Striking the Balance

“You can’t be thinking of going by yourself,” Jager exclaimed. “If the Jews do have it”-he didn’t know himself, not for sure-“they’ll turn you into ablutwurst quick as boiled asparagus.” The classics sometimes came in handy in the oddest ways.

Skorzeny shook his head again. “You’re wrong, Jager. It’ll be a-what do the RAF bastards call it? — a piece of cake, that’s what. There’s a cease-fire on, remember? Even if the kikes have stolen the bomb, they won’t be guarding it real hard. Why should they? They won’t know we know they’ve got it, because they can’t figure we’d try and set it off in the middle of a truce.” His leer had most of its old force back. “Of course not. We’re good little boys and girls, right? Except for one thing: I’m not a good little boy.”

“Mm, I’d noticed that,” Jager said dryly. Now Skorzeny’s laugh was full of his wicked vinegar-he recovered fast. He was also damned good at thinking on his feet; every word he said sounded reasonable. “When are you leaving?”

“Soon as I change clothes, get some rations, and take care of a couple of things here,” the SS man answered. “If the bomb goes up, it’ll give those scaly sons of bitches a kick in the teeth they’ll remember for a long time.” In absurdly coquettish fashion, he fluttered his fingers at Jager and tramped away.

From the cupola of the Panther, Jager stared after him. With his unit on full battle alert, how the devil was he supposed to get away and get word to Mieczyslaw so he could pass it on to Anielewicz by whatever roundabout route he used? The answer was simple, and stared Jager in the face: he couldn’t. But if he didn’t, he worried not just about thousands of Jews going up in a toadstool-shaped cloud of dust, but also about Germany. Whatwould the Lizards visit on theVaterland for touching off an atomic bomb during a truce? Jager didn’t know. He didn’t want to find out, either.

From down in the turret of the Panther, Gunther Grillparzer said, “No show today after all, Colonel?”

“Doesn’t look that way,” Jager answered, and then took a chance by adding, “Can’t say I’m sorry, either.”

To his surprise, Grillparzer said, “Amen!” The gunner seemed to think some kind of explanation was needed there, for he went on, “I hold no brief for kikes, mind you, sir, but it ain’t like they’re our number-one worry right now, you know what I mean? It’s the Lizards I really want to boot in the arse, not them. They’re all going to hell anyway, so I don’t hardly have to worry about ’em.”

“Corporal, as far as I’m concerned, they can sew red stripes on your trousers and put you on the General Staff,” Jager told him. “I think you’ve got better strategic sense than most of our top planners, and that’s a fact.”

“If I do, then God help Germany,” Grillparzer said, and laughed.

“God help Germany,” Jager agreed, and didn’t.

The rest of the day passed in lethargic anticlimax. Jager and his crew climbed out of their Panther with nothing but relief: you rolled the dice every time you went up against the Lizards, and sooner or later snake eyes stared back at you. Sometime during the afternoon, Otto Skorzeny disappeared. Jager pictured him slouching toward Lodz, a pack on his back, and very likely makeup over the famous scar. Could he hide that devilish gleam in his eye with makeup, too? Jager had his doubts.

Johannes Drucker disappeared for a while, too, but he came back in triumph, with enough kielbasa for everybody’s supper that night. “Give that man a Knight’s Cross!” Gunther Grillparzer exclaimed. Turning to Jager, he said with a grin, “If you’re going to put me on the General Staff, sir, I might as well enjoy myself,nicht wahr?”

“Warum denn nicht?”Jager said. “Why not?”

As twilight deepened, they got a fire going and stuck a pot over it to boil the sausage. The savory steam rising from the pot made Jager’s mouth water. When he heard approaching footsteps, he expected them to come from the crew of another panzer, drawn by the smell and hoping to get their share of meat.

But the men coming up to the cookfire weren’t in panzer black, they were in SS black.So Maxi and his friends aren’t above scrounging, Jager thought, amused. Then Maxi drew a Walther from his holster and pointed it at Jager’s midsection. The SS men with him also took out their pistols, covering the rest of the startled panzer crewmen.

“You will come with me immediately, Colonel, or I will shoot you down on the spot,” Maxi said. “You are under arrest for treason against theReich.”