Black Cross wwi-1

by Greg Iles

“Two. The main entrance is in one of the SS barracks. The other is in the basement of the hospital. The morgue.”

  “Do you think you could block the morgue entrance so that no one who entered from the SS barracks could get out that way?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “If it is more effective in a closed space,” Stern reasoned, “one cylinder should be enough. But I’ll use two to be sure. It’s a simple matter of taking them down from the pylon and. . . ”

  “What’s the matter?” asked McConnell. “We can’t get them down from the pylon?”

  “No, we can do that. The problem is getting the cylinders into the camp. I dropped inside the wire from an overhanging tree limb. I can’t do that with steel cylinders.” Stern looked down at the table for a moment, then raised his eyes to Anna. “There’s only one way to do it,” he said.

  “A car,” she said quietly.

  He nodded. “Can you get one?”

  Anna bit her bottom lip as she considered this. “I have a friend, Greta Müller. Her father is a farmer who supplies food to the SS Oberabschnitt at Stettin. He not only has vehicles, but petrol to run them.”

  “With a car we could lay the cylinders flat on the backseat, or sling them beneath the undercarriage with chains. That would be better.” Pure energy radiated from Stern as he visualized the plan. “You could drive in late tomorrow night and park by the hospital. I’d be waiting for you. After I unchained the cylinders, you could lead me to the morgue entrance of the bomb shelter. All I’d have to do is move them in and set them to detonate at the proper time.” He leaned toward Anna, the full weight of his personality radiating from his dark eyes. “Can you get a car?”

  “I’m almost certain I can,” she said, looking back at him with a strange fascination. “Greta thinks I have a lover in Rostock. A married man. I’ve kept up that story so I can get the car sometimes without her asking questions. I’ve used it three times before. Though usually with more notice.”

  “Tell her it’s a crisis. He’s trying to end it with you.”

  “Just a minute,” McConnell interjected.

  “It’s the only way,” Anna said.

  “I realize that. But you’re both overlooking a serious problem.”

  “What is it?” Stern asked impatiently.

  “To get the SS troops into that shelter, we need an air raid.”

  “Why? I can set off the siren myself. The SS won’t know if the raid is real or not. They’ll run straight into the gas.”

  McConnell glanced at Anna. She did not look confident.

  “We’ve had only one air raid in the years I’ve been here,” she said, “and that was a false alarm. All drills are scheduled. Also, there are officers for every phase of the raid. Soldiers who man the alarm, who fight fires, who make sure each building is evacuated — not including the prisoners, of course. They’re left exposed.”

  “You’re saying it wouldn’t work?” asked Stern.

  “I’m saying that if no bombs began to fall, many soldiers would probably never go into the shelter. I doubt very seriously whether the entrances would be closed unless bombs were actually falling. You couldn’t rely on it.”

  “For God’s sake,” Stern muttered. “There’s got to be a way.”

  “There is,” said McConnell. “A real air raid.” He tapped the tabletop with his fingers. “And I think we can get one. Brigadier Smith knows the exact coordinates of Totenhausen. He’s the one who started this whole thing. The least that bastard can do is to send a handful of bombers over to help us finish the job. All we need is a radio.”

  “That’s just what we don’t have,” said Stern. “McShane cached one for us, but it’s useless. I dug up the parachute container on my way back from the camp, to take out the climbing spikes and harness. The container was cracked and half filled with water. The parachute obviously didn’t open properly. Our signal lamp for the submarine was dry, but the radio was drowned and its vacuum tubes smashed.”

  Stern leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “Even if we get a radio,” he said, “a real air raid gives us another problem. We can ask Smith to schedule the raid at a precise time, but there’s no guarantee the bombers will arrive at that time. You see?”

  “I do,” said McConnell. “There’s no way to time the cylinders in the bomb shelter so that they’ll detonate just after the bombs have fallen and kill the SS men who’ve run for cover.”

  “Right.” Stern relaxed his neck so that his head hung limp over the chair-back. “Unless. . . ”

  “Unless what?”

  Stern straightened up and gave him an odd smile. “Unless I’m waiting inside the shelter with the detonator in my hand.”

  “What?”

  “It’s the only way,” said Stern. “I’ll wear one of the gas suits you brought from Oxford.”

  “You’re certifiably nuts.”

  “Are you saying the suit and mask you designed won’t protect me?”

  “In a sealed room full of nerve gas? I damn sure won’t offer you any guarantee. Hell, that’s like playing Russian roulette.”

  “I rather like the idea,” Stern said, glancing at Anna. “The simplicity of it. And I’ll be there to watch all those SS bastards claw each other’s eyes out.”

  “Jesus,” whispered McConnell. “You’ve got guts, I’ll give you that.”

  “It’s settled then.”

  “Which brings us back to the radio,” Anna said softly.

  Stern smoothed back his dark hair and gave her an appraising look. “You have a radio, don’t you, Fräulein Kaas?”

  She shook her head. “The nearest radio we can use belongs to the Polish Resistance.”

  “The Polish Resistance is operating nearby?”

  “No, they’re in Poland.”

  “But the border is two hundred kilometers away! You’d need a radio just to contact them.”

  “I can contact them, Herr Stern. But you will have to take my word for that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because as reckless as you are, you might be captured. I cannot expose others to that risk.”

  “You think I would tell the SS anything?”

  Anna regarded him with suspicion in her eyes. “There should be no question of your talking, Herr Stern. I’m sure the British provided you with a cyanide capsule. They went to great lengths to provide me with one. Are you telling me you would not take your capsule if you were about to be captured?”

  “They didn’t give me a cyanide capsule,” said McConnell. “Not that I want one or anything.”

  Anna cut her eyes at Stern, but he avoided her glance.

  “Do you have one?” McConnell asked him.

  “Damn it,” Stern snapped, “I want to know how you’re getting word to these Poles. I must know if there’s any real chance to get word to Smith.”

  “Word will get through,” Anna said with serene confidence.

  “I know Smith has someone else inside that camp,” Stern insisted. “I know the codes for this mission. They were taken from that Clark Gable picture. We are Butler and Wilkes. You are Melanie. Smith’s base in Sweden is Atlanta, and Totenhausen is Tara. So tell me please who is Scarlett?”

  Anna said nothing.

  “You don’t have to give me a name,” Stern said, “just tell me the method of contact.”

  She sighed. “Telephone. All right? Someone will call them for me.”

  “From the village?”

  “I will say no more.”

  “I knew it!” Stern exulted. “Major Schörner is Scarlett. He is, isn’t he? Tell me! I knew you didn’t set up a link to London on your own.”

  Anna went into the foyer and put on her overcoat. “Think what you wish, Herr Stern. There is only a little darkness left. I must be on my way.”

  Anna arrived at Totenhausen winded and nearly frozen through from her bicycle ride over the hills. She had been rehearsing her excuse all the way: I neglected to properly store some tissue samples in the lab. . . . T
he words were on her tongue as the guard stepped up and peered at her through the electrified wire, but he just smiled and signaled for his comrade to open the gate.

  She rode straight across the deserted Appellplatz to the hospital and entered through the back door. She made no attempt to move silently; stealth would draw more attention than noise. The hallway on the second floor was dark. She felt her way along the wide corridor until she came to the door she wanted.

  She tapped softly, knowing it would be locked.

  Almost instantly a threatening whisper said, “Who’s there? I have a gun pointed at you!”

  “It’s Anna. Open the door.”

  She heard a click. The door was pulled back. Ariel Weitz stood there in his shorts, a pistol in his hand. She walked past him into the room. It was hardly more than a broom closet, but it had hot and cold running water — luxury compared to what the other inmates endured. The smell of cigarettes and cheap schnapps hung in the air.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “I need a crash meeting.”

  “With who?”

  “The Wojiks. And they must bring the radio.”

  “You are crazy! You want me to call them?”

  “Yes. Tonight. Right now.”

  “I won’t do it.” Weitz shook his head with theatrical exaggeration.

  “You must do it. Everything depends on it.”

  His feral eyes suddenly lit up. “The commandos are here?”

  “Just make the call, Herr Weitz.”

  “How many? They are going to attack the camp?”

  “Tell Stan to meet me at the same place as before.”

  “I can’t,” Weitz said stubbornly. “Schörner will catch me.”

  “I doubt that. He’s probably in bed with the Jewish woman.”

  He gave her a sidelong glance. “You know about that?”

  “I know many things. Why are you so anxious? I thought you were the nerveless one.”

  “It’s Schörner. He’s changed. He hardly drinks anymore, always watching everything.”

  “What do you expect, after one of his men is found murdered and wrapped inside a British parachute?”

  “That was bad, you’re right. But I think it’s the Jansen woman as much as the parachutes. Schörner has come alive. He thinks he’s in Russia again.”

  Anna summoned her most persuasive voice. “Herr Weitz, everything you have done up to this point has led to this one moment. Everything is ready. But nothing will happen if you don’t get the Wojiks to meet me tomorrow.”

  He hugged his hands to his chest like a mountaineer fighting hypothermia. “All right, all right,” he said. “I’ll try.”

  “You’ll do it. As soon as I leave.” Anna moved toward the door, then looked back. “And Herr Weitz . . . don’t drink so much.”

  Weitz nodded, but his eyes were already far away. “I’m so tired,” he said, his voice modulating into a feminine register. “Everyone thinks I’m a monster. Even Schörner. My own people hate me worse than they hate the SS.”

  “But that is what has allowed you to do what you have done.”

  “Yes, but . . . I just . . . it can’t go on. I must explain. Make them see how it really is.”

  Anna walked back and laid a hand on his bony shoulder. She tried not to recoil from the feverish skin. “Herr Weitz,” she said softly, “God sees how it really is.”

  The bloodshot eyes opened wider.

  “The Wojiks will be there tomorrow?” she said again. “Mid-afternoon? With the radio?”

  Weitz closed his clammy hands around hers and squeezed. “They’ll be there.”

  34

  Jonas Stern leaned out of the back window of Greta Müller’s black Volkswagen and saluted a Wehrmacht private as they passed through Dettmannsdorf.

  “Don’t press your luck,” McConnell snapped from behind the wheel.

  Stern laughed and leaned back inside. He made a striking figure in the gray-green SD uniform and cap, and he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself. Anna had planned to meet the Polish partisans alone, after feigning illness near the end of the day’s work shift. But when Stern heard that she intended to borrow Greta Müller’s car for the journey, he had insisted on going along.

  “I believe,” he had said in an arrogant voice, “that a young woman escorted by Standartenführer of the SD will be much safer than a woman out driving alone.”

  Anna had been unimpressed. Ultimately he’d had to threaten to abandon the idea of saving the prisoners before she submitted.

  While waiting in the cottage for her to get off from work, McConnell had decided to accompany them as well. He saw no point in waiting for the SS to arrive at the cottage and inform him that his fellow spies had been caught and he was under arrest. You’re the big cheese, he’d told Stern. I can be your driver or something.

  So that was how they played it. McConnell drove the car, while Anna and Stern sat in back like privileged passengers. The rendezvous was only ten miles from Anna’s cottage, in a small wood northeast of Bad Sülze. As the VW rolled past the hamlet of Kneese Hof, she told them they were halfway there. They bypassed Bad Sülze proper by swinging south and crossing a small bridge over the Recknitz River. Two kilometers of gravel road carried them onto a moor and to the edge of the wood.

  “Pull into the trees,” Anna instructed. “Off the road.”

  McConnell obeyed. Stern got out and looked around the car, his Schmeisser at the ready. McConnell followed, carrying a bag containing bread, cheese, and his own Schmeisser.

  “I’ll go ahead,” said Anna. “Stan is very careful. I’ll talk to him first, explain things before you come out. In those uniforms, he’d shoot you down without a second thought.”

  But when they arrived at the meeting place, no one was there. Stern and McConnell crouched in the snow while Anna walked into the middle of the clearing. A half hour later, a thin, nervous young man walked out of the trees and began speaking to her. He was unarmed, and looked strangely familiar to McConnell. They spoke a full five minutes before Anna motioned for Stern and McConnell to come out.

  “Say something in English,” she told McConnell. “Hurry.”

  “Well . . . fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty—”

  “Good enough?” she asked the thin Pole.

  The young man mulled it over.

  “Stan already saw both of you,” she told Stern. “He could have killed you any time. I’m glad he’s in a good mood today. Put your gun on the ground.”

  Stern reluctantly obeyed.

  “They don’t have their radio.”

  “What?”

  “They share it among three resistance groups. But they can get to it by midnight tonight.”

  “That gives Brigadier Smith less than twenty-four hours to set up the bombing raid,” Stern said. “It’s going to be close.”

  McConnell started as a giant of a man stepped from the trees less than twenty meters away. He had a thick black beard and carried a World War One vintage bolt-action rifle — probably a Mauser — which he pointed right at Stern’s chest. McConnell didn’t blame him. Stern looked every inch an officer of the SD.

  “Co slychac?” Stern said in a friendly voice.

  The big man’s face brightened. “Pan mòwi po polsku?”

  Stern switched to German. “A little. I was born in Rostock. I knew some Polish seamen.”

  The bearded man held out a meaty hand. “Stanislaus Wojik,” he said, vigorously shaking Stern’s entire arm. “That’s my brother, Miklos.”

  Stan Wojik looked like a man who had lived by his hands before becoming an amateur soldier, but his brother Miklos was almost a caricature of a starving artist — a second-chair violinist in an orchestra of modest reputation. Hollow cheeks, and large eyes as sincere as a child’s. McConnell suddenly realized where he had seen the brothers before. They were the two other members of the “reception party” that had met the
Moon plane on the night he and Stern landed in Germany. He reached into his sack and took out a block of English cheese. Stan nodded thanks and tossed it to his brother.

  “Stan speaks fair German,” Anna said.

  “Good,” said Stern, squarely facing the big Pole. “I think I should hold my gun on you while we talk. If someone comes up on us, I’ll say you’re both our prisoners. We stopped to eat.”

  Stan Wojik shrugged and laid down his rifle. Stern picked up his Schmeisser. McConnell noticed that Stan Wojik had a heavy meat cleaver hanging from a leather thong on his belt. The big man patted it and laughed.

  “I used to be a butcher,” he said. “I still cut meat occasionally.” He grinned. “Nazi sausage, when I can get it.”

  Stern laughed appreciatively, then in a mixture of Polish and German began explaining what they wanted. Stan Wojik listened intently, nodding during each pause. McConnell only followed about half of the exchange. Stern and the elder Wojik ate cheese while they talked, but Miklos sat quietly beside Anna, his eyes hardly leaving her face.

  When the conversation was finished, Stan turned to McConnell and said in German: “You are American?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell Roosevelt we need more guns. We need guns in Warsaw, but Stalin won’t give us any. Tell Roosevelt with guns we can beat the Nazis ourselves. We aren’t afraid to fight.”

  McConnell saw no point in trying to explain that the odds of him ever talking to FDR were slim to none. “I’ll tell him,” he said.

  He was surprised when Stern took a sheet of notepaper from an inside pocket and handed it to Stan Wojik. The Pole seemed surprised too. McConnell walked over to read it. Stern had hand-printed a message in English, followed by Polish and German translations:

  CODE: ATLANTA Freq: 3140 Request diversionary air raid very near but not on TARA on 15/2/44 at precisely 2000 hours. Raid absolutely essential to success. BUTLER and WILKES.

  “Is this smart?” McConnell asked. “What if he’s caught?”

  Stern shrugged. “If he’s caught, that note will be the least of our problems. Without that air raid — in the right place and at the right time — our plan won’t work. You said that yourself. It’s worth the risk of him carrying the note to get the message right.”