The Madagaskar Plan (19 page)

Kepplar snatched the phone and felt a tingle of self-satisfaction as the block warden described Burton Cole.

“Did you notice his hand?”

“Of course. We get lots of veterans here.”

“Hold the line,” said Kepplar.

He covered the mouthpiece and spoke to Fregh: “I’ll need two cars: one for myself, you as backup. A truckload of your border guards. Armed. Plainclothesmen to watch the exits.”

“Who is this man?”

“He mustn’t be allowed to escape.”

Fregh scowled at the clock and hurried out.

“I’m sure your wife will approve of you working so late,” called Kepplar cheerfully before speaking into the phone again. “Where is ‘Herr Whaler’ now?”

“He went out this morning.” There was a short pause at the other end; Kepplar heard the warden shuffling around. Then: “His key’s not here; he must be back in his room. Shall I fetch him?”

“No,” said Kepplar. Hochburg’s eyes would glisten with gratitude when he delivered Cole. “Make sure he doesn’t leave. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Tana, Madagaskar

17 April, 12:00

HOCHBURG STEPPED FROM the gloom of the palace and envied Globocnik. He crossed his arms and inhaled deeply, as if he could take the view into his lungs, breathing the clean air of the high plateau. In the distance were paddy fields worked by Jews and, beyond them, the smoky ring of the hills that surrounded Tana, the administrative center of Madagaskar. It seemed unlikely, but somewhere out there was the means to acquire his superweapon. A hot breeze licked his face.

“Magnificent,” he said to the adjutant bobbing at his side.

“The stonework was imported from the governor’s house in Europe.” The adjutant had adopted the same jeering voice as his master; men stayed in Globocnik’s service for decades.

Hochburg lowered his eyes. He was standing on gravestones etched with Hebrew. “I meant the garden.” He strode down the steps through a lava flow of bright flowers, skimming his palms over the petals.

The adjutant followed. “Would you like some refreshment, Oberstgruppenführer? The governor keeps the best-stocked cellar in the Southern Hemisphere.”

“Water will do.”

“We have some particularly fine vintages—”

“Water.”

“I’ll have some brought out, and will tell the governor you are here.”

Once he was alone, Hochburg filled his lungs again. After the cold rain of Europe, it was good to taste tropical air. He was in a jaunty mood.

At the bottom of the stairs was a terrace almost as expansive as the one at the Berghof. A wall separated it from a precipitous drop to the city below. Hochburg leaned against the bricks, feeling their warmth in his kidneys, and surveyed the palace with his good eye. The left one was still swathed in bandages; the surgeon had been unable to guarantee that his sight could be restored despite several weeks of treatment in Germania.

The governor’s residence was an impregnable stone cube with turrets on each corner and a pyramid roof. It had been built in the 1830s by Ranavalona I, a bloodthirsty native queen who ruled the island with a grip not seen again till the SS. Bouhler, the first Nazi governor, gutted and modernized the building; since Globocnik’s reign, a new frontage had been added in what he described as his neo-Mesopotamian style: stark, angular, dangerously modern. Descending from all four sides, recalling a ziggurat, were flights of steps surrounded by terraced gardens. The planting would have been too structured for Eleanor, but Hochburg spied many of her favorites: hibiscus, Rubiaceae, euphorbias. There were red and white roses, magenta cascades of the local bougainvillea. If only he’d had the time to create a paradise like this.

The adjutant returned with a Malagasy
*
carrying a bottle of Apollinaris water on a tray. Typical Globocnik! Only he would thrill to have an indigenous wait on him. That this maid had been sent when the palace must be teeming with blond servants was a deliberate provocation. Hochburg checked to make sure her negroid fingers hadn’t touched the glass before pouring. Her face wore the signs of Globocnik’s moods.

“I have informed the governor of your presence,” said the adjutant. “He will be with you shortly.”

“You mean he’s still in bed. Or hungover.”

“He has been touring the island for Führertag; didn’t get back till early this morning.”

Hochburg downed his water. “Tell him I haven’t got all day.”

The minutes passed; then five, ten, fifteen. Hochburg tracked a pair of Me-362 jet fighters as they howled across the horizon toward their base at Diego Suarez. Although the majority of the island was the responsibility of Heydrich’s office and the SS, the northern sector came under the jurisdiction of the Kriegsmarine, the navy, an independence held as sacrosanct. Twice the adjutant appeared to reassure Hochburg that Globocnik was on his way. Finally, half an hour later, the man himself tottered down the stairs half-dressed.

Obergruppenführer Odilo Globocnik: the SS governor of Madagaskar, commonly known as Globus.

Born in Austria, a builder by trade, he joined the party in 1930 and rose to become the gauleiter of Vienna. After that his fortunes had swung like a weathercock, as Hochburg once heard them described. Within six months of taking the top job in Vienna, he was forced to resign because of an embezzlement scandal. He joined the Waffen-SS as an enlisted soldier, was decorated in the war against Russia, and subsequently made a police chief in the occupied territories by Himmler. After the Barbarossa Line division, Globus was tasked with resettling the Soviet Jews and spent several years evacuating them beyond the Ural Mountains to Siberia before once again a corruption charge brought him down. It looked as if he was finished for good until Madagaskar salvaged his reputation. His latest ambition was to leave the island and take up the governorship of Ostmark.
*

“Governor Globocnik,” said Hochburg when he made it to the bottom of the stairs, “I’m so happy you could join me.”

They shook hands—their palms barely touching, a thick gold watch jangling around Globus’s wrist—and appraised each other.

Hochburg hadn’t seen him since the Windhuk Conference, the gathering of senior SS officials that decided the fate of the black population and their subsequent “resettlement.” In the years since, Globocnik’s mucky-blond hair had started to thin. His face was more bloated, the skin around his nose sunburned and riddled with a network of burst veins, eyelids drooping. He wore jackboots and tan trousers with the suspenders flapping at his side; his vest failed to contain his paunch. There was a yeasty smell about him.

“I never knew we shared a passion,” said Hochburg, admiring the garden. “Or that you had such good taste.”

Globus made no reply.

“Did you design it yourself?”

“No. Some Jew cunt.”

A neat smile passed Hochburg’s lips. “I’m glad to find Madagaskar hasn’t tempered your charm.”

“If I had my way, I’d concrete the lot,” he replied in his lilting Carinthian accent. “But Mutti likes it.”

“Your mother comes all this way to visit?”

“She lives in the palace with my sisters. They keep my wife company when I’m busy in the reservations; I’m overseeing their completion personally.” He reached into his pocket for a bottle of pills. “Now, what do you want?”

At Windhuk, Hochburg had agreed to send Africa’s Jewish population to Madagaskar; when Globus failed to reciprocate with the native Malagasy and instead established a zone for them in the northeast of the island, Hochburg had been furious. It was only later that he appreciated that the best way of dealing with Globus was crude fawning and implicit threat.

“My dear Globus,” said Hochburg, using the Reichsführer’s favorite moniker for the Austrian, though he allowed a hint of ridicule to speckle his words. “I come to ask a favor. From one governor-general to another.”

In an instant, Globocnik’s face was puce. “You’ve already had a brigade of my best men. I won’t give you any more. I refuse—”

“That’s not why I’m here.”

“I’ve fought to control the island ever since. Keep taking my troops, and the Jews will run amok. If that happens, I’ll personally tell the Führer it was your fault.”

“Calm yourself, Obergruppenführer. We all know of your security problems, and who you blame.”

“You should be in Kongo, winning back Elisabethstadt, not bleeding me dry.”

“It’s not your soldiers I want,” said Hochburg. “I’m after a Jew.”

“A Jew?”

Hochburg gestured toward the lowlands, with their shanty towns and work camps. “You have several million.”

“What is it, mine clearance? Take as many as you want.”

“A generous offer; however, I need only one.”

Globus grew silent, as if suspecting a scam. He unscrewed his bottle of pills and tipped some down his throat. “They tell me you came direct from Germania. That’s a long way for a Yid. He must be valuable.”

“That’s not your concern.”

“My island, my Jew.”

“It’s a matter of the highest state security.”

A derisive snort. “Heinrich will tell me.”

“He doesn’t know either.”

His scorn vanished; this upturned the natural order Globus clung to.

“This Jew could be anywhere,” continued Hochburg, “so I have a second favor to ask.”

“Go on,” said Globus, his curiosity aroused.

“With your permission, I wish to visit the Ark.”

“Why don’t you ask to fuck my sister?” The blood was throbbing in his cheeks again. “We’re not allowed there, and you know it: all that shit Heydrich agreed with the Americans.”

“I thought you said it was your island.”

“Even I”—Globus thumped his chest to emphasize the point—“I haven’t been there.”

“A guided tour won’t be necessary.”

“The Ark’s rotten, falling apart. You could break your neck. There are also the Jews who guard it—they might take you hostage. It’s too much of a security risk.”

“Then I will go without your permission.”

Globocnik’s neck bulged with fury. His temper was legendary: in the Urals he had turned mountainsides crimson simply because an order from Germania displeased him. He lumbered toward Hochburg, who moved away from him, taking a dainty sidestep as if they were dancing.

“The Jews want to destroy this island,” said Globus, “destroy me.” His voice was black with resentment. “For now they’re divided. Squabbling. That’s how I can maintain control despite you thieving my men. But give them a reason to unite—like stepping on the Ark—and everything I’ve built here will collapse. Do you know how that will make me look?”

“There are greater stakes than your career, Herr Governor. I need to find my Jew; I’m going to the Ark.”

“I forbid it! You don’t like that, take it up with Heydrich. Take it up with the Führer, for all I care.”

He stormed up the steps, suspenders whipping his thighs.

A chill settled in Hochburg’s chest; he gazed out across the city with his single eye. After the French had been defeated, its name was Germanized to Antananarivo; later, Globus officially shortened it to Tana. The rumor was that the original six syllables were too complex for his tongue. Hochburg returned his attention to Globocnik as he receded up the stairs, the back of his vest an oval of gray sweat. “How are your swine herds, Obergruppenführer?”

A falter in his step.

“What about your meatpacking plants? My troops fight best on a belly of Madagaskan pork.”

This time Globus stopped. He swiveled around, his whole body tense. His neck still pulsed, but there was caution in his expression, a twitch of barely hidden panic in that bloated face. He descended, grinding his boots into the Hebrew etchings.

“Do you know what the Jews are calling this new uprising?” he said. “The Pig Rebellion. Just yesterday there was a revolt at one of the abattoirs. I had to shut it down, shoot the ringleaders, transport the rest to the Sofia Reservation. The Jews think that by attacking our industry they can beat us. But I won’t tolerate their threats. Or yours.”

“I have two armies fighting in Kongo. That’s a lot of ration tins. A lot of profit for you.”

“No one is cheaper,” replied Globus, reaching the terrace.

“I agree. But Governor Backe, in Kamerun, is always telling me how nutritious his highland cattle are.”

“Backe? That scrawny cocksucker. He’ll charge double what I am.”

“We have a long-standing interest in hunger and its uses. I’m sure we could reach an agreement on price. In turn, that would represent a substantial loss of revenue to this island.” Hochburg shook his head in mock sadness. “And where there are losses, Germania sends its auditors. Of course, you’re familiar with them: they follow you like flies chasing shit. Vienna, the Urals…” He flashed a smile. “Everyone knows your ambition to become governor of Ostmark—why ruin your chances over a single, meaningless Jew?”

Globus’s jaw was quivering.

Hochburg watched him coil his fingers into a fist. The metal of his wedding rings glinted. He wore two: one from his own marriage, and the other from his mother’s, a source of much gossip. He squeezed his fingers till the flesh swelled on either side of the bands, but he didn’t dare swing a punch. The governors of Africa all held the title of Obergruppenführer, with the exception of Hochburg. As the architect of Nazi Africa, he had been elevated to the select position of Oberstgruppenführer. He outranked Globocnik.

“We have an archivist,” said Globus in a more controlled voice. “He’s Jew-friendly, allowed on the Ark. Give me your one’s name and he’ll find the details.”

“I will do it myself. This afternoon.”

A blast of consternation: “Who is this Jew?”

“As I’ve said, that does not concern you. I will also need a helicopter to take me there.”

“You can’t have a Walküre. I need them all to fight the uprising.”

“I understand,” replied Hochburg. “Gunships are essential against boys with stones.” He offered a placating smile. “A Flettner will suffice.”

Globus was twisting his two wedding rings round and round as if trying to unscrew his finger. He rolled his shoulders, sending a ripple of fat down his vest. When he spoke, his words crackled.