Black Cross (41 page)

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.

31

“Do you think he will do it this time?” Anna asked. McConnell sat opposite her at the kitchen table, two mugs of ersatz coffee made from barley between them. The brew tasted terrible, but it was hot.