For Major Kaempffer himself, Sergeant Oster had found a large, double-sized room on the second level within the rear section of the keep. He had suggested the tower, but Kaempffer had refused; to have moved into the first or second level would have been convenient but would have meant being below Woermann. The fourth tower level involved too many steps to be taken too many times a day. The rear section of the keep was better. He had a window overlooking the courtyard, a bed-frame commandeered from one of Woermann's enlisted men, and an unusually heavy oak door with a secure latch. His bedroll was now supported by the newly made frame, and the major lay within it, a battery lamp on the floor beside him.

His eyes came to rest on the crosses in the walls. They seemed to be everywhere. Curious. He had wanted to ask the sergeant about them but had not wanted to detract from his posture of knowing everything. This was an important part of the SS mystique and he had to maintain it. Perhaps he would ask Woermann—when he could bring himself to speak to him again.

Woermann ... he couldn't get the man off his mind. The irony of it all was that Woermann was the last person in the world Kaempffer would have wished to be billeted with. With Woermann around he could not be the type of SS officer he wished to be. Woermann could fix his gaze on him and pierce right through the SS uniform, through the veneer of power, and see a terrified eighteen-year-old. That day in Verdun had been a turning point in both their lives...

... the British breaking through the German line in a surprise counterattack, the fire pinning down Kaempffer and Woermann and their whole company, men dying on all sides, the machine gunner hit and down, the British charging ... pull back and regroup, the only sane thing to do, but no word from the company commander ... probably dead ... Private Kaempffer seeing no one in his entire squad left alive except a new recruit, a green volunteer named Woermann sixteen years old, too young to fight... motioning to the kid to start moving back with him ... Woermann shaking his head and crawling up to the machine gun emplacement ... firing skittishly, erratically at first, then with greater confidence ... Kaempffer crawling away, knowing the British would be burying the kid later that day.

But Woermann had not been buried that day. He had held off the enemy long enough for the line to be reinforced. He was promoted, decorated with the Iron Cross. And when the Great War ended he was Fahnenjunker, an officer candidate, and managed to remain with the minuscule remnant of the army that was left after the Versailles debacle.

Kaempffer, on the other hand, the son of a clerk from Augsburg, found himself on the street after the war. He had been afraid and penniless, one of many thousands of veterans of a lost war and a defeated army. They were not heroes—they were an embarrassment. He wound up joining the nihilistic Freikorps Oberland, and from there it was not far to the Nazi Party in 1927; after proving his volkisch, his pure German pedigree, he joined the SS in 1931. From then on, the SS became Kaempffer's home. He had lost his home after the first war and had sworn he would never be homeless again.

In the SS he learned the techniques of terror and pain; he also learned the techniques of survival: how to keep an eye out for weaknesses in his superiors, and how to hide his own weaknesses from the aggressive men below him. Eventually, he maneuvered himself into the position of first assistant to Rudolf Hoess, the most efficient of all the liquidators of Jewry.

Again, he learned so well that he was elevated to the rank of Sturmbannführer and assigned the task of setting up the resettlement camp at Ploiesti.

He ached to get to Ploiesti and begin. Only the unseen killers of Woermann's men stood in his way. They had to be disposed of first. Not a problem, merely an annoyance. He wanted it taken care of quickly, not only to allow him to move on, but also to make Woermann look like the bumbler he was. A quick solution and he would be on his way in triumph, leaving Klaus Woermann behind, an impotent has-been.

A quick solution would also defuse anything Woermann might ever say about the incident at Verdun. If Woermann should ever decide to accuse him of cowardice in the face of the enemy, Kaempffer would need only point out that the accuser was an embittered, frustrated man striking out viciously at one who had succeeded where he had failed.

He turned off the lamp on the floor. Yes ... he needed a quick solution. So much to do, so many more important matters awaiting his attention.

The only thing that bothered him about all this was the unsettling, inescapable fact that Woermann was afraid. Truly afraid. And Woermann did not frighten easily.

He closed his eyes and tried to doze. After a while he felt sleep begin to slip over him like a warm, gentle blanket. He was almost completely covered when he felt it brutally snatched away. He found himself wide awake, his skin suddenly clammy and crawling with fear. Something was outside the door to his room. He heard nothing, saw nothing. Yet he knew it was there. Something with such a powerful aura of evil, of cold hate, of sheer malevolence, that he could sense its presence through the wood and the stone that separated it from him. It was out there, moving along the corridor, passing the door, and moving away. Away....

His heart slowed, his skin began to dry. It took a few moments, but he was eventually able to convince himself that it had been a nightmare, a particularly vivid one, the kind that shakes you from the early stages of sleep.

Major Kaempffer arose from his bedroll and gingerly began removing his long underwear. His bladder had involuntarily emptied during the nightmare.

Privates Friedrich Waltz and Karl Flick, members of the first Death's Head unit under Major Kaempffer, stood in their black uniforms, their gleaming black helmets, and shivered. They were bored, cold, and tired. This was not the sort of night duty they were accustomed to. Back at Auschwitz they had had warm, comfortable guardhouses and watchtowers where they could sit and drink coffee and play cards while the prisoners cowered in their drafty shacks. Only occasionally had they been required to do gate duty and march the perimeter in the open air.

True, here they were inside, but their conditions were as cold and as damp as the prisoners'. That wasn't right.

Private Flick slung his Schmeisser behind his back and rubbed his hands together. The fingertips were numb despite his gloves. He stood beside Waltz who was leaning against the wall at the angle of the two corridors. From this vantage point they could watch the entire length of the entry corridor to their left, all the way to the black square of night that was the courtyard, and at the same time keep watch on the prison block to their right.

"I'm going crazy, Karl," Waltz said. "Let's do something."

"Like what?"

"How about making them fall out for a little Sachsengruss?"

"They aren't Jews."

"They aren't Germans, either."

Flick considered this. The Sachsengruss, or Saxon greeting, had been his favorite method of breaking down new arrivals at Auschwitz. For hours on end he would make them perform the exercise: deep knee bends with arms raised and hands behind the head. Even a man in top condition would be in agony within half an hour. Flick had always found it exhilarating to watch the expressions on the prisoners' faces as they felt their bodies begin to betray them, as their joints and muscles cried out in anguish. And the fear in their faces. For those who fell from exhaustion were either shot on the spot or kicked until they resumed the exercise. He and Waltz couldn't shoot any of the Romanians tonight, but at least they could have some fun with them. But it might be hazardous.