World War II Thriller Collection (88 page)

FLICK COULD HARDLY
believe she had got this far. Four of the original six Jackdaws had evaded capture, despite a brilliant adversary and some mixed luck, and now they were in Antoinette's kitchen, a few steps away from the square at Sainte-Cécile, right under the noses of the Gestapo. In ten minutes time they would walk up to the gates of the château.

Antoinette and four of the other five cleaners were firmly tied to kitchen chairs. Paul had gagged all but Antoinette. Each cleaner had arrived carrying a little shopping basket or canvas bag containing food and drink—bread, cold potatoes, fruit, and a flask of wine or ersatz coffee—which they would normally have during their 9:30 break, not being allowed to use the German canteen. Now the Jackdaws were hastily emptying the bags and reloading them with the things they needed to carry into the château: electric torches, guns, ammunition, and yellow plastic explosive in 250-gram sticks. The Jackdaws' own suitcases, which had held the stuff until now, would have looked odd in the hands of cleaners going to work.

Flick quickly realized that the cleaners' own bags were not big enough. She herself had a Sten submachine gun with a silencer, each of its three parts about a foot long. Jelly had sixteen detonators in a shockproof can, an incendiary thermite bomb, and a chemical block that produced oxygen, for setting fires in enclosed spaces such as bunkers. After loading their ordnance into the bags, they had to conceal it with the cleaners' packets of food. There was not enough room.

“Damn,” Flick said edgily. “Antoinette, do you have any big bags?”

“What do you mean?”

“Bags, big bags, like shopping bags, you must have some.”

“There's one in the pantry that I use for buying vegetables.”

Flick found the bag, a cheap rectangular basket made of woven reeds. “It's perfect,” she said. “Have you any more like it?”

“No, why would I have two?”

Flick needed four.

There was a knock. Flick went to the door. A woman in a flowered overall and a hair net stood there: the last of the cleaners. “Good evening,” Flick said.

The woman hesitated, surprised to see a stranger. “Is Antoinette here? I received a note . . .”

Flick smiled reassuringly. “In the kitchen. Please come in.”

The woman walked through the apartment, evidently familiar with the place, and entered the kitchen, where she stopped dead and gave a little scream. Antoinette said, “Don't worry, Françoise—they're tying us up so that the Germans will know we didn't help them.”

Flick relieved the woman of her bag. It was made of knotted string—fine for carrying a loaf and a bottle but no good to Flick.

This infuriatingly petty detail had Flick stymied just minutes before the climax of the mission. She could not go on until she solved the problem. She forced herself to think calmly, then said to Antoinette, “Where did you get your basket?”

“At the little shop across the street. You can see it from the window.”

The windows were open, as it was a warm evening, but the shutters were closed for shade. Flick pushed a shutter open a couple of inches and looked out onto the rue du Château. On the other side of the street was a store selling candles, firewood, brooms, and clothespins.
She turned to Ruby. “Go and buy three more bags, quickly.”

Ruby went to the door.

“If you can, get different shapes and colors.” Flick was afraid the bags might attract attention if they were all the same.

“Right.”

Paul tied the last of the cleaners to a chair and gagged her. He was apologetic and charming, and she did not resist.

Flick gave cleaners' passes to Jelly and Greta. She had held them back until the last minute because they would have given away the mission if found on the person of a captured Jackdaw. With Ruby's pass in her hand, she went to the window.

Ruby was coming out of the store carrying three shopping baskets of different kinds. Flick was relieved. She checked her watch: it was two minutes to seven.

Then disaster struck.

As Ruby was about to cross the road, she was accosted by a man in military-style clothes. He wore a blue denim shirt with buttoned pockets, a dark blue tie, a beret, and dark trousers tucked into high boots. Flick recognized the uniform of the Milice, the security militia that did the dirty work of the regime. “Oh, no!” she said.

Like the Gestapo, the Milice was made up of men too stupid and thuggish to get into the normal police. Their officers were upper-class versions of the same type, snobbish patriots who talked of the glory of France and sent their underlings to arrest Jewish children hiding in cellars.

Paul came and looked over Flick's shoulder. “Hell, it's a frigging Militian,” he said.

Flick's mind raced. Was this a chance encounter, or part of an organized security sweep directed at the Jackdaws? The Milice were infamous busybodies, reveling in their power to harass their fellow citizens. They would stop people they did not like the look of, examine their
papers minutely, and seek a pretext to arrest them. Was the questioning of Ruby such an incident? Flick hoped so. If the police were stopping everyone on the streets of Sainte-Cécile, the Jackdaws might never reach the gates of the château.

The cop started to question Ruby aggressively. Flick could not hear clearly, but she picked up the words “mongrel” and “black,” and she wondered if the man was accusing the dark-skinned Ruby of being a gypsy. Ruby took out her papers. The man examined them, then continued to question her without handing them back.

Paul drew his pistol.

“Put it away,” Flick commanded.

“You're not going to let him arrest her?”

“Yes, I am,” Flick said coldly. “If we have a shootout now, we're finished—the mission is blown, whatever happens. Ruby's life is not as important as disabling the telephone exchange. Put away the damn gun.”

Paul tucked it under the waistband of his trousers.

The conversation between Ruby and the Militian became heated. Flick watched with trepidation as Ruby shifted the three baskets to her left hand and put her right hand into her raincoat pocket. The man grabbed Ruby's left shoulder in a decisive way, obviously arresting her.

Ruby moved fast. She dropped the baskets. Her right hand came out of her pocket holding a knife. She took a step forward and swung the knife up from hip level with great force, sticking the blade through his uniform shirt just below the ribs, angled up toward the heart.

Flick said, “Oh,
shit.
”

The man gave a scream that quickly died off into a horrible gurgle. Ruby tugged the knife out and stuck it in again, this time from the side. He threw back his head and opened his mouth in a soundless cry of pain.

Flick was thinking ahead. If she could get the body out of sight quickly, they might get away with this. Had anyone seen the stabbing? Flick's view from the
window was restricted by the shutters. She pushed them wide and leaned out. To her left, the rue du Château was deserted except for a parked truck and a dog asleep on a doorstep. Looking the other way she saw, coming along the pavement, three young people in police-style uniforms, two men and a woman. They had to be Gestapo personnel from the château.

The Militian fell to the pavement, blood coming from his mouth.

Before Flick could shout a warning, the two Gestapo men sprang forward and grabbed Ruby by the arms.

Flick quickly pulled her head back in and drew the shutters together. Ruby was lost.

She continued to watch through a narrow gap between the shutters. One of the Gestapo men banged Ruby's right hand against the shop wall until she dropped the knife. The girl bent over the bleeding Militian. She lifted his head and spoke to him, then said something to the two men. There was a short exchange of barked words. The girl ran into the shop and came out with a storekeeper in a white apron. He bent over the Militian, then stood up again, his face showing distaste—whether for the man's ugly wounds or for the hated uniform, Flick could not tell. The girl ran off, back in the direction of the château, presumably to get help; and the two men frog-marched Ruby in the same direction.

Flick said, “Paul—go and get the baskets Ruby dropped.”

Paul did not hesitate. “Yes, ma'am.” He went out.

Flick watched him emerge onto the street and cross the road. What would the storekeeper say? The man looked at Paul and said something. Paul did not reply but bent down, swiftly picked up the three baskets, and came back.

The storekeeper stared at Paul, and Flick could read his thoughts on his face: at first shocked by Paul's apparent callousness, then puzzled and searching for possible reasons, then beginning to understand.

“Let's move quickly,” Flick said as Paul came into the
kitchen. “Load the bags and out, now! I want us to pass through that checkpoint while the guards are still excited about Ruby.” She quickly stuffed one of the baskets with a powerful flashlight, her disassembled Sten gun, six 32-round magazines, and her share of the plastic explosive. Her pistol and knife were in her pockets. She covered the weapons in the basket with a cloth and put in a slice of vegetable terrine wrapped in baking paper.

Jelly said, “What if the guards at the gate search the baskets?”

“Then we're dead,” Flick said. “We'll just try to take as many of the enemy with us as we can. Don't let the Nazis capture you alive.”

“Oh, my gordon,” said Jelly, but she checked the magazine in her automatic pistol professionally and pushed it home with a decisive click.

The church bell in the town square struck seven.

They were ready.

Flick said to Paul, “Someone is sure to notice there are only three cleaners instead of the usual six. Antoinette is the supervisor, so they may decide to ask her what's gone wrong. If anyone shows up here, you'll just have to shoot him.”

“Okay.”

Flick kissed Paul on the mouth, briefly but hard, then went out, with Jelly and Greta following.

On the other side of the street, the storekeeper was staring down at the Militian dying on the pavement. He glanced up at the three women, then looked away again. Flick guessed he was already rehearsing his answers to questions: “I saw nothing. No one else was there.”

The three remaining Jackdaws turned toward the square. Flick set a brisk pace, wanting to get to the château as quickly as possible. She could see the gates directly ahead of her, on the far side of the square. Ruby and her two captors were just passing through. Well, Flick thought, at least Ruby is inside.

The Jackdaws reached the end of the street and
started across the square. The window of the Café des Sports, smashed in last week's shootout, was boarded over. Two guards from the château came across the square at a run, carrying their rifles, their boots clattering on the cobblestones, no doubt heading for the wounded Militian. They took no notice of the little group of cleaning women, who scuttled out of the way.

Flick reached the gate. This was the first really dangerous moment.

One guard was left. He kept looking past Flick at his comrades running across the square. He glanced at Flick's pass and waved her in. She stepped through the gate, then turned to wait for the others.

Greta came next, and the guard did the same. He was more interested in what was going on in the rue du Château.

Flick thought they were home and dry, but when he had checked Jelly's pass he glanced into her basket. “Something smells good,” he said.

Flick held her breath.

“It's some sausage for my supper,” Jelly said. “You can smell the garlic.”

He waved her on and looked across the square again.

The three Jackdaws walked up the short drive, mounted the steps, and at last entered the château.

DIETER SPENT THE
afternoon shadowing Michel's train, stopping at every sleepy country halt in case Michel got off. He felt sure he was wasting his time, and that Michel was a decoy, but he had no alternative. Michel was his only lead. He was desperate.

Michel rode the train all the way back to Reims.

A doomy sense of impending failure and disgrace overwhelmed Dieter as he sat in a car beside a bombed building near the Reims station waiting for Michel to emerge. Where had he gone wrong? It seemed to him that he had done everything he could—but nothing had worked.

What if following Michel led nowhere? At some point, Dieter would have to cut his losses and interrogate the man. But how much time did he have? Tonight was the night of the full moon, but the English Channel was stormy again. The Allies might postpone the invasion—or they might decide to take their chances with the weather. In a few hours it might be too late.

Michel had come to the station this morning in a van borrowed from Philippe Moulier, the meat supplier, and Dieter looked around for it, but could not see it. He guessed the van had been left here for Flick Clairet to pick up. By now she might be anywhere within a radius of a hundred miles. He cursed himself for not setting someone to watch the van.

He diverted himself by considering how to interrogate Michel. The man's weak point was probably Gilberte. Right now she was in a cell at the château,
wondering what was going to happen to her. She would stay there until Dieter was quite sure he had finished with her; then she would be executed or sent to a camp in Germany. How could she be used to make Michel talk—and fast?

The thought of the camps in Germany gave Dieter an idea. Leaning forward, he said to his driver, “When the Gestapo send prisoners to Germany, they go by train, don't they?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is it true that you put them in the kind of railway cars normally used for transporting livestock?”

“Cattle trucks, yes, sir, it's good enough for those scum, communists and Jews and the like.”

“Where do they board?”

“Right here in Reims. The train from Paris stops here.”

“And how often do those trains run?”

“There's one most days. It leaves Paris late in the afternoon and stops here around eight in the evening, if it's on time.”

Before he could progress his idea further, Dieter saw Michel emerge from the station. Ten yards behind him in the crowd was Hans Hesse. They approached Dieter on the other side of the street.

Dieter's driver started the engine.

Dieter turned in his seat to watch Michel and Hans.

They passed Dieter. Then, to Dieter's surprise, Michel turned into the alley alongside the Café de la Gare.

Hans quickened his pace and turned the same corner less than a minute later.

Dieter frowned. Was Michel trying to shake off his tail?

Hans reemerged from the alley and looked up and down the street with a worried frown. There were not many people on the pavements, just a few travelers walking to and from the station and the last of the city-center workers heading for home. Hans mouthed a curse and turned back into the alley.

Dieter groaned aloud. Hans had lost Michel.

This was the worst foul-up Dieter had been involved in since the battle of Alam Halfa, when wrong intelligence had led Rommel to defeat. That had been the turning point of the North African war. Dieter prayed this was not to be the turning point in Europe.

As he stared despondently at the mouth of the alley, Michel emerged from the front entrance of the café.

Dieter's spirits leaped. Michel had shaken off Hans but did not realize he had a second shadow. All was not yet lost.

Michel crossed the road, breaking into a run, and headed back the way he had come—toward Dieter in the car.

Dieter thought fast. If he tried to follow Michel, maintaining the surveillance, then he, too, would have to run, and that would make it obvious that he was tailing the man. It was no good: the surveillance was over. It was time to seize Michel.

Michel pounded along the pavement, shoving other pedestrians aside. He ran awkwardly, because of his bullet wound, but he moved fast and rapidly approached Dieter's car.

Dieter made a decision.

He opened the car door.

As Michel drew level, Dieter got out, narrowing the available pavement by holding the door wide. Michel swerved to dodge around the obstacle. Dieter stuck out his leg. Michel tripped over his outstretched foot and went flying. A big man, he fell heavily on the paved sidewalk.

Dieter drew his pistol and thumbed the safety catch.

Michel lay prone for a second, stunned. Then, groggily, he tried to get to his knees.

Dieter touched the barrel of the gun to Michel's temple. “Don't get up,” he said in French.

The driver got a pair of handcuffs from the trunk, secured Michel's wrists, and bundled him into the back of the car.

Hans reappeared, looking dismayed. “What happened?”

“He went in through the back door of the Café de la Gare and came out of the front,” Dieter explained.

Hans was relieved. “What now?”

“Come with me to the station.” Dieter turned to the driver. “Do you have a gun?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Keep a close watch on this man. If he tries to escape, shoot him in the legs.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dieter and Hans walked briskly into the station. Dieter buttonholed a uniformed railwayman and said, “I want to see the stationmaster right away.”

The man looked surly, but he said, “I'll take you to his office.”

The stationmaster was dressed in a black jacket and waistcoat with striped trousers, an elegant old-fashioned uniform, worn thin at the elbows and knees. He kept his bowler hat on even in his office. He was frightened by this visit from a high-powered German. “What can I do for you?” he said with a nervous smile.

“Are you expecting a train from Paris with prisoners tonight?”

“Yes, at eight o'clock, as usual.”

“When it comes, hold it here until you hear from me. I have a special prisoner I want to board.”

“Very good. If I could have written authorization . . .”

“Of course. I will arrange it. Do you do anything with the prisoners while the train is here?”

“Sometimes we hose out the cars. Cattle trucks are used, you see, so there are no lavatory facilities, and frankly it becomes extremely unpleasant, without wishing to criticize—”

“Do not clean the trucks tonight, you understand?”

“Of course.”

“Do you do anything else?”

The man hesitated. “Not really.”

He was guilty about something, Dieter could tell. “Come on, man, out with it, I'm not going to punish you.”

“Sometimes the railwaymen take pity on the
prisoners, and give them water. It's not allowed, strictly speaking, but—”

“No water will be given tonight.”

“Understood.”

Dieter turned to Hans. “I want you to take Michel Clairet to the police station and lock him in a cell, then return here to the station and make sure my orders are carried out.”

“Of course, Major.”

Dieter picked up the phone on the stationmaster's desk. “Get me the château of Sainte-Cécile.” When he got through he asked for Weber. “There's a woman in the cells called Gilberte.”

“I know,” said Weber. “Pretty girl.”

Dieter wondered why Weber sounded so pleased with himself. “Would you please send her in a car to the railway station in Reims. Lieutenant Hesse is here, he will take charge of her.”

“Very well,” said Weber. “Hold the line a moment, will you?” He moved the phone away from his mouth and spoke to someone in the room, giving orders for Gilberte to be moved. Dieter waited impatiently. Weber came back on the line. “I've arranged that.”

“Thank you—”

“Don't hang up. I have some news for you.”

This would be why he was sounding pleased. “Go on,” Dieter said.

“I have captured an Allied agent myself.”

“What?” Dieter said. This was a lucky break. “When?”

“A few minutes ago.”

“Where, for God's sake?”

“Right here in Sainte-Cécile.”

“How did that happen?”

“She attacked a Militian, and three of my bright young people happened to witness it. They had the presence of mind to capture the culprit, who was armed with a Colt automatic.”

“Did you say ‘she'? The agent is a woman?”

“Yes.”

That settled it. The Jackdaws were in Sainte-Cécile. The château was their target.

Dieter said, “Weber, listen to me. I think she is part of a team of saboteurs intending to attack the château.”

“They tried that before,” Weber said. “We gave them a hiding.”

Dieter controlled his impatience with an effort. “Indeed you did, so they may be more sly this time. May I suggest a security alert? Double the guards, search the château, and question all non-German personnel in the building.”

“I have given orders to that effect.”

Dieter was not sure he believed that Weber had already thought of a security alert, but it did not matter, so long as he did so now.

Dieter briefly considered rescinding his instructions about Gilberte and Michel but decided not to. He might well need to interrogate Michel before the night was over.

“I will return to Sainte-Cécile immediately,” he told Weber.

“As you wish,” Weber said casually, implying he could manage perfectly well without Dieter's assistance.

“I need to interrogate the new prisoner.”

“I have already begun. Sergeant Becker is softening her up.”

“For God's sake! I want her sane and able to speak.”

“Of course.”

“Please, Weber, this is too important for mistakes. I beg you to keep Becker under control until I get there.”

“Very well, Franck. I will make sure he doesn't overdo it.”

“Thank you. I'll be there as fast as I can.” Dieter hung up.