man emerged from the dark. He was in a naval duffel coat, the hood thrown up and his face almost invisible. He could have been a medieval monk. His voice was deep and gravelly, with a heavy smoker's hoarseness. "Sturmbannführer Krafft? Do you know the coldest place in the universe? It's not the North Pole. It's Mittelwald railway platform in the winter. And I've been standing on it for two hours, waiting for you."

"You're lucky. I nearly didn't get out at all." I heard a sudden noise behind me and turned, alarmed, my heart hammering briefly in my chest. Urban fighting did that. But it was only a girl, early twenties, carrying a rucksack almost as big as herself.

"Dr. Daniela Bauer?" the monk asked. She nodded wearily.

"I'm Max," I said, "Max Krafft." I was too exhausted even to click my heels.

"Daniela." Terrific smile, even in the half dark. I hadn't been this close to a girl in two years.

The monk turned without a word. There was still nobody to collect tickets. He took the wheel of an over-large car while the woman called Daniela bundled into the back, propping her bag on the seat and sitting close up against me. I felt close to fainting.

The big engine purred into life. We drove through a small village, dark in the blackout but with snow reflecting moonlight off the steep roofs. It might have been a ghost town.

The road climbed quickly and we soon found ourselves slithering around steep bends, the clutch snatching between gear changes. From time to time I glimpsed roofs dwindling far below me. The big car was over-hot, and the smell of stale tobacco came drifting back from the driver. I was too exhausted to speak, and the young woman next to me seemed to be in the same state. Finally I got it out, in slurred words: "Where are we heading?"

The driver was taking it slowly around a hairpin bend. "A convent."

"I'm not a nun."

"But you'll be taking a vow of silence, my friend."

THE POOR CLARES: MIDNIGHT

So, Maximilian von Krafft, here you are! Two days ago you were a resident of Hell. Tonight you are three thousand kilometers away, in the peace and safety of the Bavarian Alps, and sliding between the sheets of a nun's bed.

What sort of nun? A dried-up old prune? Or was she young and hot-bodied, seething with repressions? Despite my exhaustion, I grinned at the delicious thought.

The car had taken us up into some other reality, a planet of ice giants and snow and waterfalls and misty fingers probing down gullies. I was too exhausted to stay awake and too nervous to sleep. Next to me, the girl was silent. The car was stuffy, the air a mixture of hot oil, tobacco, and perfume. And then in the distance something artificial was emerging, something squat and massive.

"The Poor Clares." That crunching gravel voice.

"It really is a convent?"

"Was. We've cleared out the Christian scheisse." The road turned into a broad asphalt courtyard. We stepped out. A few trucks and cars were just visible in outline, moonlight reflecting off chrome and glass here and there. The air was icy. A soldier, rifle over shoulder, emerged from the dark. He waved a torch over the driver's pass. I was momentarily dazzled by torchlight in my face, but then we were waved through the archway.

The driver led us, in near pitch black, along a pillared cloister. The courtyard had a light covering of snow and what looked like a big fountain in a corner. There was a broad flight of stairs, and then a long, narrow corridor and the smell of polished wood. The driver threw his hood back but his face was still unrecognizable in the near dark. He opened a heavy wooden door, which creaked. "Krafft, your room for the duration of the war. Watch your head. Make sure you pull the blackout curtain every night or I'll have your balls. Dr. Bauer, come with me."

I hit my shin on a low table, cursed, and groped my way toward an arched window, just visible. Some more blind groping led to a light switch, and I blinked in the harsh glare as I surveyed my new home.

A nun's cell. The room was sparse but, at maybe four meters by five, bigger than I would have expected; and it had a high curved ceiling. Sparse but with everything I needed: a single bed, a chair at a small oak desk, shelving for books, and a cupboard that revealed some empty shelves. There was a little crucifix with Jesus over the desk and a picture of the Führer on the opposite wall; so they hadn't cleared out all the Christian scheisse. Two messiahs confronting each other.

I was too exhausted to think. I stripped to my underwear and slipped between icy sheets, fantasizing briefly about the previous occupant. I listened. No deafening guns. No roaring aircraft or rattling tanks, and nobody bawling orders. Nobody dying, or trying to stuff their bowels back into their bellies. No screaming wounded. I wondered about my company, whether Ivan had finally cut them off, how many were still alive. That nagging feeling of guilt wouldn't go away. Why should I be having it so good?

I drifted into sleep, next door to Heaven, but with the feeling that somewhere down the line the Devil would be presenting his bill.

A heavy knock on the door. "Raus! Raus!" Footsteps, and then the door of the cell next to me was being hammered, and so on all along the corridor. In moments there was the sound of voices, male and female.

I rolled out of bed, tingling with curiosity. I pulled back the blackout curtain and was faced with a turquoise lake reflecting, mirror-like, snow-covered Alps against a blue sky. A high mountain glacier covered half the face of the tallest peak. There was sloping rocky ground for a few kilometers around, and a scattering of outbuildings, and here and there patches of green. Little spirals of smoke were rising from the chimneys of a few chalets in the middle distance.

Surprisingly, there was a full-length mirror on the back of the door. Such an aid to vanity couldn't have been for the nuns; I surmised that someone had put it in place after the nuns cleared out. Uncertain what I was about to face, I pulled my service uniform, cleaned and pressed at the Brandenburger Hof, out of the kit bag. My SS rank was now honorary, but I still had that entitlement. My leather boots were still streaked with Russian mud but I felt a curious reluctance to polish it off. The officer in the mirror looked approvingly at the result: black panzer combat jacket and trousers, aluminum piping around collar, oak leaves insignia, Iron Cross Second Class round my neck. I finished it off with the cap, with the eagle and cockade. The skip was lightly frayed at the edges. Then I stepped out into a long wooden corridor. Doors left and right led, I suspected, to the cells of the erstwhile nuns. At the end was a broad spiral staircase, the steps smooth with the passages of centuries, and I went down this, following the sound of conversation.

A man in his thirties was standing at the bottom of the stairs, arms akimbo. He was dressed in civilian clothes, lederhosen, gray shirt, and a hand-knit yellow pullover. The roundness of his chubby face was enhanced by round spectacles. His hair was short, reddish, and close-cropped. He snapped, "Why do we believe in Germany and the Führer?"

I clicked my heels. "Because we believe in God, we believe in Germany which He created in His world, and in the Führer, Adolf Hitler, whom He has sent us."

"Whom must we primarily serve?"

"Our people and the Führer, Adolf Hitler."

"Why do you obey?"

"From inner conviction, from belief in Germany, in the Führer, in the Movement, and in the SS, and from loyalty."

"Your boots are filthy."

"Karkhov mud."

"A badge of honor, then. No doubt you'll keep them dirty as long as possible."

"Absolutely."

"Yes, they told me you'd turned up at last, Krafft. My name is Hess, Kurt Hess, but you will address me as Standartenführer or Director. Come to my office, please."

"You're a strange mixture, Krafft. I can't quite make you out." Hess was making a show of flicking through papers. I thought it was the same dossier the one-armed colonel had looked through in the Berlin HQ.

"I don't seem strange to me."

"Good stock. Your family were financial supporters of the Führer in the early days. Your family tree is pure Aryan at least as far back as 1750." Hess looked up quickly and sprang a surprise. "Are you proud of the fact?"

"It's not something I think much about."

"Catholic, I see. Does that cause you any problems? Any conflict with your membership in the Order?"

"Not at all. It's sometimes necessary to do hard things in war."

"You're entitled to use the von prefix, but you don't. Why not?"

"I do use it from time to time, mainly to impress waiters."

"Yes, a facetious answer that is entirely in keeping with the report I have in front of me. I think you'll find, Krafft, that I'm not particularly tolerant when it comes to insubordination of any sort. Am I making myself clear?"

"Your lucidity is faultless."

Hess gave me a long, cold stare. I knew the technique: Domination is asserted through the eyeballs. From my first day in the SS, I'd developed a counter-technique, which was to visualize tiny people climbing down the officer's forehead, using wrinkles as handholds; or dancing on his head; or opening doors in his head and waving. For bawling officers, a roaring parrot on the shoulder was useful. The technique had been amazingly helpful: while other recruits of my age had grown pale, crumpled, or hyperventilated in the face of the bullying tirades, my problem had been keeping a straight face. And now I was staring at Hess's forehead, fascinated by the little woman who'd opened a window, thrown out a bucket of water, and was now giving me a friendly wave.

Hess flushed. "You're down here as a mountaineer. Where have you climbed?"

"Here and there. Mostly in the Swiss Alps, but I was with Steiner's Kanchenjunga expedition."

"Well, don't get any bright ideas about indulging your hobby hereabouts. You'll have no time for it."

I stayed silent.

Hess tried another hard stare. " ‘There are too many men in the SS who are neither sincere nor idealistic.' Those are the words of the Reichsführer himself. Do they apply to you, Krafft?"

"I like to think, Director, that I'm both sincere and idealistic. But my SS rank is now honorary, remember? Ehrenführer. In effect I'm a civilian again. And I still haven't been told a damned thing. Why exactly am I here?"

"Let's start as we mean to go on, Krafft. Civilian or not, honorary rank or not, I would ask you to remember who you're speaking to, namely the director of this project. It would be better if you used a more respectful tone." He leaned back in his chair. "You're here to win the war for the Reich."

THE FENRIS WOLF

"Do you ride, Krafft?" There was a subtle insult in the question, asked of a member of an old Schwabian family; the sneer was thinly disguised.

I gave him the effortless smile of a man amused by the antics of a social inferior overstepping himself, a smile designed to infuriate. "Now and then, Herr Director."

Hess flushed again. We strode together out of the central courtyard. Through the archway, sentries snapping to attention. The air was cold and clear, with only a few clouds enveloping the highest peaks. A path took us around to the back of the convent, and I was surprised to see, about fifty meters from the main building, what appeared to be stables. I could smell leather and horses even from this distance; memories flooded back.

Nuns on horses! "Did the nuns ride?" I asked, surprised.

"Of course not, you fool. I converted their woodshed."

"The Habsburgs used to hunt for chamois in this area," I said. I didn't know why I said that, and I didn't know how I knew. An old, stooped man emerged from the stables and tried to snap to attention. His breath was steaming in the cold air, and he was blue at the lips.

"Krafft, meet my one luxury. Myers, this is Sturm-bannführer von Krafft." Myers smiled respectfully and half bowed. "Myers was with von der Marwitz's cavalry corps at Kaelen bridge in Belgium in 1914, which is why he's short of a foot. Saddle up Gog and Magog, please."

I hadn't been on a horse for years. It was wonderful to feel a saddle again, hear the creak of leather, and feel the wind in my hair. Magog, I soon discovered, was willful and high-spirited. Herr Colonel took Gog off at a brisk gallop. I let him take the lead; Magog was keeping up easily. About halfway around the big lake, I gave her full rein, bending forward like a jockey, and pulled past my new director. After a mile, I slowed to a trot and Hess caught up, red-faced and puffing. The ground was beginning to fall away below us; it was marked by huge gray boulders sticking up through the snow.

"It's as well you stopped. There's a precipice just a little ahead." We wheeled our horses back toward the convent. "Krafft, I want you to find how pathogens survive an explosion."

"Is that why I was pulled back from the front? To find out how bugs survive an explosion?"

"That's a key part of the jigsaw."

"I don't know a damned thing about pathogens. I'm an engineer. And anyway, what use is that to anyone?"

"And having found that, I want you to devise a means of spreading them over a very wide area." Hess patted Gog's head. The path back was broad, and we trotted side by side. Wisps of mist were rising from the lake on our left. "What we intend to do here is win the war for Germany and the Führer."

"Win the war from a convent?"

"What I'm about to tell you is so secret that not even the Weapons Research Office is aware of it. In Spandau they have a factory that contains fermentation vats. But they're not fermenting beer. No, not beer. Plague bacilli and anthrax spores. In huge amounts. And they have developed an amazing new poison gas. We are sure the Allies have nothing like it."

"Huge amounts? And what is this gas?"

Hess ignored the interruption. "What we need is an efficient means of dispersing these deadly things over a wide area. Maybe at altitude, say from bursting artillery shells. You have a unique combination of talents for the job. You're an artilleryman, you're an engineer, and before that you worked in the physical sciences at Leipzig."

"You want to find some way to blast deadly germs or poison gas quickly over a wide area, at altitude?"

"That's the idea. Reichsmarschall Goering has a keen personal interest in this project, and I have to report its progress personally to him. You may even have the honor of meeting the Reichsmarschall at some stage. I am to develop a weapon that will wreak havoc on the enemy, both in the battlefield and on his civilian population. If we could stop Ivan in his tracks …"

"Who's the girl?"

"Ha! I thought she might interest you. Her name is Daniela Bauer. She comes from a good family. Her father is General Bauer, a Wehrmacht man with a desk job in Berlin. Old Prussian nobility, you know the type." Again that hint of a sneer.

"Does she do bugs?"

"No, she does mathematics. Real applied mathematics, not the Jewish abstract rubbish. We'll need her to find out how the germs or the chemicals spread in various circumstances, what the extent of the lethal dosage would be, and so on. She and you are key players here."

"Dynamite explodes at four kilometers a second. Going from rest to that speed over the diameter of a bursting shell would rip anything to bits, even a microorganism. How do you know a wonder weapon like that is even possible?"

Myer was waiting in the distance. For the first time I saw the precipitous, winding road that I'd been driven up the previous evening. But there was also a quick way down: a cable car station in the courtyard. The cable car itself was out of sight, and the cable was vibrating tautly; someone was going down or coming up.

"Some more things we should get clear at the outset, Krafft. I directed the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute on the leadership principle, and I intend to do the same here. I do not accept the doctrine of free discussion with superiors, and you will not question my judgment. If I say this weapon is possible, that is all you need to know. Is that understood?"

Nasty little despot. Never seen action at the front. Socially inferior, knows it. I said, "Of course."

Hess paused, searching for intonations in my voice. We were three-quarters of the way around the lake, and the convent was ahead of us. I said, "What happened to the nuns?"

"What?"

"Where did the nuns go?"

Hess looked bewildered. "What does that have to do with anything?"

I stroked Magog's neck. "Just curious."

"You will carry out a feasibility study in the shortest possible time. You will have everything you need, technical staff, apparatus, the lot. It goes without saying that this is one of the closest secrets of the war." Hess adopted a confidential tone. "Even the Führer does not necessarily know about this."

"What?"

"He has an aversion to poisonous gas."

"The Führer doesn't strike me as the type who would care much about enemy soldiers, Standartenführer."

"Of course he doesn't," Hess snapped, "and then neither should you. But the wind blows from west to east, Krafft. If we used poison gas against the British and Americans, it could give them the excuse they need to send gas across the Channel or even onto the Western Front if they ever got a toehold in Europe. The Slavs, of course, are another matter. What we need is a weapon of such overwhelming power that it leads to a quick victory, whomever we use it against. This is to be Hermann Goering's birthday present for the Führer. He himself has told me that this is the most secret project of the war. Between ourselves" — Hess lowered his voice, although there wasn't another human being in sight — "I hear that the Reichsmarschall is not in favor with the Führer. The gift would do Goering no harm. Think about how you will do this, Krafft. And think quickly."

We left Myers to unsaddle Gog and Magog. As we approached the archway, just outside the hearing of the sentries, Hess asked, "You don't have moral qualms about this, Krafft? About using bacteria and gas?"

"Why should I? A weapon is a weapon."

Hess nodded his satisfaction. "That's what I expected to hear. Pity for enemies of the state is unworthy of a Waffen-SS man. And the state defines right and wrong."

"Of course. Right being what serves the interests of the state."

"Correct. We're going to unleash the Fenris Wolf, Krafft, and it's going to devour the enemy from London to Los Angeles. I need a hundred percent effort from you on this." Hess's eyes had an enthusiastic glow.

"You'll get it if you feed me. I last ate twenty-four hours ago."

"My heart bleeds for you. A pampered soul, are we? The spoiled child of a rich family, a connoisseur of fine food and wine?"

"Absolutely. I recommend scabby Kharkov horsemeat, casseroled with turnip."

Hess made a grisly face. "You'll find that wartime austerity stops outside the convent door."

BOSCH

The first trucks of a long convoy pulled in to the forecourt just as we reached the convent. I watched fascinated as desks, benches, baths, electric generators, kettles, a huge variety of pots — some of them big enough to cook food for a brigade — were unloaded by a dozen soldiers to the gruff commands of an army sergeant and two corporals. Noise echoed off the high gray walls.

A Wehrmacht major was approaching smartly. Hess was still breathless. "I have things to do, Krafft. Find Bosch and Webber. Bosch is our procurement officer. Anything you need, speak to him. Webber is your personal assistant." He turned abruptly away.

The convent was a massive square building, maybe a hundred meters on each side, with a green, onion-shaped steeple at the northwest corner. The forecourt was to the south, at the edge of a sheer cliff that curved sharply to the west of the convent, making it unapproachable from south or west and giving the impression that it was built more for defense than the contemplative life. The cable car station was at the far end of the forecourt, the cable itself passing over the road below. A stone wall separating forecourt from cliff looked modern, and for that matter I didn't think the nuns would run to an asphalt forecourt. I turned my attention to the entrance. This was an ornate, heavy oak door flanked by stained glass; gentle shepherd with crook holding a lamb on one side, fierce-looking character with a long white beard glaring down from the clouds on the other. I went inside.

Through the door, the bustle died and I found myself in an atrium with low doors leading off. There was a small, heavily grilled window; maybe the only communication the nuns had with the outside world. Through a door at random, and I found myself in a long high-ceilinged hall, with overhead beams and tall windows throwing strips of colored light on the floor. I walked along it, passing the tombs of Simon the Child, Eduardo de Clari, some bishops.

I looked at the shafts of sunlight and thought I was on the south side of the building, with the cliff on the other side of the wall. A low, heavy door at the end of this hall led to another hall. Rooms led off and there were flights of stairs, some going up, some going down. A door was held open with a fire extinguisher. Inside was a long refectory. There were benches along three of the walls, with a central clearing area for the servers. Beyond it was a door leading, presumably, to the kitchen. There was a little group of people clustered at one of the benches, drinking coffee — real coffee, from the smell. I had the feeling that I'd get to know these people very well. I passed by unnoticed.

On to the east wing. Here there was a small library, what looked like a community room, and a couple of classrooms. I wondered if maybe the nuns had supported themselves by teaching. I wandered into the library and had a quick look at the shelves. It was filled with theological books that meant nothing to me. More Christian scheisse they'd forgotten to clear out.

The doors of the north wing were marked with little brass plaques. There were several parlors, something called a bishop's procuratory, a surgery and dispensary, and, surprisingly, a couple of carpentry workshops.

Around to the west wing, completing the circuit. I came across the steps I'd climbed the previous night, and the corridor with the cells leading off. I counted a dozen cells. There was another flight of steps, up to a second floor. I went up these. Another couple of workrooms and what looked like a novitiates' dormitory, a couple of dozen single beds side by side, sheets and pillows gone, only the mattresses remaining. I guessed the upper floors of the other wings would be much the same.

I looked out of a narrow window and saw the forecourt below me, now completely congested. Trucks were reversing, corporals and sergeants bawling and gesticulating. Another convoy of trucks was winding up the road while trucks from the first, having unloaded their cargoes, were descending. It reminded me of an army of ants. But the second convoy toiling up the hill was different: soldiers, a full Wehrmacht company! We had serious protection.

The circuit completed, I now trotted briskly down the stairs, back to the central courtyard, which now looked like an Eastern bazaar. I found that the grumbling, sweating soldiers gave way quickly to me. Of course; the uniform. Not the Allgemeine–SS but still black. I made my way out of the building and began to explore the environs. Standing on its own, about a hundred meters from both convent and stables, was what might have been a laundry. I made my way to it.

Close up, the laundry turned out to be made of brick and so was presumably a modern addition to the convent. The interior was dark. Metal pillars supported iron beams. There were high narrow windows and numerous ventilation chimneys. The building was about twenty meters long by ten wide, and there were about thirty men and women huddled together, along with a handful of dirty-faced children. They were poorly dressed in a mixture of Slavic dresses and cheap suits. There were no beds and there was no heating. Straw bales, clearly from the stables, were scattered around and provided the only furniture. There was a pervasive smell of urine. There was a rustle as everyone stood up and caps were removed.

I had a dozen words of Polish, picked up in fraught circumstances. I tried a few of them out on a thin, nervous woman standing on a straw bale. "Are you Polish? Russian?"

"I am a Pole, sir. From Cracow."

"What are you doing here?"

The reply was an incomprehensible mutter. I looked around the gray faces. The air was thick with the smell of sweat and fear, even coming through that of the urine. My uniform again. I left without a word.