Jackdaws (54 page)

Gilberte said, "Please, Michel,
I beg you." Michel nodded. "All right," he said.

"Don't lie again," Dieter
warned.

"Let her out."

"The time and place."

"The potato field east of
Laroque, at two a.m."

Dieter looked at his watch. It was
twelve-fifteen. "Show me," he said.

Paul said, "I'm single."
He looked at Flick.

She shook her head. "I intended
to ask Michel for a divorce… but how could I, in the middle of an
operation?"

"So we'll wait until after the
war to get married," Paul said. "I'm patient."

Typical man, Flick thought. He
slips marriage into the conversation like a minor detail, on a level with
buying a dog license. So much for romance.

But in truth she was pleased. It was
the second time he had mentioned marriage. Who needs romance? she thought.

She looked at her watch. It was
one-thirty. "time to go," she said.

DIETER HAD COMMANDEERED a Mercedes
limousine that had been outside the château grounds and so had survived the
explosion. The car was now parked at the edge of the vineyard next to the
potato field at Laroque, camouflaged with leafy vines torn from the ground.
Michel and Gilberte were in the backseat, bound hand and foot, guarded by Hans.

Dieter also had with him the two
corporals, each armed with a rifle. Dieter and the riflemen looked into the
potato field. They could see clearly in the moonlight.

Dieter said, "The terrorists
will be here in the next few minutes. We have the advantage of surprise. They
have no idea that we're here. But remember, I must have them alive—especially
the leader, the small woman. You have to shoot to wound, not kill."

One of the marksmen said, "We
can't guarantee that. This field must be three hundred meters wide. Let's say
the enemy is a hundred and fifty meters away. At that distance, no one could be
sure of hitting the legs of a running man."

"They won't be running,"
Dieter said. "They're meeting a plane. They have to form a line, pointing
electric torches at the aircraft to guide the pilot down. That means they'll be
standing still for several minutes."

"In the middle of the
field?"

"Yes."

The man nodded. "Then we can do
it." He looked up. "Unless the moon goes behind a cloud."

"In that event, we'll turn on
the headlights of the car at the crucial moment." The Mercedes had huge
dinner-plate lamps.

The other marksman said,
"Listen."

FIVE KILOMETERS FROM from Laroque, the
village of L'Epine was asleep. Bright moonlight silvered the big church. Behind
the church, Moulier's meat van was parked inconspicuously next to a barn. In
the deep moon shadow thrown by a buttress, the surviving Jackdaws sat waiting.

"What are you looking forward
to?" said Ruby.

Paul said, "A steak."

Flick said, "A soft bed with
clean sheets. How about you?"

"Seeing Jim."

Flick recalled that Ruby had had a
fling with the firearms instructor. "I thought…" She stopped.

"You thought it was just a
casual shag?" Ruby said. Flick nodded, embarrassed.

"So did Jim," Ruby said.
"But I've got other plans." Paul laughed softly. "I'll bet you
get what you want." "What about you two?" Ruby asked.

They fell silent. A motor vehicle
was approaching. They all knelt. Despite the moonlight, they would not be
visible against the dark mass of the vines, provided they kept their heads
down.

A VAN CAME ALONG the road from the
village with its lights off. It pulled up by the gate to the potato field. A
female figure jumped out and swung the gate wide. The van pulled in and its
engine was silenced. Two more people got out, another woman and a man.

"Quiet, now," Dieter
whispered.

Suddenly the hush was shattered by
the blare of a car horn, incredibly loud.

Dieter jumped and cursed. It came
from immediately behind him. "Jesus!" he exploded. It was the
Mercedes. He leaped to his feet and ran to the open window of the driver's
door. He saw immediately what had happened.

Michel had sprung forward, leaning
across the front seat, and before Hans could stop him he had pressed on the
horn with his bound hands. Hans, in the front passenger seat, was now trying to
aim his gun, but Gilberte had joined in, and she was lying half over Hans,
hampering his movements so that he kept having to push her away.

Dieter reached in and shoved Michel,
but Michel resisted, and Dieter's position, with his arms extended through the
car window, was too awkward for him to exert much force. The horn continued to
sound a deafening warning that the Resistance agents could not fail to hear.

Dieter fumbled for his gun.

Michel found the light switch, and
the car's headlights came on. Dieter looked up. The riflemen were hideously
exposed in the glare of the lights. They both got up off their knees, but
before they could throw themselves out of the beam there was a rattle of
machine-gun fire from the field. One rifleman cried out, dropped his gun,
clutched his belly, and fell across the hood of the Mercedes; then the other was
shot in the head. A sharp pain stung Dieter's left arm, and he let out a yell
of shock.

Then there was a shot from within
the car, and Michel cried out. Hans had at last flung Gilberte off himself and
got his pistol out. He fired again, and Michel slumped, but Michel's hand was
still on the horn, and his body now lay over his hand, pressing it down, so the
horn continued to blare. Hans fired a third time, uselessly, for his bullet
thudded into the body of a dead man. Gilberte screamed and threw herself at
Hans again, grabbing at his gun arm with her manacled hands. Dieter had his gun
out but could not shoot at Gilberte for fear of hitting Hans.

There was a fourth shot. It was
Hans's gun again, but now it was somehow pointing upwards, and he shot himself,
the bullet hitting him under the chin. He gave a horrid gurgle, blood came out
of his mouth, and he slumped back against the door, his eyes staring
lifelessly. Dieter took careful aim and shot Gilberte in the head.

He reached through the window with
his right arm and shoved the corpse of Michel away from the steering wheel.

The horn was silenced.

He found the light switch and killed
the headlights.

He looked across the field.

The van was still there, but the
Jackdaws had disappeared.

He listened. Nothing moved.

He was alone.

FLICK CRAWLED THROUGH the vineyard
on her hands and knees, heading for Dieter Franck's car. The moonlight, so
necessary for clandestine flights across occupied territory, was now her enemy.
She wished for a cloud to shade the moon, but for the moment the sky was clear.
She kept close to the row of vines, but she threw a conspicuous moon shadow.

She had firmly instructed Paul and
Ruby to stay behind, hiding at the edge of the field near the van. Three people
made three times the noise, and she did not want a companion to betray her
presence.

As she crawled, she listened for the
incoming plane. She had to locate any remaining enemies and kill them before
the plane arrived. The Jackdaws could not stand in the middle of the field with
flashlights while there were armed troops aiming at them from the vineyard. And
if they did not hold flashlights, the plane would return to England without
touching down. The thought was unbearable.

She was deeper into the vineyard
than Dieter Franck's car, which was parked at the edge. She was five rows of
vines back. She would approach the enemy from behind. She kept the submachine
gun in her right hand, ready to fire, as she crawled.

She drew level with the car. Franck
had camouflaged it with vegetation, but when she peeped over the rows of vines
she saw moonlight glint off the rear window.

The shoots of the vines were
espaliered crosswise, but she was able to crawl beneath the lowest strand. She
pushed her head through and looked up and down the next alley. It was clear.
She crawled across the open space and repeated the exercise. She grew ultra
cautious as she approached the car, but she saw no one.

When she was two rows away, she was
able to see the wheels of the car and the ground around it. She thought she
could make out two motionless bodies in uniform. How many were there in total?
It was a long Mercedes limousine and could easily carry six.

She crept closer. Nothing moved. Were
they all dead? Or had one or two survived, and concealed themselves nearby,
waiting to pounce?

Eventually she crawled right up to
the car.

The doors were wide open, and the
interior seemed full of bodies. She looked in the front and recognized Michel.
She choked back a sob. He was a bad husband, but he had been her choice, and
now he was lifeless, with three red-ringed bullet holes in his blue chambray
shirt. She guessed he had been the one to sound the horn. If so, he had died
saving her life. There was no time to think of such things now: she would
ponder them later, if she lived long enough.

Next to Michel lay a man she did not
recognize who had been shot in the throat. He wore the uniform of a lieutenant.
There were more bodies in the back. She looked through the open rear door. One
was that of a woman. She leaned into the car for a better view. She gasped: the
woman was Gilberte, and she seemed to be staring at Flick. A ghastly moment
later, Flick realized that the eyes saw nothing, and Gilberte was dead, shot in
the head.

She leaned over Gilberte to look at
the fourth corpse. It rose up from the floor in a swift motion. Before she had
time to scream, it grabbed her by the hair and thrust the barrel of a gun into
the soft flesh of her throat.

It was Dieter Franck.

"Drop the gun," he said in
French.

She was holding the submachine gun
in her right hand, but it was pointing up and, before she could aim it, he
would be able to shoot her. She had no choice: she dropped it. The safety catch
was disengaged, and she half-hoped the impact of its fall would fire the gun,
but it landed harmlessly on the earth.

"Back away."

As she stepped back, he followed
her, getting out of the car, keeping the gun at her throat. He drew himself
upright. "You're so small," he said, looking her up and down. 'And
you've done so much damage."

She saw blood on the sleeve of his
suit and guessed she had winged him with her Sten gun.

"Not just to me," he said.
"That telephone exchange is every bit as important as you obviously
believe."

She found her voice.
"Good."

"Don't look pleased. Now you're
going to damage the Resistance."

She wished she had not been so
fierce in ordering Paul and Ruby to wait in hiding. There was now no chance
they would come to her rescue.

Dieter shifted the gun from her
throat to her shoulder. "I don't want to kill you, but I'd be happy to
give you a crippling wound. I need you able to talk, of course. You're going to
give me all the names and addresses in your head."

She thought of the suicide pill
concealed in the hollow cap of her fountain pen. Would she have a chance to
take it?

"It's a pity you've destroyed
the interrogation facility at Sainte-Cécile," he went on. "I'll have
to drive you to Paris. I've got all the same equipment there."

She thought with horror of the
hospital operating table and the electric shock machine.

"I wonder what will break
you?" he said. "Sheer pain breaks everyone eventually, of course, but
I feel that you might bear pain for an inconveniently long time." He
raised his left arm. The wound seemed to give him a twinge, and he winced, but
he bore it. He touched her face. "The loss of your looks, perhaps. Imagine
this pretty face disfigured: the nose broken, the lips slashed, one eye put
out, the ears cut off."

Flick felt sick, but she maintained
a stony expression. "No?" His hand moved down, stroking her neck;
then he touched her breast. "Sexual humiliation, then. To be naked in
front of many people, fondled by a group of drunk men, forced to perform acts
of grossness with animals.."

"And which of us would be most
humiliated by that?" she said defiantly. "Me, the helpless victim… or
you, the real perpetrator of obscenity?"

He took his hand away. "Then again,
we have tortures which destroy forever a woman's ability to bear
children."

Flick thought of Paul and flinched
involuntarily.

"Ah," he said with
satisfaction. "I believe I have found the key to unlock you."

She realized she had been foolish to
speak to him. Now she had given him information which he could use to break her
will.

"We'll drive straight to
Paris," he said. "We'll be there by dawn. By midday, you will be
begging me to stop the torture and listen to you pour out all the secrets you
know. Tomorrow night we will arrest every member of the Resistance in northern
France."

Flick was cold with dread. Franck
was not bragging. He could do it.

"I think you can travel in the
trunk of the car," he said. "It's not airtight, you won't suffocate.
But I'll put the corpses of your husband and his lover in with you. A few hours
bumping around with dead people will put you in the right frame of mind, I
think."

Flick shuddered with loathing. She
could not help it.

Keeping the pistol pressed to her
shoulder, he reached into his pocket with his other hand. He moved his arm
cautiously: the bullet wound hurt but did not incapacitate him. He drew out a
pair of handcuffs. "Give me your hands," he said.

She remained motionless.

"I can either handcuff you, or
render your arms useless by shooting you in both shoulders."

Helpless, she raised her hands.

He closed one cuff over her left
wrist. She moved her right toward him. Then she made her last desperate move.