Citadel (59 page)

She darted back into the undergrowth at the bottom of the steep slope that fell away from the railway track. Silence. If anyone had heard the shot, they weren’t coming to investigate. Still, she stayed in position for a moment longer. From her hiding place she could just make out the faint outline of the village houses a kilometre or so to the north. To the west, a little further away, the brighter lights of the cafés on the Canal du Midi in Trèbes, favoured by junior Nazi officers.

The Berriac tunnel was of great strategic importance. The line linked Carcassonne with Narbonne, forming part of the key west–east German supply lines. Food and ammunition were transported from the stores in the old hat factory in Montazels to the Wehrmacht and SS troops stationed on the coast. All the old beach resorts were garrisons now. There had been two attempts at sabotage in the past month, one closing the tunnel for twenty-four hours. But this was an unscheduled train and Sandrine was determined to stop it. So far, she had seen no French or German guards on the line.

She looked across the waiting land to the window of the tiny chapel where the candles would be lit as her sign to act when the convoy was approaching. She tucked the weapon back into her belt. She hoped she wouldn’t have to use the stolen gun again tonight.

Sandrine hated this dog-end time before an operation, the counting down to zero hour. It was the moment she ceased to be Sandrine Vidal, sister of Marianne, daughter of the late François Vidal, and became instead Sophie –
résistante
, saboteur, one of many still fighting the German occupation of the Aude.

Ever since the Nazis had crossed the demarcation line on 11 November 1942 and taken control of the rest of France, Sandrine had lived this double life. She, Marianne and Suzanne in Carcassonne, helped by Robert and Gaston Bonnet and – on the few occasions he’d risked coming into town – by Raoul. Geneviève, Liesl and Yves Rousset were in Coustaussa, with Eloise and Guillaume Breillac fighting in Tarascon. Together they made up the network known as ‘Citadel’, with the men who supported them, although no one but them used the name. So far, they had not been caught.

Sandrine glanced at her watch. Ten forty-five.

There was always a first time.

This last half-hour was always the worst. The time when dread took hold and the fear that, this time, their luck would run out. Her fingers, toes, bones, roots of her hair, her whole body itched with anticipation.

She hoped Marianne was bearing up. She was in the chapel, more a shrine really, outside the village, her hair covered by a country headscarf and her figure hidden beneath a drab coat. When Marianne heard the train coming, she would light four candles and exit by the main door, leaving a
panier
packed with explosives and fuses by the wooden chancel door for Suzanne to collect and deliver to the small electricity substation next to the track some five metres before the entrance to the tunnel. Suzanne would prime the device, then double back to where Robert Bonnet would be waiting on the Villedubert road. From that moment, Sandrine had to wait until the optimum moment to light the fuse, then get out of the way before the bomb went off.

Sandrine’s plan was to knock out the power and block the entrance to the tunnel at the same time. There was a key Wehrmacht munitions stores at Lézignan, halfway to Narbonne, where German troops were also billeted. If she succeeded, Nazi operations would be seriously compromised, for a day or two at least. But it was the sort of operation she hated most. So many things could go wrong: Robert might fail to get to the rendezvous on time to pick Marianne and Suzanne up; any one of the three of them might be seen; the device might not work or go off too soon. Sandrine took several deep breaths, settling the butterflies in her stomach. Suzanne was as good as they came, but several partisans had been injured – even killed – by their own home-made devices in the past few weeks.

It will go off all right, she told herself.

She rolled her shoulders, feeling the tightness in her muscles as she flexed and unflexed her hands.

Ten fifty-five.

Suddenly Sandrine saw a flicker of light through the plain glass window of the chapel. Twenty minutes early. She watched to make sure it was the signal, waiting as the pale flames grew stronger, then stronger again as Marianne lit each of the candles in turn. There was no mistake.

The instant she saw the fourth flame, Sandrine was on her feet. Nerves gone, her senses on high alert, adrenalin propelling her up the bank and towards the substation. Keeping as low as she could, she ran across the open ground. The main grid was in the upper storey of the squat, rectangular tower, three metres or so above ground level. The porcelain shields protecting the connectors shone an eerie white in the dark of the night.

The
panier
was in place. Sandrine crouched down and lifted the red and white chequered napkin from the top of the basket. A jumble of wires and pipe. As she located the fuse without touching anything, she could hear the hum of the tracks and the rattle of metal sliding over metal. She held her breath, listening and counting to gauge the speed of the train, then took a box of matches from her pocket. The flame guttered and flared, but went out. Sandrine slipped the match into her pocket, so as not to leave any evidence, then took another and scraped it along the strip. This time, the flame held steady.

With a practised hand, she leant forward and lit the fuse, hearing the cord hiss. She gave it two seconds, to check it had taken, then blew out the match, shoved the box back into her pocket, and ran.

The railway lines were humming louder now. Soon the buzz would be overtaken by the sound of the engine as the train thundered closer. Sandrine drove herself on, heading for the only available cover in the thicket. There wasn’t enough time to get back to her hiding place. As she threw herself down the bank, she heard a small crump, not much louder than a shotgun in fields in August. Then a massive explosion rent the air. Sandrine felt the force of it like a hand in her back, as she half flew, half rolled down the slope.

She took a second to gather her thoughts, then looked up, desperate to see, the blast ringing in her ears. She heard the shriek of the brakes, then the sound of metal connecting with rubble and concrete, the noise of the collision and derailment echoing through the silent countryside. She raised her head, feeling the heat on her face, watching as a golden cloud of flame, red, blue, leapt into the air. White light sparking as the electricity cables popped and fizzed like the Catherine wheels and Roman candles that used to engulf the walls of the Cité in Carcassonne on Bastille Day before the war. Before the occupation.

Before this life.

Sandrine let her breath out, all feeling suspended for a moment. Then, as always, self-preservation kicked in. She inhaled again, then, forcing the power into her tired legs, she turned and fled. This time she didn’t stop until she reached the cover of the wood. The bag with her change of clothes was waiting where she’d left it. A nondescript summer dress in place of shirt and trousers, a working woman’s headscarf instead of the black beret. Only her rubber-soled shoes might look incongruous. She rolled the clothes into a bundle, unfolded a mesh shopping bag from her pocket, and put them in beneath two damp cloths and a duster. So long as she wasn’t stopped and her bag searched, there was no reason for anyone to think she wasn’t a cleaner on her way home after her Monday-night shift.

It wasn’t until she saw the towers of the Cité in the distance that Sandrine heard the first of the sirens. She looked down from the Aire de la Pépinière as a fire truck, followed by a Feldgendarmerie truck and a black Citroën Traction Avant, the car favoured by the Gestapo, shrieked along the route de Narbonne towards Berriac.

She took a moment to catch her breath, then quickly carried on towards home. Going through residential areas, where there was less likely to be patrols, she avoided the Wehrmacht checkpoints on the Pont Neuf and arrived back in the Bastide as the bells were striking one. She turned into the rue de Lorraine, rather than the rue du Palais, so that she could get in through the back. Her fingers were crossed – as they always were at the end of an operation – that the others had made it safely home too.

Carefully, Sandrine opened the gate and glanced up at the Fournier house next door, to check that no midnight watcher was there. The windows were dark, shutters closed. She crossed the garden and ran up the steps, stopping to listen at the door before going in.

She felt a rush of relief at the sound of voices inside, then a moment of caution. She could hear Marianne and Suzanne, but a man was talking too. Sandrine frowned. Robert Bonnet never came to the house. She hesitated a moment longer, then opened the screen door a fraction to look, to see who it could possibly be at this time of night.

She caught her breath. It had been eight weeks. Eight long weeks. She hadn’t been expecting him. With a smile and a slight stumble of her heart, she pulled off the headscarf, shook out her hair and went into the kitchen.

‘Hello,’ she said lightly.

Raoul stood up. ‘
Ma belle
.’

Chapter 101

CHARTRES

‘
T
his way, monsieur,’ said the housekeeper.

Leo Authié followed her through the mahogany-panelled entrance hall, past the tapestries and the dimly lit glass display cases. A flight of grand wooden stairs led up to the private rooms on the first floor. Beneath them, a small door led to the extensive wine cellar, which was, Authié knew from his personal experience, as good now as before the war.

In the past two years, Authié had been invited to the rue du Cheval Blanc on several occasions. The courtesies were always the same. Outside, the consequences of months of bombing. Rubble in the streets, the airport destroyed and the threat of Allied forces advancing through western France from Normandy. Here, in the shadow of the great Gothic cathedral, nothing had changed.

‘Monsieur de l’Oradore will be with you shortly,’ said the housekeeper, showing him into the library.

‘Thank you,’ he said, taking off his hat. Authié did not wear the uniform of the Milice, preferring to remain in civilian clothing as in his days of attachment to the Deuxième Bureau.

The library was more like a gentlemen’s club than a room in a private house, the atmosphere one of cigar smoke and old money. A large three-seat leather sofa stood beneath the window, and armchairs either side of the fireplace. The shutters were closed, with the blackout curtains drawn. A single lamp pooled yellow light on a side table. Bookshelves ran from floor to ceiling along three sides of the room, with sliding book ladders set on metal rails in the oak floorboards.

‘Ah, Authié.’ François Cecil-Baptiste de l’Oradore walked into the room, his hand outstretched in greeting. ‘Forgive me for getting you out of bed at such an unconscionable hour.’

‘I was still up, monsieur,’ Authié replied. However cordial his host appeared to be, there was never any question of them being friends.

The two men were of a similar age, both in their mid thirties. But where Authié was of medium height and broadly built, de l’Oradore was very tall and thin. His black hair, touched with grey, was swept back from a high forehead and prominent cheekbones. He was, as always, immaculately dressed and had clearly come from dinner. A white dress shirt, bow tie, silver cufflinks just visible beneath the sleeves of his jacket, and a purple cummerbund. Like Authié, he wore a crucifix pin on his lapel.

‘Good of you to come all the same,’ de l’Oradore said, waving his hand to indicate that Authié should sit down. ‘Please.’

Whatever the matter was, it had to be serious for de l’Oradore to summon him at one o’clock in the morning.

‘Smoke?’ He offered a box of Cuban cigars.

Authié shook his head. ‘No thank you,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you, Monsieur de l’Oradore?’

His host sat on the sofa and rested his arm along the back. ‘The situation in Chartres is, how shall I put it, precarious.’

‘But Montgomery and his troops have failed to advance,’ Authié said.

De l’Oradore waved his hand dismissively. ‘I’m sure the Panzer divisions are more than capable of containing them, yes,’ he said. ‘However, my most pressing concern is the question of safeguarding my collection. A great many of the pieces – in particular the thirteenth-century books and manuscripts – are irreplaceable.’

As well as the wine cellar, Authié was aware there were extensive other chambers beneath the house. In May, there had been an attempted burglary. Two Waffen-SS officers who had been dining with de l’Oradore that night in the rue du Cheval Blanc had shot the intruders. Authié had been summoned to dispose of the bodies.

He had never seen the extent of the underground space, but he knew de l’Oradore was one of the most successful private collectors in France. Jewellery, tapestries, medieval manuscripts. At the centre of his collection were objects acquired from Napoleon’s Egyptian expeditions at the end of the eighteenth century. Recently, these had been supplemented by pieces from the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris, amongst other galleries. Works stolen from Jewish deportees and artists.

‘Do you not consider your storage facilities here to be adequate?’ Authié asked carefully.

‘They will be of little use should Allied troops reach the city.’

Authié paused. He had not thought things so serious. Thanks to his position, his information about the truth of matters between the Axis and Allied forces was good. But de l’Oradore’s intelligence was better.

‘Are there reasons to think that is an imminent possibility?’ he asked.

Now it was de l’Oradore’s turn to pause. ‘There are rumours that more American troops will disembark on the northern coast,’ he said eventually. There was no suggestion of alarm or fear in his voice, only the thoughtful concern of a businessman for his investments. ‘I am sure the threat is exaggerated, but, as a precaution, there are certain objects I intend to remove from Chartres until the situation is clear.’

‘To Berlin?’