The Madagaskar Plan (60 page)

At the base of the crane, his head bound in a makeshift bandage, was Yaudin. He had acquired a BK44 and looked around expectantly, urging alarms to ring.

There was another boom and spray, this time from the second battery. The other Jupo warden was beneath it, already removing the next bundle of dynamite. He tossed it into the water, where it exploded.

Salois watched, helpless and desolate—then sprinted in the opposite direction. Two sentries raced toward him, tightening the straps of their helmets beneath their chins. They lowered their rifles when they saw his uniform.

“Jews!” shouted Salois. “They’re attacking. You’ve got to stop them. I’ve been ordered to guard the other defenses.”

He hurried past until he was under the pylon of the third battery. He grabbed two bundles of dynamite and set both timers to twenty seconds. Then he was running again, toward the final Loge.

Behind him came gunfire. The two sentries shot the warden. He staggered backward, cradling the last of the dynamite. Another volley: he dropped. More guards appeared, converging on the far end of the quay.

The third battery exploded.

Salois felt the blast like a hot spade between the shoulders. He was hurled forward, the air ripped from his mouth and ears, but kept running. As his hearing returned, he heard metal twist and wrench, a
tdschhh
of sparks. There was no time to check how effective the dynamite had been.

The final Loge was situated on an artificial peninsula that had been engineered into a mesa. Every year the monsoons battered the concrete; plants had grown in the cracks, giving it a scattering of scrub and pink flowers. A flight of steps had been cut into the rock. Salois mounted them two at a time. High above, on the missile platform, one of the operators assessed the damage below. He caught sight of something behind Salois and mouthed a warning.

Salois looked back only when he reached the top. The battery was lopsided, veiled in smoke—but the explosives hadn’t brought it down. A fire crew reeled out hoses; the quayside was packed with sailors bearing arms. But his Diego luck hadn’t deserted him yet. The crane had buckled in the explosion, precariously tilting the firing platform. Even if the missile system remained operable, it could only launch into the sea.

At the bottom of the steps Yaudin chased after him.

The yellow pylon legs clanged and reverberated: a missile operator was climbing down from above. Salois aimed his BK at the bottom rungs of the ladder. Boots appeared, a belt buckle, a face. Salois fired twice, hitting him in the chest. The operator dropped off the ladder and rolled out of sight, into the bushes. Salois rested his weapon against the pylon and delved inside his rucksack for the last of the dynamite. He would plant a bundle beneath each of the legs this time to make sure the battery was destroyed.

A klaxon rang out, echoing over the bay. Another joined it, then another, like wolves taking up each other’s call.

Salois glanced at the runway—still quiet—then his watch, the face pale against his indigo skin. The bombers must have crossed Mount Amber now and would be starting their descent from the southwest; they could reach Diego before any fighters took to the sky.

He was setting the final charge when Yaudin reached the top of the stairs. The Jupo chief raised his rifle; he was breathing heavily and struggled to speak.

“Stop this madness … put it down, Major.”

Salois glanced at the BK he’d left propped against the side and began edging toward it, clutching the last bundle.

Yaudin fired a warning shot.

A voice whispered inside Salois’s head: cold, determined, provident. Giving the bombers every chance mattered more than his survival. He set the detonator to ten seconds and clasped it to his chest.

Salois had never thought of ending his life. After he fled Antwerp, neither his self-pity nor his self-loathing tipped far enough. Later, in Madagaskar, the very notion was abhorrent. Amid so much death, it would be an insult to life and the piles of bodies. There was also a tiny, locked-away part of him that dreaded the fisherman’s words
: Death doesn’t want you
. What if it was true? What if he attempted to kill himself and failed? The realization that he would be granted no relief was a punishment too hard to bear. He watched the dial count down to zero.

Yaudin raked his legs with gunfire.

For a heartbeat Salois was so incredulous he almost erupted in laughter.

Then he felt the bullets pass through him, tearing sinew, shattering bone. He tumbled backward, landing heavily; the dynamite rolled from his grasp.

Yaudin leapt forward and hurled it over the edge. The explosion showered them in fragments of concrete. He moved swiftly to defuse the other charges.

Salois crawled after him, begging him to stop, but his body was sapless. Blood from the bullet holes bloomed across his trousers until the white material was engulfed by a brilliant red stain. A wave of pain and numbness welled up through his hips, making him want to retch.

He was unbuckling his belt to use as a tourniquet when he saw the other missile operator sliding down the ladder, Luger in hand. He glanced at Salois’s uniform, raised a finger to his lips, and crept toward the police chief.

“Yaudin!” shouted Salois. His mouth was metallic and bubbly with spit.

Yaudin spun round and fired.

The German dropped next to Salois, pistol still in his hand. Salois didn’t bother taking it: with both missile operators dead, the tower was no longer a threat. Yaudin gave a nod of thanks, unaware of what he had done, and returned to the last of the charges.

While he was occupied, Salois slid over to his rucksack. He removed the smoke grenades and lobbed them in the direction of the steps, one after the other. They plunked and chimed as they fell. A wraith of luminous green smoke snaked upward.

“What are you doing?” asked Yaudin. His shaved, blackened face had an emerald sheen.

Salois tightened the tourniquet around his thigh, then reached to the dead German and undid his belt to use on the other leg.

Two missile batteries out,
he thought.
It should do.

The first of the bombers would probably be shot down; they could deplete the batteries for the aircraft that followed. An ocean of Jewish blood had been spilt; let the Mozambicans sacrifice a drop for Turneiro’s “famous victory.” If the pilots were sufficiently skilled and brave, they could aim at the aircraft carriers as they plummeted from the sky. Or the submarine pens. Or the white fuel silos beyond. Diego abounded with targets.

A searchlight burst into life, a solid wand stretching into the heavens. Others joined it, hitting the reflecting mirrors. The sky dazzled.

Salois edged himself to the farthest corner of the tower for the best view of the base. The air around him was shrouded in a halo of green smoke. Yaudin stood by the steps, agitated, unsure what to do.

There was a tremendous, throaty
whoosh
that shook the ground.

A fireball rocketed into the sky from the arsenal. It was followed by a myriad of smaller explosions as the munitions ignited: bolts of red, white, gold, and aquamarine, as if the base were under attack from an armada in the Indian Ocean. The BK44 dropped from Yaudin’s grip. He hung his head in his hands.

Salois gave a blissful grimace.
It’s the most wonderful thing,
he used to tell Frieda as the bump of their child grew: a balm for the night before. The flames over Diego Suarez were as miraculous. He turned his body to the southwest, dragging his legs, and watched the horizon—waiting for the drone of bombers.

CHAPTER SIXTY

Mandritsara Hospital

21 April, 04:55

HE LOOKED QUEASY to Madeleine, unsure of himself. Abner was standing by the window, a floor-to-ceiling pane of frosted glass that looked out onto a courtyard. He tried to control his stutter, which made it worse. “But w-why keep America away?”

“What do you care?” she replied. “You’ve bought your ticket out of here.”

“America can make a difference. Salois believed it. All us Vanillas did.”

Cranley spoke: “The Americans will bring havoc to the world.”

“Your world,” said Madeleine.

“Which you enjoyed for many years; which our daughter will grow up in. I’ve dedicated an entire career to preserving the country, to buttressing its future. Only a fool would give it up for this festering island.”

“But if the two of you came together,” said Abner.

“Do you know what Hitler calls the United States? ‘The principal competitor of the British Empire.’ The Colonial Office agrees. So do Halifax and Eden—”

“Not Churchill,” said Madeleine, recalling his speeches after the invasion of Rhodesia and his appeals across the Atlantic.

“Whose mother was American. Churchill never accepted his failure at Dunkirk; belligerence is his compensation. Worse, he has a clear grasp of our shortcomings.” Cranley puckered his mouth as though he’d swallowed a dose of vinegar. “Britain is weaker than we dare admit: economically, militarily. Kongo was supposed to be a snap war, over by Christmas. Instead, our victory in Elisabethstadt only proved the limit of our reach. If America sallies forth, it will be the end of us. The colonies will start peeling away. Either the United States will fill our footsteps, or calls for independence will ring loud. The empire will face years of decline.”

His tone became anguished, aggressive. “And who benefits?”

“Together you could defeat the Germans,” retorted her brother. “Free Madagaskar.”

Cranley shot him the look he reserved for disciplining the servants. “Taft swore to preserve America’s isolationism. Neither he nor his nation wishes to intervene, despite the pleas of the American Jewish Committee. Our duty is to ensure that position.” He contemplated this. “The world is like a marriage: add a third party and what worked well for so long collapses.”

Abner was insistent. “But what if America—”

Cranley rounded on him. “Do you really want to have this argument?” Madeleine’s brother fell silent. “Washington’s great gift is its neutrality. There is nothing more to say.”

“What about the troops from the Far East? Salois told us you were going to bring thousands to fight in Kongo. He saw your forward station.”

“Another necessary deception, to convince him of our sincerity. So long as America is not drawn in, Africa will remain in a deadlock between us and the Germans. From deadlocks come negotiations, settlements. Stability. The world balanced between two pillars; that’s all I want. We will return Elisabethstadt in exchange for a guarantee of…”

While he continued to hold forth, Madeleine glanced at Burton. The worst of the bleeding had stopped; his split cheek was cherry red and puffing up. He appeared vigilant, absorbing the details of the room for anything that might help their escape, despite the rifle in his back. He gave her a furtive, reassuring nod, but there was little doubt about what would happen next. She felt hot whips of panic. No matter how she was threatened, she would refuse to watch.

Cranley caught the exchange between them.

“She never loved you,” he said sharply. “Not in the way she loved me. She used you as a diversion, a means of escape, but she never loved you. Tell him,” he commanded. “I want to hear you say it.”

“It’s not true,” she replied.

“Tell him.”

“The three of us know it.”

“One word from me, and your mother and sister will be on a plane to Tana.”

Was that going to be the rest of her life? A plane fueled and ready every time she disagreed or demurred? Or didn’t show enough enthusiasm for her imprisonment? Or glanced murderously at a knife while eating dinner? How trivial could her misdemeanors become: If she wore the wrong earrings or shade of lipstick? Heels that were too high, or too low, or too anything?

“They’re only words, Leni,” said Abner without conviction.

She thought of the twins. From those brief seconds when she’d held them she could recall every crease of their faces, the coral-and-quince gleam of their skin, the crinkles that were their mouths. When she recalled her mother or Leah, all she pictured were shadows and a hazy spin of guilt. “I lost them a long time ago. You can’t threaten me with them.”

“Then why spend so many years searching for them?”

“Burton’s my family.” She spoke steadily. “You can take me back to London, but you’ll never make me say it.”

The words bit Cranley. He aimed his pistol at Abner. “You harangued the clerks at the Colonial Office for the slightest detail about them,” he reminded Madeleine. “Anything to confirm that the Weisses were alive. You won’t sacrifice them now.”

She said nothing.

“Perhaps you think I’m bluffing.”

“Leni!” entreated her brother. “Don’t be so stubborn.”

The report of the gun was deafening. The bullet slammed Abner against the window, leaving a messy butterfly on the glass as he slid down it. He landed on his front, elbows at awkward angles.

Madeleine broke free of the soldier’s grip and rushed to her brother. She rolled him over: his glasses were twisted across his forehead, his grubby white shirt already wet. Her tied hands scrambled across his chest, trying to find the wound to stanch it; blood seemed to be pumping between every rib.

He tried to say something. Scarlet ran between the gaps of his teeth. She leaned close to hear; the decay of his molars was rank and coppery. All that emerged from him was an incoherent choking. Then he was limp, his pulse a memory.

Abner had gone to America.

Cranley cocked the pistol. After the blast, the click had an oddly intimate quality. He was pointing it at Burton’s heart.

“I never loved him,” she said mechanically.

“To him, not me.”

Burton was a blur. “I never loved you.”

Cranley gave an unsatisfied humph. He eased the hammer back on the pistol, twirled it, and slipped it into his waistband. He addressed the soldier who had been holding her: “Go to the Mercedes. Make sure the cargo is secure and prepare us to leave.” He spoke to Madeleine: “We’re flying out of here.”