Black Cross (55 page)

“I’ve come to stay the night. Walter went to Berlin again, to kiss up to the Party hacks. Goebbels is having some kind of function for the Hitler Jügend. They never ask the wives anymore. Not that I’d want to go. Magda’s such a bore.” She looked past her Mercedes at Greta’s car. “Is that yours, dear? It doesn’t look bad at all, for a Volkswagen.”

Anna tried to focus her thoughts. “No, it . . . belongs to one of the other nurses. A friend of mine. She lends it to me sometimes.”

“Too bad.” Sabine picked up her suitcase. “Let’s get inside. It’s freezing out here.”

Anna prayed that McConnell and Stern were in the cellar. Her pulse raced as she unlocked the door.

Not a chair was out of place.

Sabine set her suitcase in Anna’s bedroom and installed herself at the kitchen table. “I’m positively starving,” she said. “What do you have?”

Anna realized she was wringing her hands. “Not much, I’m afraid. I often eat at the camp.” She felt a sudden hope. “We should go into the village. There’s—”

“Nonsense,” Sabine said. “A little coffee would be fine. I live on coffee and cigarettes these days. Walter too. You can’t imagine how busy he’s become. I feel like I’m married to the Party. The few hours he
is
home he does nothing but write speeches. No time for the children. To them Gauleiter is a dirty word. Their father’s the biggest man in town and they never see him.”

Anna began boiling water for coffee.

Sabine lit a cigarette and drew deeply. She let the smoke escape in little puffs as she talked. “The social scene in Berlin is practically nonexistent now. The Führer spends all his time in Rastenburg, in East Prussia. What’s the point of being Nazi royalty if the king is never in town? Tell me, Anna, have you met any delicious officers at the camp? That Major Schörner is quite the hero, I understand. They know him in Berlin.”

Anna shook her head distractedly. “I really have no time for that. Dr. Brandt keeps us working.”

“Brandt,” Sabine spat. “That man gives me the chills. Locked away day and night operating on Jews and God knows what else. Still, Walter says he’s a genius, whatever that means. I suspect it means he’s impotent.” She cast her jaded eye around the kitchen, then into the bedroom. Anna was reaching for a coffee mug when her sister said, “Do I smell a man, dear?”

Anna froze. “What?”

“A man. You know the smell. Sweat and old leather. Come, Anna, are you hiding a sturdy little SS lover in your virginal bower?”

Anna forced a laugh. “You’re mad, Sabine.”

Sabine stood up and pointed to the counter. “Mad, am I? You little sneak. I suppose you wear that to scare the burglars away?”

Anna felt her heart stop. In the corner beneath a cabinet lay Jonas Stern’s
Sicherheitsdienst
cap.

“The SD, no less,” Sabine said, picking up the cap. She ran her finger along the green piping. “Secret police. That fits, since you’ve been keeping him secret from me. And an officer, dear. Who is he?”

At the moment Anna realized she had no idea what to say, the cellar door crashed open and Jonas Stern burst into the kitchen wearing his SD uniform. He pointed his Schmeisser at Sabine.

“Ach du lieber Hergott!”
she cried. “There’s no need to get so excited. I don’t care if you’re married. Anna deserves all the fun she wants.”

“Sit down!”
Stern yelled. “Now! In the chair!”

Sabine’s expression changed from mild amusement to anger. “You’d better improve your manners, Standartenführer,” she said tartly. “Or I’ll have my husband speak to Reichsführer Himmler about you.”

“I don’t care who your husband speaks to,” he snarled. “Put your fat ass in that chair!”

Sabine looked at Anna for an explanation, but Anna had covered her face with both hands. McConnell stepped into the room wearing his SS uniform.

“What’s going on here?” Sabine demanded. “Someone had better explain.”

In the silence that followed, Sabine Hoffman fully apprehended the wrongness of the situation. She had never been slow on the uptake, and she sensed lethal danger now. Like a startled cat she snatched the coffee pot off the stove and hurled the boiling water at Stern, in the same motion darting in front of McConnell to reach the foyer and freedom.

Stunned by the water, and afraid of hitting McConnell, Stern fired late and high. The slugs from his silenced Schmeisser shattered some cabinet doors, but Sabine was already in the foyer.

Before Stern could follow and finish her, McConnell dove through the door and leaped onto the woman’s back as she tore at the door handle. Sabine whirled, clawing and screeching like a wildcat.

“Stop it!”
Anna screamed.
“Sabine, be quiet!”

McConnell threw himself backward and whirled, crushing Sabine against the foyer wall and stunning her enough that she fell to the floor.

Anna threw herself over her sister to keep Stern from shooting her. “Lie still, Sabine! Don’t say anything!”

Stern was trying to push his way into the foyer, but McConnell shoved him back into the kitchen. “You don’t have to shoot her!”

“You heard her!” Stern shouted. “She’s planning to stay here tonight. We can’t risk her ruining everything. She’s got to be eliminated.”

“She’s my sister, for God’s sake!” Anna screamed from the foyer.

“She’s a Nazi!” Stern yelled back.

McConnell held up his hands to keep Stern from charging the foyer door. “You can’t kill her sister, Jonas!”

“I can’t?”

McConnell pushed him back. “Look, the attack is only three hours away. We can tie her in the basement. She won’t get out.”

Stern looked past him. “Too much depends on this, Doctor.”

McConnell spoke very low. “If you kill her, there’s no telling how Anna might react.”

“We don’t need Anna anymore either,” Stern said, his eyes cold. “All we need is this cottage.”

McConnell lowered his hands but leaned close to Stern. “If you hurt Anna,” he said, “I will kill you. And if you manage to kill me first, and I don’t see that gas factory, Brigadier Smith will have your balls for breakfast. You understand? There’s no need for more bloodshed. Let’s just tie her in the basement.”

“You can’t hide here anymore anyway, you bastard!” Anna shouted at Stern. “Brandt ordered a house-to-house search of Dornow!”

McConnell and Stern looked at each other, their mouths open.

“How long do we have?” Stern asked.

When Anna didn’t respond, McConnell said, “Anna, please, how long?”

“Sturm’s men could be in the village already.”

A knock on the door silenced them all.

All but Sabine. She screamed at the pounding. “
Help me! Help
!”

McConnell jerked Anna off of her sister and dragged Sabine into the kitchen.

“A Kubelwagen!” Stern said from the window. “They must have coasted up the lane! Get your rifle, Doctor!”

Stern pushed Anna up to the front door and motioned for her to reply. He stood behind her with the Schmeisser, ready to spray the entire foyer with bullets if necessary.

“Who’s there?” Anna called, her voice near to breaking.

“Weitz,” came the muffled reply.

Anna sagged against the door in relief. She motioned Stern back into the kitchen, then opened the door.

Ariel Weitz pushed past her and closed the door behind him. “What the hell goes on here?” he asked. “Who screamed? Whose Mercedes is that?”

“My sister’s. What are you doing here? Are you crazy? Sturm and his men could be here any minute.”

“You’re the one who’s crazy,” Weitz snapped. “Taking Greta’s car? Now, take me to them.”

“Who?”

“
Them
. The commandos, or whoever is going to make the attack. I’ve got to speak to them.”

Anna looked anxiously over her shoulder.

Stern stepped up to the door of the small foyer with his Schmeisser leveled. “Who are you?”

Weitz looked at the SD uniform in shock. “I am Ariel Weitz, Standartenführer. I apologize, I’ve obviously come to the wrong house by mistake.”

“He’s no SD officer!”
Sabine screamed.
“Help me!”

Weitz forced himself not to look beyond the Nazi specter before him.

“You’re Scarlett, aren’t you?” Stern said. “Smith’s other agent in Totenhausen. It’s you who calls the Poles.”

Weitz looked to Anna with petrified eyes, then back at Stern.

“You’ve come to the right house,” Stern assured him. “What have you to tell me? Hurry!”

“It’s all right,” Anna said.

“Well . . . Brandt has postponed the house-to-house search. He pulled in all the patrols.”

Stern’s eyes narrowed. “Why would he do that?”

“Sturm’s dogs dug up more British parachutes near the Dornow road. Cargo chutes this time. The rains uncovered them. Sturm came back with the parachutes right after Anna left. Schörner wanted to cordon off the whole village, but Brandt overruled him. Brandt thinks that by searching for commandos, Schörner would be leaving him and his lab open to attack. So they’re sealing off the camp.”

Stern closed his eyes for an instant, the only sign that this news had disturbed him. “How did you get out?”

“Brandt sent me to Dornow to get the only four technicians who are not on duty at the factory. I heard him and Schörner discussing plans to dismantle the lab tonight.”

“Dismantle the lab? Tonight? Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know, but. . . ”

“But what?”

Weitz scratched his chin. “Well, if taking apart the lab means they are moving tomorrow, and the Raubhammer test is tomorrow, what can they be planning to do with the prisoners?”

Stern nodded. “Anything else?”

“No, Standartenführer.”

“Stop calling me that. You are Jewish?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If you come out of the war alive, you should come to Palestine. We could use you there.”

Weitz’s hand went to his mouth. “
You
 . . . you are a Jew?”

“Yes. And I want you to do something for me, if you can.”

“Anything.”

“When the attack comes, some of the SS will probably run for their bomb shelter. And that shelter might well protect them. Unless of course some enterprising soul found a way to booby-trap it.”

A slow smile crept over Weitz’s face. “It would be my pleasure, Standartenführer.”

“Good man. Now go. Get back to your work. And think of a reason why you stopped here, in case anyone saw you.”

Weitz bowed his head and hurried away from the door.

Stern turned back to the kitchen. McConnell was restraining Sabine from behind in a wrestling hold.

Before Stern could speak, Anna said, “Brandt gassed your father.”

Stern’s face went white. “What are you telling me?” he whispered. “My father is dead?”

Anna held up a forefinger. “Give me your word that you will not kill my sister, or I tell you nothing.”

“You’re lying.”

“I saw him walk into the E-Block with my own eyes,” Anna said.

McConnell heard the truth of it in her voice.

“All right,” said Stern. “You can take her to the basement and tie her. Now —
tell me what you know
.”

“Your father survived. It was a chemical-suit test. Your father wore one. I saw him walk out alive.”

Without even waiting for a response, Anna grabbed Sabine by the arm and pulled her to the cellar door. Sabine fought no more. It was plain even to her that Stern would shoot on the slightest provocation.

“You’d better gag her,” Stern called after them. “If I have to listen to any more mewling about Nazi high society, I’ll kill her just to shut her up.”

McConnell collapsed into a kitchen chair. “You heard that guy. They’ve sealed the camp. Schörner’s expecting something. You’ll never get in there tonight. You won’t be able to warn the prisoners to go into the E-Block.”

“I’ll get in,” Stern said with absolute conviction.

“How?”

Stern’s boot heels fired together with the crack of a small caliber pistol. His voice took on a saber edge. “It appears that Standartenführer Ritter Stern from Berlin is going to have to make a security inspection.”

40

At 6:00 P.M. Greenwich Mean Time, twelve RAF Mosquito bombers lifted off from Skitten field, a division of Wick air base in Scotland, and headed across the North Sea toward Occupied Europe. Their code name was GENERAL SHERMAN. The Mosquitoes took off just behind an RAF Pathfinder force which was leading a wave of Lancasters to the oil plants at Magdeburg, Germany. Each specially modified Mosquito carried 4,000 pounds of bombs in its belly.

GENERAL SHERMAN would remain with the Pathfinder force across the Netherlands, but when the Pathfinders turned south near Cuxhaven, the Mosquitoes would continue east, past Rostock, to the mouth of the Recknitz River. Flying by dead reckoning, they would follow the river south, ticking off the villages as they went. When they passed Bad Sülze, they would follow the line of the river with their H
₂
S blind bombing radars until they sighted Dornow village. There, the leading aircraft would drop parachute flares to bathe the area in light. Then the second plane would mark the Aiming Point with brilliant-burning red Target Indicators.

The “Mossies” would be near the limit of their range, but with no known antiaircraft guns to worry about, they could afford to make a slow, accurate bomb run. Their primary target was a prison camp sheltered between the hills and the river, known to them only as TARA. In tandem formation, they would pound the southern face of those hills with high-explosive and incendiary bombs until nothing remained but a fire burning hot enough to boil the nearby Recknitz River.

Jonas Stern walked into Anna’s bedroom and checked his SD uniform in the mirror. He had forgotten to remove the creosote stain he’d gotten while climbing the pylon, but that was a small thing now. He straightened his collar, checked the Iron Cross on his breast, felt the pocket that held his papers.

Staring at his reflection, Stern found it easy to believe that his father had not recognized him. Even though he had shaved in the afternoon, the face and eyes under the peaked SD cap seemed to belong to a man he did not know.