Greg Iles - Black Cross

Had Schörner brought more trucks into the forest?

The SS field car broke out of the trees. McConnell sighted in on the dim taillights and shook the sweat from his eyes, his heart pounding with the futility of his effort. But as his finger touched the trigger, he heard something pop in the sky high above him. The hillside came alive with light as surely as if God had thrown a switch in heaven. He had no idea who had fired the flare, but his eye instantly oriented him to distance by pylons, treetops, the stretch of road. . .

He led the field car high and pulled the trigger.

“Rifle fire!” Major Schörner shouted, his eyes turned skyward in an attempt to locate the flare. “Rifle fire in the trees! Move south!”

Led by the dog, Schörner and his men crashed through the trees toward the sound of the gunfire.

McConnell’s second bullet tore through the canvas roof of the field car and into the neck of an SS man in the backseat. The storm trooper squealed like a dying pig. Blood sprayed over his comrades, who immediately ducked below the windows, assuming they were being fired on from the sides. Four seconds later another slug knocked off the car’s wing mirror. The driver had hardly registered the impact when McConnell’s fifth bullet drilled down through the trunk panel and punctured the fuel tank. Gasoline funneled onto the road behind the car, and the sparks from the overheated exhaust quickly ignited the mixture.

The tank blew with a dull crump like a mortar shot, breaking the rear axle and dropping the back of the car onto the road with a metallic screech. The SS men who were still alive dove through the doors before it stopped, leaving their wounded comrades behind in the burning vehicle.

Anna shut her eyes and swerved, stunned by the flash behind her. She had no idea what could have destroyed the field car. Could it have hit a land mine? She skidded back onto the road and took her foot off the accelerator, realizing that her diversionary sacrifice was no longer required. What should she do? What could she do? Go back to the pylon? It was too late to help McConnell now. What about the camp? If all went as planned, it would soon be saturated with gas. She let the VW coast forward, her mind spinning with confusion.

And then she remembered the children.

She had the gas suit. She had the pistol.

And she had a debt to pay.

“What the bloody hell was that?” Harry Sumner asked.

“No idea, sir. Small explosion.”

“Well, damn it? Is this the place?”

The navigator took his eyes off the swirl of flame and scanned the land below. As the lone parachute flare drifted away on the wind, he caught sight of something like a metal cage on a hilltop to the northwest.

“There it is, Harry! The power station! This is it! One hundred percent sure!”

Squadron Leader Sumner pressed his back into the seat and banked the Mosquito.

“Second pass,” he said into his mike. “Leader marking with all flares.”

McConnell pulled himself back up onto the crossarm and turned his attention to the business at hand. In the dying light of the flare, the top of the pylon looked just as Stern had described it. The twenty-foot crossarm spanned two thick support legs and jutted out a few feet on either side. Six wires passed over the crossarm in three pairs, one pair at each end of the arm and one pair in the middle. Three porcelain insulators shaped like upside-down dinner plates kept the wires from coming into direct contact with the crossarm.

According to Stern, one wire in each pair was live and one merely an auxiliary. The gas cylinders themselves had been suspended from the auxiliary wire at the end of the crossarm nearest McConnell, about five feet away. The question-mark-shaped suspension bars curved up and out from the roller-wheels, then back under the wire and down to the cylinders. McConnell saw that Stern had removed the two cylinders nearest the crossarm for use on the SS bomb shelter. But the rubber rope that would pull the cotter pins from the six remaining rollers was just within reach. Stern had wrapped it around the head of the cylinder nearest the pylon.

McConnell shinnied out to the end of the crossarm, trying not to tear the crotch of his gas suit. He stopped just short of the porcelain insulator. Following the rubber rope with his eyes, he realized that when he pulled it, the cotter pins that held the roller-wheels in position would be jerked out in reverse sequence, releasing the cylinder farthest from the pylon first, and so on until the cylinder nearest him had been freed.

The shouts below were getting closer. As darkness settled over the hillside again, McConnell fastened his safety belt around the crossarm, leaned out, took hold of the rubber rope and gave one sharp tug.

The rope stretched, but nothing came loose.

He yanked harder, and almost lost his balance when the cotter pin pulled free. The rubber rope sang like a plucked bass string as the cylinder farthest from him began to roll.

McConnell blinked in disbelief. There were two cylinders rolling down the wire, and they were quickly gathering speed. Keep some space between them, Stern had told him. He had pulled too hard! He began counting slowly — meaning to count to fifteen — but before he even reached five he noticed red taillights nearing the Recknitz River.

Anna.

She was still driving toward Totenhausen. What the hell was she doing? Hadn’t she seen the SS car explode? She must have! What did she think she could do in the camp? Staring down the hill in a panic, McConnell realized that Stern might still be alive somewhere down there. Was that it? Was Anna trying to rescue Stern? If so, she wouldn’t even get past the gate guards unless—

With the courage of despair McConnell dropped the rubber rope and shinnied back toward the support pole he had climbed. Passing it, he continued toward the center of the crossarm and stopped just short of the middle insulator. Five inches from his crotch ran the center auxiliary wire, just beyond that the live one.

He felt a strong vibration in the crossarm caused by the current in the live wire. He was too close. He scooted backward until he was two feet from the center pair of wires.

Unslinging the rifle from his shoulder, he took the muzzle of the barrel in his right hand, leaned forward, and extended the stock away from him until it hovered six inches above the pylon’s far support pole. His right arm quivered from the weight of the old rifle. He let the stock down until the breech end of the barrel rested on the crossarm, just a few inches from the far support pole. Very carefully, he lowered the muzzle in his hand to within four inches of the live center wire.

Then he shut his eyes and dropped the metal barrel onto the wire.

“Mein Gott!” screamed one of Schörner’s soldiers. “The bomb!”

Wolfgang Schörner stood motionless in the snow, stunned by the blue-white flash that had strobed in the forest ahead of him. He had heard many bombs in the past, but the explosion he’d just heard was like none he had ever known. The flash had burst high and in front of him, but the sound had come from behind, from the direction of the transformer station. Just after the flash, he had sensed more than seen a blazing white light pass high over his head, moving rapidly toward the transformer station. Then he’d heard a brassy whooom , and then — at least a full second later — the detonation.

Four distinct events.

Then he understood. There was no bomb. Somehow, someone had faulted one of the power lines above them. And they had done it in such a way that the main transformers had exploded. Totenhausen would be without electricity for a few seconds, but the backup transformers and lines would automatically kick on. Schörner waited to hear some telltale sound that this had happened.