Greg Iles - Black Cross

“You heard her!” Stern shouted. “She’s planning to stay here tonight. We can’t risk her ruining everything. She’s got to be eliminated.”

“She’s my sister, for God’s sake!” Anna screamed from the foyer.

“She’s a Nazi!” Stern yelled back.

McConnell held up his hands to keep Stern from charging the foyer door. “You can’t kill her sister, Jonas!”

“I can’t?”

McConnell pushed him back. “Look, the attack is only three hours away. We can tie her in the basement. She won’t get out.”

Stern looked past him. “Too much depends on this, Doctor.”

McConnell spoke very low. “If you kill her, there’s no telling how Anna might react.”

“We don’t need Anna anymore either,” Stern said, his eyes cold. “All we need is this cottage.”

McConnell lowered his hands but leaned close to Stern. “If you hurt Anna,” he said, “I will kill you. And if you manage to kill me first, and I don’t see that gas factory, Brigadier Smith will have your balls for breakfast. You understand? There’s no need for more bloodshed. Let’s just tie her in the basement.”

“You can’t hide here anymore anyway, you bastard!” Anna shouted at Stern. “Brandt ordered a house-to-house search of Dornow!”

McConnell and Stern looked at each other, their mouths open.

“How long do we have?” Stern asked.

When Anna didn’t respond, McConnell said, “Anna, please, how long?”

“Sturm’s men could be in the village already.”

A knock on the door silenced them all.

All but Sabine. She screamed at the pounding. “ Help me! Help !”

McConnell jerked Anna off of her sister and dragged Sabine into the kitchen.

“A Kubelwagen!” Stern said from the window. “They must have coasted up the lane! Get your rifle, Doctor!”

Stern pushed Anna up to the front door and motioned for her to reply. He stood behind her with the Schmeisser, ready to spray the entire foyer with bullets if necessary.

“Who’s there?” Anna called, her voice near to breaking.

“Weitz,” came the muffled reply.

Anna sagged against the door in relief. She motioned Stern back into the kitchen, then opened the door.

Ariel Weitz pushed past her and closed the door behind him. “What the hell goes on here?” he asked. “Who screamed? Whose Mercedes is that?”

“My sister’s. What are you doing here? Are you crazy? Sturm and his men could be here any minute.”

“You’re the one who’s crazy,” Weitz snapped. “Taking Greta’s car? Now, take me to them.”

“Who?”

“ Them . The commandos, or whoever is going to make the attack. I’ve got to speak to them.”

Anna looked anxiously over her shoulder.

Stern stepped up to the door of the small foyer with his Schmeisser leveled. “Who are you?”

Weitz looked at the SD uniform in shock. “I am Ariel Weitz, Standartenführer. I apologize, I’ve obviously come to the wrong house by mistake.”

“He’s no SD officer!” Sabine screamed. “Help me!”

Weitz forced himself not to look beyond the Nazi specter before him.

“You’re Scarlett, aren’t you?” Stern said. “Smith’s other agent in Totenhausen. It’s you who calls the Poles.”

Weitz looked to Anna with petrified eyes, then back at Stern.

“You’ve come to the right house,” Stern assured him. “What have you to tell me? Hurry!”

“It’s all right,” Anna said.

“Well . . . Brandt has postponed the house-to-house search. He pulled in all the patrols.”

Stern’s eyes narrowed. “Why would he do that?”

“Sturm’s dogs dug up more British parachutes near the Dornow road. Cargo chutes this time. The rains uncovered them. Sturm came back with the parachutes right after Anna left. Schörner wanted to cordon off the whole village, but Brandt overruled him. Brandt thinks that by searching for commandos, Schörner would be leaving him and his lab open to attack. So they’re sealing off the camp.”

Stern closed his eyes for an instant, the only sign that this news had disturbed him. “How did you get out?”

“Brandt sent me to Dornow to get the only four technicians who are not on duty at the factory. I heard him and Schörner discussing plans to dismantle the lab tonight.”

“Dismantle the lab? Tonight? Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know, but. . . ”

“But what?”

Weitz scratched his chin. “Well, if taking apart the lab means they are moving tomorrow, and the Raubhammer test is tomorrow, what can they be planning to do with the prisoners?”

Stern nodded. “Anything else?”

“No, Standartenführer.”

“Stop calling me that. You are Jewish?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If you come out of the war alive, you should come to Palestine. We could use you there.”

Weitz’s hand went to his mouth. “ You . . . you are a Jew?”

“Yes. And I want you to do something for me, if you can.”

“Anything.”

“When the attack comes, some of the SS will probably run for their bomb shelter. And that shelter might well protect them. Unless of course some enterprising soul found a way to booby-trap it.”

A slow smile crept over Weitz’s face. “It would be my pleasure, Standartenführer.”

“Good man. Now go. Get back to your work. And think of a reason why you stopped here, in case anyone saw you.”

Weitz bowed his head and hurried away from the door.

Stern turned back to the kitchen. McConnell was restraining Sabine from behind in a wrestling hold.

Before Stern could speak, Anna said, “Brandt gassed your father.”

Stern’s face went white. “What are you telling me?” he whispered. “My father is dead?”

Anna held up a forefinger. “Give me your word that you will not kill my sister, or I tell you nothing.”

“You’re lying.”

“I saw him walk into the E-Block with my own eyes,” Anna said.

McConnell heard the truth of it in her voice.

“All right,” said Stern. “You can take her to the basement and tie her. Now — tell me what you know .”

“Your father survived. It was a chemical-suit test. Your father wore one. I saw him walk out alive.”

Without even waiting for a response, Anna grabbed Sabine by the arm and pulled her to the cellar door. Sabine fought no more. It was plain even to her that Stern would shoot on the slightest provocation.

“You’d better gag her,” Stern called after them. “If I have to listen to any more mewling about Nazi high society, I’ll kill her just to shut her up.”

McConnell collapsed into a kitchen chair. “You heard that guy. They’ve sealed the camp. Schörner’s expecting something. You’ll never get in there tonight. You won’t be able to warn the prisoners to go into the E-Block.”

“I’ll get in,” Stern said with absolute conviction.

“How?”

Stern’s boot heels fired together with the crack of a small caliber pistol. His voice took on a saber edge. “It appears that Standartenführer Ritter Stern from Berlin is going to have to make a security inspection.”

40

At 6:00 P.M. Greenwich Mean Time, twelve RAF Mosquito bombers lifted off from Skitten field, a division of Wick air base in Scotland, and headed across the North Sea toward Occupied Europe. Their code name was GENERAL SHERMAN. The Mosquitoes took off just behind an RAF Pathfinder force which was leading a wave of Lancasters to the oil plants at Magdeburg, Germany. Each specially modified Mosquito carried 4,000 pounds of bombs in its belly.

GENERAL SHERMAN would remain with the Pathfinder force across the Netherlands, but when the Pathfinders turned south near Cuxhaven, the Mosquitoes would continue east, past Rostock, to the mouth of the Recknitz River. Flying by dead reckoning, they would follow the river south, ticking off the villages as they went. When they passed Bad Sülze, they would follow the line of the river with their H 2S blind bombing radars until they sighted Dornow village. There, the leading aircraft would drop parachute flares to bathe the area in light. Then the second plane would mark the Aiming Point with brilliant-burning red Target Indicators.