Wojciechowski

It was funny to Werner how the only two people in the room who were smiling was the one being interrogated and the one who could end his life. The aforementioned men talked quietly, always keeping their heads and smiling at each other in a pleasent and almost friendly way. The rest of the men, from the highest-ranking SS-Officer to the lowest were all shouting and arguing. 

"For the last time, Herr. Wojciechowski, are you part of the soviet espionage group stationed in Poland to surveill the Germany Military?" One of the taller SS-Officers asked. His name-tag read; Rickenbach. 

"No." The man answered in Polish, but he'd obviously understood the german.

"You were captured alongside seven other soviet spies. And you still refuse to admit that you are one as well, even though everything points towards that?" Rickenbach nagged. 

"I was not captured alongside soviet spies. I was working in a lab and yes, some of the men I worked with were Russians." Wojciechowski answered, causing the translater to hastily translate for the Lagerführer and his SS-Men.

"Seven of the men in your lab turned out to be soviet spies. You ran the lab." The Lagerführer said with a smile. "Either you didn't have your men under your control or you were working with them. There's no way you didn't know that they were traitors."

"Do you know everything about everyone working for you here?" The determined Pole asked. The Lagerführer smiled and shook his head. 

"That's what keeps them alive, my friend." He said, directed solely to Wojciechowski. 

"I did not know that the men I was working with-."

"But how did you not know?" Rickenback exploded, slamming his hand on the wooden table. "How could you not know!"

"The Russians aren't dumb, they're not going to be obvious. An american spy is easier to spot." Wojciechowski replied cooly. But after he'd responded he smiled at his counterpart. Rickenback opened his mouth to say something further but the Lagerführer gestured at him to be silent. 

"Assuming you are innocent, Herr. Wojciechowski. Would you, if you had known about the Russians being spies, have reported them?" There was no way to answer the question correctly; if he said no he'd be killed for being a traitor, if he said yes they'd know he was lying. Wojciechowski shrugged and looked up at his translator. He said several words but the translator refused to translate them. Eventually the Pole looked into the German's eyes. 

"Even if I had known that they were soviet spies, which I didn't, the cause we were working on was too important to not share."

"What were you working on-." Rickenbach started but the Lagerführer once again held up his hand. 

"He was working on a cure for cancer." 

Werner, who had followed the whole conversation with his eyes and ears almost choked when he heard what the Lagerführer said. 

"They got pretty far. Were very near a break-through. The operation was highly classified, it was only luck that we busted their bubble and arrested the lot."

Werner couldn't believe his ears. This shortish and rather swarthy Pole had actually almost found a cure for cancer. Cancer. Excactly what Werner had needed so badly before the plane had crashed. 

"All the Russians have been shot, Wojciechowski, every last one of them. We'll shoot you too, there's no doubt about it. We don't need you, you're a biologist, not a bomb-maker." The Lagerführer explained. "I don't see a reason to keep you alive. You aren't even honest."

"But he has the cure for cancer!" Werner blurted out. All pairs of eyes set onto him. And for the first time, Werner realized that he was the only man in the room with green eyes. All the other's had blue irises. 

"I don't have it yet, young man, and without those Russians who were only staying true to their motherland, it would be almost impossible to continue. They were some of the smartest men I knew..." 

"SO you do admit that they were spies!" Rickenback shouted victoriously. Indeed, Wojciechowski had given himself away as he'd answered Werner. 

"Well, then that's settled. Thank you...Werner." The Lagerführer looked down to read his tag. "You just made your first prisoner confide in us. Keep the good work up and you'll be wearing Rickenbachs star." He clapped the young man on the shoulder. Werner's green eyes seemed to drown in misery, or were those tears?

Wojciechowski, the man in front of him, who was forced to stand up and was led out of the room had a cure for cancer. A cure for the illness that was slowly terminating Werner's existence. And even though he was so close he was already gone. 

Everyone expect for the Lagerführer escorted the male out. Werner couldn't keep a single tear from rolling down his cheek. "Is there a family member back home who suffers from cancer?" The Lagerführer asked empathetically. Werner just nodded. "That's alright. If this bastard isn't the one to figure it out, someone else will." And he left, leaving his destroyed subordinate behind. 

But there was nobody else. Wojciechowski was the one. If the Lagerführer knew that, would he have acted differently? If he'd known that nobody else would find the cure, not even in the next seventy years? Would he have? Werner tried to pull himself together. 

That day he became both an automated worker of the Deutsche Reich and a plotter against it. He needed to find a way to free Wojciechowski, somehow...