Greg Iles - Black Cross

Anna’s smile faded. “I’ve never been inside it, but you’re right . . . it’s small. From the outside it doesn’t seem so small, but it’s a double-walled chamber. A room inside a room. Let me think. I’ve seen the numbers on test reports. I think . . . nine square meters.”

“That’s only a hundred square feet,” McConnell said. “How high is the ceiling?”

“Just enough room for a tall man to stand. Two meters?”

“Six and a half feet. How many prisoners in the camp?”

She shook her head. “After today’s reprisals . . . two hundred and thirty-four.”

“It’s impossible.”

“You’re right,” said Stern. “You couldn’t squeeze even half of the prisoners inside. Damn! There’s got to be a way.”

McConnell spread his hands flat on the table and sat still for nearly a minute, his mind exploring every possible variant of Anna’s idea. “Maybe there is,” he said finally.

“What?” said Stern. “You have an idea?”

“Anna is right about the E-Block — in principle. The essential problem is exposing the SS to the gas while protecting the prisoners from it. But she’s thinking backwards.”

“What do you mean?” asked Anna. “Get the SS to go into the E-Block and kill them with the gas while the prisoners are safe outside?”

“In theory, yes.”

“But the SS won’t go near the E-Block! Besides, there are a hundred and fifty of them.”

McConnell couldn’t resist a smile. “I’m sure you’re right. But I also feel sure that the architect who designed Totenhausen was thorough enough to include a bomb shelter in his plans.”

Her eyes played over his face as she absorbed the full import of his words. “My God, you’re right. It’s a long tunnel, and it will hold more than every SS man in the camp.”

“That’s it,” said Stern, his voice almost crackling with excitement. “We sneak two cylinders into the bomb shelter, trick the SS into it and auf Wiedersehen — mission accomplished. I’ll bet that gas is twice as effective in an enclosed space.”

“Probably ten times as effective,” said McConnell. “Plus, the wind ceases to be a factor in the plan.”

Stern shook his head. “Smith was right, Doctor. You are a bloody genius.”

McConnell bowed in mock humility. “How many entrances does the shelter have, Anna?”

“Two. The main entrance is in one of the SS barracks. The other is in the basement of the hospital. The morgue.”

“Do you think you could block the morgue entrance so that no one who entered from the SS barracks could get out that way?”

“I think so, yes.”

“If it is more effective in a closed space,” Stern reasoned, “one cylinder should be enough. But I’ll use two to be sure. It’s a simple matter of taking them down from the pylon and. . . ”

“What’s the matter?” asked McConnell. “We can’t get them down from the pylon?”

“No, we can do that. The problem is getting the cylinders into the camp. I dropped inside the wire from an overhanging tree limb. I can’t do that with steel cylinders.” Stern looked down at the table for a moment, then raised his eyes to Anna. “There’s only one way to do it,” he said.

“A car,” she said quietly.

He nodded. “Can you get one?”

Anna bit her bottom lip as she considered this. “I have a friend, Greta Müller. Her father is a farmer who supplies food to the SS Oberabschnitt at Stettin. He not only has vehicles, but petrol to run them.”

“With a car we could lay the cylinders flat on the backseat, or sling them beneath the undercarriage with chains. That would be better.” Pure energy radiated from Stern as he visualized the plan. “You could drive in late tomorrow night and park by the hospital. I’d be waiting for you. After I unchained the cylinders, you could lead me to the morgue entrance of the bomb shelter. All I’d have to do is move them in and set them to detonate at the proper time.” He leaned toward Anna, the full weight of his personality radiating from his dark eyes. “Can you get a car?”

“I’m almost certain I can,” she said, looking back at him with a strange fascination. “Greta thinks I have a lover in Rostock. A married man. I’ve kept up that story so I can get the car sometimes without her asking questions. I’ve used it three times before. Though usually with more notice.”

“Tell her it’s a crisis. He’s trying to end it with you.”

“Just a minute,” McConnell interjected.

“It’s the only way,” Anna said.

“I realize that. But you’re both overlooking a serious problem.”

“What is it?” Stern asked impatiently.

“To get the SS troops into that shelter, we need an air raid.”

“Why? I can set off the siren myself. The SS won’t know if the raid is real or not. They’ll run straight into the gas.”

McConnell glanced at Anna. She did not look confident.

“We’ve had only one air raid in the years I’ve been here,” she said, “and that was a false alarm. All drills are scheduled. Also, there are officers for every phase of the raid. Soldiers who man the alarm, who fight fires, who make sure each building is evacuated — not including the prisoners, of course. They’re left exposed.”

“You’re saying it wouldn’t work?” asked Stern.

“I’m saying that if no bombs began to fall, many soldiers would probably never go into the shelter. I doubt very seriously whether the entrances would be closed unless bombs were actually falling. You couldn’t rely on it.”

“For God’s sake,” Stern muttered. “There’s got to be a way.”

“There is,” said McConnell. “A real air raid.” He tapped the tabletop with his fingers. “And I think we can get one. Brigadier Smith knows the exact coordinates of Totenhausen. He’s the one who started this whole thing. The least that bastard can do is to send a handful of bombers over to help us finish the job. All we need is a radio.”

“That’s just what we don’t have,” said Stern. “McShane cached one for us, but it’s useless. I dug up the parachute container on my way back from the camp, to take out the climbing spikes and harness. The container was cracked and half filled with water. The parachute obviously didn’t open properly. Our signal lamp for the submarine was dry, but the radio was drowned and its vacuum tubes smashed.”

Stern leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “Even if we get a radio,” he said, “a real air raid gives us another problem. We can ask Smith to schedule the raid at a precise time, but there’s no guarantee the bombers will arrive at that time. You see?”

“I do,” said McConnell. “There’s no way to time the cylinders in the bomb shelter so that they’ll detonate just after the bombs have fallen and kill the SS men who’ve run for cover.”

“Right.” Stern relaxed his neck so that his head hung limp over the chair-back. “Unless. . . ”

“Unless what?”

Stern straightened up and gave him an odd smile. “Unless I’m waiting inside the shelter with the detonator in my hand.”

“What?”

“It’s the only way,” said Stern. “I’ll wear one of the gas suits you brought from Oxford.”

“You’re certifiably nuts.”

“Are you saying the suit and mask you designed won’t protect me?”

“In a sealed room full of nerve gas? I damn sure won’t offer you any guarantee. Hell, that’s like playing Russian roulette.”

“I rather like the idea,” Stern said, glancing at Anna. “The simplicity of it. And I’ll be there to watch all those SS bastards claw each other’s eyes out.”

“Jesus,” whispered McConnell. “You’ve got guts, I’ll give you that.”