The Darkest Hour(31)

“There’s a cure for Zerfall?”

“That’s the key to the entire operation. Every German soldier must be inoculated against the virus before the Führer unleashes it on the Allies.” He turns through the folder’s papers until he stops upon a photograph that I must have missed before. “This is the mastermind of Zerfall. This is the man the Allies should look for.”

He holds up a blurry photo of a gray-bearded man who looks like Santa Claus’s younger brother, with a face as round as a Christmas pie.

“Dr. Elias Reinhard. He’s the head of the laboratory that I worked for,” Dorner continues.

Reinhard! I remember Travert mentioning that name to me. I pull the photo out of Dorner’s hand and scrutinize it until I’ve memorized the lines of Reinhard’s face. If he truly is the monster that Dorner has painted him to be, then the Allies will need to learn as much as they can about this doctor—and kill him.

“When will Dr. Reinhard be ready to launch the disease?” I ask.

“A few months, I believe.”

“Two months? Four?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t privileged with that information.”

I point at the folder. “You know all of those details, but you don’t know when this whole fiasco will start?”

“I was an assistant, and a low one at that. And I stole those documents, remember?”

Merde. “If you don’t know when Reinhard will deploy the operation, then do you know how he’ll do it?”

“I was never told the exact details, but I do have an idea.”

“Well?”

“He’ll deploy the victims themselves.”

I’m not sure if I’ve heard him correctly. “Deploy them in what sense?”

“Reinhard will transfer the first-phase patients into Allied territory when they’re at their most contagious. He’ll parachute them into London or pack them into transport boats headed toward the British seaports.”

“The disease is spread by air, then?”

“No, from contact with bodily fluid.”

“Then we’ll tell the Brits to burn the boats and shoot down the others.”

“I’m no military strategist, but they won’t be able to get them all. I should mention, too, that the patients don’t even need to survive the journey. The corpses are infectious as well. Someone would have to bury them, and that someone could easily pass on the illness to others.”

I breathe in but still feel breathless. This Dr. Reinhard has thought of everything, hasn’t he? “Where’s Reinhard’s laboratory located? Don’t tell me you don’t know. You worked there.”

“I know the coordinates. I memorized them, in fact,” he says.

It’s the exact news that I wanted to hear, but there’s a cautious edge to his voice that I’m not sure about, like a cornered dog with its hackles raised.

“What are these coordinates?”

He stares at me with those big blue eyes of his, but they don’t look so innocent right now. “I’ll tell them to you once you’ve agreed to my terms.”

“Terms?”

“I want to go to England. I want immunity and citizenship, too. In return, I’ll gladly work with British intelligence and tell them everything they need to know about Zerfall. I believe that’s fair.”

I glare at his audacity. “That isn’t how this works. You came to us. Not the other way around. Give me those coordinates.”

“If I do that now, who’s to say that you wouldn’t stick a knife in my throat? I have to protect myself. You must see that.”

This isn’t going according to plan. Harken told me to interrogate Dorner, which I’ve done, and then deliver him to the British if he’s telling the truth, which might be likely but has not been determined. Only now Dorner is withholding information from me—information that I need—and I don’t like it one bit. Then I realize my mistake. I let our interrogation tip much too far in his favor. I let him sweep me up in his story about Zerfall—but I’ll show him who’s in charge.

I reach into my pocket for the pistol pen that Sabine gave to me, twisting it open to reveal the barrel inside and pointing it straight at Dorner’s Nazi heart.

“Give me the coordinates,” I tell him.

He raises his hands but shakes his head all the same. “Shoot me now and the coordinates die with me.”

“I don’t need to shoot to kill.” I point the gun at his kneecap. “I can shoot to maim. You can survive well enough with one leg, but you’ll be in so much pain that you’ll wish I’d turned you over to the Gestapo.”

Just when I think I’ve got him, he lays another one on me. “If you shoot me—in the leg or the arm or wherever else—I won’t tell you the name of the double agent within your Resistance.”

“What are you talking about now?”

“I learned something at the laboratory, not long before I left.” Cautiously he brings his hands back down into his lap. “There was a patient there, a Frenchman. He claimed to be part of the Resistance movement, and said that he had smuggled himself into Germany to bomb a rail station.”

“How does this have anything to do with the coordinates?” I nearly slap him again—or maybe I should go with a punch to the gut—but Dorner is quick to continue.