by Guy Saville
While the operator confirmed the instructions, Globocnik glanced at the clocks above him. There were four: one told the local time, the second the time in Germania. The other two covered “the span of empire”—showing the hour in Dakar, Deutsch Westafrika, the Reich’s westernmost city, and Ufa in the Ural Mountains, its farthest east.
In Madagaskar, it had turned midnight: officially, it was his birthday. He would allow himself one treat—a gift to his party guests from the absent host. Globus grinned and gave a final order:
“And hang Hochburg’s Jews.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
Nachtstadt
21 April, 00:40
WITH EACH PUNCH, Kepplar’s hopes drained away. He pressed his good ear against the cell door, listening to the blows land. The grooms were vigorous, vicious—yet every thwack and squelch, every grunt of pain, was followed by silence. He needed to take over the interrogation personally. Hochburg had offered him everything he desired, if only he could find the will to grasp it. His master demanded a show of blood. Kepplar massaged his knuckles in preparation; they felt spongy.
The prisoner’s belongings were piled on the floor. He rifled through them: a tropical uniform splattered in the same paint as his own, a standard-issue Luger from the East, a lighter, and a crumpled pack of Bayerweeds containing a solitary cigarette. One of the grooms had ripped a locket from the prisoner’s neck. Kepplar undid the clasp; inside was a photo of a girl with plain, Slavic features.
Something slammed against the door, making Kepplar jump.
He decided to give the grooms a few minutes longer and moved to the next cell, locking himself inside, glad there was no one to see him. He was shivering with adrenaline, felt a desperate urge to shit. I believe in our mission, thought Kepplar, I understand the value of physical punishment. What went wrong with me?
At the academy in Vienna he was an enthusiastic participant in peer discipline. Every intake of cadets produced one Versager who let the rest down. After lights-out, the unfortunate recruit would be taught a lesson by the others. Kepplar was among the first to put his bar of soap inside a sock and administer a drubbing. If only he could retrieve that enthusiasm.
The cell was dark, barely large enough to contain a man, the walls stained brown—though whether with dried blood or excrement, it was impossible to tell. A wooden bunk was the only piece of furniture. Despite the recent downpour, the air was oppressive.
Kepplar felt feverish at what he must do next.
He stripped to the waist and lay down, concentrating on the noises from next door: the muffled percussion of fists and stamping boots, yelps and sharp intakes of breath. And mixed among them an occasional, contemptuous snort, as if the beating were nothing. That’s what he feared the most.
His thoughts were interrupted by a firing squad outside: the workforce was being liquidated.
Kepplar had pursued Cole from Antzu, the grooms tracking hoofmarks through the twilight until they came across his companion, the one who’d dared to ask about his ear. He was wounded and gratefully gave himself in, until he realized they weren’t a regular patrol. The grooms suggested Nachtstadt, with its punishment block, as the nearest place to interrogate him. They waited till Globus departed before riding in.
Kepplar needed something to calm his nerves and retrieved the Bayerweeds. His father had taught him to smoke as a teenager, though he abandoned the habit after the Führer spoke against it: “Smoking is the wrath of the Red Man against the White.” Kepplar inhaled a lungful … then exploded in coughing and stubbed out the rest. His brain tingled. He sensed the extremities of his body and a nascent weariness, not from the past few days but the months prior. He had expended a deep store of energy for a single, insignificant man, not to mention the resources and lives of many others. The reasons were like this cell: spooled in shadow. Kepplar considered what might have been achieved if that resolve had been directed to winning the war in Kongo.
“I hope it’s worth it,” he said aloud, as though Hochburg were next to him on the bunk. He let his disillusionment fill the cell.
Kepplar could hold off no longer.
He stood and dressed, tugging all the loose creases of his uniform until they were sharp, methodically fastening every button and buckle, conscious that he was delaying. The paint on the front of his tunic had dried; it flexed and cracked with his movements. He resumed his position by the door. The prisoner was trying to say something:… am … an … SS officer. Every word was met with fresh blows. Kepplar had left the academy with the same fervor as these boys yet had lost it somewhere in Africa. As a young officer in Muspel, he’d been exposed to a mantra not found in lectures and textbooks: nowadays you had to be a technician to be a killer.
He entered the cell. The air was glutinous with sweat and exertion. Gobs of blood spattered the concrete floor. Kepplar hoped the hammering in his Adam’s apple wasn’t visible.
“Enough,” he said.
The grooms withdrew from the prisoner. He was naked, curled in the shape of a question mark, hands protecting his groin; his left ankle was manacled to the wall. When he realized the beating was at an end he heaved himself onto his knees, then his feet. Instead of weakening him, the beating had provoked a stubborn streak. He was shivering, but it didn’t seem to be from fear or pain. Blood flowed out of his nose, his lip was split, and there were dozens of welts across his body that would turn black in the coming days, like the markings of a cheetah. Kepplar didn’t have the stomach for anything so crude. He would target what Hochburg called “the morsels”: fingers, toes, ears and eyes, the kidneys, the genitals.
“So you’re the prick in charge,” said the prisoner.
“Brave words from a man in your position. I am Brigadeführer Derbus Kepplar. And you?”
“Obersturmführer Tünscher, Section IX-c, Roscherhafen. Before that I served three years under Standartenführer Kanvinksy. You can check my record.”
The grooms exchanged admiring glances, a respect they had never shown Kepplar.
Kanvinksy was infamous. A renegade colonel who had been one of Globocnik’s deputies in Siberia, he was the only officer ever recalled by Germania because his methods were too extreme.
“Your record is irrelevant. I want to know where Burton Cole is.”
Tünscher’s expression soured—but he said nothing.
Kepplar unfastened his tunic, passed it to one of the grooms, and rolled up his sleeves in a manner he hoped suggested was his prelude to violence. He wished he were wearing gloves: a tight leather barrier between him and the prisoner. “You ruined my uniform,” he said with menace. “In Antzu.”
Tünscher regarded him more closely, noticed his missing ear, and for the first time seemed to recognize who he was. Was it Kepplar’s imagination or did a smirk ripple across that bruised face? Kepplar curled his fingers into fists and searched for something to stoke his fury. He saw the Madeleine woman kissing Hochburg and felt again his dismay—his disgust—at the spectacle. The image was displaced by Hochburg’s laughter in the Schädelplatz and the smell of sparks, as vivid as the day it happened. It should have caused him to erupt; instead he was consumed by humiliation. The paperwork. Was that really all that had spared his life?
Tünscher appraised him with the same expression he’d used in Antzu, as if he understood what was going through his mind.
“I’ve known Burton half my life. We trained together, fought together; we share the same esprit. I can’t give him up to you … But there is another way.”
“Another way?”
“A way that will be easier for you.”
There was a shrapnel wound below Tünscher’s ribs, gently weeping. If Hochburg had been there, he would have plunged his hand in and corkscrewed it around: a simple, effective method to get the Obersturmführer talking. All Kepplar had to do was insert his finger.
He understood his mistake. He should have started pummeling the prisoner’s face as soon as he entered the cell. Now he was thinking too much, and his thoughts
—no matter how angry or shameful or goading—had frozen him.
“Leave us,” he said to the grooms.
They didn’t move.
“Go! You’ve done well—it’s time to rest.” He realized his fists had gone flaccid and locked them behind his back. “I wish to speak to Obersturmführer Tünscher alone.”
Kepplar waited for the footsteps to fade before circling his prisoner: he had shoulders almost as broad as Hochburg’s and a Category 1 skull. He was unperturbed by his nakedness.
Tünscher sniffed him. “You got Bayerweeds?”
“I smoked your last one.”
“Too bad.”
From outside came another volley of shots.
“You were going to tell me about Cole,” said Kepplar eventually. A fatigue was creeping up on him and the interrogation had yet to begin.
“We served in the Foreign Legion together. We’re bound by a code.” He made it sound contemptible. “Like there is between you and me.”
“There’s nothing between us.”
“We’ve sworn the same oaths to the Führer.”
“Go on.”
“You can … you can buy my honor,” said Tünscher.
“You know where Cole is?”
“I know where he’s headed. Burton promised me a lot of money to get him to Madagaskar. Diamonds worth thousands of marks. He lied.”
“You’re willing to sell me the information?”
There was a queasy twist to Tünscher’s mouth. He nodded. “I just want off this island.”
“And if I find your suggestion demeaning?”
“Then it’s going to be a long night.”
A flood of intolerable emotion tumbled through Kepplar: gratitude toward Tünscher that he might be able to find Cole without bloodying his hands; shame that he felt so grateful; anger that Hochburg had left him in this position. “Let’s say I buy this information—how do I know it’s true?”
“How can you be sure if you beat it out of me? In the East, during interrogations, I saw partisans say anything for a breather. The time we wasted on bullshit confessions.”
There was logic to Tünscher’s words, but Kepplar resisted, aware of how keen he was to acquiesce. Yet they could torture him for days before he gave up Cole … or Kepplar could learn his quarry’s whereabouts at once. He remembered the previous year, in Kongo, when they captured one of Cole’s fellow assassins and beat him till his teeth sprinkled the floor—he hadn’t revealed a thing. Kepplar had lost valuable time; if he’d got him to talk faster, he might have caught Cole and not failed Hochburg.
Kepplar’s mind turned to the embalmed parrot he had confiscated from the dhow and its breast of golden coins; he had left it for safekeeping at Lava Bucht. There were helicopters stationed outside.
“The lousy bastard cheated me,” said Tünscher. “I need that money more than anything.”
“For what?”
“Debts.”
“What kind of debts?”
Despite the chain round his ankle and his bruised body, the reply was impudent: “That’s my business.”
“If you expect me to pay, you need to convince me.”
Tünscher lowered his head. Blood was still dripping from his nose. He spoke quickly, in a whisper. Kepplar’s stomach bulged with contempt. The explanation was like one of those tawdry novels his wife enjoyed, stories of life on the Eastern frontier, so nauseating, so sentimental it could only be true.
Tünscher sensed his scorn. “It’s a big island,” he said, toughening his voice. “You’ll never find Burton without me. This might be your only chance.”
“I’ll think about it,” replied Kepplar, and left the cell.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Governor’s Palace, Tana
21 April, 00:45
A BREEZE VENTED the must of the trophy room, blowing in through the window and broken shutters. Hochburg had kicked them open in an attempt to escape. Below was a sheer wall and a drop that would break any climber that fell. Schubert was playing on the gramophone.
He gazed out at Tana. For the past hour he had watched Walküre gunships, laden with missiles, clatter over the city into the darkness; they returned spent. The mournful call of train whistles echoed from far away. The carriages must be chock-full with Jews being shipped to the Sofia Reservation. The night felt unbridled; Hochburg sensed violence, escalation. He had searched for Nightingale’s residence, locating it in a cluster of buildings from the French colonial period. Every window was illuminated. Had the envoy spent the evening dispatching reports to Washington about Globus’s crackdown? Could an American warship already be en route to Africa?
There was a loud snap from the garden terrace above, followed by the hum of filaments, and the night was illuminated.
He moved to the door. “What’s happening?” he asked the guard on the other side.
“Governor’s orders. They’re hanging your Jews.”
Hochburg experienced a sensation as vertiginous as dangling headfirst from the window. He pictured Feuerstein jerking at the end of a rope, his secrets lost forever.
“They are mine,” bellowed Hochburg. “I demand to see them.” Nothing. “You will open this door!”
He pounded his fists against the wood; each blow was met with silence.
Hochburg stepped back into the room. Earlier he had ransacked it for a means to break out, searching among the stuffed birds, digging through drawers. In his frustration, he toppled the bear. A locked trunk offered a momentary hope, until he smashed it open and found it full of vinyl records, mostly Austrian folk pap but also some classical music, including Keilberth’s recording of The Ring. Hitler had sent it as a gift to senior members of the SS for Christmas 1950. Hochburg’s had burned in the Schädelplatz; Globus’s was still wrapped in cellophane. There was also an unopened copy of Schubert’s Impromptus. They were always Eleanor’s favorites.
He had put on the record to soothe himself, righted the fallen bear, and continued his search, finding nothing more than a stocking caught among the cushions of the chaise longue. He sat, folding his arms in contemplation, and felt a hard lump against his chest. Hochburg reached inside his tunic to find Burton’s silver knife. He had quite forgotten about it and was thankful that the body search after his arrest had been cursory.
Now he took the blade and strode to the window, leaning his whole body out. A blast of wind hit him. Ten meters above was a balcony with a wrought iron balustrade—but the climb was suicidal. The walls of the palace were made from huge, smooth blocks of stone. Hochburg ran his fingers along the mortar between the blocks—there was scant purchase—then tried the knife, digging it into the cement and testing it. It might be enough to take his weight. He remembered the knife from Eleanor’s dinner service, the one she used only for the best occasions. Burton had fashioned the metal into a lethal dagger.
From the terrace came men shouting orders and the burble of excited, drunken chatter. Numerous times during his incarceration, the noise of a party had seeped through the walls of the trophy room. Globus may have been absent, but his guests were enjoying the Führertag celebrations.
Hochburg cursed Kepplar.
Hours had passed. He should have found Burton by now and brought him back; he should have released Hochburg. Once more his former deputy had shown he could not be relied upon. It was further proof of the necessity of Feuerstein’s superweapon. If even the most devoted failed Hochburg, he needed the means to fight without having to depend on mere men. Perhaps Kepplar had reached the end of his usefulness.
A new sound came from above: the somber beat of the executioner’s drum.
Typical Globus theatrics! Doubtless he would have also insisted on long ropes. There would be no short drop and break of the neck for the Jews; they would kick and fight and choke for several minutes: a spectacle for the audience. And with their final breaths Hochburg’s ambitions for Africa would expire.
He retreated from the window and hammered on the door. The eyes of hundreds of
dead animals watched blankly.
There was an exultant crescendo from the gramophone, then the scratch and pop between tracks before the next piece began. Hochburg recognized it at once: the Hungarian Melody. It was a slower, more solemn interpretation than he was used to. He remembered how Eleanor played it after nightfall to the murmur of kerosene lamps. At first it was enchanting; later he became a restive audience. After they fled together, they never listened to it again.
Impelled by the music, Hochburg returned to the window and stepped onto the ledge. He was buffeted by the wind. The bandage around his eye felt as if it would be snatched away. He drove Burton’s knife into the mortar, using it like an ice pick, and began scaling the palace exterior.
Hochburg climbed slowly, precisely. His body wasn’t built for this. He wished he had the narrow fingers of a monkey to wedge into the crevices, or that he had taken off his boots: bare toes would give a better purchase. He kept focused on the balcony just meters out of his reach. He couldn’t hear the Schubert now or the drum, only the wind. It screamed around him in gusts, one moment slamming him into the stone, the next keen to rip him from the wall.
Hochburg wedged the knife between the blocks and hauled himself up.
The blade loosened.
He felt a weightlessness … then a plunging sensation.
Hochburg clawed his other hand into stone, swinging free, as he tried to bury the knife back into the wall. He saw the rocks below and their sharp peaks.
He slipped, his grip weakening, and in that long second he didn’t think of Eleanor or of saving Feuerstein; his thoughts were with Burton and the vengeance he had been denied. How unsatisfying life had proved. He plunged the blade into the wall with a new strength, finding a weak spot in the concrete. The knife disappeared to the hilt.
Hochburg hugged the stone, then willed his body upward till his hand grasped the ironwork of the balcony. He heaved himself up to a French window that opened into a suite of rooms. The interior was still and warm, charged with silk. There was a dressing table groaning with perfume and trinkets, dozens of pairs of high heels left carelessly on the floor.