Greg Iles - Black Cross

With a silent curse Stern rose up above the log and sighted his Schmeisser down on McConnell’s chest. He would wait until the soldiers forced the American to start marching down the road back to Totenhausen. Then he would fire. Fire and run like hell.

He pressed his finger to the trigger.

It took all of McConnell’s courage and concentration not to look up to where he knew Stern must be. All he could think of was Randazzo the Wop describing how David had been murdered by SS troops in a situation exactly like this one. Where the hell was Stern? Why hadn’t he marched out of the woods doing his SD impersonation? The man with the flashlight jabbered something in a guttural voice, then shoved McConnell backward. The only words he caught were “Who is . . . ?” “Doctor,” and “Peenemünde.”

He opened his mouth to answer, but no words came out.

The officer with the machine pistol stepped forward and jerked McConnell’s Walther from its holster.

“ Los, marsch !” the man shouted, pointing in the direction of Totenhausen.

McConnell stole a last look in Stern’s direction, then turned and started up the road. He had walked about ten yards when the Brrat ! of the silenced Schmeisser split the darkness.

He felt a hammerlike blow between his shoulder blades. Then he was lying facedown in the snow, unable to move. He felt the German shepherd’s teeth tearing into the SS uniform, teeth raking his shoulder.

Brrrat! went the Schmeisser again.

He heard a thud, then footsteps crunching rapidly up the road. The dog’s jaws snapped shut on his neck.

An explosive howl assaulted his eardrums.

He flipped over onto his back in time to see Stern pin the German shepherd to the ground with his boot and fire a single shot into its mouth.

“Get up!” Stern ordered. “Now! Up!”

In spite of the shock of it all, McConnell quickly worked out what had happened. Stern had shot one of the SS men first. The startled shepherd had immediately pounced on McConnell, as it must have been trained to do. Stern then shot the second SS man, ran up and kicked the dog off his back and killed it.

“Where the fuck were you?” McConnell asked.

“Shut up!” snapped Stern. He was already dragging one of the dead SS men into the trees below the road. “Spread snow over those bloodstains!”

McConnell obeyed. So, this is it , he thought, feeling his blood pounding in his ears. This is action . By the time he covered the stains, Stern had already piled both corpses and the dog out of sight in the trees.

“What do we do now?” McConnell asked, dizzy with adrenaline. “Someone must have heard something! Where do we hide the bodies?”

“Shut up and let me think,” said Stern. “We can’t bury them. Dogs would find them too easily. I’d like to throw them in the river, but we wouldn’t make it that far.”

Stern snapped his fingers. “Sewers! Dornow must have a waste line running to the river.”

“You mean carry the bodies into the village? The dog too?”

“There’s probably an access hole near the edge of the village. Probably not too far from Anna’s cottage. I’ll scout it out.”

“You don’t think bodies will be found in a sewer?”

Stern bent over to lift one of the corpses. “If they start to stink, so what? Sewers stink anyway.”

McConnell grabbed his shoulder. “Stern, you saved my life. I . . . thanks. Just thanks, that’s all.”

Stern’s eyes flashed in the darkness. “Don’t thank me too quickly, Doctor. It was a near thing.”

McConnell wanted to ask what he meant, but Stern had already hoisted one corpse onto his shoulder and moved off under the trees.

35

McConnell awoke from a dead sleep, his heart pounding. After their return from the Dornow sewer, Stern had told him to sleep fully dressed; now he knew why. Someone was pounding on a door above them. Stern had already scrambled to his feet and was checking the clip of his Schmeisser. The muted hammering reassured McConnell it was not the cellar door being assaulted, but that was small respite.

Stern kicked him. “Someone’s trying to get into the cottage!”

McConnell drew his Walther and followed Stern up the steps. Through a crack in the door they saw Anna sweep into the kitchen wearing only a nightgown. She glanced in their direction, hesitated, then went into the foyer to answer the knocking.

“Who’s there?” she called.

“Fräulein Kaas? Open the door!”

Stern moved into the kitchen and crouched behind the cabinets nearest the foyer. McConnell stayed on the cellar stairs, but aimed his Walther through the door.

“Nurse Kaas! Open the door!”

Anna braced her back against the door and closed her eyes. “It’s quite late!” she shouted. “Identify yourself!”

McConnell glanced at his watch. Just after midnight.

“I am Sturmmann Heinz Weber! You’re needed at the camp immediately! Major Schörner’s orders!”

Anna glanced back into the kitchen, then turned and opened the front door. A tall lance corporal stood there, his breath steaming in the cold.

“What is the problem, Sturmmann?”

“I cannot say, Nurse.”

“You have a car?”

“ Nein , a motorcycle with sidecar. Please, you must hurry.”

“Wait here. I must put on some clothes.”

“Hurry! The Sturmbannführer will have my head if we’re late.”

“Late for what?”

“Just hurry!” The soldier disappeared from the doorway.

Anna hurried through the kitchen without any intention of stopping, but McConnell threw open the door and grabbed her arm. “Don’t go!” he said, surprising himself as well as her.

She looked strangely at him. “I must go. I have no choice.”

Stern pushed her toward her bedroom, then shoved McConnell back onto the cellar stairs and pulled the door shut after them. When they reached the bottom, he said, “What the hell was that about?”

When McConnell didn’t answer, Stern poked him in the chest with the butt of his Schmeisser.

Like a striking snake McConnell drove his open hand into Stern’s chest and slammed him up against the wall.

“Don’t ever do that again,” he said.

Stern was so stunned by this reaction that he merely watched the American climb back to the top of the stairs and sit down beside the door. “She’ll be all right,” he said. “She’s managed this long without your help.”

McConnell glared down at him. “You don’t know anything. Schörner and Brandt could be planning to torture every nurse in that camp right now. You don’t know what those bastards are capable of.”

“And you do? What do you know about it, Doctor? You’ve spent the whole war hiding in England.”

McConnell descended the stairs and walked to the broken bookshelf near the far wall. He pulled Anna’s diary from behind the old account books and tossed it to Stern. “That’s what I know. You ought to read it sometime. It might even turn your stomach, though you want everyone to believe that’s impossible.”

Stern looked down at the diary. “Oh, it’s possible. And I know exactly what those bastards are capable of. They’ve been doing their worst to my people for ten years, remember?”

McConnell squatted on his haunches and stared at the floor. “Do you think they found the bodies? Or maybe the cylinders?”

“Not the bodies. Not that quickly.”

“Maybe we should wait on top of the hill,” McConnell said. “If it looks like the game’s up, you could still send the cylinders down into the camp.”

Stern opened his mouth, but did not speak. McConnell’s suggestion hung in the air like a challenge.