Before The Brightest Dawn (The Half-Bloods Trilogy Book 3)

by Jana Petken

  “I disagree. We do not fight with Germans and Jews. Let him and Kurt go to the units that deal with refugees.”

  Romek folded his arms and stared at the door. “We do not want Germans occupying our country, but they do. We do not want them using our land to build death camps where they gas and burn our people, but they do. We do not want to see our artists and poets and community leaders being executed, or our youngest and brightest being fostered by German people, but the Germans continue to do all these things. If we do not open our doors to Jews and Germans, refugees and dissidents, and anyone else who has a different religion and a different creed from ours, we are no better than the monsters we are fighting. If I am not satisfied with the man’s answers, I will let you put a bullet in him before he leaves this bunker, and to hell with Max. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” Darek grumbled, as he opened the door to Paul. “Get in here,” he said, pulling Paul by the arm.

  Romek was fascinated as he stared, blinked, then stared again at Max’s double. Yes, they were identical, but Paul, who was standing to attention before him, looked like a man about to shit his underpants. This twin – Paul Vogel – also had a different look about him; a more innocent, less worldly gaze than Max’s hardened, self-assured eyes that never flickered under harsh scrutiny.

  “My God, it’s incredible,” he finally uttered in English, as if he’d just been inspecting a fine piece of art.

  “I told you it was impossible to tell the difference,” Darek replied, also in English.

  Romek chuckled, “I can’t decide who’s the ugliest … him or Max.”

  Paul’s eyes widened. “You know my brother?”

  “Yes. I know him well. We were close, once upon a time,” Romek said.

  Paul shifted his eyes to Darek and spoke in a high, accelerated voice as if this were his only chance to get it right. “I knew you’d recognised me from France, but I’m not the same man I was in Dieppe. I’ve chosen my side. I want to help you get the Germans out of Poland, to try and shorten this war, and save lives.”

  Darek clapped his hands slowly. “Bravo … bravo! How long did it take you to rehearse that little speech?”

  Romek, also amused by Paul’s earnestness, said, “Sit, Paul – yes, I also know your name and where you met Anatol and Hubert. I’ve known about you for months.”

  “Then you know I’m sincere.”

  “Not yet.”

  Paul’s eyes swept the room, as he took a seat.

  “I see you’re impressed by my home from home,” Romek said, following Paul’s eyes. “The Germans used this place for a brief time when they ravaged the forest for wood, but they didn’t have the courtesy to finish the bunker’s canals … we did that. We also know they have much more complex bunkers in other parts of Poland, predominately in the Mazury region, north-east of Warsaw. The Germans have always excelled in reconstructing their home comforts. Tell me, Paul, have you ever been on a battlefield?”

  Paul looked surprised by the question. “No. I’ve worked in hospitals and the ghetto,” Paul answered, and then he asked Romek, “Aren’t you afraid the Germans will come back here?”

  “Yes … and no. They think they’ve won this area. They’ve taken the wood they wanted, killed or transported the Jews who lived within a ten-kilometre radius of this forest, and they have moved on. If we’re lucky, we’ll have this place to ourselves –”

  “We don’t take anything for granted,” Darek interrupted Romek. “We’re well-armed and have the woods surrounded by men who’ll give us fair warning of any German intrusion. People who come in here with bad intentions don’t get out alive.”

  Romek was still trying to wrap his head around Max’s brother being here. The subject of Max’s family had never been raised in all the time they’d known each other. It was a no-go area as far as Max was concerned, and Romek had understood his friend’s need for secrecy in his dirty world of espionage. He wasn’t sure what stung the most; that Paul Vogel was German, making Max a German too, or that this Vogel was indirectly responsible for Klara’s death.

  “To be honest, I half-expected Max to turn up here at some point. He might yet show his face,” Romek mused aloud. “But this … this is priceless. Anatol and Hubert have sung your praises, as has Kurt, but despite your apparent, saintly attributes, you’re still a German in Hitler’s army, and I’m still deciding whether to take you in or kill you. Well, Max’s brother, why should I trust you?”

  “As of this morning, I’m in no one’s army,” Paul said calmly. “And I’m no saint. I suppose you shouldn’t trust me; at least, not yet. I wouldn’t, if I were sitting where you are right now.”

  Darek piped up again, “If we find out you’re lying to us, we will kill you. We don’t want prisoners here. They’re more bother than they’re worth.”

  Romek leant in, knowing he shouldn’t be going down this rabbit hole when he had more pressing questions to ask, but he was desperate to know what had happened to his Klara in France. Heller had informed him that she was dead, but he hadn’t said how it happened. He was covering up the truth. She had died in France in an incident that remained classified, Heller had insisted.

  Darek, who had informed Romek that Klara had been in Scotland shortly before his time there, had been more enlightening than anyone at SOE or MI6. No instructor would talk to him about her, but he’d learnt from a loose-tongued trainee who’d met Klara, that she was desperate to return to France to finish what she’d started.

  After a long silence, during which Romek tapped his fingers continuously on the table, he asked Paul, “Where did you meet the woman who abducted you in France?”

  Paul visibly tensed. “Her? She was taking photographs at a party. She thought I was Max … an easy mistake to make … one people keep making.”

  “That I understand,” Romek agreed.

  “I’ve thought about that night a lot,” Paul continued, “and I always come back to the same conclusion … if she had asked me my name before knocking me out, I would have told her who I was, and that might have been the end of it. I never saw her again after that first night.”

  Paul glanced at Darek then back to Romek. “Your friend here knows what happened in Dieppe. He saw me run away from Max after he’d rescued me from the Communists at the farm. I regret not getting on that plane with my brother. I don’t expect you to understand, but I stayed behind because I believed it was my duty to help the ordinary German man and woman who lived in fear of the Nazi Party. I wanted to help the German army win the war as quickly as possible, to end the bloodshed.” Paul scoffed at his own naiveté and hardened his tone, “This is not a war. It is the Fuhrer’s attempt to annihilate the religious and social ideology of those he detests. Why, I can’t say, but Hitler’s magnetism still holds decent Germans in some pervasive, hypnotic state, which means that the bloodshed and gassings and executions of political and religious figures will not end with a German victory. My country, though it pains me to say it, won’t stop its madness with victory; it must be defeated for the greater good, Hitler and his Party must be destroyed at its core, and every policy that lunatic ever came up with must be erased and never repeated.”

  Being allowed to talk uninterrupted spurred Paul on. “You may think I am perverse for wanting to see my country defeated, but I have hated myself since the day I arrived in Poland. I keep thinking … if I had gone to England, I wouldn’t have seen the atrocities that knot my stomach every morning when I wake up and every night when I try to sleep, but…”

  “But you didn’t go with him, and since then you’ve taken part in the slaughters you find so distasteful.”

  “Not taken part, no. Witnessed and not objected … yes, of those I’m guilty.”

  Romek’s stomach was churning with anger and regret. Vogel was being candid, contrite, and owning up to atrocities he’d not yet been asked about. At this point, it was hard not to like him. “That woman who abducted you was my wife. She’s dead because of you.”

  Paul’s fa
ce reddened, and the fear that had begun to subside flashed again in his eyes and drained his visage of colour. “I didn’t harm her, I swear it.”

  “I don’t have proof, but I think she was killed because she took you to Duguay,” Romek hissed.

  “I’m sorry – very sorry your wife was killed, but like I said, I never saw her again after she left the basement.”

  “You didn’t have anything to do with her after that night?” demanded Romek.

  “I heard them arguing … her and the Frenchman. I couldn’t tell you what they were saying, but I think she was trying to help me.”

  “Did you know about the people who were executed as a result of your abduction?”

  “Yes. I take full responsibility for their deaths.”

  At least the man was honest, Romek thought again. Even Darek looked impressed by Vogel’s frank admission of guilt.

  “I was boxed in with the Gestapo. At one point, I think they thought I’d made the whole thing up. I never told them where Duguay’s farm was or who’d taken me to Dieppe,” Paul said, becoming agitated. “I spun them lies to protect my brother and the people who’d abducted me, including your wife … including your friend, here. I couldn’t have their deaths on my conscience, but I had to give them something, so I lied. The people of Dieppe … I didn’t … if I could go back, I would change that part of my testimony.”

  Paul frowned as he undid his jacket’s top button. “Being Max’s twin has not been easy for either of us. God knows, I’ve thought that enough times in the last couple of years. It’s like a damned cosmic joke … me bumping into his acquaintances when there’s no reason on earth why I should ever have had contact with any of them – it’s as if this war isn’t big enough for both of us – like we’ve never been apart. I am him and he is me…”

  Darek opened his mouth to interrupt, but Romek raised his hand. Let the German talk, he warned Darek with a look.

  “Max is English through and through,” Paul carried on with a voice that broke with emotion. “And he’s a cold-blooded killer. I’ve seen him murder a man with his bare hands and look as though he had a great time doing it. He killed an Abwehr agent for me, and I’m glad he did it, but I’m not Max. I’m not a soldier. I don’t have information on battle plans or troop numbers. I wasn’t privy to military intelligence. I don’t know how to fire an automatic rifle or kill a man in hand-to-hand combat, and I have never used explosives or heavy weaponry on a battlefield … I don’t know...”

  “Did it occur to you that you might not be of use to us?” Romek asked when Paul’s voice broke.

  “Yes, but then I thought about the ways I could be valuable. I know what’s going on in the minds of the Occupying Army. I’m a doctor, and a damned good one.”

  Paul shifted in his chair, then clasped his hands together on the table. He looked determined to put his case forward, whether in a positive or negative light. “I have been involved in despicable crimes perpetrated by the Third Reich, and I will not give you tawdry excuses. Suffice to say I didn’t want to follow my orders, but I did anyway. I watched naked men, women, and children being gassed to death and could see no way to stop it. I saw children being deliberately starved and left to die in freezing conditions because the Germans didn’t want to give their parents wood to make a fire. I’m already cast to the wind as far as God’s concerned, but in my defence, I did my best to protect as many Jews as I could, even when I knew I was being stalked by the Gestapo and facing possible arrest for treason…”

  “And now you think that by helping us, your sins will be washed away?” Romek challenged.

  “No, I don’t think that at all. I’m here because it is the right thing to do,” Paul retorted. And because I don’t want to die at the hands of the Gestapo.

  “I see. Tell me, why did you want to join us? You could have tried to get yourself to England. Or you could have hidden somewhere in Poland until the war ended,” Romek said.

  “I won’t hide. I want to fight back. If you accept me, I’ll pass on every sordid detail about Germany’s policies concerning not only the Jews but the wider population of this country. But if you decide to kill me, do it after I give up what I know. You must tell the Allies what’s going on in Poland.”

  Romek was impressed again by Paul’s candour, but it was evident that Darek wasn’t yet convinced of the man’s motives, so he decided to push a bit more.

  “Desertion … treason … those are monumental crimes. You must know that in any army, leaving your post endangers the lives of fellow soldiers. You will never be absolved. Even after this war ends, you will be viewed as scum by your military colleagues, and your neighbours … family … friends.”

  Paul nodded. “I’ve thought about the implications, yet here I am begging you to take me in. The way I see it, if more soldiers abandoned Hitler’s regime, thousands of lives would be saved in concentration camps and ghettos. If camp guards refused to pull the gas levers and see to the trains being loaded, the system would fall apart.”

  “A rather simplistic view, don’t you think?” Romek suggested.

  “Maybe, but one simple soldier cannot change events. I’m a man of no consequence. I can’t up-sticks, go to Berlin to plant a bomb under Hitler’s feet and blow him to smithereens, but I can draw back from an unjust war of aggression … call it a tepid form of resistance from someone who will not watch another van full of people being gassed, burnt, or starved to death.” Paul went deeper. “I believe the Reich is underestimating their records of absentee soldiers. Every day, I see the disgust for murder on the faces of some SS and Schupo policemen. I know for a fact that they, and perhaps others, would gladly stop what they were doing were they not afraid for their families’ safety in Germany.”

  Romek was intrigued. “You’ve heard this being said?”

  “No … at least, not openly. But I’ve seen the look of revulsion on soldiers’ faces, and I’ve seen the officers ignore it. Take the Kriminalinspektor in Łódź. He’s a swine. No one would say it, but more than a few of the men I shared a mess hall with would have no objection to him being assassinated – fuck it, I’d be willing to go back there to help you kill the bastard.”

  “Go on,” Romek said.

  “His name is Manfred Krüger. He’s the present head of the Gestapo and responsible for making the Jews’ lives miserable before they’re sent to their deaths in the extermination camps. He’s just rounded up over fifteen thousand people in the last twelve days, including five thousand children. They’ve all been murdered at Chelmno, and he enjoyed every minute of the deportation process.”

  “Jesus Christ…” Romek’s voice petered off. His hands gripped the corners of the table, and his breath was laboured. “F-fifteen thousand?” Every cell in his body demanded that he take revenge on all Germans, starting with Paul Vogel, yet the man’s honesty was compelling, as was his apparent desire to atone for his sins and switch sides.

  Romek rose on shaky legs. He had lost his appetite for this interrogation. The news that Vogel had just given him was shocking, and he needed to process it alone. He looked at Darek whose face was set to burst with rage, while his hand was itching to unclip his sidearm’s safety clasp. He knew Darek’s temper. Any minute now, he was going to put a bullet in their guest’s head.

  “Darek, meet me outside,” Romek snapped, trying to pull Darek from his murderous thoughts.

  Darek got up, hatred spitting from his eyes as he pushed his chair back. When he left, he slammed the door behind him, making Paul flinch.

  “There will be a guard outside,” Romek said, going to the door. He curled his fingers around the doorknob and turned back to Paul. He felt sick to his stomach. If he didn’t leave, he would be the one shooting Paul, not Darek. It might just take killing a German to calm him down.

  “You’ve given me a lot to think about, Paul Vogel.”

  “Is Max doing well?” Paul shouted behind Romek before he left the room.

  Romek turned again and glared at Paul’s con
cerned face. “He was the last time I saw him. I’ll send one of my men with a plate of food for you. Get comfortable. You will be here for a while.”

  Part Two

  “I cannot see an end to this conflict, but I do see a flickering light, like a candle flame struggling to ignite in a gloomy basement. Every day I see it grow stronger, as we begin to fight back with hope and the will to do battle with giants.”

  Paul Vogel

  1943

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Vogels

  London

  16th March 1943

  Max arrived in London on a rainy spring morning. At Oxford Circus, he got out of the car that had picked him up from the aerodrome, telling the driver he’d walk the rest of the way. He needed a cup of English tea in his favourite café before his meeting with Jonathan Heller, and he wanted to pound the streets of his beloved capital.

  London had been hit from the air numerous times since he’d left for Cairo months earlier. Rubble from buildings destroyed in the Blitz had been contained for safety and cleared away from roads and pavements, but signs of destruction met him on every corner of every street. The bombings had not been as intense as they were in 1940, the driver informed Max, but every day and night, Londoners carried their gas masks over their shoulder and headed to the shelters and tube stations whenever the sirens went off.

  As always, MI6 headquarters was a flurry of activity. Instead of stopping to chat with those he knew, Max headed straight to Jonathan Heller’s office and found a familiar face welcoming him home.

  “You’re looking well-tanned … been anywhere nice, Major?” Marjory, Heller’s secretary, smiled mischievously from behind the desk with her trademark plastic rose sitting in a tubular vase.

  She was always well-turned-out, Max noted, smiling affectionately. War or no war, she sported a nicely styled hairdo and a face smothered in face powder and lipstick that was never smudged. But even she looked exhausted beneath the cosmetics, like most Londoners he’d seen on his walk. “You’re looking as lovely as ever, Marjory,” he said with a mock bow. “Is he here?”