Black Cross

“Mein Gott,” Stern whispered.

“I want you to lead this mission. Are you my man or not?”

Stern nodded in the darkness. “Yes.”

Smith reached into his jacket and pulled out a map of Europe. Swastikas covered the paper from Poland to the French Coast. Stern felt his pulse speeding at the prospect of action.

“Doesn’t look like we’ve accomplished much in five years, does it?” Smith said. “Look here. There is one thing you can help me with tonight. You may already have done it.”

“What?”

“Picked the target. I mentioned three camps. To be honest, I’ve already narrowed my list to two. Sachsenhausen is simply too large for the type of operation I have in mind. It’s Natzweiler or Totenhausen.”

Stern looked greedily at the map. He knew which camp he wanted to attack. Still, he didn’t want to seem too eager.

“Natzweiler is the larger by far,” Smith said. “The SS are almost certainly killing more Jews there.”

“A larger camp would be easier for me to slip into unnoticed,” Stern pointed out.

“You won’t be infiltrating the camp. Not the way I’ve designed this show.”

“Well,” Stern said in a neutral tone, “since you have only a limited amount of gas, you could increase your chances of success by targeting the smallest camp.”

“Quite,” Smith agreed.

“How far is Totenhausen from Rostock?”

“Twenty miles, due east. It’s on the Recknitz River.”

Stern could not keep the excitement out of his voice. “Brigadier, I know that area. My father and I used to hike the wilderness all around Rostock. I used to follow the Wandervögel around when I was a boy.”

Smith studied the map. “Totenhausen is practically on the Baltic Coast. Much closer to Sweden than Natzweiler is. That would simplify both infiltration and escape.”

“Brigadier, it’s got to be Totenhausen!”

“I’m afraid I can’t make the final decision tonight.” The Scotsman rolled up the map. “But I can tell you this. Totenhausen was designed solely to test and manufacture Sarin and Soman. From a political standpoint, it’s the perfect target.”

Stern tried to control his impatience. “What do I do now? Where do I go?”

“Some of my people will look after you.” Smith leaned forward and opened a window in the partition separating them from the Bentley’s driver. “Norgeby House,” he said, then closed the window and turned to Stern. “There is more to this mission than killing people. There are other objectives which are extremely important. After the SS garrison is destroyed—”

“Just a minute,” Stern interrupted. “You said we had to kill the prisoners?”

“Yes. I’m afraid there’s no way around it. We can’t jeopardize the mission by trying to warn them. Even if we did warn them, there’s no way to get them out of the camp, much less out of Germany.”

Stern nodded slowly. “Are they all Jews?”

“God, man, it’s an odd time to get squeamish. Didn’t you just propose bombing four concentration camps with no warning at all?”

Stern felt a strange hesitancy. He had just proposed that. But somehow this was different. Bombing the death camps would have been an unmistakable assertion of Allied support for Jews, and a potentially crippling blow to the Nazi extermination system. Brigadier Smith’s plan also meant sacrificing Jews, but without any direct benefit to the Jewish people. Or was there? If Eisenhower’s invasion stalled on the beaches of France, Hitler would almost certainly have time to complete the genocide he had begun eleven years ago. Stern cleared his throat.

“You mentioned other objectives, Brigadier?”

Smith was watching him carefully. “Right. After the garrison is neutralized, you’ll move into the gas factory. First and foremost, we need a sample of Soman, their newest and most toxic gas. Second, we need photographs of the production apparatus. Nerve agents are extremely difficult to mass produce. A lot could be learned by studying photos of the German equipment.”

“Brigadier, I’m no scientist,” Stern objected. “I can operate a camera, but I wouldn’t know a poison gas factory from a herring cannery.”

“Don’t worry about that. You’re job is neutralizing the camp. Someone else will give you technical directions regarding the gas.”

“Who?”

“An American. He’s the foremost expert on poison gases outside Nazi Germany. Not only that, he speaks fluent German.”

“I thought you said the Americans were against this mission.”

“They are. But this man’s a civilian. Perfect for the job.”

Stern’s eyes narrowed. “You sound like you’re trying to sell him to me.”

“I’m afraid he’s the one we’ll have to sell on this operation. He happens to be a pacifist.”

“A pacifist! I don’t want him.”

“You’ll take him, though,” Smith said harshly. “You’ll do whatever I bloody tell you to do. And the first thing you’re going to do is help me sell him on this mission. Lay on the sob stuff about the plight of the Jews. Moral duty, all that rot.”

Stern’s voice communicated his disgust. “You want me to help you convince a pacifist to murder defenseless prisoners?”

A wicked smile touched the corners of Brigadier Smith’s mouth. “Nobody needs to say anything about killing anybody. This is a sales job. And the first rule of sales is, know your mark. In this case, that advice can be taken quite literally.”

“What do you mean? Who is this person?”

Brigadier Smith leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes. “Mark McConnell, M.D. And I can tell you right now, Stern, you’re going to hate him.”

Two hours later, in a forest deep in northern Germany, a black Volkswagen skidded to a stop beneath a thick stand of fir trees. Two figures—one male, one female—climbed out and hurried into the wood. The woman wore a heavy wool coat over a white nurse’s uniform, and a fur hat over her blonde hair. The man wore a ragged buttonless jacket to cover his gray shirt, which was lined with prison stripes.

The man stopped at the edge of a clearing and stood guard. The woman moved forward and called out a few words in Polish. Two men materialized out of the trees and stepped into the moonlight. One was huge, almost a giant, with a thick black beard. He carried a Sten submachine gun in one hand and wore a meat cleaver on his belt. The young man beside him weighed only half what his comrade did, and carried only a suitcase. With his long thin arms and delicate fingers, he looked like a refugee from a paupers’ symphony.

“You’re late, Anna,” said the giant. “We already took down the antenna.”

“Then put it back up,” she said. “We almost didn’t get here at all.”

The giant grinned, then said something to his comrade in Polish. The thin man opened up the suitcase and pulled out a coil of wire. The giant tied one end to his belt and scrambled up the nearest fir tree.

The woman called Anna took a small notebook from her coat and knelt on the ground beside the suitcase. The simplicity of the concept fascinated her. Transmitter, receiver, battery, antenna—all in one battered leather suitcase. This wireless set had been hand-built by Polish partisans, but it worked almost as well as the factory-made German set where she worked. She patted the young man on the arm while he dialed in a frequency.

“Do you think we’re too late, Miklos?” she asked.

He looked up at her with hollow eyes and smiled. “My brother likes to tease you, Anna. London is always waiting.” He took a codebook from his pocket, opened it, then looked up toward the dark branches. “Ready, Stan?”