Black Cross wwi-1

by Greg Iles

  She’d decided that if Major Schörner confronted her, her first line of defense would be that she had merely followed orders. He had asked her to clean the patient, not sit by him all night, and she had done that. She’d left the patient sleeping and in reasonably good shape. If pressed further, she would allow some anger to come through. After all, she was a civilian nurse, not an SS auxiliary. Medical research was one thing, torture another. Was it a crime to possess a weak stomach?

  She turned left to pedal around the cinema annex. Activity in the camp seemed normal enough, except for the extra guards and the lights. She saw no sign of SS vehicles from Peenemünde. Perhaps Colonel Beck and his Gestapo torturer had already come and gone. Perhaps all was well after all. She held that thought until she rounded the corner of the cinema.

  A naked woman was hanging from the Punishment Tree. Hanging by her hands, which had been tied behind her back so that when she was hoisted up her shoulders would be dislocated. The woman’s torso was bloody, her legs dark purple. For a moment Anna thought Sergeant Sturm had finally managed to kill Rachel Jansen, but as she pedaled on toward the hospital she saw that it was not Rachel. This woman had blond hair. It only appeared dark because of the matted blood.

  “Please God, no,” Anna whispered, as she stopped at the hospital steps.

  The dead woman was Greta Müller.

  The young nurse’s hands were tied behind her back, and she swayed gently from the rope that held her to the bar. Anna knew she should not look too closely, but she could not look away. Someone had hung a large paper circle around Greta’s neck. A target. A target for a firing party. Most of the circle, and Greta’s chest, had been shot away.

  Every instinct told Anna to run, to turn around and pedal out of the camp as fast as she could. But where could she run to? Schörner might be watching her at this very moment. She knew she should enter the hospital, but her legs had stopped moving. Greta’s body told a long and terrible story. The bruises showed where the questions had started. A series of burns traversed the length of her left arm. More serious queries. Ragged wounds on her thighs revealed that Sturm and his dogs had taken a turn before the end.

  “Why Greta?” Anna asked, her voice almost a child’s whimper.

  She looked across the Appellplatz. She knew that if she saw Schörner or Sturm or Brandt then, she would scream, Why her, you stupid animals? I am the traitor! I am the spy! She was actually speaking aloud when someone opened the hospital door and snarled, “Get inside, you stupid cow!”

  Ariel Weitz stood in the hospital doorway, his ratlike face white with fear. “Stop gaping at her! Get to work!”

  When Anna did not obey, Weitz reached out and jerked her into the building. He pulled her down the right-hand corridor and into an empty examining room. “Get hold of yourself!” he said, shaking her by the shoulders. “You’re signing your death warrant if you can’t act normally. Mine too.”

  “I don’t understand,” Anna wailed. “What happened?”

  “What do you think? They tortured her all night, then shot her.”

  “But why? She didn’t do anything.”

  Weitz’s face twisted in savage anger. “What did you think would happen after you ran out of here last night? You left your post and that stupid Pole died! Schörner wanted blood. I thought Sturm was bad. My God, when Schörner loses control—”

  “But why Greta?”

  Weitz threw up his hands. “Why? Because Schörner was raving about security and treason and God knows what. He didn’t believe Miklos died naturally.”

  “But why didn’t he come for me?”

  “It would have been you!” Weitz ground his teeth. “Schörner was ready to send Sturm after you. I knew if they interrogated you all would be lost. I didn’t have any choice. I had to give them someone else.”

  Anna stared at him. “What do you mean?”

  “I told Schörner I saw little Greta slip into the morgue before you got there. I suggested that she might have done something to kill him.”

  “You didn’t!”

  “I did!” Weitz’s eyes danced with maniacal light. “I told him I’d seen her before in Dornow, too, talking to suspicious characters. Poles, probably. I told him a dozen lies — all to save you!”

  “But Greta didn’t know anything! Why did they kill her?”

  “You’re such a little fool! They thought she did know something. They tortured her until she was useless and then shot her as an example.”

  Anna felt her legs go out from under her. Weitz managed to shove her backward so that she collapsed onto a doctor’s stool. “I can’t do it anymore,” she moaned. “Nothing is worth this.”

  “I’m just glad Miklos died,” Weitz said. “He would have told them everything. I would have killed him myself if I’d had the chance. Tell me, what time are they attacking the camp?”

  Anna raised her hands to her face. Tears of hysteria welled in her eyes and a scream gathered in her throat. Only hours ago she had glimpsed a chance at a life beyond this place, some light of sanity beyond madness. But it had been an illusion. By leaving last night she had doomed her friend to unspeakable torture—

  “What time?” Weitz pressed.

  Anna squeezed her shaking hands into fists. Only anger could bring her through now. She thought of the day Franz Perlman had been murdered by the SS in Berlin.

  “Eight o’clock tonight,” she whispered.

  Weitz nodded. “Good, good. I want to be ready. How many men?”

  “No men.”

  “What?”

  “There won’t be any men.”

  “No men? But how . . .? My God, they’re going to bomb us from the air?”

  “No.”

  “No? What, then?”

  “Gas.”

  “Gas? Poison gas? How can they do that?”

  Anna looked up with bloodshot eyes. “It’s better that you don’t know.” She stood up. “I’ve got to get away from here.”

  Weitz blocked the door. “You can’t go anywhere! You’ll ruin everything. Everything I did will have been for nothing.”

  “I didn’t ask you to do anything!”

  Weitz gave her a chilling smile. “I see. You wish it was you hanging up there on the Tree? You didn’t see what they did to little Greta.”

  Anna shuddered. “Better me than an innocent girl.”

  “Ha! None of us are innocent here. Even though we worked against them, we stood silent while it went on. We have participated. There are no clean souls in this building. Except the children. Don’t shed any tears for Fräulein Müller.”

  “You sicken me!” Anna hissed. “Get away from me! Get away, you — you filthy Jew!”

  Weitz clapped his hands together like a monkey. “Ha ha! You see? We’ve worked together six months, you and I. Plotting and scheming, we made this raid possible. But in the end you are a German and I am a filthy Jew!”

  Anna held up her hands. “I didn’t mean that, Herr Weitz. I have nothing against Jews. I once loved a Jew.”

  Weitz cackled still louder. “Of course you did! Every German has his pet Jew. The one that really doesn’t deserve the gas. But somehow we all end up there.”

  “All but you,” she said cruelly.

  “Oh, I’ll get there soon enough. But I’ll be taking a few Germans with me.”

  Anna had no desire to know what he meant. “I can’t face Brandt today,” she said. “Or Schörner, or Sturm. Not any of them!”

  “You’ll have to face Schörner eventually,” he said. “Go sit in the children’s ward for a while. That should stiffen your spine. Go sit with the little boy Brandt uses as a living culture medium. He’s deaf and mute now, from the meningitis. That should remind you of why we’re doing this. What was the life of Greta Müller worth compared to the children we have seen murdered here?”

  “I can’t think that way,” Anna whispered.

  “Then don’t think at all. Play your part for a few hours and go home. You can miss the final act.”
r />   “What will you be doing?”

  Weitz put his hand on the door handle. “Dying, probably. But before I do, I’m going to finish Klaus Brandt. Gas is too good for that slug. For years I’ve dreamed of how I would kill him if I had the chance.” Weitz held up a dirty-nailed forefinger. “You wouldn’t want to see it, I promise you.”

  Hans-Joachim Kleber, deputy chief of police in Dornow village, was thinking that seventy years old was too old to be climbing down an icy iron ladder into a sewer tunnel. But he had little choice. Kleber had assumed his rank in the police department in late 1943, after the last Dornow men under sixty disappeared into the army. And since nothing illegal ever happened in Dornow — not since the SS had built the camp over the hill, anyway — he was placed in charge of maintaining the electric lights and the sewer tunnel. He didn’t complain much. The work paid enough to keep him in tobacco.

  He groaned as his rubber boots plopped down into the cold muck at the bottom of the ladder. At least it didn’t stink so bad in winter. The complaints had started coming in just after noon. Several Dornow families were dealing with backed up sewage, and they didn’t like it. So of course old Kleber had been called away from his warm fire to root through the filthy tunnel with his Wehrmacht flashlight.

  The old man shone the beam southward, where the tunnel ran for nearly a mile before emptying into the Recknitz River. The tunnel itself was five feet high, with iron rungs set in its sides to assist maintenance workers. Only a trickle of waste flowed in the narrow channel at its bottom. That meant the blockage must be to the north, closer to the village.

  Seconds after Kleber turned in that direction, his torch illuminated the corpse of a dog — a shepherd by the look of him — lying with its fanged mouth open in the middle of the shallow sewage stream. He had no idea why a dog would have entered the sewer, unless it was starving, which didn’t appear to be the case. The old man scratched his chin and moved cautiously forward.

  “Ach,” he grumbled, as the torch beam lit up a thick tangle of branches, mud, raw sewage, and rats. Kleber unclipped a heavy, short-handled rake from his belt and, after beating away the rats, began pulling away branches. It was heavy work for a man of his years. He laid the flashlight on an iron rung and went to work with both hands. He could hear the rats splashing around him.

  “Dirty shit-eaters,” he cursed.

  Then his rake hooked into something that would not give. Kleber let go of the handle and picked up his flashlight.

  “Mein Gott,” he whispered, stumbling backward.

  The metal teeth of his rake were caught in the sodden brown trousers of an SS man. A dead SS man. As the light beam played over the waxy features of the corpse, Kleber realized with horror that the body was lying in the arms of another. This was what had caused the branches and other flotsam to collect here.

  And the rats.

  He stood there a few moments, thinking. For two days the SS had been combing the hills with dogs, and in ever-increasing numbers. What they might be looking for had been the subject of quiet but extensive speculation in the main tavern in Dornow. Kleber figured he knew now what they were looking for. He shook his head slowly, then turned and splashed back up the tunnel to raise the alarm.

  Otto Buch, Bürgermeister of Dornow, sat silently at his desk and tried to look appropriately submissive as the senior SS security officer of Totenhausen Camp shouted at him about parachutes, Polish partisans, and traitors. He really had no idea why this one-eyed war hero thought a village mayor could do anything about his problem. Buch had exactly two police officers under his command, one of whom was the old grandfather who had discovered the bodies. If things weren’t so damned serious, he would have laughed. He found it funny that it was an interruption in the orderly flow of fecal matter that had brought a flood of the same substance down upon his head.

  “Sturmbannführer Schörner,” Buch said soothingly, “you have viewed the bodies yourself?”

  “You see my uniform covered with excrement, do you not?”

  Buch wrinkled his nose. “It is difficult to ignore, Sturmbannführer. But allow me to inquire: have you formed an opinion as to how these men died?”

  “They were shot in the back with an automatic weapon!”

  Buch folded his hands over his substantial belly. “Sturmbannführer, we in Dornow make every effort to assist the SS at Totenhausen, despite the great secrecy that surrounds your facility. But this . . .” — he waved his hand — “this sounds to me like a military problem.”

  Schörner raised himself to his full height. “It is about to become a civilian problem, Bürgermeister. As soon as I can get enough troops here, I am going to conduct a house-to-house search of the village.”

  Otto Buch’s face reddened. “Are you saying,” he spluttered indignantly, “that you suspect someone in this village of harboring anti-fascist partisans?”

  “I am.”

  “Well I don’t believe it! I’ve known everyone here for years! The only people I might even consider as suspects would be the civilian support personnel who have moved here since your camp was built.”

  Schörner listened as a motorcycle skidded to a stop in the street below the mayor’s office. He moved to the window and saw the SS rider charging into the first floor doorway below. Schörner had the office door open by the time the rider reached the top of the stairs.

  The rider pulled off his goggles and saluted sharply. “You’re wanted at the camp immediately, Sturmbannführer! Herr Doktor Brandt has ordered a selection!”

  “A selection?”

  “Yes, sir.” The messenger glanced at the portly mayor.

  “You may speak freely,” Schörner said.

  “The Herr Doktor said something about testing new suits from Raubhammer.”

  “I am not needed for that,” Schörner said with annoyance. “I have pressing business here.”

  “Is that what I should tell the Herr Doktor?”

  “Tell him I have an emergency here. Hauptscharführer Sturm can easily stand in for me during a sel—” Schörner froze in midsentence.

  Otto Buch narrowed his eyes with curiosity. “Sturmbannführer?” he said softly. “Are you all right?”

  Schörner’s good eye focused on the mayor for an instant. Then he snatched the goggles from the messenger, bolted down the stairs and into the street.

  The SS man and the mayor reached the window just in time to see him roar off on the motorcycle in the direction of Totenhausen.

  39

  Klaus Brandt stood in the snow before the steps of his hospital, a look of impatience on his face. He glared at his watch, then motioned for Sergeant Sturm to join him.

  “I’m tired of waiting, Hauptscharführer,” he said. “We’ll start without him.”

  Sturm nodded crisply. “Ready when you are, Herr Doktor. Will you be making the selection?”

  “Not today. There are no specific medical criteria. I need three subjects. Choose whomever you wish.”

  Sturm suppressed a smile. “Zu befehl, Herr Doktor. Heil Hitler!”

  Rachel Jansen backed out of the latrine shed holding Hannah on her left hip and gripping Jan’s hand with her right. When she turned, she saw Sergeant Sturm and three SS men waiting for her.

  The struggle was one-sided and brief. Two storm troopers jerked the children away while Sturm and the fourth man pinned Rachel’s arms. She was screaming and crying at once as they dragged her away, her eyes on her children. Jan stared after her with wide eyes, then bent over Hannah, who lay motionless on the snow.

  “Third time pays for all,” Sturm growled in her ear, as they passed through the block gate and into the Appellplatz. “This time I’ve got permission to kill you.”

  Rachel smelled garlic and blood sausage on his breath.

  “I want you to know something,” he went on. “After you’re dead, I’ll be getting those diamonds back from you. You think about that while you’re breathing the gas, eh? Three Jews in an oven.”

  Rachel’s feet hun
g just above the ground as they marched her across the yard. Near the hospital steps she saw a knot of men. All wore earth-brown uniforms except one, who stood a little apart.

  The shoemaker.

  Three Jews in an oven? Rachel heard someone shouting behind her. She recognized the voice before she turned — Benjamin Jansen, her father-in-law. Now she understood. Sturm had found some way to get rid of everyone who had witnessed the incident with the diamonds. They dropped her beside the shoemaker. Sturm moved off to speak with Brandt, leaving her under the guard of four storm troopers.

  “Don’t try to run,” the shoemaker said.

  “We’re going to the gas,” Rachel told him.

  “Not the way you think. They’re testing a new type of chemical suit. We may have a chance. I survived one gassing inside a suit.”

  “Sturm means to kill me,” Rachel said softly. “To get at Schörner. Oh God, spare my children. Without me—”

  Her words were drowned by the yells of Ben Jansen as he was beaten toward them. The shoemaker leaned close and whispered, “There will be a control. There always is. You must volunteer to wear a suit, do you hear? Volunteer to wear the suit!”

  Rachel heard the high whine of a motorcycle on the hill road. “Herr Stern, promise me that if your son comes back you will make him take my children away.”

  “Frau Jansen, the suit—”

  “Promise me!”

  The shoemaker sighed in resignation. “I promise.”

  Ben Jansen was babbling at Rachel, but she wasn’t listening. She tried to catch sight of Jan or Hannah near the children’s block. Was there any chance now that Schörner would send them into a Lebensborn home? Of course not. She had been a fool not to accept his offer instantly.

  “To the E-Block!” Brandt commanded from the steps.