The Madagaskar Plan (34 page)

Globocnik sagged, the adrenaline leaving him as fast as if he were pissing it out. Below he caught a glimpse of the two Sturmbannführers; they had leapt off the ship and were swimming toward a waiting hovercraft.

“Make sure those two clowns are picked up,” he said into his headset. “They’ve got a lot of explaining. And send word to Tana: I want to know where Hochburg is.”

*   *   *

Burton’s stump beat sluggishly against the waves, his boots tugging him down; Tünscher had reached the nearest hovercraft. It slowed, chasing its tail to keep afloat. Tünscher clambered on board and hurled the pilot out. The rear gunner stood to protest, but already Tünscher was aiming his Luger. For an instant the cockpit filled with light.

The
Gustloff
was listing as if it might topple over. Great orange whorls billowed from its portholes. On the shore, Jews watched and wept.

“You know how to pilot one of these things?” Burton asked as he heaved himself out of the water.

“I used to race them in the East, in the spring as the Tobol began to thaw. Fifty reichsmarks a go.”

“You win much?”

“As much as I lost. Strap yourself in the back.”

The gunner’s seat was positioned behind the pilot’s in a raised Perspex dome mounted with an MG48 machine gun, its lateral range limited to 135 degrees to avoid the rear fan. Burton slipped into the chair, ignoring the dead body at his feet.

Tünscher pressed the accelerator. The hovercraft surged toward the mouth of the bay and the indigo-black ocean beyond. Burton felt the thunder of the fan through his shoulders.

“Where are you going?” he shouted.

“To the plane, before those chickenshit Italians leave.”

“What about Antzu?” He recalled the map Tünscher had given him: Lava Bucht lay at the inlet of the river that led to the town. “We could be there in an hour.”

“That was never the plan.”

“Things have changed.”

“Not for me,” replied Tünscher. “I got more than I bargained for on this trip already.”

Two other hovercrafts were gliding in wide circles around the bay. A Walküre roared overhead. It rose over the
Gustloff,
heading toward the mangroves that bordered the shore. In this chaos, thought Burton, they could take the hovercraft down the river before anyone noticed. That had to be better than returning to the seaplane, then trudging alone through the forest; after tonight, it would be crawling with patrols.

“Turn us around,” he said. “We’re going to Antzu.”

Tünscher pressed harder on the throttle, guiding them away from the Ark and the SS base. One of the other hovercrafts tailed them.

“Turn us around!” Burton pressed the Beretta against his friend’s head.

Tünscher spat out a laugh. “You’re going to shoot me?”

“All I want is Maddie.”

“I said I wouldn’t go inland—that was our deal. I got debts to pay; I can’t do that if I’m dead.”

“Your debts die with you.”

“Not this one.”

Burton cocked the pistol close to Tünscher’s ear.

“Those lousy wops won’t hang around for long,” he said in response. “Not with this going off. If I don’t get back to that plane, Burton, they’ll fly. And if they go without me, they’ll never come back. You and Madeleine will have no way to escape this island.”

Tünscher steered them to the port side, out of the bay and into the open sea. At once the waves started bucking the hovercraft. Spray obscured the windows.

“I’m warning you, Tünsch.”

Tünscher shrugged off the Beretta and searched for the wiper controls.

Even over the blare of the fan, the shot was deafening; it punched a hole in the windscreen. Burton returned the smoking muzzle to Tünscher’s skull.

The wipers came to life. Tünscher eased off the throttle.

“You idiot,” he said. “It’s too late.”

The seaplane that had brought them from DOA was skimming the waves, its four propellers a blur. It was flying dark, all lights extinguished. In the gunmetal of the dawn, Burton could make out the two pilots in the cockpit gabbling at each other. It took to the air, its undercarriage trailing water.

The plane vanished.

A balloon of fire whooshed into the sky, spitting debris.

The Beretta sagged in Burton’s grip. He watched the Walküre fire another rocket at the plane, then leaned toward Tünscher, his voice dreary and caustic: “So much for your Madagaskar plan.”

PART III

MADAGASKAR

All attempts to create a sovereign Jewish nation must be eliminated. At the same time it is necessary to prevent any objections to this, especially those coming from the USA.

—“MADAGASKAR-PROJEKT,”
15 August 1940

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Tana airport

20 April, 06:15

WALTER HOCHBURG WAS sketching a new Schädelplatz, hoping to ward off the despondency that had crept hold of him. It was the despondency that always accompanied success.

He sat in the cabin of his private jet, eager to leave before the explosive device he had planted aboard the Ark was discovered. The plane was a converted Junkers Ju-387 bomber: white leather seats, air as cool and dry as aerosol vapor. Through the window, the wings shimmered steel blue and gold as the sun sneaked over the hills of Tana; a ground crew busied themselves with fuel hoses. The Jewish scientists he’d spent the last forty hours scouring the island for were being loaded into the hold. All he needed now to possess his superweapon was patience, and yet with his hunt on Madagaskar at an end, the loss he’d spent a lifetime trying to dampen felt present again. Each triumph only made him yearn for the next distraction.

He drew in the notebook he’d given Feuerstein, using precise, confident pen strokes. His draftsmanship came from his days as a cartographer, dispatching secret maps of British Africa to Berlin. This new Schädelplatz would be a fortress built on a scale not yet envisioned on the continent: turrets thrusting into the sky like the towers of a fairy-tale castle, a deep catacomb of offices below, the walls so thick tank shells would barely dent them. At its heart, instead of a quadrangle, he planned a great circle of skulls. Not twenty thousand this time—a hundred thousand. Concentric rings of nigger bone, then British and Belgian skulls and all the breeds of men who defied his rule. The outer rim would be reserved for the disbelievers among his own ranks. Once Feuerstein delivered, Hochburg would oversee the construction himself.

A sudden idea possessed Hochburg. His dissatisfaction vanished, replaced by a cold rapture.

At the center of the circle he inked a black hole, out of scale with the rest of the drawing, like the vortex of a whirlpool. He had intended to fill it with the skull he’d salvaged from the original square in Kongo—but that could be put behind glass in his private collection. A more gratifying alternative had come to mind.

Feuerstein emerged from the steps that led to the hold and locked the door behind himself. Hochburg had given the scientist the key and ordered him to travel above: that would establish his authority over the others while creating a seedbed for potential resentments, something that might prove useful later. Feuerstein lingered by the chair opposite, his hands plucking at the pockets of his trousers. He wore a mouse-gray suit that once belonged to a teenager but was ample for his frame. A razor blade had exposed coarse jowls.

“You don’t have to wait to be asked,” said Hochburg, not looking up from his sketch. The smell of disinfectant emanated from the Jew. “Sit, and tell me how your fellows are.”

“They wish me to express their thanks again. They are grateful to a man.” The scientist slipped into the seat and chose his next words carefully. The bestiality that had sustained Feuerstein on the road gang had deserted him. He was contaminated with hope, fearful that the slightest impudence might return him to the life he had escaped. “However … some on my list are missing. Dr. Pavel, for instance.”

“I found all the names I could,” replied Hochburg. “Pavel was in Marana.” Marana: Madagaskar’s largest leper colony. “If he’s essential to your effort, you’re welcome to fetch him yourself.” He put down his pen. “But that’s not what you meant to say, Herr Doctor. So get to the point.”

“My wife is not here.”

“She was the first I sought,” said Hochburg. His intention had been to conceal the truth and use it as leverage against Feuerstein to make him work harder. But the scientist’s expression—so anguished and expectant—stirred Hochburg’s sympathy. “She’s dead.”

Feuerstein’s eyes darkened and blurred. “Do you know how?”

“I traced her to a cocoa plantation in Banja. They told me she died in an industrial accident last year. I’m sorry.”

There was a long pause. “I was a poor husband,” said Feuerstein at last. “She deserved more.”

“Then be a good father,” replied Hochburg. “You have five children below. Be thankful for that. Work hard for them and none of you need suffer again.”

“My colleagues have their wives. It will be hard seeing them together.”

“We can leave the women if you prefer.”

A hint of his former defiance returned to his voice. “No.” He paused once more, watching the ground crew as they reeled in the fuel hoses. “Do you ever think, Oberstgruppenführer, that we all lived our lives long ago? That this world is the punishment for our previous sins.”

“I thought the scientific mind was more rational.”

“When I worked on the roads, I reasoned it through endlessly. It seemed the only possible explanation for my fate.” His voice was parched. “For this new torment, knowing I can never make amends, it’s more plausible than ever.”

Hochburg contemplated this and the decades of suffering that had been his own life. “If you’re right,” he replied, “then I must have been wicked indeed.”

How much kinder it would have been to have died in Eleanor’s arms, the two of them taking their last breaths together. In the days after her death, he’d contemplated suicide—it was his bridge to her—but he soon abandoned the idea: he wanted to honor her memory. Avenge her. The Jew’s words had unsettled him. His wretchedness was because justice had not been served: Burton had not suffered commensurately. His pursuit of the boy in Kongo had been meant as a prologue to untold agonies. Hochburg cursed himself for sinking the HMS
Ibis
.

He returned to his sketch, pressing his pen into the central hole of the Schädelplatz until the ink soaked through to the pages beneath. Once he was the master of Africa again, he would raise the sunken
Ibis
from the Gulf of Kamerun, presenting it as an act of conciliation toward the British, though his true purpose would be to search the wreck for Burton Cole. Somehow he would recognize the corpse; perhaps Kepplar, with his obsessive knowledge of craniology, could help with the identification.
Then I will remove the boy’s skull,
he thought,
take a trowel, and fill the hollow at the center of the circle
. As for Burton’s bones, he would grind them to make his bread, tear the loaf in half and eat it warm as he surveyed his new home. The man who consumes his past will be free of it. It was the only gesture that could compensate for his mistake of killing Burton so swiftly. Perhaps then, at last, he would be at peace.

The cockpit door opened, and the copilot entered.

“Oberstgruppenführer, the plane is ready to depart.”

“Good. I’m sick of this island.”

“We’ve also received a message from Governor Globocnik. He wants to speak to you. Urgently.”

Hochburg gave a dismissive bat of his hand. “Get us in the air.” He hoped never to return.

“Where are we going?” asked Feuerstein as the jet engines fired up, one after the other; the cabin walls began to hum.

“To Muspel,” replied Hochburg. “I have a secret facility where you will not be disturbed.”

“And the uranium?”

“As I told you last night: that is not your concern.” Hochburg had sent instructions to General Ockener to begin a drive south: not to counterattack the British at Elisabethstadt but to secure the Shinkolobwe mine. Hochburg was fearful that the Americans would send a second expedition. That pockmark in the earth’s crust was more valuable than Kongo’s great southern city now. He was still struggling to understand America’s interest in the weapon. The United States clung to its isolationism as though it were a remote island state, a position that suited the Reich. Even Britain, the diminished leader of the Anglo-Saxon world, preferred it this way (despite Churchill’s goading). America had no need for such destructive power.

The Junkers taxied to its takeoff point, the sound of its engines swelling.

“I’ve never flown before,” said Feuerstein. “I understand the principles, of course, but…” He shifted on his meatless buttocks.

Hochburg pressed himself into his seat and closed his good eye. The other had stopped throbbing overnight and was lifeless behind the bandage: he sensed he would never see out of it again. There was a momentary lull in the turbines, then a full-throated roar. The aircraft sped along the runway. It was six hours to Aquatoriana, where they would refuel, another eight after that to their final destination. When they arrived, Hochburg would take an icy shower. His skin was layered with filth from the Ark.