Black Cross

“About three kilometers, uphill all the way.”

“Heavy tree growth? Plenty of cover?”

“Yes, but a switchback road crosses your path a dozen times between here and there.”

Stern winced. “What about the wind? Has it been blowing this hard all night?”

“What is so important about the wind?”

When Stern did not reply, she said, “It gusts, but it hasn’t dropped below a hard breeze all night.”

“Just a minute,” McConnell cut in. “What’s all this about a power station? Now that we’re finally in Germany, maybe you can tell me exactly what the plan is? How are the two of us supposed to disable this plant so that I can get a look at the machinery? Are some of Vaughan’s commandos parachuting in behind us or what?”

“No,” said Stern.

“I am also confused,” Anna said. “Since only two of you landed, I assumed your team must already be here, hiding in the woods. What can two men do against the garrison at Totenhausen?”

“More than you think,” said Stern.

“You don’t know what the mission is?” McConnell asked her.

“No.”

“Come on, Stern,” he pressed. “Out with it.”

“Thank you for telling her my real name, Doctor.”

“Code names are childish at this point,” Anna said. She looked at McConnell. “Your German is terrible.”

“Danke.”

“I mean your grammar is perfect, but your accent. . . ”

“I already tried to avoid this mission on those grounds. It didn’t work.”

“He’s not here for his language skills,” Stern said. “He’s a chemist.”

Anna looked at McConnell with sudden understanding. “Ah. Perhaps you weren’t such a bad choice, then.”

Stern opened a door that led onto a small bedroom, looked inside, then closed it. “You want to know how the two of us are going to disable the plant, Doctor? We’re not. We’re going to leave it exactly like we find it, except for one thing. Everybody in it will be dead.”

“What?” McConnell felt suddenly lightheaded. “What did you say?”

“You didn’t hear me? We’re going to gas the camp, Doctor. That’s why I asked about the wind. The ideal windspeed for the attack is zero to six miles per hour.”

“Gas the camp? With what?”

“With nerve gas from the Totenhausen storage tanks?” Anna guessed.

Stern shook his head. “With our own nerve gas.”

“We didn’t bring any,” said McConnell. “We don’t even have any. Do we?”

Stern smiled with the satisfaction of secret knowledge.

“But . . .” Anna trailed off, pondering Stern’s words.

“I see,” McConnell said. But he didn’t see. He had known Smith was holding back facts about the mission. Yet of all the possibilities he had imagined, this was not one. “Is the target really a gas factory and testing facility, as I was led to believe?”

“Yes.”

“But . . . how are you going to gas the SS without killing the prisoners?”

“I’m not.”

McConnell sat down at the kitchen table and tried to digest this.

“There’s no way to warn the prisoners without risking the success of the mission,” explained Stern. “Even if we could separate them, there’s nowhere for them to go.”

“Mein Gott,” Anna whispered.

“Why didn’t you tell me this back at Achnacarry?” asked McConnell. “I asked you enough times.”

“I didn’t tell you because you wouldn’t have come. Smith was not lying about one thing, Doctor, time is critical. There was no time to find someone else.”

“Couldn’t you at least have given me the choice?”

“You have a choice. Are you going to help me?”

McConnell was tempted to refuse merely out of anger at being tricked so completely. But even underneath his anger, he knew that what Smith wanted them to do was wrong.

“No,” he said. “I’m not going to help you kill innocent prisoners.”

Stern turned up his palms. “You see? We were right not to tell you.”

“Christ, what did you gain by lying?”

“You’re here, aren’t you? Look, all you have to do is assist me in the final phase. Go into the factory and tell me what to take pictures of. Help me get the samples. Smith thought you’d see the necessity after thinking it through.”

“Well, I don’t see it! I knew something like this couldn’t be done without loss of life. I prepared myself for that. But this . . . Jesus, Stern, you’re talking about murdering hundreds of innocent people! I thought we understood each other. Don’t you think you owed me a little honesty?”

“Owed you?” Stern’s face reddened. “I only met you two weeks ago! I’ll tell you who I owe, Doctor. The Jews waiting to be murdered in fifty death camps across Germany and Poland. I owe the soldiers who are going to risk their lives to liberate Europe and free those Jews. It may not be their top priority, but they’ll get to it sooner or later. As for you, you can sit here and wait for the Second Coming or whatever you believe will finally stop Hitler. I’m going up that hill.”

“Is that where the gas is?”

“Yes.”

“How are you going to get it into the camp?”

“Easily. There are ten electrical pylons connecting the power station on top of a nearby hill to the prison camp at the bottom. Last night, Sergeant McShane and his men hung eight cylinders of British nerve gas from a power line at the top pylon. My mission is to climb that pylon, release the cylinders, and send them down into Totenhausen.”

“So that’s it,” Anna said, staring into one of the candle flames. “London had me out at all hours of the night sketching poles and wires and transformer boxes. All the electrical junctions at the camp. I had no idea why until now. I assumed they were planning to defeat the electrical fence before a general assault.”

She sat down opposite McConnell and looked up at Stern. “Is that really the only way? To kill everyone?”

“What are a few hundred lives sacrificed if it saves tens of thousands later?” Stern said.

Anna’s eyes didn’t waver. “You say that very easily, Herr Stern. There are women and children in that camp.”

“Jews?”

“There are many Jews there, yes. Others too. You don’t like Jews?”

“I am a Jew.”

She blinked in disbelief. “My God. You are a Jew and you have the nerve to come here? You must be mad.”

“No. But I am ready to die for my people. If other Jews must die also, so be it.”

“Is that your choice to make?” McConnell asked.

“Those prisoners were doomed long before we got here, Doctor. This way at least they’ll die for a reason.”

“Count me out,” McConnell said.

“I never counted you in.” Stern went back to the window and watched through a crack in the curtains. “I told Smith he was a fool to think you would help me. It doesn’t matter, though. I can make the attack without you.”

McConnell wasn’t listening. He was thinking. “You say those cylinders on the hill have British nerve gas in them?”

“That’s right.”

“What kind of nerve gas?”