Black Cross (12 page)

Mark blinked away tears. “Does our mother know yet?”

“No, sir. That’s a draft of her telegram there.”

“Jesus. Ask the colonel not to send this, please. I’d like to be the one to tell her.”

“No problem, sir. It’ll eventually have to be sent, but I think the colonel can hold off a few days.”

McConnell looked from the brigadier’s ruddy face to Jonas Stern’s dark one, then at the captain. The messenger shifted uncertainly. “Sorry again, Doc,” he said. He saluted Brigadier Smith and backed out of the lab.

Mark put his hand over his mouth and tried to swallow. All he could see was David, not as he had seen him four days ago, but as a little boy in a muddy Georgia pond, trying to learn to hold his breath.

“I’m sorry, Brigadier,” he said softly. “I apologize.”

The Scotsman held up his hand. “There’s no need, man. I know this is difficult. I lost a brother myself. At Lofoten, in forty-one. But by God, Doctor, if this isn’t the final reason to come on board with us, nothing is. The bastards killed your brother!”

McConnell shook his head hopelessly. “You’ve never understood me at all, have you? You have no idea why I am the way I am.”

Smith bristled. “I understand you, all right. I know about your father. But what would he say now, eh? I’m asking you to go on a mission of mercy. Christ, Doctor, the Nazis are testing the nerve agents on
human beings
. Why do you think Stern here is going? Most of those human guinea pigs are Jews. The Germans are slaughtering his people while the world stands by and does nothing!”

McConnell studied Stern’s face. He saw no sadness or pleading in the young man’s features. All he saw — or thought he saw — was disgust. “I’m truly sorry,” he said, “but I’m afraid I must ask you to leave. I need to be alone.”

To McConnell’s surprise, Brigadier Smith turned on his heel and walked out of the room without further argument. The young Jew, however, remained behind. He had stood silent throughout the meeting, but now he walked slowly forward until he stood only inches from McConnell. Mark had six or seven years on the stranger, but he sensed a fearsome intensity in the young man.

“Smith doesn’t understand you, Doctor,” Stern said softly. “But I do. You’re not a coward. You are a fool. You’re like my father was. You’re like a million Jews across Europe. You believe in reason, in the essential goodness of man. You believe that if you refuse to commit evil yourself, someday you will conquer it.” His voice dripped contempt. “All the fools who believed that are dead now. Fed into poison gas and flames by men who know the true nature of humanity. The only difference between you and those fools is that you’re American.” Stern switched suddenly from English to German, but McConnell caught most of it. “You have yet to taste even a sip of the pain so many have drunk to the bitter dregs in the last ten years.”

McConnell opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came. The weight of Stern’s words seemed incongruous when paired with the young face speaking them. But not with the eyes. The young Jew’s eyes were like David’s had been when he spoke of losing his friends. Ageless, emotionless—

“Stern!” Brigadier Smith stood in the open doorway. “Leave him be.”

The dark young man nodded slowly at McConnell. “I’m sorry about your brother. But he was only a drop in an ocean beyond counting. You should think about that.” He turned and followed the brigadier into the corridor.

Alone at last, McConnell reread the telegram in a daze.
Regret to inform . . . killed in action . . . McConnell’s actions always reflected the highest honor . . . my personal condolences . . . condolences
. . . . Mark put his left hand behind him and found the edge of a desk. He couldn’t breathe. He stumbled to the nearest window and tried to open it, but the latch was stuck. He raised his right foot and kicked furiously at the ironwork.

In his anger at McConnell’s refusal, Smith was pushing the Bentley beyond the limit of sanity, much less legality. The fact that he was doing it in the dark with only one arm would have terrified Jonas Stern at any other time. But just now his fury burned as hot as the brigadier’s.

“Just find another damned chemist!” he shouted above the roar of the Bentley’s engine.

“It’s not as easy as it sounds,” Smith snapped back. “I can’t use enlisted personnel, American or British. Besides, McConnell’s the best man for the job. Under the age of sixty, anyway.”

Stern slammed his hand against the door. “Then what the hell are we going to do? You can’t let one idealistic fool stop us.”

Brigadier Smith glanced over at the young Zionist. “I haven’t given up on the good doctor yet.”

“No? You’re mad, then. He’ll never do it. You might as well ask Albert Schweitzer to start carrying a bazooka.”

“I think he will,” Smith insisted. “I think he almost agreed today. That telegram nearly pushed him over the edge.”

Stern laughed harshly. “You’re crazy.”

“Mark my words,” Brigadier Smith said, his eyes focused on the dark road. “He’ll come around. Tragedy has a way of changing people’s minds.”

Stern turned suddenly to the Scotsman and stared. “Brigadier, you didn’t set up that scene, did you? I mean . . . his brother
was
really killed?”

Smith glanced at Stern, a look of genuine shock on his face. “Christ, how devious do you think I am? I’d better hire more Jews while I can get them. You’re born conspirators.”

Stern searched the brigadier’s face for a sign of deceit, but the Scotsman gave away nothing. Stern saw no point in questioning him further. But as he withdrew into his own thoughts, he could not help but wonder. How far
would
Brigadier Smith go to get what he wanted? The answer to that question would be of great importance after the war, in Palestine.

If he lived that long, of course.

McConnell was kicking at the ironwork of the window when the first doubt struck him. Why had he taken Brigadier Smith at his word? If the SOE chief had faked David’s death, would he admit it when confronted?

“That bastard is cold enough to do it,” he said aloud.

Mark knew how improbable the idea was, but a fierce hope overrode every rational objection his mind could conjure. With shaking hands he called the university operator and asked to be connected to the 8th Air Force base at Deenethorpe. He drummed his feet on the floor at the operator’s infuriatingly polite:
I’m trying to connect you
— then at last he was through.

“I’d like to speak to someone about casualties, please.”

“One moment, sir,” said a young male voice.

McConnell heard several clicks, then a male voice with a Southern drawl came on the line. “Colonel Harrigill here.”

Harrigill.
McConnell remembered the name from the telegram.
Doesn’t mean anything,
he thought.
Brigadier Smith could easily get the right names.
“Colonel,” he said, surprised by the quaver in his voice, “this is Dr. Mark McConnell. I’m calling from Oxford University. Was there a raid over Regensburg last night?”

“I’m afraid I can’t give out information like that over the phone, Doctor.”

Part of McConnell’s brain placed Harrigill’s accent — the Mississippi Delta — while another made his face flush. The timbre of Colonel Harrigill’s voice held more than official courtesy. The undertone sounded almost like sympathy.

“What information
can
you give me, Colonel?”

“Well . . . have you received a telegram today, Doctor?”

McConnell shut his eyes. “Yes.”

“I can confirm that your brother’s aircraft was lost in the line of duty over France. Visual reports from other aircrew led us to classify the entire crew as Killed In Action.”

Mark found himself unable to say anything further.

“Is there anything I can do for you, son? I was about to send a telegram to your family Stateside.”

“Don’t! I mean not yet, at least. There’s only our mother, and she’s seen enough — just — I’ll tell her, Colonel.”

“That’s fine with the Army Air Corps, Doctor. I’ll try to slow down Western Union a little bit. And again, let me express my sorrow. Captain McConnell was a fine officer. A credit to his squadron, his country, and to the South.”

Mark felt a strange chill at this archaic expression of respect from a fellow Southerner. Yet somehow it touched him. It seemed to fit David. “Thank you, Colonel.”

“Good night, Doctor. God bless.”

McConnell hung up the phone. Colonel Harrigill had dashed his last hope. David was gone. And to think Brigadier Smith had believed his death would finally wipe away Mark’s hatred for war.

This time the grief washed over him without warning. His brother was dead. His father was dead. In his entire family, he was the last male McConnell left alive. For the first time since returning to England he felt an almost irresistible urge to go home. Back to Georgia. To his mother. His wife. The thought of his mother brought a wave of heat to his scalp. How was he going to tell her? What could he possibly say?

When he kicked the window latch this time, the ironbound panes crashed open and a cutting wind stung his face. Slowly, his throat began to relax. He could breathe. He gazed out over a snowy scene that appeared much as it had four hundred years before. Oxford University. His island of tranquility in a world gone mad. What a pathetic joke. He felt the telegram slip from his hand, watched it brush the window casement and then flutter down to the cobblestones three stories below.

The first sound that escaped his throat was a great racking wail that burst from the depths of his soul. Several windows opened across the quad, revealing white faces alive with curiosity. Somewhere a gramophone was playing Bing Crosby’s “I’ll Be Seeing You.” By the time the second verse wafted across the quad, the tears were freezing on McConnell’s cheeks.

He was alone.

10

“Your tape machine stopped,” said Rabbi Leibovitz.

“What?”

The old man pointed a long finger at the Sony micro-cassette recorder lying on the end table beside his chair. I blinked twice, unable to break the vision of my grandfather at that Oxford window, or my thoughts of my great uncle, whom I had never known.

“You need another tape,” Leibovitz said. “And I need another brandy. Pass the bottle, please.”

I did. The rabbi glanced up at me while carefully pouring the amber liquid into the glass. “So, Doctor, what do you think?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know what to think.”

“Does that sound like your grandfather to you? Does it ring true?”

I pondered the question while I changed cassettes in the Sony. “I guess it does,” I said finally. “I can’t see him compromising his principles simply for revenge.”

“Are you so sure, Mark?”

I studied the rabbi’s wizened face. “I guess I’ll have to wait until you tell me, won’t I? It’s some story, all right. But the detail. . .  How could you know all this?”

Leibovitz smiled fleetingly. “Some very long afternoons with Mac in my office. Letters from other persons involved. Once I learned about this story, it . . . possessed me for a while.”

“What about the girl?” I asked, reaching down to the floor. “The woman in this photograph? Who is she in the story? Is she the woman who sent that coded message to Brigadier Smith? What the hell was that about, anyway?”

Rabbi Leibovitz took a sip of his brandy. “Be patient. I’m getting to the girl. You want everything wrapped up in an hour, like a nice television movie.” The old man cocked his head and listened to the relentless
cheeeep
of the crickets in the humid darkness outside the house. “It’s time to shift focus for a little while. All this wasn’t happening in a vacuum, you know. Other people were pursuing their own ends, quite oblivious to Brigadier Smith in London. Some very evil people. Monsters, I would say, if you don’t object to the word.”

I watched the old rabbi’s eyes flick restlessly around my grandfather’s study. It seemed to me that we had come to a part of the story he did not like. “Where are we shifting our focus to?” I asked, trying to prompt him.

“What?” he asked, his eyes fixing on mine.

“Where,” I said again. “I guess you mean Germany, right?”

Leibovitz sat up straighter in the chair. “I do, yes,” he said in a hoarse but resolute voice. “Nazi Germany.”

11

Every prisoner in Totenhausen Camp had been standing on the hard-packed snow in roll-call formation for forty minutes in a freezing Arctic wind. Wearing only wooden shoes and gray-striped burlap prison clothes, they stood in a line seven deep and forty persons long. Nearly three hundred souls, all told — withered old men, mothers and fathers in their prime, strong-limbed youths, small children. One colicky infant screamed ceaselessly in the wretched ranks.

This
Appell
had been a surprise. The two scheduled roll calls — seven in the morning and seven at night — had already taken place. The camp veterans knew no good could come of the change in routine. In camp, all change was change for the worse. After only five minutes standing in the
Appellplatz
, they had caught the faint sound of the Polish prisoners whispering the feared word
seleckja
— selection. Somehow the Poles were always the first to know.

The newest prisoners in the line were Jews. Yesterday they had been clubbed out of an unheated rail car that carried them here from the concentration camp at Auschwitz, where they had been pulled from lines leaving trains newly arrived from the far corners of Western Europe — France and Holland mostly. They were the last of the lucky who had avoided the early deportations.

Their luck had run out.

One of the Jews standing in the first rank was no newcomer. He had been in Totenhausen so long that the SS called him not by his number or name, but by his occupation —
Schuhmacher
. Shoemaker. A lean and wiry man of fifty-five, with a hawklike nose and gray mustache, the shoemaker did not shiver like the other prisoners, nor did he try to whisper to those on either side of him. He simply stood motionless, burning as few calories as he could, and watched.