Greg Iles - Black Cross

All for the Fatherland.

Churchill was studiously smoking his cigar when Brigadier Smith returned. Smith took a chair opposite the desk and waited for the inevitable grilling the PM always gave before important operations. Churchill exhaled a great cloud of blue smoke, sniffed, then rested his cigar on the rim of the ashtray.

“This is the only operation I have ever sanctioned that goes directly against the wishes of the Americans,” he said soberly. “I’m still not sure I fancy using an American to do it. Even if he is the right man from a technical standpoint. It could cause problems later.”

“There won’t be any problems, Winston. If this mission succeeds, it succeeds in producing a negative: the nonuse of nerve gas by the Nazis. And if it fails, both Stern and McConnell will in all likelihood be dead.”

“What if it succeeds, but the good doctor decides to unburden himself afterwards? For reasons of conscience.”

Smith peered into the blue eyes, trying to read the subtext of the conversation. At length he said, “This is a dangerous mission. Even if it succeeds, it’s quite possible that McConnell and Stern might not get back alive.”

Churchill steepled his fingers and focused his eyes somewhere in the shadows beyond Smith. “Does anyone know McConnell is going on this mission? Anyone at all?”

“He left two letters with an Oxford don. For his wife and mother. The usual stuff. I confiscated them.”

Churchill sighed heavily. “If Eisenhower or Marshall learn I’ve bypassed them to make a strike of this magnitude—”

“They’ve left you no alternative, Winston! If Eisenhower’s armies fall dead after thirty seconds on the French beaches, Roosevelt and Marshall will scream to high heaven about what should have been done, and Ike will resign, but by then it will be too late .”

Churchill was nodding. “I agree, Duff. The question is, will the mission succeed? Is there a real chance?”

“Absolutely.”

“What about our gas? How long will it remain stable now?”

“It varies from lot to lot. The last two batches from Porton remained stable for ninety-seven hours.”

“What’s that? Four days?”

“Just over that.”

“And it was lethal?”

“Oh, quite, yes. Dispatched two large primates rather handily.”

Churchill winced. “Don’t tell me where you got your test subjects. I don’t want the Royal Society beating down my door. How old is the gas your Achnacarry men took in?”

Smith looked at his watch. “Twenty-six hours and counting.”

“Cutting it a bit fine, aren’t you?”

“The Raubhammer demonstration is in four days,” said Smith. “If we don’t pull it off by then, we’re probably too late anyway. If the wind is under seven miles per hour when they arrive, Stern will release the gas tonight. If not tonight, then tomorrow.”

Churchill picked up his pen and began doodling on a notepad. “That’s why you want the submarine to stand by for four days. The weather must be right for the attack?”

“That, and the exhibition for Hitler. I want to give them every possible chance to make the attack. As for weather, four miles an hour is optimal wind speed for a gas attack of this type, preferably without rain.”

“Does Stern or McConnell know the gas may not work?”

“Of course not.”

Churchill pulled the heavy pea jacket around his neck. “Duff, if you had to give me a percentage chance of success, what would you say?”

Smith ruminated. “Fifty-fifty for the attack itself. But if the attack is successful, I think there’s a ninety percent chance the bluff will work. Winston, I’m absolutely positive that this nerve gas initiative is an all-Himmler show. Everything points to it. When we hit him discreetly with his own personal ‘miracle weapon,’ we’ll knock his legs right out from under him. As far as he’ll know, we’ve got ten thousand tons of British Sarin ready to drop on Berlin. He’ll have to call off his show.”

“Will he be able to prove we were behind the attack?”

“No. We’re using German cylinders, World War One vintage. But he’ll know who was responsible. I’ll see to that.”

“And if our Sarin doesn’t work?”

Smith shrugged. “Then the bombers go in.”

Churchill made a growling noise in the back of his throat. “What will happen if we have to bomb that camp?”

“That depends on several factors. Again, the weather. How much gas is stored on-site. Our planes will be carrying incendiary bombs, to try to incinerate as much of the gas as possible before it leaves the area. Still, there’s a chance that the nearby villages could be wiped out. We just don’t know enough to predict. If they are wiped out, I’m sure Himmler will simply announce a regrettable industrial accident. Whatever happens, all traces of our mission will be destroyed.”

“What if you don’t hear anything from Stern and McConnell?”

“If I don’t have positive confirmation of success three nights from now, the bombers will go in, no matter what.”

“Do Stern and McConnell know about the bombers?”

“Good God, no.”

Churchill rubbed his forehead with both hands. He had looked vital to McConnell, but Duff Smith knew the prime minister had only just recovered from pneumonia in December, and that after surviving two heart attacks in the same month. The pressures on him were enormous. Yet he insisted on shouldering moral responsibility for every mission.

“They’re civilians, Duff,” Churchill pointed out.

“They’ll sign releases before they leave.”

“That’s not what I meant. You don’t think that with his brother murdered by the SS, you could entrust McConnell with the real purpose of the mission?”

Smith shook his head. “I don’t think Doctor McConnell would kill a human being even to save his own life.”

The telephone on Churchill’s desk rang, but he ignored it. “There is one flaw that could bring disaster, Duff. What if they’re captured and tortured before they can carry out the attack? You gave them L-pills?”

“Stern carries one at all times, if you can believe it. But I wouldn’t trust McConnell to take cyanide even if he had it.” The brigadier felt in his pocket for his pipe. “No need to worry on that score, though. If capture appears imminent, Stern is under orders to shoot the good doctor where he stands.”

Churchill’s phone finally stopped ringing.

“That’s a hard order, Duff. It wouldn’t sit well with a lot of people, on both sides of the Atlantic.”

Smith had anticipated this last spasm of conscience. “There is a precedent, Winston. At Dieppe, when we sent our radar experts to reconnoiter the German radar station, we sent gunmen in behind them — disguised as bodyguards — just in case the Jerries closed in.”

“I don’t see how that makes this situation any better.”

Smith smiled. “One of those bodyguards was an American FBI agent. If the Yanks had no qualms about an FBI man shooting our scientists, I don’t see how they could object to us doing the same.”

Brendan Bracken opened the study door and said, “Hayes Lodge. General Eisenhower is standing by for you.”

Churchill nodded and waved his aide out of the room. “It’s a moot point, Duff, but if any of this ever gets out, who shot whom will be irrelevant. All that matters is secrecy and results. But tell me . . . do you think Stern would really shoot McConnell down in cold blood?”

Duff Smith stood up and patted his khakis flat. “Winston, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind.”

28

The Moon plane dropped out of the dark sky like a nighthawk, swooping through ghostly clouds in a dive McConnell thought would tear off its wings.