black chariot. He’d seen the spotlights when he was still a mile away, like white fingers exploring the forest, and he had known then that trying to sneak back in would have been impossible.
He had to brazen it out.
As one of the six SS men guarding the gate approached the Mercedes, Stern prayed that Anna Kaas had given him an accurate description of the command situation at the camp. He rolled down his window and waited for the guard to arrive.
When the brown-uniformed SS private saw the SD uniform and rank badge, he reacted exactly as Stern hoped he would. He snapped to attention with eyes as big as spent bullets.
“Step up to the window, Schutze,” Stern said in an offhand voice.
“
“I am Standartenfuhrer Ritter Stern, from Berlin. I have come here to make an arrest. Possibly several arrests.”
The private’s face lost what little color it had possessed.
“I want no one but SD personnel to enter or leave through this gate for the next hour. That includes Sturmbannfuhrer Wolfgang Schorner. Do you understand?”
“
“Stop shouting. You will tell the other guards nothing. You will tell Hauptscharfuhrer Sturm nothing. I shall speak to Herr Doktor Brandt and no one else. Anyone who interferes with these arrests will find himself in the cellars of Prinz-Albrechtstrasse by morning. Have I made myself clear?”
The private was too stunned to muster enough voice to answer, but he clicked his boot heels and nodded.
“Get back to your post and open the gate.”
The private fled back to his comrades and obeyed the order.
Stern put the Mercedes into gear and rolled slowly forward into Totenhausen. The headquarters building looked deserted. He drove around it and onto the Appellplatz. Directly ahead of him stood the hospital, to his left the inmate blocks. Two heavy trucks were parked near the fence surrounding the large barn to his right, the barn Brigadier Smith had told him housed Brandt’s lab and gas factory. Men wearing white coats were loading boxes into the trucks.
Stern drove straight on to the hospital and parked on the side away from the factory. His watch read 7:16 P.M. On schedule. He unscrewed the SOE-machined silencer from the Schmeisser and slipped it into his right boot, then got out of the Mercedes and walked around the hospital.
The alley was empty.
Halfway up it, he turned left and moved quite deliberately down the four steps that led to the half-sunken E- Block. The door worked by means of a steel wheel set in its face, like the wheel on a submarine hatch. The wheel turned under his hand; as Anna had predicted, the door was open. Warmer air ruffled his hair as he stepped inside. A faint bluish light passed through the porthole windows set high in the walls of the steel room. Only now did he realize how desperate was their plan. The E-Block felt exactly like what it was: a chamber of death. It was a supreme irony that in just over forty minutes it would be the one place in Totenhausen where life could survive.
He closed the door, checked to make sure the alley was empty, then climbed the icy steps and walked toward the inmate blocks. He wondered how much the gate guard had told his comrades about the man in the Mercedes. Under normal circumstances, the presence of an SD colonel would move quickly up the SS grapevine. But these were not normal circumstances. How long would it take the news to reach Wolfgang Schorner?
There was a sentry standing before the wire gate of the fence surrounding the six inmate blocks. Approaching him, Stern realized that he was walking beneath the mutilated body of a naked woman. Greta Muller. He erased the Goyaesque image from his mind and pulled out the leather case containing his forged papers, flipping it open before he reached the sentry.
“I need to speak to a prisoner,” he said with perfunctory courtesy. “A Jewess. It’s a matter of Reich security. I’m not expecting trouble, so you may remain at your post. If you hear women screaming, ignore it. If you hear a man shout for help, that will be me. Come running.”
The guard barely glanced at the papers; again the SD uniform and rank were enough. Stern was through the gate in less time than it would take to light a cigarette.
“Standartenfuhrer?”
Stern laid one hand on his Schmeisser as he turned.
“You’ll need this.”
The sentry hurried over and handed him a battery torch.
Stern nodded a curt thank-you, then stepped up into the block.
The room was totally dark. He switched on the flashlight, held it at arm’s length and shined it on his own face.
“I am the shoemaker’s son,” he whispered. “I have returned. Is my father here?”
“Light the candle,” Jonas commanded. “Hurry!”
There was a rustling of clothes in the darkness. A hooded yellow glow illuminated a circle on the floor. A shadow passed in front of the light, and Stern felt arms go around him and squeeze tightly. Raw emotion surged through him, so strong that he almost couldn’t bear it. All he could think of was his mother sitting alone in her tiny flat in Palestine.
“How do you do it?” Avram Stern asked. “How do you get past them?”
“Never mind. I must speak to you. Bring everyone close around me. Quickly.”
“Rachel!” Avram said sharply. “Form the Circle.”
Stern sensed a great many movements around him, like leaves in a night forest. As the women drew closer, he backed against the door. He tried to make the movement seem natural, but he did it to block the escape route of anyone who panicked.
His father and Rachel Jansen stood closest to him. The other faces were a mixture of young and old, a human map of Europe.
“Listen to me,” he said in Yiddish. “I must speak to you, and we have very little time. What I told you before was not completely true. I came here from Palestine, but not to verify reports of Nazi atrocities. I came here to help prepare for a great strike against Hitler.
“You all know what the Nazis are making here at this camp. They have tested it on people you knew, perhaps even family members. You know how deadly this gas is. I don’t need to tell any of you how devastating it would be to the troops who will soon land in France to liberate Europe. It is for that reason that the Allies intend to kill Herr Doktor Brandt and destroy his laboratory.”
There was a sudden wind of whispers. Stern gazed into the shocked faces. As much as he wanted to, he could not tell these women the truth. “In approximately forty minutes,” he said, “Totenhausen Camp is going be attacked from the air.”
Several women gasped.
“The shells that fall will be chemical shells, filled with a gas much like the one made here.” Stern took a step closer to the women. He realized that he had been silently counting them. There were forty-four, plus his father. “Anyone unprotected from this gas will probably be killed during the attack. I have come here to suggest a way that many of you might be able to survive it.”
“Why have you really come here?” asked a woman from the back. “The Allies don’t care if we live or die.”
Stern turned up his palms. “I am a Jew, not an Allied soldier. I fight for Haganah in Palestine. I fight for Israel. I have risked my life to come here. Will you listen?”
“We will listen,” Rachel said.
“The only protection from this gas is complete isolation. The bombs will fall at eight o’clock. Ten minutes before that, you must move from here to the E-Block and lock yourselves inside. It is imperative—”
“The E-Block?” someone said. “There are more than two hundred prisoners in this camp. The E-Block would not even hold all of us here.”
