The Double Agents (Men at War 6)

Schrader made eye contact, pursed his lips, and nodded. He returned to his leather chair, sat, and sipped at his coffee slowly and thoughtfully.

He knew that Kappler was of course privy to all of the secret SS operations on Sicily and that these included Müller and the plans for chemical and biological weapons.

For one, Kappler was the supervising officer of the SS major—Hans Müller, a high-strung twenty-eight-year-old with a violent temper matching, if not surpassing, that of Hitler—who was in charge of the Palermo SS field office and its operations.

Near Palermo, in an ancient seaside villa, the SS was advancing the Nazi experimentation—begun in the Dachau concentration camp—of injecting Sicilian prisoners with extract from mosquito mucous glands to keep alive a strain of yellow fever. That was to say, until the sickened hosts died of malaria. Then new hosts—often members of the Mafia brought in from the penal colonies that had been established on tiny outer islands just north of Sicily—were infected with the disease that the SS had imported.

For another, Kappler was aware—although Müller as yet was not—that shipments had begun of crates labeled SONDERKART.6LE.F.H.18 T83 that contained 10.5cm howitzer shells. These were not the usual ack-ack antiaircraft munitions for firing from the Nazi’s light field howitzers. These rounds contained the chemical agent code-named T83 that attacked the human central nervous system.

Commonly called Tabun, the German-developed chemical was one of the easiest to produce on a massive scale and was efficient to a horrific level. Mostly odorless and colorless, it quickly caused its victims to have convulsions, restricted breathing, triggered loss of bowel control—and, ultimately, loss of heartbeat.

Death by Tabun was relatively swift…but intensely painful and gruesome.

Kappler knew that Müller was not aware of the Tabun munitions, nor that a first shipment was already in the Port of Palermo, aboard a cargo ship, mixed in with other military goods and listed on the manifest, more or less innocuously, by its code name.

Müller did not know because Kappler had decided not to tell him until he thought it was necessary to do so.

In short, Kappler had told Schrader, he did not trust the hothead with knowledge—let alone control—of such a powerful weapon and Schrader quietly had concurred.

After a moment, Kappler asked, “What do you have to say about that, Juli?”

Schrader leaned back in the leather chair, staring at the coffee cup, and with an index finger slowly rotated the cup on the saucer as he considered it all.

How do I agree, Schrader thought, without encouraging Oskar to take one step too far, to act on a “different course” perhaps too soon?

He sighed.

“I will allow that what you say is conceivable—” he began.

“Ach du leiber Gott!” Kappler flared. Dramatically, he raised his hands heavenward, palms up, and looked upward, as if seeking divine input. “Of course it is, Juli! And that is why I speak of this with you, my friend, so that wise men can make plans, not just be left twisting in the wind…a deadly, contaminated wind.”

Standartenführer Julius Schrader looked exasperated.

“Yes, yes, Oskar. So you have said. Yet you have not shared with me what these different courses of action might be.”

Kappler approached the desk, then went to the coffee service and poured himself a cup. He started to pick up the cup, then, for some reason, decided otherwise.

He buried his face in the palms of his hands, his fingertips massaging his temples. After a moment, he removed his hands, looked at Schrader, and quietly said, “I have also heard—from trusted sources other than those I have mentioned—that there are certain members of the SS who are setting up routes to safety should we not win this war. Routes for them, for their loved ones. And then there are other routes, ones that set aside their funds.”

Schrader stared into Kappler’s eyes. After a long moment, his eyebrows went up.

“Yes,” Schrader said. “I have heard of that, too.”

Schrader leaned forward and placed his cup and saucer on the desktop. The fine clink that the porcelain made as it touched the polished marble seemed to echo in the silence of the large room.

“I have also heard,” Schrader said, his tone quiet, his words measured, “that those caught making such plans—or even suspected of such—are being charged with treason…and so are being dealt with in a vicious fashion. And if you and I have heard of this ‘planning,’ then no doubt it is known to—”

There was a faint rap at the door and both men turned quickly—and more than a little nervously—toward it.

The massive, dark wooden door slowly swung open just enough for a boyish-looking young man—easily a teenager—in the uniform of an Italian naval ensign to step through. He stood at an awkward attention and saluted stiffly.

Kappler noticed that the ensign’s uniform was mussed, that he had a crudely shorn haircut, and that his eyes appeared to be without thought.

He doesn’t look old enough to shave, Kappler thought as he and Schrader absently returned the salute. He looks, in fact, like a very simple boy, one plunked off a farm…or maybe out of the shanties…and stuck in the first sailor suit they could find, never mind the fit or lack thereof.

“Herr Standartenführer?” the young ensign said tentatively.

“I am Standartenführer Schrader,” Schrader said with what Kappler thought was a touch too much authority. “Where is Tentente de Benedetto?”