Greg Iles - Black Cross

Brigadier Smith had stumbled upon today’s lead quite by accident. While lunching at his club, he’d overheard a discussion at a nearby table that tweaked his mental radar. A staff officer was telling a story about a young German Jew who’d fled to Palestine before the war and become a Zionist guerrilla fighter. Apparently, this young fellow had just blackmailed his way into a passage from Haifa to London, by promising to reveal guerilla techniques used by the Haganah to terrorize the British occupation forces in Palestine. Due to arrive today, his solitary demand had been that he be granted an audience with the C-in-C of Bomber Command. He supposedly had a plan for single-handedly saving the Jews of Europe. The terrorist would get an audience, the officer joked, but not quite the one he expected. Smith had listened long enough to learn the young Jew’s name and the address of the meeting, then driven to Baker Street and wired an old friend in Jerusalem to see if there was a file on a Mr. Jonas Stern.

There was. And the more Smith learned, the more intrigued he’d become. At twenty-five, Jonas Stern had been twice decorated by the British Army for his exploits guiding their forces in North Africa. Yet he was wanted by the British military police for crimes against His Majesty’s forces in Palestine, as a terrorist of the feared Haganah. He had less than five pounds to his name, but carried a bounty of one thousand Arab dinars on his head. The responding officer added a postscript, informing Smith that Jonas Stern was the prime suspect in three separate murders, though as yet no one had gathered sufficient evidence to try him.

Smith turned at the sound of voices in the corridor behind him. An armed guard entered first, followed by a tall suntanned young man wearing shackles on his hands. Smith registered a lean, angular face and piercing black eyes, then Jonas Stern was past him and moving toward the officers who waited at the front of the room. Stern carried what appeared to be an oilcloth-wrapped package under one arm. Last through the door was a shorter man wearing the light khaki uniform and crimson sunburn of a British officer serving in the Middle East. Smith followed the group up the aisle and took a seat at the side of the room, where he could see more clearly.

The senior officer, General John Little, addressed the sunburned Englishman. “Captain Owen?”

“Yes, sir. I’m terribly sorry we’re late. We’d have been here yesterday if it weren’t for the U-boats.”

General Little looked down his nose at Owen. “Well, you’re here now. Let’s begin. Is this the notorious Mr. Stern?”

“Yes, sir. Er . . . I wonder if it might be possible for me to remove his handcuffs now?”

A florid-faced major seated to the general’s right said, “Not just yet, Captain. He is a wanted fugitive, after all.”

Duff Smith focused on the man who had spoken, a staff intelligence major of rather modest achievements.

“I am Major Dickson,” the man went on. “You’ve got a lot of cheek coming into this building. In case you don’t know, you’re the leading suspect in a rash of Arab house-bombings around Jerusalem, thefts of British lend-lease arms, not to mention the murder of a British military policeman in Jerusalem in 1942. The only reason we agreed to see you is that you saved Captain Owen’s life at Tobruk. You probably don’t know, but Captain Owen’s father had quite a distinguished career in the Welsh Guards.”

Jonas Stern said nothing.

“Captain Owen tells us you’ve got some daring plan for single-handedly winning the war in Europe. Is that right?”

“No.”

“It’s a bloody good thing,” Dickson snapped. “I should think Monty can handle the invasion without any help from the likes of you!”

“Hear, hear,” chimed the other major, who was seated on General Little’s left.

Stern took a deep breath. “I’d like to state for the record that the officers that I requested be here are not present.”

Major Dickson’s face went completely scarlet. “If you think Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris has nothing better to do than listen to the ranting of a bloody Zionist terrorist—”

“Clive,” General Little interrupted. “Mr. Stern, we have gathered here at some considerable inconvenience to hear what you have to say. You would do well to get on with it.”

Brigadier Smith watched the young Jew try awkwardly to slide the package that was under his arm into his cuffed hands.

“Bloody waste of time,” muttered Major Dickson.

“Mr. Stern,” General Little said with seemingly paternal concern, “do you mind my asking if Moshe Shertok or Chaim Weizmann know you are in London?”

“They don’t.”

“I thought not. You see, Mr. Stern, there are proper channels for pursuing matters relating to European Jews. His Majesty’s Government generously maintains excellent relations with the Jewish Agency here in London. Messrs. Weizmann and Shertok are the men you should be seeing about this matter. And I think you will find, having done so, that they are doing all in their power to help the European Jewry.”

General Little waited what he considered to be a suitable time for his wisdom to be assimilated, then said, “Have I put your mind at rest, Mr. Stern?”

“You’ve done nothing of the kind,” Stern replied. He took a step closer to the table. “I’m well aware of the efforts of Shertok, Weizmann, and the Jewish Agency. They have the best of intentions, I’m sure. But I have not come here to plead for Palestinian entry certificates for trapped Jews, or to ask you to declare them protected British persons, or to beg you to buy their freedom with war materiel. I don’t believe any of that will be done. General, I have come here to speak to you, to military men, about a purely military solution.”

Duff Smith pricked up his ears. As the tall young man gathered himself to deliver his appeal, Smith noted a certain self-possession, a centeredness that was remarkable in one so young. It was the mark of the natural soldier — or agent.

Stern gestured with the package in his shackled hands. “The depositions in this file contain eyewitness accounts of a program of mass extermination being carried out by the Nazis at four concentration camps in Germany and occupied Poland. I have precise tallies of the dead and detailed descriptions of the killing methods employed by the Nazis, from mass shootings and electrocutions to the most widely practiced method: death by poison gas and subsequent cremation of the corpses.”

General Little glanced uncomfortably at Major Dickson. “May I see those reports, Mr. Stern?”

Stern took a step forward, but Little raised his hand. “Please do not approach the table,” he said coolly. “Sergeant Gilchrist?”

A military policeman took the folder and carried it to the general. Little opened it and briefly scanned the papers inside. “Mr. Stern,” he said, “do you have any evidence that this information is accurate? Other than the testimony of other Jews, I mean.”

“General, reports of Jewish deaths in the hundreds of thousands have appeared in the London Times and Manchester Guardian , sometimes quoting the exact names and locations of death camps. I believe one such story even appeared in the New York Times . What I do not understand is why the Allies still refuse to do anything about them.”

General Little brushed the edge of his neat gray mustache with his left forefinger. “ I believe,” he said with cold precision, “that you have accomplished what you set out to do here. I can assure you that these reports will be given all the attention they deserve.”

Jonas Stern snorted in contempt. “General, I have not begun to accomplish what I came here to do. I’ve given you those reports merely to justify the desperate action I am about to ask you to undertake on behalf of the Jewish people.”