Striking the Balance

“I think it’s stupid,” Jager answered. “The Jews in Lodz have been helping us. If you start killing off the people who do that, you run out of friends in a hurry.”

“Ahh, those bastards are playing both ends against the middle, and you know it as well as I do,” Skorzeny said. “They kiss whichever ass is closest to them. It doesn’t matter one way or the other, anyhow. I’ve got my orders, and I’m going to carry them out.”

Jager came to attention and flipped up his right arm.“Heil Hitler!” he said.

He had to give Skorzeny credit: the big bruiser recognized it was sarcasm, not acquiescence. Not only that, he thought it was funny. “Come on, don’t be a wet blanket,” he said. “We’ve been through a lot together, you and I. You can give me a lot of help this time, too.”

“Yes, I’d make a splendid Jew,” Jager said, deadpan. “How long do you suppose a circumcision takes to heal up?”

“You didn’t used to be such a smartmouth,” Skorzeny said, rocking back on his heels and sticking thumbs into trouser pockets so he looked like a young lout on a streetcorner. “Must be senility coming on, eh?”

“If you say so. How am I supposed to help, though? I’ve never been inside Lodz. In fact, the offensive steered wide around it so we wouldn’t get bogged down in street fighting there. We can’t afford to go losing panzers to Molotov cocktails and things like that; we lose too many of them to the Lizards as is.”

“Yeah, that’s the line you sent back to division, and division sent it back to army group headquarters, and the High Command bought it,” Skorzeny said with a nod. “Bully for you. Maybe you’ll get red stripes on your trousers like a General Staff officer.”

“And it’s worked, too,” Jager said. “I saw more street fighting in Russia than I ever wanted. Nothing in the world chews up men and machines like that, and we don’t have them to waste.”

“Ja, ja, ja,”Skorzeny said with exaggerated patience. He leaned forward and glared at Jager. “And I also happen to know that one of the reasons we swung around Lodz in two prongs is that you cut a deal with the Jewish partisans there. What do you have to say to that, Mr. General Staff Officer?”

It might have stopped snowing, but it was anything but warm. All the same, Jager felt his face heat. If Skorzeny knew that, it was in an SS dossier somewhere… which did not bode well for his long-term survival, let alone his career. Even so, he answered as calmly as he could: “I say it was military necessity. This way, we have the partisans on our side and driving the Lizards crazy instead of the other way round. It’s worked out damned well, so you can take your ‘I also happen to know’ and flush it down the WC.”

“Why? What does Winston Churchill want with it?” Skorzeny said with a leer. The joke would have been funnier if the Germans hadn’t been making it on the radio from the day Churchill became prime minister to the night the Lizards arrived. The SS man went on, “You have to understand, I don’t really give a damn. But it does mean you have connections with the Jews. You ought to be able to use those to help me get my little toy right to the center of town.”

Jager stared at him. “And you pay me thirty pieces of silver afterwards, don’t you? I don’t throw away connections like that. I don’t murder them, either. Why not ask me to betray my own men while you’re at it?”

“Thirty pieces of silver? That’s pretty good. Christ was a damn kike, too, remember. And a whole fat lot of good it did him. So.” Skorzeny studied Jager. “The more help we get from your little chums, the easier the job will be, and I’m in favor of easy jobs whenever I can get ’em. They pay me to risk my neck, but they don’t pay me to stick it out when I don’t have to.”

This from a man who’d blown up a Lizard panzer by jumping onto it and throwing a satchel charge between turret and hull. Maybe Skorzeny called that a necessary sort of risk; Jager had no way of knowing. He said, “You touch off a nerve-gas bomb in there, you’re going to kill a lot of people who don’t have thing one to do with the war.”

This time, Skorzeny’s laugh was rude. “You fought in Russia, same as I did. So what?” He thumped Jager in the chest with a forefinger. “Listen and listen good. I’m going to do this with you or without you. It’d make my life easier if it was with you. But my life has been tough before. If it’s tough again, believe me, I’ll cope. So what do you say?”

“I don’t say anything right now,” Jager answered. “I’m going to have to think this one over.”

“Sure. Go ahead.” Skorzeny’s big head bobbed up and down in a parody of sweet reason. “Think all you want. Just don’t take too long doing it.”

The guard pointed a Sten gun at Moishe Russie’s middle. “Come on, get moving,” he said, his voice harsh and merciless.

Russie rose from the cot in his cell. “The Nazis put me in the ghetto, the Lizards put me in gaol,” he said. “I never thought Jews would treat me the same way.”