Greg Iles - Black Cross

“My inquiries will be conducted with the utmost discretion,” Schörner said with forced patience.

“Sergeant Gauss was here last night. Just after he left, I thought I heard something. I know I did. I looked outside but saw nothing. God help me, Sturmbannführer, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I think the noise sounded like gunshots. Soft but very fast.”

At that point Schörner had read Sybille Kleist the riot act. Ten minutes later he ordered all search parties to concentrate in the area of the Kleist residence, then left for Totenhausen to summon Sergeant Sturm with his best dogs.

As he climbed out of the Kubelwagen, Schörner saw a wireless operator emerge from the HQ building. “Rottenführer!” he shouted. “Where is Hauptscharführer Sturm?”

“I’m not sure, Sturmbannführer. I heard the dogs barking a moment ago. Perhaps he is exercising them.”

Schörner entered the alley between the dog kennels and the SS barracks just as Sergeant Sturm hiked up Rachel’s shift and bunched it around her waist. Marching stiffly up the alley, he saw Sturm pull down her underpants, brace his left hand in the small of her back and reach between her thighs with his right.

“ Achtung, Hauptscharführer !”

Sergeant Sturm snapped straight and gaped at the advancing major. Clean-shaven and dressed in his field gray Waffen-SS uniform, the eyepatch tied across his face like a wound badge, Schörner personified the nightmare of every SS noncom.

“ACHTUNG!”

Sturm squared his shoulders and thumbed the seams of his trousers. Rachel pulled up her underwear and ran to Frau Hagan.

“Exactly what is going on here?” Schörner asked.

Sturm regrouped rapidly. “I am conducting a search, Sturmbannführer.”

“It looked to me like you were conducting a rape.”

“Sturmbannführer, this woman is concealing contraband on her person.”

Schörner’s eyes flicked to Rachel. “What kind of contraband? Food? Explosives?”

“No, Sturmbannführer. Diamonds. The very gems you instructed me to get rid of some nights ago.”

Schörner pursed his lips, surprised by this response. “I see. And how do you know she has these diamonds?”

“I have reliable information, Sturmbannführer. A report from another prisoner.”

Rachel felt her stomach twist. What fellow prisoner would inform on her to the SS?

“And where is she hiding these gems?”

Sturm felt a surge of confidence; for once the facts were in his favor. “She hides them in her private parts, Sturmbannführer, like all these shameless Jewish cows.”

Schörner was silent for a moment. “If that is the information you received, Hauptscharführer, you should have informed me. I would have instructed a civilian nurse to search the prisoner. Your conduct was highly irregular, and quite unbecoming a German soldier.”

Sturm reddened. He would not be humiliated in front of a Jew. “I know my duty, Sturmbannführer! If this prisoner is breaking the rules, I will search her wherever I find her.”

“Your duty, Hauptscharführer?” said Schörner, raising his eyebrows. “While you were molesting women in alleyways, I was out doing your duty for you. Not only have I discovered that our missing sergeant was carrying on an illicit affair with the wife of a hero of the Kriegsmarine, but also that he was dallying in bed with this woman just last night. The woman reported hearing gunshots soon after he left. I hurried back here to enlist the help of you and your dogs to search the area. And what do I find? You, acting in an even more disgusting manner than Gauss!”

The news about Gauss surprised Sturm, but he did not intend to let Rachel escape. “Sturmbannführer, I will personally take the dogs and search the area. But first we must relieve this prisoner of the contraband.”

Schörner glanced around the alley. The SS private was making a point of looking the other way. Sturm’s strategy of isolation had backfired on him. “I suggest, Hauptscharführer,” Schörner said icily, “that you gather your dogs and stop wasting my time. This prisoner is known to me. I doubt seriously whether she possesses any diamonds, or that she would hide them in the disgusting manner you describe. Apparently your mind works in the same direction as Sergeant Gauss’s.”

Sturm knew he should have dropped it there. But he couldn’t. “How do you know what is or isn’t hidden between her legs?” he asked.

Schörner’s head snapped back as if Sturm had slapped him.

“That’s right,” Sturm said, this time more confidently. “I know your game. You’re no better than Gauss or anyone else. By my standards, you’re a damn sight worse.”

Schörner’s hand was around Sturm’s throat in less than a second. He slammed the stunned sergeant up against the wall of the kennel and squeezed his neck with enough force to kill. The German shepherds went wild.

Sturm was trying to speak, but no air could escape his throat.

Schörner’s voice grated like broken glass. “You wish to say something, Hauptscharführer?” He loosened his grip just enough for Sturm to whisper.

The sergeant sucked in as much air as he could, then rasped, “You’re not fit to wear that uniform, you Jew-fucking bastard.”

Schörner’s face went completely white. To hear such words from a man who had never fought in a single battle, who had never even come under hostile fire, made him temporarily lose his reason. He drove his right knee into Gunther Sturm’s groin. When Sturm doubled over in agony, he smashed his fist down on the back of his neck. Before the sergeant could react, Schörner’s boot was across the back of his neck, crushing his face into the gravel.

Rachel watched from the hospital wall in horror and fascination. She could tell that Frau Hagan was even more stunned than she was. Sturm’s red face was being ground into the gravel like a willful dog’s. Major Schörner seemed to be considering whether or not to go ahead and snap Sturm’s neck with his finely polished hobnailed boot. He regarded the back of the sergeant’s bare head for several moments, as if carefully weighing the pros and cons of the choice.

Rachel heard a sudden roar of engines from the other side of the barracks. A motorcycle with an empty sidecar swept into the alley and skidded to a stop beside Schörner. Its rider removed his goggles and stared at the prone figure on the ground.

“What is it, Rottenführer?” Schörner asked.

The rider’s eyes stayed on Sergeant Sturm. “Sturmbannführer, it’s . . .”

“Speak up, man!”

“Sergeant Gauss, Sturmbannführer! We found his body. He’s been murdered! Shot by an automatic weapon!”

“ What ? Where?”

“Near the Kleist woman’s house, just as you said. Buried in the snow. We had to dig up half the yard, but we found him. And Sturmbannführer, that’s not the worst of it. We found four parachutes buried with him. British parachutes.”

Schörner lifted his boot off of Sturm’s neck. “Get up, Hauptscharführer! Get every dog and man you have and meet at the Kleist house immediately.” He leaped into the sidecar of the motorcycle. “Take me to the spot, Rottenführer!”

“ Zu befehl , Sturmbannführer!”

Sturm got slowly to his feet as the corporal kicked the bike into gear.

“What are you staring at?” Schörner asked him, as if nothing had passed between them. “There may be British commandos in the area. Everything else can wait!”

Sturm nodded dully. Too much had happened too quickly for him to take it all in. “ Jawohl ,” he mumbled. Then he hurried into the kennel and lifted six chain leashes off a hook inside the door.

Schörner looked at Rachel, his eyes full of intense but unreadable emotion. Then the motorcycle roared out of the alley.