by Guy Saville
“Are you watching?” asked Cranley. His voice was intricate with emotions: forced composure, rage, a need to brag. Madeleine noticed how carefully tended his hair was. He swung the pistol against Burton’s face.
The blow felled him. He hit the floor, mumbling threats, a bright spatter where his face landed. The soldier dragged him back to a kneeling position. A gash had opened across Burton’s cheek. Madeleine had seen him nick his thumb on a piece of farm machinery, she had laid her tongue upon his scars, but she had never seen him bleed like this. A coldness drained through her stomach.
Cranley wedged the pistol into his belt, then cracked a fist into Burton’s nose. And again. His knuckles came away trailing blood.
Madeleine fought to free herself from the soldier’s hold, snapping and hissing and stamping at his feet. Meat-hook hands held her fast. Abner stood to one side, silent and sheepish, his eyes darting around the room, never meeting Madeleine’s.
Cranley prowled in front of Burton. “Second button down,” he said.
Burton had fastened his tunic against the chill of the hospital; the second button lay at the base of his throat. Cranley’s punch landed with utter precision, the middle knuckle driving the button into his gullet. Burton dropped, cawing and choking.
Madeleine couldn’t bear any more; she screwed her eyes shut.
“I told you to watch.”
She didn’t have enough hair for the soldier to grasp, so he grabbed her ears and forced her head up. Fingertips pinched her eyelashes and raised the lids. Cranley filled her vision, overwhelming her intimate space. He wore a concentrated, almost pleading expression that she associated with the bedroom in the first months of their marriage.
For the first time she registered that his skin was leathery with burns; it suited him, seemed to complete his face.
“Keep watching,” he said. “There’s not much more to go.”
He slipped away from her and delivered a final fist into Burton’s sternum. Madeleine let out a shout of horror. Burton crumpled, groaning as if an organ had ruptured. This time the soldier left him where he was.
Cranley leaned over him and administered an injection.
Madeleine struggled in the soldier’s grip. “What are you doing?”
“It’s a new type of epinephrine the Germans have developed. While I was waiting for you, I found some in the dispensary. They have the most extraordinary selection of drugs I’ve ever seen. It’s used in interrogations to give the prisoner a boost, so you can prolong the questioning. There’s no honor in beating an unconscious man.” He withdrew the syringe. “He’ll be as sparky as a sandboy in a few minutes.”
All the furniture in the room had been cleared except for a large table in the middle. Cranley perched on it in a pose she’d seen many times over the years. Against the walls were microscope stations, a refrigeration unit full of vials, gleaming centrifuges. There were piles of clamps and calipers that looked like twisted black bones; drums of chemicals. In one corner stood a full-sized skeleton that someone had turned inward, as though they didn’t want its hollow eye sockets to witness the events about to unfold.
Madeleine faced her brother, heat blooming in her cheeks as if he’d slapped her. “You did this?” Her voice was piercing. “You brought us to him?”
Cranley answered on his behalf: “My agents have been supplying the Vanillas for years. It took a while, but we tracked him down in the end.”
“Your husband’s here to help, Leni.”
“You idiot boy,” she replied.
“He’s the only chance we’ll ever get.”
“Stupid fucking idiot boy.”
“He already saved Mutti and Leah.”
That brought her up short. “You said they were in Zimety.”
“I couldn’t tell you the truth. They’re in South Africa, waiting for us. Colonel Cranley arranged it.”
Madeleine was suddenly dizzy: Colonel Cranley, his “agents,” South Africa … Who was this man she’d been married to? She tried to organize her thoughts. “He’s lying.”
“I saw them off.”
“But you didn’t see them arrive. You can’t just take people off this island.”
“Actually, you can,” said Cranley. “We’ve been doing it since the island was first settled. So has most of the CONE; America, too. The SS has a secret hostage exchange program.”
“Why?”
“Scoop up the dirt and there will always be a few gems. Jews who didn’t believe they’d be shipped out or thought they could make new lives for themselves. A cache of treasures arrived with them. Do you remember the Renoir we saw?”
A trip to the National Gallery. Alice had been excited, then bored, Jared uncharacteristically animated. She had wondered about it at the time: neither of them had much interest in art. They stood in line to glimpse the new exhibit, its provenance a mystery. Afterward they took tea at Fortnum’s. Madeleine had worn her happiness all afternoon, until her smile ached. She longed for the day she and Burton could go out as a family.
Cranley continued, boastfulness clinging to his words: “We acquired it for the country and bought its previous owners passage abroad. They’re safely in Brazil now. I did the same with your mother and sister.” His smile was chilling. “Governor Globocnik is well recompensed; it also means a few fewer Jews for him to worry about.”
She switched her attention to Abner. “You don’t understand what you’ve done.”
“Mutti’s ill,” he replied, anxious to persuade. “Leah can’t cope with much more. Papa and Samuel have gone to America—”
“Don’t use your stupid slang.”
“I did the best I could.”
“For who?” demanded Madeleine.
“The family.”
“What about Burton?”
He was beginning to stir at their feet.
“He’s not my concern,” said Abner, shifting awkwardly.
“After everything I told you.”
“I don’t know him.”
“He’s the man I love. Look what they’ve done to him. They’re going to kill him.”
“Colonel Cranley never mentioned anything to do with him. He’s not supposed to be here.”
“And what about me?” said Madeleine. “Where do I fit into everything?”
“You’re going to Britain”—a hint of envy—“back to your old life.”
She spat out a laugh, but Cranley nodded in confirmation. “I’m taking you home, Madeleine.”
Another laugh, a mixture of incredulity and scorn … then a breathlessness as she understood that he was quite sincere.
Cranley gestured to the soldier behind Burton. “The epinephrine should be taking effect by now. Get him up.”
The soldier hauled Burton to his knees and shook him. His eyes flickered, then stayed open, the pupils artificially wide and alert. A loop of glistening, bloody saliva hung from his chin. Madeleine wanted to shield him from Cranley, to wipe his face clean, but the soldier behind her held tight.
Burton stared at Cranley, his jaw wobbling, and spoke as if he’d bitten his tongue. “I’m going … to kill you … this time.”
“Very amusing. Before you do, it’s important you know I’m taking Madeleine back to London. It was my intention all along. Like I told you during our last parley: I don’t believe in swift retribution. And what was the one thing worse than Madagaskar? The luxury of home; having to spend the rest of her days as my dutiful wife. Appreciative and pliant.”
“You’re lying,” said Madeleine. She felt sick. “You wouldn’t be able to bear it.”
“I managed six months without you suspecting a thing.”
“That’s why there’s no”—Burton coughed red spittle—“no tattoo.”
“Correct,” replied Cranley to Madeleine. “I made sure you weren’t numbered. I couldn’t have you back in society with a Jew tag for a bracelet. I also arranged for the house on Boriziny Strasse. It cost a fortune in bribes.”
“You want me to be gratefu
l?”
“Next time I’ll abandon you to the slums.”
Madeleine rubbed her bare wrists, the rope chafing around them. They felt sullied. She wished they were as purple as Salois’s.
“My original plan was to leave you for a year, maybe two,” continued Cranley. “That’s why I chose Boriziny—so I could keep track of you. By the end, you’d be begging to come home. Anything to get off this island. That appealed to me: you desperate for your own punishment. It’s only your lover who brought me here early.”
“I’ll never come back.” She thought of Salois and his daily torment. “I’d rather die.”
“Than see Alice? Than live like a human being?”
“I’ll never come back,” she said, as if repeating the words would convince him.
“Which is why I moved your family. They’re settling into a handsome little homestead in the Natal hills.” He gave a tight, indulgent smile. “If you refuse me, I send them back to Madagaskar. Your mother is doing poorly, Madeleine; I doubt she’ll survive the return. Nothing breaks the spirit more than dashed hope.”
“You’ve got to go with him,” said Abner. There was a demented, evangelical blaze to his expression, a yearning for her to agree. “It’s no hardship, Leni, not like this place. You can be with your daughter again.”
“You’ve lost all sense.”
“Think of us for once. You don’t know how hard it’s been. There was enough upset when you left; we’re not going to suffer anymore. You have to do the right thing this time.”
She heard the fervor in his voice, the regret and resentment that had been simmering since she fled Vienna and he stayed, like the borscht their mother used to make, left on the stove till it was boiling over. His desire to save the family—to save himself—had convinced him of his righteousness. She hated him but couldn’t entirely condemn him, either. Perhaps Abner believed he was doing the best by her.
Madeleine’s voice ached. “How can you have done this?”
“If you’d been here ten grueling years, if you knew the rebellion was doomed and there wasn’t a spark of hope left in you—if Samuel had died in your arms—you’d have done the same.”
“You could have warned me.”
“I know you too well, Leni: you’d have vanished—and you made it hard enough as it was. First you wouldn’t go back to Antzu; then you chased after Salois. If you’d stayed in Boriziny a couple of hours longer, we’d already be away.”
“Sounds like you had a perfect plan.”
“No thanks to you. It’s only luck I found a radio in the pig pens; otherwise I couldn’t have told your husband where we were headed.”
“He’s not my husband.”
“A huge effort has gone into finding you,” said Cranley. “I could have sent any of my agents, Madeleine, but I chose to do it myself. You’re coming home.”
There was a tremor in his voice that she didn’t recognize, a vainglory that hid something. She rubbed her unmarked wrists. “What about Salois?”
“Your brother wasn’t aware of him.”
“He thinks you’re in Mazunka.”
Cranley straightened himself. “If my presence convinced him of the mission, all the better.”
“He believed in you.”
“A necessary deception. It’s essential that he reaches Diego, for all our sakes.”
“To bring America into the war,” said Abner, as though these wider ambitions proved her husband’s benevolence.
“No,” replied Cranley. “To keep it out.”
* * *
Abner spoke cautiously, confessionally. A man who had made an unwitting blunder that might cost him his passage to freedom, thought Madeleine. “But I helped Salois find new explosives.” He continued, justification blurring into apology. “I … that is, the Vanillas thought we’d never win without American involvement.”
“For which I’m grateful,” replied Cranley.
“He’ll be able to attack Diego.”
“I want him to. I just don’t want him to succeed.”
Burton coughed up a glob of blood. “Sounds like Kongo again,” he said, and spat it at Cranley’s feet.
“It’s the second phase of the same operation, yes; a wider scheme to ensure stability for us all. Globocnik is no different than Hochburg; they’re both marauders. Detached from any sense of realpolitik. Before President Taft it mattered less, but it took Jewish money to win the White House, and now his financiers are watching Madagaskar. It’s only a matter of time till Globus provokes them.” He addressed Madeleine. “I sent Salois to stop him.”
At home, Jared was discreet in his ministerial dealings, the visits to foreign capitals and meetings at Downing Street. Now names and details flew like cracks of a whip. She suddenly understood why and felt revulsion for the man.
He wants to impress me, she thought. That’s why he had come to Madagaskar, why he was dressed in fatigues, handling a pistol. Beneath his bumptious confidence he was scared, or at least baffled. She had chosen a soldier—a man emerged from dust and privation, a man who couldn’t even provide her with a decent bathroom—over him. It made no sense to his beliefs. He wanted to prove his power to her, over not only Burton but the currents of the world itself. If he controlled them, she would have no choice but to submit to his will.
He fixed his eyes on hers. “Salois attacks the base at Diego Suarez. In the midst of a new rebellion, it proves that Globus has finally lost control. He’s Himmler’s man, and Himmler hates the slightest whiff of failure. So either Globus shoots himself in humiliation or he is recalled to Germania. Whatever happens, the threat of him is removed. Washington is pacified.”
Madeleine regarded him with disdain. “As simple as that?”
“Governor Bouhler was dismissed for less.”
“And in Globus’s place they send someone worse.”
“There are others who want to see the end of Globocnik, not only in London. My counterparts in Germania have let it be known that should anything happen to the governor, the navy will temporarily take charge and quell the rebellion, as sailors, not butchers of the Schutzstaffel. Afterward, the island will remain part of Heydrich’s office. He has a successor in waiting, Herr Bischof. An accountant. One trusts the auditors to placate any situation.”
“But the bombers,” said Abner.
“There are no bombers! There never were. Salois destroys the air defenses—but that’s all. The damage will be minimal, the East Africa Fleet remains untouched. And at the center: a Jew, unequivocally a Jew with his inky blue body. As far as anyone knows, it’s an internal security matter. Further proof of how ineffective Globus is.”
“You’re sacrificing Reuben?”
“On an altar that’s overflowing.”
“He’s a good man,” said Madeleine.
“Who murdered his pregnant wife. I bet he didn’t tell you that.” When she made no comment, he added, “There are plenty of good men in this world. What difference does it make?”
“So he never had a chance.”
“None of you did.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Diego Suarez
21 April, 04:40
THE FIRST OF the charges was set, the tiny cogs inside the detonators inexorably ticking toward their end.
On the dhow, sailing to Madagaskar, Salois had taken one apart to check the workings and been reassured to see FABRIQUÉ EN BELGIQUE stamped on the metal. At 04:55 the dynamite would bring the missile batteries down in a flash of intense orange fire. Minutes later Turneiro’s bombers would swoop over the base. If the rest of the population heeded the signal and joined the rebellion, there would be no slave gangs to rebuild. By the time Diego was operational again, the U.S. Navy would be patrolling the Indian Ocean.
The bad luck that had dogged the mission since the island first appeared on the horizon was gone. Yaudin’s flare had drawn most of the sentries away from the quays, to the search railyard. The guard at the inner gate chose the exact moment Salois approached to s
tep into a corner to relieve himself; he was still pissing when he hit the ground. Even the Kriegsmarine whites Cranley had supplied, the most useless camouflage Salois had ever worn, vanished in the fierce glow of the lights. Salois flitted around the base as though he were translucent.
He reached the second battery, concealing himself at the foot of the girders, and attached a bundle of dynamite. It was like standing beneath a prehistoric monster. Salois adjusted the timer and moved to the next leg.
In the closing months of the war against Russia, the Soviet Air Force had launched a final, desperate raid on Berlin. Although it failed, it spurred German scientists to develop new air defenses so the Reich would never be vulnerable again. The first was the Taifun, a rocket-based unit that launched lethal but indiscriminate salvos. In the decade that followed came radio- and infrared-guided prototypes: Projects Enzian and Rheintochter (an offshoot of the latter produced missiles capable of striking Washington). Despite successful testing, they were not yet ready for deployment. Diego was protected by an intermediate system known as Loge that used manually aimed rockets.
The base’s central defense system consisted of four Loge batteries. Three of them were stationed on the quayside, each mounted on a crane topped with a rotating platform that housed the launcher and operator’s cradle. Each crane was painted honey yellow, its four legs on rail tracks so that the whole structure could be moved along the waterfront. The fourth Loge sat on a strip of concrete that jutted out from the quay at a right angle, situated to pick off any targets that evaded the main battery. Flak guns watched the high ground. There were also searchlights and gigantic angled mirrors. Hitler had personally insisted that these be installed at military bases. “Blinded by the reflection,” he told his commanders, “enemy pilots will not be able to see a thing.”
Salois set the third detonator. Cranley was adamant that they plant explosives under all four legs, but experience had taught Salois that three would suffice. Every moment in the open increased the chances of being spotted and the mission failing. As he worked he kept glancing at the runway on Kap Diégo, expecting an alarm and jets to be scrambled. It remained silent.