Jackdaws (53 page)

Reluctantly, Flick went down. Ruby
and Jelly went with her, and the four men followed. She went as slowly as she could,
counting seconds.

She stopped at the foot of the
stairs. Twenty seconds.

"You again?" said one of
the guards.

Flick said, "Speak to your
major."

"Keep moving," said Weber.

"I thought we weren't supposed
to go into the basement."

"Just keep going!"

Five seconds.

They passed through the basement
door.

There was a tremendous bang.

At the far end of the corridor, the
partition walls of the equipment chamber exploded outwards. There was a series of
crashing sounds. Flames billowed over the debris. Flick was knocked down.

She got up on one knee, pulled the
submachine gun out from under her overall, and spun around. Jelly and Ruby were
on either side of her. The basement guards, Weber, and the other three men had
also fallen. Flick pulled the trigger.

Of the six Germans, only Weber had
kept his presence of mind. As Flick sprayed bullets, Weber fired his pistol.
Beside Flick Jelly, struggling to her feet, cried out and fell. Then Flick hit
Weber in the chest and he went down.

Flick emptied her gun into the six
bodies on the floor. She ejected the magazine, took a fresh one from her
pocket, and reloaded.

Ruby bent over Jelly, feeling for a
pulse. After a moment she looked up. "Dead," she said.

Flick looked toward the far end of
the corridor, where Greta was. flames were billowing out from the equipment
chamber, but the wall of the Interview Room seemed intact.

She ran toward the inferno.

Dieter found himself lying on the
floor without knowing how he had got there. He heard the roaring of flames and
smelled smoke. He struggled to his feet and looked into the Interview Room.

He realized immediately that the
brick walls of the torture chamber had saved his life. The partition between
the Interview Room and the equipment chamber had disappeared. The few pieces of
furniture in the Interview Room had been thrown up against the wall. The
prisoner had suffered the same fate and lay on the ground, still tied to the
chair, neck at the horrid angle that indicated it was broken and she—or he—was
dead. The equipment chamber was aflame and the fire was spreading rapidly.

Dieter realized he had only seconds
to get away.

The door to the Interview Room
opened and Flick Clairet stood there holding a submachine gun.

She wore a dark wig that had fallen
askew to reveal her own blonde hair beneath. Flushed, breathing hard, a wild
look in her eyes, she was beautiful.

If he had had a gun in his hand at
that moment, he would have mowed her down in blind rage. She would be an
incomparable prize if captured alive, but he was so enraged and humiliated by
her success and his own failure that he could not have controlled himself.

But she had the gun.

At first she did not see Dieter but
stared at the dead body of her comrade. Dieter's hand moved inside his jacket.
Then she lifted her gaze and met his eyes. He saw recognition dawn on her face.
She knew who he was. She knew whom she had been fighting for the past nine
days. There was a light of triumph in her eyes. But he also saw the thirst for
revenge in the twist of her mouth, and she raised the Sten gun and fired.

Dieter ducked back into the torture
chamber as her bullets chipped fragments of brick off the wall. He drew his
Walther P38 automatic pistol, thumbed the safety lever to the fire position,
and pointed it at the doorway, waiting for Flick to come through.

She did not appear.

He waited a few seconds, then risked
a look.

Flick had gone.

He dashed across the burning
Interview Room, threw open the door, and stepped into the corridor. Flick and
another woman were running toward the far end. As he raised his gun, they
jumped over a group of uniformed bodies on the floor. He aimed at Flick; then a
hot pain burned his arm. He cried out and dropped his gun. He saw that his
sleeve was on fire. He tore off his jacket.

When he looked up again, the women
had gone.

Dieter picked up his pistol and went
after them.

As he ran, he smelled fuel. There
was a leak—or perhaps the saboteurs had holed a pipe. Any second now, the
basement would explode like a giant bomb.

But he might still catch Flick.

He ran out and started up the
stairs.

In the torture chamber, Sergeant
Becker's uniform started to smolder.

The heat and the smoke brought him
back to consciousness and he cried for help, but no one heard.

He struggled against the leather
straps that bound him, as so many of his victims had struggled in the past,
but, like them, he was helpless.

A few moments later, his clothes
burst into flame, and he began to scream.

Flick saw Dieter coming up the
stairs after her with his gun in his hand. She was afraid that if she stopped
and turned to take aim at him, he would be able to shoot first. She decided to
run rather than stand and fight.

Someone had activated the fire
alarm, and a klaxon blared throughout the château as she and Ruby raced through
the switchboard rooms. All the operators left their stations and crowded to the
doors, so that Flick found herself in a crush. The crowd would be making it
difficult for Dieter to get a shot at her or Ruby, but the other women were
slowing them down. Flick punched and kicked ruthlessly to get people out of her
way.

They reached the front entrance and
ran down the steps. In the square, Flick could see Moulier's meat van, backed
up to the château gates with its engine running and its rear doors open. Paul
stood beside it, staring anxiously through the iron railings. Flick thought he
was the best thing she had ever seen.

However, as the women poured out of
the building, two guards were directing them into the vineyard on the west side
of the courtyard, away from the parked cars. Flick and Ruby ignored their waved
instructions and ran for the gates. When the soldiers saw Flick's submachine
gun, they reached for their weapons.

A rifle appeared in Paul's hands. He
aimed through the railings. Two shots rang out, and both guards fell.

Paul threw open the gates.

As Flick dashed through the gateway,
shots whistled over her head and hit the van: Dieter was firing.

Paul jumped into the front of the
van.

Flick and Ruby threw themselves into
the back.

As the van pulled away, Flick saw
Dieter turn toward the parking lot, where his sky-blue car stood waiting.

At that moment, down in the
basement, the fire reached the fuel tanks.

There was a deep underground boom
like an earthquake. The parking lot erupted, gravel and earth and slabs of
concrete flying into the air. Half the cars parked around the old fountain were
overturned. Huge stones and chunks of brickwork rained down on the rest. Dieter
was thrown back across the steps. The gas pump soared into the air, and a gout
of flame spurted from the ground where it had stood. Several cars caught fire,
and their gas tanks began to explode, one by one. Then the van left the square,
and Flick could see no more.

Paul drove at top speed out of the
village. Flick and Ruby bounced on the metal floor of the van. It dawned slowly
on Flick that they had accomplished their mission. She could hardly believe it.
She thought of Greta and Jelly, both dead, and of Diana and Maude, dead or
dying in some concentration camp, and she could not feel happy. But she felt a
savage satisfaction as she saw again in her mind the blazing equipment chamber
and the exploding parking lot.

She looked at Ruby.

Ruby grinned at her. "We did
it," she said.

Flick nodded.

Ruby put her arms around Flick and
hugged her hard.

"Yes," Flick said.
"We did it."

DIETER PICKED HIMSELF up off the
ground. He felt bruised all over, but he could walk. The château was ablaze,
and the parking lot was a shambles. The women were screaming and panicking.

He stared at the carnage all around.
The Jackdaws had succeeded in their mission. But it was not over yet.

They were still in France. And if he
could capture and interrogate Flick Clairet, he could yet turn defeat into
victory. Sometime tonight, she must be planning to meet a small plane, in a
field not far from Reims. He had to find out where and when.

And he knew who would tell him.

Her husband.

CHAPTER

FIFTY-TWO

DIETER SAT ON THE platform at the Reims
railway station. French railway men and German troops watched with him,
standing patiently under the harsh lights. The prison train was late, hours
late, but it was coming, he had been assured of that. He had to wait for it. He
had no other cards to play.

His heart was full of rage. He had
been humiliated and defeated by a girl. Had she been a German girl, he would
have been proud of her. He would have called her brilliant and brave. He might
even have fallen in love with her. But she belonged to the enemy, and she had
outwitted him at every turn. She had killed Stéphanie, she had destroyed the
château, and she had escaped. But he would catch her yet. And when he did, she
would suffer tortures worse than her most terrifying imaginings—then she would
talk.

Everyone talked.

The train rolled in a few minutes
after midnight.

He noticed the stink even before it
came to a halt. It was like the smell of a farmyard but disgustingly human.

There was an assortment of rail
cars, none of them designed for passengers: goods wagons, cattle trucks, even a
mail car with its narrow windows broken. Each was crammed with people.

The livestock wagons had high wooden
sides pierced by slats to permit observation of the animals. The prisoners
nearest put their arms through the slats, hands open with palms upward,
begging. They asked to be let out, they pleaded for something to eat, but most
of all they begged for water. The guards looked on impassively: Dieter had
given instructions that the prisoners were to have no relief at Reims tonight.

He had two Waffen SS corporals with
him, guards from the château, both good marksmen. He had extracted them from
the shambles at Sainte-Cécile, trading on his authority as a major. He turned
to them now and said, "Bring Michel Clairet."

Michel was locked in the windowless
room where the stationmaster kept the cash. The corporals went away and
reappeared with Michel between them. His hands were tied behind his back and
his ankles were hobbled so that he could not run. He had not been told what had
happened at Sainte-Cécile. All he knew was that he had been captured for the
second time in a week. There was little left of his buccaneering persona. He
was trying to maintain an air of bravado, to keep his spirits up, but the
attempt was a failure. His limp was worse, his clothes were dirty, and his face
grim. He looked defeated.

Dieter took Michel's arm and walked
him closer to the train. At first, Michel did not understand what he was
looking at, and his face showed only mystification and fear. Then, when he made
out the begging hands and understood the piteous voices, he staggered, as if he
had been struck, and Dieter had to hold him upright.

Dieter said, "I need some
information."

Michel shook his head. "Put me
on the train," he said. "I'd rather be with them than with you."

Dieter was shocked by the insult and
surprised by Michel's courage. He said, "Tell me where the Jackdaws' plane
will land—and when."

Michel stared at him. "You
haven't caught them," he said, and hope came back into his face.
"They've blown up the château, haven't they? They succeeded." He
threw back his head and gave a whoop of joy. "Well done, Flick!"

Dieter made Michel walk the length
of the train, slowly, showing him the numbers of prisoners and the scale of
their suffering. "The plane," he said again.

Michel said, "The field outside
La Chatelle, at three a.m."

Dieter was almost certain that was
false. Flick had been scheduled to arrive at La Chatelle seventy-two hours ago
but had aborted the landing, presumably because she suspected a Gestapo trap.
Dieter knew there was a backup landing place, because Gaston had told him so;
but Gaston had known only its code name, Champ d'Or, not its location. Michel,
however, would know the exact place. "You're lying," Dieter said.

"Then put me on the
train," Michel replied.

Dieter shook his head. "That's
not the choice—nothing so easy."

He saw puzzlement and the shadow of
fear in Michel's eyes.

Dieter walked him back and stopped
at the women's car. Their feminine voices begged in French and German, some
invoking the pity of God, others asking the men to think of their mothers and
sisters, a few offering sexual favors. Michel bowed his head, refusing to look.

Dieter beckoned to two figures
standing in the shadows.

Michel looked up, and a terrible
dread came over his face.

Hans Hesse walked out of the
shadows, escorting a young woman. She might have been beautiful, but her face
was ghastly white, her hair lay in greasy strands, and she had sores on her
lips. She seemed weak, walking with difficulty.

It was Gilberte.

Michel gasped.

Dieter repeated his question.
"Where will the plane land, and when?"

Michel said nothing.

Dieter said, "Put her on the
train."

Michel moaned.

A guard opened the gate of a cattle
car. While two others kept the women in with bayonets, the guard pushed
Gilberte into the car. "No," she cried. "No, please!"

The guard was about to close the gate,
but Dieter said, "Wait." He looked at Michel. Tears were pouring down
the man's face.