“Oster has proven smuggling routes to Switzerland,” Locard said. “I’ve been helping him to get Jews out of Germany for years. The job has become difficult now that the French police have enthusiastically joined in Hitler’s cause. Captain Petain and many others like him are going well beyond what’s required by rounding up minors and mothers with small children. I asked for Oster’s help getting Rosette and the children out of France.”
“What was the plan?”
“First, we were going to Vittel to secure Sophia’s release from Frontstalag 194, then we planned to take them to a mineral processing plant in the Jura Mountains. After that, I don’t know. For Rosette’s safety, the less we know, the better. Talk to Oster. See what he can offer.”
“You trust him?”
“Rosette wouldn’t have been the first Jewish woman I’ve gotten out of France.” Locard reached into his pocket and pulled out his watch. He opened the watch and pried open a well-camouflaged door on the lid. He offered the watch to Hiram, not taking his eyes off the image of the woman inside.
“Who is she?” Hiram asked.
“She was supposed to be my wife,” he said. He pulled back the watch but didn’t cover up her picture. “I think our parents had written off the idea of either of us getting married. We were planning to tell them. Of course, at our age neither of us planned to have children.” He rubbed the bottom edge of the gold frame, then closed the lid and returned the watch to his pocket. “I trust him.” Locard stepped out of the room. No one stopped him.
Oster sipped a cup of tea in the parlor. Agnes stood in the doorway, leaning on the frame with her M22 held ready. She watched the German as if she expected him to turn into a horned beast at any moment.
Hiram touched her on the shoulder and she seemed to relax a little. He signaled for her to step out of the room. She looked from Hiram to Oster and nodded before leaving.
“Locard thinks you can help us get the prisoners out of France, maybe get them across the Swiss border,” Hiram said.
“I’d hardly call the women you have here prisoners,” Oster said, setting the teacup down on the table beside his chair.
“Not them. There’s a train headed this way from Drancy. We anticipate two to three hundred Jewish prisoners on board. Do you think you can move them through the mineral processing plant, the way you planned to take Rosette?”
“Three hundred you say.” He looked up at the ceiling, tapped his fingers on his knee as if trying to count them up in his head. “If we factor in the number of children, elderly, and possibly sick, you are looking at a high mortality rate just to move them the first hundred or so kilometers.”
“The mortality rate is a hell of a lot higher in one of the concentration camps,” Hiram said.
Oster nodded. “I can’t make any arrangements without a conversation with my contacts. From what I’ve seen here, especially the exquisite weapons your soldiers are carrying, we may have another option.”
A short time later, Hiram, Locard, and Oster sat around the table in the kitchen. Agnes stood watch in the doorway, listening for any indication of trouble outside the room. They asked the Benoit’s to stay in their bedroom upstairs. Rosette played with her son in the front yard. Hiram’s remaining soldiers kept watch on the house, both inside and out. A few had taken up positions just beyond the tree line at the edge of the farmer’s property.
“We can end this war before the train reaches its destination,” the German said.
“How?” Hiram asked.
“We eliminate Hitler and his command staff, then seize power in Berlin and other major centers using the Ersatzheer. You might know it as the Replacement Army. Highly placed comrades are in position throughout the German Army, ready to command the Ersatzheer. Many German officers believe America’s entry into the war makes our eventual defeat inevitable. The recent destruction of Saarbrücken should bring more of them over to that belief.”
Hiram recalled the general outlines of Operation Valkyrie and it hadn’t turned out well. Hitler had been lucky to survive Von Stauffenberg’s bomb at the Wolf’s Lair. In retaliation, all the conspirators had been snuffed out. But I have much bigger bombs.
“Hitler is closely guarded, which has been a problem all along,” Oster continued. “I’d guess the destruction of Saarbrücken will only increase the number of guards on watch.”
“Can you get your hands on his schedule?”
“I have contacts on Field Marshal von Rundstedt’s staff that can,” Oster said.
“What do we need to do?”
“Get me to OB West headquarters outside Paris.”
39
0700 hours, Saturday, August 15, 1942, Vittel, Vosges Department, Occupied France
Louis Petain rarely used his granduncle’s patronage to secure cooperation from such a valuable asset as the Gendarmerie, the French military police. But, the current fiasco’s high stakes deemed the use of his family’s influence to secure passage for himself and thirty-nine of his best men aboard a French Air Force Farman F.224 transport. The plane landed at an airfield south of Nancy, where Petain and his men boarded a train to Pont-Saint-Vincent, the northern end of the rail line serving Camp Vittel, at least since the allied bombers had destroyed the bridge across the Moselle River north of the town. The same train his men rode in now would be used to pick up the prisoners at the camp.
When they arrived at Frontstalag 194, his men took their places among the prisoners, along with the families of the troublesome escaped maids, and began to board the train. Over two hundred Jewish girls had been added to the roster of those headed east. At the front of the train, a French National Railway locomotive, operated by the engineer and his young assistant, pulled a coal tender and a passenger coach with ten officers from the camp’s guard force. Two French railway men occupied the caboose. They monitored the train’s status from the rear and were prepared to assist if the train needed to be backed down the rail line.
As soon as the single door to the boxcar was closed, Petain directed his men to chain ten of the adult male prisoners in place across the door opening, forming a human barrier for his men to hide behind when the door was opened. Ten Jewish adults and teenagers, plus thirty younger children, mostly girls, huddled at either end of the boxcar, as far from the policemen as possible. The nine trailing cattle cars held a similar complement of passengers.
0815 hours, Saturday, August 15, 1942, Suriauville, Vosges Department, Occupied France
The train braked hard, steel wheels squealing on the iron rails. Captain Petain reached out to steady himself. Without a good handhold, he lost his footing and went down to his knees. He wasn’t the only one to fall. So soon? We can’t be more than ten or fifteen kilometers from the station. How did they get so far north so quickly?
He picked himself up off the floor, shouting, “Get ready,” to his men.
His men regained their footing and took up positions behind the ten adult prisoners blocking the sliding door opening on the left side of the cattle car. The train jerked twice more and rolled to a stop. A few pops of gunfire came from near the engine. “Fire as soon as you have a target,” Petain said, speaking to both the men in the car and into the radio mouthpiece wired to the young operator’s backpack. The radio operator darted to the rear corner of the car as the door slid open.