by Greg Iles
The sergeant sucked in as much air as he could, then rasped, “You’re not fit to wear that uniform, you Jew-fucking bastard.”
Schörner’s face went completely white. To hear such words from a man who had never fought in a single battle, who had never even come under hostile fire, made him temporarily lose his reason. He drove his right knee into Gunther Sturm’s groin. When Sturm doubled over in agony, he smashed his fist down on the back of his neck. Before the sergeant could react, Schörner’s boot was across the back of his neck, crushing his face into the gravel.
Rachel watched from the hospital wall in horror and fascination. She could tell that Frau Hagan was even more stunned than she was. Sturm’s red face was being ground into the gravel like a willful dog’s. Major Schörner seemed to be considering whether or not to go ahead and snap Sturm’s neck with his finely polished hobnailed boot. He regarded the back of the sergeant’s bare head for several moments, as if carefully weighing the pros and cons of the choice.
Rachel heard a sudden roar of engines from the other side of the barracks. A motorcycle with an empty sidecar swept into the alley and skidded to a stop beside Schörner. Its rider removed his goggles and stared at the prone figure on the ground.
“What is it, Rottenführer?” Schörner asked.
The rider’s eyes stayed on Sergeant Sturm. “Sturmbannführer, it’s . . .”
“Speak up, man!”
“Sergeant Gauss, Sturmbannführer! We found his body. He’s been murdered! Shot by an automatic weapon!”
“What? Where?”
“Near the Kleist woman’s house, just as you said. Buried in the snow. We had to dig up half the yard, but we found him. And Sturmbannführer, that’s not the worst of it. We found four parachutes buried with him. British parachutes.”
Schörner lifted his boot off of Sturm’s neck. “Get up, Hauptscharführer! Get every dog and man you have and meet at the Kleist house immediately.” He leaped into the sidecar of the motorcycle. “Take me to the spot, Rottenführer!”
“Zu befehl, Sturmbannführer!”
Sturm got slowly to his feet as the corporal kicked the bike into gear.
“What are you staring at?” Schörner asked him, as if nothing had passed between them. “There may be British commandos in the area. Everything else can wait!”
Sturm nodded dully. Too much had happened too quickly for him to take it all in. “Jawohl,” he mumbled. Then he hurried into the kennel and lifted six chain leashes off a hook inside the door.
Schörner looked at Rachel, his eyes full of intense but unreadable emotion. Then the motorcycle roared out of the alley.
Rachel hugged Jan to her breast and looked at Frau Hagan. The Polish woman shook her head. “He’s mad,” she said. “He has lost his mind.”
“Jan, Jan,” Rachel crooned in a low voice. “Everything is all right now.”
“No, it isn’t,” Frau Hagan said. “This is just beginning.”
“What do you mean? Will Sturm report him?”
“I don’t think so. I think those two will settle this privately. Schörner must have something on Sturm, something bad enough that Sturm is afraid to bring charges against him for consorting with you. That’s why he tried to get you this way. Whatever it is will probably keep him from reporting this.”
The Pole rubbed her grayish-brown hair with both hands. “It won’t keep him from killing Schörner, though. It may take a little time, but he’ll find a way. You’re the one who has to worry now. You’re the pawn between them.”
Rachel shuddered. “Let’s go back to the block. I want to find Hannah.”
They moved out of the alley, Rachel carrying Jan. “You know the worst thing Sturm said? That he had reliable information that I had the diamonds.”
“Do you?” Frau Hagan asked bluntly.
Rachel hesitated, then finally gave up her pretense. “Yes. I’m sorry I lied to you.”
Frau Hagan waved her hand. “You keep them where he said?”
“Yes.”
“Where do you hide them when you go to Schörner?”
“Don’t ask.” Rachel quickened her pace. “I can’t believe anyone would inform on me. Someone in the same position we are! Someone must have watched me in the toilet or the showers.”
“If I find out who,” Frau Hagan said matter-of-factly, “I’ll strangle them with a bootlace.”
“But how could they do it?”
The Block Leader grunted with a sound that summed up a lifetime of disillusionment. “I told you your first day here, Dutch girl. The prisoner’s worst enemy is the prisoner.”
27
“What? What?”
McConnell came awake in the dark the way he once had as an intern in Atlanta, eyes wide open but full of sleep, shaking his head to jar his brain into action.
Someone was shaking him by the arm.
“Get up, Mr. Wilkes! Wake up, sir!”
McConnell’s eyes focused. Where he expected the face of a nurse, he saw the young face of one of Colonel Vaughan’s orderlies. The orderly pulled him to his feet.
“Is that your only bag, sir?”
“What the hell’s going on?” McConnell demanded.
“Is this all your gear, sir?”
“No, damn it, I have suitcases at the castle. Just wait a minute. Jesus . . . is this it? Tonight?”
“Leave everything in the hut behind, sir. You won’t be needing it. Follow me.”
The orderly marched out. McConnell groped in the dark for his shoes, pulled them on and went after him. It was raining outside, no surprise at Achnacarry. The orderly waited on the path to the castle, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
McConnell walked rapidly but did not run, another habit he had developed as an intern. It gave him time to get his thoughts together. Where the hell was Stern? Just after supper they had both lain down in the hut. Now Stern was gone. The day had been a washout, the first time Sergeant McShane had not shown up at dawn to work them to death. He had not appeared during the remainder of the day either, and Stern — quite out of character — had shown no curiosity about the matter.
McConnell sidestepped the rear corner of the castle and moved quickly along the wall. When he rounded the front, he saw only the dim yellow bulb over the castle door, burning through the rain. A stiff hand bumped him in the chest.
“Hold here, Mr. Wilkes,” said the orderly.
“What the hell—?”
“Shut up, Doctor,” snapped a familiar voice.
McConnell’s eyes focused slowly on the figure crouched against the castle wall. There was a leather bag beside him.
Stern.
McConnell squatted down. “Is this it?”
“I heard Smith’s plane land a little while ago,” Stern said.
McConnell felt his heartbeat quicken. He realized he was clutching the swatch of Cameron tartan in his hand. As the cold rain ran down into his collar, he noticed that the hut village in the meadow across the drive looked empty. No campfires, no singing.
“Where is everybody?”
“Night Assault,” Stern replied.
“What’s that?”
“The colonel’s graduation exercise,” said the orderly. “Closest thing in the world to real combat. The Frenchies are rowing across the loch now.”
McConnell heard a low rumble in the dark. An engine. A canvas-backed army truck slowly ground its way up the drive and stopped by the main entrance of the castle. Over its tailgate climbed three men who looked as if they could barely walk. McConnell caught his breath when they stepped into the glow of the bulb over the door.
One of the men was Sergeant Ian McShane.
Stern jumped up and ran toward the truck. McConnell followed, but before they reached it the castle door opened and Brigadier Smith stepped out into the rain. No tweed coat and stalker’s cap tonight — he was wearing his army uniform. Two orderlies behind him carried McConnell’s heavy suitcases and two large duffel bags.
“Load them into the lorry
,” Smith barked. He caught sight of Stern and McConnell. “Into the truck, you two. You’ll find new clothes in those bags. Put them on.”
In the shuffle at the tailgate, McConnell looked into the eyes of Sergeant McShane. What he saw stunned him: fatigue, anger, the remnants of shock. When he touched the sergeant’s arm, McShane jerked suddenly, as if in pain. McConnell saw then that his inner arms had been scraped raw and scabbed over, as if he had skidded fifty yards on cement.
“Where the hell have you been, Sergeant?” he asked.
“Where you’re going, Doctor.”
Suddenly Brigadier Smith was between them. “Into the castle, Sergeant. Whisky and fire. You’ve earned it.”
McShane, flanked by John Lewis and Alick Cochrane, said nothing. Glancing over Smith’s shoulder, McConnell saw that Lewis and Cochrane looked worse than McShane. McShane started to say something, but before he could Brigadier Smith said:
“Carry on, Sergeant.”
Cochrane and Lewis moved toward the door, but McShane stepped around the brigadier and laid a finger on Stern’s chest.
“You mind how you go, over there,” he said. “Look after the doctor here, right? You might be findin’ a warmer welcome than you’ve been led to expect.”
The Highlander looked Brigadier Smith dead in the eye, then turned and trudged into the castle.
“What’s he talking about?” Stern asked.
“They lost a man,” the brigadier said. “That’s all. You’ve lost a few yourself, haven’t you? It was Colin Munro, the weapons instructor. They hauled his body fifteen miles overland to the pickup point. Now, get on with it, eh? We’ve got to be in Sweden by three A.M. Germany by dawn.”
Stern pulled McConnell toward the truck. “Nothing we can do,” he said.
Inside his duffel bag McConnell found not only dry civilian clothes — with proper German tags inside them — but also a neatly pressed and folded military uniform of field gray winter wool. He saw the silver SS runes and the Death’s Head badge on his captain’s cap and felt a chill. Stern’s uniform was gray-green, with the feared green piping and sleeve patch of the SD. On the breast was an Iron Cross First Class and a Wound Badge. The left collar patch indicated that its wearer was a colonel — Standartenführer.
“The civvies or the uniforms?” McConnell asked.
“The uniforms,” said Stern.
McConnell was still dressing when the truck began to roll. Stern bent over the suitcase that contained McConnell’s anti-gas suits and began rummaging beneath them.
“What are you doing?” McConnell asked.
“That bicycle’s not the only thing I stole at the castle,” Stern said over the rumble of the truck. “Smith is crazy if he thinks I’m going into Nazi Germany with nothing but a Schmeisser and a pistol.”
McConnell knelt down and looked into the case. He saw several hand grenades, a small box, and a package wrapped in brown paper.
“What is all that stuff?”
“Plastic explosive. Time pencil detonators. Grenades.”
“Where did you get it?”
“Vaughan’s private arsenal. Thank God those orderlies didn’t search your suitcases.”
“They still might.”
“No. From now on, you and I carry these bags every step of the way.”
Three minutes later the truck stopped. Brigadier Smith appeared at the tailgate.
“At the double,” he said. “No time to lose.”
McConnell dropped to the ground. They had stopped beside an airplane, but no ordinary airplane. It was a high-wing monoplane painted matte black. From fifty yards away it would be totally invisible. Smith’s pilot had put the ominous-looking craft down in a wet field that didn’t look long enough for a flock of geese to land in. Stern bumped past McConnell with the suitcases. Then suddenly the night was shattered by a thunder of guns like a summer storm sweeping across Georgia.
“Christ!” McConnell yelled. “What the hell is that?”
“Into the plane!” the brigadier shouted. “If we hurry we’ll see the best of it!”
McConnell squeezed the duffel bags into the plane, and before he could even catch his breath the grumbling Lysander was climbing the crest of a hill with scant yards to spare. On Smith’s order, the pilot banked over Loch Lochy for a sightseeing run. McConnell had never seen anything like the spectacle below him. Tracer fire arced through the night like something from an H. G. Wells novel. Flares exploded around the plane, illuminating a dozen or so dinghies on the loch below like ducks in a shooting gallery.
“Those Frogs are scared out of their wits right now!” Smith shouted. “Charles’s lads are firing real bullets inches from their arses!”
Smith told the pilot to swing around and head for “checkers,” whatever that meant. As the Lysander swept along the beach, just a hundred feet above exploding mortar shells, McConnell saw an ambulance parked with its headlights on high. Standing in the wet glow of the twin beams was a barrel-chested figure with his hands clasped behind his back. He raised his right arm in farewell as the Lysander buzzed past him, waggling its wings.
“Look at him!” Brigadier Smith shouted. “Standing there like C. B. DeMille himself. What a show! The War Office says Charlie Vaughan uses more ordnance for his Night Assault than Monty used at Alamein!”
The pilot banked into the worst of the storm. It was all McConnell could manage to hold down the contents of his stomach. He tried to take his mind off the nausea by questioning Smith, but the brigadier ignored him. Rain slapped steadily against the perspex windows. The pilot was only the back of a leather cap, Stern a silhouette in the darkness close beside him.
For the first time since David’s death, he realized how irrevocable it all was. He was adrift in a black airplane under a starless sky, droning over an island that had shown no lights to heaven since 1939. The idea that there was a worldwide war going on, perhaps for the soul of mankind, had never seemed more real than it did now.
Were these the smells David had known? The duck-blind smell of rainsoaked wool and leather? The bite of aviation fuel and oil? The scent of anticipation emanating from Stern, a sweaty tang of the hunter at first light? And of course the metallic odor McConnell fancied he smelled on himself—
The smell of fear.
For the first time, the reality of his destination entered into him. Nazi Germany. There was a square yard of the glorious Reich waiting for his two feet to touch down on, maybe waiting for his corpse. He tried to banish this thought while the Lysander plowed doggedly southward against the storm, and by the time the plane began to descend, he had been asleep for over an hour.
The impact of the wheels on earth knocked him awake. “Is this Sweden?” he asked woozily.
“Not quite, lad.”
Brigadier Smith’s voice. The plane turned and taxied back the way it had come. Outside, McConnell saw only darkness. Then a pair of auto headlights blinked three times.
The pilot rolled up to the car and stopped.
“Out,” Smith ordered.
They trundled out of the plane and into the car, a polished Humber. The pilot stayed in the Lysander. The driver of the Humber wore a chauffer’s black uniform and drove like a man late for his daughter’s wedding. The German uniforms drew several glances in the rearview mirror, but very shortly the car drew up beside a large, trimmed hedge. Smith got out and led them through a formal English garden. McConnell saw a faint reflection of moonlight on mullioned windows, then he was standing with Smith and Stern beside an oak door.
“Where the hell are we?” asked Stern.
“Clean up your language,” the brigadier said tersely.
Smith opened the door and led them into a dim corridor. McConnell smelled leather bookbindings and old chintz, oiled wood and tea. As they moved through the dark house, he saw the gleam of brass and crystal. For a moment he thought they’d entered the rooms of his tutor at Oxford. But that was impossible.
Brigadier Smith turned suddenly into another corridor lit
by an electric wall lamp. He stopped before a door. The paneling beside it looked four hundred years old. Smith put his hand on the doorknob, then looked back at Stern.
“Look sharp,” he said. “Speak only when spoken to, and keep a civil tongue in your head.”
McConnell noticed with some uneasiness that the brigadier’s usual informality was nowhere in evidence. Every word and gesture was distinctly military. When Smith opened the door, he realized why.
The first thing he saw was the bald top of a round head. The head was leaning over a huge map that, even upside down, McConnell recognized as the Pas de Calais. The portly body was encased in a navy pea jacket, which seemed odd until McConnell noticed that the interior of the house was barely warmer than the frigid air outside. He smelled the long cigar in the ashtray before he saw it, then the aromatic brandy in the crystal glass.
Winston Churchill looked up from the map and blinked.
“By thunder!” he cried, standing straight. “Himmler’s hooligans have come for me at last!”
McConnell laughed, a little hysterically perhaps, but the prime minister had found exactly the right gambit to put them at ease. It couldn’t be too often that Winston Churchill found himself face to face with jackbooted SS officers. His grin as he looked them up and down seemed to indicate that he was enjoying it. McConnell marveled at the vitality radiating from the man. Churchill was seventy years old, but his watery blue eyes shone with humor and almost unnerving intelligence. When he stuck the cigar between his lips and spoke directly to McConnell, Mark felt a sudden magnifying of his own importance, like a subtle shift in the earth’s gravitational field.
“So, how did you like Scotland, Doctor?” he asked, his voice far richer than his radio broadcasts. “Quite a tough little course, eh?”
The forward thrust of Churchill’s prodigious head seemed an implicit challenge. “Pretty tough,” McConnell agreed.
“Duff tells me you passed with flying colors.”
McConnell was aware that the prime minister exploited every facet of his daunting charisma to sway others to his cause, yet despite this awareness he could not but be affected by it. He felt almost defensive when he heard Stern mutter behind him:
