Michael Faber looked up at the girl and his thin, scholarly face was cynically amused. But as he studied her there was no amusement in swirling depths of his hunter’s eyes.
“You are an Austrian, are you not?” he asked. His keen ear had placed her faint accent.
A spot of color appeared in the girl’s marble-white cheeks.
“What concern is that of yours?” Michael spread his hands in a careless gesture.
“None at all,” he smiled lazily. “But how, my dear Fratdein, can the Nazis be sure of your fealty, since you are admittedly an Austrian.”
The girl turned furiously to von Bock. Every line of her slim body was rigid with anger.
“This I will not stand. He has questioned my loyalty to the Reich, to our Fuehrer. I will make a report of this incident, Herr Minister.”
“Now, now,” von Bock said soothingly, “we must not lose our tempers and fight among ourselves. The loyalty of both of you is unquestioned.” He rubbed his pudgy hands together. “You have orders for me, Fraulein Kahn, and here we stand, wasting time in bickering.”
The girl squared her slim shoulders.
Her gray eyes were alive against the whiteness of her face.
“Yes, Herr Minister,” she said. Her voice was even and cold. “You are right. My message to you is this: In reprisal for the cowardly assassination of our beloved Reinhardt Heydrich, the village of Lidice will be reduced to dust. The men will be immediately executed, the women sent to concentration camps and the children will become wards of the Third Reich. That is all. The details and arrangements are completely in your hands, Herr Minister.”
Michael Faber lit his pipe thoughtfully and his lean fingers were as steady as rocks.
“Why Lidice?” he asked, squinting upwards through the smoke at the girl. “It’s such a pleasant little town, I’ve always rather liked it.”
“Our Intelligence has discovered that the assassins took refuge there,” the girl answered coldly. “They may still be hiding in the village.”
“They might at that,” Michael said thoughtfully.
“This is delightful,” von Bock said musingly. “This is a fitting reprisal. We will erase the name of Lidice from the rolls of history and from the memory of man. Our dive bombers will leave nothing but a black scar in the earth as a reminder to our enemies of the fate of those who would stand against us. You may take back my message, Fraulein. I will carry out the orders of my Fuehrer to the last detail. Lidice shall avenge the death of Heydrich.”
“Heil Hitler!” Marie Kahn said.
“Heil Hitler!” barked von Bock.
Michael Faber tapped his pipe thoughtfully against his teeth. There was no expression on his lean face but there was a chilling light in the depths of his smouldering, yellow-green eyes.
“Heil Lidice!” he murmured softly under his breath.
Chapter III
On June tenth a strong motorized column roared along the concrete strip of road leading to the village of Lidice. In the lorries were scores of expectantly grinning Nazi storm troopers. Several light tanks brought up the rear of the procession. Above, a V-shaped flight of planes circled lazily against the blue of the late afternoon sky.
At the head of the swiftly moving column in the tonneau of an armored car rode Marshal von Bock and Michael Faber.
“You will see today a practical example of Nazi reprisals,” von Bock said to Michael. “You will see what we can do when our anger is aroused.” The marshal’s hands were clasped comfortably over his protruding stomach and he surveyed the passing countryside with placid, contented eyes. “I think it would be a good idea, Herr Faber, if you would broadcast to the people of America what you will see today. Yes, I think that would be a very good idea.” He turned to the young party Leader seated to his right. “Do you not think that would be a good idea, Captain Mueller?”
Captain Mueller was a heavily built young man with stone-hard features and cropped blond hair. He sat forward on the edge of the seat, his strong brown fingers gripped tightly together.
“Why tell them about it?” he said harshly. His voice was thickly guttural. “They will have first hand experience with our methods very soon.”
“You disagree with me then?” von Bock said mildly.
“And what is your opinion, Herr Faber? After all you are the propaganda expert.”
Michael glanced sideways at the tensely set face of the young captain. There was an amused glint in his eyes.
“I’m afraid I must disagree with our young Captain,” he said. “A thing like the annihilation of Lidice will make a deep impression on our enemies. They will never, never forget it, you may count on that.”
“That is good,” Captain Mueller said.
“That is wonderful,” Michael said quietly.
The motorized column reached the quiet village of Lidice within the half hour. Marshal von Bock’s car rolled through the single main street scattering chickens and occasional live-stock. The remainder of the column stopped at intervals along the dusty road and grim-jawed, heavily armed storm troopers spilled out eagerly.
A child ran screaming into a small cottage and the door was hastily slammed. Frightened, despairing faces were visible occasionally at windows of homes and shops.
“It will soon be over,” von Bock said. He was picking his teeth contentedly. “The roastbrauten was underdone today,” he observed thoughtfully.
Captain Mueller clambered from the car and soon his young strident voice could be heard bawling orders down the line of stopped vehicles.
“I think I’ll take a look,” Michael said. “If I’m to tell the American public about this I shall want to be accurate.”
Von Bock chuckled appreciatively.
Michael stepped from the car and glanced swiftly down the line of lorries. The troopers were entering the houses at the far end of the village; already he could hear the tortured screams of women and children and occasionally the hoarse tragic shout of a man.
His lean face hardened and a merciless light flickered in his strange eyes. This was one more score to settle, one more crime to avenge.
With quick strides he crossed the dusty street and ducked between two buildings. The storm troopers were at the opposite end of the street, working down in his direction.
He ran along the path between the buildings. When he reached the rear of the building he vaulted a fence and climbed the rickety stairs built against the back of the filmsy wooden structure.
At the second landing he paused before a weather-beaten door and knocked rapidly three times. He paused and then knocked twice slowly.
There was silence beyond the door, then a cautious, shuffling step and the door opened a crack. The door was flung open then and Michael stepped quickly into a small room fitted as a laboratory.
A bent, white-haired man sat at a table littered with papers on which designs and mathematical symbols were scrawled. There was dazed, pathetic bewilderment in his mild blue eyes.
The man who had opened the door gripped Michael by the arm. Hot black eyes blazed in his tense face.
“For God’s sake, Michael,” he said, “what is it? The shouts, the screams, the truck loads of troopers. What are the devils up to, now?”
“Their usual trade,” Michael said bitterly. “Murder.” He took the man’s arm. “Paul, I have failed you. I wasn’t able to get here to warn you. Von Bock has stuck to me like a postage stamp this last week. The Nazis are here now to annihilate Lidice in retaliation for that bomb that blew Reinhardt Heydrich to hell.”