The Madagaskar Plan

by Guy Saville

  “Perhaps … perhaps I got it wrong,” she said when they had completed their circuit of the floor. Her voice reverberated loudly, making Burton gesture at her to be quiet. His fingers were white around his pistol.

  “I was sick with grief,” she continued in a whisper. “Didn’t know what was going on … what if it was another hospital?”

  Burton stepped to the window and looked over the compound. In the distance were the sparsely scattered lights of the Sofia Reservation. “There’s a lot more of the place yet.”

  They returned to the ground floor. Burton paused on the steps, put on his gas mask, then followed them down. Madeleine tugged on hers; her breathing became fuggy and labored. They descended two flights before they reached the basement. The lights were more feeble down here, the corridor gloomy as a bunker. The passageway ran for several hundred feet, with doors on either side at regular intervals. Halfway along it, another body lay twisted on the floor.

  “It must lead to one of the outbuildings,” said Burton, his voice muffled through the mask.

  They each took a side of the corridor, checking the doors. They were all fastened shut. The click-click of twisted door knobs echoed along the passage. Madeleine convinced herself that they wouldn’t have shut her babies away; this had to be a storage area, the doors hiding nothing more than stacks of paperwork. Burton moved faster than she did. She wanted to tell him to slow down, to be certain each door couldn’t be opened. She pushed against the wood after she found it locked, then placed her ear to it, listening for the cry of children. All she heard was deep silence. The eyeholes of her gas mask were steaming up.

  She became aware that Burton had frozen.

  He was standing by an open door; she watched him go inside. Moments later he stepped back warily as if he’d disturbed a dangerous animal. A greenish light spilled from the room, patterning the corridor.

  Madeleine ran over, her breath dense and moist through her respirator. “What have you found?” The lock on the door was broken.

  He spoke slowly, his tongue thick, barring her with his stump. “Don’t go in there.”

  She hesitated, then brushed past him.

  * * *

  There were no windows, no natural light, only the throb of electricity, more muted and nauseating than ever. A jade green tinged with something bilious rippled across the ceiling. Madeleine couldn’t determine its source. Then she saw two specimen tanks full of cloudy liquid catching the overhead lights. She was in a small ward that held no more than twenty beds, gathered in pairs. The significance of the detail hit her at once. Half the beds were occupied.

  She heard the mechanical wheeze of Burton’s breath through his gas mask, close behind. “You don’t need to see this,” he said. “Go outside and I’ll check.”

  Madeleine crept deeper into the ward, glancing at the beds and ignoring them at the same time, until she stopped short. On the mattress below her were two girls—identical twins—about the same age as Alice. They were naked, clutching each other, their limbs entwined. Golden hair splayed over the sheets. She grazed her fingers against the nearest foot: the skin was icy.

  “Poor babies,” she said.

  Burton’s hand was on her shoulder. “The gas would have been instant.”

  For the first time, Madeleine saw that the ward was longer than she’d realized and divided by a pair of green curtains. They were closed, but at some point someone had rushed through them, leaving the join twisted and hanging loose. She slipped between them into a space that held six cribs. The slatted wooden sides of the cribs were too high to see into; she would have to peer into them, like staring down a well, to discover the contents. The green light continued to ripple above.

  Madeleine’s heart banged up toward her throat, thumping in her ears. Her insides were meltwater.

  She checked the cribs one at a time.

  They were all empty.

  She felt such relief that a shout of air, almost a laugh, erupted from her respirator. Relief became uncertainty. Madeleine had a sensation of vertigo that threatened to make her black out. Hanging from each of the cribs was a set of medical notes: two columns of figures and observations comparing Specimen A with B. Above them was a date. One had caught her eye.

  Madeleine stepped closer to read it properly, and tore off her gas mask.

  Born: 7 February 1953

  The day she had been flown from Antzu to Mandritsara.

  She snatched up the paper and read her own details:

  Mother: Austro-German/British, aged 37 yrs

  Health category: B

  Blood group …

  She plunged her hand into the crib. There was the tiniest double dip in the mattress. As soon as her fingers made contact with it, the shape wrinkled and vanished.

  “Where are they?” she demanded. Tears drummed behind her eyes, plopping onto the mattress. “Where did they take them?” They, them: her babies still didn’t have names.

  Burton reached out for her. She shoved him away.

  “What did they do to them?”

  She was screaming, screaming like she had done that night in the maternity ward.

  Burton fought to hold her, to calm her. His face was hidden behind his mask: black, alien, threatening. She wouldn’t be silenced by him. She roared louder, the accumulation of shock and exhaustion and everything she had endured in the past months breaking out. Chunks of her heart were missing.

  “Please, Maddie…” begged Burton.

  He covered her mouth and she bit hard, enjoying the hot, salty squirt of blood on her tongue. She snarled and beat him—a vixen—and only when it was too late did she become aware of the sound.

  * * *

  Burton ripped off his gas mask, gulping in sterile air. The hysteria that had overcome Madeleine faltered as she realized she’d given them away. She stared and blinked as if she’d been shaken awake.

  From the corridor came the rush of boots.

  Burton flung the curtains wide and aimed his Beretta at the entrance, blood trickling down his wrist where he’d been bitten. Nausea and failure rampaged through him. He was dismal in the certainty that the children he would never see or hold had already passed through the hospital’s crematorium.

  Now one thought dominated: they needed to get out of this place; he’d drag Madeleine if he had to.

  The door opened.

  “I’ve been looking for you.” Abner stumbled into the room, cheeks glowing. “I found them.”

  Madeleine flew past Burton. “My babies?”

  “I think so.” He glanced around the ward with revulsion. “Twins; tiny young things.”

  “Are they alive?”

  He hurried from the room, Madeleine at his side. Burton chased after them.

  They sprinted to the end of the corridor, through a set of swing doors, and into an identical passage. Halfway along was a staircase. Abner raced up to ground level, leading them to another door. It was ajar, yellow light pouring from the interior.

  “They’re in here,” he said eagerly.

  Madeleine pushed past him, Burton following. The air was warm, sharp with tartaric acid. He just had time to register gas masks scattered across a table, a pile of spent canisters.

  Something hard cracked Burton’s skull.

  He staggered, vision wheeling, and felt a metal ring press against his temple. The pistol was cocked. Half-conscious, Burton recognized the distinctive click at once, as familiar as the greeting of an old friend. It was the sound of the pistol he knew best.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  Governor’s Palace, Tana

  21 April, 02:20

  “THANK YOU FOR coming at such a late hour.”

  Nightingale’s eyes darted around the room. His hair was matted, his previously smooth chin blue. A cloud of fresh aftershave and day-old sweat hung around him. “Where’s Governor Globocnik?” he asked.

  Hochburg had taken over Globus’s study and was sitting in his chair. His desk was hidden beneath a welter of dispatches t
hat Hochburg had been signing for the past hour. Beneath his signature he added, per pro der Reichsführer-SS. The room outside was lively with ringing phones and voices, the sustained rattle of typewriters. Hochburg had vetted every man for his loyalty to the SS, not Globus. Sitting in the corner behind him was Feuerstein, a plate of cake crumbs in his lap. He was transfixed by the photographs on the wall: Globocnik and the Führer; Globocnik and Himmler; Globocnik and Heydrich; Globocnik and a myriad of other party faces. The scenes were a mixture of the official and informal: dinners, shooting parties, the Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. “A gallery of lions,” Hochburg had called it, “the complacent and crooks.”

  He invited Nightingale to sit. “Globus has fled to the Sofia Dam. I am going there presently—to arrest him. First I wanted to speak to you.” He poured them both coffee from a freshly brewed pot; the air was pungent with it. “Would you like some cake, too?” Earlier he’d gone to the kitchens and found a gâteau speared with birthday candles in the shape of Ostmark. He cut the envoy a slice.

  Nightingale ignored it. “I heard your broadcast, Oberstgruppenführer, but it’s too late.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I did caution you about further outrages. My duty is to keep Washington informed. They know about the synagogue being burned, and the mass transportations. I’ve seen the trains from my own window.”

  He listed other grievances until Hochburg held up his palm. “I’m wresting back the situation.”

  “My government has already decided. President Taft was coming under too much pressure from the American Jewish Committee. He’s dispatching the USS Yorktown.”

  “Yorktown?”

  “An aircraft carrier, sixty wings. Plus support vessels.”

  Hochburg absorbed this information. The American carrier would be a minnow against the fleet at Diego, he thought. The danger arose from their proximity. Mistakes could be made—an aircraft accidentally shot down, a torpedo fired without orders—and with mistakes events could escalate beyond reason.

  “Contact your government,” he urged Nightingale. “Tell them I’ve taken control—”

  “My communications were cut, shortly after the Yorktown news.”

  “You’ll find they have been restored. We both believe in your country’s neutrality. Tell Washington there’s no need for intervention.”

  The envoy shook his head.

  “Only you can stop things now, Oberstgruppenführer.” He took a sip of coffee. “Restore order to the island; shut down the reservations. End the killings. And there’ll be no need for any warships. They can sail home.”

  “There’s still a rebellion. I can’t command every man in the field.”

  “So long as there are no major atrocities.”

  Hochburg hid a smile: the eternal expediency of diplomacy. “The Jews have my protection,” he said with feeling.

  “Can I trust you?”

  “You said it yourself, Herr Nightingale, at the dam. My troops in Kongo will not thank me if America intercedes. To safeguard my army is to protect the unfortunate inhabitants of this island.”

  “This is official policy?”

  Hochburg had severed all lines to Germania. “I have the Führer’s wholehearted blessing. He understands the importance of peace in Africa.”

  “Pax Germanica.”

  “There is no other.”

  Nightingale drained his coffee and stood. “I pray you’re right. I don’t want to fail my country, Oberstgruppenführer.”

  “Neither of us does.”

  They shook hands, Nightingale promising to relay Hochburg’s guarantees to his superiors. He paused at the door.

  “Once this is over, you need to turn the island back five years. That will keep the Jews at home quiet. The original plan for Madagaskar was something we could all live with.”

  After the envoy had left, Hochburg passed his untouched gâteau to Feuerstein; the physicist accepted hungrily. His face remained streaked with filth, despite Hochburg’s offer of a basin and washcloth.

  “In the days of the Ha-Mered,” he said between mouthfuls, “we were convinced the United States would save us.”

  “It was an American who led me to your weapon. They want it as insurance against this island.”

  “To defend us or themselves?”

  “That’s very cynical, Doctor. Could they build one?”

  “Nightingale is your answer,” replied Feuerstein.

  Hochburg took Burton’s knife and cut himself some cake. That was another reason to temper the situation in Madagaskar: to reset the clock, as Nightingale suggested. If the island was stable, the United States would have less reason to develop its own weapon. He reclined in his seat and chewed: nourishment for the long night ahead. When he was done he wiped the blade clean and returned it to its place inside his tunic.

  An adjutant appeared. “Your Walküres are fueled and armed, Oberstgruppenführer.”

  Hochburg stood, indicating that Feuerstein should do the same. “We leave immediately.”

  The adjutant clicked his heels and exited, passing Kepplar on the way out. The Brigadeführer’s face was gray in contrast to the riot of his uniform, the paint dry and cracked.

  Hochburg sighed. “Empty-handed. As usual.”

  His deputy dipped his eyes in shame, but there was something else, something never seen before: a flash of resentment. Hochburg would not tolerate that.

  “I know where Cole and the woman are,” said Kepplar.

  “Then why not bring them to me?”

  “After all this time, Herr Oberst, I thought the pleasure should be yours.” He faltered, then slumped like a runner at the end of a long race. “I was twenty minutes from them; I planned to go myself. But the stakes are too high. If I failed again…”

  Hochburg regarded him pitifully. “It means that much to you?”

  “I can’t be sent back to Roscherhafen, or Germania. All I want to do is serve.”

  “Where are they?”

  “The hospital, Mandritsara.”

  Kepplar’s bland devotion was touching, in the same way that Fenris’s was, yet difficult years lay ahead. Sentiment was a luxury for future generations. Nevertheless, Kepplar had delivered Burton’s location, if not his beating heart. Perhaps his skills would be better deployed in Muspel, overseeing Feuerstein.

  “Mandritsara: you’re sure?”

  “I stake my life on it, Walter.”

  An icicle smile curled Hochburg’s lips. “And we remember from the pyre in the Schädelplatz how much you value it.” He reached below the desk and threw Kepplar a bundle. “It may need alteration, but it will do for now.”

  Kepplar unfastened it to reveal a black uniform. His eyes glittered. “May I wear it?”

  Hochburg had found a pair of handcuffs. He beckoned Feuerstein to his side and clamped their wrists together. “You don’t leave my sight.”

  “What about my colleagues?”

  “They are safe.”

  After his excursion to the kitchen, Hochburg had come across Globus’s private screening room. It had forty easy chairs and canisters of films: Japanese pornography, some Heinz Rühmann comedies, Disney cartoons. He had left the other scientists with buckets of food watching Dumbo; the guards were ordered not to molest them.

  Hochburg turned to Kepplar. “When I have Burton, you will be a Gruppenführer again. I shall go to the hospital; you to the Sofia Dam.”

  “Let me be with you,” replied his deputy, unbuttoning his tunic and sprinkling the floor with flecks of congealed color.

  “Your task is too important to trust to anyone else. Go to the dam and detain Globus. Redeem yourself.”

  Kepplar bowed his head and slipped on the pristine black cloth.

  * * *

  The air was thunder, wind, aviation fuel. Red and white lights flashed on the tarmac. Two Walküres stood waiting for the order to take to the sky, next to them another two helicopters: troop carriers full of soldiers.

  Hochburg marched
toward the nearest gunship, Feuerstein scurrying to keep up. Behind them, Kepplar’s new buttons strained against his chest; the seat of his trousers sagged. He pretended not to care, but Hochburg caught him hitching up the waist when he thought no one was looking.

  “The other Walküre is yours,” said Hochburg. “A troopship will follow. Do your best to take Globocnik alive, then bring him here. Before you leave the dam—and this is important, Derbus—make sure the sluice gates cannot be opened or tampered with. If Globus tries to flood the reservation, my assurances to the Americans will be undone.”

  “What about you, Herr Oberst?”

  He hesitated, wondering whether he should arrest Globus himself—but he couldn’t lose Burton again. He had a banquet of reprisals to choose from now. “I will return with young Burtchen. Then home to Kongo.”

  Kepplar’s gunship lifted off first. Hochburg watched its lights shrink into the darkness. Banks of clouds, charcoal against the night, were massing; the wind was freshening up. Moments later Hochburg felt a lurch as his own helicopter ascended. Feuerstein was squashed into the same seat as him; he gazed down through the glass bubble of the cockpit at the receding palace.

  “A plane in the morning, Herr Doctor, a helicopter for the evening. A day to remember for a man who’s never flown.”

  The physicist cupped his mouth as though he was about to vomit.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Mandritsara Hospital

  21 April, 04:45

  “IT’S IMPORTANT THAT you see this,” said Cranley.

  He spoke in a cool, careless way, but his eyes shone with malice. He was dressed in dark combat fatigues oily with the jungle, in his grip a pistol whose handle was carved from ivory. Madeleine recognized it as Burton’s gun, and remembered the times she’d scolded him for not hiding it when Alice visited the farm.

  Burton was on his knees before her husband, neck limp from the blow he’d taken, the back of his head bloody and matted. A soldier stood behind him; another held Madeleine. Her wrists were bound in front of her, the cord so secure that her fingertips were numb. The soldiers had attempted to tie Burton but had given up when they saw his missing hand.