Greg Iles - Black Cross

“But how did you get to Rostock?”

“I stole a car from the village.”

Anna shook her head. “You are mad.”

“I returned it to its owner,” Stern said casually. “But never mind that. When you got here, you dropped your bicycle and ran to your door. Something had frightened you long before you saw me. What was it?”

Anna looked away from him and drank from the glass. “You were right last night,” she said. “Totenhausen must be destroyed, whatever the cost. It is an abomination.”

McConnell stared at her in confusion.

“Tell me what happened,” Stern demanded.

She took a step back, retreating from Stern’s sudden intensity. “There was a killing today.”

“Is that unusual?”

“Only because it was a prisoner who killed an SS man.”

“What?”

“It was a woman. The Blockführer of the Jewish Women’s Barracks. She stabbed a corporal in the neck with a gardening spade. The biggest brute in the camp.”

“Why did she do that?”

“The guard was beating another prisoner to death. A Jewess from Amsterdam.”

Stern shook his head angrily. “This Blockführer was also a Jew?”

“No. But she and the Jewess were friends.”

“Did the Jewish woman die?”

“No. I got her away and sent her back to her block.” Anna half-turned away and looked at the floor as she spoke, as if she were being forced to reveal some terrible family secret. “Hauptscharführer Sturm went berserk after seeing that his man was really dead. With Brandt and Schörner gone, he was the senior officer in camp. He ordered immediate reprisals. Two women were hanged from the Punishment Tree, and eight more shot by firing squad. Ten people murdered.”

Stern grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. “Jews?”

“No,” she said, her voice barely audible. “Polish Christians.”

Anna pushed past him and sat down at the table, the glass still clenched in her hand. “If Schörner hadn’t returned from Peenemünde, I think Sturm and his men would have murdered every prisoner in the camp.”

“Major Schörner imposed order?” Stern asked, standing right over her.

“More than that. He ordered Sturm confined to quarters. That man has the nerve of the devil.”

“But why would he do that?”

“I think it’s something personal between him and Sturm. Something to do with the woman.”

“The woman who killed the SS man?”

“No, the Jewess who was beaten. I think Schörner has pressured her into some sort of sexual arrangement.”

Stern looked pointedly at McConnell, as if to say, You see what these Nazi pigs are capable of ? “And this sergeant disapproves of the major’s sexual arrangement?”

“I don’t think he cares about that,” Anna said. “There is something else between him and Schörner. Sturm really hates him.”

“What kind of crazy camp is this? Is there no discipline?”

She shook her head slowly, unshed tears pooling in her eyes. “It’s worse than anything you can imagine. Herr Doktor Brandt is in charge. Technically he is a lieutenant-general in the SS, but he has no military training. It is said he’s a personal friend of Himmler. There are three other SS doctors — two captains and a major — to fill out the officer complement. Major Schörner is head of security. After that it drops to Hauptscharführer Sturm and his men.”

“No midlevel officers?”

Anna shook her head. “That’s the way Brandt likes it. He wants doctors around him, not soldiers.”

At last Stern moved away from her and began pacing around the table. McConnell sat down so he wouldn’t have to keep stepping out of his way.

“What would happen if I attacked the camp now?” Stern asked.

“The same as last night,” Anna said in an exhausted voice. “You’d miss half of the SS garrison because Schörner has them out searching for parachutists, but you’d kill all of the prisoners. Not only that, since you told me about the wind I’ve been thinking about it. The wind at the camp blows faster than on this side of the hills. It blows down the river.”

Stern made a frustrated sound in his throat.

“Also, Brandt had not returned from Berlin when I left.”

“ Verdammt ! Will he be back tonight?”

“Probably, but it could be quite late.” Anna stood up and went to the sink, where she ran some water over a cloth and held it against her face. “The whole camp has gone mad,” she said through the rag. “Himmler’s visit set all this off. The very next night, Sturm and his men raped and murdered six women brought from Ravensbrück. Schörner used to be drunk all the time. Now he’s like a hawk, watching everything. It’s like something woke him from a deep sleep. Brandt abusing the children . . . it’s madness, I tell you. Like the end of the world.”

“What was that about children?” McConnell asked.

Anna hung the cloth on the basin and turned to him. “Brandt performs experiments on children. He calls it medical research, but it’s unspeakable. Three times in the past ten weeks he’s had boys brought to his quarters. Little boys. He keeps them there for a while, a week or so, then . . . then the gas, I suppose. Oh, God forgive me, I don’t know.” She wiped more tears out of her eyes. “I don’t know and I don’t want to.”

Stern stopped pacing and stared at McConnell, his face contorted with rage. “And still you won’t help me destroy this place?”

McConnell found himself eyeing the vodka bottle with more than passing interest. “Listen, you want to kill this man Brandt. I understand that. I do. A man who tortures children doesn’t deserve to live. But you’re asking me to kill every innocent prisoner under his power as well. Does that make sense to you?”

“We’re talking about the outcome of the entire war!”

“If you believe Brigadier Smith.” McConnell tried to summon his most persuasive voice. “Look, Stern, we need to hash this thing out. We’re in a pretty tough spot here. Maybe we can find some kind of middle ground if we just calm down—”

Stern kicked over one of the chairs and took a step toward him. “You should have come with me to Rostock today, Doctor. Perhaps you wouldn’t be so calm yourself. Are you interested in what I saw there?”

McConnell suppressed an urge to pick up his Schmeisser in self-defense. “Sure,” he said softly.

“Our pilot was wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“My family’s apartment building was still standing. In fact, I went inside and asked a few questions.”

Anna closed her eyes and moved her lips silently, a gesture McConnell read as the equivalent of a Catholic crossing herself.

“Oh, I wasn’t in any danger,” Stern said in a sarcastic voice. “A policeman stopped me in the city, but when he saw the SD uniform he nearly pissed his trousers. He couldn’t wait to get away from me. Being an SD colonel in this country must be rather like being God.”

More like the devil, thought McConnell, but he didn’t say it.

“Yes, our building is still there,” Stern went on, “but things aren’t quite the same. No bloodstains or anything unpleasant like that. Only when I lived there it was a Jewish building. Now it’s full of little blond girls and boys, miniature versions of Fräulein Kaas here.”

McConnell saw Anna flinch.

“No one seemed to remember my family,” Stern said. “And why should they? It was mostly children. Little Aryan princes and princesses, all living happily in flats haunted by the ghosts of little dark-haired children. I do not think they are troubled by ghosts, though. Do you, Doctor?”

“Stern—”

“Are you troubled by them, Doctor?” Stern banged his Schmeisser against a cabinet, startling Anna. “Of all the men in the world, I had to be stuck with you! This woman has more courage than you!”