all this off. The very next night, Sturm and his men raped and murdered six women brought from Ravensbruck. Schorner used to be drunk all the time. Now he’s like a hawk, watching everything. It’s like something woke him from a deep sleep. Brandt abusing the children . . . it’s madness, I tell you. Like the end of the world.”
“What was that about children?” McConnell asked.
Anna hung the cloth on the basin and turned to him. “Brandt performs experiments on children. He calls it medical research, but it’s unspeakable. Three times in the past ten weeks he’s had boys brought to his quarters. Little boys. He keeps them there for a while, a week or so, then . . . then the gas, I suppose. Oh, God forgive me, I don’t know.” She wiped more tears out of her eyes. “I don’t know and I don’t want to.”
Stern stopped pacing and stared at McConnell, his face contorted with rage. “And still you won’t help me destroy this place?”
McConnell found himself eyeing the vodka bottle with more than passing interest. “Listen, you want to kill this man Brandt. I understand that. I do. A man who tortures children doesn’t deserve to live. But you’re asking me to kill every innocent prisoner under his power as well. Does that make sense to you?”
“We’re talking about the outcome of the entire war!”
“If you believe Brigadier Smith.” McConnell tried to summon his most persuasive voice. “Look, Stern, we need to hash this thing out. We’re in a pretty tough spot here. Maybe we can find some kind of middle ground if we just calm down—”
Stern kicked over one of the chairs and took a step toward him. “You should have come with me to Rostock today, Doctor. Perhaps you wouldn’t be so calm yourself. Are you interested in what I saw there?”
McConnell suppressed an urge to pick up his Schmeisser in self-defense. “Sure,” he said softly.
“Our pilot was wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“My family’s apartment building was still standing. In fact, I went inside and asked a few questions.”
Anna closed her eyes and moved her lips silently, a gesture McConnell read as the equivalent of a Catholic crossing herself.
“Oh, I wasn’t in any danger,” Stern said in a sarcastic voice. “A policeman stopped me in the city, but when he saw the SD uniform he nearly pissed his trousers. He couldn’t wait to get away from me. Being an SD colonel in this country must be rather like being God.”
“Yes, our building is still there,” Stern went on, “but things aren’t
McConnell saw Anna flinch.
“No one seemed to remember my family,” Stern said. “And why should they? It was mostly children. Little Aryan princes and princesses, all living happily in flats haunted by the ghosts of little dark-haired children. I do not think they are troubled by ghosts, though. Do you, Doctor?”
“Stern—”
“Are
He stalked down the cellar stairs, but quickly returned with his personal bag, which held the supplies he’d stolen from Achnacarry.
“Where are you going now?” Anna asked anxiously.
Stern slung the bag over his shoulder. “I’m going up that hill to end this madness. The wind is blowing again, but as soon as it dies I’m sending down those cylinders.”
“Jesus,” said McConnell, coming to his feet. “Just give me a minute to think, for God’s sake.”
“You’ve been thinking for your whole life, Doctor. Would another minute make any difference?”
McConnell knew there was no stopping him. “Are you going for the sub afterwards?”
“Since you’re not going to help me, there’s really nothing I can do in the factory after the attack. I wouldn’t know what I was looking at, much less what to take pictures of. I’ll steal the nearest vehicle I can find and make a run for the coast.”
“What about us?”
“You mean you?”
“We can’t leave Anna to face the Gestapo.”
Stern barked a short laugh. “We can’t take her back with us. Smith was plain about that. The sub wouldn’t take her on board. You know the British.”
“Every man for himself, eh, Stern?” McConnell shook his head in disgust. “That’s been your style from the beginning, hasn’t it?”
Stern pulled open the door. “Don’t worry, Doctor. I’ll get you back to your warm little laboratory, even if it kills me. I want you to explain to Smith why you couldn’t compromise your sacred principles to save the Allied invasion army.” He hefted the leather bag over his shoulder. “I wish you had to explain it to your dead brother.”
McConnell went for him then, but Stern simply slipped out and pulled the door shut after him. By the time McConnell got it open again, he had vanished into the darkness.
Wolfgang Schorner clicked his boot heels together with the report of a parade ground inspection. Before him, seated at an obsessively tidy desk, was Doctor Klaus Brandt. The commandant of Totenhausen had returned from Berlin an hour earlier. He looked up from a piece of notepaper he’d been studying when Schorner entered and regarded him over a pair of rimless reading glasses.
“You asked to see me, Herr Doktor?” Schorner said.
Brandt pursed his lips as if mulling over a complex diagnosis. Schorner felt the familiar discomfort he always experienced in Brandt’s presence. It wasn’t only the man’s perversions. After four years at the sharp end of the war, Schorner found it irksome to be around men who worried more about their careers than the survival of the Reich. He was depressingly certain that whether Germany won or lost, Klaus Brandt would be a millionaire after the war, while the barbed wire on the Fatherland’s borders would be tangled with the corpses of men like himself. Yet, ironically, Klaus Brandt was one of the few who held in his hands the means for German victory.
After what seemed an age to Schorner, Brandt said, “You heard Reichsfuhrer Himmler say that he intends to give the Fuhrer a demonstration of Soman Four?”
Schorner nodded. “In three days’ time, yes?”
“Correct. I have just learned that Erwin Rommel will be there as well.”
Schorner felt a thrill of surprise. Of course it made perfect sense: Hitler had just put Rommel in charge of his Atlantic Wall. It would be the Desert Fox’s responsibility to destroy the Allies on the beaches of France.
“Is the demonstration still to take place at Raubhammer Proving Ground, Herr Doktor?”
Brandt sniffed peevishly. “Yes. The test will take place in three days. The Raubhammer engineers claim they’ve finally perfected a lightweight suit that can insulate a man from both Sarin and Soman.”
Schorner raised his eyebrows. “I would like to see that suit, Herr Doktor.”
“So would I, Schorner. And we will. They’re sending over three for our inspection.” Brandt took a very thin cigarette from a gold case on his desk and lit it with almost feminine delicacy. “This demonstration will be quite a show, it seems,” he said, leaning back and blowing smoke to the side. “Concentration camp prisoners from Sachsenhausen will be dressed in captured British uniforms and made to charge across a mock beach where Soman has been deployed. SS volunteers defending the ‘beach’ will be wearing the new protective suits. It should really be something to see. A fitting reward after all our hard work.”
“And well-deserved, Herr Doktor.”
“Quite so, Sturmbannfuhrer. The Reichsfuhrer believes this demonstration will at last overcome the Fuhrer’s irrational — but quite understandable — aversion to chemical weapons.”
Brandt held the cigarette between his lips while he examined the manicured fingernails of his left hand. “This will be quite a feather in Himmler’s cap, Schorner. And he knows how to reward loyalty.”
“I know it well, Herr Doktor.” Schorner waited for further information, but Brandt had lapsed into silence.
