Greg Iles - Black Cross

“He’s sleeping,” she said to the guard. “I’ve done all I can for him. He is presentable for interrogation.” She summoned her last reserve of courage. “Tell Wolfgang I will come again if he needs me, but I need sleep now. I am on duty tomorrow.”

She pocketed the original ampule of adrenaline from the medical kit so at least that part of her story would hold up, then moved toward the door. She knew she should wait for Schörner to return; it would be madness to leave. She should wait and calmly play the part of dumbfounded nurse while Schörner apologized for the prisoner’s death to the Gestapo man from Peenemünde. But she simply could not do it.

The private stepped into Anna’s path as she neared the stairs, but her professional manner — and her use of Schörner’s Christian name — intimidated him enough not to challenge her. She marched past him, up the stairs, and out of the hospital. With every step she felt as if she were condemning herself, but she kept walking. She kept walking until she had walked right out of Totenhausen’s main gate.

Seventeen minutes later, Miklos Wojik died.

36

While Anna was gone, McConnell and Stern had sat in the cellar for an hour, then had grown so anxious they came up to the kitchen and ate some moldy cheese in the darkness. Every minute or so Stern would go to the front window to check the road for approaching vehicles. They heard a motorcycle once, but it turned out to be only an SS man headed into Dornow. When Anna finally did arrive, they never heard her coming. She simply opened the door and stepped inside the dark foyer.

Stern switched on the kitchen light.

She stood in the kitchen door, her blond hair tangled and plastered to her cheeks, her overcoat soaked through as if she had fallen a dozen times in the snow. She shivered uncontrollably.

McConnell jumped up and steadied her. “Put on some coffee,” he told Stern.

Stern didn’t move. “What happened?” he asked. “What did they want you for?”

Anna’s eyes seemed out of focus. “It’s over,” she mumbled.

“What do you mean?” Stern grabbed his Schmeisser off the counter. “They know we’re here?”

“I don’t know. But Schörner caught the Wojiks.”

“Oh God,” McConnell murmured. “Did you walk back here?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus.”

“Schörner?” said Stern. “Schörner isn’t Scarlett?”

Anna shook her head.

“Well . . . did they get the message to Sweden?”

“No.”

“ No ? No message? No air raid?”

“No.”

“ Scheisse ! Have the Poles talked yet? How long has Schörner had them?”

“They haven’t talked,” Anna said, half-turning as McConnell pulled off her wet overcoat.

“How do you know?” Stern pressed.

“They can’t.”

“What do you mean? They’re dead?”

“Yes.”

“Both of them?”

“Yes.”

“What about the note? My note to Smith.”

“Stan got rid of it before they were taken.”

“How do you know that?”

“Miklos told me.”

“You talked to them?”

“Only Miklos. Stan was already dead. Tortured.”

“Tortured? Then how do you know he didn’t talk?”

Anna finally focused on Stern. “Because Miklos told me,” she said, her nostrils flaring in anger. “And because I knew Stan Wojik. He was tough. Tougher than you will ever be, Herr Stern. He hated the Nazis. He hated them so much he lived in the forest like an animal to fight them. You think the Jews are the only ones who have suffered in this war?”

“What about the other one?” Stern asked, undeterred. “The thin one. He was tortured as well? He didn’t look so tough.”

“He was, though. Tough enough to ask me to kill him.”

McConnell and Stern looked at each other.

Anna spoke without inflection, certain now that events were beyond her power to change. “Hauptscharführer Sturm killed Stan before they ever reached the camp. A Gestapo man from Peenemünde was on his way to Totenhausen to question Miklos. Schörner told me to clean him up for questioning. We were alone. Miklos told me he knew he would talk if they tortured him like they had Stan. He said . . . he said he knew he was weak.”

“He asked you to kill him?” Stern said.

“Yes.” Anna touched her cheek as if to reassure herself she was really alive. “I refused at first. But then I realized what it would mean if he talked.”

“You did it?” said McConnell.

She nodded listlessly. “Six cc’s of morphia in the femoral vein.”

McConnell lifted his hand to comfort her, but she drew back.

“Did you see him die?” Stern asked.

“I saw him go into coma.”

Stern turned to McConnell. “Would that kill him? Morphia?”

“A full grain in the femoral vein would almost certainly do it. Respiratory arrest, then death.”

“How is it you are here, then?” Stern asked, his voice harsh and relentless. “You killed a prisoner and they just let you walk out?”

“Stop interrogating her,” said McConnell.

“You realize they could be outside right now?” Stern moved quickly to the window. “You damn fool! She could have led Schörner right to us!”

“See anything?” McConnell asked sarcastically.

“It’s too dark.”

“I know I should have stayed,” Anna said, finally pushing her hair out of her eyes. “But I couldn’t do it. I might have gone mad right in front of Schörner. I told the guard that Miklos’s heart was weak, that I’d done all I could do. I told him Schörner could send for me if he needed me again.”

“Stupid,” Stern muttered from the window. “ Blöd ! Schörner is bound to send someone after you.”

“I don’t care,” Anna whispered. “I just don’t care anymore.”

“You’d better care. Or you’ll be dead.”

“But I don’t . Don’t you see? I just killed a friend. A boy, really. I murdered him! No one should be asked to do that. No one !”

“It’s war,” Stern said flatly.

“War?” Anna started around the table toward him. “What do you know about war?” she asked.

McConnell watched in amazement as the German nurse put both hands on Stern’s chest and shoved him backward against the sink.

“What have you done?” she demanded. “Talk, that’s what! Talk, talk, talk. I’m sick of your talking. If you think the SS are coming, get your ass up that hill. Go on! Gas the whole camp! Kill all the prisoners, I don’t care. I dare you to do it!”

The blood drained out of Anna’s face. When she wobbled on her feet, McConnell reached out and pulled her to him.

She allowed it.

“Jonas,” he said softly, “I think we’ve reached the point where we may have to consider that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What do you think I’m talking about?”

Stern turned back to the window and made as if he were watching the road. “But we agreed to try to save the prisoners.”

“You’d better hurry,” Anna said into McConnell’s chest. “They shot ten more while I was there.”

“What?” Stern whirled from the window and stared at her like a man steeling himself to take a bullet. “Who did they shoot?”

Anna raised her head. “Five Jewish women and five Polish men.”

Stern blinked several times, his relief obvious. “But why did they shoot these people?”

“Schörner knows something is going on at the camp. At first he thought the parachutes and the rest of it had to do with Peenemünde. But not anymore. On top of everything else, they seem to have lost an SS patrol.”

McConnell raised his head and caught Stern’s eye.