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Christmas 1943 was uneventful. Weber and I worked on various refinements to an already prepared system without damaging it too badly. My teachers back in Berlin had taught me the idea of schlimmbesserung: an improvement that makes things worse. At that point, the natural tendency of idle minds and hands to improve a working system into uselessness was our only real enemy.
Given that, we resolutely turned our attention away from the weapons system we had devised to a different problem we had discussed a year before: Why deliver tote Mä
Delivering a disease substance was perilously close to delivering a poison gas-something forbidden us from the previous war. However, we had already made some excursions into the territory with the production and delivery of tote Mä
Creating an inhalant that carried both the worm and virus proved to be an interesting problem. The virus was stable when dry and the worm could be induced to encyst itself. However, it took time for the worm to de-cyst and by the time it did, the subject was fully infected with an undirected virus. Rabid humans made a poor host.
We went back to the colloid I devised for the attractant. Colloids are neither liquid nor solid but partake of the traits of both. Gelatin is a colloid. By adding nutrients to the colloid so that the worm could stay alive and not encyst, the virus could be delivered along with the worm when both were at their most infective stage. It was interesting work for a couple of months. Weber was quite elated with it. He called it the Todesluft.
In May of 1944, Willem paid us another visit. This time, he took both Weber and myself aside and spoke to us privately.
“It is clear the Allies are preparing a counter-invasion. The likely location is somewhere across from England on the coast of France.” He held the cigarette to his lips thoughtfully.
“We’re ready,” I said boldly. “We’ve been ready for months. What do the Daimler-Benz engineers say?”
Willem breathed out smoke. “They have made several methods available to us. Since this is to be the first deployment, we have chosen the retreat scenario. We will place the tote Mä
“Are we expecting to be overrun?”
Willem shook his head. “Of course not. The tote Mä
I nodded. “How many?”
“We estimate six thousand.”
I thought quickly. “It takes six days for each group. Six thousand will take us thirty-six days.”
Willem smiled at me. “Did you know of the expansions of Birkenau commissioned early last year?”
“Of course,” said Weber. “They were a dreadful nuisance.”
“They are about to pay for themselves,” retorted Willem. “I developed Max’s original plans for Birkenau beyond his conception. The new facilities can serve as incubator.”
“How many?”
“At least forty thousand at once. Six thousand should not be a problem.” He pulled from his briefcase a set of plans.
I looked them over. I was impressed with the i
“I’m glad you are pleased. When can the first squad be ready?”
I looked over the plans again and did some figuring on a piece of paper. “May 12, if Daimler-Benz can provide the bunkers and the transportation.”
“I’ve been assured this will not be a problem.”
“Then we will be ready to deploy.”
Willem pulled a map from his briefcase. “Our sources say we will be struck here.” He pointed to the map. “Pas-de-Calais. That is where our defenses are located and just three kilometers behind them, our tote Mä
This was by far the largest group of tote Mä
But, of course, the Allies did not strike at Pas-de-Calais but at Normandy, over three hundred kilometers to the southwest. The tote Mä
It was terrible timing. All of the available tote Mä
Willem conferred with his staff and said that if we could drop enough bunkers in the Cerisy Forest and fill them with tote Mä
At this point the new squad was just entering the coma stage. We’d found the tote Mä
The bunkers were not particularly explosive-proof but would stop bullets. They looked more like officers’ quarters than anything else. We locked them and moved away to nearby Trevieres. This was June 8th. By the afternoon of June 9th, the tote Mä
The time passed slowly, punctuated with small arms fire and a few large weapons. The wind moved back and forth, sometimes bringing us the firecracker smell of the battlefield and then replacing it with the pine smell of the forests.
The afternoon came. An odd aircraft I’d never seen before, called a Storch, was made available to us. The pilot, Willem, and I boarded the airplane along with the radio equipment. The heavily laden craft took off in an impressively short distance and in a few moments we were high enough to see the bunkers and, worse, the advancing Allies. Willem pressed the button.
Smoke poured out of the three buildings. I could not hear the reports as the internal explosives ignited but there was motion-furious motion-through the smoke. Seconds later the advancing Allies were ru
The tote Mä