GREG ILES
Black Cross

Dedication

FOR

Betty Thornhill Iles

AND

Every man and woman who sacrificed their lives in the Allied cause.

There is a mysterious cycle in human events.

To some generations much is given.

Of other generations much is expected.

This generation has a rendezvous with destiny.

—Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Epilogue

Afterword

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Books by Greg Iles

Copyright

About the Publisher

ONE

It’s odd how death often marks a beginning rather than an end. We know someone for ten years, twenty years, longer. We see them in the course of daily life. We speak, laugh, exchange harsh words; we think we have some notion of who they are.

And then they die.

In death, the fluid impressions formed over a lifetime begin to assume definite shape. The picture comes into focus. New facts emerge. Safes are opened, wills read. With finality, and with distance, we often discover that the people we thought we knew were actually quite different than we imagined. And the closer we were to them, the more shocking this surprise is.

So it was with my grandfather. He died violently, and quite publicly, in circumstances so extraordinary that they got thirty seconds of airtime on the national evening news. It happened last Tuesday, in a MedStar helicopter ambulance en route from Fairplay, Georgia—the small town in which I was born and raised—to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, where I work as an emergency physician. While making his rounds at Fairplay’s local hospital, my grandfather collapsed at a nurses’ station. Fighting to ignore the terrible pain in his lower back, he had a nurse take his blood pressure. When he heard the figures, he correctly diagnosed a leaking abdominal aortic aneurysm and realized that without immediate surgery he would die.

With two nurses supporting him, he spoke on a telephone just long enough to summon the MedStar from Atlanta, forty miles away. My grandmother insisted on remaining by his side in the chopper, and the pilot reluctantly agreed. They don’t usually allow that, but damn near everybody in the Georgia medical community knew or knew of my grandfather—a quiet but eminently respected lung specialist. Besides, my grandmother wasn’t the kind of woman that men talked back to. Ever.

The MedStar crashed twenty minutes later on a quiet street in the suburbs of Atlanta. That was four days ago, and as yet no one has determined the cause of the crash. Just one of those freak things, I guess. Pilot error, they like to call it. I don’t really care whose fault it was. I’m not looking to sue. We’re not—or weren’t—that kind of family.

My grandparents’ deaths hit me especially hard, because they raised me from the age of ten. My parents died in a car crash in 1970. I’ve seen more than my share of tragedy, I suppose. I still do. It sweeps through my emergency room every day and night, trailing blood and cocaine and whiskey-breath and burnt skin and dead kids. Such is life. The reason I’m writing this down is because of what happened at the burial—or rather, who I met at the burial. Because it was there, in a place of death, that my grandfather’s secret life revealed itself at last.

The cemetery crowd—a large one for our town, and predominantly Protestant—had already drifted back toward the long line of sedate Lincolns and brighter Japanese imports. I was standing at the green edge of the graves, two side-by-side holes smelling of freshly turned earth. A pair of gravediggers waited to cover the gleaming silver caskets. They seemed in no particular hurry; both had been patients of my grandfather at one time or another. One—a wiry fellow named Crenshaw—had even been brought into the world by him, or so he said.

“They don’t make docs like your grandpa anymore, Mark,” he declared. “Or Doctor, I should say,” he added, smiling. “I can’t quite get used to that title. No offense, but I still remember catching you out here at midnight with that Clark girl.”

I smiled back. That was a good memory. I can’t quite get used to the title either, as a matter of fact. Doctor McConnell. I know I am a doctor—a damn good one—but when I stand, or stood, beside my grandfather, I always felt more like an apprentice, a bright but inexperienced student in the shadow of a master. That was what I was thinking when someone tugged at my jacket sleeve from behind.

“Afternoon, Rabbi,” said the gravedigger, nodding past me.

“Shalom, Mr. Crenshaw,” said a deep, much-traveled voice.

I turned. Behind me stooped an avuncular old man with snow-white hair and a yarmulke. His twinkling eyes settled on me and gave me a thorough going-over. “The spitting image,” he said quietly. “Though you’re a little heavier-boned than Mac was.”

“My grandmother’s genes,” I said, a little embarrassed to be at a disadvantage.

“Quite right,” said the old man. “Quite right. And a beautiful woman she was, too.”

Suddenly I placed him. “Rabbi Leibovitz, isn’t it?”

The old man smiled. “You have a good memory, Doctor. It’s been a long time since you’ve seen me up close.”

The old man’s voice had a low, musical quality to it, as if all its edges had been worn away by years of soothing, reasonable speech. I nodded again. The gravediggers shuffled their feet.

“Well,” I said, “I guess it’s about time—”

“I’ll take that shovel,” Rabbi Leibovitz told Crenshaw.

“But Rabbi, you shouldn’t be doing heavy work.”

The rabbi took the shovel from the amazed gravedigger and spaded it into the soft pile of dirt. “This is work for a man’s friends and family,” he said. “Doctor?” He looked up at me.

I took the other shovel from the second man and followed his example.

“Afternoon, Mark,” muttered Crenshaw, a little put out. He and his partner shambled off toward a battered pickup that waited at a discreet distance.

I shoveled earth steadily into my grandmother’s grave while Rabbi Leibovitz worked on the other. It was hot—Georgia summer hot—and soon I was pouring sweat. As the backfill rose toward my feet, I was a little surprised to find that the shoveling felt better than anything I had done since I first heard the news of my grandparents’ deaths, and far better than anything anyone had said to console me. When I checked the old man’s progress, I was surprised to find him only a little behind me in his work. I went back to mine with a will.

When I finished filling my grandmother’s grave, I walked around to help Rabbi Leibovitz. Together we finished filling my grandfather’s in a couple of minutes. The rabbi laid his shovel on the ground behind him, then turned back to the grave and began praying quietly. I stood holding my shovel in silence until he had finished. Then, as if by mutual consent, we started walking to the narrow asphalt lane where I had parked my black Saab.

I saw no other cars nearby. The cemetery was a good mile and a half from the center of town. “Did you walk all the way out here, Rabbi?” I asked.

“I caught a ride from a good Christian,” he said. “I was hoping to ride back with you.”

The request caught me off guard, but I said, “Sure, glad to do it.”

I opened the passenger door for him, then went around and got behind the wheel. The Swedish-built engine revved smoothly. “Where to?” I asked. “You still live across from the synagogue?”

“Yes. But I thought we might visit your grandparents’ house. Are you staying there while you’re in town?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “Yes, I am.” I looked at him curiously. Then I felt a familiar sense of recognition. I had seen these situations before. Some people don’t feel comfortable confronting serious medical symptoms in a physician’s office. “Is there something you need to tell me, Rabbi?” I asked slowly. “Are you in need of medical attention?”

“No, no. I’m quite well for my age, thank God. But there is something I’d like to talk to you about, Mark. Something I think your grandfather meant to discuss with you … eventually. But somehow I don’t think he ever made the time.”

“What are you talking about?”

“About what your grandfather did in the war, Mark. Did he ever talk to you about that?”

I felt myself flush a little. “No. He never got past ‘I did my duty when it was required.’”

“That sounds like Mac.”

“He never talked to my grandmother about it either,” I confided, surprising myself. “She told me that, and … it hurt her. It was kind of like a hole in our lives. Small, maybe, but there all the same. A dark place, you know?”

Rabbi Leibovitz nodded. “A very dark place, Mark. And I think it’s about time someone shed a little light on it for you.”

Fifteen minutes later we were standing in the study of my grandparents’ house. Three generations of doctors had grown up in this rambling country clapboard. We were looking down at the steel firesafe where my grandfather had always kept his personal papers.

“Do you know the combination?” the rabbi asked.

I shook my head. He reached into his back pocket, withdrew his wallet, and dug around inside until he found what he was looking for—a small white card of introduction, one of my grandfather’s. He read some numbers off the back, then looked at me expectantly.

“Listen, Rabbi,” I said, beginning to grow uncomfortable, “I’m not exactly sure why we’re here. I mean, I know you and my grandfather were acquaintances, but I never knew you were close. Frankly, I don’t see how anything in that safe could be any business of yours.” I paused. “Unless … he left the synagogue a bequest in his will. Is that it?”

Leibovitz chuckled. “You’re a suspicious man, Mark, just like your grandfather. No, this has nothing to do with money. I doubt if Mac had much left, to tell you the truth. Except for the insurance, which was only around fifty-thousand, I think. He gave most of his money away.”

I shot him a sidelong glance. “How do you know all that?”

“Your grandfather and I were more than acquaintances, Mark. We were fast friends. I know about his money because he gave a lot of it to the synagogue. Once you made it through medical school, he figured you could take care of yourself, and your grandmother too, if he happened to die first. He owned this house, of course. You’ll get that. As far as the money he gave me, I was to use it to help persecuted Jews who were trying to reach Israel.” Leibovitz turned his callused palms upward. “This all goes back to the war, Mark. What Mac did during the war. If you open that safe for me, everything will become much clearer.”

That reasonable, forthright voice was hard to refuse. “All right,” I agreed, knowing I was being manipulated, but strangely unable to resist. “Read the combination again.”

As Leibovitz read, I worked the dial on the safe until I heard a click, then pulled open the heavy door. The first thing I saw was a stack of papers. Just what I had expected. They looked like legal documents—titles to the two family cars, the house, an ancient mortgage.

“Do you see a box?” the rabbi asked. “It would be nearly flat, and not too large.”

Carefully I dug through the papers. Sure enough, near the bottom of the stack my fingers touched a flat wooden box. I removed it from the safe. It was made of plain pine, about six inches square. I had never seen it before.

“Open it,” Leibovitz commanded.

I looked over my shoulder at him, then turned back and lifted the lid off the box. The glint of polished metal flickered in the light.

“What is that?” I asked.

“The Victoria Cross. The most coveted decoration in the British Empire. Have you heard of it?”

“The Victoria Cross … Isn’t that what Michael Caine won in Zulu?”

Leibovitz shook his head sadly. “Television,” he muttered. “Yes, the Victoria Cross was awarded to a handful of Englishmen who repulsed an overwhelming Zulu army at Rorke’s Drift in South Africa.”

I lifted the cross gingerly and examined it in the light. It was bronze, and hung from a crimson ribbon. The center of the cross bore a lion standing upon a crown. Engraved on a scroll beneath the crown were the words: FOR VALOUR.

Rabbi Leibovitz spoke as if addressing a small congregation. “The list of recipients of the V.C. constitutes the most revered roll in English military history, Mark. As far as the public knows, only thirteen hundred and fifty have been awarded since the decoration was instituted by Queen Victoria in 1856. But there is another list—a much smaller list—that is known to no one but the monarch and the prime minister. It is the Secret List, and upon it are inscribed the names of those who have performed unparalleled acts of valor and devotion in the face of the enemy, but of such a sensitive nature that they can never be revealed.” He took a deep breath, then said: “Your grandfather’s name is on that list, Mark.”

My head snapped up in astonishment. “You must be joking. He never mentioned anything like that to me.”

The old rabbi smiled patiently. “That was the charge that came with the award. The decoration can never be worn in public. I suppose the secret cross was given so that in the dark of night, long after glory had passed, men like your grandfather would have something to remind them that their … sacrifices were appreciated.” Leibovitz looked thoughtful. “Still, it takes a special kind of man to hide that kind of glory.”

“Granddad was no egomaniac,” I conceded, “but he wasn’t especially modest either. He didn’t hide honors he deserved.”

Leibovitz sighed sadly. “Mac deserved this honor, but he wasn’t proud of what he had done to deserve it. He began the war as a conscientious objector, you know.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Mark, long ago your grandfather sought me out to discuss something that troubled him deeply. He’d spoken to his Christian pastor about it, but said the fellow hadn’t really understood what he was talking about. The pastor told Mac he was a hero, that he had no reason to be ashamed of what he’d done. Mac struggled along on his own for a while, then finally came to me.”

“Why you?”

“Because I’m a Jew. He thought perhaps I could give him special insight into his problem, that I might be able to help him to unburden his soul.”

I swallowed. “Did you?”

“I tried my best. I truly did. Over a period of years, in fact. And he was grateful for the effort. But I never really succeeded. Your grandfather carried his burden with him to the grave.”

“Well, damn it, you’ve got to tell me now. What did he do that was so terrible? And when did he do it? He told me that he spent the war in England.”

Leibovitz’s eyes settled on some neutral point in space. “He spent most of the war in England, that’s true—doing research at Oxford. But for two short weeks, your grandfather traveled quite a bit. And his travels ultimately led him to a place that must have been very close to hell on earth.”

“Where was that?”

Leibovitz’s face hardened. “A place called Totenhausen, on the Recknitz River in northern Germany. As to when Mac was there, if you turn over the cross it will tell you.”

I turned the cross over. Engraved on its back were the words:

Mark Cameron McConnell, M.D.

15 February 1944

“That’s the date that the act of valor took place,” Leibovitz murmured. “Fifty years ago, your grandfather did something so strategically important, so singularly heroic that he was awarded an honor only one other non-British subject has ever received. That other recipient was also an American.”

“Who was it?”

The rabbi straightened-up with difficulty, his spine stiff as a ramrod. “The Unknown Soldier.”

I felt a lump in my throat. “I can’t believe this,” I said hoarsely. “This is the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever heard. Or seen,” I added, holding up the ribbon and cross. It seemed somehow heavier in my hands.

“You’re about to see something still more extraordinary,” Leibovitz said. “Something unique.”

I swallowed in anticipation.

“Look under the padding in the box. It should still be there.”

I handed the cross to Rabbi Leibovitz, then gingerly lifted the linen cloth that lined the bottom of the pine box. Beneath it I found a frayed swatch of woolen cloth, a Scottish tartan pattern. I looked up questioningly.

“Keep going,” Leibovitz said.

Beneath the tartan I found a photograph. It was black-and-white, with contrasts so stark it looked like one of the old Dust Bowl photographs from Life magazine. It showed a young woman from the waist up. She wore a simple cotton dress, her slender body posed rather formally against a background of dark wooden planks. Her shoulder-length hair was blonde and straight, and seemed to glow against the unfinished wood. Her face, though worn by care lines around the mouth, was set off by eyes as dark as the wood behind her. I guessed her age at thirty.

“Who is this?” I asked. “She’s … I don’t know. Not beautiful exactly, but … alive. Is it my grandmother? When she was younger, I mean?”

Rabbi Leibovitz waved his hand impatiently. “All in good time. Look beneath the photograph.”

I did. A meticulously folded piece of notepaper lay there, wrinkled and yellowed with age. I lifted it out and started to unfold it.

“Careful,” he warned.

“Is this the citation for the award?” I asked, working delicately at the paper.

“Something else altogether.”

I had it open now. The handwritten blue letters had almost completely faded, as if the note had been put through a washing machine by mistake, but the few words were still legible. I read them with a strange sense of puzzlement.

On my head be these deaths.

W

“I can barely read it. What does it mean? Who is ‘W’?”

“You can barely read the writing, Mark, because it was nearly washed away by the freezing waters of the Recknitz River in 1944. What the note means can only be explained by telling you a rather involved and shocking story. And ‘W’—as the author of that note so cryptically described himself—was Winston Churchill.”

“Churchill!”

“Yes.” The old rabbi smiled mischievously. “And thereby hangs a tale.”

“My God,” I said.

“Would you have any brandy about?” asked Leibovitz.

I went to fetch a bottle.

“I lay it all at Churchill’s door.”

The old rabbi had ensconced himself in a leather wing chair with a crocheted comforter around his knees and the brandy glass in his hand. “You know, of course, that Mac first went to England as a Rhodes scholar. That was 1930, the year after the Crash. He stayed two years, then was asked to stay a third and matriculate. Quite an honor. When he graduated and returned to the U.S., I’m sure he thought his ‘English period’ was finished. But it wasn’t.

“He graduated medical school in thirty-eight, somehow squeezing in a masters in chemical engineering during his internship. By then it was 1940. He entered general practice with a friend of his father’s, but he’d hardly settled in when a phone call came from Oxford. His old tutor told him that one of Churchill’s scientific advisers had been impressed by some monographs he’d done on chemical warfare in World War One. They wanted him to join a British team working on poison gases. America wasn’t in the war yet, but Mac understood what was at stake. England was hanging by a thread.”

“I do remember that much,” I said. “He agreed to go on the condition that he would only work in a defensive capacity. Right?”

“Yes. Rather naively, if I may say so. Anyway, he took your grandmother with him to England, just in time for the Battle of Britain. It took some doing, but he talked Susan into going back to the States. Hitler never did invade England, but by then it was too late. They were separated for the duration.

“Fifty years,” Leibovitz said softly. He paused as though he had lost his train of thought. “I suppose that seems an age to you, but try to picture the time. Dead of winter, January, 1944. The whole world—including the Germans—knew the Allies would invade Europe in the spring. The only question was where the blow would fall. Eisenhower had just been named Supreme Commander of OVERLORD. Churchill—”

“Excuse me, Rabbi,” I interrupted. “No disrespect intended, but I get the feeling you’re giving me the long version of this story.”

He smiled with a forbearance learned at the sides of impatient children. “You have somewhere to go?”

“No. But I’m curious about my grandfather, not Churchill and Eisenhower.”

“Mark, if I simply told you the end of this story, you would not believe me. I mean that. You cannot absorb what I am going to say unless you know what led to it. Do you understand?”

I nodded, trying to mask my impatience.

“No,” Leibovitz said forcefully. “You don’t. The worst thing you have ever seen in your life, all the worst things put together—child abuse, rape, even murder—these are as nothing compared to what I am about to tell you. It is a tale of cruelty beyond imagining, of men and women whose heroism has never been equaled.” He raised a crooked finger and his voice went very low. “After hearing this story, your life will never be the same.”

“That’s a lot of buildup, Rabbi.”

He took a gulp of brandy. “I have no children, Doctor. Do you know why?”

“Well … I assume you never wanted any. Or that you or your wife were sterile.”

“I am sterile,” Leibovitz confirmed. “When I was sixteen, I was invited by some German doctors to sit in a booth and fill out a form that would take fifteen minutes to complete. During those fifteen minutes, high-intensity X-rays were passed through my testicles from three sides. Two weeks later, a Jewish surgeon and his wife saved my life by castrating me in their kitchen.”

My hands felt suddenly cold. “Were you … in the camps?”

“No. I escaped to Sweden, along with the surgeon and his wife. But you see, I left my unborn children behind.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever told that to a Christian,” Leibovitz said.

“I’m not a Christian, Rabbi.”

His eyes narrowed. “Do you know something I don’t? You’re not Jewish.”

“I’m not anything. An agnostic, I guess. A professional doubter.”

Leibovitz studied me for a long time, his face lined by emotions I could not interpret. “You say that so easily for one who has lived through so little.”

“I’ve seen my share of suffering. And alleviated some, too.”

He waved his hand in a European gesture that seemed to say many things at once. “Doctor, you have not even peered over the edge of the abyss.”

Laying his hand across his eyes, Leibovitz sat motionless for nearly a minute. He seemed to be deciding if he had the strength to tell his story after all. Just as I was about to speak, he removed his hand and said, “Now are you ready to listen, Mark? Or would you prefer to leave things as they are?”

I looked down at the Victoria Cross, the faded note, the Scottish tartan and the photograph of the woman. “You’ve hooked me,” I said. “But wait here a minute.”

I went back to my grandfather’s bedroom and got the small tape recorder he had used for dictating medical charts, and a thin box of Sony microcassettes. “Do you mind if I tape this?” I asked, setting up the recorder. “If the story is that important, perhaps it should be documented.”

“It should have been told years ago,” Leibovitz said. “But Mac would have none of it. He said knowing or not knowing about it wouldn’t change human history by one whit. I dis-agreed with him. It’s long past time to bring this story into the light.”

I glanced at the window. “The light’s almost gone, Rabbi.”

He sighed indifferently. “Then we’ll make a night of it.”

“Can I give you a bit of advice? Editorially speaking?”

“Ah. You’re an editor now?”

I shrugged. “I’ve written a few journal articles. Actually, I’ve been toying with writing a novel on my off weekends. A medical thriller. But perhaps I’ve found a new story to tell. Anyway, here’s my advice—you can take it or leave it. That ‘picture the scene’ and ‘I suppose’ business? Drop all that. Just tell the story like you think it happened. Like you were a fly on the wall.”

After a few moments, Leibovitz nodded. “I think I can do that,” he said. He poured himself another brandy, then settled back into the leather wing chair and held up his glass in a toast.

“To the bravest man I ever knew.”

TWO
Oxford University, England, 1944

Mark McConnell quietly lifted the long steering pole out of the Cherwell River and slapped it back down. A spray of water and ice drenched the leather-jacketed back of his brother, who perched on the forward seat of the narrow wooden punt.

“You goddamn shitbird!” David whirled around, almost upsetting the boat in the process. He dug his gloved right hand into the river and shot back a volley of water and ice.

“Hold it!” Mark cried. “You’ll sink us!”

“You surrendering?” David dipped his hand into the water again.

“Declaring a temporary cease-fire. For medical reasons.”

“Chickenshit.”

Mark wiggled the pole. “I’ve got the firepower.”

“Okay, truce.” David lifted his hand and turned back to the prow of the flat-bottomed punt as it crunched slowly around the next bend in the icy river. He was the shorter of the two brothers and built like a halfback, with sprinter’s legs, a narrow waist, and thickly muscled shoulders. His sandy blond hair, strong jaw, and clear blue eyes completed the picture of Norman Rockwell charm. While Mark watched warily, he slid down onto the cross slats of the punt, leaned back, cradled his head in his hands and shut his eyes.

Mark scanned the river ahead. The bare trees on both banks hung so heavily with icicles that some branches nearly touched the snow carpeting the meadows beneath them. “This is insane,” he said, flicking a final salvo of drops onto David’s face. But he didn’t mean it. If his younger brother hadn’t driven down from the 8th Air Force base at Deenethorpe, this winter day would have been like any other at Oxford: a bleak fourteen-hour newsreel watched through foggy laboratory windows. Rain changing into sleet and then back into rain, falling in great gray sheets that spattered the cobbled quads of the colleges, shrouded the Bodelian Library, and swelled the lazy Cherwell and Thames into torrents.

“This is the life,” David murmured. “This is exactly how we picture you eggheads when we’re on the flight line. Living the life of Reilly, canoeing around a goddamn college campus. We risk our asses every day while you bums sit up here, supposedly winning the war with your little gray cells.”

“You mean punting around a goddamn college campus.”

David opened one eye, looked back and snorted. “Jeez, you sound more like a limey every year. If you called Mom on a telephone, she wouldn’t even know you.”

Mark studied his younger brother’s face. It was good to see him again, and not merely because it provided an excuse to get out of the lab for an afternoon. Mark needed the human contact. In this place that offered so much comradeship, he had become a virtual outcast. Lately, he’d had to fight a wild impulse to simply turn to a sympathetic face on a bus and begin talking. Yet looking at his brother now—an Air Force captain who spent most days on white-knuckle bombing runs over Germany—he wondered if he had the right to add his own pressures to those already on David’s shoulders.

“I think my hands are frostbitten,” Mark grumbled, as the punt pushed on through the black water. “I’d give a hundred pounds for an outboard motor.”

Once already he had resolved to talk to David about his problem—three weeks ago, on Christmas Day—but a last-minute bombing assignment had scotched their plans to get together. Now another month had almost slipped by. It had been that way for the last four years. Time rushing past like a river in flood. Now another Christmas was gone, and another New Year. 1944. Mark could scarcely believe it. Four years in this sandstone haven of cloisters and spires while the world outside tore itself to pieces with unrelenting fury.

“Hey,” David called, his eyes still closed. “How are the girls down here?”

“What do you mean?”

David opened both eyes and craned his neck to stare back at his brother. “What do I mean? Has four years away from Susan pickled your pecker as well as your brain? I’m talking about English dames. We’ve got to live up to our billing, you know.”

“Our billing?”

“Overpaid, oversexed, and over here, remember? Hell, I know you love Susan. I know plenty of guys who are crazy about their wives. But four years. You can’t spend every waking moment holed up in that Frankenstein lab of yours.”

Mark shrugged. “I have, though.”

“Christ, I’d tell you about some of my adventures, only you wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight.”

Mark jabbed the pole into the river bottom. It had been a mistake to send Susan home, but any sane man would have done the same at the time, considering the danger of German invasion. He was getting tired of paying for that particular misjudgment, though. He’d been on the wrong side of the Atlantic longer than any American he knew.

“To hell with this,” he said. As they rounded the bend at St. Hilda’s College, he levered the punt into a sharp embankment near Christ Church Meadow. The impact of the bow against the shore practically catapulted David out of the boat, but he landed with an athlete’s natural grace.

“Let’s get a beer!” David said. “Don’t you eggheads ever drink around here? Whose dumbass idea was this, anyway?”

Mark found himself laughing as he climbed out of the punt. “As a matter of fact, I know a few chaps who’d be glad to take you on in the drinking contest of your choice.”

“Chaps?” David gaped at his brother. “Did I hear you say chaps, Mac? We gotta get you back to the States, old sport. Back to Georgia. You sound like the Great Gatsby.”

“I’m only playing to your Tom Buchanan.”

David groaned. “We’d better go straight to whiskey. A little Kentucky bourbon’ll wash that limey accent right out of your throat.”

“I’m afraid they don’t stock Kentucky’s finest here in Oxford, Slick.”

David grinned. “That’s why I brought a fifth in my muzette bag. Cost me thirty bucks on the black market, but I wouldn’t drink that high-toned limey swill if I was dying of thirst.”

They crossed Christ Church Meadow mostly in silence. David took several long pulls from the bottle stowed in his flight bag. Mark declined repeated offers to share the whiskey. He wanted his mind clear when he spoke about his dilemma. He would have preferred to have David’s mind clear as well, but there was nothing he could do about that.

Walking side by side, the differences between the brothers were more marked. Where David was compact and almost brawny, Mark was tall and lean, with the body of a distance runner. He moved with long, easy strides and a surefootedness acquired through years of running cross-country races. His hands were large, his fingers long and narrow. Surgeon’s hands, his father had boasted when he was only a boy. David had inherited their mother’s flashing blue eyes, but Mark’s were deep brown, another legacy from his father. And where David was quick to smile or throw a punch, Mark wore the contemplative gaze of a man who carefully weighed all sides of any issue before acting.

He chose the Welsh Pony, in George Street. The pub did a brisk evening trade, but privacy could be had if desired. Mark went up to one of the two central bars and ordered a beer to justify the use of the table, then led David to the rear of the pub. By the time he was half-way to the bottom of his mug, he realized that David had drunk quite a lot of bourbon, with English stout to chase it down. Yet David remained surprisingly lucid. He was like their father in that way, if in no other. The analogy was not comforting.

“What the hell’s eating you, Mac?” David asked sharply. “All day I’ve had the feeling you wanted to say something, but you keep backing off. You’re like an old possum circling a garbage can. You’re driving me nuts. Get it out in the open.”

Mark leaned back against the oak chair and took his first long swallow of the night. “David, what does it feel like to bomb a German city?”

“What do you mean?” David straightened up, looking puzzled. “You mean am I scared?”

“No, I mean actually dropping the bombs. How does it feel to drop stick after stick of five-hundred-pound bombs on a city you know is full of women and children?”

“Hell, I don’t drop ’em. The bombardier does that. I just fly the plane.”

“So that’s how you do it. You distance yourself from the act. Mentally, I mean.”

David squinted at his brother. “Jesus, let’s don’t start, okay? It’s not enough I had to listen to all that crap from Dad when I enlisted? Now that he’s gone, you’re going to take over?” He swung a heavy forearm to take in the pub and the snowy alley visible through a frosted window. “You sit up here in your little land of Oz, playing paper games with the other eggheads. You lose touch real quick. You start forgetting why we got into this war in the first place.”

Mark held up his hand. “I know we have to stop the Nazis, David. But we’re destroying so much more than that.”

“Wake up, Mac. It’s 1944. We’re talking Hitler here. The fucking Führer.”

“I realize that. But do you notice how Hitler is used to justify any Allied act, any Allied sacrifice? Area bombing. Suicide missions. The politicians act as if Hitler sprang fully formed from the brow of Jupiter. Men of conscience could have stopped that madman ten years ago.”

“Coulda, woulda, shoulda,” David muttered. “Welcome to the real world. Hitler asked for it, and now he’s gonna get it.”

“Yes, he did, and he is. But must we destroy an entire culture to destroy one man? Do we wipe out a whole country to cure one epidemic?”

David suddenly looked very angry indeed. “The Germans, you mean? Let me tell you about those people of yours. I had a buddy, name of Chuckie Wilson, okay? His B-17 went down near Würzburg, after the second Schweinfurt raid. The pilot was killed in flight, but Chuckie and two other guys got out of the plane. One guy was captured, another was smuggled out of France by the Resistance. But Chuckie was captured by some German civilians.” David downed a double shot of whiskey, then lapsed into a sullen silence.

“And?”

“And they lynched him.”

Mark felt the hairs on his neck rise. “They what?

“Strung him up to the nearest tree, goddamn it.”

“I thought the Germans treated captured flyers well. At least on the Western Front.”

“Regular Kraut soldiers do. But the SS ain’t regular, and the German civilians hate our guts.”

“How do you know about the lynching?”

“The guy who made it out saw the whole thing. You want to know the worst part? While these civilians were stringing Chuckie up, a company of Waffen SS drove up in a truck. They sat there laughing and smoking while the bastards killed him, then drove away. Made me think of that colored guy that got lynched on the Bascombe farm back home. The lynchers claimed he raped a white girl, remember? But there wasn’t any evidence, and there damn sure wasn’t any trial. Remember what Uncle Marty said? The sheriff and his deputies stood there and watched the whole thing.”

David slowly opened and closed his left fist while he knocked back a swig of bourbon with his right. “The guy who saw Chuckie lynched said there were just as many women there as men. He said one woman jumped up and hung on his feet while he swung.”

“I see your point.” Mark leaned back and took a deep breath. “Down here we lose sight of how personal war can be. We don’t see the hatred.”

“Damn right you don’t, buddy. You oughta fly a raid with us sometime. Just once. Freezing your balls off, trying to remember to breathe from your mask, knowing ten seconds of exposed flesh could mean frostbite surgery. The whole ride you’re cursing yourself for every time you ever skipped Sunday school.”

Mark was thinking of an offer he had recently made to a Scottish brigadier general. In a fit of anger he’d threatened to leave his laboratory and volunteer to carry a rifle at the front. “Maybe I should get closer to the real war,” he said quietly. “What are my convictions worth if I don’t know what war really is? I could request a transfer to a forward surgical unit in Italy—”

David slammed his whiskey glass down, reached across the table and pinned his brother’s arm to the scarred wood. Several patrons looked in their direction, but one glare from David was enough to blunt their curiosity. “You try that, and I’ll break your friggin’ legs,” he said. “And if you try to do it without me knowing, I’ll find out.”

Mark was stunned by his brother’s vehemence.

“I’m dead serious, Mac. You don’t want to go anywhere near a real battlefield. Even from five miles up, I can tell you those places are hell on earth. You read me?”

“Loud and clear, ace,” Mark said. But he was troubled by a feeling that for the first time he was seeing his brother as he really was. The David he remembered as a brash, irrepressible young athlete had been transformed by the war into a haggard boy-man with the eyes of a neurosurgeon.

“David,” Mark whispered with sudden urgency, feeling his face grow hot with the prospect of confession. “I’ve got to talk to you.” He couldn’t stop himself. The words that became illegal the moment he uttered them came tumbling out in a flood. “The British are after me to work on a special project for them. They want me to spearhead it. It’s a type of weapon that hasn’t been used before—well, that’s not strictly true, it has been used before but not in this way and not with this much potential for wholesale slaughter—”

David caught hold of his arm. “Whoa! Slow down. What are you babbling about?”

Mark looked furtively around the pub. The background hum of voices seemed sufficient to cover quiet conversation. He leaned across the table. “A secret weapon, David. I’m not kidding. It’s just like the movies. It’s a goddamn nightmare.”

“A secret weapon.”

“That’s what I said. It’s something that would have little to guide it. It would kill indiscriminately. Men, women, children, animals—no distinction. They’d die by the thousands.”

“And the British want you to spearhead this project?”

“Right.”

David’s mouth split into an amazed smile. “Boy, did they ever pick the wrong guy.”

Mark nodded. “Well, they think I’m the right guy.”

“What kind of weapon is this? I don’t see how it could be much more destructive or less discriminating than a thousand-bomber air raid.”

Mark looked slowly around the pub. “It is, though. It’s not a bomb. It’s not even one of the super-bombs you’ve probably heard rumors about. It’s something … something like what wounded Dad.”

David recoiled, the cynicism instantly gone from his face. “You mean gas? Poison gas?”

Mark nodded.

“Shit, neither side has used gas yet in this war. Even the Nazis still remember the trenches from the last one. There are treaties prohibiting it, right?”

“The Geneva Protocol. But nobody cares about that. The U.S. didn’t even sign it.”

“Jesus. What kind of gas is it? Mustard?”

Mark’s laugh had an almost hysterical undertone. “David, nobody knows the horrific effects of mustard gas better than you or I. But this gas I’m talking about is a thousand times worse. A thousand times worse. You can’t see it, you don’t even have to breathe it. But brother it will kill you. It’s the equivalent of a cobra strike to the brain.”

David had gone still. “I assume you’re not supposed to be telling me any of this?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Well … I guess you’d better start at the beginning.”

THREE

Mark let his eyes wander over the thinning crowd. Of those who remained, he knew half by sight. Two were professors working on weapons programs. He kept his voice very low.

“One month ago,” he said, “a small sample of colorless liquid labeled Sarin was delivered to my lab for testing. I usually get my samples from anonymous civilians, but this was different. Sarin was delivered by a Scottish brigadier general named Duff Smith. He’s a one-armed old war horse who’s been pressuring me on and off for years to work on offensive chemical weapons. Brigadier Smith said he wanted an immediate opinion on the lethality of Sarin. As soon as I had that, I was to start trying to develop an effective mask filter against it. Only in the case of Sarin, a mask won’t do it. You need protection over your entire body.”

David looked thoughtful. “Is this a German gas? Or Allied stuff?”

“Smith wouldn’t tell me. But he did warn me to take extra precautions. Christ, was he ever right. Sarin was like nothing I’d ever seen. It kills by short-circuiting the central nervous system. According to my experiments, it exceeds the lethality of phosgene by a factor of thirty.”

David seemed unimpressed.

“Do you understand what I’m saying, David? Phosgene was the most lethal gas used in World War One. But compared to Sarin it’s like … nothing. One tenth of one milligram of Sarin—one speck the size of a grain of sand—will kill you in less than a minute. It’s invisible in lethal concentration, and it will pass through human skin. Right through your skin.”

David’s mouth was working silently. “I’ve got the picture. Go on.”

“Last week, Brigadier Smith paid me another visit. This time he asked how I would feel if he told me Sarin was a German gas, and had no counterpart in the Allied arsenal. He wanted to know what I would do to protect Allied cities. And my honest answer was nothing. To protect the inhabitants of a city from Sarin would be impossible. It’s not like a heavy-bomber raid. As bad as those are, people can come out from the shelters when they’re over. Depending on weather conditions, Sarin could lie in the streets for days, coating sidewalks, windows, grass, food, anything.”

“Okay,” David said. “What happened next?”

“Smith tells me Sarin is a German gas. Stolen from the heart of the Reich, he says. Then he tells me I’m wrong—there is something I can do to protect our cities.”

“What’s that?”

“Develop an equally lethal gas, so that Hitler won’t dare use Sarin himself.”

David nodded slowly. “If he’s telling the truth about Sarin, that sounds like the only thing to do. I don’t see the problem.”

Mark’s face fell. “You don’t? Christ, you of all people should understand.”

“Look … I don’t want to get into this pacifist thing again. I thought you’d come to terms with that. Hell, you’ve been working for the British since 1940.”

“But only in a defensive capacity, you know that.”

David expelled air from his cheeks. “To tell you the truth, I never really saw the difference. You’re either working in the war effort or you’re not.”

“There’s a big difference, David, believe me. Even in liberal Oxford, I’m an official leper.”

“Be glad you’re in Oxford. They’d beat the crap out of you at my air base.”

Mark rubbed his forehead with his palms. “Look, I understand the logic of deterrence. But there has never been a weapon like this before. Never.” He watched with relief as the two professors left the pub. “David, I’m going to tell you something that most people don’t know, and we’ve never discussed. Until one month ago, poison gas was the most humane weapon in the world.”

“What?”

“It’s the truth. Despite the agony of burns and the horror of chemical weapons, ninety-four percent of the men gassed in World War One were fit for duty again in nine weeks. Nine weeks, David. The mortality figure for poison gas is somewhere around two percent. Mortality from guns and shells is twenty-five percent—ten times higher. The painful fact is that our father was an exception.”

David’s confusion was evident in his bunched eyebrows. “What are you telling me, Mark?”

“I’m trying to explain that, until Sarin was invented, my aversion to gas warfare was based primarily on the paralyzing terror it held for soldiers, and the psychological aftermath of being wounded by gas. Figures don’t tell the whole truth, especially about human pain. But with Sarin, chemical warfare has entered an entirely new phase. We’re talking about a weapon that has four times the mortality rate of shot and shell. Sarin is one hundred percent lethal. It will kill every living thing it touches. I would rather carry a rifle at the front than be responsible for developing something that destructive.”

David’s whole posture conveyed the reluctance he felt to stray onto this territory. “Listen, I swore I’d never argue with you about this again. It’s the same argument I always had with Dad. The Sermon on the Mount versus machine guns. Gandhi versus Hitler. Passive resistance can’t work against Germany, Mark. The Nazis just don’t give a damn. You turn the other cheek, those bastards’ll slice it off for you. Hell, it was the Germans who gassed Dad in the first place!”

“Keep your voice down.”

“Yeah, yeah. Jeez, I don’t like where this conversation’s ended up.” The young pilot scratched his stubbled chin, deep in thought. “Okay … okay, just listen to me for a minute. Everybody back home calls you Mac, right? They always have.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Just listen. Everybody calls me David, right? Or Dave, or Slick. Why do you think everybody calls you Mac?”

Mark shrugged. “I was the oldest.”

“Wrong. It was because you acted just like Dad did when he was a kid.”

Mark shifted in his seat. “Maybe.”

“Maybe, hell. You know I’m right. But what you don’t know, or don’t want to know, is that you still act just like him.”

Mark stiffened.

“Our father—the great physician—spent most of his life inside our house. Hiding.”

“He was blind, for God’s sake!”

“No, he wasn’t,” David said forcefully. “His eyes were damaged, but he could see when he wanted to.”

Mark looked away, but didn’t argue.

“God knows his face looked bad, but he didn’t have to hide it. When I was a kid I thought he did. But he didn’t. People could’ve gotten used to him. To the scars.”

Mark closed his eyes, but the image in his mind only grew clearer. He saw a broken man lying on a sofa, much of his face and neck mutilated by blistering poisons that had splashed over half his body and entered his lungs. As a young boy Mark had watched his mother press cotton pads against that man’s eyes, to soak up the tears that ran uncontrollably from the damaged membranes. She would retreat to the kitchen to weep softly when she was sure his father slept.

“Mom never got used to them,” he said quietly.

“You’re right,” said David. “But it wasn’t his face. It was the scars inside she couldn’t handle. Do you hear what I’m saying? Dad was a certified war hero. He could’ve walked tall anywhere in America. But he didn’t. And do you know why, Doctor McConnell? Because he brooded too goddamn much. Just like you. He tried to carry the weight of the fucking world on his shoulders. When I enlisted in the air corps, he threatened to disown me. And that was from his deathbed. But long before that, he’d made you so scared and disgusted with the idea of war that he charted your whole life for you.” David wiped his brow. “Look, I’m not telling you what to do. You’re the genius in this family.”

“Come on, David.”

“Goddamn it, drop the phony bullshit! I was eight years behind you in school, and all the teachers still called me by your name, okay? I’m a flyer, not a philosopher. But I can tell you this. When Ike’s invasion finally jumps off, and our guys hit those French beaches, it’s gonna be bad. Real bad. Guys younger than me are gonna be charging fortified machine-gun nests. Concrete bunkers. They’re gonna be dying like flies over there. Now you’re telling me they might have to face this Sarin stuff. If you’re the guy who can stop Hitler from using it, or invent a defense against it, or at least give us the ability to hit back just as hard … Well, you’d have to do a lot of talking to convince those guys it’s right to do nothing at all. They’d call you a traitor for that.”

Mark winced. “I know that. But what you don’t understand is that there is no defense. The clothing required to protect a man from Sarin is airtight, and it’s heavy. A soldier could fight in it for maybe an hour, two at the most. GIs won’t even wear their standard gas masks in combat now, just because of a little discomfort. They could never take a defended beach in full body suits.

“So what are you saying? We’re whipped, let’s lie down and wait until we’re all eating Wiener Schnitzel?”

“No. Look, if Sarin is a German gas, Hitler has yet to use it. Maybe he won’t. I’m saying I won’t be the man that makes Armageddon possible. Someone else can have that job.”

David blinked his eyes several times, trying to focus on his watch. “Look,” he said, “I think I’m going to drive back up to Deenethorpe tonight.”

Mark reached across the table and squeezed his brother’s arm. “Don’t do that, David. I should never have brought this up.”

“It’s not that. It’s just … I’m so tired of the whole goddamn thing. All the guys I knew that never came back from raids. I stopped making friends two months ago, Mac. It isn’t worth it.”

Mark saw then that the bourbon had finally taken effect.

“I think about you a lot, you know,” David said softly. “When I feel those bombs drop out of Shady Lady’s belly, when the flak’s hammering the walls, I think, at least my brother doesn’t have to see this. At least he’s gonna make it back home. He deserves it. Always trying to do the right thing, to be the good son, faithful to the wife. Now I find out you’re dealing with this stuff …” David looked down, as if trying to perceive something very small at the center of the table. “I try not to think about Dad too much. But you really are just like him. In the good ways too, I mean. Maybe you’re right. Maybe he was right, too. I just don’t want to think about it anymore tonight. And if I’m here, there’s no way not to think about it.”

“I understand.”

Mark tipped the bartender as they left the pub, an act that always brought a wry smile from a man unused to the custom. David carefully tucked his nearly-empty bourbon bottle inside his leather jacket, then paused on the corner of George Street. “You’ll do the right thing in the end,” he said. “You always do. But I don’t want to hear another word about any forward surgical unit. You’re a real asshole sometimes. You must be the only guy in this war trying to think of ways to get closer to the fighting instead of away from it.”

“Except for officers,” Mark said.

“Right.” David looked up the blacked out street, then down at his captain’s bars. “Hey, I’m an officer, you know.”

Mark punched him on the shoulder. “I won’t tell anybody.”

“Good. Now where did I park that goddamn jeep?”

Mark grinned and took the lead. “Follow me, Captain.”

FOUR

Twenty miles from the dreaming spires of Oxford, Winston Spencer Churchill stood stiffly at a window, smoking a cigar and peeking through a crack in his blackout curtains. The three men seated behind him waited tensely, watching the cigar’s blue smoke curl up toward the red cornice.

“Headlights,” Churchill said, a note of triumph in his voice.

He turned from the window. His face wore its customary scowl of pugnacious concentration, but these men knew him well. They saw the excitement in his eyes. “Brendan,” he said gruffly. “Meet the car outside. Show the general directly to me.”

Brendan Bracken, Churchill’s former private secretary, Man Friday, and now Minister of Information, hurried to the main entrance of Chequers, one of the country estates that the prime minister used as a wartime hideaway.

Churchill quietly regarded the two men left in the room. Sitting rigid by the low fire was Brigadier Duff Smith. The fifty-year-old Scotsman’s empty left coat sleeve was pinned to his shoulder; the arm that should have filled it was buried somewhere in Belgium. A personal friend of Churchill, Smith now directed Special Operations Executive, the paramilitary espionage organization whose primary directive, penned by Churchill in 1940, was to “SET EUROPE ABLAZE.”

To Brigadier Smith’s right stood F.W. Lindemann, now Lord Cherwell. An Oxford don and longtime confidante, Lindemann advised the prime minister on all scientific matters, and monitored the work of a gaggle of geniuses—gleaned mostly from Oxford and Cambridge—who labored twenty hours a day to increase the Allies’ technological advantages over the Germans.

“Are we quite ready, gentlemen?” Churchill asked pointedly.

Brigadier Smith nodded. “As far as I’m concerned, Winston, it’s an open and shut case. Of course, there’s no guarantee Eisenhower will see it our way.”

Professor Lindemann started to speak, but Churchill had already straightened at the sound of boots in the hallway. Brendan Bracken opened the door to the study and General Dwight D. Eisenhower strode in, followed by Commander Harry C. Butcher, his naval aide and friend of long standing. Sergeant Mickey McKeogh, Eisenhower’s driver and valet, took up a post outside the door. The last American to enter was a major of army intelligence. He was not introduced.

“Greetings, my dear General!” Churchill said. He moved forward and pumped Eisenhower’s hand with all-American enthusiasm. His red, black, and gold dressing gown contrasted strangely with the American general’s simple olive drab uniform.

“Mr. Prime Minister,” Eisenhower replied. “It’s good to see you again, though unexpected.”

The two men’s eyes met with unspoken communication. Last month’s conferences at Cairo and Teheran had not gone off without tensions between the two men. With the invasion less than five months away, Churchill still had reservations about a cross-Channel thrust into France, preferring to attack Germany through what he called the “soft underbelly” of Europe. Eisenhower, though he had just been named Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, was still adjusting to the mantle of power and had yet to assert his primacy in matters of strategy.

“An uneventful trip up from London, I hope?” Churchill said.

Eisenhower smiled. “The fog was so thick on Chesterfield Hill that Butcher had to get out and walk ahead of the car with a flashlight. But we made it, as you can see.” He crossed the room and respectfully shook hands with Brigadier Smith, whom he’d known since 1942. Everyone else was introduced, excepting the American major of intelligence, who remained silent and stiff as a suit of decorative armor beside the closed study door.

Churchill rescued his dying cigar from an ashtray and walked over to his desk. He did not sit. This was the atmosphere he liked—his Parliamentary milieu—him on his feet, speaking to a captive audience sitting on its collective ass. He picked up something small off the desk and rolled it in his palm. It appeared to be a bit of ornamental glass.

“Gentlemen,” he began, “time is short and the matter at hand grave. So I’ll be brief. The Nazis”—he pronounced the word Narzis, with a slur that managed to simultaneously convey both contempt and menace—“are up to their old tricks again. And some new ones as well. At the very moment when the tide seems to be turning irrevocably in our favor—I daresay on the very cusp of invasion—the Hun has sunk to new depths of frightfulness. He has apparently decided that no scientific abomination is too ghastly to use in his quest to stave off disaster.”

Though well-accustomed by now to Churchill’s flamboyant rhetoric, Eisenhower listened intently. He had only just arrived from North Africa via Washington, and any hint of new information about the European theater tantalized him.

Churchill rolled the piece of glass in his hand. “Before I proceed, I feel I must restate that this meeting, for official purposes, never occurred. No entries should be made in private diaries to record it. I am even breaking my own inviolate rule. No one will be asked to sign the guest book when they leave.”

Eisenhower could stand no more buildup. “What the devil are you talking about, Mr. Prime Minister?”

Churchill held up the piece of glass he’d been fidgeting with. It was a tiny ampule. “Gentlemen, if I were to shatter this vial, every man-jack of us would be dead within a minute.”

This was vintage Churchill, the dramatic prop, the verbal bombshell. “What the hell is it?” Eisenhower asked.

The prime minister bit down on his cigar and lowered his round head in a posture of challenge. “Gas,” he said.

Eisenhower squinted his eyes. “Poison gas?”

The prime minister nodded slowly, deliberately, then pulled the cigar from his mouth. “And not the kitchen stuff we choked on during the last war, though God knows that was bad enough. This is something entirely new, something absolutely monstrous.”

Eisenhower noted that Churchill had used the word “we” in reference to suffering poison gas attacks. He wondered if this was a veiled allusion to the fact that he had not seen combat in the First World War, having served those years training tank troops in Pennsylvania. If Churchill was probing for a sore spot, he had found it. “Well,” he said curtly, “what kind of gas is it?”

“They call it Sarin. And it’s a bloody miracle we’ve even found out about it. We can all thank Duff Smith for that.” Churchill looked at the one-armed SOE chief, willing him to his feet. “Brigadier?”

Duff Smith, a seasoned veteran of the Cameron Highlanders regiment, stood with quiet confidence. “Thirty days ago,” he said with a vestigial Highland lilt, “we learned that our worst suspicions about the German chemical effort were accurate. Not only have they been pursuing weapons research at breakneck speed since before the war, but they’ve also been producing new gases and stockpiling them all over the country.”

“Just a minute,” Eisenhower broke in. “We’ve been doing the same thing, haven’t we?”

“Yes and no, General. Our programs didn’t really get cracking until we realized how much Germany had accomplished between the wars. And, quite frankly, we’ve never managed to catch up.”

“Are we talking about nerve agents?” asked the American major of intelligence, speaking for the first time. “We’ve known about Tabun for some time.”

“Something of quite another magnitude,” Smith said a bit testily. “The clearest indication of danger is that the Nazis have resumed testing these gases on human victims, mostly at SS-run concentration camps in Germany and Poland. These experiments have resulted in death for the exposed inmates in one hundred percent of the cases. We believe the Germans are setting up to deploy nerve gas against our invasion troops.”

Eisenhower cut his eyes at Commander Butcher.

“Did you say a hundred percent fatalities?” asked the army major. “Due strictly to the gas?”

“One hundred percent,” Smith confirmed. “Thirty days ago, the Polish Resistance managed to smuggle a sample of Sarin out of a camp in northern Germany. Two days later we delivered that sample to one of Lindemann’s chemical weapons specialists at Oxford.”

This time it was Eisenhower who interrupted. “I thought the British chemical warfare complex was at Porton Down, on Salisbury Plain.”

“In the main,” Smith responded, “that is correct. But we also have scientists working independently in other locations. Helps to keep everyone honest.”

Churchill broke in. “I think Professor Lindemann is better equipped to fill us in on the technical details. Prof?”

The famous British scientist had been fussing with a battered pipe which stubbornly refused to light. He made one last attempt and was surprised by success. He puffed seriously for a few moments, then looked at the Americans and began to speak.

“Yes … well. In the Great War, you’ll remember, chemi-cal agents were classified by the Germans under the ‘cross’ system. That is, each gas cylinder or artillery shell was painted with a cross of a particular color, depending on what type of gas it contained. There were four colors. Green denoted the suffocating gases, mainly chlorine and phosgene. White for irritants, or tear gases. Yellow Cross indicated the blister gases, primarily mustard. Blue was for the gases that blocked molecular respiration—cyanide, arsine, carbon monoxide.”

General Eisenhower lit a second cigarette off his first and inhaled with great concentration.

“Eleven months ago,” Lindemann continued, “just after the German surrender at Stalingrad, we learned of the existence of Tabun. Tabun was interesting because it worked in an entirely different way than any previous gas, by crippling the central nervous system. Yet because it was not significantly more lethal than phosgene, we didn’t overreact. But we did realize that our own chemical weapons weren’t much further along than in 1918, and we moved to correct the imbalance. Sarin—while it shares some characteristics of Tabun—is a completely different animal.”

“I’m a little fuzzy on my chemistry,” Eisenhower said with disarming frankness. “What makes Sarin so different?”

Lindemann knitted his eyebrows. “Unlike most poison gases, General, Sarin is absolutely lethal. In 1939, the deadliest battlefield gas in the world was phosgene.” He paused to give his next statement the necessary emphasis. “Sarin is thirty times as deadly as phosgene. In sufficient concentration it can kill within seconds, and it need not even enter the lungs. It can pass directly through human skin.”

“Jesus Christ.” Eisenhower had blanched. “How does this stuff work?”

Lindemann considered the American commander for some moments. “General, every function of the human body, both conscious and unconscious, is controlled by the brain. Much as a general controls his troops. The brain passes its orders down to the organs and the limbs by means of nerve branches. The nerves are the couriers of the brain, you might say. When the brain sends a message down a nerve, a compound called acetylcholine is produced. Now, at this point, the nerve has temporarily lost its conductivity. The courier, having delivered his message, can no longer run. The nerve can only be restored to its conductive state by an enzyme called cholinesterase. Without this enzyme, the nerves of the body are nothing but dead tissue. The couriers die where they lie.”

“And this gas,” said Eisenhower, “Sarin. It destroys this enzyme, this …?”

“Cholinesterase,” supplied the major of intelligence.

“Precisely,” said Lindemann.

Eisenhower pursed his lips. “Exactly how much of this stuff would it take to kill a soldier?”

Lindemann answered with his pipe clenched between his teeth. “One thousandth of a raindrop. A droplet so small most of us couldn’t see it with the naked eye.”

Churchill noted the stricken look on Eisenhower’s face. The meeting was going just as he’d planned.

“Our people at Porton have been working round the clock to copy Sarin,” Lindemann went on, “but I’m afraid they haven’t had much luck. It’s devilish difficult to reproduce.”

“I’m afraid the Germans are having all the luck just now,” Churchill said dryly. “And there’s worse to come. Prof?”

“Yes. General, Brigadier Smith brings word of a still deadlier gas than Sarin. It is called Soman. We don’t have a sample, but I’ve seen a detailed report. Remember your lethality ratios. Phosgene was the deadliest gas in 1939. Sarin is thirty times as deadly as phosgene. And according to the reports, Soman is to Sarin as Sarin is to phosgene. Worse, it’s persistent.”

“Persistent?” Eisenhower echoed.

The American major chose this moment to reassert himself. “General, persistence was one of the primary gauges of gas effectiveness during World War One. How long the gas stayed at ground level after it was released.”

Lindemann nodded. “We have reports that Soman can remain stable for many hours, even days, clinging to whatever it comes into contact with. A soldier exposed even several hours after a battle would still likely die. And it would be a horrible death, General, I can assure you.”

“Do we have any idea how much of this stuff the Germans have stockpiled?”

Brigadier Smith cleared his throat. “General, our best estimate is upwards of five thousand tons, ready for use.”

The intelligence major was stunned enough to preempt his general. “Did you say tons?”

Churchill nodded crisply. “Conventional cylinders, aircraft bombs, artillery shells, the lot.”

Eisenhower held out his right hand to Churchill. “Let me see that damned thing.”

Churchill tossed the sealed vial toward the sofa. Commander Butcher and Brendan Bracken jumped, but Eisenhower caught the vial and held it up to a lamp. “I can’t see anything,” he said. “Just some condensation at the bottom.”

“That’s because it’s invisible,” Churchill said. “Prof?”

“Eh?” Lindemann was fussing with his pipe again.

“The delivery system. Aerosols vecteurs?”

“Right. General, when the Nazis overran Belgium in 1940, they scoured the universities for technology that might further their weapons research. I’m sorry to say that they came across the work of a rather talented chemist named Dautrebande. Dautrebande had been experimenting with a new concept he called aerosols vecteurs. In plain language, he’d found a way to reduce almost any substance to its smallest stable state: charged particles in suspension, refined to ninety-seven percent purity. He intended to use this technology to disperse healing agents in sealed hospital rooms. Obviously, the Nazis have other uses in mind.”

“Remember,” said Churchill, “the paramount consideration in gas warfare is the element of surprise. With Dautrebande’s system, the Nazis could saturate an entire battle area with Soman before anyone even knew they were under attack. And we have no idea how aerosols might affect current protective equipment. It could render it totally obsolete.”

Eisenhower stood and began pacing the room. “All right, you didn’t invite me here to describe the problem. What do you want to do about this?”

Churchill didn’t hesitate. “I want the Eighth Air Force and Bomber Command to begin hitting the German stockpiles immediately. All known nerve gas factories should be added to the master target lists and given top priority.”

“Good God,” murmured Commander Butcher, whose former job had been a vice presidency at the Columbia Broadcasting System. “A direct hit could send clouds of lethal gas rolling across Germany. Thousands of women and children might be killed. From a propaganda standpoint alone—”

“If,” Churchill interrupted, “our air forces, in the course of bombing Germany’s industrial base, happen to set free something we had no way of knowing was there … I don’t see how we could be blamed.”

The ruthlessness of Churchill’s suggestion silenced the Americans.

Eisenhower stopped pacing. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but up to this point the Germans have not deployed poison gas on the battlefield. Not even against the Russians. True?”

“That’s true,” Churchill admitted. “Though they are murdering captive Jews with cyanide gas.”

Eisenhower ignored this. “Therefore, we must assume that Hitler is restraining himself, even in the face of terrible losses, for the same reason that he has not used biological weapons. Because our intentional intelligence leaks to the Germans let them know in no uncertain terms that we have the means to retaliate in kind.”

Churchill gave a conciliatory nod. “General, in the case of biologic weapons our leaks were quite truthful. However, in the area of chemical weapons you’ll find that we exaggerated a bit. All in a good cause, to be sure. To buy ourselves time. But with the invasion imminent, our time has run out.”

Eisenhower turned to his intelligence major. “Just what do we have in our chemical arsenal?”

“Loads of phosgene,” the major said defensively. “We’re stockpiling sixty days’ worth of retaliatory gas for D-Day. And new shipments of mustard are arriving all the time.”

Eisenhower frowned. “But nothing like Sarin?”

“No, sir.”

“Nor Soman.”

The major shook his head. “Not even close, sir.”

“Jesus H. Christ.” Eisenhower looked around the room. “Gentlemen, I think it might be better if the prime minister and I continue this conversation alone.”

“Brendan,” Churchill said, barely controlling the excitement in his voice, “you and Duff give our American friends some tea and biscuits. Clemmie will show you where everything is. And I believe the Prof has a late appointment.”

Lindemann glanced suddenly at his watch. “Good Lord, Winston, you’re right.” The tall don gathered up his hat and coat and started for the door, only at the last moment remembering that he was leaving the presence of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. He turned and tipped his hat to Eisenhower.

“Godspeed, General,” he said, and was gone.

FIVE

Dwight D. Eisenhower furiously smoked a cigarette at the very window where Churchill had awaited his arrival. During the past forty minutes, he had sat mostly in silence, chain-smoking Lucky Strikes while the prime minister painted nightmare scenarios of the eleventh-hour appearance of Sarin and Soman on the D-Day beaches. Finally, Eisenhower turned from the window.

“Frankly, Mr. Prime Minister, I don’t know why you came to me with this. You know I don’t have direct control over the strategic bombing forces. I’ve been fighting for that control for weeks, and you’ve been resisting me. Are you changing your position?”

Seated in a wing chair several feet away, Churchill stuck out his lower lip as if pondering an unfamiliar question. “I’m sure we can come to some reasonable compromise, General.”

“Well, until we do, I couldn’t make the decision to bomb those stockpiles even if I wanted to. Besides, this is a political matter. It’s a question for President Roosevelt.”

Churchill sighed heavily. “General, I spoke to Franklin about this matter in Cairo. I had an early report about Sarin. But I don’t believe he fully grasped the threat. He seems to think the tide has turned sufficiently in our favor that no single German secret weapon could stop it. The air marshals are making similar noises, and they resent my meddling. That’s why I came to you. As the man in charge of OVERLORD, I thought you couldn’t fail to see the danger.”

“Oh, I see the danger, all right.”

“Thank God.” Churchill spoke quickly. “The mind recoils. Rommel could bury canisters of Soman weeks before our troops arrive, then detonate them from a safe distance. Half a dozen planes spraying aerosol-borne Soman could stop your entire force on the sand. D-Day would be a disaster.”

Eisenhower raised his hand. “Why do you think Hitler will deploy nerve gas on the invasion beaches if he didn’t use it at Stalingrad?”

Churchill answered with confidence. “Because Stalingrad, however terrible a defeat, was not the end. He could still take the long view. But Hitler now faces the lodgement of an Allied army on the Continent. If we breach his Atlantic Wall, it means the end for him, and he knows it. Also, there is some question as to whether the Germans had effective protective gear for their own troops at that time. Remember, Sarin and Soman can pass through human skin. One gust of wind blowing the wrong way could decimate a German battalion as easily as one of ours. It happened often enough in the Great War. But given the stakes of the invasion, will Hitler hesitate to sacrifice his own men? Not for a moment. I tell you, that devil will stop at nothing.”

Eisenhower found Churchill’s eyes in the gloom. “Mr. Prime Minister, at this stage of the game, we’ve got to see Hitler straight. We can’t afford not to.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“I mean I know for a fact that in 1940 you planned to use poison gas on the Germans if they reached the beaches of England.”

Churchill did not deny it.

“So,” Eisenhower plowed on, “let’s stop pretending we have some special moral obligation to stop Hitler from using gas under circumstances where we would probably do the same.”

“But that is precisely my point! Hitler will soon be in the very circumstances in which we would resort to using gas ourselves. Can we afford to hope he will not?”

Eisenhower violently stubbed out his cigarette. “How the hell did we get into this mess?”

“I hate to say it, General, but it goes back to the non-competition agreements signed by Standard Oil and I.G. Farben in the 1920s. The arrangement was that Standard would stay out of chemicals if Farben stayed out of the oil business. Both companies held to that deal up to and even after the outbreak of war. It’s the Germans who’ve revolutionized commercial chemistry. We have nothing to compare with the Farben conglomerate.”

“What about French scientists?”

Churchill shook his head sadly. “Hitler alone holds this card.” He picked up a pen and began doodling on a notepad. “May I speak with absolute frankness, General?”

“I wish to God you would.”

“Duff Smith and I have a theory. We think Hitler hasn’t used Sarin yet for one simple reason. He is afraid of gas. He was temporarily blinded by mustard gas in the Great War, you know. Made quite a thing of it in Mein Kampf. He may well have an exaggerated fear of our chemical abilities. We believe the real danger isn’t Hitler at all, but Heinrich Himmler. Sarin and Soman are being tested at camps run by Himmler’s SS. The sample of Sarin came from a remote SS camp built solely for the purpose of manufacturing and testing nerve gases. Himmler also controls much of the Nazi intelligence apparatus. Therefore, he is the man most likely to know we possess no nerve gases of our own. Duff and I think Himmler’s plan is to perfect his nerve gases and protective clothing, then present the whole show to Hitler at the moment he most needs it—to stave off our invasion. At a single stroke Himmler could save the Reich and raise himself to an unassailable position as successor to the Nazi throne.”

Eisenhower pointed a fresh cigarette at Churchill. “Now that, Mr. Prime Minister, is a motive that makes sense. Do you have proof of this?”

“Duff’s Polish friends have a contact very close to the commandant of one of these camps. This agent believes a tactical demonstration of Soman—a demonstration for the Führer—may be scheduled in a matter of weeks, possibly even days.”

“I see. Mr. Prime Minister, let me digress a moment. Professor Lindemann said your people are working around the clock to copy Sarin. I assume that is strictly for retalia-tory purposes?”

Churchill took a deep breath. “Not if you agree with me, General. I believe there is an option more desirable than bombing the German stockpiles. I’m speaking of a demonstration raid. If our scientists succeed in copying Sarin, I believe we should launch a limited attack with our gas as soon as possible. Only by doing this will we leave no doubt whatever in Himmler’s mind that he is wrong in his estimation of our capabilities and our resolve.”

Eisenhower looked at Churchill with unveiled amazement. The cold-bloodedness of the British continually stunned him. He cleared his throat. “But so far your scientists’ efforts to copy Sarin have been unsuccessful, correct?”

Churchill turned up his palms. “They’re dabbling with something called fluorophosphates, but progress is slow.”

Eisenhower turned to the window and stared out over the snowswept English landscape. In the dark it looked as quiet as a cemetery. “Mr. Prime Minister,” he said at length, “I’m afraid I can’t support you on this. Neither the bombing nor the … the demonstration raid.” Hearing Churchill’s soft groan, Eisenhower turned. “Wait—please hear me out. I deeply respect your judgment. You have been right many times when everyone else was wrong. But things aren’t so clear cut as you’re trying to make them seem. If we bomb the German stockpiles and nerve gas plants, we tip our hand to Hitler. We show him what we fear most. Also, by bombing the stockpiles we indirectly use nerve gas on the German people. That’s practically the same as first use. What would then stop Hitler from using Soman against our troops?”

Churchill hung on every word, searching for a chink in the American’s logic.

“No,” Eisenhower said firmly, “it’s absolutely out of the question. President Roosevelt would never authorize a gas attack, and the American people wouldn’t stand for it. There are still thousands of veterans walking American streets who were terrorized by gas in the first war, some scarred horribly. We will retaliate if attacked ourselves. The president has made that clear. But first use? Never.”

Eisenhower steeled himself for the familiar roar of the British lion. But rather than rise to his feet for a spirited argument, Churchill seemed to withdraw into himself.

“What I will do,” Eisenhower said quickly, “is push for full American cooperation in developing our own version of Sarin. That way, if Hitler does cross the line we can show our people that we’re giving as good as we get. I’ll press Eaker and Harris for aerial surveys of the gas plants and stockpiles. If Hitler uses Sarin, we’ll be ready to start bombing immediately. How does that sound?”

“Like we’re planning to shut the stable door after the horse has run away,” Churchill mumbled.

Eisenhower felt his notorious temper reaching the flashpoint, but he managed to check it. He would have to endure countless hours of negotiations very much like this one in the coming months, and he had to keep relations civil. “Mr. Prime Minister, I’ve heard tales of doomsday weapons on both sides since 1942. In the end, this war will be won or lost with planes, tanks, and men.”

Sitting there in the great wing chair in his dragon dressing gown, hands folded across his round belly, Winston Churchill resembled nothing so much as a pale Buddha resting on a velvet pillow. His watery eyes peered out from beneath heavy lids. “General,” he said gravely, “you and I hold the fate of Christendom in our hands. I beg you to reconsider.”

In that moment Eisenhower felt the full weight of Churchill’s indomitable will projected against him. But his resolve held firm. “I’ll keep all this in mind,” he said. “But for now I must stand by what I said tonight.”

The Supreme Commander rose and moved toward the study door. As he reached for the knob, something stopped him. A brief intimation that perhaps he had won too easily? He turned and fixed Churchill in his gaze. “As I’m sure you will, Mr. Prime Minister.”

Churchill smiled in resignation. “Of course, General. Of course.”

When Eisenhower’s party had gone, Brigadier Duff Smith joined Churchill in his private study. A single lamp burned at the prime minister’s desk. The one-armed SOE chief leaned forward.

“The air seemed a bit chilly when Ike collected his men,” he observed.

Churchill laid both pudgy hands on his desk and sighed. “He refused, Duff. No bombing of the stockpiles, no demonstration raid if we develop our own gas.”

“Bloody hell. Doesn’t he realize what Soman would do to his sodding invasion?”

“I don’t think he does. It’s the same old American song, the same schoolboy naivete.”

“That naivete could still cost us the war!”

“Eisenhower has never seen combat, Duff, remember that. I don’t hold it against him, but a man who’s never been shot at—much less gassed—lacks a certain perspective.”

“Bloody Yanks,” Smith fumed. “They either want to fight this war from six miles up in the air or by the Marquess of Queensbury rules.”

“Steady, old man. They’ve acquitted themselves quite handily in Italy.”

“Aye,” Smith conceded. “But you’ve said it yourself a hundred times, Winston, ‘Action This Day!’”

Churchill stuck out his lower lip and fixed the brigadier with a penetrating stare. “You never thought Eisenhower would agree to the bombing, did you?”

The SOE chief’s poker face slipped ever so slightly. “That’s a fact, Winston. I never did.”

“And of course you have a plan.”

“I’ve had thoughts.”

“No matter how desperate a pass we’ve come to, I’ve never gone against the wishes of the Americans. The risks are enormous.”

“The threat is greater, Winston.”

“I believe that.” Churchill paused. “You couldn’t use any British personnel.”

“Give me some credit, old man.”

Churchill tapped his thick fingers on the desk. “What if it failed? Could you cover your tracks?”

Smith smiled. “Bombers go off course all the time. Drop their loads in the strangest of places.”

“What would you need?”

“To start, a submarine that can hold station in the Baltic for four days.”

“That’s easily enough done. The Admiralty is the one place where my word is law.”

“A squadron of Mosquito Bombers made available for one night.”

“That’s quite another matter, Duff. Bomber Command is the sharpest thorn in my side.”

“It’s an absolute necessity. Only way to cover up if we fail.”

Churchill raised both hands in a gesture of futility. “I hate going to Harris hat in hand, but I suppose I can suffer through it once.”

Smith drew in a breath. He was about to ask for the near-impossible. “I’d also need access to an airfield on the southern Swedish coast. For at least four days, preferably longer.”

Churchill drew back in his chair, his face impassive. Dealing with putatively neutral countries was a tricky business. For Sweden, the price of aiding the Allies could be fifty thousand uninvited guests from Germany, all wearing parachutes. He aimed a stubby forefinger at Smith. “Can you pull this off, Duffy?”

“Someone had better, old man.”

Churchill studied his old friend for several moments, weighing his past successes against his failures. “All right, you’ll get your airfield. In fact, let’s just save some time.” He took a fountain pen from his desk, scrawled on a sheet of notepaper, then handed the page across to Smith. The brigadier’s eyes widened as he read:

To All Soldiers of the Allied Expeditionary Force:

Brigadier Duff Smith, Chief of Special Operations Executive, is hereby authorized to requisition any and all aid he deems necessary to prosecute military operations inside Occupied Europe from 15 January to 15 February 1944. This applies to both regular and irregular forces. All inquiries to No. 10 Annexe.

Winston S. Churchill

“Good God,” Smith exclaimed.

“That won’t buy as much as you think,” Churchill said with a trace of irony. “See how far it gets you with Sir Arthur bloody Harris of the Air Force.”

Smith deftly folded the note with his one hand and slipped it into his tunic. “You underestimate your influence, Winston. Give me one of these good for three months and I’ll bring you Hitler’s head in a basket.”

Churchill laughed heartily. “Godspeed, then. You’ve got thirty days. Don’t put your foot in it.” He extended his hand across the desk.

Smith squeezed the plump hand, then saluted smartly. “God save the King.”

“God bless America,” Churchill said. “And keep her ignorant.”

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