Black Cross wwi-1

by Greg Iles

  Smith reached into his jacket and pulled out a map of Europe. Swastikas covered the paper from Poland to the French coast. Stern felt his pulse speeding at the prospect of action.

  “Doesn’t look like we’ve accomplished much in five years, does it?” Smith said. “Look here. There is one thing you can help me with tonight. You may already have done it.”

  “What?”

  “Picked the target. I mentioned three camps. To be honest, I’ve already narrowed my list to two. Sachsenhausen is simply too large for the type of operation I have in mind. It’s Natzweiler or Totenhausen.”

  Stern looked greedily at the map. He knew which camp he wanted to attack. Still, he didn’t want to seem too eager.

  “Natzweiler is the larger by far,” Smith said. “The SS are almost certainly killing more Jews there.”

  “A larger camp would be easier for me to slip into unnoticed,” Stern pointed out.

  “You won’t be infiltrating the camp. Not the way I’ve designed this show.”

  “Well,” Stern said in a neutral tone, “since you have only a limited amount of gas, you could increase your chances of success by targeting the smallest camp.”

  “Quite,” Smith agreed.

  “How far is Totenhausen from Rostock?”

  “Twenty miles, due east. It’s on the Recknitz River.”

  Stern could not keep the excitement out of his voice. “Brigadier, I know that area. My father and I used to hike the wilderness all around Rostock. I used to follow the Wandervögel around when I was a boy.”

  Smith studied the map. “Totenhausen is practically on the Baltic coast. Much closer to Sweden than Natzweiler is. That would simplify both infiltration and escape.”

  “Brigadier, it’s got to be Totenhausen!”

  “I’m afraid I can’t make the final decision tonight.” The Scotsman rolled up the map. “But I can tell you this. Totenhausen was designed solely to test and manufacture Sarin and Soman. From a political standpoint, it’s the perfect target.”

  Stern tried to control his impatience. “What do I do now? Where do I go?”

  “Some of my people will look after you.” Smith leaned forward and opened a window in the partition separating them from the Bentley’s driver. “Norgeby House,” he said, then closed the window and turned to Stern. “There is more to this mission than killing people. There are other objectives which are extremely important. After the SS garrison is destroyed—”

  “Just a minute,” Stern interrupted. “You said we had to kill the prisoners?”

  “Yes. I’m afraid there’s no way around it. We can’t jeopardize the mission by trying to warn them. Even if we did warn them, there’s no way to get them out of the camp, much less out of Germany.”

  Stern nodded slowly. “Are they all Jews?”

  “God, man, it’s an odd time to get squeamish. Didn’t you just propose bombing four concentration camps with no warning at all?”

  Stern felt a strange hesitancy. He had just proposed that. But somehow this was different. Bombing the death camps would have been an unmistakable assertion of Allied support for Jews, and a potentially crippling blow to the Nazi extermination system. Brigadier Smith’s plan also meant sacrificing Jews, but without any direct benefit to the Jewish people. Or was there? If Eisenhower’s invasion stalled on the beaches of France, Hitler would almost certainly have time to complete the genocide he had begun eleven years ago. Stern cleared his throat.

  “You mentioned other objectives, Brigadier?”

  Smith was watching him carefully. “Right. After the garrison is neutralized, you’ll move into the gas factory. First and foremost, we need a sample of Soman, their newest and most toxic gas. Second, we need photographs of the production apparatus. Nerve agents are extremely difficult to mass produce. A lot could be learned by studying photos of the German equipment.”

  “Brigadier, I’m no scientist,” Stern objected. “I can operate a camera, but I wouldn’t know a poison gas factory from a herring cannery.”

  “Don’t worry about that. Your job is neutralizing the camp. Someone else will give you technical directions regarding the gas.”

  “Who?”

  “An American. He’s the foremost expert on poison gases outside Nazi Germany. Not only that, he speaks fluent German.”

  “I thought you said the Americans were against this mission.”

  “They are. But this man’s a civilian. Perfect for the job.”

  Stern’s eyes narrowed. “You sound like you’re trying to sell him to me.”

  “I’m afraid he’s the one we’ll have to sell on this operation. He happens to be a pacifist.”

  “A pacifist! I don’t want him.”

  “You’ll take him, though,” Smith said harshly. “You’ll do whatever I bloody tell you to do. And the first thing you’re going to do is help me sell him on this mission. Lay on the sob stuff about the plight of the Jews. Moral duty, all that rot.”

  Stern’s voice communicated his disgust. “You want me to help you convince a pacifist to murder defenseless prisoners?”

  A wicked smile touched the corners of Brigadier Smith’s mouth. “Nobody needs to say anything about killing anybody. This is a sales job. And the first rule of sales is, know your mark. In this case, that advice can be taken quite literally.”

  “What do you mean? Who is this person?”

  Brigadier Smith leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes. “Mark McConnell, M.D. And I can tell you right now, Stern, you’re going to hate him.”

  Two hours later, in a forest deep in northern Germany, a black Volkswagen skidded to a stop beneath a thick stand of fir trees. Two figures — one male, one female — climbed out and hurried into the wood. The woman wore a heavy wool coat over a white nurse’s uniform, and a fur hat over her blond hair. The man wore a ragged buttonless jacket to cover his gray shirt, which was lined with prison stripes.

  The man stopped at the edge of a clearing and stood guard. The woman moved forward and called out a few words in Polish. Two men materialized out of the trees and stepped into the moonlight. One was huge, almost a giant, with a thick black beard. He carried a Sten submachine gun in one hand and wore a meat cleaver on his belt. The young man beside him weighed only half what his comrade did, and carried only a suitcase. With his long thin arms and delicate fingers, he looked like a refugee from a paupers’ symphony.

  “You’re late, Anna,” said the giant. “We already took down the antenna.”

  “Then put it back up,” she said. “We almost didn’t get here at all.”

  The giant grinned, then said something to his comrade in Polish. The thin man opened up the suitcase and pulled out a coil of wire. The giant tied one end to his belt and scrambled up the nearest fir tree.

  The woman called Anna took a small notebook from her coat and knelt on the ground beside the suitcase. The simplicity of the concept fascinated her. Transmitter, receiver, battery, antenna — all in one battered leather suitcase. This wireless set had been hand-built by Polish partisans, but it worked almost as well as the factory-made German set where she worked. She patted the young man on the arm while he dialed in a frequency.

  “Do you think we’re too late, Miklos?” she asked.

  He looked up at her with hollow eyes and smiled. “My brother likes to tease you, Anna. London is always waiting.” He took a codebook from his pocket, opened it, then looked up toward the dark branches. “Ready, Stan?”

  “Fire away!” called the giant. “Just keep it short.”

  Miklos rubbed his hands together for warmth, then did a musical dexterity exercise to limber his fingers. The blond woman opened her notebook to a marked page and handed it to him.

  “This is it?” Miklos asked, scanning the nearly blank sheet. “Can it be worth all this trouble?”

  Anna shrugged. “That’s what they asked for.”

  Sixty miles from London, on the site of a former Roman encampment, stood a horrid Victorian pile known as Bletchl
ey Park. Since the beginning of the war the mansion had served as the nerve center of Britain’s covert battle against the Nazis. Radio aerials sheltered in the trees gathered hurried transmissions from across Occupied Europe, then routed them to former ships’ radio operators on duty inside the mansion, who finally passed the decoded signals to the synod of dons and scholars responsible for piecing together a picture of what was happening in the darkness that lay across the Continent.

  Tonight Brigadier Duff Smith had driven his Bentley at alarming speeds to reach Bletchley. He could have phoned, but he wanted to be there when — or if — the message he awaited came in. Smith had stood at the shoulder of a young rating from Newcastle for an hour, watching a silent radio receiver until nervous tension got the better of him. He was about to give up and drive back to London when a staccato of Morse dots and dashes filled the tiny room.

  “That’s him, sir,” said the rating with controlled excitement. “PLATO. I don’t even need to hear his identifying group. I know his fist like Ellington’s piano.”

  Brigadier Smith watched the young man copy down the groups as they came through. They came in three short sets. When the radio fell silent, the rating looked up with a puzzled expression.

  “That’s it, sir?”

  “I won’t know until you decode it. How long were they on the air, Clapham?”

  “I’d say about fifty-five seconds, sir. Plays that Morse key like a musician, PLATO does. A bloody artist.”

  Smith looked at his watch. “I make it fifty-eight seconds. Good show. The Poles are the best at this game, bar none. Decode that lot right now.”

  “Right, sir.”

  One minute later, the rating tore off a sheet of notepaper and handed it to the SOE chief. Smith read what he had written:

  Wrapped steel winch cable, due to copper shortage.

  Diameter 1.7 cm. Ten pylons. 609 meters.

  Slope 29 degrees. 6 wires. 3 live, 3 dead.

  Brigadier Smith laid the notepaper on a table and pulled a different sheet from his pocket. He consulted some figures that had been scrawled there earlier in the week by a brilliant British engineer. The rating saw the brigadier’s hand stiffen, then crumple the sheet of paper in his hand.

  “By God, it could work,” Smith said softly. “That woman is gold in the bank. It could work.” He carefully placed both pieces of paper in the inside pocket of his jacket, then took his cap from the table. “Good work, Clapham.”

  Smith laid a hand on the rating’s shoulder and said, “From now on, all transmissions from source PLATO will be passed under the name SCARLETT. SCARLETT with two ‘T’s.”

  “As in Gone With the Wind, sir?”

  “Right.”

  “Noted.” The young rating grinned. “Nice to know the Jerries are short of a few things too, eh?”

  Duff Smith paused at the door and looked back thoughtfully. “They’ll never know what that missing copper cost them, Clapham.”

  8

  It was late afternoon in London when Brigadier Smith’s silver Bentley rolled onto the A-40 and headed for Oxford. Smith was driving himself today, making use of an ingenious shift mechanism designed for him by SOE engineers. Jonas Stern sat beside him, studying a topographic map of Mecklenburg, the northernmost province of Germany.

  “I remember it all,” he said excitedly. “Every road, every brook. Brigadier, the target has to be Totenhausen.”

  “Be patient, lad.”

  “I don’t see the concentration camp marked here.”

  “I told you, Totenhausen isn’t like any camp you’ve ever heard of. It’s strictly a laboratory and testing facility. Compared to a place like Buchenwald, it’s minuscule. The SS let the trees grow right up to the electric fence. You need a larger scale map. Himmler is serious about hiding that camp.”

  Brigadier Smith had not worn his uniform today. He looked professorial in a tweed jacket and stalker’s cap. “Listen,” he said, “I’ve changed my mind about this meeting.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I don’t want you to say anything unless I ask you to.”

  “Why not?”

  Smith looked away from the road long enough to let Stern know he meant what he was about to say. “Dr. McConnell is not like most men. He’s too smart to be manipulated — by you, anyway — and he’s too principled to be shamed or bribed into doing anything he doesn’t believe in. He’s also too bloody pigheaded to listen to reason.”

  Stern gazed out of the car window. “What kind of man calls himself a pacifist in 1944? Is he a religious fanatic?”

  “Not at all.”

  “A philosopher? Head in the clouds?”

  “In the sand, more like. He’s a different sort of chap. Brilliant, but down to earth. Probably a genius. The pacifism comes from his father. He was a doctor too. Gassed in the Great War, one of the worst cases. Badly scarred, blinded. That’s why the son chose the field he did. Wanted to prevent that kind of thing from ever happening again. Didn’t muck about, either. His uncle owned a dye factory in Atlanta, Georgia. When McConnell was sixteen, he used the chemicals in that plant to brew his own mustard gas. Phosgene too. Tested it on rats he trapped in the basement. Building bloody gas masks at sixteen.”

  “He sounds like a dangerous sort of pacifist.”

  “Oh, he could be, if he chose. He’s a riddle. He was a Rhodes scholar in 1930. Took a First at University College. Went back to America for medical school. Graduated top of his class there, then decided to go into general practice. Master’s degree in chemical engineering. Holds five or six patents in the U.S. for various industrial compounds.”

  “He’s rich?”

  “He didn’t grow up rich, if that’s what you mean. I’m sure he’s comfortable enough now. My point is this. He may say things that seem truly outlandish to you, or to anyone who really understands war. But don’t lose your temper, no matter what. And don’t mention his father. In fact, don’t say anything at all.”

  Stern tossed the map of northern Germany onto the floor of the Bentley. “Why did you bring me along, then?”

  “I want you to get a look at him. If he agrees to go on the mission, he’ll be your only partner.”

  “What? You’re saying this is a two-man job?”

  “As far as you’re concerned, yes.” Brigadier Smith revved the Bentley past a U.S. Army truck.

  Stern shook his head slowly. “This sounds more like a suicide mission every day.”

  “It may well be. But keep one thing clear in your mind. The mission you hear me propose to McConnell will be somewhat different than the mission I discussed with you. For obvious reasons, certain aspects of the offensive side of things will be . . . minimized. No matter what I say, you will show no surprise. Clear?”

  “No matter what anybody says, I keep my mouth shut.”

  Brigadier Smith glanced at the young Zionist one last time. “So far, you haven’t shown much of a talent for that.”

  Stern showed his right palm to the brigadier and wiggled his middle finger up and down, the most obscene Arab gesture he knew.

  9

  In Oxford it was raining. McConnell stood inside a bewildering maze of metal pipes, pressurized storage tanks, rubber hosing and racks of gas masks — a maze of his own construction. There were enough skull-and-crossbones POISON signs tacked around the lab to scare off a German regiment. Two elderly white-coated assistants worked quietly at the far end of the lab, preparing for the afternoon’s experiment.

  McConnell leaned against a window and looked down into the sandstone courtyard three floors below. Cold rain pooled in the cracks between the stones, running through channels carved over the past six centuries. He wondered if his brother was flying today. Did weather like this ground B-17s? Or was David navigating the sunny ether above the clouds, humming a swing tune while he pressed on toward Germany with death stowed under him?

  Hardly a day had passed since their last meeting that Mark had not gone over his brother’s words again. His d
etermination not to participate in the race for a doomsday gas remained as strong as it had been that night, yet something within him would not let the issue rest. How many scientists had faced similar dilemmas during the war? Certainly those on the Tube Alloys project, men who labored in the shadowy, Faustian field of atomic physics. They had much in common with the men working in the sealed chemical laboratories at Porton Down. Good men living in bad times. Good men making compromises, or being compromised. How could he explain why he couldn’t help them?

  He watched the raindrops spatter on the window glass, wiggle like bacteria on a slide, then coalesce and run down, seemingly without direction, to join the water collecting in the gutter pipe, a liquid momentum with force enough to wear away the stone below. He thought of what David had said in the Welsh Pony, about the American boys gathering for the invasion. A rain of young men falling on England, out of airplanes, spilling out of the holds of ships, coalescing into groups that formed the cells of a colossal human wave. An incipient wave that grew each day, leaning eastward, that would soon be poised for a great leap across the Channel. It would leap as a whole, but it would break on the opposite shore and shatter into its component parts, individuals, young men who would water the ground with their blood.

  That cataclysmic event, though still in the future, was already as unstoppable as the setting of the sun. The men behind it had come together in England, and around themselves were drawing young lives by the millions. They breathed the scent of history, and across the Channel perceived nothing less than the Armies of Darkness, Festung Europa, the fortress of the Antichrist, waiting to receive their mighty thrust.

  But something else awaited them there. McConnell had seen it for himself, and heard it. He had traveled across the Channel to Belgium, and to France, and walked the fields that had once been crisscrossed with trenches and mud. He had stood awhile above the intermingled regiments of bones resting fitfully in shallow graves beneath the soil. And there, in whispers just beneath the wind that howled across the stark terrain, he had heard the puzzled voices of boys who had never known the inside of a woman, who never had children, who had never grown old. Seven million voices asking in unison the unanswered question that was an answer in itself: