Margarete thanked her uncle and said, yes, she would like some lessons. Impulsively, she hugged him. He might be a pompous fool, but he loved her.
Aunt Bertha began to sob loudly. “This sort of thing never would have happened if Hitler was still alive.”
Colonel Ernst Varner recoiled in horror at the sight of the skeletal creatures on the hospital beds. There were five of them and they were all naked except for small white cloths that covered their genitals, and were hooked up to machines and tubes. Their skins were blotched and covered with raw wounds. They were almost totally bald.
Varner was wearing a hospital gown and a mask. He had gloves on and had been told to touch nothing. He had no intention of coming in contact with anything in this chamber of horrors.
“These are the dead,” Heisenberg said. “Even though they still breathe and can sometimes speak, they are as dead as if they had been buried a month ago. In a short while, days or weeks, they will stop breathing and be buried in very deep graves by people who, just like you, will be afraid to touch them. They were good men and women.”
“Women?” Varner was momentarily incredulous. There was nothing that would indicate that any of the patients ever had a gender.
“Yes, women. Some of our best scientists are women.”
“What happened?” Varner asked.
Heisenberg laughed bitterly. “Herr Himmler wants haste and this is the price we pay for it. These were not the first, nor will they be the last. We are now discovering the lingering effects of radiation. As discussed earlier, there was some hope that radiation burns could be treated just like any other burns, but we’ve found to our horror that radiation is terribly different. It is a sickness that eats at the body like a cancer or leprosy. Sometimes, the body is strong enough and the infection weak enough that a patient will live. However, the survivor will carry scars for the rest of his life, even though the scars might be invisible.”
“What a terrible way to die,” Varner said after they’d left the sealed-off clinic.
“Is there a good way?”
“And this is from careless handling of radioactive material?”
Heisenberg glared at him. “Colonel, I resent the use of the word careless. The Reichsfuhrer required haste above all and that meant the relaxing of safety standards that should have been kept because we were, and still are, ignorant of what we are dealing with. At least we are no longer in Berlin where these horrors might be unleashed on the city.”
As a result of the possibility of a premature explosion, the scientific facilities had been moved well to the east and were now in the outskirts of Breslau, near the Polish border. Himmler felt that an accidental explosion destroying Breslau could be blamed on the Russians. Varner had been appalled by the callous attitude, but grudgingly agreed that Himmler was right. However, this situation with radiation put Heisenberg’s bomb in a whole new perspective. Even though he was not a scientist, Varner could visualize a bomb exploding in a city and thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of civilians, condemned to a horrible lingering death like the five living corpses before him.
More logically, developing the bomb at Breslau meant that it would be several hundred miles closer to its target, Moscow.
“Does Himmler know about the radiation sickness dilemma?”
Heisenberg winced. “He has been informed and sees no dilemma. He had Skorzeny tell me that anything that kills the enemies of the Reich in any way and no matter how long it takes is a successful device.”
“When will it be ready?” Varner asked. He wasn’t certain he wanted to know the answer. Never would have satisfied him, but they knew that Heisenberg’s life and the lives of the scientist’s loved ones, along with his staff’s, were hostage to Himmler. Perhaps the dying were martyrs and not victims.
“Spring should see it finished. When the thaw comes and the flowers bloom and the world becomes alive again, Skorzeny will be able to move the damned thing, although I really have no idea how he plans to do that. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Just get it over with.”
Varner took his leave of the harassed physicist. He had been sent to Breslau by von Rundstedt to get a true picture of the situation regarding the atomic bomb. Rundstedt didn’t entirely trust the reports he was getting from Himmler and Albert Speer.
Varner now wished the field marshal had sent someone else. This atomic bomb, if it worked, was the devil’s brew and anyone associated with it would be damned. He would report about the lingering effects of radiation to von Rundstedt.
Perhaps Rundstedt could get Himmler to reconsider using it on the Russians, or anyone for that matter? Perhaps he could get the Reichsfuhrer to agree to a test or a demonstration to show to the Reds and the Americans just what power the Third Reich possessed?
He shook his head sadly. It was more likely that Hitler would come back to life than that Himmler would show mercy to anyone, especially the Soviets. Dear God, he thought, visualizing the living cadavers, what a hell of a turn of events.
Private Wally Feeney stood at attention. Morgan was seated behind a table and Feeney was staring intently at an invisible spot on the canvas wall behind him. The soldier did not look in the slightest bit cowed or concerned. The man was twenty-six and had been drafted recently when standards had been relaxed. He said he had bad feet which had previously kept him out of the military. In Morgan’s opinion, Feeney also had a bad attitude. However, the man decently did his job as a half-track driver under Jack’s command.
“Private Feeney, you are accused of fraternization with the enemy. How do you plead and what do you have to say for yourself?”
This was Jack’s first time as judge and jury and he wasn’t quite sure what to do. Levin and Whiteside had briefed him, but it wasn’t the same. Nor was the crime all that serious.
“What the hell can I say, sir? I got caught and that’s that.”
“You were having sex with a German woman.”
“Yes sir, she had just sucked my dick and I had paid her for it.”
Morgan sighed. This was not going at all well. “That’s against orders.”
“The nonfraternization rule is dumb, sir. With all due respects, sir, what the hell is wrong with getting screwed or sucked by somebody who wants to do it? And I didn’t force her to do anything, even though the krauts are supposed to be conquered people.”
Ah, an opening. “Last I checked, Feeney, Germany hadn’t surrendered. What if she was one of those fanatical Werewolves we’ve been hearing about? You know, those people who want to go on killing and fighting? What if she had decided to clamp down on your Johnson and leave you singing soprano?”
Feeney laughed. “Then my buddies would have stomped the shit out of her, sir. We ain’t that dumb. We were all looking out for each other.”
This was getting worse and worse, Jack thought. “There were others?”
“Sir, there were four of us. The only reason I couldn’t get away is that I was, well, occupied. Hell, sir, that’s why she was sucking instead of fucking. She said there were too many of us for her to fuck. And, oh yeah, sir, I ain’t gonna give you their names.”
Jack tried not to smile at the mental picture that had emerged. “Feeney, I sense that you’re not too concerned about all this.”
“No sir, I’m not. Look, you’re supposed to be one of the good guys, so can I speak frankly?”
“I thought you already were,” Jack said dryly. “But go ahead.”
“I already said the rule is dumb, so I won’t repeat myself. But let’s get real. You’re going to chew me out and then threaten me with punishment. But what can you do? You can’t threaten to send me to combat because I’m already there. How about permanent KP? Hey, that’d get me out of combat, so that’s a great idea. Loss of rank? I’m a private. Loss of money? I get paid shit and have no way to spend what I do have. Stockade time? The crime ain’t serious enough and, besides, if you sent everybody you caught nailing German pussy to jail we wouldn’t have an army no more.”