Eye of the Storm (15 page)

It had been an act of desperation; the only way to save her and Drake. Deemed justifiable by law, by society, by anyone who heard the story. But not by Cassie. The weight of that act, the final screams that had dwindled to sad whimpers before an infinite silence, these haunted her.

Could she do it again? No, she knew she could—she was physically able. The question was
would
she kill again?

There was no one else’s life at stake here except her own. In fact, by escaping, she might be endangering Muriel.

But one thing she knew. She could not stay and allow Kasanov to continue to use Drake’s mother as hostage against her. She had to save Muriel.

All this went through her mind faster than the time it took the guard to decide to cut her bonds.

“On your belly,” he ordered. Cassie obeyed, rolling over to lay face down on the oil stained concrete floor. The guard planted one foot on the small of her back, pinning her in place, then bent down and pulled her skirt up. There was the click of a knife blade snapping into place. He tugged at the zip ties encircling her ankles and sliced through them.

When he was done, he took hold of her arm and hauled her to her feet. “Don’t try anything.”

“Thank you.” Cassie kept her face lowered and her gait wobbly, pretending that her feet were still numb. She leaned heavily on him, stumbling, as he guided her to the office door. In her peripheral vision, she saw Vincent, as silent as a shadow, move from his hiding place to follow them.

They crossed through the door and she realized the space she’d thought was an office-reception area was actually part of a much larger building. The door Kasanov had disappeared through was across the waiting area and had a window that revealed a wide-open space beyond it. It also had a keypad lock on it as did the door she and the guard had just come through. Which meant she was now trapped in this small section of the building.

A car dealer’s showroom? she wondered, straining to see more through the tiny window. But the guard wrenched her in the opposite direction, down a short hall to a small unisex cinderblock bathroom behind the service desk. No windows and it stank as if it hadn’t been cleaned in decades.

“Could I have more water, please?” she asked.

“Drink from the sink.” He shoved her inside the room and stood in the doorway. “Go on.”

She said nothing, merely glanced around the room and then pled silently as she met his gaze. It was obvious there was no escaping from this room barren of everything except the toilet and sink. There wasn’t even a paper towel dispenser or toilet paper holder she could rip from the wall and use as a weapon. Just a soggy, tattered roll of paper on the back of the toilet.

The strange staring match continued, Cassie remaining silent and meek, until the guard finally flushed, looked away, and closed the door, giving her privacy. She quickly used the facilities, then ran the water, washing her face and cuts, but mostly drinking as much as possible. Leaving the water running, she pulled the lid off the back of the toilet. It was a better weapon than the glass shard, if not as elegant.

Only problem. She’d get just one shot with it, and it was so bulky that there wasn’t enough room to swing it inside the cramped quarters of the bathroom. No way could she smuggle it out of here, so she returned it to the toilet and grabbed her shard of glass.

It was about two inches long, curved on one side, from the heavier base of the bottle, which meant she could hold it without being cut herself. She braced herself and opened the door.

The guard leaned against the wall outside, waiting.

“Thank you,” she said, forcing a smile at him.

Again, he looked away, as if embarrassed being caught being kind. She stepped past him then stumbled back as if she’d lost her balance. Instinctively, he caught her before she could fall.

Pushing off with one leg, Cassie pivoted, jabbing her palm up under his chin hard and fast. He cracked his head against the wall he was pinned against. With her other hand, she pressed the sharp edge of the glass against his cheekbone so that if he made the slightest movement it would pierce his eye.

Vincent appeared from the other end of the short hallway. Together they hustled the guard into the bathroom, Cassie exchanging the glass for Vincent’s dagger. The guard said nothing—by that time, Cassie had the dagger at his throat—but his expression was murderous.

He had zip ties in his jacket pocket. Vincent quickly hogtied him, then used the man’s socks and shoelaces to gag him. Cassie took the guard’s knife and pistol—he had no cell phone, unfortunately. They locked the bathroom door from the inside and left, the whole thing had only taken a few minutes.

A rush of adrenalin sparked through Cassie. They’d done it—she was free! Now she just needed to get help, find Muriel, and get them both out of here alive.

Then she realized. She had no idea where “here” was. Or where Muriel was.

ROSA TOOK PADDY
and his compatriots to a brothel near Marseille’s Vieux-Port. At first, he was nonplussed, but it was the perfect place to hide from Vichy and German eyes. Most of the working girls had fled for more prosperous locales and Rosa had recruited the few who remained into her intelligence-gathering network. Thick drapes blanketed every window, there were hidden tunnels and passages to expedite clandestine exits, and more than enough beds for all. The only thing lacking for the others was fresh air and relief from the boredom brought on by confinement. After three weeks, tempers began to flare.

Paddy, because of his fluency in German and growing competency with the Marseilles French dialect, was the only one able to leave the bordello, accompanied by Rosa, of course. She watched over all of her
“apatrides
,
”
persons without papers or a country to claim, with the possessiveness of a mother hen. Especially the soldiers. She told Paddy that most of the British Expeditionary Forces stranded in France were at Fort St. Jean, but the city was too mad with fear after news that Vichy’s leader, Marshal Petain, was coming for an inspection tour for her to risk moving Paddy’s men there.

Each journey outside the walls of the brothel was filled with anxiety and the risk of detection, but the entire city seemed to thrive on cloak-and-dagger machinations. Walking along the cobblestoned streets, watching the reactions of the others who crowded the cafes, gossiping about new routes over the Pyrenees or the cost of counterfeit transit visas, it seemed as if the very air of the port city thrummed with anticipation. The same thrill of anticipation shared by a cornered rat right before a terrier pounced.

People of every social strata clamored for an audience with the “relief” agencies—in actuality small groups of determined men and women who had funds and contacts to help arrange for emigration, either legally or illegally. Mainly Jews, they were of every nationality, out-spoken socialists and communists, artists, writers, scientists, rich, and poor. They shared only one thing in common: they were on the Nazis’ list of unwanted. With growing rumors of what was actually happening in the camps to the east, few dared take the chance of turning themselves in when Vichy government decreed it. And so all made their way to border towns like Marseilles where they waited and hid and hoped for salvation.

During the three weeks since Rosa and her group had rescued him and the others, Paddy watched in amazement as this young snippet of a girl calmly and competently organized the exodus of several dozen people across the Pyrenees to freedom. But the German and Vichy crackdowns were taking its toll—two of her groups had to turn back because of heightened border security.

But still, she persevered, finding the means to feed and shelter them and others without funds or papers until she developed a new route.

They were at the Cafe Pelikan, sipping postum, a bitter grain brew that made for a poor substitute for real coffee, when Rosa informed Paddy that she’d be taking him and his men across the border the next day. She even swiped the pepper pot from the table as they left. “Put it in the cuffs of your trousers,” she said, slipping it into his coat pocket. “It will keep the dogs off your track.”

Later that night, Paddy tossed and turned in his small room papered in fraying brocade and smelling of musk, perfume, and the stale smell of sex. Of course he wanted his men safe, but despite the danger, he didn’t want to leave Marseilles. He had tried to express his feelings for Rosa, but each time she had turned him aside, moving the conversation to logistics about his escape.

And why not? He thought with a groan. Who was he to her? Another mouth to feed, another man who could get her or the people who worked with her killed. After their raid on the hospital to retrieve his fallen colleagues, he thought he’d sensed more from her, but now he realized that all she felt for him was a sense of responsibility.

And all she would feel for him once he was gone would be a sense of relief for another bullet dodged.

He cursed his idiocy and tried to force himself asleep. Tomorrow would be grueling—a ten-hour climb through rough mountain terrain. Their highest ranking officer, Lt. Carstairs, was still not fully back to normal after his head injury. It would be up to Paddy to lead his men to freedom.

The door creaked open and he sat bolt upright, fumbling for the pistol on his bedside table. A flicker of candlelight appeared, followed by a woman’s form. The door closed and she advanced. Paddy caught his breath. It was Rosa.

She placed the candle on the washstand beside the bed and stood before him. Her hair was down, framing her face in a cascade of curls. She wore a simple blouse and wool skirt, with a heavy quilt wrapped around her shoulders. In the dim light, she no longer appeared as the formidable resistance leader, La Tempête, but rather as a scared woman-child.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, holding his blankets tightly around his nearly naked body. She stood before him, silent. “What is it, Rosa? You’re frightening me.”

His words earned him a pensive smile. “You frighten me.”

He blinked in surprise. “I frighten you? How? Why?”

“Your feelings. For me.” The smile that crossed her face now had nothing of a child in it, but was all woman. “When you look at me, when your hand brushes mine, I feel—” She broke off, spun around to reach for the candle. “This is a mistake.
Je regret
.”

Oh no, she wasn’t getting off that easy. Paddy lunged for the candle, ignored the bedcovers falling away from his body, and grabbed her arm.

“No regrets, no mistakes,” he told her, holding her firm, looking into her eyes. She met his gaze, didn’t seem to have noticed his lack of clothes. “Other men look at you as I do, other men want you—I’ve seen you brush them aside without a second glance. Why do I frighten you, Rosa? The truth.”

She glared at him, squirmed to get away for one infuriating moment, then drew her breath in. “I have lived with fear for years now—the Germans came after my people long before they went after the Jews. I’ve been captured…I was frightened, but I escaped. I’ve almost died, have been forced to face my fear and kill others, and I survive. And by surviving I have been able to keep on fighting against the people who killed my family, everyone I held dear. Even though through this fight, I have earned the wrath and scorn of my own people—that was once my greatest fear, but now,” she shrugged, “being cast out as unclean seems—what do you English say? Small potatoes.”

“You bloody well know I’m not English, so get to the point. Why are you here?”

Her gaze darted away from his and his breath caught. He remembered how calm she’d been that first night, holding a dagger to Maguire’s throat, facing down two dozen angry men, but now she couldn’t meet his eyes?

Finally her whisper broke the silence. “You make me afraid—afraid not of capture or death, but afraid of failing. Failing them, you—disappointing you. I’m afraid of wanting more—wanting tomorrow—”

She shook her head, as if words failed her. She knew half a dozen languages, yet she had no words for hope.

The thought ambushed Paddy. He pulled her into his arms, bowed his head over hers as she silently wept, her tears hot against the bare flesh of his chest.

“Rosa, my Rosa. You could never fail me. It’s all right to have hope—it’s what we all need to make it through this God awful mess of a world with our souls intact. It’s all we have, don’t forsake it.”

She sniffed and looked up at him, her heart-shaped face glowing with wet tears in the candlelight. “
Cat traieste omul spera
, life is hope,” she said. “My grandmother used to say that. I never listened. I hated her.”

Paddy laughed at that. He hadn’t cared much for his gram either. “My gram said the same thing. ‘Life is love, love is hope.’ Maybe the old hags knew what they were talking about after all.”

Her hands skimmed up his bare arms, sending a thrill through him before coming to rest on the sides of his face. She raised herself up onto tiptoe and he lowered his lips onto hers.

When he woke the next morning, he felt changed forever, ready to face anything. He’d lead his men over the mountains to freedom. And then he would return for Rosa.

Stretching lazily, he reached for her. But the other side of the bed was cold. Before he had the chance to feel regret, the door eased open. It was Rosa, fully dressed, that crazy quilt of hers wrapped around her so she looked more like an old crone than a young girl. It was sodden wet.

“We’re not going, are we?” he said when he saw the look on her face.

“No. A storm has moved in. The worst I’ve ever seen.”

Spreading the quilt over a chair near the fire to dry, she didn’t turn to face him. “It’s worse. Marshal Petain is on his way for his grand inspection. He’ll be here tomorrow at the latest. The police are rounding up everyone considered undesirable or dangerous and imprisoning them on a ship, the
Senaia
.”

Finally, she turned to him. “They’ve already raided two of our houses, taken half my people.” Her face was ashen. “There’s nothing I can do. I’ve failed them.”