Greg Iles - Black Cross

Lindemann glanced suddenly at his watch. “Good Lord, Winston, you’re right.” The tall don gathered up his hat and coat and started for the door, only at the last moment remembering that he was leaving the presence of the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. He turned and tipped his hat to Eisenhower.

“Godspeed, General,” he said, and was gone.

5

Dwight D. Eisenhower furiously smoked a cigarette at the very window where Churchill had awaited his arrival. During the past forty minutes, he had sat mostly in silence, chain-smoking Lucky Strikes while the prime minister painted nightmare scenarios of the eleventh-hour appearance of Sarin and Soman on the D-day beaches. Finally, Eisenhower turned from the window.

“Frankly, Mr. Prime Minister, I don’t know why you came to me with this. You know I don’t have direct control over the strategic bombing forces. I’ve been fighting for that control for weeks, and you’ve been resisting me. Are you changing your position?”

Seated in a wing chair several feet away, Churchill stuck out his lower lip as if pondering an unfamiliar question. “I’m sure we can come to some reasonable compromise, General.”

“Well, until we do, I couldn’t make the decision to bomb those stockpiles even if I wanted to. Besides, this is a political matter. It’s a question for President Roosevelt.”

Churchill sighed heavily. “General, I spoke to Franklin about this matter in Cairo. I had an early report about Sarin. But I don’t believe he fully grasped the threat. He seems to think the tide has turned sufficiently in our favor that no single German secret weapon could stop it. The air marshals are making similar noises, and they resent my meddling. That’s why I came to you. As the man in charge of OVERLORD, I thought you couldn’t fail to see the danger.”

“Oh, I see the danger, all right.”

“Thank God.” Churchill spoke quickly. “The mind recoils. Rommel could bury canisters of Soman weeks before our troops arrive, then detonate them from a safe distance. Half a dozen planes spraying aerosol-borne Soman could stop your entire force on the sand. D day would be a disaster.”

Eisenhower raised his hand. “Why do you think Hitler will deploy nerve gas on the invasion beaches if he didn’t use it at Stalingrad?”

Churchill answered with confidence. “Because Stalingrad, however terrible a defeat, was not the end. He could still take the long view. But Hitler now faces the lodgement of an Allied army on the Continent. If we breach his Atlantic Wall, it means the end for him, and he knows it. Also, there is some question as to whether the Germans had effective protective gear for their own troops at that time. Remember, Sarin and Soman can pass through human skin. One gust of wind blowing the wrong way could decimate a German battalion as easily as one of ours. It happened often enough in the Great War. But given the stakes of the invasion, will Hitler hesitate to sacrifice his own men? Not for a moment. I tell you, that devil will stop at nothing.”

Eisenhower found Churchill’s eyes in the gloom. “Mr. Prime Minister, at this stage of the game, we’ve got to see Hitler straight. We can’t afford not to.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“I mean I know for a fact that in 1940 you planned to use poison gas on the Germans if they reached the beaches of England.”

Churchill did not deny it.

“So,” Eisenhower plowed on, “let’s stop pretending we have some special moral obligation to stop Hitler from using gas under circumstances where we would probably do the same.”

“But that is precisely my point! Hitler will soon be in the very circumstances in which we would resort to gas ourselves. Can we afford to hope he will not?”

Eisenhower violently stubbed out his cigarette. “How the hell did we get into this mess?”

“I hate to say it, General, but it goes back to the non-competition agreements signed by Standard Oil and I. G. Farben in the 1920s. The arrangement was that Standard would stay out of chemicals if Farben stayed out of the oil business. Both companies held to that deal up to and even after the outbreak of war. It’s the Germans who’ve revolutionized commercial chemistry. We have nothing to compare with the Farben conglomerate.”

“What about French scientists?”

Churchill shook his head sadly. “Hitler alone holds this card.” He picked up a pen and began doodling on a notepad. “May I speak with absolute frankness, General?”

“I wish to God you would.”

“Duff Smith and I have a theory. We think Hitler hasn’t used Sarin yet for one simple reason. He is afraid of gas . He was temporarily blinded by mustard gas in the Great War, you know. Made quite a thing of it in Mein Kampf . He may well have an exaggerated fear of our chemical abilities. We believe the real danger isn’t Hitler at all, but Heinrich Himmler. Sarin and Soman are being tested at camps run by Himmler’s SS. The sample of Sarin came from a remote SS camp built solely for the purpose of manufacturing and testing nerve gases. Himmler also controls much of the Nazi intelligence apparatus. Therefore, he is the man most likely to know we possess no nerve gases of our own. Duff and I think Himmler’s plan is to perfect his nerve gases and protective clothing, then present the whole show to Hitler at the moment he most needs it — to stave off our invasion. At a single stroke Himmler could save the Reich and raise himself to an unassailable position as successor to the Nazi throne.”

Eisenhower pointed a fresh cigarette at Churchill. “Now that , Mr. Prime Minister, is a motive that makes sense. Do you have proof of this?”

“Duff’s Polish friends have a contact very close to the commandant of one of these camps. This agent believes a tactical demonstration of Soman — a demonstration for the Führer — may be scheduled in a matter of weeks, possibly even days.”

“I see. Mr. Prime Minister, let me digress a moment. Professor Lindemann said your people are working around the clock to copy Sarin. I assume that is strictly for retaliatory purposes?”

Churchill took a deep breath. “Not if you agree with me, General. I believe there is an option more desirable than bombing the German stockpiles. I’m speaking of a demonstration raid. If our scientists succeed in copying Sarin, I believe we should launch a limited attack with our gas as soon as possible. Only by doing this will we leave no doubt whatever in Himmler’s mind that he is wrong in his estimation of our capabilities and our resolve.”

Eisenhower looked at Churchill with unveiled amazement. The cold-bloodedness of the British continually stunned him. He cleared his throat. “But so far your scientists’ efforts to copy Sarin have been unsuccessful, correct?”

Churchill turned up his palms. “They’re dabbling with something called fluorophosphates, but progress is slow.”

Eisenhower turned to the window and stared out over the snowswept English landscape. In the dark it looked as quiet as a cemetery. “Mr. Prime Minister,” he said at length, “I’m afraid I can’t support you on this. Neither the bombing nor the . . . the demonstration raid.” Hearing Churchill’s soft groan, Eisenhower turned. “Wait — please hear me out. I deeply respect your judgment. You have been right many times when everyone else was wrong. But things aren’t so clear cut as you’re trying to make them seem. If we bomb the German stockpiles and nerve gas plants, we tip our hand to Hitler. We show him what we fear most. Also, by bombing the stockpiles we indirectly use nerve gas on the German people. That’s practically the same as first use. What would then stop Hitler from using Soman against our troops?”