On the way back to the cottage, they kept off the road as much as possible. They were moving down the Dornow side of the hills when Stern smelled the telltale odor that had given him early warning of danger so many times in his past: cigarette smoke. He reached out for McConnell’s arm, but felt nothing.
He dropped onto his belly without a sound.
A match flared in the darkness three meters ahead.
In the first second Stern realized many things: that they had blundered unawares onto a road cut; that there were two SS men standing in the cut, holding machine pistols in one hand and cigarettes in the other; that their heads were at the level Stern’s knees had been before he dropped; that McConnell was too far away to warn without giving himself away. He could only hope the American had smelled the smoke in time.
He hadn’t. By the time the match flared McConnell was already at the edge of the road cut. When he tensed, his weight broke the ledge of packed snow and he half-tumbled, half-slid down into the road and crashed onto his stomach.
The SS men nearly pissed themselves with fright, but they managed to throw down their cigarettes and aim their machine pistols at the groaning figure on the ground. A German shepherd broke into furious barking.
Seeing the dog, Stern simply ceased to exist in his own mind. He possessed no mass, made no motion. He knew the slightest sound or faintest odor might draw the animal’s attention.
One of the SS men dragged McConnell to his feet and shined a flashlight into his face. The second man covered him with a machine pistol. The SS uniform and captain’s rank badge confused them. They didn’t recognize McConnell, but they weren’t yet confident enough to treat him like a criminal. The man with the flashlight began asking questions in rapid-fire German while the shepherd growled menacingly. McConnell said nothing, merely handed over his forged identity papers.
The man with the flashlight examined them closely.
Four feet above them, Stern silently slipped his Schmeisser off his shoulder and crept forward like a mink over the snow. A fallen log stopped him. He felt the heat of battle in his blood, like a drug pounding through his heart and brain. But for the snow, he might have been in the desert again, scouting against Rommel’s troops. It took tremendous restraint to keep from dropping into the road and shooting both SS men with a wild shriek.
He forced himself to think rationally.
If he killed the soldiers, they would soon be missed. Major Schörner would probably launch a massive manhunt. Stern would have no choice but to go immediately back up the hill and release the cylinders. And then his father would die. That was unacceptable, but he had to do something. McConnell’s university German wouldn’t fool the SS men for twenty seconds. At least they had no radio, he thought gratefully. He considered stepping out of the woods, bold as brass, and playing the role of Standartenführer Ritter Stern for all it was worth. But even if he succeeded in fooling them, the very least they would do was report his presence to Major Schörner. More likely they would demand that he return to Totenhausen with them.
When McConnell’s frightened eyes glanced up to his hiding place, Stern realized he had a third option. Brigadier Smith’s option.
Under no circumstances can we allow the good doctor to fall into enemy hands. If it looks like he’s going to be captured alive, you’re going to have to eliminate him
. That was an order. But Smith had given that order on the same night he told Stern his father had been killed in Totenhausen. The lying bastard. And yet . . . the order was logically sound. There was only one problem. If he killed McConnell, who would then help him save his father?
The Poles
, whispered a voice in his brain.
Stan Wojik would like nothing better than to add an SS garrison to his scorecard
. . . .
With a silent curse Stern rose up above the log and sighted his Schmeisser down on McConnell’s chest. He would wait until the soldiers forced the American to start marching down the road back to Totenhausen. Then he would fire. Fire and run like hell.
He pressed his finger to the trigger.
It took all of McConnell’s courage and concentration not to look up to where he knew Stern must be. All he could think of was Randazzo the Wop describing how David had been murdered by SS troops in a situation exactly like this one. Where the hell
was
Stern? Why hadn’t he marched out of the woods doing his SD impersonation? The man with the flashlight jabbered something in a guttural voice, then shoved McConnell backward. The only words he caught were “Who is . . . ?” “Doctor,” and “Peenemünde.”
He opened his mouth to answer, but no words came out.
The officer with the machine pistol stepped forward and jerked McConnell’s Walther from its holster.
“
Los, marsch
!” the man shouted, pointing in the direction of Totenhausen.
McConnell stole a last look in Stern’s direction, then turned and started up the road. He had walked about ten yards when the
Brrat
! of the silenced Schmeisser split the darkness.
He felt a hammerlike blow between his shoulder blades. Then he was lying facedown in the snow, unable to move. He felt the German shepherd’s teeth tearing into the SS uniform, teeth raking his shoulder.
Brrrat!
went the Schmeisser again.
He heard a thud, then footsteps crunching rapidly up the road. The dog’s jaws snapped shut on his neck.
An explosive howl assaulted his eardrums.
He flipped over onto his back in time to see Stern pin the German shepherd to the ground with his boot and fire a single shot into its mouth.
“Get up!”
Stern ordered.
“Now! Up!”
In spite of the shock of it all, McConnell quickly worked out what had happened. Stern had shot one of the SS men first. The startled shepherd had immediately pounced on McConnell, as it must have been trained to do. Stern then shot the second SS man, ran up and kicked the dog off his back and killed it.
“Where the fuck were you?”
McConnell asked.
“Shut up!” snapped Stern. He was already dragging one of the dead SS men into the trees below the road. “Spread snow over those bloodstains!”
McConnell obeyed.
So, this is it
, he thought, feeling his blood pounding in his ears.
This is action
. By the time he covered the stains, Stern had already piled both corpses and the dog out of sight in the trees.
“What do we do now?” McConnell asked, dizzy with adrenaline. “Someone must have heard something! Where do we hide the bodies?”
“Shut up and let me think,” said Stern. “We can’t bury them. Dogs would find them too easily. I’d like to throw them in the river, but we wouldn’t make it that far.”
Stern snapped his fingers. “Sewers! Dornow must have a waste line running to the river.”
“You mean carry the bodies into the village? The dog too?”
“There’s probably an access hole near the edge of the village. Probably not too far from Anna’s cottage. I’ll scout it out.”
“You don’t think bodies will be found in a sewer?”
Stern bent over to lift one of the corpses. “If they start to stink, so what? Sewers stink anyway.”
McConnell grabbed his shoulder. “Stern, you saved my life. I . . . thanks. Just thanks, that’s all.”
Stern’s eyes flashed in the darkness. “Don’t thank me too quickly, Doctor. It was a near thing.”
McConnell wanted to ask what he meant, but Stern had already hoisted one corpse onto his shoulder and moved off under the trees.
35
McConnell awoke from a dead sleep, his heart pounding. After their return from the Dornow sewer, Stern had told him to sleep fully dressed; now he knew why. Someone was pounding on a door above them. Stern had already scrambled to his feet and was checking the clip of his Schmeisser. The muted hammering reassured McConnell it was not the cellar door being assaulted, but that was small respite.
Stern kicked him. “Someone’s trying to get into the cottage!”
McConnell drew his Walther and followed Stern up the steps. Through a crack in the door they saw Anna sweep into the kitchen wearing only a nightgown. She glanced in their direction, hesitated, then went into the foyer to answer the knocking.
“Who’s there?” she called.
“Fräulein Kaas? Open the door!”
Stern moved into the kitchen and crouched behind the cabinets nearest the foyer. McConnell stayed on the cellar stairs, but aimed his Walther through the door.
“Nurse Kaas! Open the door!”
Anna braced her back against the door and closed her eyes. “It’s quite late!” she shouted. “Identify yourself!”
McConnell glanced at his watch. Just after midnight.
“I am Sturmmann Heinz Weber! You’re needed at the camp immediately! Major Schörner’s orders!”
Anna glanced back into the kitchen, then turned and opened the front door. A tall lance corporal stood there, his breath steaming in the cold.
“What is the problem, Sturmmann?”
“I cannot say, Nurse.”
“You have a car?”
“
Nein
, a motorcycle with sidecar. Please, you must hurry.”
“Wait here. I must put on some clothes.”
“Hurry! The Sturmbannführer will have my head if we’re late.”
“Late for what?”
“Just hurry!” The soldier disappeared from the doorway.
Anna hurried through the kitchen without any intention of stopping, but McConnell threw open the door and grabbed her arm. “Don’t go!” he said, surprising himself as well as her.
She looked strangely at him. “I must go. I have no choice.”
Stern pushed her toward her bedroom, then shoved McConnell back onto the cellar stairs and pulled the door shut after them. When they reached the bottom, he said, “What the hell was that about?”
When McConnell didn’t answer, Stern poked him in the chest with the butt of his Schmeisser.
Like a striking snake McConnell drove his open hand into Stern’s chest and slammed him up against the wall.
“Don’t ever do that again,” he said.
Stern was so stunned by this reaction that he merely watched the American climb back to the top of the stairs and sit down beside the door. “She’ll be all right,” he said. “She’s managed this long without your help.”
McConnell glared down at him. “You don’t know anything. Schörner and Brandt could be planning to torture every nurse in that camp right now. You don’t know what those bastards are capable of.”
“And you do? What do you know about it, Doctor? You’ve spent the whole war hiding in England.”
McConnell descended the stairs and walked to the broken bookshelf near the far wall. He pulled Anna’s diary from behind the old account books and tossed it to Stern. “That’s what I know. You ought to read it sometime. It might even turn
your
stomach, though you want everyone to believe that’s impossible.”
Stern looked down at the diary. “Oh, it’s possible. And I know exactly what those bastards are capable of. They’ve been doing their worst to my people for ten years, remember?”
McConnell squatted on his haunches and stared at the floor. “Do you think they found the bodies? Or maybe the cylinders?”
“Not the bodies. Not that quickly.”
“Maybe we should wait on top of the hill,” McConnell said. “If it looks like the game’s up, you could still send the cylinders down into the camp.”
Stern opened his mouth, but did not speak. McConnell’s suggestion hung in the air like a challenge.
“I mean, if Schörner is onto us,” McConnell went on, “that would be our only chance to execute the mission.”
“Are you telling me that you’re willing to kill the prisoners now?” Stern asked.
“What else can we do?”
“Forget it, Doctor. We’re going to wait here.”
“And if they come for us?”
“If they come, I’ll hold them off as long as I can. You try to get around them and up the hill. The climbing spikes and harness are in my bag. You can send the gas down yourself.”
Stern looked as if he believed what he was saying, but McConnell knew better. If the SS came for them here, he would never reach the gas cylinders. He probably wouldn’t even make it out of the cottage. Stern had to know that. So what was keeping him from going up the hill to be in position to release the gas if it became necessary?
Something in his eyes kept McConnell from voicing the question.
The front gate of Totenhausen was wide open and waiting when the motorcycle carrying Anna Kaas reached the camp. The lance corporal raced across the parade ground and the Appellplatz and skidded to a stop before the hospital.
“They’re waiting in the basement,” he said. “The morgue.”
Anna climbed out of the sidecar and walked up the hospital steps. Inside and to the left was the stairwell. Two flights led up, one down. She walked through the door and went down.
In designing Totenhausen’s hospital, Klaus Brandt had given special attention to the morgue. For it was in this room that he did much of his work, analyzing the pathologic effects of his gases, and also of the meningococcus bacteria. Four autopsy tables stood in the center of the room, which was dominated by a mirrorlike wall that housed a set of stainless steel drawers, each of which could accommodate two adult male corpses, or four children.
Anna had a strong stomach, but she nearly fainted when she reached the bottom of the stairs. The autopsy table nearest her was bare, but the second was occupied by a naked man that, even from a distance, she instantly recognized as Stan Wojik. The Pole’s black beard was matted with blood, his battered head swollen, his massive body covered with cuts and bruises. Jonas Stern’s prediction had already come true — Anna had seen enough corpses to know — Stan Wojik was dead.
“Come in, Nurse,” called a voice from across the room.
Major Wolfgang Schörner stepped out from behind a rack of metal shelves. He was carrying a telephone in his left hand and speaking into the mouthpiece, which he held in his right. He waved Anna farther into the room.