The Madagaskar Plan (37 page)

The American’s tone was quietly imploring: “For all our sakes, Germania needs to recall him.”

“I am here on a private matter, Herr Nightingale. I have no sway over events.”

“President Taft was elected on a declaration to keep America safe behind our oceans.”

“A neutrality the Reich respects.”

“It took a lot of money to secure the White House.” His tone became confidential. “Jews are wealthy in my country.”

“He’s in their pocket?”

“That would be to oversimplify matters. But they’re not without influence. My predecessor was considered too accommodating to Globus and was recalled—”

“—as soon as Taft came to power,” said Hochburg. Nightingale nodded. “So you’re sympathetic to their cause?”

The American responded sharply. “I’m saying that the Jews could trap the president into acting against the best interests of the United States. Into a confrontation we don’t want.”

Hitler had long warned that the Jews of America wished to provoke conflict. Hochburg was skeptical. He thought of Nultz sniveling at the uranium mine and his admission that they wanted the weapon for insurance, not attack. Only America could conceive of such a device without wanting to wield it; that spoke of their national character. “That will never happen,” he said.

“I wish I shared your confidence.”

“You believe America will go to war?”

“Madagaskar is a German mandate, your security arrangements your own. But if there were a major atrocity, something on a scale that couldn’t be ignored … Two weeks ago, at one of his ‘folk nights,’ Globocnik threatened to gas the whole Betroka Reservation.”

“That was the wine talking.”

“A drunk shouldn’t be in charge of a powder keg. He’s losing control.”

“Globus is a brute, I agree, his methods crude—but he wouldn’t dare. He wants the governorship of Ostmark too much.”

“With the Ark gone, he could do anything.”

Hochburg shook his head. “Such an order could only come from the Führer, and the Führer has no desire for war between our two countries.”

“I pray you’re right.” Nightingale radiated sincerity. “Think it over, Oberstgruppenführer, for your sake, if not mine. One of our warships off the coast will not help you in Kongo.”

The envoy excused himself and walked away, his footfalls making no sound. At the orphanage, Eleanor had devised a taxonomy for the children under her care. Her husband thought it fatuous, so she shared it only with Hochburg, the two of them adding terms over the years. There were the “hooligans,” “heathens,” and “please ma’ams,” the “honey badgers” and “boys who need sun in their hearts” (
Like you,
she used to tease him). On occasion she called one of her wards a “spike beneath the snow”: soft and cold on the surface, but you stepped down hard at your peril.

Hochburg hadn’t thought of the phrase since his life in Togo; watching Nightingale leave, it came back to him. Whoever had dispatched him from Washington had miscalculated. The envoy’s manner was too subtle for Globus’s thuggish mind to take seriously. That was a danger.

“Will your country really send a warship?” he called after the American. He was weighing the implications.

Nightingale made a noncommittal gesture. “Rein in the governor, halt the reservations.”

Although Hochburg had never feared a direct American attack, a U.S. presence in the region might bolster British aggression. Churchill was forever talking about Anglo-Saxon unity. If the British in Kongo couldn’t be defeated, they had to be contained long enough for Feuerstein to work his sorcery. He considered the weapon the Jew would create for him and its sublime, decisive power. Then the Americans’ interest in it. What had Nultz meant by “insurance”?
An insurance against Madagaskar
had been his exact words.

Hochburg strode to Globus and the men lowering the cradles over the dam. For now he wanted to get to Antzu and find Madeleine Cole.

“I thought you were leaving,” said Globocnik.

“A change of plan. I have another favor to ask.”

“Not now. I need to get below and survey the damage.”

“It’s important. I’m sure the Reichsführer would approve.”

Globus rubbed his temples. “You told me Heinrich didn’t know what you were up to…” He took out a vial of pills and knocked back a handful. Then: “Do you ride?”

Hochburg was wary of horses—their placid, knowing faces, all that untamable muscle between himself and the ground. “No.”

An unpleasant grin spread across Globus’s face. “If you want a favor, you’d better learn.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

GLOBUS HAD ALLOWED his sister-in-law to name the stallion. He kept stables all over the island, with horses imported from Arabia and what had once been the Russian steppe. For weeks his new mount had been nameless, till one morning he was riding with Gretta and she christened him “Kansas.” It was stupid, but it made her girlishly happy, and he had to admit it was growing on him.

Kansas was seventeen hands, a pale dappled gray with a charcoal mane. He was not fully broken, tugging at the bit and bucking, always threatening to bolt.
He’s a Jew horse,
Globus joked.
He needs to be taught who’s in charge.
Globus had ridden since childhood and was an expert horseman. On the rare occasions when Himmler visited Madagaskar and they took to the saddle, the Reichsführer enviously praised his skills.

The sun was chasing away the mist. Globus shortened the reins and glanced over his shoulder; he was still too close to see the extent of the Jews’ vandalism. Word of it had come in while he was resting with the girls at Lava Bucht, the three of them sipping coffee with cognac and whipped cream as the Ark toppled into the water. Immediately Globus had taken one of his injections—a concoction of amphetamine and vitamins—and flown to the dam. Since then there’d been a constant peck-peck-peck in his ears of other outrages as news of the Ark spread. Across the island his commanders were clamoring for orders on how to respond, though he was unsure himself. His first reaction to the dam was to scramble a squadron of Walküres, but he had to play it carefully …

The other governors of Africa had it easy, thought Globus. They were autonomous; so long as they paid tribute to Himmler, kept the ore and the bananas flowing back home, they were left alone, something Globocnik resented. He was accountable to Germania. To Himmler
and
Heydrich. To the RSHA, the security department; the race and resettlement department; the economic department. He even had to contend with the Kriegsmarine, whose naval base he guarded but whose officers always reminded him that they were independent of the SS (they, too, had been fussing about the Ark). Yet Globus had the toughest job of all: dealing with the great stinking salad of Jewry.

What a way to spend Führertag! Normally it was with the family, preparing for his birthday party the next evening. His only consolation was that the situation couldn’t get much worse. He had one of his katzenjammer hangovers, the blood thumping through his eyes, his throat parched. Fifty meters behind him, Hochburg was following like a peasant on a plow horse. At the stables Globus had insisted that he take a black colt—“to match your uniform,” he said sarcastically—but Hochburg refused, choosing a nag instead.

“I need your help,” said Hochburg as he approached, “not a riding lesson.”

Globus was enjoying the other man’s discomfort too much to end it so soon; it might be his only fun of the day.

He squeezed his spurs into Kansas’s flanks and cantered through the valley, through veils of warm mist and sunlight, climbing up to a ridge that looked down on the Sofia Reservation. This was one of his favorite spots; he slowed Kansas to a walk and admired his creation. It was on a scale Speer would appreciate: countless rows of huts constructed in a grid pattern, much more ordered than the ghettos he’d policed in Europe or the shantytowns elsewhere on the island. Above the barracks, the hillsides glinted with rows of barbed wire, vineyards of steel, ensuring that the Jews were trapped below.

“We’ll make a Cossack of you yet,” he laughed when Hochburg caught up with him.

Hochburg looked flushed. His riding hat was squashed down over his bandaged eye, the strap pinching his chin. “I thought you liquidated the Cossacks.”

The track was wide enough for the two of them to ride abreast. From this elevation it was possible to see the railway siding where new arrivals disembarked daily. In the distance, a herd of bulldozers was leveling a hill.

“What are they doing?” asked Hochburg.

“Nothing for you to see.” Globus directed his attention back to the valley. “There’s room for three hundred thousand already,” he said, using his crop to point below. “Add the Betroka Reservation, in the south, and that’s almost twenty percent of the population, and we’re still building. Long term, the plan is to do away with the sectors and herd every last Jew in here. Heydrich’s idea.”

“A containment policy?”

“This island is rife with tropical diseases. We hole the Yids up for a couple of generations and let nature take its course. ‘Natural diminution,’ Heydrich calls it. There’s no blood, so it keeps the Americans off our backs.”

“It’s a risk,” replied Hochburg. “I experimented with something similar in Muspel. In such confined spaces, disobedience can spread faster than you can control it.”

“Not with my dams. The first sniff of trouble and the water supply gets shut off, like today. I’ll teach those vandals a lesson. If there’s open revolt, I raise the sluice gates.”

“Your vandals scaled the dam in darkness, under the eyes of your men; they might be able to disable the gates.”

Globocnik gave an irritated flick of his whip and trotted ahead. Himmler had given him a similar warning.

My dear Globus,
he had said more than once,
you should mine the dams with dynamite.
Yet every time Globus asked for the order in writing, nothing came; often, with the Jews, it was a murk. Globus thought back to the Cossacks. How simple that had been: a communiqué from Germania, printed instructions, a signature. Since this new Pig Rebellion, Globus had been expected to find a permanent solution to the island’s problems, always torn between Himmler and Heydrich—the servant of two masters. Both claimed to speak for the Führer.

The sides of the valley were once thickly wooded with cassias and traveler’s palms. These had been chopped down to supply timber for the barracks below and to ensure that the hills were bare and easy to watch over. Globus picked his way through the stumps, Hochburg close behind, before climbing to the summit of the ridge. Stretching in both directions, at intervals of fifty meters, were guard towers. Patches of sickly sunlight were breaking through the mist to reveal the dam clearly for the first time. Globus yanked on the reins and brought Kansas to a standstill; his hands shook.

Overnight the Jews had climbed the dam and painted a colossal Star of David, only dawn interrupting their work. Every brushstroke took Globocnik farther from Ostmark.

“You have to admit it’s impressive,” said Hochburg.

“At the control center,” replied Globus, aiming his whip in its direction, “there’s enough TNT to demolish the dam. That’s what Heinrich says I should do: wash the scum away.”

“Don’t be a fool. Blow the dam and you’ll provoke the Americans. Taft may have no choice.”

“Is that what you and Nightingale were whispering about?”

“You heard what he said. They want to send a warship.”

“That’s just big talk.”

“You underestimate him.”

Globus gave a contemptuous blow of his lips. “I’m not being bossed around by some Yankee Jew lover.”

“Heydrich will want your head if the U.S. Navy sets sail. Himmler too.”

“So Heinrich didn’t send you?”

Hochburg climbed off his ride and unbuckled his hat, relieved to be back on the ground. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I thought maybe he’d sent you to the Ark to give me a nudge. Show me the way.”

Hochburg stared at him blankly. “I came here for a Jew. Now I’m looking for another.”

“Are you collecting them?”

“I also need a team of your men.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to Antzu.”

The pulse fattened in Globus’s neck. “Antzu is our show city,” he spluttered. “You take a raiding party there, on Führertag, of all days…” His voice echoed along the valley. “The whole fucking island will erupt!”

“I will be less than an hour.”

“You’ve caused me enough grief. I know about your bomb on the Ark—I could have been killed.”

“A tragic loss.”

“I let you in there, Hochburg, but this I refuse. Step one foot in Antzu and I’ll call it treason, I’ll have you…”

He was too choked to find a threat.

“Have me what,
Ober
gruppenführer?” said Hochburg calmly. “This may not be mainland Africa, but you’d be wise to remember your rank.”

Globocnik felt his face burn. “You should remember whose island this is!”

He dug his spurs into Kansas so hard he must have broken the animal’s skin; the horse reared up, threatening to trample Hochburg. Then Globus was galloping along the ridge. He bent low into the wind. Startled guards watched his charge from their towers. He followed the curve of the valley till he saw the hospital at Mandritsara and its complex of carmine buildings. Beyond it was a Totenburg: one of the memorials to the Germans who had died during the first rebellion.

He rode till Kansas was exhausted, his pale flanks foamed with sweat. Then he slowed and dismounted, working the tender spots behind the animal’s ear to calm him.

Behind there was no sign of Hochburg, but he had a clear view of the dam, its monumental graffiti continuing to mock him. He watched his men in cradles scrubbing the paint off. If a photo ever reached home, he would be so humiliated that a Luger in the mouth would be his only option. He rubbed his throbbing temples and heard Himmler’s voice coaxing him. As he rode back, it kept creeping into his head: what men would take hours to clean away, dynamite could do in an instant.