The Children's War

by Stroyar, J. N.

  “Huh?” Peter was surprised to see her. “I thought you were out with Mark.”

  “I’ve been back for two hours!” she replied angrily. “For heaven’s sakes what are you mooning over? Are you in love?”

  He was not provoked. “No, no, something else,” he answered distantly, effortlessly dismissing her from his thoughts. There had to be some way into that laboratory, some way to get his hands on the files he knew must be in Chandler’s section. The cursory look that he had been afforded with Ryszard had been insufficient to tell them anything; all that had become clear was that the director was probably unaware of Chandler’s work with Schindler. Peter could not decide if that was an advantage or not. If Chandler’s work had been part of the official laboratory routine, then the chances were that eventually someone would be willing to sell it. Of course, Peter could never come up with the sort of money that would be required, so he would, in that case, be excluded from acquiring it and it would be up to one of the Undergrounds to get their hands on the information.

  That, however, was not the case. Chandler’s work was apparently secret, even amongst his colleagues. So, the information would be more jealously guarded and less likely to be pilfered and sold. That was a disadvantage in the overall scheme of things, but a personal advantage for him, because he not only wanted to find out what the American had been carrying and what Schindler was up to, he wanted to personally acquire that information so he could use it to bribe the Szaflary Council into letting him return.

  He considered the possibility of blackmailing the informant whom he had recognized into stealing the information for him. There were several problems with that, the most obvious being that neither he nor the informant knew what should be stolen. Another problem was that the informant could not be driven too far: his only advantage over the informant would be pure bluff, and if the informant discovered something truly valuable, she would doubtless sell it to the Underground and seek their protection from his extortion. The upshot of that would be that the Underground would gain the information without his help and might feel obliged to sanction him in some manner for his extracurricular activities.

  So, he had to get inside the laboratory himself. He knew he could extort something trivial from the secretary, but first he had to find out where she lived and some way of contacting her. Where could he get that information? Once he talked to her, he could probably convince her to leave a window or something open for him, but that would not be enough, he needed to know the security routine for the installation. Who could tell him that? Plus he needed tools: something to get through the fences, something for locked doors and files and desks. Now where could he acquire the appropriate tools without raising suspicions? A bit of backup would help as well, someone to keep watch as he rooted around. Then afterward, how would he travel to Szaflary? All without official assistance . . .

  “. . . would consider it rude,” Barbara finished huffily.

  “What?”

  “Ignoring me. Some people would consider it rude.”

  “Ignoring you? Ah, well, sorry,” Peter apologized perfunctorily. “What were you saying?”

  “I was suggesting that maybe if you talk about whatever’s bothering you, it might help you to sort it out.”

  Peter rubbed his chin. “Sure, why not. I’m getting nowhere like this.” He explained his situation to Barbara.

  “Why not have Ryszard get you inside again?” she suggested.

  “First, he doesn’t have the authority to assign me to the place. Our one visit was the best he could manage, and even that took conniptions to set up. Second, for some reason, he couldn’t stay here long. He had to return to Berlin to attend to business there, and I guess he can hardly be bothered to track down every loose thread that unwinds past him. He wants to hand it off and is only waiting because I asked him to. Finally, if he sets me up in there, he’ll expect me to hand everything over to him, and I’ve already said I’m less interested in us getting the information than in my getting it.”

  “Rather selfish, aren’t you?” Barbara asked almost innocently.

  “I’ve learned from experts.”

  “That’s no excuse!”

  “I’ve been at this game a lot longer than you, little girl, and you will forgive me if my idealism is wearing a bit thin,” Peter replied impatiently.

  “What about the English Underground? You could have Jenny ask for their help.”

  “Same story. Once I tell them what’s going on, they won’t need me.”

  “Maybe they’d be sufficiently grateful—”

  “Pff. They adhere to Stalin’s view of gratitude.”

  “What’s that?” Barbara asked.

  “It’s a dog’s disease. No, I’m not letting this one out of my hands. The information is probably not all that important—just some boondoggle that Schindler has sunk his teeth into, but if I play it right, it should be sufficient to get me back home.”

  “You really miss the place, don’t you?”

  Peter stopped himself from replying angrily to what he presumed was sarcasm. “It’s my home,” he answered honestly. “It’s where my child is. I love the mountains and the forests and the blessed free air, limited though it is. I miss the people and the work, and believe it or not, I even have a few friends. Marysia cares about me, Olek, Konrad, Kamil, Romek, even Tadek has come through for me. Hell, I even miss Katerina.”

  “Her?” Barbara’s voice conveyed a complex mix of fear and awe.

  “Yeah. I’ve finally realized why she was so determined to remind me that I was an outsider living on sufferance.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she was, too. I would guess she never got over feeling terribly, terribly-alone.”

  “I just thought the old bat had killed every emotion that wasn’t deadly long ago.”

  Peter nodded noncommittally. “Anyway, I want to go back and I don’t want to wait until the Council gets tired of holding me prisoner here. Trouble is, I can’t figure out how to get into that damn lab.”

  “How about some help from your friends here?”

  Peter snorted.

  “No, I’m serious. You have Jenny and her connections, and me and Mark and all his friends.”

  “I don’t think your boyfriend is all that fond of me.”

  “Perhaps not, but he’ll be more than happy to help you leave this place. Besides, he’ll do as he’s told if he knows what’s good for him.”

  Peter laughed. “Yes, I suppose I could use your help, if you’re really offering it.”

  “I am,” Barbara answered sincerely. “Between us, we can track down that informant for you. The tools shouldn’t be much problem. As for the travel documents . . .”

  “We can solve that later. There is one other thing though.”

  “What?”

  “I need an expert. Chandler is a chemist. I suspect that whatever he has will be in that field, and I don’t know enough to recognize useful information.”

  “Hmm. That is a problem, none of us have any expertise there. I doubt Mark knows anyone either—that’s not what his group is into.”

  “I suppose I could just peruse what I find and trust my luck and intuition.”

  “Or you could recruit your brother,” Barbara suggested.

  “My brother!” Peter sputtered, but then he thought about it. His brother was trained in chemistry and worked in a government institute; he would almost certainly know enough to recognize something important and interpret it. A grin spread across Peter’s face as he thought about forcing his brother to help him. He nodded to himself, pleased with the images that his thoughts provoked. “Yeah, I could do that. I’m sure he’d be more than willing to cooperate with me. Good idea, Barbara, great idea!”

  Two weeks later Peter was at the door of his brother’s flat. The dingy thirdfloor hallway belied the impressive rent the building almost certainly commanded. It was in a good location: not quite a gated community yet nevertheless a well-policed area with low crime an
d reliable utilities. Peter had walked uneasily through the streets, feeling, as he always had as a youth, that something in his clothes or demeanor would betray him as English and therefore unwelcome. Now at least, he carried appropriate papers and as Niklaus Jäger would not be challenged; nevertheless, he had felt ill at ease and had been glad that he could finally duck into the doorway of one of the monstrous apartment buildings that overlooked the river.

  A modestly dressed, slightly overweight woman answered the door. Not surprisingly, she was not particularly attractive, and Peter did not expect that she would have a sparkling personality: her birth certificate alone would have been enough to lure his brother into marriage. Peter explained to her that he was a colleague of Erich’s and asked if he might have a moment to talk to her husband about some unexpected work at the institute. She surprised him by inviting him in for a cup of tea, explaining that her husband had gone out but that he was expected back shortly. Peter accepted the invitation and sat down in their living room to await his brother’s return.

  As Erich’s wife handed him some tea, he smiled pleasantly, then, to satisfy his curiosity, said, “Thank you, Frau . . . Oh, I’m sorry, do you use the name Chase?”

  “No.” She shook her head somewhat sadly. “I wanted to, but Erich wanted to use my family name, Schwarz, for our family. Turned out, it was almost impossible for him to change names, but not so difficult to use it for the children. So, he’s the only one who uses that name. More’s the pity.”

  “Why?”

  “I think a wife should use her husband’s name,” she replied primly, then relaxing, she added, “But call me Gretchen! I like this new habit of using first names.”

  “Gretchen. What a lovely name.”

  She confided with a titter, “Oh, you have no idea how many people boughtme the ‘good-girl Gretchen’ books when I was a child! What was worse was that my poor brother was named Hans, so he’d get the ‘heroic Hans’ series. The house was simply inundated!”

  “Ah, yes.” He nodded sympathetically. “Well, please call me Niklaus.” That, as he had expected, reminded her to introduce her children, who had sat throughout in obedient silence, doing their schoolwork at the supper table, which was at the far end of the largish room. Upon her command, they lined up like little martinets and were introduced to him. He looked hard at each of his nieces and nephews; one of the girls had his mother’s eyes, otherwise there was nothing to remind him of his parents. He asked them a little about themselves, what their plans were and how they were faring in school, and then, on a whim, he asked in English, “Do any of you speak the slightest bit of your father’s native language and the language of the people who live all around you and serve your needs?”

  They all stared at him blankly, recognizing the language but nothing more than that. Gretchen, also clearly unable to answer the question, frowned worriedly at what it could all mean. Peter smiled reassuringly and said in German, “Our department is trying to recruit students who speak English because we’re beginning to increase our ties to the North American Union. You know,” he added impishly, “one must know one’s enemy!”

  They nodded their understanding, and the children returned to their studies. He and Gretchen continued their pleasantries, killing time as they awaited Erich’s return. While Peter chatted, he surveyed the room. There was the obligatory portrait of the Führer and another of Hitler, this time blessing little children who were bringing him flowers. A framed map was mounted over a bookshelf, and he got up from his seat to have a closer inspection of both. The map was of the Greater Reich, and he noted with some disdain that it did not show a “Carpathian Exclusion Zone” or any other unconquered territory in the region. A nice fiction, this total domination of the land and peoples of Europe! In the bookshelf he read the standard titles of a good German household. Nothing in English, nothing exceptional. Other than the fact that the bottom shelf was devoted to some texts on chemistry and biochemistry, there was nothing there that he would not have expected to find at the Vogels’.

  As he was still perusing the titles, Erich returned. Peter waited until his brother was in the door and Gretchen had explained that a colleague had come to visit before he turned around. The smile of greeting slid from Erich’s face and he stammered, “What are you doing here?” with something less than an acceptable level of courtesy.

  “Erich!” his wife admonished.

  “Unless you’re into confiding everything to your family,” Peter said in English to his brother, “you’ll be clever enough to greet me as a colleague.” He grinned a welcome.

  Erich’s face was absolutely white with fear. He glanced from his wife to hischildren and back again before mustering the wherewithal to say, in English, “What do you want from me?”

  “Lots.”

  “Erich?” Gretchen asked, suddenly worried. “What’s going on?”

  “Ah, dear Frau Schwarz. Forgive me for playing a small joke on your husband!” Peter assured her. “We share a common childhood language and I like to tease my shy colleague into using it now and again. Do forgive me for being so terribly rude!” Peter leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “I’m going to steal your husband for the evening. It’s terribly important government business, you understand, and we appreciate your patriotism and loyalty, and I hope we don’t inconvenience you too much with this unexpected requisition of his time. Please don’t wait up, he’ll be back quite late.”

  Gretchen was still touching her cheek where Peter had kissed it even as he grabbed his brother’s arm and gently led him out the door.

  65

  “WE COULD BE HANGED FOR THIS,” Erich reminded his brother yet again as they lay on the ground near the chain-link fence that surrounded the perimeter of the laboratory.

  “If we’re lucky,” Peter agreed jovially. “Of course, since you’re with me, they might prefer to torture you first.” He looked up from cutting the lower links and grinned at his brother. “It’d be a great chance for you to learn about the government you serve.”

  Erich scowled. “Can’t you do this without me? I’ll wait outside and you can bring me the stuff. I’ll stay here. I promise.”

  “Would you shut up already!” Mark growled, glancing around nervously.

  Erich looked at Mark’s angry face and then at Barbara as she sat nearly invisible-in the darkness only a few feet away, casually holding her gun as if to suggest she would just as readily shoot him dead as not. He fell silent and listened to his heart thumping, trying not to think about the freezing dampness that was penetrating his clothes. “It’s just that I have a wife and four children,” he could not stop himself from saying.

  “Gag him,” Peter ordered. He was listening intently for the approach of any security patrols, and Erich’s whining was an annoying distraction. Peter was also concentrating on not cutting the trip wire woven cleverly into the links of the fence. It was a fairly simple system, but still more than he had expected to encounter at the outer fence. As he carefully felt along each link to determine if there were any more alarm wires, he wondered at the sort of security they would face at the inner fence. Here they were relatively well shielded and could taketheir time, but inside, they would be exposed between the two fences and would have to move quickly. No dogs, no mines, nothing elaborate, he had been told. It had accorded with what he had known about the place years ago: just a government laboratory with the obligatory, minimal security. Consequently, the trip wires worried him. Had the security been tightened? Had they been fed false information?

  Mark moved toward Erich intent on carrying out the order to gag him. “Don’t, don’t! I’ll be quiet, I promise!” Erich pleaded in a whisper.

  Peter motioned for Mark to stop. “Last chance,” Peter warned Erich. He had not expected cooperation from his brother and had not even tried to get it from him. Once they had left Erich’s flat, Peter had simply explained in no uncertain terms that Erich was going to help them or be turned in to the authorities. For what? Erich had demanded to k
now. Doesn’t matter, Peter had replied, just as it had not mattered for their father. That threat had been sufficient; Peter had not needed to explain how he could manufacture evidence or how he could let it be known that Erich’s brother was the notorious criminal who had earned the undying enmity of the Fatherland. No, it had been sufficient to allude to the Pure German movement—that had immediately won Erich’s obedience.

  “There, done it,” Peter whispered. He lay flat on the ground and consulted his watch. When the time was right, he pulled apart the tear in the fence and motioned Barbara through. He motioned for Mark to stay put with his brother, then grabbing his bag, Peter hurried after Barbara. He joined her at the next fence and the two of them worked feverishly to inspect and cut the fence. Barbara swore quietly.

  “Wires?” he asked, quite surprised.

  “No. Lasers. Don’t you see them?” She gestured to just the other side of the chain links.

  He squinted in the direction she had indicated. After blinking and straining for some seconds, he finally saw the faint traces of horizontal red lines. “Yeah, I see them. Okay, time to dig; let’s hope there’s nothing buried.” He pulled out a trowel. He glanced back at Mark and Erich and then at the height of the lowest laser beam and suggested, “Six inches down should do it.”

  The fence was buried to a depth of nine inches, and Peter and Barbara decided to clear a narrow trench that far down. He finished cutting the links, then Barbara pulled herself through the trench between the pieces of cut fence and under the lasers. She paused on the other side, and they waited to see if there was any reaction to her breach. After a tense few seconds, he decided that she had not set off any alarms and, pushing his bag through, lowered himself to the ground and scrabbled through the ditch. Barbara helped by pulling him so that he did not have to raise himself, and once he was safely through, he motioned to Mark to bring Erich through.

  The two of them scurried through the first opening and across the open patch between the fences. As they arrived at the second fence, Peter could see thatMark had resorted to holding a gun on Erich. Mark ordered Erich to the ground, and Barbara and Peter grabbed his arms and pulled him through. Then they pulled Mark through, and taking only a second to survey their circumstances, they bolted for the relative safety of the laboratory. They circled around until they were at the window that let into Chandler’s section. The informant had agreed to disconnect the security wiring and unlock and open the window a few millimeters. Peter studied the three windows on that side: none of them looked open. He ran his fingers along the sills and determined that one was looser than the others—it was probably open though not visibly so to someone on the outside. He tried lifting the window using friction against the wood, but it was too stiff, so he and Barbara inserted screwdrivers on either side of the sill and together they managed to move it up an inch. Peter inserted his hands under the sill and pushed the window up the rest of the way with no resistance.