Schlaff dropped him on a white tile floor. A shower stall. Except that there was no drain. His large body was pressed against the glass pane. A set of keys clattered above him, and a swinging metal chain hit the wall. Schlaff was sitting on his heels, locking him into nickel-plated restraints. Alex couldn’t feel his body.
The huge screen showed a painting of a young girl with slashes in her flesh and three bearded men with big noses collecting her blood in goblets. Above it was the logo of Der Stürmer. Alex’s eyes were transfixed by the petrifying image.
Schlaff nimbly picked Alex up, passed a steel chain through the restraints, and pulled it sharply upward. His body rose and stretched until his feet were off the floor and his whole weight was suspended from his wrists. The restraints cut into his flesh like razors. Schlaff grabbed him around the waist and swung him like you swing a child. The chain tightened, and his feet flopped limply against the floor.
The walls were closing in on him, as if he were in a trash compactor. His heart was racing, three beats a second, and his body was trembling uncontrollably. A sharp pain stabbed at his chest and spread to his shoulder and down his left arm. He was covered in cold sweat. His stomach was clenched as tight as a fist.
Gradually his muscles began to respond, and feeling started returning to his legs. He looked up. The chain was attached to a ring in the concrete ceiling. In the shower stall there were no faucets and no showerhead.
Just tiny spray holes.
He screamed as loud as he could.
Oh God, he was in a gas chamber!
Monstrous images rose from the depths of his early years. He was helpless. Something inside threatened to break. His mother screaming in her sleep; the memories that were too much to bear; the terrifying sights that buried his childhood. It was all pouring out, crashing around him, and the pain in his heart was unendurable.
The dungeon of horrors filled with Oskar Schlaff’s laughter. His demonic face came closer, the blue butcher’s eyes gleaming. “You pissed yourself, Jew-boy!” he gloated maniacally. “And we haven’t even started yet.”
The warmth in his pants was growing colder.
“You already understand where you are, don’t you, Jew-boy?”
Paralyzed with fear, he struggled to steady his convulsive breathing. He felt like a pitchfork had stabbed him in the heart.
But he wasn’t dead yet.
Calm down . . . he said to himself. Just calm down . . . close your eyes and breathe deeply . . . give your heart a chance to slow . . . deep breaths . . . breathe . . . breathe . . .
His chin slumped to his chest. He opened his eyes. There was something on his shirt.
Yellow.
A Star of David.
“I paid a fortune for this,” Schlaff said. “It’s an original, from the Kaunas ghetto.”
His heart started racing again, and he was taking in too much oxygen. The unbearable pressure in his head returned. Slowly . . . deep breath . . . keep it steady . . .
On the screen across the room, hundreds of flags were waving in the wind. A sea of swastikas. Columns of believers caught up in a mob frenzy, eagerly stretching their right arms straight out in a nauseating “Sieg Heil.” He looked away. His stomach contracted violently.
He remembered how his father used to wake him up from nightmares. How he would stroke his head and wipe his face, gathering him in his arms and holding him tight until he settled back down. He longed desperately for the protective arms of his late father.
His body was on fire. His eyes filled with tears, and from the ruins of his life emerged a grief like he had never known before. It was a bitter grief for his mother, for the atrocities she had suffered, atrocities he could not shield her from.
He wept for the childhood she never had, for the chronic depression concealed under a thick layer of makeup. He wept for the scraps of dry bread she refused to throw away and chewed on at night. His body shook with tears for the blows she had suffered from the butts of rifles and for the innocent joy that had been buried in a mass grave.
His late mother appeared before him, bent under the weight of survivor’s guilt.
The tears were cleansing.
For the first time in his life, he was able to acknowledge his mother without feeling guilt, only compassion and heartache.
WANNSEE, BERLIN | 03:55
The pain in his chest was subsiding. His heart was beating more slowly, and his breathing was calmer and steadier. Even the cramped space was becoming tolerable, though his arms in the restraints above his head were cold and stiff.
Just break free.
Dr. Rauch was picking his nose, his finger in his nostril up to the knuckle.
Schlaff approached, a remote-control device in his hand. “It’s a shame you killed the Mausers. We had our game. You should have seen them in authentic striped pajamas, removing bodies from the gas chamber . . .” Schlaff clicked his tongue and then lowered his eyes, contemplating, his eyelids twitching.
“I see you’re feeling better,” Schlaff said, his eyes sparkling. “Wonderful! We can get started!”
The German pressed a button on the remote.
Something moved.
The folding panels of the aluminum wall on the left slid back quietly along a track to reveal welded-joint steel shelving units. Extending the entire length of the wall, they were loaded with large glass mason jars.
Each jar had a square label with a picture on it.
A face. Dozens of faces.
Alex hurled, covering himself with puke.
The jars contained ashes.
“All your friends are here,” Schlaff said, sounding amused.
Alex spit. His chest was on fire and his stomach was convulsing. He tried to count: eight rows; more than a hundred jars . . . maybe a hundred and fifty!
They were all here. All the people who had vanished. Oskar Schlaff the serial killer kept mementos of his victims.
“Nibelungs,” Schlaff giggled. “More precisely, grilled Nibelungs. And they’re not alone.”
The German came closer but still kept some distance. His face twisted at the sight of the puke.
“The media likes to show dramatic pictures of neo-Nazis marching in uniform in Germany or America or wherever. They’re not the real Nazis. They’re nothing more than stupid kids who have yet to learn how to jerk off! Fucked-up youngsters who do more harm than good. All they do is talk. Talk is easy.”
His face became serious. “We act, Jew-boy. We just act. And tonight we are taking a giant leap forward!”
Pointing to the wall, he said, “The bottom row are Jews we hunted here in Germany, weak Jew-boys with long noses—filth that has been trying to corrupt the Aryan nation for hundreds of years.
“Above them are the coloreds, human refuse that streams here from Asia and Africa. The next two rows are the greatest enemies of Christian Europe—Muslims!”
Dr. Rauch lowered his eyes and nodded like a pious congregant listening to a sermon. He stopped rooting around in his orifice.
“In view of the speed with which they are reproducing, polluting Germany and the rest of Europe,” Schlaff went on, “we have to work quickly and decisively. The international media only thinks about the next edition, the next news flash, the next issue. No one looks any farther, to the future. The world is simpleminded. It can only see as far as the end of its nose.
“In another ten years, perhaps twenty, Muslims will be the majority in Germany, France, Italy, and Britain. We are cleaning the streets, working quietly and thoroughly. Not counting your Nibelung friends, there are one hundred and twenty-seven jars here—Jews, Muslims, and coloreds that we have cleaned out of Berlin.”
Schlaff cleared his throat and pulled on his nose before continuing. “The cathedral in Cologne, the Duomo in Florence, St. Peter’s in Rome—they plan to tear them all down to make way for mosques for the hundreds of millions of Muslims who will overrun Europe. Can you tell me that that is not a cancer?”
“Bullshit, Oskar. You’
re collaborating with the Syrians. If you haven’t noticed, they happen to be Muslims.”
Schlaff chuckled. “Collaboration with the Syrians is a means to a greater end. We will get to that later. You are showing your ignorance, Jew-boy. The Syrians stay in Syria. The slime we get comes from other places. The swarms from Turkey are the Exxon Valdez of the Aryan race!”
“I thought Jews were your problem.”
“At the moment—but just for now—there are one hundred and sixty thousand Jews in Germany. There are almost four million Turks! You try to take over the economy; you shove your hands in our pockets and elbow your way up the ladder of the legal system. You are stingy and greedy, but there are not enough of you here that you would be able to seize control. You are a cancer, but an insignificant one. Hodgkin’s. There is a treatment for it. Patience, Jew-boy—you will find out about it soon enough.
“You think the world revolves around you. For you, it’s a simple equation: World War II equals the Holocaust.” Schlaff clicked his tongue. “Do you know what rank was held by Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the final solution?”
Alex remained silent.
“Lieutenant colonel. And how many German soldiers served in Treblinka?”
Alex remained silent.
“Sixteen. Are you getting the picture, Jew-boy? The extermination of the Jews was justified and necessary, but it was merely a footnote in the story of the great war. Are you ready for act two?”
Alex’s heart sank.
Schlaff pressed a button on the remote, and the aluminum wall on the right started folding open. Two lights in the ceiling came on, illuminating a pair of stainless-steel doors about two by three feet in size and three feet above the floor.
Refrigeration units. A metal gurney stood beside the doors.
Alex’s stomach and throat contracted, but there was nothing left to vomit.
“I imagine you’re wondering what the refrigerators are for. Let me show you,” Schlaff said, pressing the remote again. A red firebrick wall appeared to the left of the refrigeration units. In the middle was a blackened cast-iron door with a round glass window. Flames leaped behind it.
Oskar was beaming.
“It’s a crematorium, Jew-boy. A crematorium!” he said gleefully. “You must admit that I have prepared a warm welcome for you.”
WANNSEE, BERLIN | 04:03
A blue vein was throbbing in the Nazi’s forehead. He seemed entertained. He stood next to a white apparatus the size of a washing machine and pressed a button. The noise was repugnant. A bone grinder.
Dr. Rauch let out a delayed piggish giggle followed by a snort.
It was hard to breathe.
Schlaff held his hands up to the crematorium door, his face glowing with pure delight. “I love to feel the heat on my hands! I can sense the work getting done, the filth being cleaned away. By the way, do you know who is grilling in there right now? She arrived yesterday morning, after a long journey . . .”
Alex turned his head away. His eyes encountered the wall of jars. Across the room the Führer was shrieking on the giant screen, his mustache as big as Rauch’s head.
They were burning Jane.
Here.
Right in front of him.
He wanted to scream, but there was no one to hear his pain.
“I didn’t have a chance to devote time to her before tonight. Did you know it takes two hours to burn a body?”
The figure 1126C glowed red on the control monitor beside the iron door.
“She’ll burn down to about four and a half pounds of ashes. Your jar will be heavier. Which shelf would you like?”
He had had enough of Schlaff’s sick games.
“You are witnessing history in the making, Jew-boy. This is not an ordinary cellar. It’s a small-scale extermination camp, the first in a chain to be built around the world.”
Laughing, he added, “Even McDonald’s began with a single branch.”
“Why don’t you take your medication and go lie down,” Alex said.
Schlaff ignored him. “It’s a shame the Mauser brothers will no longer be able to do their part for the cause.
“They started out in my kitchen, did you know that? Washing dishes. We knew one another from the Stasi. Those were the days! I saw right away that their place was not in the kitchen but in the slaughterhouse.”
“Hey, Oskar,” Alex called out. “Have you heard the latest news from Damascus?”
Schlaff froze. “What?”
“We butchered your uncle tonight, on the roof, next to the cage.”
Schlaff’s expression grew dark. “You . . . you’re . . . you are trying to buy time.”
“Why not try calling Uncle Alois and find out for yourself. You don’t want to miss the funeral. I heard he begged for his life. Just like you begged the boys at the orphanage in Nuremberg before they took turns raping you.”
Schlaff’s face went red. Beads of sweat glittered on his brow.
“Call Uncle Alois, Oskar, and you’ll see that you’re all alone in the world again.”
Schlaff’s arrogant facade shattered. It could be heard throughout the cellar.
“Passover is coming, Oskar. We Jew-boys need blood. Go on, make the call!”
Schlaff pulled his cellphone from his pocket but quickly realized that it was pointless.
“Go outside. You’ll get a signal there. Or are you scared to leave me here?”
The German looked distressed. He glanced at the lifeless body of Sepp Mauser.
“You’ve got my phone, Oskar. I’ll do you a favor and tell you where to find the picture of Uncle Alois’s dead body.”
Schlaff approached him quickly, still holding his phone, and punched Alex on the chin.
His head dropped and salinity spread in his mouth.
Schlaff was standing in front of him; the smile had disappeared.
Alex spat a mixture of saliva and blood in his face. The red goo slid down the German’s cheek. Without wiping it away, Schlaff stepped back out of reach.
Dr. Rauch stood frozen at the far end of the cellar, next to the screen. Schlaff unzipped his coverall and took out Alex’s phone.
“Curiosity killed the cat, Oskar,” Alex said quietly, spitting blood onto the floor.
Schlaff’s face fell. He blanched and let out a scream, staring in horror at the image.
WANNSEE, BERLIN | 04:11
Schlaff went to the wall of jars and returned holding an old yellow tin can. On the label were a red stripe, a black stripe, and a skull.
Alex managed to read: ZYKLON B.
“Did you know that this extraordinary product was developed by a Jew? Fritz Haber, his name was. Ironic, no?”
Schlaff opened the can very carefully and held it up to Alex’s face. It was half-full of pale crystals a little larger than coarse sea salt.
“I imagine you’ve been wondering why it’s cold down here.” He paused dramatically. “When the crystals reach a temperature of twenty-six degrees Celsius, Jews tend to die instantly.”
Schlaff pulled open a metal drawer in the gas chamber wall and poured the crystals in. Then he pressed a button, and something started beating.
Alex was paralyzed with fear. He couldn’t feel his arms.
“I have turned the heater on. As soon as they’re hot enough, the crystals will start to emit hydrogen cyanide, but I’m afraid you won’t get to see that,” Schlaff said, struggling to smile.
His heart was overflowing. Sounds were growing fainter and receding into the distance.
Something landed heavily and painfully on his face.
A fucking bucket of water.
“Open your eyes!” Schlaff ordered.
He was going to die.
“You have stopped laughing, Jew-boy. Don’t worry—by noon you and your British girlfriend will be together again, side by side here on the shelf.”
Schlaff pressed a button on the remote and a thick glass door slid closed with a pneumatic whoosh, locking Alex into the gas chamb
er.
“No!!!” he heard himself scream.
The cell was sealed off.
He could see Schlaff’s lips moving, but he could no longer hear his voice. His ears filled with the chilling sounds of his racing heart and labored breathing.
Suddenly, Schlaff’s voice blasted at him from behind. Psychopath. A gas chamber with an intercom.
Soon it would start filling with gas.
“There were six of us,” Schlaff shouted. “Six doing God’s work, what you see here on the shelves.” He stepped closer to the glass wall. “You killed the twins,” he scolded, “my two finest talents. Now there are four of us left. Only the good doctor and I are here. Guess where the other two are, and what they are carrying in their luggage?”
The inhalers.
Hochstadt-Lancet!
“In just a few hours we will begin to fulfill my revered uncle’s last wish. At the age of ninety-nine, he was finally about to hear the first heartbeat of the Fourth Reich!” Schlaff was screeching. Spittle sprayed from his lips.
“Endlösung der Judenfrage Zwei,” Schlaff said, his eyes ablaze with fervor. “The Final Solution Two!
“Very soon, six million Jews will die again—but this time, there is no need for concentration camps. You Jew-boys are already concentrated in one place!”
He paused like a seasoned orator, allowing time for his mind-numbing message to sink in.
“I’m going to be dead in a few minutes anyway,” Alex said, “so do you mind telling me why Justus ratted us out?”
“Erlichmann, that piece of junk . . .” Schlaff muttered. “Hypnosis,” he barked abruptly. “We took him from his bed in the middle of the night. Dr. Rauch drugged him while he was asleep, and we brought him here. When he regained consciousness, Rauch hypnotized him. Justus was a fool—but a genius. He held every detail in his head. Then we brought him out of the trance and drugged him again. He was back at home before dawn. He slept until noon but had no memory of his nighttime adventure.”
“How did you find out he was running the Ring for Mossad?”
Ring of Lies Page 31
