Black Cross

“Not the way you think. They’re testing a new type of chemical suit. We may have a chance. I survived one gassing inside a suit.”

“Sturm means to kill me,” Rachel said softly. “To get at Schorner. Oh God, spare my children. Without me —”

Her words were drowned by the yells of Ben Jansen as he was beaten toward them. The shoemaker leaned close and whispered, “There will be a control. There always is. You must volunteer to wear a suit, do you hear? Volunteer to wear the suit!”

Rachel heard the high whine of a motorcycle on the hill road. “Herr Stern, promise me that if your son comes back you will make him take my children away.”

“Frau Jansen, the suit—”

“Promise me!”

The shoemaker sighed in resignation. “I promise.”

Ben Jansen was babbling at Rachel, but she wasn’t listening. She tried to catch sight of Jan or Hannah near the children’s block. Was there any chance now that Schorner would send them into a Lebensborn home? Of course not. She had been a fool not to accept his offer instantly.

“To the E-Block!” Brandt commanded from the steps.

Two storm troopers caught Rachel by the arms and carried her up the steps into the hospital, straight down the main hall to the rear door, which led onto the alley and the E-Block. They were halfway across the alley when a motorcycle roared into one end of it and raced up to the hospital steps. A man wearing the field gray of the Waffen SS leaped off the cycle and let it fall in the snow. Only when he tore off his goggles did Rachel see the eyepatch and realize who the rider was.

“Herr Doktor!” Schorner shouted. “We must put all troops on full alert immediately!”

Sergeant Sturm shouldered his way between Brandt and Schorner. “The Herr Doktor is conducting an experiment,” he said. “Everything else must wait.”

Schorner did not even glance at the captives; he knew Rachel would be among them. “Herr Doktor, I must insist!”

“Ach, you stink,” Sturm said under his breath. “Where have you been, in a sewer?”

“Yes.”

“Just a moment, Hauptscharfuhrer,” Brandt said in a calm voice. “Let us hear what our security chief has to say.”

“I have located the missing patrol, Herr Doktor,” Schorner said. “Both men were shot in the back with submachine guns and hidden in the Dornow sewer.”

Even Sturm rocked back at this news. Schorner pushed on, maximizing the sense of imminent danger. “I recommend an immediate house-to-house search of Dornow. Sturm should recall his men from the hills. Also the dogs. We will need them to sniff walls and floors.”

Sergeant Sturm turned his back on Brandt. “That’s what you’d like, isn’t it?” he whispered. “But you’re too late this time.”

Brandt walked halfway down the steps. Something very much like fear had crept into his bland face. “Who do you think is responsible for these deaths, Schorner?”

“It could be anyone, Herr Doktor. Partisans, British commandos, possibly both working in concert. But with the Raubhammer demonstration so close, I don’t believe we should take any chances. Think of Rommel. Think of the Fuhrer!”

Brandt’s face went white. “Sturm! Round up every available man and dog to search the village. Immediately!”

“But the test—”

“Will continue without you!” Brandt finished. “Move! Schnell!”

Sturm glared at Schorner, then started up the alley.

“Start with the mayor’s house!” Schorner called after him. “That pompous ass needs a lesson in authority!”

“Good work, Schorner,” Brandt said. “Now, let us continue the experiment. I’m testing the integrity of the Raubhammer suits today. Ah, here they are now.”

Rachel turned and saw Ariel Weitz and three SS men backing carefully down the steps. They carried between them two shiny black suits which had some type of rubber bag and hose apparatus attached to their backs. She sought out Schorner’s eyes, but he refused to look in her direction.

Schorner cleared his throat. “I understood that they had sent us three suits, Herr Doktor.”

“They did. But I will not soil my own suit with the sweat of a Jew. Would you, Schorner?”

Schorner studied the commandant’s face several moments before answering. “Nein, Herr Doktor.”

“Of course not. Now, Sturmbannfuhrer, we have a decision to make. One of these prisoners must function as the control. Do you have a preference?”

Rachel saw then that Brandt was toying with Schorner. Somehow, the doctor knew exactly what his security chief had been up to. Giving Schorner this choice was merely one more perverse experiment designed for Brandt’s enjoyment. Before Schorner could answer, Rachel heard the shoemaker whisper softly behind her:

“He cannot save you. You must volunteer. Think of your children—”

“I have no preference,” Schorner said in an emotionless voice, his eye never leaving Brandt’s face.

A faint smile touched Brandt’s lips. “I am very glad to hear it, Sturmbannfuhrer. In that case—”

“I volunteer to wear a suit!” Rachel cried, stepping forward.

Brandt studied her with interest. “As would I, were I in your place,” he said. He let his eyes play over her body, then looked pointedly at Schorner. “Well, Sturmbannfuhrer? Give the young lady what she wants. By all means, a suit.”

Schorner snapped his fingers at Ariel Weitz, who immediately carried one of the suits to Rachel and began unzipping it.

“I too volunteer!”

Rachel turned. Her father-in-law had followed her example. She watched Brandt’s eyes examine the old tailor with clinical detachment.

“I think not,” Brandt said. “Give the other suit to the shoemaker. Let’s see if his luck holds, eh, Schorner? He survived one of these tests already, you know. Although that was an early version of Sarin, as I recall. Not nearly so toxic as Soman Four.”

As Benjamin Jansen absorbed these words, Brandt said, “Bind the control hand and foot. We can’t risk him tearing the suits in his death throes.”

The old tailor began to struggle, but Rachel remembered little else until she found herself sitting in a floodlit corner of the E-Block, her head and body encased in rubber, breathing parched air that tasted like metal. The shoemaker sat motionless beside her. Just beyond him, lying against the wall, she saw a small metal gas cylinder. Was that where the Soman would come from? She decided not. The small tank looked almost casually left behind, its pale green paint blending perfectly with the paint inside the E-Block.

She looked over at Ben Jansen, who lay writhing in the opposite corner just three meters away. The old man had been spared the indignity of being stripped naked, but only to better approximate the effect of Soman Four on uniformed Allied soldiers. As Rachel watched him fighting the ropes, she wondered at the wild impulse to survive that had made her step away from him and grasp at the only choice that offered a chance at life. Had concern for her children driven her to it? Of course. But was it only them? Was there anything she would not do to survive one more day? As the hissing of the opened gas valves penetrated the rubber mask, she knew that there was not. She closed her eyes, knowing that her father-in-law would be dead when she opened them again.

She prayed only that she would live to open them.

Anna Kaas watched the steel hatch of the E-Block from an open window on the second floor of the hospital. By her watch, eight minutes had passed since the three prisoners were sealed inside. The gassing had not lasted