Zyklon - The Voyage of HMAT Tyche

14 September 1946 – New York City, midnight

Kruger Gasspuk leaned against the wall of the abandoned warehouse across from the Pfizer factory, smoking a foul American cigarette and seething with contempt. He hated this country. Hated its noise, its filth, its mongrel bloodlines pretending at power. This was not a nation. It was a market. A stockyard of undermen dressed in cheap suits.

He exhaled slowly through his nose, watching the woman slip through the shadows near the factory gates. He knew a thief when he saw one. She was up to no good. Tall, striking even in her haste, her dark coat snapping behind her like a battle flag. Gasspuk’s lip curled. A woman. A woman taking what she pleased, thinking herself important. She had the look of someone who believed she was owed respect, recognition. No better than the whores who wept at the gates of Sachsenhausen, still daring to look him in the eye.

He tapped ash from his cigarette and smiled to himself. A woman, a foreigner, probably some race-mixed slut, no doubt filled with dangerous ideas about medicine and independence. And yet—he could smell opportunity. The vials she carried glinted clinked and she paused to check them. ****. Antibiotics. Medicines more potent than gold in the diseased new world they were crawling into.

Kruger grinned. He would follow her. Take what was valuable. Break what wasn’t. He crushed the cigarette under his heel with precision. In the end, the world belonged to men like him. It always had. It always would.

Gasspuk followed her through the dark streets without fear. His papers, forged by the clever hands of Otto Ersatz, were flawless. America was soft. A man with confidence and Aryan blood could walk anywhere.

Kruger swore when Mary hailed a taxi cab. He hailed one too and followed her to the HMAT Tyche.

He smiled as he checked the departure board. She sailed at two thirty the next day. Plenty of time to get some men on board and organise a boat to escape. Tomorrow he would have his prize aboard the Tyche, surrounded by useful fools like Irwin—Otto’s cousin—and the other guards from the camp.

He considered Irwin. There was something wrong with the industrious little clockmaker. Something that he recognised from his work in the camps. Something unnatural. The man still flinched at shadows and dreamed of freedom. Freedom was a lie. Power was the only truth. No, Irwin was dead weight. Irwin was not a true Aryan. It would be best to kill him, just to be safe.