Greg Iles - Black Cross

The rodent hung motionless in space.

“Damn!” McConnell said, pulling off his mask. He turned and watched his assistants pull dead rats from the other three footballs. He shook his head in frustration. “Dead rats. That’s my life for the last three months.”

“I don’t see any obvious signs of suffocation,” Brigadier Smith observed.

McConnell took a scalpel from a soapstone table and neatly sliced the rat’s throat. Then he squeezed its body to express arterial blood. “See that? The blood is cherry red, as if it were fully oxygenated. Cyanide attaches to the hemoglobin molecule in place of oxygen. A soldier will look like he’s in the bloom of health while he’s suffocating.”

While the assistants disposed of the rodents, Smith leaned closer. “I’d like to speak to you in private, Doctor. How about the Mitre Inn? We could take a room.”

“I’d prefer to talk here.” McConnell glanced over Smith’s shoulder at the silent stranger, then called to his assistants, “We’ll start back up after dinner.”

When the assistants had gone, Smith pulled up a chair and straddled it, resting his right arm on its back. The gesture emphasized his missing limb. “We’ve had some more disturbing news,” he said. “Out of Germany.”

“I’m all ears.”

“First, if you don’t mind, I’d like you to bring Mr. Stern here up to speed on the chemical warfare situation. He’s a Jew, originally from Germany. Fresh in from Palestine, if you can believe it. Gas isn’t his line. Just a brief overview. German nomenclature, if you please.”

“You’ve read the classification manual.”

“But you helped write it,” Smith said patiently. “I like my information from the horse’s mouth.”

McConnell directed his answer to Stern. “Four classes, designated by colored crosses. You just saw Blue Cross in action. White Cross is tear gas. Green Cross denotes chlorine, phosgene, di-phosgene, et cetera. They’re the oldest chemical weapons, but still first-rank battlefield choices. They kill by causing pulmonary edema — internal drowning. The last is Yellow Cross, which also dates back to World War One.” McConnell wiped his brow and spoke in a mechanical voice. “Yellow Cross denotes the ‘blister’ gases, or vesicants. Mustard . . . Lewisite. Highly persistent gases. Wherever they touch the body, they produce burns, blisters, and deep ulcers of the most painful kind. The body’s ability to heal is impaired, making the effects of Yellow Cross especially long lasting.”

“Thank you,” Smith said. “But you left out a class, I believe.”

McConnell’s eyes narrowed. “The last class has no cross classification,” he said carefully.

“As of yesterday it does. Black Cross.”

“Schwarzes Kreuz,” McConnell said softly. “A fitting name for a tool of the devil.”

“Come now, Doctor. If I didn’t know you were a scientist, I’d swear you were superstitious.”

“Get to the point, Brigadier. You didn’t drive up here from London to chat about gas classifications.”

Smith smiled gamely. “Quite right, Doctor. I drove up here to enlist you body and soul in the war effort.”

“What are you talking about?”

“As of last week, Sarin took second place in the Nazi arsenal. An even deadlier nerve agent is now being tested on human subjects inside Germany. It is called Soman . According to reports, Soman is exponentially more toxic than Sarin, and far more persistent.”

“I can hardly imagine anything more lethal than Sarin.”

“Oh, it exists. The Porton lads are going over the report now. To be frank, the threat posed by Soman has been deemed so dire that I’ve been authorized to send a team into Germany to disable the production plant and bring back a large sample.”

Stern cut his eyes at the brigadier.

“Into Germany ?” said McConnell. “But . . . why tell me?”

The Scotsman wove his lie into the cloth of the truth. “Because I want you to go in with them, Doctor. I’ve finally found the ideal job for you: a mission that is entirely defensive in nature. It’s the equivalent of preventive medicine.”

“There’s nothing defensive about sabotaging a nerve gas factory. You could send a cloud of death rolling right through the heart of Germany. You might as well call your mission a nerve gas attack.”

“That’s all the more reason for you to take part in the mission, Doctor. Having your expertise on the ground might prevent just such a disaster.”

“Frankly, Brigadier, I don’t believe you would perceive such an event as a disaster.”

Smith started to reply, but McConnell held up his hand. “This discussion is pointless,” he said. “I’ll do everything in my power to develop a defense against this new gas, but that’s all. I’m sorry, Mr. Stern. The brigadier could have saved you the drive from London. He knows my position on this.”

“And a damned infuriating one it is, too!” Smith said with surprising force. “You call yourself a bloody pacifist, yet you’ve been in this war longer than practically any other American!”

“I refuse to have this argument again,” McConnell said evenly. “There must be other scientists who could take this on.”

“None who is fluent in German.”

McConnell’s eyes widened. “You consider me a fluent German speaker?”

“Three years of German in high school, three more in college.”

“That hardly qualifies me as a spy.”

“I’ve seen men with half your linguistic skills go into situations twice as dangerous as the one I’m asking you to take on.”

“Did they come back?”

“Some did.”

McConnell shook his head in amazement.

“Ten words of German could get you past a border post, Doctor, and you’re better than that. There’s no degree in espionage, you know. Every moment in the field is part of your final examination. Besides, Stern here is a native German. He can polish your delivery while the preparatory work is being done.”

McConnell took a step toward Smith. “I’m not going, Brigadier. And you can’t order me to. I’m an American civilian and a registered conscientious objector.”

“You think I don’t know that? Have you forgotten who ensured that you were granted that classification? It’s bloody odd when you think about it. You call yourself a conscientious objector, but you’re not hiding back in the States with the Quakers and Mennonites. You’re nothing like the other pacifists I’ve seen. No, Doctor, to me” — Smith hesitated — “to me you look more like a man who’s afraid of getting killed.”

McConnell laughed outright. “I am afraid of getting killed. I assume every soldier is, if he’s not mad. You won’t shame me into helping you, Brigadier. This isn’t a grammar school playground.”

“You’re damn right it isn’t, laddie! If Jerry hits us with Soman, we’ve got to be ready to hit back twice as hard!”

McConnell smiled icily. “Why don’t you spray the countryside with anthrax? That would render the whole of Germany uninhabitable for fifty years. Maybe even a hundred.”

“We can’t risk that, and you know it. They could do the same to us. It’s tit-for-tat, and the enemy always has the prerogative to strike first. That’s the hell of being a democracy.”

“Our unwillingness to use such weapons is what separates us from the Nazis, Brigadier.”

“Bring out the bloody violins,” Smith growled.

Jonas Stern was the first to hear the footsteps in the corridor. He touched Smith, who moved quickly to the door and opened it a crack. McConnell watched him step outside, heard the hum of low voices. Then Smith walked slowly back into the room, followed by a young captain wearing the dark blouse and pinks of an 8th Air Force officer. The captain had an envelope in his hand.