by Andrew Gross
“But I think you will be particularly interested, Frau Ackermann, to know the identity of one of the escapees…” The Rottenführer’s eyes lit up with kind of a gloating grin. “The young boy, I’m afraid,” he clucked.
“Boy…?” Her heart rose up in alarm.
“Your chess partner, Wolciek, Frau Ackermann.”
“Leo?” Greta’s blood stopped cold.
“I always knew the little prick had a devious side,” the Rottenführer sniffed, “and with all the kindness you graciously bestowed on him. Anyway, you should make sure he didn’t rob you blind before we put him out of his misery.”
Leo.
Her heart felt like it was tied to a weight and cast into the sea. For a moment she thought that maybe Kurt had set it up himself. She knew how much he resented their intimacy. And what had he told her, My hands are tied. He could not protect him anymore. She knew he would do anything he could to hurt her. This was right up his alley.
Leo.
She felt shaken. He was a dead man now, she knew. Worse than dead. Kurt would always find something special for those caught trying to escape as a warning to any who harbored the same thoughts. And this one he would apply himself to with relish. How he would gloat later, with that repulsive, self-assured, I-told-you-from-the-start smirk. “As I recall, Greta, I warned you not to open our house to a Jew and let your defenses down.”
“Yes, you are right,” Greta said back to Langer. “I will check.” Though inside her heart was torn at the devastating news. “And where have they taken him, Rottenführer?” she asked, though, of course, she knew.
“Where they are all taken, Frau Ackermann.” Langer snorted with a cynical laugh. “To give them a fond welcome back to camp. Not to matter, by breakfast he will be on the gallows for all to see as they pass by. An example must be made of such vermin, do you not agree?” he asked. He who had dragged Leo visit after visit to her door and had been told to wait outside, who was now seemingly delighting in the pain he knew it caused her.
“Yes, Corporal.” Greta nodded. “An example for certain.”
The corporal excused himself with a smirk and hurried off, cackling inside. No doubt the entire guardhouse would be laughing over it within the hour. An example, he had said. Yes. An example indeed.
Greta headed back to her house. Leo was the only thing of goodness she had ever touched in here.
But for once the Rottenführer was right.
That is precisely what needed to be made of these people. An example.
SIXTY-SIX
Water was splashed on him. Blum came to. Suspended by the arms from hooks in a cell, his feet dragging the floor. It was dark. His arms ached. The cell stank of feces and urine. His head still felt fuzzy from the blow he had taken. He wanted to ask, “Where are they? Leisa? Mendl? What have you done with them?” But then he realized his mouth was taped. Two men stood in the cell in front of him. One he recognized as Sergeant Major Scharf. Avoid that one, a born killer, he’d been warned. The other was Zinchenko. He had no idea how much time had passed. Hours, maybe. The plane, it had likely come and gone by now. His only way out of here.
What did it matter now?
He would die here shortly anyhow.
“Herr Vrba.” The German laughed, grabbing his wrist. “A22327. Welcome back. We had no idea how much you actually missed it here.”
They took him down from where he was hanging.
“Excuse us, we have to pretty you up a bit for your interview. You’re looking a little ragged,” the SS sargeant said. Then he drove his fist into the pit of Blum’s stomach, forcing whatever air was inside him from his lungs, doubling him over. Zinchenko picked him up and Scharf hit him again. Every cell in Blum’s body screamed out in pain for air. He felt the urge to vomit. “This is only the start. Get used to it, yid,” the SS guard said. “We’ve got all night. For me, this isn’t even work. It’s pleasure.” The next blow was to his kidneys. Paralyzing pain, rocketing through him.
Then they let him go and he crumpled to the soiled concrete floor.
Where was Leisa? Dead already, likely. They didn’t need her, so why keep her around? All she was, was just another escaped prisoner. Thousands die every day. Someone had betrayed them. Josef, maybe, the partisan. Who knew? What did it even matter now? The mission was over. He was done. When they were ready they would do what they could to find why he was here. Torture him likely. This was child’s play. Beat his heels. Stick wires in him. He didn’t know if he could stand up to much abuse. And in the end, what did he really know? Not much. That’s why they never told him the full picture, Strauss said. In case … In the case that he ended up just as he was now.
It was a suicide mission, they had all known it. From the start.
“C’mon, Jew, you’ve got people to see. Get your ass up.” Scharf ripped the tape off his mouth.
Blum’s thoughts went to the cyanide capsules sewn into his collar. Bite, Strauss had said. It will do the trick. In seconds. He had to believe it was still there. How had Strauss put it: It might just be the best alternative, if you’re captured …
If he just clamped down on his collar and didn’t have to go through the ordeal.
They dragged him out and down a row of cells, his legs unable to hold him. The light got slightly brighter—harshly emanating from an exposed bulb. At the end of a hall he saw a table. A German leaning on it. The intelligence colonel, he recognized. And Ackermann, the commandant, behind it in full dress as if he had an appointment with the Führer. Three wooden chairs in front. Two had bodies slumped in them, their arms fastened behind them. He saw they were Mendl and Leo. Faces bruised, puffy. They didn’t look any better than he. Mendl particularly. His head was bowed; he was breathing very softly. Leo was doing his best to look brave, a welt on his face, but inside, Blum knew he must be shitting bricks.
Because he was.
“We’ve saved you a seat!” the intelligence colonel announced, his face brightening. “So glad you could make it, Herr Blum. That is your name, is it not? I did get to meet your sister. So sad not to hear her play.”
“Where is she?” Blum looked up at him accusingly.
“Please, please, we’ll get to that later,” the colonel said. “In the meantime, let’s focus on what we have here.”
They threw Blum into the left-hand chair, twisted his arms behind it, and bound them with a rope. With seeming relish, Scharf pulled the knot as tight as he could. Blum looked toward Mendl and Leo. “I’m sorry,” he said. He tried to suck needed breath into his lungs.
“No matter.” Mendl drew in a labored breath himself and tried to smile. “I’m not sure my stomach was fit to have enjoyed the food on the outside anyway. It’s Leo I’m actually sad about … My fault to include him from the start. And of course, your…”
Sister, he decided not to say. Who knew where she was or what fate she had already suffered?
“Don’t listen to what he says,” Leo said to Blum. “He’s an old man. His head doesn’t work right sometimes.”
“Defiant to the end.” Mendl smiled fondly at him. “Always did hold you back as a student.”
“So, shall we get started?” the balding colonel said, his palms together as if announcing the commencement of a party.
“I want to know where my sister is,” Blum said in German to the dark-featured commandant behind the table. He had a small riding whip in his hands.
“I would not worry about her right now.” He shook his head. “Her fate, I’m afraid, is sealed. Only you can make it”—he tapped the whip in his palm—“more acceptable, if you understand what I mean.”
“Tell me what you’ve done with her,” Blum said again. “I want to see her.”
“Do you now…?” The commandant sniffed kind of grudgingly with a smile of amusement.
“I am Colonel Franke,” the intelligence officer said, sitting down on the edge of the table, facing them. His gaze came to rest on Blum, soft, gray eyes both seemingly pleased that he had found his pr
ey and at the same time calculating, calmly methodical. “I know you’ve only been in the camp a handful of days, but I think you have seen, and certainly your friends here can verify if you need, that Major Ackermann here is quite capable at a number of things, and one of them I have noticed is inflicting as much misery on a man as can be tolerated. He and his aide here, Hauptscharführer Scharf. Which is precisely what will happen, I assure you, if what we discuss is not fruitful.”
The beefy sergeant looked at him with a smug gleam in his eye.
“Let me start with what we do know. You’ll be interested to know I’ve been following your journey for a long time. We know you were dropped in on the morning of May twenty-third, three days ago. Your accent is very good, Herr Blum. You are Polish, I presume? Czech, maybe?”
“I want to see my sister,” Blum demanded again.
“You’ll soon tell us.” Franke ignored his plea. “Or one of your associates here will, I assure you. I know you were picked up by the local underground and came into the camp as part of a construction team. The foreman of that team has, I’m afraid, met with a sudden work-related accident that has halted his construction career. His skull was bashed in. I know you were sent in here to locate someone within the camp, and it seems we have found him,” the colonel tapped his finger on the table, “the professor here … and to take that person out. But to where, Herr Blum, if you don’t mind? If you want to see that sister ever again. Back to England maybe? Your area of specialty was what, Professor Mendl? Mathematics? Physics…?” He waited. “Not talking…? No matter. We will soon know. And the others…” He turned to Leo. “How do you fit in, young man? I hear you are quite the chess prodigy. I used to play myself. It will be a shame not to have the challenge. No takers yet?” He nodded, smiling, as if unruffled and checked his watch. “Ten thirty … It is still early. We have all night. There is a lot that can be done to make someone talk when you have all night.”
“Let’s get on with it, Colonel.” The commandant tapped his watch impatiently. “Enough talk. Hauptscharführer Scharf here is growing impatient. And so am I. These are my prisoners, not yours. We’ll interrogate them as we please. But sadly, there is a train arriving shortly that will interfere. And, espionage aside, there is still a business here to manage.”
“Go to your train, Herr Major. You will answer to Göring himself if what they know does not come out before your sergeant here bludgeons the life out of them. So who are you…?” The colonel turned back to Blum. “Why Mendl? Why are you so important, old man, that someone would come into the den of hell here to get you out? And to where…? And you, my young friend…” He turned to Leo. “You seem fond of the old man. Start talking, or I’ll have the sergeant do his work on you if your friends here are too stupid to comply.”
“We’re dead anyway.” Leo shrugged, meeting his gaze. “We were dead the day we walked through those gates. It was only a matter of when.”
“Let them go,” Blum said. “Leisa and the boy. Promise me as an officer they will not be harmed. And I will tell you what I know.”
“Then start speaking, Herr Blum.” The intelligence colonel got up and sat in front of him. “My car is outside. I can have them at the Romanian border in hours.”
“No one is going anywhere,” Mendl interrupted him, fighting to summon the breath to speak. “In fact, none of us will even be around tomorrow. Even if the colonel here gives you his word, the minute he leaves, they’ll be a bullet in the back of their heads. Or maybe something far less ‘acceptable…’ Isn’t that right, Herr Lagerkommandant? We are all already dead but the final blow.”
“As I said, the choice is yours,” Ackermann said, with a nod that indicated let’s get on with this waste of time. “I say one by one we put them up on the rack, let Scharf have a go at them. In a minute, they’ll be cackling like geese.”
“You see, I can only save you for so long,” Franke said. “Otherwise, what happens is out of my hands.”
There was a noise at the door and a guard came in from the outside. “The train, Herr Lagerkommandant. You asked to be notified…”
Ackermann nodded. He drew in a breath. “Half an hour. An hour tops, I will be back.” The commandant stood up. “No one leaves the block. No one goes anywhere. On my orders, understood, Scharf?”
“Of course, Herr Major.” The sergeant came to attention. “Perfectly understood.”
“Kapo Zinchenko, you can join me. And if you don’t have what you need when I come back…” He glared at Franke. “We’ll do it my way. And you, my little chess player,” he turned to Leo with an icy smile, “when I return, you and I will have to have a much more personal discussion about just how you came in the possession of these…” He took out the photo of Greta Leo had taken and placed it on the table and put the white rook she had given him on top of it. He smiled. “I look forward to such a talk.” He tossed his riding stick on the table and went out the door.
“You heard the man.” Franke threw up his palms in frustration as if to say he no longer had control. “He has a very difficult job. Yet in some ways, he might be right. I’ve always been told I have too much patience. So what is it you know?” He came around the table and went up to Alfred. The old man’s eyes were dropped and his mouth hung open slightly. “Why did they send this man in to find you? What do you know, Professor, that is so vital?”
“Just that the density of a gas is directly proportional to its mass,” Mendl said with a slight smile. “Isn’t that right, Leo?”
“Yes, Professor, it is,” the boy replied. “At least, that is what I’m told.”
“Very brave, very brave. Don’t you think, Scharf? Such a show of daring. So you are the truffle…” Franke said to Mendl, taking his Luger from his holster and dangling it in his hand. “And that makes you the pig.” He looked at Blum. “And you see what happens to little pigs in here, don’t you?” He took hold of the gun and put it to Alfred’s side. “Why did he come here to get you out?”
“If you think the prospect of a bullet frightens me after six months in here, you have greatly underestimated this rat’s nest,” Mendl said.
“Is that so, Professor?” Franke squeezed the trigger.
There was a dull report, the acrid smell of burnt fabric and flesh. With a groan, Alfred rocked back in his chair, a twisted grimace on his face.
Leo shouted, “No!”
A flower of blood spread on Alfred’s uniform.
“The next one is to his kneecaps, boy. And then his balls. You know about the balls, don’t you, son? If it doesn’t bother him, I know it does you. So why the good professor here? I know you know. And where were you headed? Speak up, boy.” He put the Mauser to Mendl’s knee. “Only you can stop it.”
“Don’t.” Mendl turned to Leo and shook his head. He looked at his side, blood matting against his uniform. “Do you hear me, Leo, don’t.”
“Yes, Leo, listen to him.” Franke wrapped his finger tightly around the trigger. “What is your tolerance to watch him suffer, boy? You only have so much time. No answer…”
The colonel pulled the trigger again.
Mendl thrashed in his chair, the bindings holding him down. He arched his head back and writhed in pain. Blood ran from above the knee.
“Stop!” Leo begged.
“I say it again, son.” The colonel took his pistol and drew it back one more time. He held it to where Alfred’s legs joined. “I’ll give you to the count of five…”
“No, lad,” Mendl said, shaking his head. The color had drained from him. “Not one word.”
“Two, one, boy…” Franke stiffened his hand on the gun. “Now!”
“He is a physicist!” Leo shouted. “Stop! Please! In electromagnetic chemistry. He has an expertise in a process called gaseous diffusion. It’s about the displacement of gases inside an enclosed space.”
“And why is that important?” Franke urged him. Again he pressed the muzzle to Alfred’s groin. “I’ll take him apart piece by piece, I promise. Why did
he come here?” He motioned to Blum. “Who is behind it? The British? The Americans? Where were they taking him back to? Don’t press me, boy, he only has so much time.”
“Do it to me!” Leo twisted in his binds. “Leave him. Shoot me! Can’t you see he’s dying? Shoot me!”
“Last chance.” Franke’s gaze fell on Leo as he pulled back the pin.
“For God’s sake, no,” said Blum, straining to get out of his binds. The SS goon behind him came up and smacked his gloved fist heavily across Blum’s head.
“He’s taking him to America!” Leo shouted. “America.”
“America!” Franke gasped, eyes wide.
“It’s for a weapon. I’m sorry, Alfred, but I can’t sit back and watch him just kill you. I’m sorry…” Leo looked at the colonel and began to sob. “Shoot me. You can shoot me. Can’t you see you’re killing him!”
Franke pulled back his gun. Blum could see his brain putting together that the stakes had now grown to something far larger than even he had first imagined. “What kind of weapon?” he said to Leo. “What kind?” This time he put the gun to Alfred’s head. “Or I swear this is only the beginning of what you will see. Tell me, or I will splatter his brains all over your lap.”
“I don’t know! I don’t know what kind! I swear. I don’t know anything about the weapon. That’s all he’s told me. Just don’t hurt him. I’m sorry, Alfred, but I can’t watch them kill you like that. I can’t … I can’t…” The boy hung his head and wept.
“It’s all right, son,” Alfred muttered softly. He turned to Franke. “That’s all he knows. You’ve gotten everything you can get.” The flower of blood on his side had spread. “It’s all I’ve told him.”
Franke sat back down on the edge of the table, this time in front of Blum. “All right … So now it’s you, truffle hunter. Your turn.” He put the gun to Blum’s knee. “Somehow I don’t think anyone is going to rush to save you.”
