The Swiss Courier: A Novel (2 page)

She was like no traffic cop he’d ever seen. Her full lips were colored with red lipstick. Black hair tumbled upon the shoulder epaulettes of the
Verkehrskontrolle
’s gray-green uniform
.
She wielded a silver-toned baton, directing a rambling assortment of horse-drawn carriages, battered sedans, and hulking military vehicles jockeying for the right of way. She looked no older than twenty-five, yet acted like she owned the real estate beneath her feet. Jean-Pierre couldn’t help but let his lips curl up in a slight grin, knowing what was to come.

“
Entschuldigung, wo ist das Gemeindehaus?
” a voice said beside him. Jean-Pierre turned to the rotund businessman in the fedora and summer business suit asking for directions to City Hall.

“
Ich bin nicht sicher.
” He shrugged and was about to fashion another excuse when a military transport truck turned a corner two blocks away, approaching in their direction.

“
Es tut mir Leid.
” With a wave, Jean-Pierre excused himself and sprinted toward the uniformed traffic officer. In one quick motion, his Mauser was drawn.

He didn’t break stride as he tackled the uniformed woman to the ground. Her scream blasted his ear, and more cries from onlookers chimed in.

Jean-Pierre straddled the frightened traffic officer and pressed the barrel of his pistol into her forehead. Her shrieking immediately ceased.

“Don’t move, and nothing will happen to you.”

Jean-Pierre glanced up as he heard the mud-caked transport truck skid to a stop fifty meters from them.

A Wehrmacht soldier hopped out.
“Halt!”
He clumsily drew his rifle to his right shoulder.

Jean-Pierre met the soldier’s eyes and rolled off the female traffic officer.

A shot rang out. The German soldier’s body jerked, and a cry of pain erupted from his lips. He clutched his left chest as a rivulet of blood stained his uniform.

“Nice shot, Suzanne.” Jean-Pierre jumped to his feet, glancing at the traffic cop, her stomach against the asphalt with her pistol drawn.

Suzanne rose from the ground, crouched, and aimed. Her pistol, which had been hidden in an ankle holster, was now pointed at the driver behind the windshield. The determined look in her gaze was one Jean-Pierre had come to know well.

One, two, three shots found their mark, shattering the truck’s glass into shards. The driver slumped behind the wheel.

As expected, two Wehrmacht soldiers jumped out of the back of the truck and took cover behind the rear wheels. Before Jean-Pierre had a chance to take aim, shots rang out from a second-story window overlooking the intersection. The German soldiers crumbled to the cobblestone pavement in a heap.

“Los jetzt!”
He clasped Suzanne’s hand, and they sprinted to the rear of the truck. Two black-leather-coated members of their resistance group had already beaten them there. Jean-Pierre couldn’t remember their names, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was the safety of the prisoners in the truck. Jean-Pierre only hoped the contact’s information had been correct.

With a deep breath, he lifted the curtain and peered into the truck. A half-dozen frightened men sat on wooden benches with hands raised. Their wide eyes and dropped jaws displayed their fear.

“Don’t shoot!” one cried.

The sound of a police siren split the air.

“Everyone out!” Jean-Pierre shouted. “I’ll take this one. The rest of you, go with them.” He pointed the tip of his Mauser at the men in leather jackets.

The sirens increased in volume as the speeding car gobbled up distance along the Hauptstrasse, weaving through the autos and pedestrians. An officer in the passenger’s seat leaned out, rifle pointed.

Jean-Pierre leaned into the truck and yanked the prisoner’s arm. Suzanne grabbed the other. “Move it, come on!”

Bullets from an approaching vehicle whizzed past Jean-Pierre’s ear. The clearly frightened prisoner suddenly found his legs, and the three sprinted away from the speeding car.

Jean-Pierre’s feet pounded the pavement, and he tugged on the prisoner’s arm, urging him to run faster. He could hear the screech of the tires as the police car stopped just behind the truck. Jean-Pierre hadn’t expected the local Polizei to respond so rapidly.

They needed to find cover—

More gunfire erupted, and as if reading his thoughts, Suzanne turned the prisoner toward a weathered column.

Jean-Pierre crumbled against the pillar, catching his breath. The columns provided cover, but not enough. Soon the police would be upon them. They had to make a move. Only ten steps separated them from turning the street corner and sprinting into Helmut’s watch store. From there, a car waited outside the back door.

Another hail of gunfire struck the plaster. Jean-Pierre mouthed a prayer under his breath.

“Suzanne, we have to get out of here!”

She crouched into a trembling ball, all confidence gone. “They’re surrounding us!” The terror in her uncertain timbre was clear. “But what can we do? We can’t let them see us run into the store.”

“Forget that. We have no choice!” Jean-Pierre raised his pistol and returned several volleys, firing at the two policemen perched behind a parked car.

“Listen to me,” he said to Suzanne, taking his eyes momentarily off the police car. “You have to go. You take this guy, and I’ll cover you. Once you turn the corner, it’s just twenty more meters to Helmut’s store.” His hands moved as he spoke, slamming a new clip of ammunition into his pistol.

“But what if—”

“I’ll join you. Now go!”

Jean-Pierre jumped from behind the protection of the column and rapidly fired several shots. One cop dared expose himself to return fire—not at Jean-Pierre but at the pair running for the corner.

Jean-Pierre turned just in time to see Suzanne’s body lurch. The clean hit ripped into her flesh between the shoulder blades. She staggered for a long second before dropping with a thud. The gangly prisoner didn’t even look back as he disappeared around the corner.

I can’t lose him,
Jean-Pierre thought, remembering again the importance of this mission. Yet to chase after the prisoner meant he’d have to leave his partner behind.

He emptied his Mauser at the hidden policemen, ducking as he scrambled toward his partner. Sweeping up her bloody form, he managed to drag her around the corner to safety.

“Go,” Suzanne whispered.

“I can’t leave you. Stay with me—”

Her eyelids fluttered. “You need to go . . .” A long breath escaped, and her gaze fixed on a distant point beyond him.

Jean-Pierre dropped to his knees and ripped open Suzanne’s bloodstained woolen jacket. Her soaked chest neither rose nor fell. He swore under his breath and brushed a lock of black hair from her face.

Jean-Pierre cocked his head. Incessant gunfire filled the air. His colleagues were apparently keeping the German soldiers and local Polizei at bay, at least for the time being. He knew only a few valuable seconds remained to escape with the prisoner.

He planted a soft kiss on Suzanne’s forehead. “Until we see each other in heaven,” he whispered.

Jean-Pierre darted to a trash can, where the shaken prisoner had hunkered down, covering his head. The resistance fighter clutched the man’s left arm and hustled him inside the watch store, pushing past two startled women. The rear door was propped open, and a black Opel four-door idled in the alley. With a few quick steps, they were inside the vehicle.

Before the rear door was shut, the driver jerked the car into gear, and the Opel roared down the tight alley. The door slammed shut, and Jean-Pierre glanced back. No one followed. The car merged onto a busier street, and only then did Jean-Pierre sink in his seat and close his eyes.

Soon they’d arrive at a safe house pitched on the Rhine River. And later, with the dark night sky as their protection, a skiff would sneak them into the warm arms of Mother Switzerland—a skiff piloted by the mentor who’d recruited him. His
nom de guerre
: Pascal.

Jean-Pierre’s mission would soon be complete, but at what cost? Another agent—a good woman and a friend—had been sacrificed.

He had followed orders for the greater good, to save the life of a nameless prisoner. He only hoped this mission was worth it.

The scent of fresh-baked bread drifted through the cracked door to Gabi Mueller’s bedroom. Her mother hummed softly as she stirred the diced potatoes cooking in oleomargarine, and the increased creaking of her father’s rocking chair told Gabi dinner would soon be announced. Her father always rocked faster, in anticipation, as her mother set the food on the table.

Gabi frowned, flipping stray locks of her blonde, shoulder-length hair away from her eyes.

“Don’t be late, Andrietta,” she muttered to herself. She straightened her full skirt over her lap and readjusted her collar. Then she mindlessly picked up a sandpaper nail file from the pine desk her father had made for her when she was ten years old. She used the file, then glanced out her bedroom window, which provided an idyllic scene of green pasturelands. “She’ll be on time—she will,” she stated with feigned confidence.

The only way, though, that she could tell if Andrietta Lansel was indeed strolling down the country road would be to look out the kitchen window—something Gabi wasn’t about to do since that would only raise her mother’s suspicion.

“Gabi, supper! Hurry now, we don’t want the potatoes to get co—” The bang of the heavy oven door closing overwhelmed her mother’s words.

Timing is everything, Andrietta.
Gabi closed her eyes and felt the fine grain of sandpaper slide over her already tender fingertips. Not her nails, but rather the fleshy pads—as if she were attempting to sand away her very fingerprints, preparing them for the work ahead.

She’d been dressed and ready to go for the last half hour, but her stomach had rumbled all afternoon since lunch at work had been rather sparse: a simple
grüner salat
and turnips from the garden garnished with a slice of day-old
Roggenbrot
. What she would give for a feathery tuft of Parisienne baguette topped with a dollop of creamy butter and backyard honey. Ever since the federal government ordained rationing in 1941, staples had been in short supply—or hoarded by certain families. Meat, cheese, milk, eggs, sugar—even chocolate—could only be purchased with monthly ration coupons and Swiss francs in hand.

Now, the scents of fresh bread and cooking potatoes caused hunger pangs to grip her tender stomach. Anxiety rose in her throat. All afternoon, she’d fought against thinking about her first “black” assignment, which she couldn’t reveal to a soul. Even Andrietta had no idea that the initial step of the plan began with her.

“Gabi!
Mir chönned ässe!
”

“Coming,” Gabi replied in English as she set the nail file on her dresser and exited her room. She rather liked replying to her parents in the opposite language they addressed her. It was a game she played, and one she was verbally adroit at since she had grown up as the daughter of an American father and a Swiss mother.

“Hello, Papi,” she said brightly. He held the front section of the
Basler Zeitung
chest high. “Anything new in the war today?”

Her father set the afternoon newspaper on his lap. “There are rumors of mass executions following the assassination attempt on that mongrel Hitler. Says in this article that the border guards have noticed a recent influx of refugees, political or otherwise, trying to get into Switzerland.”

“I heard that at work too.”

Ernst Mueller cast a disapproving glance her way. “You know you’re not supposed to tell us anything you hear at work. Loose lips sink ships, and all that.”

She stayed in English. “I-I didn’t mean anything by it. After all, i-if it’s in the papers—”

“I’m just giving you a hard time. But you . . . me . . . everyone has to watch their tongues these days. Spies are everywhere.”

Her father had that right. She mindlessly brushed her fingers through her hair.
If he only knew . . .

“Dinner’s on the table,” Thea Mueller sang out—this time in English.

“Was git’s z’nacht?”
Gabi slipped into Baseldeutsch—the Swiss-German dialect favored by those living in the Basel region.
What’s for dinner?

“Still playing your silly game, I see,” her mother teased. “Well, if you don’t sit down, I’ll feed your potatoes to Seppli.” Thea petted the family’s Yorkshire terrier on the head. “You’d love to eat Gabi’s dinner, wouldn’t you?”

“Mami, don’t!”

“Of course not.” They sat down at a rectangular table with bench seating built into the wall—more handiwork from her father’s capable hands. Her mother set a bowl of steaming potatoes in the center and warm Brötli rolls from the oven. A rectangular bar of yellow butter sat on a ceramic bed of painted flowers.

“We have butter!” Gabi exclaimed. “I thought—”

“Your friend Eric dropped it by this afternoon while you were at work.” Her mother attempted to hide a smile. “Said they had plenty at the farm.”

“Oh,” Gabi replied nonchalantly as her parents exchanged knowing looks. “That was kind of him.”

“He sure seems sweet on you.”

“Mami! Quit teasing!”

“I’ll say the blessing.” Her father offered a sly grin, then bowed his head to pray. “Dear heavenly Father, I thank you for the wonderful meal tonight, especially the fresh rolls and butter, because we know there are many people going hungry. We ask that you watch over Andreas and Willy as they continue to serve this country. Keep them safe, Lord, as we live in these perilous times. Amen.”

Thea opened her eyes and passed the salad bowl. “I’m just glad they got transferred away from the border. Too much action for a mother’s heart, I can assure you.”