Black Cross (70 page)

“But Smith knows we’re coming, right? I mean, he knows we succeeded.”

Stern rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Did you ever consider the possibility that Brigadier Smith never meant for us to get out alive, Doctor? That the attack was the only real point of all this?”

McConnell said nothing. Stern’s suggestion was more than a possibility. A man who would send bombers to wipe out all trace of their mission would not hesitate to leave them stranded in a black ocean between the SS and the German Navy.

“My God,” Stern murmured. “Look!”

Forty meters off the bow, the massive conning tower of a submarine rose out of the waves like the Biblical leviathan.

“They must have been watching us through their periscope!” Stern cried. “They were looking for a raft, not a German patrol boat. Get Anna and the girl ready.”

By the time Stem brought the patrol boat alongside the submarine, its captain, first officer, two ratings, and a man not in uniform but wearing a black turtleneck sweater were waiting for them. The first officer carried a submachine gun. Stern saw “HMS
Sword
” painted on the submarine’s hull. The ratings caught hold of the patrol boat with long hooks.

“Code names?” called the man in the black sweater.

“Butler and Wilkes!” Stern replied.

“Come aboard.”

Stern went below and brought Hannah Jansen out of the cabin. McConnell followed, supporting Anna. As they approached the rail, the man in the black sweater pointed at them and said something to the captain.

“Hold!” the captain shouted. “We can only take the two of you aboard! No refugees!”

McConnell saw that this order had not surprised Stern at all. “Captain, I’m a medical doctor!” he shouted. “This woman has a gunshot wound. The other is a child. They need immediate medical attention!”

The captain’s resolve seemed to waver. The man in the black turtleneck spoke angrily in his ear. The captain brushed him away and said, “I’m sorry, Doctor, but the normal rules do not apply. I have specific orders — only the two of you. You’ve got ten seconds to get aboard this ship.”

Anna pulled McConnell’s face close to hers. “Go,” she said. “I can drive the boat. I’ll point it north and try to reach Sweden. Thank you for everything you’ve done.”

“Not a chance in hell,” he said. “It’s a hundred miles to Sweden, straight through the German Navy.”

“We’ll scuttle her!” Stern threatened. He reached into his bag and brought out a British grenade. “Then you’ll
have
to rescue them. It’s the law of the sea!”

“I won’t have that!” the captain shouted. “I will not have it!” He looked from Stern to the man in the black sweater.

McConnell sensed the honor of a sea captain struggling with his sense of duty to an authority he wasn’t sure he trusted. The captain leaned over and said something to his first officer. McConnell could scarcely believe it when the first officer turned and pointed the submachine gun at the man in the sweater.

“Come aboard!” the captain called. “Quickly.”

McConnell went below to retrieve the crate containing the sample gas cylinders. He stared at the lid, thinking. He did not like what he had seen of their rescue party so far. He opened the crate quickly, then sealed it again and carried it topside.

The ratings were holding the patrol boat steady for the transfer. McConnell handed the crate up to the first officer, but the man in the sweater thrust himself forward and took it. The first officer took aboard Stern’s leather bag — and his explosives — even before he took Hannah Jansen. As Stern climbed past McConnell, he whispered, “
The black sweater is Intelligence. Probably SOE
.”

As they stood freezing in the darkness beside the conning tower, the captain said, “We’ll use the radio to call Sweden. I can’t disobey a direct order. Brigadier Smith must give me approval.”

McConnell felt fury rising in his chest.

“I’m sorry, Doctor, but I’ve no choice. There’s nowhere else I can put them off.”

“We’d better hurry, sir,” said the first officer. “The Kriegsmarine has been alerted. It won’t take them long to find us.”

The first officer escorted the SOE man up the ladder and into the sub, not exactly at gunpoint, but with a clear understanding of who was in charge. Stern carried Hannah up with ease, but both ratings had to help McConnell get Anna up the ladder and through the hatch. Her arm was stiffening, the pain and blood loss taking their toll.

The captain ordered that Anna and Hannah be held at the foot of the ladder while he used the radio. McConnell didn’t want to leave them, but Stern shoved him along a claustrophobic passage toward the radio room. A half-dozen young faces gaped at the German uniforms as they passed.

While the wireless operator raised “Atlanta” and verified the codes, the captain, a rather short man with tired eyes, said, “Don’t like irregular operations. Dirty business. Our job is sinking ships, not ferrying Joes all over the seven seas. Still—”

“Got him, sir,” said the wireless operator. “Better make it quick. We’re transmitting
en clair
, and the Kriegsmarine has DF gear all over the place.”

“Right.” The captain took the mike. “Tickell here. I’ve got a sticky situation. A wounded woman and a child in dire circumstances. I’ve brought them aboard for medical attention. Request permission to ferry them to you. Will you take them off there?”

The only answer was a high-pitched electronic whine and intermittent static. The captain was standing half in and half out of the wireless station. Pressed against his back, McConnell had to turn his head only two inches to look into Stern’s eyes. Stern did not look confident. At last the voice of Brigadier Smith cut through the static.

“Tickell, there’s more at stake here than you will ever know. I will only say this once. Put those refugees back into whatever craft they arrived on and make for your destination straightaway. Confirm.”

The captain leaned farther into the wireless room and said in a strained voice, “You’re condemning them to death, Smith. I won’t have that on my conscience.”

McConnell felt Stern jab him in the side. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw the intelligence man standing about two yards behind Stern, with the first officer behind him. There would be no getting past them to help Anna and the child.

“Nothing’s on your precious conscience!” crackled Smith’s voice. “You saw my authority. If you won’t put them off, my man will. Confirm.”

McConnell heard a long sigh, then the voice of the captain saying, “Message received and understood. Proceeding with all speed.”

Captain Tickell looked back over his shoulder. “Put them back in the patrol boat, Deevers!” he called to his first officer. “Show the woman how to work the throttle and compass, then point her towards Sweden.” He turned and shouted toward the other end of the corridor. “Prepare to dive!”

McConnell couldn’t believe the man would really put off a wounded woman and a child. He laid a hand on Tickell’s shoulder. “Captain—”

The captain shoved roughly past him, then stopped and looked back, his face full of disgust. “I’m sorry, Doctor,” he said. “But there’s nothing I can do. It’s out of my hands.” He turned and made his way along the passage toward the control room.

McConnell slipped a hand into his pocket. Duff Smith had left him no choice, and this would be his only chance. Just as Captain Tickell reached the control room, McConnell stepped away from the door to the radio room and brought out the eight-inch metal cylinder marked
Soman IV
.

“Captain!” he shouted. “Your ship is in grave danger!”

Tickell turned slowly and peered back up the passage.

McConnell held up the cylinder in his left hand and clenched the valve key between his right thumb and forefinger. “This canister contains the deadliest war gas known to man. This is what we were sent into Germany to get. No one knows better than you that this submarine is nothing but a sealed tin can with a motor—”

McConnell heard the sound of running feet behind him. He glanced over his shoulder in time to see Stern shatter the nose of the SOE man with his right hand and flatten the first officer with his left elbow. The first officer tried to use his machine pistol, but he was no match for Stern in close quarters. A burst of gunfire ricocheted though the passage, ringing the steel hull like a mammoth bell. Then Stern was holding the weapon over two dazed and bleeding men.

“Did you shoot them?” McConnell asked in a shaky voice.

“No.
Watch the captain
!”

McConnell whirled, brandishing the cylinder. Tickell had already covered half the distance to him. “Don’t let this go any further, Captain!” he shouted. He felt his control over the situation disintegrating fast. “If I release this gas in this submarine, every man on board will be dead within five minutes. Either close the hatch and dive, or preside over the death of your ship.” His eyes bore into the British officer’s. “So help me God, Captain, I will do it.”

“He’s bluffing,” groaned the SOE man from the floor.

The captain stared wide-eyed at the cylinder.

“How long will it take us to get to Sweden, Stern?”

“Submerged . . . about six hours.”

McConnell shook the cylinder again. “Six hours, Captain! I could keep my hand on this valve for twice that long if I had to. You have two choices. You know which is right. Which will it be?”

Captain Tickell gazed into McConnell’s eyes with the cold-blooded assessment of a man accustomed to balancing lethal risks. As he did, McConnell felt a strange calm settle in his soul. He was
not bluffing
. That realization gave him a sense of power he had never known in his life.

Tickell’s eyes narrowed slightly, then widened like those of a hunter who has followed a wounded lion too far into the bush. “Let my first officer up,” he said. “Deevers, close the bloody hatch. Duff Smith can sort out his own mess.”

A dizzying wave of relief washed over McConnell.

“Prepare to dive!” Tickell shouted to the control room. “We’ll torpedo the patrol boat before we go.”

“Thank you, Captain,” McConnell said. “You did the right thing.”

Tickell’s jaw muscles clenched with cold fury. “I’ll see you both hanged for this,” he said.

“You’ll probably have to watch them pin medals on us first,” Stern said over McConnell’s shoulder. “Let’s get this stinking tub to Sweden.”

Six hours later, HMS
Sword
surfaced one mile off the southern Swedish coast. The voyage had been a test of nerves, with McConnell treating Anna’s wound while Stern stood guard with the revolver and the canister of Soman. They’d shut the door long enough for McConnell to set and splint Stern’s broken finger, but the lacerations on his chest had had to wait. Hannah Jansen had drunk some powdered milk and vomited it up immediately. By the time they crawled out of the submarine’s conning tower to be taken ashore, they were near to exhaustion.

Airman Bottomley had rented a motor launch to meet the sub. The sleek wooden craft rose and fell gently on the swell beside the sub’s sail. When Bottomley refused to take Anna and the child aboard, Captain Tickell told him he would take them or be blown out of the water.

Bottomley took them.

The SOE man remained on the
Sword;
apparently there was other “dirty business” still to be done in the Baltic. The launch reached the Swedish coast after a ten-minute run, homing on a blinking green signal lantern.

When Bottomley cut the engine and drifted into the small dock, McConnell spied the two silhouettes waiting for them. One was Duff Smith. The other was a little taller, but bundled in a heavy coat and muffler. For a wild moment he thought Winston Churchill himself might reach down out of the gloom to pull them onto the dock. In the event, he was even more stunned. The face at the other end of the assisting arm belonged to his brother.

McConnell froze for a moment, watched Stern hand the child up to David. Before he had time to think, Stern had helped Anna out of the launch. Like a sleepwalker he climbed out of the boat and faced them all on the jetty.

David broke into a huge grin and said, “Goddamn it, boy, you made it!”

McConnell could not speak. Despite the evidence before him, his mind tried to deny the reality. Then David passed Hannah Jansen to Stern, reached into his flight jacket and brought out a pewter flask.

“How about a shot of Kentucky’s finest, Mac?” he asked. “It’s cold as a welldigger’s ass up here.”

McConnell turned to Brigadier Smith. “Does he know . . . what I thought?”

Duff Smith shook his head very slightly, then pointed at the wooden crate. “Is that the gas sample, Doctor?”

McConnell nodded dully. “Soman Four. Fluoromethyl-pinacolyl-oxyphosphine oxide.” He gestured at Stern’s bag. “Brandt’s lab log is in there.” He brought out the cylinder he had used to blackmail the sub captain. “But I’m going to hang onto this one until we reach England, if you don’t mind. Maybe even longer. Think of it as insurance.”

“Dear boy,” Smith said, “there’s no need for histrionics. You’re the hero of the hour.”

“When are we going back to England?”

“Right now. Your brother will fly us in the Junkers. He flew you over from England four nights ago, though neither of you knew it.”

“I did?” David said. “I’ll be damned.”

“It was David who fixed the Lysander engine. Made the whole jaunt possible, I daresay.” Smith allowed himself a smile. “A credit to the Eighth Air Force, this lad. I hate to give him back. And he loves my JU-88A6.”

“That’s a fact,” David chimed in, but by now he had sensed the tension between his brother and the brigadier.

All McConnell could think of was the transatlantic call he had made to his mother three weeks before.

“I wasn’t counting on any refugees, Doctor,” Smith said tetchily. “I’m afraid you’ve caused a spot of bother there.”

McConnell looked at David again. Then he handed the cylinder to Stern and, before anyone could stop him, punched the brigadier in the belly with all his strength.

Smith doubled over, gasping for air.

Airman Bottomley leaped for McConnell, but he didn’t get past David. Seconds later he was hanging by his throat from the crook of the pilot’s elbow.