Ken Follett - Jackdaws

Dieter nodded, satisfied. "Carry on."

A youngster was next, no more than seventeen, Dieter guessed, a good-looking boy who was absolutely terrified. "Name?"

He hesitated, seeming dazed by shock. After thinking, he said, "Bertrand Bisset."

"Good evening, Bertrand," Dieter said pleasantly. "Welcome to Hell."

The boy looked as if he had been slapped.

Dieter pushed him on.

Willi Weber appeared, with Becker pacing behind him like a dangerous dog on a chain. "How did you get in here?" Weber said rudely to Dieter.

"I walked in," Dieter said. "Your security stinks."

"Ridiculous! You've just seen us beat off a major attack!"

"By a dozen men and some girls!"

"We defeated them, that's all that counts."

"Think about it, Willi," Dieter said reasonably. "They were able to assemble close by, quite unnoticed by you, then force their way into the grounds and kill at least six good German soldiers. I suspect the only reason you defeated them was that they had underestimated the numbers against them. And I entered this basement unchallenged because the guard had left his post."

"He's a brave German, he wanted to join the fighting."

"God give me strength," Dieter said in despair. "A soldier in battle doesn't leave his post to join the fighting, he follows orders!"

"I don't need a lecture from you on military discipline."

Dieter gave up, for now. "And I have no desire to give one."

"What do you want?"

"I'm going to interview the prisoners."

"That's the Gestapo's job."

"Don't be idiotic. Field Marshal Rommel has asked me, not the Gestapo, to limit the capacity of the Resistance to damage his communications in the event of an invasion. These prisoners can give me priceless information. I intend to question them."

"Not while they're in my custody," Weber said stubbornly. "I shall interrogate them myself and send the results to the Field Marshal."

"The Allies are probably going to invade this summer-isn't it time to stop fighting turf wars?"

"It is never time to abandon efficient organization."

Dieter could have screamed. In desperation, he swallowed his pride and tried for a compromise. "Let's interrogate them together."

Weber smiled, sensing victory "Absolutely not."

"This means I'll have to go over your head."

"If you can."

"Of course I can. All you will achieve is a delay."

"So you say."

"You damned fool," Dieter said savagely. "God preserve the fatherland from patriots such as you." He turned on his heel and stalked out.

Gilberte and Flick left the town of Sainte-Cecile behind, heading for the city of Reims on a country back road. Gilberte drove as fast as she could along the narrow lane. Flick's eyes apprehensively raked the road ahead. It rose and fell over low hills and wound through vineyards as it made its leisurely way from village to village. Their progress was slowed by many crossroads, but the number of junctions made it impossible for the Gestapo to block every route away from Sainte-Cecile. All the same, Flick gnawed her lip, worrying about the chance of being stopped at random by a patrol. She could not explain away a man in the backseat bleeding from a bullet wound.

Thinking ahead, she realized she could not take Michel to his home. After France surrendered in 1940, and Michel was demobilized, he had not returned to his lectureship at the Sorbonne but had come back to his hometown, to be deputy head of a high school, and-his real motive-to organize a Resistance circuit. He had moved into the home of his late parents, a charming town house near the cathedral. But, Flick decided, he could not go there now. It was known to too many people. Although Resistance members often did not know one another's addresses-for the sake of security, they revealed them only if necessary for a delivery or rendezvous-Michel was leader, and most people knew where he lived.

Back in Sainte-Cecile, some of the team must have been taken alive. Before long they would be under interrogation. Unlike British agents, the French Resistance did not carry suicide pills. The only reliable rule of interrogation was that everybody would talk in the long run. Sometimes the Gestapo ran out of patience, and sometimes they killed their subjects by over enthusiasm but, if they were careful and determined, they could make the strongest personality betray his or her dearest comrades. No one could bear agony forever.

So Flick had to treat Michel's house as known to the enemy. Where could she take him instead?

"How is he?" said Gilberte anxiously.

Flick glanced into the backseat. His eyes were closed, but he was breathing normally. He had fallen into a sleep, the best thing for him. She looked at him fondly. He needed someone to take care of him, at least for a day or two. She turned to Gilberte. Young and single, she was probably still with her parents. "Where do you live?" Flick asked her.

"On the outskirts of town, on the Route de Cernay."

"On your own?"

For some reason, Gilberte looked scared. "Yes, of course on my own."

"A house, an apartment, a bedsitting room?"

"An apartment, two rooms."

"We'll go there."

"No!"

"Why not? Are you scared?"

She looked injured. "No, not scared."

"What, then?"

"I don't trust the neighbors."

"Is there a back entrance?"

Reluctantly, Gilberte said, "Yes, an alley that runs along the side of a little factory."

"It sounds ideal."

"Okay, you're right, we should go to my place. I just… You surprised me, that's all."

"I'm sorry."

Flick was scheduled to return to London tonight. She was to rendezvous with a plane in a meadow outside the village of Chatelle, five miles north of Reims. She wondered if the plane would make it. Navigating by the stars, it was extraordinarily difficult to find a specific field near a small village. Pilots often went astray-in fact, it was a miracle they ever arrived where they were supposed to. She looked at the weather. A clear sky was darkening to the deep blue of evening. There would be moonlight, provided the weather held.

If not tonight, then tomorrow, she thought, as always.

Her mind went to the comrades she had left behind. Was young Bertrand dead or alive? What about Genevieve? They might be better off dead. Alive, they faced the agony of torture. Flick's heart seemed to convulse with grief as she thought again that she had led them to defeat. Bertrand had a crush on her, she guessed. He was young enough to feel guilty about secretly loving the wife of his commander. She wished she had ordered him to stay at home. It would have made no difference to the outcome, and he would have remained a bright, likable youth for a little longer, instead of a corpse, or worse.

No one could succeed every time, and war meant that when leaders failed, people died. It was a hard fact, but still she cast about for consolation. She longed for a way to make sure their suffering was not in vain. Perhaps she could build on their sacrifice and get some kind of victory out of it after all.

She thought about the pass she had stolen from Antoinette and the possibility of getting into the chateau clandestinely. A team could enter disguised as civilian employees. She swiftly dismissed the idea of having them pose as telephone operators: it was a skilled job that took time to learn. But anyone could use a broom.

Would the Germans notice if the cleaners were strangers? They probably paid no attention to the women who mopped the floor. What about the French telephonists-would they give the game away? it might be a risk worth taking.

SOE had a remarkable forgery department that could copy any kind of document, sometimes even making their own paper to match the original, in a couple of days. They could soon produce counterfeits of Antoinette's pass.