Polar Shift

The door opened, and Karl stepped into the cabin. He had been outside, listening to the murmur of male voices. He was puzzled when he saw the woman standing with her back to him. He glanced at Kovacs, still holding the towel, and he read the fear in the professor's face.

The Russian felt the blast of cold air through the open door. He whirled and shot without aiming. Karl was a millisecond ahead of him. He had put his head down and rammed it into the Russian's midsection.

The blow should have cracked the assassin's rib cage, but the heavy fur coat and the stiff corset he wore were like padded armor. The head butt only knocked the wind out of him. He crashed into a bunk, landing on his side. His wig fell off to reveal short black hair. He got off another shot that nicked Karl's right shoulder muscle at the base of the neck.

Karl lunged at the assassin, and with his left hand groped for the throat. Blood from his wound spattered them both. The assassin brought his foot up and kicked Karl in the chest. He reeled back, tripped and fell onto his back.

Kovacs grabbed the soup bowl from the sink and threw it at the assassin's face. The bowl bounced harmlessly off the man's cheekbone. He laughed. 'I'll tend to you next.' He aimed the pistol at Karl.

Va-room!

A muffled explosion thundered off the walls. The deck slanted at a sharp angle to starboard. Kovacs was flung to his knees. Unused to the high-heeled boots on his feet, the assassin lost his balance. He fell on top of Karl, who grabbed the man's wrist, pulled it to his mouth and sank his teeth into cartilage and muscle. The pistol clunked to the deck.

Va-room! Va-room!

The ship shuddered from two more massive explosions. The assassin tried to rise, but again lost his balance when the ship lurched to port. He teetered on the verge of standing. Karl kicked him in the ankle. The Russian let out an unladylike yell and crashed to the floor. His head came to rest against the metal base of the bunk.

Karl braced himself against the sink pipes and drove his hobnail boot into the man's throat, crushing his larynx. The man flailed at Karl's leg, his eyes bulged, his face went dark red, then purple, and then he died.

Karl staggered to his feet.

'We've got to get out of here,' he said. 'The ship's been torpedoed.'

He muscled Kovacs from the cabin into the passageway, where there was pandemonium. The corridor was filled with panic-stricken passengers. Their screams and shouts echoed off the walls. The ringing of alarm bells contributed to the din. The emergency lights were on, but a pall of smoke produced from the explosions made it difficult to see.

The main stairway was clogged with an unmoving crush of panicked passengers. Many of them had stopped in their tracks as they gagged from the throat-burning fumes.

The mob was trying to push against the river of water that spilled down the stairs. Karl opened an unmarked steel door, dragged Kovacs into a dark space and shut the door behind them. The professor felt his hand being guided to the rung of a ladder.

'Climb,' Karl ordered.

Kovacs dumbly obeyed, ascending until his head hit a hatch. Karl shouted from below to open the hatch cover, and to keep climbing. They went up a second ladder. Kovacs pushed another cover open. Cold air and wind-driven snowflakes lashed his face. He climbed through the hatch, and helped Karl into the open.

Kovacs looked around in bewilderment. 'Where are we?'

'On the boat deck. This way.'

The icy, sloping deck was eerily quiet, compared to the horror in the third-class section. The few people they saw were the privileged passengers whose cabins were on the boat deck. Some were clustered around a motorized pinnace, a sturdy boat built to cruise in the Norwegian fjords. Crew members had been chipping away with hammers and axes at the ice on the davits.

With the davit fastenings finally freed, the crewmen surged aboard, pushing aside women, some of them pregnant. Children and wounded soldiers didn't have a chance. Karl drew his pistol and fired a warning shot in the air. The crewmen hesitated, but only for a second, before they continued to fight their way onto the lifeboat. Karl fired another shot, killing the first crewman who had climbed into the boat. The others ran for their lives.

Karl lifted a woman and her baby into the boat, then gave the professor a hand before climbing in himself. He allowed some crewmen aboard, so they could throw the dead man out and lower the boat to the water. The hooks attached to the lowering lines were unfastened and the motor started.

The heavily burdened boat wallowed as it moved slowly across the sea toward distant lights from a freighter that was headed their way. Karl ordered the lifeboat stopped to pick up people floating in the water. Soon it became even more dangerously overloaded. One of the crewmen protested.

'There's no room in the boat,' he yelled.

Karl shot him between the eyes. 'There's room now,' he said, and ordered the other crewmen to toss the body overboard. Satisfied that the short-lived mutiny was under control, he squeezed next to Kovacs.

'You're well, Professor?'

'I'm fine.' He stared at Karl. 'You're a surprising man.'

'I try to be. Never let your enemies know what to expect.'

'I'm not talking about that. I saw you help the wounded and women. You cradled that baby as if it were your own.'

'Things are not always what they seem, my friend.' He reached into his coat and brought out a packet wrapped in a waterproof rubber pouch. 'Take these papers. You are no longer Lazlo Kovacs but a German national who has lived in Hungary. You have only a slight accent and will easily pass. I want you to disappear into the crowd. Become another refugee. Make your way toward the British and American lines.'

'Who are you?'

'A friend.'

'Why should I believe that?'

'As I said, things are not always what they seem. I am part of a circle that has been fighting the Nazi animals long before the Russians.'

Light dawned in the professor's eyes. 'The Kreisau Circle?' He had heard rumors of the secretive opposition group.

Karl brought his finger to his lips. 'We are still in enemy territory,' he said with a lowered voice.

Kovacs clutched Karl's arm. 'Can you get my family to safety as well?'

'I am afraid it is too late for that. Your family is no more.'

'But the letters-'

'They were clever forgeries, so you would not lose heart and give up your work.'

Kovacs stared into the night with a stunned expression on his face.

Karl grabbed the professor by the lapel and whispered in his ear. 'You must forget your work for your own good and the welfare of mankind. We cannot risk that it will fall into the wrong hands.'

The professor nodded dumbly. The boat banged up against the freighter's hull. A ladder was lowered. Karl ordered the reluctant crewmen to take the boat out again to pick up more survivors. From the freighter's deck, Kovacs watched the boat push off. Karl gave one last wave and the boat disappeared behind a veil of falling snow.

In the distance, Kovacs saw the lights of the liner, which had turned onto its port side, so that the funnel was parallel to the sea. The boiler exploded as the ship slipped below the surface about an hour after being torpedoed. In that short time, five times more lives were lost on the Gustloff than on the Titanic.

1

The Atlantic Ocean,

the present

Those who laid eyes on the Southern Belle for the first time could be forgiven for