Quatsch! Nonsense! Traitorous nonsense. And they had the audacity to paint slogans on official buildings. “NIEDER MIT HITLER! — Down with Hitler!”
The two Scholls had been caught distributing subversive leaflets. But even the Gestapo, despite all the methods of persuasion at their disposal, had not been able to make them betray their comrades. In the end they were, of course, all captured. The White Rose came to a well-deserved end, withering at the end of a rope….
Had the infection spread? Was a seditious Widerstandsgruppe active in his area?
He was suddenly aware of what he was staring at out the window. A group of laborers unloading supplies from a train. He counted the SS guards. Mentally he nodded. Sufficient. He saw one of them inspect a worker's elbow. Good. They were following his orders to spot-check everyone who might fit the description of one of the enemy saboteurs. He suddenly frowned. It was not enough.
He turned back to Reichardt and Obersturmf¨hrer Rauner, who was watching him raptly.
“Very well, Herr Professor,” he said, a tone of dismissal in his voice. “For the time being I shall allow you to operate in your own way”.
He started for the door. He stopped. Rauner had sprung to his feet.
“Just one thing, Herr Professor,” Harbicht said “For security reasons, I am ordering a program of scatter raids. Throughout the entire area. Random arrests of individuals and groups. Totally unexpected, of course. They will be mounted against foreign workers for the most part, although Germans will not be immune. I regret that it may, of course, interfere with your work schedule to some extent. I will have to hold the prisoners for a while. For — interrogation purposes. But I am confident you will find a way to cope with this necessary inconvenience.” He turned from the professor. “It should not interfere with the work in the reactor caves for which you are solely responsible.”
He turned on his heel and marched from the room.
2
Sig was deeply disturbed. He hurried down the street toward the Storp house It seemed to him that the whole mission was falling apart. What he had just seen did not dispel his foreboding.
They had not a prayer of destroying the reactor — and the Gestapo was hot on their trail, with information about them that was uncanny in its accuracy. Dirk's elbow. Obviously they knew exactly what to look for. The near-miss at Haigerloch two days ago proved it. It had to be Eichler. The man hadn't been at the railroad yard for his health. They had agreed on that. It was a relief to figure out how the Gestapo knew — but it did not make Eichler's betrayal less disastrous. It did, however, make it too risky for Dirk to be out more than was absolutely necessary.
But it did not stop him.
They had to have more information, he'd insisted. And more. Information is what makes the war go around, he'd said. And information is what'll give us the key to the job we have to do. Not only information about the immediate Project area at Haigerloch, but the whole damned complex supporting it.
Early that morning, he, Sig, had joined the stream of workers flowing through the streets of Hechingen. He pedaled along astride an old lady's bicycle with high handlebars. He had felt ridiculous, but he had not been alone in his undignified position. People used whatever was available. He'd had no other choice anyway. He couldn't walk, and their own bikes had long since been destroyed in the fiery truck crash. Dirk had lost Otto's bike at the railroad switching yard. The only one they could round up had been the old lady's bike kept in a shed at Anna's place.
He'd cycled all around the area, trying whenever possible to blend in with other riders bent on their own pursuits.
He had been enormously impressed.
The Haigerloch Project was backed up by a gigantic machinery of resources Seemingly unlimited manpower — housed in huge camps. Factories, tall chimneys, refineries and plants whose functions he could only guess at crammed the region. Motor pools, fields of storage tanks and depots filled with stacks of matériel….
How? How in the name of Joseph and Maria could they ever hope to counteract all that?
He felt depressed. The problem seemed insurmountable to him. Damn this whole lousy business anyway….
He rounded the corner into a side street. It was already late in the afternoon, but ahead he could make out the little park and across from it the Storp house. There were a few other pedestrians abroad. He walked quickly. Almost there….
Suddenly the nerve-grating screech of tortured tires knifed through the quiet. A Wehrmacht truck came skidding around the corner, sped to the middle of the block and careened to a halt. A dozen SS troops spilled from the back and immediately began to round up every man within reach, shouting and gun-gesturing.
Sig was taken completely by surprise. He found himself staring at a grim-faced soldier moving him toward the truck, a submachine gun pointed at his gut.
Stunned, he obeyed. His legs were leaden. All of a sudden a remark he'd heard back at Milton Hall leaped into his mind….
If your own teammate is taken — kill him! Or he will kill you!
Oh, God — no…
He was pushed up against the truck. Around him stood half a dozen white-faced men, staring uncomprehendingly at their captors.
One of the soldiers pointed to a man cowering next to Sig, trembling with fear.
“You!” he barked “Go! Get away from here! Los!”
The man jerked in astonishment. He stared at the soldier. Slowly, not taking his widespread eyes from the SS man, he began to back away.
“Los!” the soldier barked.
The man ran down the street. Sig looked after him. He had been the only one among them who was elderly, perhaps in his fifties….The rest—
Roughly the remaining captives were herded up onto the truck, covered by the SS soldiers. And as quickly as it had appeared, the truck roared off with its load of prisoners.
As they passed the Storp house, Sig cast a glance of despair toward it.
In the window, where the blackout curtain had been drawn slightly aside, he could see a pale, immobile face staring after him.
Gisela….
Oskar almost ran along the darkened street in his hurry to get home His head was awhirl with the troubling rumors he had heard at the yard He must warn his friends at once….
As soon as he entered the house, he knew that something was dreadfully wrong.
A chalk-faced Gisela and a grim Dirk were waiting for him.
Sig had been arrested.
Quickly they told him what Gisela had seen.
“They — they came for him,” she whispered.
Oskar was shaken. “No,” he said slowly. “No, they did not. I came to tell you about it. He was caught. By chance. In a terror raid.” He looked solemnly at Dirk. “I heard about it. At the yard. Some crews of foreign workers were short. The Gestapo has begun a program of haphazard raids. Anywhere. Anyone. It is rumored that they hope to catch two enemy spies.” He looked gravely at Dirk. “You. And Sig. They know about you. They will interrogate everyone they catch in their net Until they find their men….”
He would have been dead, Dirk thought darkly, if he had been caught carrying a gun. As I wanted him to do. Corny was right Absent-mindedly he rubbed his elbow. Had it been he…
He felt the anxiety as a leaden yoke on his shoulders. Sig…
“Already the local jail is full,” Oskar went on. “They are taking the men they round up to the Gestapo prison in T¨bingen. Twenty-five kilometers to the north. It is a very strong prison.”