The Haigerloch Project

Reed cleared his throat. “The task force will be designated T-Force A, sir,” he replied. “It will be commanded by Colonel Boris T. Pash under General Devers, Commanding General of the Sixth Army Group. Twenty-first Corps is to provide two mobile infantry battalions and one armored cavalry squadron, as well as other support as may be needed. An Alsos combat unit will be attached to the T-Force with the direct mission of capturing any possible atomic reactor and German research scientists in the area. One infantry company will be assigned to the specific duty of providing security for this scientific unit. General Devers has designated General Harrison to accompany the T-Force as his personal representative. The operation will be a spearhead attack directly on the Hechingen-Haigerloch area.”

He pulled a sheaf of papers from his briefcase. “Here are the orders, sir.”

McKinley took the papers. He added them to the HARBORAGE file. He would need them at his meeting with Stimson and Marshall.

“I shall recommend that the operation be approved,” he said. He looked at Reed “When is D-Day for mounting it?” he asked.

“Jump-off date is twenty April, sir. It is expected that Haigerloch will be entered on the twenty-fourth.”

“April twenty-fourth,” McKinley said. “Three weeks. We should be in no trouble.”

4

Five days!

Could he hold out that long?

In five days it would make no difference, one way or another. The final test at Haigerloch would have been successfully concluded — or Dirk would have found a way to wreck it. What he did then, what they made him confess then, could do little harm.

Five days. And nights…

Sig stood in the cold, drab office of the Gestapo jail in Tübingen, watching the SS officer behind the desk engrossed in the contents of a voluminous file folder. A nagging headache throbbed in his temples. He had not slept at all during the night. He had been placed in a tiny, glaringly lighted cell that stank of putrefaction and stale urine. No one had said a word to him.

At first he had thought he and the others had been picked up by sheer chance. In a dragnet. His captors had taken his papers — all his belongings — from him. He hoped the Moles back in London were as good as they claimed to be. He knew there had been nothing to connect him with Oskar or the Storp house. But now — as he stood in the dismal office, doubts began to gnaw at him. Had it been completely by chance? The Gestapo already knew a great deal about him. And Dirk. Did they know about the safe house? Or — at least that it was located in that particular neighborhood? Was that why the men had been picked up on that particular street? His legs began to tremble. The questions boiled in his mind.

He stared at the SS officer, who was seemingly oblivious to him. What was in that file the man was examining? What kind of information did he have? How much did he already know? He seemed to have been studying the papers for an eternity.

Five days. What horrors did they hold for him?

Obersturmführer Franz Rauner was enjoying himself. He had been in a foul mood when he arrived at the prison in Tübingen early that morning. The short drive from Hechingen had been miserable. It was raining, and a stretch of the road had been all but impassable where an enemy terror-bomber for God knew what reason had dropped a stick. The mud had been hubcap deep.

Yet he was pleased that Harbicht had placed him in charge of the preliminary screening of the subjects rounded up in the Hechingen scatter raids. It was the first real responsibility the Standartenführer had delegated to him since he became his aide Rauner meant to show his superior what he could do. He had, for instance, some very specific ideas on how to break a man quickly. And economically. He was anxious to try them out.

The trick was — let them do most of the job themselves, before the interrogator took over in earnest. Interrogation by silence. That's how he liked to think of it. It was rather clever, he felt. Give the suspect every chance to let his own imagination conjure up a myriad possible horrors, a myriad reasons why he was lost.

That much he had learned from Harbicht. But he had thought up his own little refinements.