Greg Iles - Black Cross

Anna raised her eyes to Stern. He nodded at her, then moved toward the door. As his fingers touched the handle, she said, “ Auf Wiedersehen , Herr Stern.”

He stepped out into the night.

Anna pulled a strand of hair out of her eyes. “He looked like a boy,” she said. “At the end.”

“He is a boy,” McConnell replied. “A boy who probably won’t live the night.”

“He’s also a killer. He’s a match for Sturm or any of them, that one.”

McConnell nodded. “He has to be.”

Airman Peter Bottomley watched the small single-engine plane float down through the dark Swedish sky and onto the abandoned airstrip. It taxied right up to the Junkers bomber and stopped, engine running. The side door opened and a one-armed man climbed down to the tarmac wearing a severe black business suit. He waved to the pilot. The light plane taxied away. The passenger hurried over to where Bottomley stood waiting.

“How was Stockholm, Brigadier?”

“Same as ever,” said Smith. “Thick with intrigue, damned little of which will ever amount to anything. Any word from Butler and Wilkes?”

“None, sir. But Bletchley got an unconfirmed report that the Wojiks have gone missing.”

A shadow of concern crossed the brigadier’s face. “Missing?”

“Apparently someone from the SHEPHERD network reported that Scarlett called the Wojiks for a crash meeting. The Wojiks left for the meeting, but never returned.”

Smith tugged at one end of his gray mustache. “Schörner may have tumbled to Weitz and the Kaas woman, then used them to draw the Wojiks in. He might even have bagged Butler and Wilkes.” Smith looked down at his dour suit. “Looks like I’m dressed for the occasion.”

“Bad luck, sir.”

Smith sniffed and looked southward across the frozen Baltic. A black channel had been smashed through the coastal ice, but it was rapidly filling with small floes. “We don’t know for certain,” he said. “Still no Ultra traffic indicating anything out of the ordinary at Totenhausen? No foiled commando attack or anything like that?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, this is the fourth night. The wind must have been calm enough for the attack by now, yet Butler and Wilkes have not attacked. The gas is nearly one hundred hours old now. It looks like they’ve failed, whatever the reason.” He patted his pockets for his pipe. “Well . . . with a little luck on the navigation, GENERAL SHERMAN will wipe out all trace of the mission. Butler and Wilkes might never have been there at all. Poor bastards.”

Bottomley raised an eyebrow and said with black humor, “Gone with the wind, eh sir?”

“Have a little respect, Bottomley.”

“Do you still want me to monitor Butler’s emergency frequency tonight? Once the Mosquitoes leave the main force, they’ll be observing strict radio silence. We couldn’t stop them if we wanted to. If you think Butler and Wilkes are done for—”

“Of course you monitor the frequency, man! Right up to the minute the bombs fall.” Duff Smith’s voice was edged with anger. “No matter how bleak it looks, one never knows in this business. Anyway, we might learn something about why the mission failed.”

“Yes, sir.”

Smith worried at his mustache again. “I thought Stern had it in him to pull it off,” he murmured. “Blast.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Nothing, Bottomley. Let’s take the radio down to that hut by the beach. You never know who might crawl up out of the surf.”

“Very good, sir.”

Jonas Stern wheeled Sabine Hoffman’s Mercedes up to the front gate of Totenhausen like Lucifer arriving in a black chariot. He’d seen the spotlights when he was still a mile away, like white fingers exploring the forest, and he had known then that trying to sneak back in would have been impossible.

He had to brazen it out.

As one of the six SS men guarding the gate approached the Mercedes, Stern prayed that Anna Kaas had given him an accurate description of the command situation at the camp. He rolled down his window and waited for the guard to arrive.

When the brown-uniformed SS private saw the SD uniform and rank badge, he reacted exactly as Stern hoped he would. He snapped to attention with eyes as big as spent bullets.

“Step up to the window, Schütze,” Stern said in an offhand voice.

“ Zu befehl , Standartenführer!”

“I am Standartenführer Ritter Stern, from Berlin. I have come here to make an arrest. Possibly several arrests.”

The private’s face lost what little color it had possessed.

“I want no one but SD personnel to enter or leave through this gate for the next hour. That includes Sturmbannführer Wolfgang Schörner. Do you understand?”

“ Jawohl , Sturmbannführer!”

“Stop shouting. You will tell the other guards nothing. You will tell Hauptscharführer Sturm nothing. I shall speak to Herr Doktor Brandt and no one else. Anyone who interferes with these arrests will find himself in the cellars of Prinz-Albrechtstrasse by morning. Have I made myself clear?”

The private was too stunned to muster enough voice to answer, but he clicked his boot heels and nodded.

“Get back to your post and open the gate.”

The private fled back to his comrades and obeyed the order.

Stern put the Mercedes into gear and rolled slowly forward into Totenhausen. The headquarters building looked deserted. He drove around it and onto the Appellplatz. Directly ahead of him stood the hospital, to his left the inmate blocks. Two heavy trucks were parked near the fence surrounding the large barn to his right, the barn Brigadier Smith had told him housed Brandt’s lab and gas factory. Men wearing white coats were loading boxes into the trucks.

Stern drove straight on to the hospital and parked on the side away from the factory. His watch read 7:16 P.M. On schedule. He unscrewed the SOE-machined silencer from the Schmeisser and slipped it into his right boot, then got out of the Mercedes and walked around the hospital.

The alley was empty.

Halfway up it, he turned left and moved quite deliberately down the four steps that led to the half-sunken E-Block. The door worked by means of a steel wheel set in its face, like the wheel on a submarine hatch. The wheel turned under his hand; as Anna had predicted, the door was open. Warmer air ruffled his hair as he stepped inside. A faint bluish light passed through the porthole windows set high in the walls of the steel room. Only now did he realize how desperate was their plan. The E-Block felt exactly like what it was: a chamber of death. It was a supreme irony that in just over forty minutes it would be the one place in Totenhausen where life could survive.

If the British gas worked, he reminded himself.

He closed the door, checked to make sure the alley was empty, then climbed the icy steps and walked toward the inmate blocks. He wondered how much the gate guard had told his comrades about the man in the Mercedes. Under normal circumstances, the presence of an SD colonel would move quickly up the SS grapevine. But these were not normal circumstances. How long would it take the news to reach Wolfgang Schörner?

There was a sentry standing before the wire gate of the fence surrounding the six inmate blocks. Approaching him, Stern realized that he was walking beneath the mutilated body of a naked woman. Greta Müller. He erased the Goyaesque image from his mind and pulled out the leather case containing his forged papers, flipping it open before he reached the sentry.

“I need to speak to a prisoner,” he said with perfunctory courtesy. “A Jewess. It’s a matter of Reich security. I’m not expecting trouble, so you may remain at your post. If you hear women screaming, ignore it. If you hear a man shout for help, that will be me. Come running.”