The One Man (9 page)

Both Donovan and Strauss had their eyes fixed on Blum. There was an extended silence in the room.

“You want me … to go
back
?” Blum said, as it finally became clear to him just what they were asking.

“Not just go back…” the captain said. He got up with his file and came around the table, pulling up the chair next to Blum. “We want you to locate someone there for us. In Poland. And bring him back out for us.”

“Out of
Poland
?” Blum continued to stare, not quite believing. “You know how difficult that would be.”

The captain nodded. “I'm afraid what we're proposing is even a bit trickier than that, Lieutenant…” He took a breath and opened his file. “No doubt you've heard of the labor camps over there?”

“Of course, but please forgive me, Captain, these are labor camps in name only. Word is, people are shipped there and never heard from ever again. Families, entire towns. In fact, these are death camps,” Blum stated. “I think we both know that.”

The captain didn't reply, but in his knowing nod and Donovan's continued steady stare, it became clear to Blum precisely what they wanted. “You want to send me back to Poland. To one of those …
camps
?” he asked.

“To a place called Auschwitz.” Colonel Donovan took the lead. “I believe Oswiecim is the town's actual name. You've heard of it?”

Maybe not by that specific name, Blum nodded in the way when something terribly grave and unutterable is better left unsaid. But the whispers from Jewish enclaves all through Europe were rampant with what was happening in places like that—places so dark, so filled with evil and death, it stretched the mind to even believe they could be true. “Yes. I've heard.”

“We need someone who's familiar with this area and who speaks the language. And who would…” Strauss looked at him. “Fit in.”

“Fit in…?” Blum repeated, still not sure what they were asking of him.

“What we're proposing, Lieutenant,” the man known as “Wild Bill” Donovan leaned forward and set his deep-set eyes on Blum, “is to sneak you into there, inside the camp, I'm saying, and for you to bring someone back out.”

“Into the camp?” Blum stared back in consternation.
“Who…?”

“A fair question.” Captain Strauss took over for his boss. “But I'm afraid we just can't share that with you right now.” He removed a map from his file, a blown-up rendering of the area surrounding the camp. “We can drop you in by plane. At night.
Here.
” He pointed to a spot. “It's about twenty kilometers from the camp. Have you ever jumped, Nathan? I didn't see it in your file.”

“From a plane? No.” Blum shook his head. “Only in training.”

“No matter. We'll take you through it. You'll only have to do it once. On the ground, we can rendezvous with the local resistance. We know how to set this up. We can get you inside. As part of a daily work crew. That's the easy part. Apparently local workmen enter and leave the grounds routinely.”

“You are certain of this?” Blum pressed. They made it sound as if it was like taking a trip on the Chicago rail line: First you take the L to Lake Street, then you switch to the Southside line, to Garfield, and then …

“As you might imagine…” Donovan leaned forward with the hint of a wry smile, “getting someone
into
a place like Auschwitz is not generally the issue.”

“Yes, of course,” Blum said, betraying that same smile. “And you can get me out? With this person? And then back?” His mind raced through how very risky this would be. Just getting into Poland itself would not be easy. This deep, behind enemy lines. The jump alone terrified him. And then what if he was unable to meet up with the local resistance? He'd be stranded there. Alone. Or if he was unable to find this man—even if he was able to get inside the camp. Or if the Germans saw through him. It would be certain death.

“Yes.” Strauss nodded with conviction. “I believe we can.”

“But once inside, you'd have to know you'll be completely on your own,” Colonel Donovan said. “We'll construct your laborer's clothing to reverse into a camp uniform. We don't know for sure exactly where this person is inside the camp. To be frank, we don't know for sure that he's even still alive. He's fifty-seven, and not in the best of health. It's probably more like seventy-seven there. And from what we've heard…” the Big Man tapped his meaty index finger on the table and his mouth twisted into a frown, “it's not exactly a walk in the park in there.”

“Yes, I've heard the rumors,” Blum agreed. “May I smoke?”

“Please,” Colonel Donovan said, and reached for an ashtray and pushed it toward him. Blum took out a pack of Luckys, tapped the top, and lit one up.

From his file, Strauss removed a crude, hand-drawn map and slid it across. “This is the camp.” There was a double perimeter of wire, with several guard towers. Dozens of what appeared to be prisoners' quarters, called “blocks,” all numbered. A women's camp was marked nearby. Blum's eyes were drawn to a small rectangular building that went by the sinister name
Crematorium.

“We know he was there a month ago. We know how to get you in and out. What we need is for you to find him in there. We have an escape route that we're confident will work. We also have the names of several people on the inside, fellow prisoners, even guards, who you may be able to rely on. The thing is, you'll only have seventy-two hours, and no way to be in touch. The rescue plane will land precisely where it drops you, and only once. It can only remain on the ground for a few minutes, and then it will leave. You will have to be there.”

Blum looked at them. “And if I'm not…?”

“If you're not, then I'm afraid you're completely on your own.” Colonel Donovan knitted his fingers together. “In a very hostile place. You miss that plane, there's no return ticket, son.”

“Seventy-two hours…” Blum ran the prospects through his head. None made the outcome particularly rosy. “And if I find him, are you sure he will even come with me?”

“In truth, Lieutenant,” Strauss sat back in his chair, “we're not completely sure of anything, on the inside. We don't know what health he is currently in. We don't even know for certain if he's even still alive.”

“Yet you are willing to risk all this? To send me there?”

Strauss looked to Donovan. “Yes. We are.”

“And you won't even tell me who this man is? Or why he is so important?”

“I'm afraid we can't,” Colonel Donovan said. “Not right now. Right now, we can only show you a photograph. And obviously you'll have his name.”

Blum tapped an ash on the edge of the ashtray. “I'd be risking my life for this one man,” he said, looking at both their faces, “and you can't even tell me what he does?”

The captain nodded. “I'm afraid that's the case, Lieutenant. Yes.”

Blum looked back at the map, taking it all in. He did speak the language and look the part. He would, as Strauss said, “fit in.” And he had escaped before. But what if he couldn't find the man? Or get himself out? He'd be stranded. His family was dead now. Many of his friends were likely dead as well. He had nothing left there. “How do you know all this?” Blum looked back up at them. “The layout. How to get in. This rendezvous you can set up with the local resistance.”

Strauss pulled out two more photos from the file. “I was in Portugal a week ago. I met with these two men, who, one month ago, were able to escape from Auschwitz. The first to do so.

“Rudolf Vrba…” The captain placed a photo on the table. “And Alfred Wetzler. They're Czech. They told me everything. The layout of the camp. The routine there. The surrounding area. Prisoners inside who might prove helpful. Certain guards who can be bought. This map is theirs. It's accurate up to one month ago. It will work, Nathan. They've even agreed to assist on this mission.”

Blum ran his eyes back over the map: the double perimeter of wire, the marked guard towers. They came to rest on the rectangular building. “And what did your two escapees tell you about what happens here?”

He pointed to the place marked
Crematorium
.

Strauss didn't answer at first. He eyed his boss. Then he nodded, kind of circumspectly. “Are you certain you want to know?”

“You are asking me to risk my life, to go back to a place I was blessed to get away from, to find a single person who you won't even tell me what he does. What is the expression here…?” He looked at Donovan. “A needle in a haystack? So, yes, what happens here?” Blum placed his finger on the building again. “I think it is fair to know what I might face, if I go, should all these detailed preparations of yours not fully come together.”

“I didn't mean as a part of this mission, Lieutenant,” Strauss glanced at Donovan and said. “I meant,” he cleared his throat, “as a Jew. People are gassed there.” He moistened his lips. “In large numbers. Thousands. Tens of thousands. More. Then their bodies are burned. These are ovens.” The captain pointed to the building on the map Nathan had asked about. “Though what I've now told you is in the strictest confidence and cannot be repeated, either to someone in uniform,” he looked at Blum with the utmost seriousness in his eyes, “or not.”

A hollowness rose up in Blum's gut.
Ovens.
He sat back, the color draining out of his face, nausea knotting inside him.
Gassed.
He drew in a deep breath through his nostrils, and let what Strauss had said out.
Thousands. Tens of thousands. More.
They'd all heard of such horrors. Killings on such an unprecedented scale. Still, everyone prayed it was only a rumor. Now he saw that it was all true. And he saw something else behind the gritted jaw and single-minded cast of the OSS captain's face. Sorrow. Pain. Etched into the fixed resolve in his eyes.

“Bisse yid?”
Blum inquired, speaking in Yiddish.
Are you Jewish?

Strauss paused only a moment. Then he nodded. “Yes.”

“And this man…” Blum placed his index finger on the map of the camp. “This will not help any of them, these people who are already in here…?”

“Not a single one, sadly.” The captain shook his head, enough for Nathan to see that he had already asked that same question of himself.

Blum nodded, in the way a close relative might when told of grave family news, sinking back into his chair. “People being gassed … This man, who you won't tell me a thing about … Only seventy-two hours to find him … Otherwise, no chance of coming back…” He turned to Donovan. “If you don't mind me saying so, Colonel, you certainly know how to drive a hard bargain.”

“Yes.” The OSS chief chuckled back. “And that's not all, I'm afraid. We'll need your answer quickly.”

“How quickly?” Blum put out his cigarette.

“Tomorrow.” Donovan stood up.

“Tomorrow…?”
Blum's eyes widened in surprise.

The Big Man stood up, put his hand on Blum's shoulder, and smiled again. “I believe you're the one, Lieutenant, who expressed the interest in doing something more.”

“Yes.” Blum stood up too.

“You're doing a fine job, son,” the colonel said, “for your new country. I'm sure that reassignment you put in to the Ritchie boys will be coming through at any time, if that's how you'd like it to go.” He put out his hand. “You can only imagine how much we feel depends on this mission.”

“Thank you, sir,” Blum replied. The Big Man's hand was firm and rough. “But I do have one question, if I may.”

“Of course. Go ahead.” His hand was still wrapped in Donovan's.

“This man … If I get him out. Will it save lives or cost them, in the end?”

“In the end…” The Boss nodded, the dark side and shadows of the war etched in his deep-set eyes. “The answer is both, I'm afraid.”

Blum nodded and took his cap from the table and took a step toward the door. “Thank you, sir.” Then he stopped, hesitating a moment, feeling something rising up in him, courage or foolishness, he would decide later, and turned back. “Just one more thing…”

Donovan was already back behind his desk and had picked up a report. Strauss, reassembling his file, looked up. “Of course.”

“You still haven't told me how you plan on getting me out.”

 

THIRTEEN

That night, after most of the base had gone to bed, Blum smoked a cigarette on the back stairs of the officers' barracks near K Street. Thunder rattled in the far-off skies.

If his meeting in the A building earlier had been to confirm his transfer to Fort Ritchie, Blum might have celebrated by catching a film; a new one,
To Have and Have Not,
with Bogart and Bacall, based on the Hemingway book, was playing on the base. Or there was this girl he had taken out a couple of times, the cousin of a neighbor back in Chicago who worked in the cosmetics department at Woodward & Lothrop, the big department store chain there. She was pretty and laughed easily, which always reminded him of his sister. And, as opposed to many of the officers in his unit, she seemed not to mind his European accent.

Instead, he just stayed in his barracks. He felt in a similar way to how he'd felt the night he set out from Krakow, when he sensed in his heart he was saying goodbye to his family for the last time. That a choice had been put in front of him for which he had no logic or means to properly evaluate, but still, one he knew he must take.

Will it save lives or cost them, in the end?

Both,
Colonel Donovan had said.

The night was warm. It reminded him of many such nights back home, humidity so thick you could spread it on bread with jam when there was no butter, his mother used to say.