Greg Iles - Black Cross

“Doctor,” the brigadier said in a soft voice, “this chap needs a word with you.”

Mark felt a strange tingling in his fingertips. “What is it? Has something happened to David?”

The captain glanced at Brigadier Smith. “I’m not supposed to say anything until you’ve opened the letter. But . . . Doctor, your brother was shot down last night. I’m sorry, sir.”

The captain extended the envelope. McConnell took it and tore open the seal. Inside was a sheet of paper, the words on it typewritten in the manner of a telegram.

REGRET TO INFORM CAPTAIN DAVID MCCONNELL KILLED IN ACTION 19 JANUARY STOP CAPTAIN MCCONNELL’S ACTIONS ALWAYS REFLECTED THE HIGHEST HONOR UPON HIMSELF THE USAAF AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA STOP I EXTEND MY PERSONAL CONDOLENCES STOP

COLONEL WILLIAM T. HARRIGILL

401ST BOMB GROUP, 94TH COMBAT WING

U.S. 8TH AIR FORCE. DEENETHORPE, ENGLAND

“Doctor?” Brigadier Smith said softly. “Mac?”

McConnell held up his hand. “Please don’t say anything, Brigadier.” He had imagined this moment many times. Daylight bomber crews suffered horrifying rates of attrition. And yet something about this seemed wrong. It was the timing, he realized. Two minutes after refusing Brigadier Smith’s biggest sales pitch ever, a messenger shows up to tell him his brother has been killed by the Germans? McConnell looked up from the paper and into the Scotsman’s pale blue eyes.

“Brigadier?” His voice was barely a whisper. “Is this your doing?”

Smith looked at McConnell in astonishment. “I beg your pardon, Doctor?”

McConnell took a step toward him. “It is , isn’t it? This is some damned SOE trick. You’re trying to push me into your mission, aren’t you? The end justifies the means in your business, right? If the pacifist won’t go, we’ll make him go.” McConnell’s face was white. “ Right , Brigadier?”

The Scotsman straightened his back and raised his chin. It was the British equivalent of a cobra puffing out its hood. “Doctor, as much as I resent your insinuation, I am going to ignore it. I realize that in moments like this the mind grasps for any straw, however thin. But you are absolutely wrong.”

McConnell felt his face growing hot. The captain was staring at him as if he were a dangerous mental patient. He looked down at the telegram. Killed in action . So goddamn vague . He cleared his throat.

“Can you tell me any more than this, Captain?”

The young officer pulled at the tails of his dress jacket. “The colonel said you had a top secret clearance, and that I could tell you what we knew. David’s plane sustained catastrophic damage returning from a raid over Regensburg. It was hit by flak, probably fighter cannon as well. Nobody saw the aircraft hit the ground, but no chutes were sighted.”

McConnell’s eyes and throat were stinging. “Did — did you know my brother, Captain?”

“Yes, sir. Hell of a pilot. Always a joke for the ground crew. He even made the colonel crack a smile a few times. The colonel would have come himself, but we had — well, he was busy.”

Mark blinked away tears. “Does our mother know yet?”

“No, sir. That’s a draft of her telegram there.”

“Jesus. Ask the colonel not to send this, please. I’d like to be the one to tell her.”

“No problem, sir. It’ll eventually have to be sent, but I think the colonel can hold off a few days.”

McConnell looked from the brigadier’s ruddy face to Jonas Stern’s dark one, then at the captain. The messenger shifted uncertainly. “Sorry again, Doc,” he said. He saluted Brigadier Smith and backed out of the lab.

Mark put his hand over his mouth and tried to swallow. All he could see was David, not as he had seen him four days ago, but as a little boy in a muddy Georgia pond, trying to learn to hold his breath.

“I’m sorry, Brigadier,” he said softly. “I apologize.”

The Scotsman held up his hand. “There’s no need, man. I know this is difficult. I lost a brother myself. At Lofoten, in forty-one. But by God, Doctor, if this isn’t the final reason to come on board with us, nothing is. The bastards killed your brother!”

McConnell shook his head hopelessly. “You’ve never understood me at all, have you? You have no idea why I am the way I am.”

Smith bristled. “I understand you, all right. I know about your father. But what would he say now, eh? I’m asking you to go on a mission of mercy. Christ, Doctor, the Nazis are testing the nerve agents on human beings . Why do you think Stern here is going? Most of those human guinea pigs are Jews. The Germans are slaughtering his people while the world stands by and does nothing!”

McConnell studied Stern’s face. He saw no sadness or pleading in the young man’s features. All he saw — or thought he saw — was disgust. “I’m truly sorry,” he said, “but I’m afraid I must ask you to leave. I need to be alone.”

To McConnell’s surprise, Brigadier Smith turned on his heel and walked out of the room without further argument. The young Jew, however, remained behind. He had stood silent throughout the meeting, but now he walked slowly forward until he stood only inches from McConnell. Mark had six or seven years on the stranger, but he sensed a fearsome intensity in the young man.

“Smith doesn’t understand you, Doctor,” Stern said softly. “But I do. You’re not a coward. You are a fool. You’re like my father was. You’re like a million Jews across Europe. You believe in reason, in the essential goodness of man. You believe that if you refuse to commit evil yourself, someday you will conquer it.” His voice dripped contempt. “All the fools who believed that are dead now. Fed into poison gas and flames by men who know the true nature of humanity. The only difference between you and those fools is that you’re American.” Stern switched suddenly from English to German, but McConnell caught most of it. “You have yet to taste even a sip of the pain so many have drunk to the bitter dregs in the last ten years.”

McConnell opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came. The weight of Stern’s words seemed incongruous when paired with the young face speaking them. But not with the eyes. The young Jew’s eyes were like David’s had been when he spoke of losing his friends. Ageless, emotionless—

“Stern!” Brigadier Smith stood in the open doorway. “Leave him be.”

The dark young man nodded slowly at McConnell. “I’m sorry about your brother. But he was only a drop in an ocean beyond counting. You should think about that.” He turned and followed the brigadier into the corridor.

Alone at last, McConnell reread the telegram in a daze. Regret to inform . . . killed in action . . . McConnell’s actions always reflected the highest honor . . . my personal condolences . . . condolences . . . . Mark put his left hand behind him and found the edge of a desk. He couldn’t breathe. He stumbled to the nearest window and tried to open it, but the latch was stuck. He raised his right foot and kicked furiously at the ironwork.

In his anger at McConnell’s refusal, Smith was pushing the Bentley beyond the limit of sanity, much less legality. The fact that he was doing it in the dark with only one arm would have terrified Jonas Stern at any other time. But just now his fury burned as hot as the brigadier’s.

“Just find another damned chemist!” he shouted above the roar of the Bentley’s engine.

“It’s not as easy as it sounds,” Smith snapped back. “I can’t use enlisted personnel, American or British. Besides, McConnell’s the best man for the job. Under the age of sixty, anyway.”

Stern slammed his hand against the door. “Then what the hell are we going to do? You can’t let one idealistic fool stop us.”