Greg Iles - Black Cross

The little man’s eyes grew wide. “I know what is going to happen. But I have my own plans.”

“I knew it! You little bootlicker! You’ve been pretending all the time. Listen to me. My son has been taken by the SS. Unless he is freed, the attack will not take place.”

“Your son . . .? Your son is the Jewish Standartenführer?”

“Yes.”

“My God. Where is he now? In the cinema with the workers?”

“I don’t know. They’re probably interrogating him somewhere.” Avram shook Weitz’s neck. “You must free him! You know everything about this camp.”

Weitz looked furious at this interruption of his plans, but he nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. What are you going to do? Stand here and wait to die?”

Avram let go. “You just free my son.”

The moment Weitz turned back toward the hospital, Rachel Jansen stepped out of the shadows behind Avram. “Why were you talking to him?” she whispered. “He works for the SS.”

“Never mind. Are all the women in the children’s block?”

“Yes.” She held up the bundle in her arms. “And here is Hannah. Where is your son?”

Avram shook his head. “Taken. You’ll have to carry Hannah to the E-Block with you.”

Rachel moaned softly. Avram heard a tiny frightened voice in the bundled blanket. Rachel comforted the child in Dutch, then switched back to German. “What are we to do, Shoemaker? I cannot move the children with that sentry at the back gate. He will surely see us and raise the alarm.”

“Go back inside.”

“But the gas is coming!”

“Be ready to move quickly. I’ll be back here in one minute to get you. If I’m not, you’re on your own. Do what you think is best.”

Rachel grabbed his arm through the gateposts. “If you see your son anywhere, tell him to come and get Hannah. I beg you, Herr Stern!”

“I’ll tell him.”

Avram jerked back the bolt on the Schmeisser and started toward the back gate.

Jonas Stern tried to keep himself conscious as Sergeant Sturm worked on him. The man showed an aptitude for his job. He had enthusiasm, which was important. Physical torture was tiring work. The blows to the side of the head were the worst. Stern’s ears were ringing so loudly he could hardly think. He wanted to let go, to give in to unconsciousness. But he forced himself to keep awake. Because he had one advantage over his tormentor. He knew exactly what was about to happen to Totenhausen Camp. And perhaps — just perhaps — when the plastic explosive he had molded around the heads of the buried cylinders detonated, he would still be physically able to make a run for the main gate. But to do that he would have to be conscious. Not an easy thing when someone was trying to pound your brain into jelly. When Sergeant Sturm switched to the knife, he was almost grateful.

Avram Stern had not killed a human being since 1918, but he did not pause to debate the issue with himself. As he moved across the snow toward the sentry, he wondered how loud the report of the silenced Schmeisser would be. As a veteran of World War One, he found it difficult to believe anything could completely silence the report of a machine gun.

He decided to use the dagger.

He tried to walk confidently, arrogantly, swaggering the way the SS guards did. He concentrated on the sentry’s back. The man was standing just inside the gate, facing the trees. Avram thought of calling out softly so as not to startle him, but the man seemed oblivious. Avram looked down at the silver dagger in his hand. It would take a powerful stroke to penetrate a greatcoat and winter tunic. Jonas had made a great point of cutting the other sentry’s throat, but Avram had no training in such things. He fleetingly wished for a bayonet like the one he had carried in the Great War, or better yet a trusty sharpened spade, the weapon of choice for trench combat.

But this was a different war.

“Kamerad?” he called in a surprisingly natural voice. “Do you have a match?”

The sentry was startled, but when he saw the brown uniform he relaxed and reached into his greatcoat. “I could use a smoke myself,” he said with a nervous laugh. “That SD bastard scared the life out of me.”

As the match flared, the young sentry’s eyes played over Avram’s face. There was an instant of shared recognition. Avram Stern saw a boy for whom he had crafted a pair of soft slippers as a gift for a girlfriend; the sentry saw the middle-aged face of the shoemaker.

Avram’s arm seemed alive with rage as he drove the dagger straight up into the soft skin beneath the sentry’s chin. He felt a sudden shock in his wrist. The dagger point had driven cleanly through palate, sinuses, and brain and hit the roof of the sentry’s skull, stopping his thrust with the dagger’s hilt still three centimeters below the jaw. Looking straight into the wide blue eyes, Avram yanked the haft of the dagger once to the left, then let the body fall onto the snow.

He tried to dislodge the blade from the sentry’s head, but it was beyond his power. He sat the boy up against the fence, as if he had fallen asleep on guard duty. The haft of the dagger kept the head in a semi-upright position. Avram wiped his bloody hands on the sentry’s coat and started back toward the inmate blocks.

His watch read 7:48.

He almost fired his Schmeisser in panic when a group of silent shadows brushed past him in the darkness. Then he realized what was happening.

Rachel Jansen had started the migration to the E-Block.

44

The Cameron tartan flew like a bright flag from the strap of McConnell’s air tank harness as he carried it through the cottage door, Anna close on his heels.

“Wait!” he said. “It’s Stern!”

A half mile away a pair of headlights was moving across the flat stretch of road that led from the hills to Dornow. A second pair appeared out of the darkness at the foot of the hills, following the first.

“Are they chasing him?” McConnell asked anxiously.

“It’s not Stern,” Anna said in a flat voice. “It’s ten till eight now. If he was free, he’d be on the pylon. Look at the difference in those lights. That’s a field car out front with a troop truck behind. My God. They’re coming. Schörner must have caught Stern and broken him.”

She jerked the air cylinder off of McConnell’s shoulder and pulled him toward Greta’s Volkswagen. There, she dropped the cylinder in the rear seat and took four grenades from Stern’s leather bag.

“Get into the car!” she cried. “Get down on the floor! Hurry!”

“What the hell are you going to do?” McConnell asked.

“There’s only one road to the power station, and they’re on it. We can’t drive past them. I’m going to have to stand in the cottage door so that when they get here they’ll come straight for me. When they do, you—”

He grabbed her arms and shook her. “I’m not leaving you here to be killed!”

“Then we’ll both die for nothing.”

He could feel the rumble of the approaching vehicles. “There’s got to be another way!”

Anna glanced back at the oncoming headlights. “All right,” she said. She dropped the grenades back into the front seat. “Follow me!”

She raced into the cottage and switched on every light, then pulled open the cellar door and shouted, “Keep quiet, Sabine! There’s going to be shooting! You could be killed by mistake!”

While McConnell stared in bewilderment, she slammed the cellar door and pulled open a kitchen drawer, from which she took a revolver he had never seen.

“Stan Wojik gave it to me,” she said, pulling him into the bedroom.

A small door led onto the empty field behind the cottage. Anna went first, racing around the side of the building and dropping to her knees at the corner. McConnell followed more slowly under the weight of his suit and the Mauser rifle. As he reached the corner, she made a dash for the Volkswagen. He went after her, and was surprised to see her go for the driver’s seat.