Greg Iles - Black Cross

As they rounded the foot of one of the hills, he saw dim yellow lights close ahead. The leader stopped and spoke quietly to the two escorts, who melted away into the shadows without a word. Stern and McConnell picked up their suitcases.

They were approaching a small village. Already they had passed two outlying farmhouses. A dog barked but apparently awakened no one. McConnell found himself recalling the advice Stern had given him about moving in hostile territory. First: never smoke in the field. Stern claimed the smell of cigarette smoke on the wind had saved his life many times. McConnell had made a joke then, but it didn’t seem funny now. As they neared the next cottage, the leader made no effort to circle around it. Instead he walked right up to the front door, unlocked it with a key and motioned them inside.

There was hardly any light, but McConnell could see that the walls of the narrow entrance hall were adorned only by a coat rack. Stern dropped his bags and sat down on them, breathing hard.

“Pick up those cases,” the leader ordered. “You’re going to the cellar.”

“Give us a moment, eh?” Stern pleaded in German. “That was some hike.”

The leader grunted in disgust and stalked out of the foyer. McConnell set down his bags and felt his way into a room that had to be a kitchen. He smelled coffee warming on the stove. It took great restraint to keep from feeling his way to it and drinking straight from the pot.

The leader lighted two candles and placed them on a wooden table at the center of the room. McConnell took in the sparsely stocked shelves and yellow-painted walls, then said, “ Mein Name ist Mark McConnell. Thank you for meeting us.”

The leader shrugged and took off his hat. A mane of blond hair fell around his shoulders. He unwrapped the scarf from his face.

“My God,” McConnell said in English.

“I am Anna Kaas,” said the young woman, pulling off her heavy coat and revealing anything but a man’s figure. “Tell your lazy friend to take those suitcases down to the cellar. You’re in Germany now.”

“Ach du lieber Hergott!” Stern said from the doorway.

“You were expecting a man?” Anna said. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

McConnell watched in amazement as the young woman poured the coffee. She appeared to be close to his own age, and she had deep brown eyes — unusual in a woman who otherwise fit the Aryan stereotype of the flaxen-haired, blue-eyed Brunhild.

“You’re hours late,” she said. “You are trying to kill us?”

“Mechanical trouble,” said Stern, stepping into the kitchen. “You work in the camp?”

“Yes. I’m a nurse. There are six of us.”

“You enjoy your work?”

Even by candlelight, McConnell saw the woman color at this remark. “If I did, would I be putting up two rude Englishmen for the night?” she rejoined.

“I’m American,” McConnell told her.

“And I’m German,” said Stern. “I was raised thirty kilometers from here, in Rostock.”

“How wonderful for you,” Anna said. “Perhaps you can stay alive long enough to complete your mission.”

Stern walked to the kitchen window and peered through a crack in the curtains. McConnell could see the glow of daylight even from where he stood.

“If the wind lets up,” said Stern, “I’ll only have to survive half an hour or so to do that.”

“What do you mean?” Anna asked.

“I mean we’re executing the mission as soon as the wind falls off.”

“Not if you want to succeed.”

Stern turned from the window. “Why not? The daylight is a problem, but we’ve got the German uniforms. We’ll make it to the hill. Getting away alive afterward won’t be easy, but. . . ” He waved his hand dismissively.

“London didn’t tell you?” Anna Kaas shook her head in astonishment. “Major Schörner discovered the body of an SS sergeant today, buried in the hills. He’d been shot by a submachine gun. The SS found four parachutes buried with him. British parachutes.”

“Verdammt!” said Stern. “That’s what McShane meant by a ‘warm welcome.’ They killed someone during the preparatory mission. Smith must have ordered him not to tell us about it.”

“Terrific,” McConnell said.

“It’s a miracle we reached the cottage,” Anna told them. “Major Schörner has half the garrison out on patrol. A motorcycle unit stopped here five minutes before I left for the pickup point. If they’d returned while I was gone, we would be running for our lives now.”

“How far are we from the power station?” Stern asked.

“About three kilometers, uphill all the way.”

“Heavy tree growth? Plenty of cover?”

“Yes, but a switchback road crosses your path a dozen times between here and there.”

Stern winced. “What about the wind? Has it been blowing this hard all night?”

“What is so important about the wind?”

When Stern did not reply, she said, “It gusts, but it hasn’t dropped below a hard breeze all night.”

“Just a minute,” McConnell cut in. “What’s all this about a power station? Now that we’re finally in Germany, maybe you can tell me exactly what the plan is? How are the two of us supposed to disable this plant so that I can get a look at the machinery? Are some of Vaughan’s commandos parachuting in behind us or what?”

“No,” said Stern.

“I am also confused,” Anna said. “Since only two of you landed, I assumed your team must already be here, hiding in the woods. What can two men do against the garrison at Totenhausen?”

“More than you think,” said Stern.

“ You don’t know what the mission is?” McConnell asked her.

“No.”

“Come on, Stern,” he pressed. “Out with it.”

“Thank you for telling her my real name, Doctor.”

“Code names are childish at this point,” Anna said. She looked at McConnell. “Your German is terrible.”

“Danke.”

“I mean your grammar is perfect, but your accent. . . ”

“I already tried to avoid this mission on those grounds. It didn’t work.”

“He’s not here for his language skills,” Stern said. “He’s a chemist.”

Anna looked at McConnell with sudden understanding. “Ah. Perhaps you weren’t such a bad choice, then.”

Stern opened a door that led onto a small bedroom, looked inside, then closed it. “You want to know how the two of us are going to disable the plant, Doctor? We’re not. We’re going to leave it exactly like we find it, except for one thing. Everybody in it will be dead.”

“What?” McConnell felt suddenly lightheaded. “What did you say?”

“You didn’t hear me? We’re going to gas the camp, Doctor. That’s why I asked about the wind. The ideal windspeed for the attack is zero to six miles per hour.”

“Gas the camp? With what?”

“With nerve gas from the Totenhausen storage tanks?” Anna guessed.

Stern shook his head. “With our own nerve gas.”

“We didn’t bring any,” said McConnell. “We don’t even have any. Do we?”

Stern smiled with the satisfaction of secret knowledge.

“But . . .” Anna trailed off, pondering Stern’s words.

“I see,” McConnell said. But he didn’t see. He had known Smith was holding back facts about the mission. Yet of all the possibilities he had imagined, this was not one. “Is the target really a gas factory and testing facility, as I was led to believe?”

“Yes.”

“But . . . how are you going to gas the SS without killing the prisoners?”

“I’m not.”

McConnell sat down at the kitchen table and tried to digest this.

“There’s no way to warn the prisoners without risking the success of the mission,” explained Stern. “Even if we could separate them, there’s nowhere for them to go.”