"Those men were not just killed," Kaempffer said finally. "They were mutilated!"
"Exactly! Whoever or whatever is doing this is utterly mad! The lives of ten villagers won't mean a thing."
"Why do you say 'whatever'?"
Woermann held Kaempffer's gaze. "I'm not sure. All I know is that the killer comes and goes at will. Nothing we do, no security measure we try, seems to matter."
"Security doesn't work," Kaempffer said, regaining his former bravado as they re-entered the light and the warmth of Woermann's quarters, "because security isn't the answer. Fear is the answer. Make the killer afraid to kill. Make him fear the price others are going to have to pay for his action. Fear is your best security, always."
"And what if the killer is someone like you? What if he doesn't give a damn about the villagers?"
Kaempffer didn't answer.
Woermann decided to press the point. "Your brand of fear fails to work when you run up against your own kind. Take that back to Auschwitz when you go."
"I'll not be returning to Poland, Klaus. When I finish up here—and that should only take me a day or two—I'll be heading south to Ploiesti."
"I can't see any use for you there—no synagogues to burn, only oil refineries."
"Continue making your snide little comments, Klaus," Kaempffer said, nodding his head ever so slightly as he spoke through tight lips. "Enjoy them now. For once I get my Ploiesti project under way, you will not dare to speak to me so."
Woermann sat down behind his rickety desk. He was growing weary of Kaempffer. His eyes were drawn to the picture of his younger son, Fritz, the fifteen-year-old.
"I still fail to see what attraction Ploiesti could hold for the likes of you."
"Not the refineries, I assure you—I leave them to the High Command to worry about."
"Gracious of you."
Kaempffer did not appear to hear. "No, my concern is the railways."
Woermann continued staring at the photo of his son. He echoed Kaempffer: "Railways."
"Yes! The greatest railway nexus in Romania is to be found at Ploiesti, making it the perfect place for a resettlement camp."
Woermann snapped out of his trance and lifted his head. "You mean like Auschwitz?"
"Exactly! That's why the Auschwitz camp is where it is. A good rail network is crucial to efficient transportation of the lesser races to the camps. Petroleum leaves Ploiesti by rail for every part of Romania." He had spread his arms wide; he began to bring them together again. "And from every corner of Romania trains will return with carloads of Jews and Gypsies and all the other human garbage abroad in this land."
"But this isn't occupied territory! You can't—"
"The Führer does not want the undesirables of Romania to be neglected. It's true that Antonescu and the Iron Guard are removing the Jews from positions of influence, but the Führer has a more vigorous plan. It has come to be known in the SS as 'The Romanian Solution.' To implement it, Reichsführer Himmler has arranged with General Antonescu for the SS to show the Romanians how it is done. I have been chosen for that mission. I will be commandant of Camp Ploiesti."
Appalled, Woermann found himself unable to reply as Kaempffer warmed to his subject.
"Do you know how many Jews there are in Romania, Klaus? Seven hundred and fifty thousand at last count. Perhaps a million! No one knows for sure, but once I start an efficient record system, we'll know exactly. But that's not the worst of it—the country is absolutely crawling with Gypsies and Freemasons. And worse yet: Muslims! Two million undesirables in all!"
"If only I had known!" Woermann said, rolling his eyes and pressing his hands against the side of his face. "I never would have set foot in this sinkhole of a country!"
Kaempffer heard him this time. "Laugh if you wish, Klaus, but Ploiesti will be most important. Right now we are transferring Jews all the way from Hungary to Auschwitz at a great waste of time, manpower, and fuel. Once Camp Ploiesti is functioning, I foresee many of them being shipped to Romania. And as commandant, I shall become one of the most important men in the SS ... in the Third Reich! Then it shall be my turn to laugh."
Woermann remained silent. He had not laughed ... he found the whole idea sickening. Facetiousness was his only defense against a world coming under the control of madmen, against the realization that he was an officer in the army that was enabling them to achieve that control. He watched Kaempffer begin to coil back and forth about the room again.
"I didn't know you were a painter," the major said, stopping before the easel as if seeing it for the first time. He studied it a moment in silence. "Perhaps if you had spent as much time ferreting out the killer as you obviously have on this morbid little painting, some of your men might—"
"Morbid! There's nothing at all morbid about that painting!"
"The shadow of a corpse hanging from a noose—is that cheerful?"
Woermann was on his feet, approaching the canvas. "What are you talking about?"
Kaempffer pointed. "Right there... on the wall."
Woermann stared. At first he saw nothing. The shadows on the wall were the same mottled gray he had painted days ago. There was nothing that even faintly resembled ... no, wait. He caught his breath. To the left of the window in which the village sat gleaming in the sunrise ... a thin vertical line connecting to a larger dark shape below it. It could be seen as a hunched corpse hanging from a rope. He vaguely remembered painting the line and the shape, but in no way had he intended to add this gruesome touch to the work. He could not bear, however, to give Kaempffer the satisfaction of hearing him admit that he saw it, too.
"Morbidity, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder."
But Kaempffer's mind was already moving elsewhere. "It's lucky for you the painting's finished, Klaus. After I've moved in, I'll be much too busy to allow you to come up here and fiddle with it. But you can resume after I'm on my way to Ploiesti."
Woermann had been waiting for this, and was ready for it. "You're not moving into my quarters."
"Correction: my quarters. You seem to forget that I outrank you, Captain."
Woermann sneered. "SS rank! Worthless! Worse than meaningless. My sergeant is four times the soldier you are! Four times the man, too!"
"Be careful, Captain. That Iron Cross you received in the last war will carry you only so far!"
Woermann felt something snap inside him. He pulled the black-enameled, silver-bordered Maltese cross from his tunic and held it out to Kaempffer. "You don't have one! And you never will! At least not a real one—one like this, without a nasty little swastika at its center!"
"Enough!"
"No, not enough! Your SS kills helpless civilians—women, children! I earned this medal Fighting men who were able to shoot back. And we both know," Woermann said, his voice dropping to a fierce whisper, "how much you dislike an enemy who shoots back!"
Kaempffer leaned forward until his nose was barely an inch from Woermann's. His blue eyes gleamed in the white fury of his face. "The Great War ... that is all past. This is the Great War—my war. The old war was your war, and it's dead and gone and forgotten!"
Woermann smiled, delighted that he had finally penetrated Kaempffer's loathsome hide. "Not forgotten. Never forgotten. Especially your bravery at Verdun!"
"I'm warning you," Kaempffer said. "I'll have you—" And then he closed his mouth with an audible snap.