by Guy Saville
“You idiot,” he said. “It’s too late.”
The seaplane that had brought them from DOA was skimming the waves, its four propellers a blur. It was flying dark, all lights extinguished. In the gunmetal of the dawn, Burton could make out the two pilots in the cockpit gabbling at each other. It took to the air, its undercarriage trailing water.
The plane vanished.
A balloon of fire whooshed into the sky, spitting debris.
The Beretta sagged in Burton’s grip. He watched the Walküre fire another rocket at the plane, then leaned toward Tünscher, his voice dreary and caustic: “So much for your Madagaskar plan.”
PART III
MADAGASKAR
All attempts to create a sovereign Jewish nation must be eliminated. At the same time it is necessary to prevent any objections to this, especially those coming from the USA.
—“MADAGASKAR-PROJEKT,”
15 August 1940
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Tana airport
20 April, 06:15
WALTER HOCHBURG WAS sketching a new Schädelplatz, hoping to ward off the despondency that had crept hold of him. It was the despondency that always accompanied success.
He sat in the cabin of his private jet, eager to leave before the explosive device he had planted aboard the Ark was discovered. The plane was a converted Junkers Ju-387 bomber: white leather seats, air as cool and dry as aerosol vapor. Through the window, the wings shimmered steel blue and gold as the sun sneaked over the hills of Tana; a ground crew busied themselves with fuel hoses. The Jewish scientists he’d spent the last forty hours scouring the island for were being loaded into the hold. All he needed now to possess his superweapon was patience, and yet with his hunt on Madagaskar at an end, the loss he’d spent a lifetime trying to dampen felt present again. Each triumph only made him yearn for the next distraction.
He drew in the notebook he’d given Feuerstein, using precise, confident pen strokes. His draftsmanship came from his days as a cartographer, dispatching secret maps of British Africa to Berlin. This new Schädelplatz would be a fortress built on a scale not yet envisioned on the continent: turrets thrusting into the sky like the towers of a fairy-tale castle, a deep catacomb of offices below, the walls so thick tank shells would barely dent them. At its heart, instead of a quadrangle, he planned a great circle of skulls. Not twenty thousand this time—a hundred thousand. Concentric rings of nigger bone, then British and Belgian skulls and all the breeds of men who defied his rule. The outer rim would be reserved for the disbelievers among his own ranks. Once Feuerstein delivered, Hochburg would oversee the construction himself.
A sudden idea possessed Hochburg. His dissatisfaction vanished, replaced by a cold rapture.
At the center of the circle he inked a black hole, out of scale with the rest of the drawing, like the vortex of a whirlpool. He had intended to fill it with the skull he’d salvaged from the original square in Kongo—but that could be put behind glass in his private collection. A more gratifying alternative had come to mind.
Feuerstein emerged from the steps that led to the hold and locked the door behind himself. Hochburg had given the scientist the key and ordered him to travel above: that would establish his authority over the others while creating a seedbed for potential resentments, something that might prove useful later. Feuerstein lingered by the chair opposite, his hands plucking at the pockets of his trousers. He wore a mouse-gray suit that once belonged to a teenager but was ample for his frame. A razor blade had exposed coarse jowls.
“You don’t have to wait to be asked,” said Hochburg, not looking up from his sketch. The smell of disinfectant emanated from the Jew. “Sit, and tell me how your fellows are.”
“They wish me to express their thanks again. They are grateful to a man.” The scientist slipped into the seat and chose his next words carefully. The bestiality that had sustained Feuerstein on the road gang had deserted him. He was contaminated with hope, fearful that the slightest impudence might return him to the life he had escaped. “However … some on my list are missing. Dr. Pavel, for instance.”
“I found all the names I could,” replied Hochburg. “Pavel was in Marana.” Marana: Madagaskar’s largest leper colony. “If he’s essential to your effort, you’re welcome to fetch him yourself.” He put down his pen. “But that’s not what you meant to say, Herr Doctor. So get to the point.”
“My wife is not here.”
“She was the first I sought,” said Hochburg. His intention had been to conceal the truth and use it as leverage against Feuerstein to make him work harder. But the scientist’s expression—so anguished and expectant—stirred Hochburg’s sympathy. “She’s dead.”
Feuerstein’s eyes darkened and blurred. “Do you know how?”
“I traced her to a cocoa plantation in Banja. They told me she died in an industrial accident last year. I’m sorry.”
There was a long pause. “I was a poor husband,” said Feuerstein at last. “She deserved more.”
“Then be a good father,” replied Hochburg. “You have five children below. Be thankful for that. Work hard for them and none of you need suffer again.”
“My colleagues have their wives. It will be hard seeing them together.”
“We can leave the women if you prefer.”
A hint of his former defiance returned to his voice. “No.” He paused once more, watching the ground crew as they reeled in the fuel hoses. “Do you ever think, Oberstgruppenführer, that we all lived our lives long ago? That this world is the punishment for our previous sins.”
“I thought the scientific mind was more rational.”
“When I worked on the roads, I reasoned it through endlessly. It seemed the only possible explanation for my fate.” His voice was parched. “For this new torment, knowing I can never make amends, it’s more plausible than ever.”
Hochburg contemplated this and the decades of suffering that had been his own life. “If you’re right,” he replied, “then I must have been wicked indeed.”
How much kinder it would have been to have died in Eleanor’s arms, the two of them taking their last breaths together. In the days after her death, he’d contemplated suicide—it was his bridge to her—but he soon abandoned the idea: he wanted to honor her memory. Avenge her. The Jew’s words had unsettled him. His wretchedness was because justice had not been served: Burton had not suffered commensurately. His pursuit of the boy in Kongo had been meant as a prologue to untold agonies. Hochburg cursed himself for sinking the HMS Ibis.
He returned to his sketch, pressing his pen into the central hole of the Schädelplatz until the ink soaked through to the pages beneath. Once he was the master of Africa again, he would raise the sunken Ibis from the Gulf of Kamerun, presenting it as an act of conciliation toward the British, though his true purpose would be to search the wreck for Burton Cole. Somehow he would recognize the corpse; perhaps Kepplar, with his obsessive knowledge of craniology, could help with the identification. Then I will remove the boy’s skull, he thought, take a trowel, and fill the hollow at the center of the circle. As for Burton’s bones, he would grind them to make his bread, tear the loaf in half and eat it warm as he surveyed his new home. The man who consumes his past will be free of it. It was the only gesture that could compensate for his mistake of killing Burton so swiftly. Perhaps then, at last, he would be at peace.
The cockpit door opened, and the copilot entered.
“Oberstgruppenführer, the plane is ready to depart.”
“Good. I’m sick of this island.”
“We’ve also received a message from Governor Globocnik. He wants to speak to you. Urgently.”
Hochburg gave a dismissive bat of his hand. “Get us in the air.” He hoped never to return.
“Where are we going?” asked Feuerstein as the jet engines fired up, one after the other; the cabin walls began to hum.
“To Muspel,” replied Hochburg. “I have a secret facility where you will not be disturbed.”
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“And the uranium?”
“As I told you last night: that is not your concern.” Hochburg had sent instructions to General Ockener to begin a drive south: not to counterattack the British at Elisabethstadt but to secure the Shinkolobwe mine. Hochburg was fearful that the Americans would send a second expedition. That pockmark in the earth’s crust was more valuable than Kongo’s great southern city now. He was still struggling to understand America’s interest in the weapon. The United States clung to its isolationism as though it were a remote island state, a position that suited the Reich. Even Britain, the diminished leader of the Anglo-Saxon world, preferred it this way (despite Churchill’s goading). America had no need for such destructive power.
The Junkers taxied to its takeoff point, the sound of its engines swelling.
“I’ve never flown before,” said Feuerstein. “I understand the principles, of course, but…” He shifted on his meatless buttocks.
Hochburg pressed himself into his seat and closed his good eye. The other had stopped throbbing overnight and was lifeless behind the bandage: he sensed he would never see out of it again. There was a momentary lull in the turbines, then a full-throated roar. The aircraft sped along the runway. It was six hours to Aquatoriana, where they would refuel, another eight after that to their final destination. When they arrived, Hochburg would take an icy shower. His skin was layered with filth from the Ark.
Suddenly Hochburg was thrown forward, only his seat belt saving him from landing in the Jew’s lap.
“Something passed us,” said Feuerstein. His eyes were terrified and accusatory, as if Hochburg had been playing a trick on him all along. Through the window, the wing flaps stood erect to slow them down. The plane juddered, its frame creaking, and swerved to a halt.
Hochburg unbuckled himself and strode to the cockpit. The two pilots looked up from the controls.
“It’s blocking our path,” said the captain.
A hundred meters ahead was a black jeep.
“Globus!” snarled Hochburg.
The jeep rolled forward, ensuring that the Junkers could not take off. When it was below the nose, the vehicle stopped, the dawn light gilding the skull-and-palm-tree insignia on the bodywork. The passenger door opened.
“Keep the engines running,” Hochburg told the pilots and moved back into the cabin. He opened the hatch, letting in a blast of aviation-fuel-soaked air, and kicked the emergency steps free.
“Whatever happens,” he shouted at Feuerstein before leaving the aircraft, “say nothing, no matter what you’re threatened with. Globocnik must not learn of our plan. Your life and that of every Jew on the plane depends on it.”
* * *
At the far end of the runway, in the window of the control tower, figures had gathered. The Junkers’s engines continued to lacerate the cool morning air.
Before the hatch opened, Kepplar felt a flutter in his stomach at seeing Hochburg; now he was fighting to contain his laughter. He had never seen his former master look so startled. Kepplar’s mirth turned to concern.
“What happened to your face?” he asked, reaching out for the bandage.
Hochburg flicked his head away; his single eye pulsed with fury. “There better be a very good explanation for this intrusion, Brigadeführer.” His voice was low, dangerous.
I have loyally served the Oberstgruppenführer for years, thought Kepplar. I come with good news; I have nothing to fear. He held Hochburg’s gaze for as long as he could—it was like staring into an abyss, black and bottomless—till he averted his eyes. Plumes of cloud were gathering in the far west; a swastika windsock snapped in the breeze. Kepplar smoothed his black tunic across his chest and spoke briskly: “Burton Cole is alive, here on Madagaskar.”
“Don’t make a fool of me!”
“I swear it, Herr Oberst. I’ve been pursuing Cole for the past three days. Dozens of others can verify it.” He wanted a detail that substantiated his claim. “Cole has lost his hand—”
“You’ve seen him?” Hochburg stepped closer. “You’re sure?”
“As sure as you stand before me.”
“Then where is he?”
A familiar sense of deficiency sluiced through Kepplar. For the first time he understood that Cole was the sum of his failures, that he felt inferior to Cole despite his rank and the exemplary structure of his skull. “He was an arm’s length from me.”
“Alive.”
“There have been casualties, here and in Roscherhafen.”
The faintest look of elation played along Hochburg’s mouth. “But why Madagaskar? It makes no sense…” He glanced behind him at the Junkers. Through one of the portholes a scraggy, scared face peered out. “He’s looking for a Jew,” said Hochburg.
“That was my conclusion, too—a recent arrival,” Kepplar replied, impressed and irritated that Hochburg had understood so quickly. His own moment of realization had come as the patrol boat limped back to base. The helicopter sent to pursue the dhow’s castaways reported seeing two separate parties make it ashore. He was set to follow the blond into the jungle when the purpose of Cole’s trip unlocked itself.
“I spent the evening at Interpol’s bureau in the city,” said Kepplar. “They make carbon copies of all new deportees’ papers before the records are sent to the Ark. I went through every man, woman, and child for the past six months.” It had been a tedious, desperate night. He was assigned a small office (harsh electric lights, a jug of water that tasted of earth), where he scanned each document for some clue, slumping with hopelessness when he reached the bottom of the pile. “Then I went back twelve months.”
He handed over a file.
Hochburg opened it and spoke deliberately: “Madeleine Rachel Cole. Deported London, October 1952.”
“His wife, I assume. Reason to risk coming here.”
Silence. Hochburg stared at the open document, unblinking, his mood strange. As the seconds dragged by, Kepplar wondered if he had made an error. He felt a twinge of envy again, sure that Cole knew some secret about his master that he didn’t. “The file indicates that she was sent to Antzu,” he said.
Still Hochburg said nothing. The wind from the jet engines tugged at the bandage covering his eye; he held the paper tight between his fingers. His expression was blank—but concealing something. A tiny tremor of rage? He dominated the space around himself less than Kepplar remembered, his frame somehow not as powerful. It was a disappointment Kepplar didn’t want to admit. If his master seemed diminished, it was his fault for exaggerating him.
Finally, Hochburg closed the file. “Did they treat you well in DOA?”
“I hated every second of it.”
“Governor Ley telephoned me after your transfer to complain. He suggested that you be sent to Siberia. I refused him.”
“All I want is to serve you again, Oberstgruppenführer.”
“Then board my plane and make sure its cargo is delivered safely to Muspel.” He rolled up the file and tapped Kepplar’s chest bone with it. “You have done well.”
“If you please, Herr Oberst, I wish to be at your side. Complete what I began in Kongo.”
Hochburg considered this, then snorted. “It seems you have the scent, Derbus. Very well, we shall find Burton and his bride together.”
“And then?”
“Justice. It is overdue.”
“I meant, what about me?”
Hochburg made no reply. Instead, he clambered inside the Junkers, leaving Kepplar on the apron. He stood there stupidly for several moments, absorbed by the Me-362s lined up opposite him and the runes on their tail fins. Despite Himmler’s efforts, Tana had only a token squadron of jet fighters; the main air base was at Diego Suarez, under the command of the Kriegsmarine, not the SS. Then he strode to the jeep and ordered it to clear the runway.
After he had found the file, he’d leapt up with a yelp and paced his tiny cell; then his mood darkened. He had picked up Cole’s trail without the need to bloody his hands, which should extol his met
hods; yet he felt a sense of shame, as if he hadn’t given enough of himself—unlike the sailors who had been killed on the patrol boat (men who weren’t even his to commandeer). He was in the basement of the Interpol building, where the archives were kept, the odor of paperwork pressing around him like a hand over his mouth. Paperwork. He saw himself in the Schädelplatz again: slumped on his knees, uniform singed, Hochburg laughing. More than anything else, he wanted to bring his master Cole, but if he pursued him and failed, if he squandered this second chance, there would be no path back. He wanted Cole to burn as he himself had been threatened with burning. Better to supply Hochburg with the intelligence, then let him take the risk of the pursuit. When he sought out the Oberstgruppenführer and discovered that he was already in Madagaskar, the decision was made.
Hochburg descended from the Junkers, the hatch closing behind him.
“What’s on board?” shouted Kepplar as the jet rolled past them, returning to its takeoff position.
“The fate of everything we have built in Africa. Send her your blessings.”
The plane roared into the sky, the two men watching in silence. Kepplar glanced at Hochburg: his profile was masked by bandages, but there was a triumphant thrust to his jaw. Kepplar returned his gaze to the aircraft. It soared toward the west, dwindling to a point, and then, at some indefinite moment, was swallowed by the clouds.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Lava Bucht
20 April, 06:20
IT WAS LIKE watching an entire civilization disappear.
The Ark continued to blaze, lighting the dawn sky more intensely than the sun. Although the hovercraft’s hatch was shut tight, the smell of charred paper stung Burton’s nose. He had a sense of dismay—and indifference. These weren’t his people; he had no people. He remembered enough of his Old Testament to know that this had happened to the Jews before, and not just God’s chosen people. Countries and cultures had repeatedly been wiped away. In the Legion his commanders spoke of the Sahara as if it were impossible to conceive of a time when it wouldn’t be French; a decade later, the sand was German. It would happen again, in perpetuity, till one day Britain, America, even the Thousand-Year Reich were gone.