Greg Iles - Black Cross

McConnell drummed his fingers on the table. “No, Stern, only one possible scenario justifies a risk like this. The British have developed some form of nerve gas, but there’s a problem with it. Maybe multiple problems.”

“What do you mean? What kind of problems?”

McConnell shrugged. “Could be anything. It usually takes three to six months to copy a war gas, and that’s with conventional variants. Sarin is a revolutionary toxin, and as far as I know, the British have had it for less than sixty days. With Churchill breathing down their necks, the scientists at Porton might just have been able to crack it. But even then their problems would only have begun. War gases are extremely difficult to mass produce for battlefield use. They must be heavier than air, resistant to moisture, non-corrosive to standard steel. They must be stable enough to retain toxicity during long periods of storage and transport, also to survive the detonation of the artillery shells that carry them. A nerve gas should ideally be odorless and colorless, insofar as is possible. If you see a gas cloud coming — or smell it in low concentration — its effectiveness as a weapon is greatly inhibited—”

“Get to the point!” Stern shouted.

“Sorry. My point is that the British team at Porton has probably developed a facsimile of Sarin that has one or more of those flaws. They can’t send a sample to the Germans, because they know their gas can’t withstand close analysis, i.e., it’s not in the same league with Sarin.”

Stern moved away from the window and planted a boot on one of the kitchen chairs. “Why couldn’t they send Hitler a vial from the stolen sample? Send the Nazis their own gas and claim it’s British?”

McConnell considered this. “That’s not a bad idea, actually. I’ll bet Smith thought of that. But German chemists are very good. An exact chemical copy of German Sarin would be greeted with extreme suspicion. They’d probably figure out that bluff.”

He drank some of his coffee, which had grown cold. “No, I think Smith and Churchill looked at the situation and decided they had only one option. To gamble that whatever problems exist with the British Sarin, the stuff will kill . That’s why there are only the two of us, Stern. If the copycat Sarin kills effectively, it may well convince the Nazis that they would be foolish to risk attacking the Allies with nerve gas. But if it doesn’t work, what have the British lost? You and me. Two expendable civilians. Whether the British Sarin works or not, it will be gone on the wind in a few hours. And I’ll bet you fifty bucks that the cylinders hanging from your pylon are of German manufacture.”

“They are.”

McConnell shook his head, awed by the boldness of Smith’s plan. “We’re sacrificial lambs, Stern. You may fancy that role. I don’t.”

Stern had gone very still. Anna was watching McConnell with a strange mixture of respect and fear.

“It stings, doesn’t it?” McConnell laughed softly. “The great Haganah terrorist, fooled by a British general.”

Stern slung his Schmeisser over his shoulder. “The gas might work,” he said. “You admitted that yourself. If it does, the mission will succeed regardless of all this. I guess I’ll just have to find out the hard way, as you Americans say.”

He turned and started for the foyer.

“Wait!” Anna pleaded. “It’s daylight. You’ll never reach that pylon without being caught. Major Schörner has doubled the guard on the transformer station.”

Stern lifted his hand from the door handle. “What?”

“I told you, there are patrols everywhere because of the dead sergeant. Even if you managed to attack the camp, half the SS men wouldn’t be there. I’ve made a place for you in the cellar. You can hide there today and decide what to do. It will be dark by six tonight. Where is the harm in waiting until then?”

Stern came back into the kitchen. “I want to speak to someone higher up in your group.”

“There is no one higher,” Anna said.

“ You are the senior person?”

“There’s no one else.”

“I don’t believe you. Who were those men who helped us at the plane?”

“Friends. They know nothing about the situation in camp.”

“You’re Brigadier Smith’s only contact?”

“Who is Brigadier Smith?”

McConnell couldn’t keep from grinning. “What’s wrong with her? I like her just fine. Our own Mata Hari.”

“Shut up, damn you!”

McConnell stood up. “Kiss my ass, Stern. You know that idiom yet? Add it to your collection.”

Stern gave both of them withering stares, nodding like a man who has just discovered he is surrounded by enemies. Then he turned, walked through the foyer and out the front door.

Anna looked at McConnell with wild eyes, then jumped up, ran to the door, and shouted for Stern. He apparently did not stop, for she came back into the kitchen wearing the blank gaze of a witness to a terrible accident.

“He is walking toward the hills,” she said. “He will kill us all.”

“I don’t know,” said McConnell, standing up from the table. “He’s got that SD uniform. He speaks perfect German. He might make it.”

Anna looked around her kitchen as if it had suddenly become an alien environment. “They should have told me,” she said, her soft voice full of resentment. “It is too much to ask.” She focused on McConnell, her face now illuminated by sunlight. “Would he really do it?” she asked. “Would he really kill all those prisoners? All those children?”

McConnell realized then that Stern’s revelation had shocked the nurse as deeply as it had him. He felt an urge to touch her, to try and comfort her, but he didn’t want her to misinterpret his action. “I’m afraid he’s perfectly capable of doing that,” he said. “If he really wants to, you could only stop him by killing him. Unless you’re ready to do that, I don’t think you’d better go in to work today.”

“But I must!” Anna looked at him with new fear in her eyes. “If I don’t, Major Schörner will send a patrol here.”

“Can you call in sick?”

“I have no telephone.”

“How do you get to work?”

“Bicycle.”

“Well . . . you’d better ride damn slowly.”

29

Only twenty-four hours had passed since Major Schörner humiliated Sergeant Sturm in the alley, but in those hours Gunther Sturm had boiled with a rage unlike any he had ever known. It consumed him. Ultimately, he would kill Schörner. But the discovery of the British parachutes had caused enough of an uproar to draw the attention of Colonel Beck at Peenemünde. Sturm knew he would be crazy to try to get rid of Schörner under the nose of that devil.

He’d flirted with the idea of challenging Schörner to a duel. SS law entitled a man to demand satisfaction in a dispute where honor was involved. But in practice, actual duels were discouraged. Besides, even with one eye missing, Schörner was an expert fencer and a crack shot. No, the only revenge he could get immediately would be through Schörner’s Jewish whore.

The man he had chosen to carry out his vendetta was a certain Corporal Ludwig Grot. Not only was Grot the most violent man in his unit, but he also owed the sergeant major nearly four hundred marks in gambling debts. Sturm had put the matter to him over a bottle of excellent schnapps, a treat he had been saving for a special occasion. Grot had been more than happy for the chance to erase his debts with a single favor. And so simple! One beating. A couple of well-placed blows. Where was the difficulty? If a Jew insulted the honor of the Reich as he passed, it was his duty to teach her a lesson. If she died, so what? One less Jew fouling the good German air.