The Madagaskar Plan (35 page)

Suddenly Hochburg was thrown forward, only his seat belt saving him from landing in the Jew’s lap.

“Something passed us,” said Feuerstein. His eyes were terrified and accusatory, as if Hochburg had been playing a trick on him all along. Through the window, the wing flaps stood erect to slow them down. The plane juddered, its frame creaking, and swerved to a halt.

Hochburg unbuckled himself and strode to the cockpit. The two pilots looked up from the controls.

“It’s blocking our path,” said the captain.

A hundred meters ahead was a black jeep.

“Globus!” snarled Hochburg.

The jeep rolled forward, ensuring that the Junkers could not take off. When it was below the nose, the vehicle stopped, the dawn light gilding the skull-and-palm-tree insignia on the bodywork. The passenger door opened.

“Keep the engines running,” Hochburg told the pilots and moved back into the cabin. He opened the hatch, letting in a blast of aviation-fuel-soaked air, and kicked the emergency steps free.

“Whatever happens,” he shouted at Feuerstein before leaving the aircraft, “say nothing, no matter what you’re threatened with. Globocnik must not learn of our plan. Your life and that of every Jew on the plane depends on it.”

*   *   *

At the far end of the runway, in the window of the control tower, figures had gathered. The Junkers’s engines continued to lacerate the cool morning air.

Before the hatch opened, Kepplar felt a flutter in his stomach at seeing Hochburg; now he was fighting to contain his laughter. He had never seen his former master look so startled. Kepplar’s mirth turned to concern.

“What happened to your face?” he asked, reaching out for the bandage.

Hochburg flicked his head away; his single eye pulsed with fury. “There better be a very good explanation for this intrusion, Brigadeführer.” His voice was low, dangerous.

I have loyally served the Oberstgruppenführer for years,
thought Kepplar.
I come with good news; I have nothing to fear.
He held Hochburg’s gaze for as long as he could—it was like staring into an abyss, black and bottomless—till he averted his eyes. Plumes of cloud were gathering in the far west; a swastika windsock snapped in the breeze. Kepplar smoothed his black tunic across his chest and spoke briskly: “Burton Cole is alive, here on Madagaskar.”

“Don’t make a fool of me!”

“I swear it, Herr Oberst. I’ve been pursuing Cole for the past three days. Dozens of others can verify it.” He wanted a detail that substantiated his claim. “Cole has lost his hand—”

“You’ve seen him?” Hochburg stepped closer. “You’re sure?”

“As sure as you stand before me.”

“Then where is he?”

A familiar sense of deficiency sluiced through Kepplar. For the first time he understood that Cole was the sum of his failures, that he felt inferior to Cole despite his rank and the exemplary structure of his skull. “He was an arm’s length from me.”

“Alive.”

“There have been casualties, here and in Roscherhafen.”

The faintest look of elation played along Hochburg’s mouth. “But why Madagaskar? It makes no sense…” He glanced behind him at the Junkers. Through one of the portholes a scraggy, scared face peered out. “He’s looking for a Jew,” said Hochburg.

“That was my conclusion, too—a recent arrival,” Kepplar replied, impressed and irritated that Hochburg had understood so quickly. His own moment of realization had come as the patrol boat limped back to base. The helicopter sent to pursue the dhow’s castaways reported seeing two separate parties make it ashore. He was set to follow the blond into the jungle when the purpose of Cole’s trip unlocked itself.

“I spent the evening at Interpol’s bureau in the city,” said Kepplar. “They make carbon copies of all new deportees’ papers before the records are sent to the Ark. I went through every man, woman, and child for the past six months.” It had been a tedious, desperate night. He was assigned a small office (harsh electric lights, a jug of water that tasted of earth), where he scanned each document for some clue, slumping with hopelessness when he reached the bottom of the pile. “Then I went back twelve months.”

He handed over a file.

Hochburg opened it and spoke deliberately: “Madeleine Rachel Cole. Deported London, October 1952.”

“His wife, I assume. Reason to risk coming here.”

Silence. Hochburg stared at the open document, unblinking, his mood strange. As the seconds dragged by, Kepplar wondered if he had made an error. He felt a twinge of envy again, sure that Cole knew some secret about his master that he didn’t. “The file indicates that she was sent to Antzu,” he said.

Still Hochburg said nothing. The wind from the jet engines tugged at the bandage covering his eye; he held the paper tight between his fingers. His expression was blank—but concealing something. A tiny tremor of rage? He dominated the space around himself less than Kepplar remembered, his frame somehow not as powerful. It was a disappointment Kepplar didn’t want to admit. If his master seemed diminished, it was his fault for exaggerating him.

Finally, Hochburg closed the file. “Did they treat you well in DOA?”

“I hated every second of it.”

“Governor Ley telephoned me after your transfer to complain. He suggested that you be sent to Siberia. I refused him.”

“All I want is to serve you again, Oberstgruppenführer.”

“Then board my plane and make sure its cargo is delivered safely to Muspel.” He rolled up the file and tapped Kepplar’s chest bone with it. “You have done well.”

“If you please, Herr Oberst, I wish to be at your side. Complete what I began in Kongo.”

Hochburg considered this, then snorted. “It seems you have the scent, Derbus. Very well, we shall find Burton and his bride together.”

“And then?”

“Justice. It is overdue.”

“I meant, what about me?”

Hochburg made no reply. Instead, he clambered inside the Junkers, leaving Kepplar on the apron. He stood there stupidly for several moments, absorbed by the Me-362s lined up opposite him and the runes on their tail fins. Despite Himmler’s efforts, Tana had only a token squadron of jet fighters; the main air base was at Diego Suarez, under the command of the Kriegsmarine, not the SS. Then he strode to the jeep and ordered it to clear the runway.

After he had found the file, he’d leapt up with a yelp and paced his tiny cell; then his mood darkened. He had picked up Cole’s trail without the need to bloody his hands, which should extol his methods; yet he felt a sense of shame, as if he hadn’t given enough of himself—unlike the sailors who had been killed on the patrol boat (men who weren’t even his to commandeer). He was in the basement of the Interpol building, where the archives were kept, the odor of paperwork pressing around him like a hand over his mouth.
Paperwork
. He saw himself in the Schädelplatz again: slumped on his knees, uniform singed, Hochburg laughing. More than anything else, he wanted to bring his master Cole, but if he pursued him and failed, if he squandered this second chance, there would be no path back. He wanted Cole to burn as he himself had been threatened with burning. Better to supply Hochburg with the intelligence, then let him take the risk of the pursuit. When he sought out the Oberstgruppenführer and discovered that he was already in Madagaskar, the decision was made.

Hochburg descended from the Junkers, the hatch closing behind him.

“What’s on board?” shouted Kepplar as the jet rolled past them, returning to its takeoff position.

“The fate of everything we have built in Africa. Send her your blessings.”

The plane roared into the sky, the two men watching in silence. Kepplar glanced at Hochburg: his profile was masked by bandages, but there was a triumphant thrust to his jaw. Kepplar returned his gaze to the aircraft. It soared toward the west, dwindling to a point, and then, at some indefinite moment, was swallowed by the clouds.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Lava Bucht

20 April, 06:20

IT WAS LIKE watching an entire civilization disappear.

The Ark continued to blaze, lighting the dawn sky more intensely than the sun. Although the hovercraft’s hatch was shut tight, the smell of charred paper stung Burton’s nose. He had a sense of dismay—and indifference. These weren’t his people; he had no people. He remembered enough of his Old Testament to know that this had happened to the Jews before, and not just God’s chosen people. Countries and cultures had repeatedly been wiped away. In the Legion his commanders spoke of the Sahara as if it were impossible to conceive of a time when it wouldn’t be French; a decade later, the sand was German. It would happen again, in perpetuity, till one day Britain, America, even the Thousand-Year Reich were gone.

Or so Burton told himself. All that mattered was that he had saved Madeleine’s record: that one sliver of paper meant more than all the others.

Tünscher swung the controls round, taking the hovercraft in a loop away from the flaming wreckage of the seaplane, back into the bay; the Walküre did not follow. They flashed past the other hovercrafts, then the Ark, and continued on to the Analava River in a direction that would eventually take them to the address inside Burton’s pocket. Once they rounded a bend, the scene of the night before was hidden. Mangroves gave way to forest and hillocks of mud rising from the water.

Burton was squashed in the rear with the dead gunner at his feet. He rebuked himself for firing his Beretta; threats seldom worked against Tünscher. He leaned down to speak to him. “We going to Antzu?”

No reply.

Burton caught his friend’s reflection in the cockpit. He was staring ahead, his eyes empty and furious. A tiny shard of disquiet. “Tünsch?”

“Shut up, I’m thinking.” The hovercraft bounced on the river. Then: “You’re fucked, Burton. I can get myself to Nosy Be or some other base. You’re trapped.”

“Hand yourself in and they’ll lock you up after this.”

At Bel Abbès, Tünscher was forever being thrown in the brig, its baking, claustrophobic walls the only punishment to curb his insubordinate streak. He feared being caged.

“I supply enough of the top brass—I can bribe my way off this island.”

“Bribe them with what?”

“There’s always you.”

Burton’s grip tightened around his pistol. “The only thing that matters is finding Madeleine.”

“Then what? You going to live here like a Jew?” He eased off the speed. “You’ll die like a Jew.”

Tünscher steered them inland, searching for somewhere to land. Behind, the river was empty and emerging from the night. The hovercraft’s wake caught the sun as it rose over the trees: a trail of oxblood foam.

A
crack
.

The stuffing in Tünscher’s seat erupted. Burton reached forward to touch it. A small round hole had appeared in the cockpit glass.

The left bank exploded into light and noise. Bullets, slashes of pink tracer fire, arrows. In the tangled gloom of the trees Burton glimpsed men in waistcoats, their faces fierce. Tünscher rammed the throttle, and the hovercraft surged forward. The metalwork sparked around Burton. There was a hollow bang—and black smoke began pouring from the rotor fan.

They sped on until they passed the barrage, a prolonged wail of fear and despair following them. Tünscher fought the controls, the hovercraft slewing from side to side.

“There,” said Burton.

Ahead were some mudflats, a spot where crocodiles might once have basked before SS game hunters and Jews desperate for meat had driven their numbers to extinction.

Behind them, the forest burst into fire again as new targets entered the ambush. Burton spun round as far as the gunner’s chair permitted: two hovercrafts had appeared. One slowed, pirouetting till it faced the Jews; its gun spewed metal into the trees. The other raced forward in pursuit.

Burton watched it close in, then roar past in a whirl of leaves, blocking the waterway, forcing them toward the shore. He worked the breech of the MG48 mounted in front of him, loading it with ammunition.

“No!” shouted Tünscher. “We can still talk our way out of this.”

“You can. What about me?”

Burton squeezed the trigger: a stream of bullets sliced through the other hovercraft’s fan, cockpit, fuel tank. The river vanished in a pall of orange flame and smoke. Debris clattered down on them, smashing the glass, the wind tearing through the interior. Tünscher cried out as if he had been struck. They lurched to the starboard; a warning light began to flash on the console.

Burton was aware of the floor sinking. The constant din of the fan had been replaced by an intermittent chugging, as though the blade couldn’t draw in enough air. Behind, the second hovercraft’s gun was scything the forest; bodies toppled from the branches.

“Pad’s losing pressure,” Tünscher shouted. “We’ll never outrun them.”

“Then let’s turn round. Hit them first.”

Tünscher’s response was biting: “I’m not dying today, Major.”

He steered between the pillars of a washed-away bridge, then round a bend to a meandering stretch of river. From his elevated position in the gunner’s seat, Burton saw that the trees were thinning, giving way to a scorched, desolate tract of agricultural land. There was a cluster of buildings set back from the water and a warehouse with a gaping, burnt-out roof.

Burton tapped Tünscher’s shoulder with his stump and directed him to the shore. “There’s a place to hide out.”

They hit the bank with a jolt that bucked Burton in his seat. Tünscher forced the control stick forward with his entire body weight, driving the craft up and over the mud, across the fields, the engine stuttering. As they approached the warehouse, a flock of birds burst through the exposed rafters, into the air. On one side was a large sliding door left open just enough for a man to squeeze through. Burton clambered out of the cockpit and tugged on it till it could accommodate the hovercraft. Tünscher steered inside and killed the engine; the pad deflated, reminding Burton of that slumping roll when a camel knelt for its rider to dismount.

He returned the door to its original position and peered through the gap toward the river. The banks were screened by banyan trees. For several moments the second hovercraft continued its assault; then its engine powered up. It streaked by, heading inland.