The Madagaskar Plan (24 page)

“You’d better look,” said Denny, passing him the binoculars.

Salois put them to his eyes: a blur of blue-and-white wool. He lowered the lenses to scan the sea, adjusting them till the horizon was a sharp line. Abruptly, the eyepieces were full of gray tiger stripes, guns, a fluttering red, white, and black ensign. These were the craft that patrolled Madagaskar’s coastline, ensuring that no Jew escaped. Salois offered the binoculars to Cranley.

“It’s an S-boat,” he said. At its prow was a battering ram that would turn the dhow to splinters.

From behind them came the clap of bare feet and a waft of piquant sweat: Xegoe, the dhow’s captain. He was dressed in a sarong and a black beret. “They signal us to stop.”

“Can we outrun it?” asked Salois.

Xegoe had treated Salois with superstition from the moment he stepped on board, refusing to meet his eyes, whispering that he stank of death. The captain addressed his answer to Cranley: “Not possible. But we meeting plenty German boums-boums before.” He flashed his teeth. “They be liking your gold.”

Denny clutched his rifle. “We can handle this.”

“It’s a routine patrol,” replied Cranley. “We let them on board, buy them off, and they’ll be on their way.” He looked seasick again. “We don’t jeopardize the mission.”

“Sergeant,” said Salois, “take the men to the hold. Hide all the equipment, then yourselves.”

“And if they search the ship?”

“No one does anything unless I or the colonel says so.”

“I show you smuggler safes,” said Xegoe. He appeared excited rather than concerned. “They not find you there.”

“We need the parrot,” said Cranley, tugging off his camouflage jacket. “And we’d better get out of these.”

“I told you,” said Salois.

Their sailor garb was stowed in the cabin they shared. They stripped in the cramped, dingy space, Cranley revealing a patchwork of burns on his body. Previously Salois had undressed in private. He hesitated before removing his shirt and trousers; he wished it were darker. For the first time Cranley saw his companion’s bare torso, his arms and legs. He went still; there was a click as he swallowed.

“Dear God…”

Salois ignored him and reached for the burgundy caftan he’d been wearing since they left Mombasa; it had an authentic pirate stink. He rolled down the sleeves and buttoned it to the throat, concealing his body again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

FROM ACROSS THE water came a metallic voice:
“Stop your engines! Prepare to be boarded!”

Salois watched the patrol boat close the gap. Two of its three cannons were pointed at the dhow. There were a dozen soldiers on deck, all with BK44s, waiting to board.

Cranley pulled out a pistol with an ivory handle. Salois recognized it as a Browning HP. “You told Denny no fighting.”

“A precaution,” said Cranley, concealing the weapon beneath the flaps of his shirt. In his other hand he was cradling the stuffed parrot he’d retrieved from the cabin. “My German’s better; I’ll deal with this.”

“You’ve never had to talk for your life,” replied Salois. He tasted the fish and rice repeating on him. “Let me do it.”

Cranley handed over the bird. “Make sure they take this.” The parrot had blue-black feathers and a breast of intense green. The head screwed off to reveal a stash of gold reichsmarks. “And let’s pray they don’t strip-search you. You should have warned us in Sudan.”

“Rolland said I was the only man for the job.”

“One glimpse of your skin, and we’re finished.”

The S-boat drew abreast, hulking over the dhow. A gangplank was lowered; then came the tramp of boots as soldiers marched on board. They were followed by an officer. Salois watched him stride across, tiny bubbles of hatred rising from his gut and popping in his throat at the sight of his black uniform. He had blond hair shaven close to the scalp, and half his right ear was missing.

*   *   *

Hatches opened and slammed; Kepplar heard the sound of material ripping, axes splintering wood.

He stood with one jackboot resting on a crate, his holster a goading weight against his thigh. He had been wrong-footed by the parrot, till he removed its head and saw the innards glint. He thanked the smugglers graciously—then ordered his men to search the entire ship,
a gold coin to each of you for your efforts
. The Hindoos had been forced to their knees at gunpoint; the two white men were allowed to remain standing, hands on their heads. The blond—with his Category 1 skull and burnt, well-upholstered cheeks—looked an unlikely smuggler.

“Where are you from?” Kepplar asked.

The thinner man replied; another potential recruit to the SS, a Category 1 or 2, wrapped up to the chin despite the temperature. “Antwerp,” he said in rough German.

“A Wallonian.” Wallonia: Hitler’s name for Belgium; he had considered making it Germany’s northwest province. “What is your course and cargo?”

“Nosy Be. ‘Gifts’ for the Führer’s birthday.”

“Nosy Be? You’re seventy kilometers due south.”

The blond shot a glare at the kneeling crew. “Useless niggers.”

Kepplar permitted himself a wry smile that hid his frustration before calling to his men. “Anything yet, Oberbootsmann?”

“Lots of liquor. No stowaways.”

“Keep looking,” he replied, deciding this was to be the last board-and-search of the day. Although relieved to be free of his desk, he had exchanged one desperation for another.

The waters around Madagaskar teemed with contraband-laden dhows. As long as the boats brought their cheap wares—and no Jews were smuggled out—the trade was overlooked. Governor Globus encouraged it, to keep the booze flowing for his troops while siphoning off the expensive stuff for himself. Kepplar couldn’t continue patrolling these waters and stopping every vessel that appeared on the horizon. The map he’d found in Cole’s hotel room might be his best lead—but it was maddeningly vague. The area it covered was too vast, larger than the swath of Kongo that had been his hunting ground for Cole last time. What was it the Führer once said? “On land I am a hero, at sea a coward.” Somehow he needed to systemize his approach and utilize his meager resources to narrow the search. Yet faced with the futility of his task, a question had crept up on him.

Why Madagaskar?

Cole had nearly been killed escaping Africa, the rest of his team annihilated; only a madman would risk returning—and to the island of Jews, of all places. So why?

Kepplar pictured Fregh, with his cake-flaked mouth and splays of paperwork. If he were tasked with tracking down Cole, he wouldn’t leave his chair, he’d simply shuffle documents till he found a solution, then go home to his cuckold nest. Kepplar always hoped his own wife would take a lover. During his long tour of Kongo, he sent emissaries to Germania with messages for her, implying how lonely his wife was, how they might seduce her. Her persistent loyalty disappointed him.

Kepplar dismissed the thought of her, Fregh too, and brought Hochburg to mind. The reward of serving as his deputy again had sustained him across the kilometers of empty ocean. As this was technically Kongo business, he had put on his black uniform, not least to impress the sailors. Throughout German Africa, the SS wore tropical uniforms, except where Hochburg was governor. He insisted that his subordinates dress in black, despite the punishing heat. To do otherwise was tacit acknowledgment that the negroid races owned the color, and they deserved nothing: not light, not shadow, not air. Hochburg hadn’t finished with the blacks yet—undoubtedly his most important work—so why his fixation with Cole? It seemed an unnecessary distraction. If Kepplar understood the root of the animosity, he might be a more efficient hunter.

There was a kerfuffle at the far end of the boat, a shout of surprise. The two prisoners showed no response.

“What is it?” demanded Kepplar.

One of the sailors held up a Labrador puppy.

“Take it,” said the blond. “A present for your children.”

There was a presumptive quality to his tone that Kepplar disliked. “What if they hate dogs?”

He resumed his speculation. Kepplar knew nothing of his master’s life before the SS. Perhaps Cole was in possession of some secret that Hochburg wanted permanently silenced. This wasn’t uncommon among the highest echelons of the leadership. It was said that Heydrich had removed the names on his parents’ gravestones to obscure any hint of Jewish ancestry. Might Hochburg be the same? No, thought Kepplar. His racial purity was beyond doubt: he had a perfect Category 1 skull; Kepplar had always admired it. Perhaps Hochburg came from a background of pacifists and Negro lovers. Yet a man was not his family. Kepplar’s father died of septicemia during the Great War; he barely remembered him. His mother had called him, her only child, a traitor to everything decent when he joined the party.

Kepplar twisted the lobe of his half ear, envious that Cole might know more about Hochburg than he did. The stuffed parrot the Wallonian had given him was still in the crook of his arm. He stared into its blank eyes. Whatever secret bound Hochburg and Cole, it was beyond his comprehension. One day, when it was all over and they were sitting in the intimacy of his Schädelplatz garden, he’d ask Walter directly. For the moment, he would finish on the dhow and return to the base at Lava Bucht; there had to be a better method to apprehend Cole.

The Oberbootsmann approached, carrying a long metal container. “Everything is in order, Brigadeführer, apart from this.”

Kepplar opened the box. Inside was a Panzerfaust 350: a handheld rocket launcher, the warhead primed. He removed it from the casing—it was the first time he’d held such a weapon since his training at the Vienna Colonial Academy—and showed it to the Wallonian. “Explain.”

“Protection, from other pirates.”

“A reasonable excuse,” conceded Kepplar. “Anything else, Oberbootsmann? Any hidden compartments?” In one of the vessels they had stopped, a hollow wall revealed three Polish whores.

“Nothing, Brigadeführer.”

“It seems everything is in order then,” said Kepplar, preparing to leave. There was a final question he wanted to ask, one he’d posed on every vessel boarded that day. “Where is Burton Cole?”

The Wallonian remained blank. “Who?”

Kepplar fixed his eyes on his companion. The sunlight caught his flaxen hair as he shook his head.

It was infinitesimal. Only someone who had spent months obsessing about such a juncture could have noticed it: the tiniest tightening of the blond’s mouth; a shadowy wisp of rage, incredulity, and something Kepplar was unable to decipher. For some reason, he thought of Fregh. A thrill traveled up his spine.

“Oberbootsmann, search the ship again. Tear it apart if you have to. No, wait—”

Kepplar had a better idea.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“WHAT ARE YOU doing?” There was panic in the Oberbootsmann’s voice. The other soldiers scattered.

In Roscherhafen, as Kepplar had watched Cole disappear into the scarlet procession, he had been unable to free his Walther P38. Violence was merely a technical matter—one he found unbecoming, a task to be assigned, not achieved with his own hands. Hochburg’s expectations, with their messy immediacy, made him feel awkward. Yet if he had learned to master his squeamishness, he wouldn’t be on this boat. He wouldn’t have wasted seven months in Deutsch Ostafrika.

Kepplar put the Panzerfaust on his shoulder, aimed at the deck, and fired; his whole body recoiled from the blow. The rocket flashed through the ancient timbers—a bolt of fire and sawdust—shaking the entire vessel. Shards of wood flayed the air. Kepplar blundered backward, smoke excavating his lungs. He was proud of himself: Hochburg would have done the same; simultaneously he felt a nugget of distaste at living out someone else’s mania.

“Burton Cole!” he yelled when he’d regained his footing. His words were flattened, heard through a tumble of bells. “Surrender, and I’ll spare the crew.”

A snapping noise ran the length of the vessel. The dhow jerked and dropped in the water.

“Brigadeführer, we must get to our ship!”

“Not till Cole shows himself.”

The blond was back on his feet; there were splinters in his hair. “He’s not on board.”

“Where is he?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he replied angrily. “None of us do.”

Kepplar stared at him, unsure all of a sudden. But it was his denial that gave him away: it was too controlled. “Cole!” he yelled again. “Show yourself and save your companions.” He looked to the hold entrance, expecting to see him emerge.

Another snap. Then a succession of them, like a back being broken vertebra by vertebra. A wave of oil-patterned foam spread across the deck.

“We take him,” said Kepplar. He tossed the spent Panzerfaust away and retrieved the black-and-green parrot, with its belly of coins. The blond was dragged with them at gunpoint, hands on head. Next moment the gangplank was kicked away.

Kepplar called up to the bridge: “Put thirty meters of sea between us.” He watched the ocean open up; the dhow was listing, chasing its own stern, smoke billowing from it. The Wallonian raced to the hold while the native crew skittered around—yelling, wailing—before abandoning ship.

A man materialized on the sloping deck, vanished back into the hold, then reappeared with several others. They were in battle dress, grasping carbines. Kepplar leaned over the railing to see if any were Cole. He thought he heard the ghost of a voice, coming from inside the stricken hull 
… You’re going to die.
The Wallonian joined the others, arguing with one of the Hindoos, who hurled a sack at him.

Ahead, the second ring of sea mines was approaching.

The S-boat’s main gun rotated toward the dhow. There was the booming clatter of shells spewing on the deck. Small-arms fire flashed between the two vessels.

“Hold your fire!” shouted Kepplar at his soldiers. He planned to pluck Hochburg’s prize from the waves. “I want Cole alive.”

“You idiot,” said the blond. “He’s not on board.”

“You’re lying. You sacrificed the ship to save him.”