Cold Lonely Courage (Madeleine toche Series Book 2) (8 page)

“They know they’ll have a better chance of beating him if we get rid of the Nazis,” Madeleine said.

“You’re right. Sorry, but I have to go,” Jack said, kissing her until he forced himself to break away.

Madeleine watched him walking away with powerful strides towards the hills that lay just behind the house, tinted a pale red by the sun rising behind them. Soon he was out of sight. She went back inside the barn, fighting the urge to run after him.

Teach made his way carefully through the jutting rocks and boulders along the path. He forced his feet forward, on the only road that would bring him back to her.

.

CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN

Madeleine pushed her bicycle down an alley towards the front entrance of a police station. She was relying on recent intelligence and swift action was required. She didn’t like having to expose herself to enemy eyes, but the situation dictated it. She wore no disguise. She needed to appear as normal as possible and for the men to focus on her body, not her face, using it to her advantage. Her clothes were worn and threadbare. Few Frenchwomen had any new clothes given the shortages and rationing. Although her skirt and sweater were loose, her looks captured the attention of the police officers loitering around the entrance. She made sure that the clothing didn’t obscure her curves completely, positioning her body to ensure that they didn’t. Madeleine leaned the bicycle against a lamppost and picked up a few loaves of bread and a wheel of cheese from the basket behind the seat. The loaves were irregularly shaped baguettes, partially wrapped in paper with the top halves sticking out. Time to play the scared rabbit, she thought, moving uncertainly, trying to appear frightened and nonthreatening. The men showed no concern for security, despite the fact that two of their more important masters were inside the station on an inspection.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle,
you’re new. Where is Marc today?” The closest of the officers called to her as she moved towards the door.

“My uncle is sick and can’t make his deliveries,” She answered, making only brief eye contact with the policeman, smiling demurely, shrinking slightly into herself.

He admired her openly, running his eyes up and down her body.

Bastard, Madeleine thought. I’d shoot you dead before you put a hand on me.

“You’re much better looking than Marc,” he said loud enough for the others to laugh.

“You’re too nice sir. I’m sure you flatter all the girls,” Madeleine answered.

“Those that will talk to him,” one of the other guards added.

“Bah, don’t listen to them. They’re just jealous that I have a girlfriend who appreciates the job I do.”

“You wouldn’t know a terrorist if they bit you,” the other guard said. Thank God for that, Madeleine thought, smiling at the joke.

“I’ve arrested more than one member of the Resistance,” he answered, making a rude gesture to the other guards. “Let me get the door for you. I hope Marc stays out for a while so that we get to see you again.” The man smiled, urging Madeleine in and away from his fellow officers who were trying to embarrass him.

“Thank you
monsieur,
I’ll be sure to tell my uncle how nice you’ve been,” She almost whispered as she slid past him and into the hallway of the police station. I made it, she thought. Now work quickly. Follow the plan.

Moving down the hall, she saw two leather overcoats hanging on a rack, bearing Gestapo insignia. The intelligence was right. A routine visit by the hated German secret police was underway.

Madeleine glanced behind her, checking to see she wasn’t followed. Her features tightened. She straightened and moved deftly towards the back of the building where the small kitchen was located. She walked past two offices along the corridor and heard voices coming from the one closest to the kitchen. They were distinctly German. As she unloaded the bread onto a table, she listened to see if a third voice came from the room. She moved slowly and with patience, remembering that for what she intended to do, patience and nerve beat bravado and recklessness every time. The men in the room were smoking, and would have at least one of their hands occupied, she thought. Good, they won’t have time to react. She smelled the different odors of tobacco. One of the men had a pipe. Their conversation was languid and unhurried. There was no excitement in their voices. They must have just eaten. That will slow them down more.

Madeleine worked with her hands as she kept an eye on the front. Focus, she told herself. See everything, hear everything. She pulled one of the thicker baguettes out of the package and tore open one end, pulling out a long silencer. She raised her skirt and took her pistol from the holster strapped to her thigh. The fools never even patted me down, she thought, and they’d never touch me there. Screwing the silencer into the barrel, she tucked the gun under the bread paper and carried it over to the office door. She heard the steady cadence of the men’s conversation. She paused briefly, then gently pushed the door open and walked into the room holding the silenced weapon along her side so that it wouldn’t instantly be noticed. The officer seated at the desk turned only after she was fully into the room. Without hesitation she shot him squarely in the forehead. The other officer seated in front of the desk didn’t have time to move. She turned and put a bullet through his throat and face in instant succession. Turning back to the first officer, she shot him a second time so there would be no mistake. Although the room smelled of gunpowder, the silencer had done its job. Both men remained slumped in their chairs, surprise etched on their faces. Madeleine moved out of the room and closed the door behind her. With practiced efficiency she unscrewed the silencer and tucked it away inside her sweater. She placed the gun back into its holster. Get out now, she thought as she moved back to the kitchen, opened a window and dropped a short distance to the pavement below. It was a market day, and although many things were scarce, the street was getting crowded. She was into the crowd and away before she heard the first shriek of a police whistle.

.

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

Madeleine sat next to a small campfire at the entrance to a cave at the top of a hard hike along a forgotten path strewn with scree and boulders. She was halfway up a mountainside in one of her semi-regular hiding places. She had discovered it months ago while moving from one area of southern France to the next. The smells of wild herbs and the breeze off the sea comforted her. Another night on the rocks, she thought. It’s my fault I can’t hide in a safe house. Two years and stacks of dead Germans; nobody trusts me. Well, with the Gestapo’s highest reward on my head, I don’t trust anyone either, she thought, remembering her last assignment.

The Gestapo must really be stupid to leave themselves exposed like that. She cut a piece of bread, placing it with a lump of lard into a small frying pan balanced on some glowing coals. She reached in her pocket and pulled out a piece of hard goat cheese she’d managed to steal. She broke off a piece to nibble on and crumbled the rest onto the bread. She thought about Provence in the days before the occupation, when cheese was so abundant and so varied that you could eat the freshest, only days old, or the drier, aged pieces that burst with flavor as they melted slowly in your mouth. Funny how much I think about food and how important is to me. Especially when I don’t have any, she thought. Madeleine picked up a wine skin, sloshing it around to see how much she had. “I think I’ll drink it all,” she said aloud, removing the stopper and taking a long pull. At least I won’t have to worry tonight, or have to take this. She fingered the cyanide capsule sewn into the hem of her skirt. I can’t believe they thought I’d use it. I’ll die in a shootout or with my hands around someone’s throat. Either way, I’ll be dead.

As Madeleine tended to her food and drank the wine, she remembered Jack’s face. I just can’t get him out of my mind. If the Germans don’t kill me, I’ll drive myself crazy, she laughed out loud, feeling strengthened by the wine and fond memories. There’s been so much death. I just have to make it through.

Outside the cave the day quieted into twilight. Madeleine ate her meager meal and concentrated on the wine. Feeling a bit drunk, she was happy the mission went so well. Marc was out of the area and back into the hills with the
Maquis.
He’s safe. He gave me the exact information I needed, she thought, raising the wine skin in a silent toast.

Madeleine opened the pages of the Resistance paper ‘Combat’ and leaned towards the fire so she could read it. Eventually they’ll put another story about me in here and the Gestapo will read it. If I can get it, they can too.

Madeleine glanced over the front page. Every article seemed to mention that America was in the war now, and invasion was coming. It can’t come soon enough for me. I’m tired of running and hiding. Has it almost been three years? she asked herself.

The articles updated her on the attacks on Germany. The bombers flew over Germany in ever-increasing numbers, and the resistance to them dwindled. Now the German people are suffering. Good, she thought. The day of reckoning was coming. Soon the BBC will send the invasion code.

“Don’t start a war you can’t finish. You brought it down on yourselves,” she muttered, taking another drink.

Madeleine spread out the remnants of the fire and covered them with dirt, making sure there was no trace left. She took her blanket and walked to the rear of the cave where there was an entrance to another, larger chamber. She squeezed through the opening and lowered herself onto a bed of grass that she had accumulated over the times she’d slept there. A man, especially one with a gun, would have one hell of a time getting in here, she thought. I could stay inside and shoot them when they tried to get through. But eventually they’d use grenades and seal up the entrance.

As she drifted off to sleep she thought about home and her parents. She wondered what other desperate souls over the centuries had used the cave as a sanctuary. She said a quiet prayer and fell asleep.

.

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

Horst Stenger stood inside the police station and stared down at the corpses of the Gestapo officers. He was a regular army major and a criminal investigator. His authority was all but autonomous as Berlin’s fear of insurgency increased in every quarter. He was often called in to look into such matters, and lately there seemed to be more work. He sighed as he thought of his civilian job, in Berlin, before the war, working in an organized police force as a detective with a solid reputation for solving difficult crimes. Vichy had called him in to avoid the Gestapo simply rounding up a bunch of civilians and shooting them. His first order of business was to declare this an outside professional assassination and not the work of any local Resistance group. That would be easy, he thought. He knew who did this. As soon as the police officers described the young girl, who had mysteriously disappeared, he’d known. She was called the Angel of Death. An apt name, he thought, as she seemed to target the Gestapo and SS almost exclusively. He smiled inwardly as he thought of the religious analogies of the whole thing. You butcher innocents and God sends down one of his less compassionate angels to straighten things out. The description was usually the same: a young beautiful girl, on the petite side. She was undoubtedly the type that would blind recollection with her beauty. It was an odd notion, but men were men. They simply acted differently in the presence of a dramatically beautiful woman. But this one never seemed to be described in exactly the same way. Nor did she always follow the same procedure. It puzzled him. Most of the time she wasn’t seen. Still, when he read the reports, he knew it was she. Many people can kill, but few are surgical assassins. He shuddered a bit at the idea that anyone so young could be so deadly. He hoped that her work was a reaction to some atrocity and not a fondness for killing. He worried that she might extend her actions to those less deserving. He needed to stop her.

His attention turned to the hysterical screaming directed his way by Major Gunter Von Schmelling, a particularly annoying Aryan superman who was in charge of the SS in this part of southern France. At least the man had some sense: he yelled from a distance. Stenger was a war hero, and a harder man than blond boy Schmelling. He’d personally punched more than one Gestapo officer. How did these perverts get into my army? he thought. They’re maniacal in their belief in their racial superiority. But, they’re tough and determined soldiers. The SS deployed on the Russian front killed thousands of civilians with no compassion. If they were cut loose to do what they wanted, who knows what they would be capable of. Clearly the most dangerous patients had gained control of the asylum. How did Germany allow this to happen? What had been a movement of national pride became a wave of brutality, blind to anything but devotion to a poisoned cause?

He sighed again and thought of the assassin the French called
L’ange de la mort.
She’s probably my daughter’s age. How many young men and women in Germany would come running to defend their families and homes? All of them, he hoped. When he was her age, he’d been at the Marne, a ghastly horrible memory of screaming and death. Germany, England, and the Americans had sacrificed a generation to move their trenches inches at a time. These Gestapo were the criminals from his civilian past, set loose to satisfy the whims of a dictator. He wasn’t surprised at the tenacity of the French Resistance. These were the sons and daughters of the men he’d fought against. They were as hard as nails, and patriotic. France had been taken because France was still tired of war. Hitler’s
Blitzkrieg
came from careful planning and the pride of the defeated. They had destroyed two armies, the Polish and the French, each with more than a million men. Apparently, surprise worked well. He thought of the Japanese and Pearl Harbor. That was a mistake. He remembered the courage of the doughboys. They were farmers just like those in the large family he came from. They were probably his cousins. Americans, when angered, are the sum of their people, he thought. They are industrious and on their way.

He took two steps towards Von Schmelling and said, “Major, you’re standing in my crime scene. I don’t care what you want me to do. I know my duty and have done it well, long before you tortured your first pet. You raise your voice to me again and we will meet on the field of honor.”

Dueling had been a thing of the past for some time in Europe. Stenger could see by the change in his expression that Von Schmelling knew what the detective meant. In addition to his skills in investigation, Stenger had been a marksman in the first war and was known to practice every day. Von Schmelling hated the old warriors he couldn’t intimidate, especially the ones he feared.

“If you can’t catch this bitch, then we’ll just start shooting these sheep, Stenger!” Von Schmelling was well past hysterical. The other soldiers looked at him, wondering if he was going to pop.

“Well, Major, you could. But then the Field Marshall would undoubtedly have me arrest you. I would, of course, have to detain you while your appeal made its way through channels. Cherblinka would be a fine place for your stay. Say, in the general population,” Stenger said, poking Von Schmelling with his threat. A flicker of panic passed through Von Schmelling’s eyes. He thinks I’d do it, Stenger told himself. Put him in with the Jews in the worst concentration camp in the region. They would eat him alive, slowly.

“Just do your job! Berlin will sort you out in time!”

“Before or after the Americans come back to France? You see, they’ve been here before. I promise you, they don’t like to pay for the same real estate twice. I’m sure you SS boys will have every opportunity to show your worth in the face of Allied armor,” he said, his voice dancing with sarcasm. Stenger gave Von Schmelling a hard stare, his silence more painful than any further comment he might offer.

Over to Stenger’s right his second in command, Captain Willi Peterson covered his mouth with a gloved hand. Where Stenger was tall and lean, Willi was smaller and compact with dark hair and short, balanced limbs. He held himself with easy fluid grace. He looked like a prizefighter who won more than he lost. He stifled a laugh and tried to keep from shaking.

Willi walked over to Stenger and whispered into his ear, “Just shoot him Horsty, drop him like a cow on the kill floor.”

“Don’t start laughing, it will make it worse,” Stenger said out of the side of his mouth.

“Those others won’t care,” Willi said.

Von Schmelling spun on his heel and stormed off. Some of the other soldiers smirked as he left. It was a pity, Stenger thought, fools like that are leading the new German army. We could have retaken some land and been strong. All the rest was arrogance and madness. He looked back at the corpses. I’m not going to find anything. Catching her would take planning. But still, was it a good idea to chase a female panther in the dark?

Von Schmelling was in a foul mood after his run-in with Stenger. Fool, he thought, the Reich will never be defeated. We will rule for a thousand years. Von Schmelling was a true believer. After a childhood filled with bullying and anti-Semitic poison fed to him by his aristocratic parents, he was a natural for the SS. His family name and blond Aryan looks assured him a meteoric rise to the top. His superiors liked his results and supported the murder and torture he used to obtain information. He rarely tortured directly, choosing to observe instead. He was fastidious about his appearance and didn’t want to dirty himself by touching an inferior being.

“Take me to the interrogation center,” Von Schmelling shouted to his driver. He loved to have soldiers at his command. These two were like robots and did precisely what he told them, when he told them, without pause or compassion. He had chosen them for their pure Aryan lineage and ruthless nature. Occasionally as a treat he gave them prisoners to do with as they pleased, as long as they disposed of their bodies when finished. Generally there was little left to get rid of.

On the outskirts of town, Von Schmelling’s car pulled into the circular driveway of a large building. It had a stone fafade and was topped with a steep slate roof.

Von Schmelling walked through the front door, pausing only long enough for a valet to take his outer wear and hat.

“Bring Gaston Marcher to his wife’s cell immediately, sergeant,” Von Schmelling said, almost pleasantly.

A brutish SS sergeant snapped his heels together and smirked in anticipation. He lumbered out of the room, turning slightly to get his shoulders and back through the narrow doorway. It was a wonder his knuckles didn’t drag on the floor when he walked.

Von Schmelling descended a flight of stairs that led to a vast cellar that had been converted to a number of cells and rooms that neither saw the light of day nor allowed any sound to escape. He stopped in front of a cell and gestured for a uniformed guard to open the door. A bare light bulb illuminated the room and showed a young woman huddled in the corner, sitting on a filthy mat, shaking with fear. Von Schmelling knew she had already been tortured because he had ordered it, along with strict instructions not to damage her appearance unduly. That usually meant having the jailers strap her to a slant board and then drop her head into a trough of water in ever-increasing duration, all but drowning their victim each time. Other times a carefully placed needle did the trick. “Bring me a chair,” he said, as a chair materialized beneath him.

“Are you ready to cooperate,
Madam
?” He said conversationally.

“My husband and I are school teachers, we know nothing,” her voice heavy with submission. She was almost ready, Von Schmelling thought as he observed her like a laboratory specimen.

“No, you are terrorists plotting against your benevolent occupiers, but, more importantly, against your countrymen.”

“We are not,” she wailed, a breath away from complete psychological breakdown.

Two guards brought in a young man and threw him onto the floor. He had been beaten severely. He smelled of burnt flesh. The burns were in areas that were covered by the rags of clothing left on his body. Electrodes had been affixed to his testicles. It was one of Von Schmelling’s favorite pastimes. It made him violently aroused. Following those sessions he had a female prisoner brought to his study above for some personal attention. They were so much more fun than the Teutonic bitch his parents had arranged for him to marry. Wealth and privilege had its burdens and rewards, he thought. Well, she’s home in Dresden torturing the domestic staff in her own way. God, I hope the war lasts, or that I can get a permanent foreign posting, he mused.

The unfortunate man on the ground moaned and the woman crawled over to him. One of the guards was about to beat her back, but Von Schmelling waved him off. He wanted her to get a good look at her husband.

Finally he said, “Enough. Stand
Monsieur
Marcher up and tie his hands to the ceiling bolt.” Involuntarily the woman’s eyes looked up to see an iron ring attached to the ceiling. Marcher’s shackles were hooked to the ring and he hung there with just the tips of his toes touching the floor.

“So,
Madam,
your bath didn’t loosen your tongue, perhaps this will.” He motioned to the brutish sergeant who smiled and slammed a ham-sized fist into Marcher’s kidneys. Despite his almost unconscious state, the hanging man screamed under the massive blow.

“No, Major!"
Madame
Marcher screamed.

“A few to the ribs I think, Joseph. Now, his terrorist balls.” Soon Marcher began to cough blood.

“I will do anything, sign anything, just stop,” the woman was past hysterical.

“I know you will,
Madame
,” Von Schmelling said, clearly communicating his sadistic intent. Von Schmelling waved a scented handkerchief gesturing to have the victim taken down. Marcher poured down to the floor, lacking any control over his body.

“Take him out,” Von Schmelling sighed. Two guards roughly grabbed Marcher and dragged him from the room. “Clean her up and bring her to my study. Find her some decent clothing. Till we meet again,
Fraulein
.” Von Schmelling smiled and strode from the room, a spring in his step. Even the toughest couldn’t stand seeing their loved ones tortured, he thought. He always saved that for last. He didn’t like them talking too soon.