by Greg Iles
Get up? Rachel thought. Is that what you are telling me? Yes. Get up and walk or you will die where you lie.
She scrabbled up onto her forearms, then her knees. Frau Hagan lay motionless twenty meters away. Sergeant Sturm was bellowing orders one after another. Some of the women prisoners were moving en masse toward the main gate, where a small group of SS stood with their weapons leveled. Rachel got unsteadily to her feet.
Someone fired a shot into the air.
The mob pushed on toward the gate. At any other camp they would have been shot down without a thought, but these were Brandt’s guinea pigs. The guards hesitated. Rachel stepped over the mutilated dog and moved toward her fallen friend. She could not stop herself. She felt a remarkable sense of calm. For the first time, she realized, her children were not uppermost in her mind. Death was beckoning, yet she felt no fear.
She had almost reached Frau Hagan when someone seized her arm. She looked up into the face of Anna Kaas. The nurse pulled her away from Frau Hagan, toward the hospital.
Rachel looked back at the dead Pole. “Where are you taking me?”
“Shut up and follow me!”
There was a sudden hail of gunfire. Rachel turned toward the main gate. The SS were shooting into the ground at the mob’s feet. The line of advancing women wavered, but several shouted defiantly. Then Sergeant Sturm pointed his revolver at the crowd and fired three times in quick succession.
“He’s shooting people,” Rachel said.
The mob broke and ran, leaving its wounded behind.
Anna dragged her up the hospital steps and into the main corridor. Instead of taking her to an examining room, she pushed Rachel into a dark alcove that smelled of dirty linens.
“Before the yard is cleared you must return to your block,” she said quickly. “You don’t want to see a doctor. The doctors here will use your injuries as an excuse to kill you. Do you understand?”
Rachel stared.
Anna took hold of her shoulders and shook her. “Hagan is dead! You are alive! Without you, your children will die! Do you hear?”
Rachel nodded dully.
“It is madness!” Anna said, a hysterical tone underlying her voice. “I thought we would all be dead by now. And now this! God knows what Sturm will do after what Hagan did!”
She pulled Rachel out of the alcove and marched her to the back door of the hospital. “You know where you are. Go left, toward the latrines. Get into your block any way you can.” She opened the door and looked out. The alley was empty. “Go now!” She shoved Rachel down the steps and closed the door.
Rachel went.
30
McConnell had been waiting alone in the cellar of Anna’s cottage for eight hours when he heard someone knock at the front door. He turned off the gas lamp and sat completely still in the darkness. He knew the knocking might be Stern, but Stern had taken off without a word and he could find his own goddamn way back in.
Besides, it might not be Stern. Stern could have been caught by a German patrol ten minutes after he left the cottage and been tortured ever since. He could have given up its location only minutes ago. The sound of the knocking was faint, probably because there was a staircase and a heavy door between McConnell and the kitchen, and then the foyer beyond that.
The knocking stopped.
McConnell didn’t try to relight the gas lamp. He took several deep breaths and tried to slow the pounding of his heart. He wasn’t sure if it was light or dark outside, but he figured dark.
Where the hell was Stern?
After his dramatic dawn exit, Anna had shown McConnell through a narrow door in the corner of the kitchen that led to the cellar. Down a steep flight of wooden steps was a low-ceilinged room stacked with bellied boxes and rusted farm machinery. There was a sofa at the back, and a couple of old duvets. He’d collected the bags from the foyer and hauled them down the steps one piece at a time while Anna watched him with a hopeless look in her eyes. She’d spoken a few puzzled words, then left for Totenhausen.
During the first two hours McConnell had jumped at every sound, expecting to hear sirens or gunfire or whatever alarms might result from Stern gassing the prison camp. After that, he’d begun having visions of Stern in the hands of the SS, trying to hold out against God only knew what kind of tortures. But when no storm troopers arrived to break down the cottage door and arrest him, he calmed down enough to eat some cheese from his bag and consider his situation.
Brigadier Smith had proved to be even more devious than McConnell had given him credit for. The moment McConnell climbed out of that Lysander onto German soil, he had become an accessory to the mission, helpless to stop Stern except by killing him or turning him in to the SS — both moral impossibilities.
Smith had counted on that.
So here he was, cowering in the cellar of a frightened German nurse, unable to escape Germany without Stern’s help. The nurse intrigued him. She was the furthest thing imaginable from his idea of a spy. Had it been she who smuggled out the sample of Sarin that he’d tested in his Oxford lab? It was certainly possible. But if so, what had motivated her to take such a risk? In the absence of facts, he found himself certain that Anna Kaas had endured some great tragedy at the hands of the Nazis. Why else would she risk her life to fight them? Very few Germans had.
Her reluctance to embrace Brigadier Smith’s plan had surprised and pleased him. She must have been excited at the prospect of action, especially after months or even years of living a double life, always under threat of discovery yet never seeing any benefit from the risks she took. But now that the day had arrived, she seemed appalled by what “London” had decreed must be done. Before leaving the cottage, she’d looked back at him and said, “It’s odd, isn’t it? The Nazis say we must kill Jews to save the German people. Your Brigadier Smith says you must kill Jews to save the Jewish people. I wonder . . . do any of these men care about saving individual human beings?” A simplification, perhaps, but she had gotten to the heart of the matter. Maybe together they could convince Stern to abandon the idea of killing the prisoners.
Perhaps they could work out a compromise.
McConnell gripped the arm of the sofa. Something had made a crashing sound upstairs. He heard a quick scream, then voices. He felt along the sofa cushion until his left hand closed over the folding stock of his Schmeisser. He’d never thought he would really use the weapon, but if SS men were coming for him—
A shaft of light sliced down through the darkness.
He pointed the submachine gun at the top of the stairs.
“Are you down there?”
A woman’s voice. Anna. But she was not alone.
“Come on, Doctor!”
Stern.
McConnell exhaled in relief. Keeping the Schmeisser in his hands, he climbed the steps to the kitchen. He arrived in time to see Anna pour a glass of vodka and drink it in a single swallow. With trembling hands she poured another.
“What’s the matter?” McConnell asked. “What happened?”
“I frightened her,” said Stern, leaning in the foyer doorway. “I tried to get in earlier, but you wouldn’t answer the door. I didn’t want to break in, because I thought you might shoot me. I waited for her, then shoved in behind her when she opened the door.”
“Where the hell have you been all day?”
Stern walked over to Anna and drank a shot of vodka from her bottle. “Rostock,” he said, and wiped his mouth.
Anna’s glass clinked on the countertop. “You are insane! Why did you go there?”
Stern took another swallow of vodka. “It was too windy to make the attack. Besides, I knew we’d never reach the coast without being caught if an alarm was raised. Not in daylight.”
“But how did you get to Rostock?”
“I stole a car from the village.”
Anna shook her head. “You are mad.”
“I returned it to its owner,” Stern said casually. “But never mind that. When you got here, you dropped your bi
cycle and ran to your door. Something had frightened you long before you saw me. What was it?”
Anna looked away from him and drank from the glass. “You were right last night,” she said. “Totenhausen must be destroyed, whatever the cost. It is an abomination.”
McConnell stared at her in confusion.
“Tell me what happened,” Stern demanded.
She took a step back, retreating from Stern’s sudden intensity. “There was a killing today.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Only because it was a prisoner who killed an SS man.”
“What?”
“It was a woman. The Blockführer of the Jewish Women’s Barracks. She stabbed a corporal in the neck with a gardening spade. The biggest brute in the camp.”
“Why did she do that?”
“The guard was beating another prisoner to death. A Jewess from Amsterdam.”
Stern shook his head angrily. “This Blockführer was also a Jew?”
“No. But she and the Jewess were friends.”
“Did the Jewish woman die?”
“No. I got her away and sent her back to her block.” Anna half-turned away and looked at the floor as she spoke, as if she were being forced to reveal some terrible family secret. “Hauptscharführer Sturm went berserk after seeing that his man was really dead. With Brandt and Schörner gone, he was the senior officer in camp. He ordered immediate reprisals. Two women were hanged from the Punishment Tree, and eight more shot by firing squad. Ten people murdered.”
Stern grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. “Jews?”
“No,” she said, her voice barely audible. “Polish Christians.”
Anna pushed past him and sat down at the table, the glass still clenched in her hand. “If Schörner hadn’t returned from Peenemünde, I think Sturm and his men would have murdered every prisoner in the camp.”
“Major Schörner imposed order?” Stern asked, standing right over her.
“More than that. He ordered Sturm confined to quarters. That man has the nerve of the devil.”
“But why would he do that?”
“I think it’s something personal between him and Sturm. Something to do with the woman.”
“The woman who killed the SS man?”
“No, the Jewess who was beaten. I think Schörner has pressured her into some sort of sexual arrangement.”
Stern looked pointedly at McConnell, as if to say, You see what these Nazi pigs are capable of? “And this sergeant disapproves of the major’s sexual arrangement?”
“I don’t think he cares about that,” Anna said. “There is something else between him and Schörner. Sturm really hates him.”
“What kind of crazy camp is this? Is there no discipline?”
She shook her head slowly, unshed tears pooling in her eyes. “It’s worse than anything you can imagine. Herr Doktor Brandt is in charge. Technically he is a lieutenant-general in the SS, but he has no military training. It is said he’s a personal friend of Himmler. There are three other SS doctors — two captains and a major — to fill out the officer complement. Major Schörner is head of security. After that it drops to Hauptscharführer Sturm and his men.”
“No midlevel officers?”
Anna shook her head. “That’s the way Brandt likes it. He wants doctors around him, not soldiers.”
At last Stern moved away from her and began pacing around the table. McConnell sat down so he wouldn’t have to keep stepping out of his way.
“What would happen if I attacked the camp now?” Stern asked.
“The same as last night,” Anna said in an exhausted voice. “You’d miss half of the SS garrison because Schörner has them out searching for parachutists, but you’d kill all of the prisoners. Not only that, since you told me about the wind I’ve been thinking about it. The wind at the camp blows faster than on this side of the hills. It blows down the river.”
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.
