The Madagaskar Plan (16 page)

The admiral glanced at the other men around the table and nodded.

Diego Suarez: on the northern tip of Madagaskar, one of the largest natural harbors in the world. The Nazis had militarized it as soon as they took control of the island, transforming the decrepit French port into a state-of-the-art naval fortress. Salois had worked in the gangs that built it, a minuscule dot of flesh among the stone and steel, like one of the slaves who toiled on the treasure cities of the pharaoh, aware that every brick laid, every girder hauled on blistered backs was reinforcing the Nazis’ grip. He had sabotaged a batch of cement; when it didn’t set, the guards had selected a work detail at random—twenty-five men—and shot every one. It was from Diego that the Reich’s East Africa Fleet dominated the shipping lanes of the Indian Ocean.

“We have thousands of soldiers stationed in the Far East,” said Rolland. “It would take a fraction of this force to make the difference. We’re already preparing supply lines through Kenya and Sudan to this forward station. Once we land, we can have our troops on the border with Kongo inside a week, faster than the Germans can mobilize. If we join with the Force Publique, we could take back Stanleystadt.”

“Then what?” said Salois.

“We drive toward Elisabethstadt, squeezing the enemy from the north as well as the south.”

“But you can’t get your men to Africa.”

“Precisely. For two centuries, the Royal Navy has commanded the Indian Ocean.” Rolland’s mouth sagged with distaste. “Now we have to share it.” He poured himself another cup of tea before leveling his eyes on Salois. “We want you to destroy the base at Diego Suarez.”

Salois said nothing. He took another sandwich; the mustard burned the roof of his mouth.

“A large-scale operation is out of the question,” continued Rolland. “Stealth and secrecy are our only hope. You will lead a team of four.”

Salois shook his head. “Diego’s huge, bigger than a city.”

“We’re aware that you know the terrain, Major. This is your chance to free Madagaskar.”

“There would be reprisals. Worse than anything Globocnik did before.”

“Think of it like gangrene,” said the man at the window. “Sometimes one has to lose a limb to save the body.”

Salois shifted his look toward the light. “Easy to say when it’s not you on the butcher’s block.”

“After you torched a few vanilla farms, thousands joined the struggle. Strike at Diego and the whole island will rise.”

There was truth in what he said. Salois also heard the impatience in his voice, the cynicism of his appeal. He turned back to Rolland. “Five men are not enough.”

“Now is the time,” replied the admiral. “A whole brigade was transferred from the island to fight in Kongo. Security will never be so thin.”

“But five men.”

“Your task would simply be to incapacitate the air defenses. We’ll do the rest, from above.”

“A bombing raid?”

The admiral indicated the dark-skinned man opposite Salois. “Colonel Turneiro, of the Mozambique Air Force.”

“I didn’t know they had one.”

The airman puffed himself up. “A squadron of Lancasters, sold to us by the British.”

“It will bring you into the war.”

“Lisboa has decided. It’s time we joined our Angolan brothers—what better way than with a famous victory.”

Salois was thinking about the flat, scrubby hills above Diego: there was a runway that could land the latest jet fighters. “If I take out the guns, there must be a hundred Messerschmitts at Diego. The bombers will never get through.”

“Which is why I’m leading a second team,” said the man by the window. “To destroy the radar station at Mazunka. Once it’s done, the whole west coast will be blind. By the time our planes are over Diego it’ll be too late.”

Salois glanced at the finish of his jacket. “You might get your suit dirty.”

He let out an empty laugh. “Don’t let this fool you,” he replied. “I’m as happy in uniform. Happier, wouldn’t you say, Admiral?”

Salois leaned back in his chair, feeling the upholstery shift around him, and tried to remember the last time he’d sat on anything so comfortable. He wanted to believe these men. Outside, the sun continued to sink, spraying the floor with color through the stained-glass window. He shook his head again.

“None of it makes any difference. Even if you can destroy Diego, even if you can land thousands of new troops, you and the Germans will slaughter yourselves to a stalemate.”

“What would you suggest then?” asked Rolland.

“The one thing every Jew knows: America.”

“You’re ahead of us, Major. Something you proved when you killed those oil workers. Kongo is huge. If we fight in the north and south, that still leaves the west. Which is why once we open up this new front, the United States plans to attack from the Atlantic. It has been agreed at the highest levels.”

Salois’s eyes narrowed in disbelief. “Just because I’ve been in the jungle doesn’t mean I don’t hear the news. I know how Taft won the election; Americans don’t want adventures abroad.”

“Winning and governing are not the same. Fifteen years ago, their economy was in ruins. They rebuilt; now it’s waning again. They need fresh resources, and Africa has them in abundance.”

“Neutrality bought them a share.”

“Which the Germans control,” said the man at the window. “They could be choked off on Der Führer’s whim.”

“I still don’t buy it,” said Salois.

“What did Churchill say? ‘America will always do the right thing, after exhausting all the alternatives.’”

“You see,” said Rolland, “our paths may be different, but they wind to the same point.” He offered a rheumy smile. “You’re the best man to lead the operation, Major. The only man.”

“And if I refuse?”

“This isn’t the SS—we can’t force you … However, there is one, well, awkward matter.”

While the admiral took a sudden interest in his empty teacup, the man by the window stepped forward and removed a sheet of paper from his jacket. He slid it across the table. Salois saw him clearly for the first time and felt a twist of sympathy. Half his face was scar tissue, the color of plum flesh. Salois glanced at the photostat he’d been offered.

The ancient remorse filled him. No matter how deep he buried it, it was only a scratch away.

“Where did you get this?” he asked, hiding his nausea.

“Like I said: the Force Publique furnished me with everything I needed.”

Salois studied the document. It was dated Antwerp, 1928, when he’d been at university studying veterinary medicine. His name was emblazoned on it—not Reuben Salois but his real name, the one he’d abandoned when he fled the country to join the Foreign Legion and a decade of brutality in the desert.

“It’s meaningless,” said Salois, pushing away the warrant for his arrest. “That Belgium doesn’t exist anymore.”

“True. In your case, however, I’m sure they’d honor it. The new Europe is prosperous, clean, law-abiding. It has no time for criminals.”

“Except in Germania.”

The warrant lingered in the open for a few moments more before it was stowed in the man’s pocket; he returned to his perch. The movement reminded Salois of the furtive bartering in Madagaskar: a handful of salt, some bread, or a scrawny rooster briefly displayed, then hidden from sight until a price was settled upon. With so much hunger, the buyer was always the loser.

Salois took his final sandwich and chewed in silent deliberation. Outside, the sunlight weakened, the glow of the stained-glass window fading to gray. The four men watched him.

“I won’t be threatened,” he said once he’d swallowed the last mouthful, “but I will do it. Not for you, for me.” He was completely still. “For what comes after. For hope.”

Rolland seemed relieved. “I’m glad you look at these things so realistically,” he replied. “You’ll leave for Mombasa tomorrow, to join the others. Then to Madagaskar before Führertag.”

Führertag: Hitler’s birthday, 20 April. Across the Reich, from the festooned avenues of Germania to the ice floes of the north and the deserts of Südwest Afrika, Germans everywhere celebrated. Simultaneously, as far as the state apparatus was concerned, its enemies plotted. Security was ratcheted up in the days before; military bases were put on high alert.

“Everything starts returning to normal on the twenty-first,” said Rolland, “which also happens to be Governor Globocnik’s birthday. His own festivities begin on the stroke of midnight: a lavish party to which regional bosses are invited, including the commander of Diego; intoxication compulsory. We strike an hour before dawn the same morning.”

“And after?”

“Considerable thought has gone into your escape, but we can discuss that later. First, time to introduce everyone properly. Colonel Turneiro you already know. And next to him—”

Salois was more interested in the man by the window. “What about you?”

“Ah, here we have the ringmaster,” said Rolland. “He’s coordinated between London and Lisbon—Washington, too.”

He left the window again, striding into the gloom, and offered a burned hand: “Jared Cranley, British intelligence.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Roscherhafen, DOA

17 April, 10:30

TÜNSCHER WAS LATE. Tünscher was always late.

They had agreed to meet at ten that morning, during the rainy hours when there were fewer people around. Burton didn’t bother arriving till half past and found himself at an empty table. Their meeting place was the Polar Café, festooned with sodden flags for Führertag; Hitler’s birthday celebrations would reach their climax in three days. Burton sat opposite an enclosure of concrete icebergs where penguins huddled together in the steaming rain. A banana-leaf roof thrummed above him. This was Roscherhafen’s Tiergarten, its zoo, designed by the Hagenbeck family and the largest in the world, as billboards proclaimed along every path: ninety hectares, a twelve-million-liter aquarium, more than ten thousand animals and seven hundred different species from across the globe.

Despite his torturous journey to Deutsch Ostafrika (DOA), Burton was calm and invigorated. It was as if Maddie had returned from the dead. The thought beat constantly in his mind, stoking him with hope, unveiling paths of light. He was closer to her than he had been in months and felt she must sense it, too. Burton imagined her cradling their child, the baby’s tiny, translucent fingers clutching at hers as she whispered that the three of them would be together shortly. He had dismissed Cranley’s claim to be the father. For all his posturing, it revealed his true nature: malicious, vindictive. For the moment, Burton didn’t want to consider what lay ahead. He had escaped Britain, chanced his way back into Nazi Africa; somehow he would get them out safely. The hated air of the tropics, muggy and dense in his lungs, teemed with possibilities. Everything he and Madeleine wished for could come true, even if they’d never see the farm again. During their trip to Germania, when they had decided to make a life together, they had discussed moving abroad. Quinces didn’t grow only in Suffolk.

Burton stilled his jigging leg and ordered a drink from a waitress wearing traditional Bavarian costume. There was no mango juice, so he chose a Reich Kola. Patrick had once told a tale about the Spanish Civil War and having to wait more than two days for Tünscher. When he finally showed, it was with a runaway whore and a bundle of stolen Miró canvases.

A family passed wearing lilac-and-blue KdF macs: father, mother, four blond kids, full of determined smiles despite their drenched socks and sandals. The youngest girl must have been the same age as Alice. She hung over the enclosure wall, gabbling something in a yokel accent. As if on cue, the penguins slid sullenly into the water; the girl clapped her hands in delight. Burton felt an unexpected reproach.

Alice couldn’t come with him to Africa, and he had no desire to involve his aunt further, so he had walked the girl through the fog of Hampstead Heath to the glowing shadow of her house. He left her by the back wall, her coat lopsided where he had fastened the buttons with his stump. Through the mist came the roar of fire hoses, a woman’s voice calling,
Alice! Alice!

“I’ll bring Mummy home,” he promised.

“Not to the farm. I don’t like the farm.”

“Is that why you told your father?”

Alice was vehement: “Mummy said I should never tell anyone. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Three days later, he was booked on a Comet flight to Johannesburg. There were plainclothes policemen waiting at Heathrow, the same at Northolt airport and the Southampton docks. Each time he slipped away unnoticed. Finally, in desperation he strode up the first unwatched gangplank he found: a cargo ship for New Zealand. He hoped to pass another vessel en route and transfer to it. When there were none, he disembarked at Panama and caught a tramper back across the Atlantic to Cape Town, then another bound for Durban, and continued on overland through Mozambique.

Burton finished his Kola, ordered another. It was darker than the American equivalent, had a more syrupy, vanilla flavor. In the distance, distorted by the rain, he heard an oompah band. Screams from the roller coaster.

And then he saw him: strolling through the downpour, his straw-colored suit perfectly dry beneath a huge black umbrella. It seemed the years hadn’t touched Tünscher. He was leaner, his shoulders still too broad for the rest of him, golden hair cropped tight against his tan. The same grizzled, sardonic features. How was it Patrick used to describe them? That was it: “a frontier face.” By his side was a boy in Jungvolk uniform: black shorts and khaki shirt, his sleeve dark where the umbrella didn’t cover him. It had never occurred to Burton that Tünscher might have a family.

They made their way into the café. Tünscher shook out his umbrella, then thrust his hand forward. Burton seized it, both men trying to crush the other’s knuckles, and felt a wave of bravado at seeing his old comrade, as if Madagaskar would be no tougher than a raid on a Tuareg camp. Up close, one of Tünscher’s eyes was puffy and bruised; his pupils had an empty look.

“What happened?” asked Burton.