Farther out was the high barbed-wire fencing. He could see the guardhouses flanking the boom, barricading the entrance, and the patrolling SS soldiers. Even as he was watching, a staff car was being cleared through the checkpoint. It drove to the large white inn and he saw two SS officers dismount and briskly walk into the building….
They had almost finished the unloading. Dirk and another worker were heaving a heavy crate up on the stack. Momentarily the man lost his footing, and in an effort to steady himself without letting go of the crate, he banged his elbow into the sharp corner of a crate. He swore a lusty oath. He began to rub his elbow, the left one, as he walked away.
Suddenly one of the SS guards leveled his gun at him.
“You there!” he shouted. “Come here!”
The worker walked over to him.
“Roll up your sleeve. The left arm!” the SS man ordered.
The worker looked puzzled. Since when was an SS guard even remotely concerned with the injury of a foreign worker? He began to push up his sleeve.
“Is fine,” he said. “Only little—”
“Maul halten!” the guard snapped. “Shut your mouth! Let me see your elbow!”
The worker complied.
One of the other SS guards, observing, motioned to another worker.
“You!” he called. “Over here! Roll up your left sleeve!”
Dirk was watching. He felt his legs grow limp. His heart pounded in his throat. The two workers summoned by the guards were of the same age. The same build. The same coloring. His!
They knew!
They were spot-checking.
He turned his back to the guards. He did not want to meet their eyes. He began pushing at the crate stack, aligning it. His left arm suddenly burned with pain. He resisted the overpowering urge to rub it. Any second he expected a rough voice to summon him. The skin on his back crawled….
Sig watched the guards in horror, heard their commands. He felt himself go cold. If they challenged Dirk….
Frantically his eyes searched for Oskar. There! At the railroad car. He wanted to run to him. But he did not. He walked over.
“Oskar!” he whispered with hoarse urgency. “Get us out of here! Now! They are on to Dirk!”
Oskar started. His eyes grew wide. He shot a quick glance toward Dirk at the stack of crates. He pulled a big whistle from his pocket and gave a shrill blast.
“Los-los-los!” he shouted. “Let's go! Quickly! Back to work. We're behind schedule! Los!”
As the laborers began to climb onto the railroad cars, the SS guards took up the cry.
“Schnell” they shouted. “On the cars! Move!”
The men piled on. Dirk ran for the car with Sig. The guards took up their posts — and the cars, empty of freight, slowly began rolling along the branch-line tracks out of the Haigerloch security area.
Dirk felt sick to his stomach. He did not know how. He did not know how much….
But — they knew!
As soon as the SS guards dropped off the train at the barbed-wire perimeter, he rubbed the scar on his elbow. Rubbed and rubbed and rubbed….
The air in the conference room at Gasthof Schwan literally crackled with antagonism. Tight-lipped, Professor Dieter Reichardt glared at the two Gestapo officers seated with him at the big table. Normally he considered himself an easy-going man. Slow to anger. He did not relish personal conflict and avoided it whenever he could. But this was too much. Verflucht! Did he not have to contend with enough problems without being saddled with the insufferable interference of a high-handed Gestapo colonel? Had he not been as much as ordered by the Führerhauptquartier to achieve final and complete success? With time cut to the bone — in fact, scraping it raw — and in the process straining to the breaking point the nerves of every one of his colleagues — risky short-cuts and hazardous procedures had already been adopted in order to meet the deadline Intolerable delays were already occurring. The shipment of vital materials from the Kernphysik laboratories at Stadtilm was still sitting on the railroad siding outside, waiting for security to complete the screening of every single man who would be handling the transfer from the boxcar to the caves. Preposterous! And now this — this obnoxious Gestapo upstart wanted to place his verdammte watchdogs inside the reactor caves! Getting in everyone's way. Inhibiting progress by their very presence. Causing unacceptable delays with their snooping. Outrageous! In no way was he willing to surrender his authority over the Project. When it succeeded, his would be the glory. Not to be shared with this — this boor. He would tolerate only a minimum of interference.
He fixed his cold eyes on Harbicht. “I must insist, Herr Standartenführer,” he stated deliberately. “It cannot be allowed.”
“May I point out to you, Herr Professor—” Harbicht's voice was dangerously low—“the Führer has charged the Gestapo with the security at Haigerloch. And I command the Gestapo.”
“The Führer had also charged me, Herr Standartenführer, with developing a process which may well be of cardinal importance to the survival of the Reich!” He looked straight at Harbicht, an icy gleam of anticipated triumph in his eyes. “However, should you personally wish to take the responsibility for possible failure because of unwarranted interference by your men — feel free to place as many of them as you see fit in the reactor chambers.” He made a slight bow with his head. “I shall, of course, require a written statement to that effect from you.”
Harbicht clamped his jaws shut. He seethed. Abruptly he stood up. He walked to the window and stared out — without seeing. He needed a moment to get control of himself. That insolent, self-important test-tube polisher had bested him. Him! Standartenführer Werner Harbicht He raged at having left himself open to such humiliation It was no excuse that he knew the reason why. For the first time in his career, he was not completely sure of himself and his invincibility. He was convinced that two enemy agents were holed up in his area. Enemies — on German soil! And he had been unable to apprehend them. In nine full days! Because failure was utterly foreign to him, it unnerved him. He did not know how to cope with it.
He was struck with a sudden thought. Those saboteurs. It seemed impossible that they could have eluded him this long — without local help. Was there a Widerstandsgruppe—a resistance group — active in this area?
Like the Kreisaur Circle, built around the traitor Helmuth, Count von Moltke? Daring to call the National Socialist movement a “recipe for disaster”! Von Moltke, of course, had been executed. Only this last January….
Or the group of traitors with the code name Die Weisse Rose—The White Rose?
That case still made him uncomfortable. It had been a great embarrassment for the Munich Gestapo chief, a good friend and competent officer….
The group members had been students at the Maximilians University in Munich. He still remembered their names. Probst. Graf. Schmorell. And, of course, the Scholls, the leaders, Sophie and Hans. Brother and sister. And their advisor, the Herr Professor Huber. Germans all. Disgusting! Their underground propaganda sheet had been filled with lies. About Stalingrad. About Poles being murdered in Warsaw. Hate propaganda. “Der Tag der Abrechnung ist gekommen! — the day of reckoning is here!” they had written. “Die Weisse Rose lässt Euch keine Ruhe—the White Rose will not leave you in peace!”