The Iron Storm

by CW Browning

  “If the Germans already have control of the fort, Holland will fall quickly. Once Holland falls, Belgium won’t be far behind.”

  Josephine went over to sit at the table, cradling her glass of water in her hands.

  “I can’t believe how quickly it fell,” she said. “It’s only been a day!”

  “We thought it would happen quickly. After all, they landed soldiers on the roof!”

  “I’m still amazed about that,” Josephine admitted. “I’m fairly sure that it’s never been done before, at least not successfully. It’s almost as if the German army isn’t human.”

  “Oh they’re human all right,” Evelyn said. “They’re just very well organized.”

  Josephine looked across the table at her thoughtfully. “Do you think Jens will go back to Belgium if it falls?”

  Evelyn shrugged. “I have no idea. It depends on why he left in the first place. If it was to escape the German invasion, then I wouldn’t think so.”

  “But you don’t think that’s why he left,” Josephine pointed out. “Are we any closer to discovering why he’s here?”

  Evelyn shook her head and pushed the roadmap that she and Jens had been studying out of her way.

  “Not really. He seems very anxious for us to be on our way. We’ve been looking at this map, trying to determine the fastest route to Paris. He says it’s so that I can get back to my job, but I don’t think that’s what’s causing all the urgency.”

  “Your job? What does he think you do?”

  Evelyn smiled ruefully. “He thinks I’m a secretary for a very prominent businessman in Paris.”

  “Who just happened to be in Brussels?”

  “I told him I was there on behalf of my boss,” Evelyn said with a shrug.

  Josephine grinned and shook her head. “You seem to be settling into this life without any problems at all! I told you you were a natural.”

  “That may be, but I don’t enjoy lying to so many nice people.” Evelyn’s face clouded over as she remembered how many times she’d already lied to Miles, something she hated doing. “Sometimes I think I would have been better off as a secretary in some dreary war office on the coast.”

  Josephine threw back her head and laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous! That would be a waste of some of the best talent that I’ve seen in this business in months. Anyway, you wouldn’t like typing up reports in a dingy little hole that smells like engine fuel.”

  Evelyn was forced to smile at that. “No, perhaps not.”

  Before Josephine could say anything more, the back door swung open and Marc strode into the kitchen, followed by Jens.

  “What’s this?” he demanded, stripping off an oil stained pair of gloves. “Jens says that Fort Eben-Emael fell!”

  “Yes. Luc and I heard it in Maubeuge. The Belgians surrendered at 12:30 this afternoon.”

  Marc scowled and dropped heavily into a chair at the table. “That was the most heavily fortified defense in Holland. Without it, Holland is all but lost.”

  “Perhaps not,” Jens said slowly. “It is just one fort. If the Allied armies can push the Germans back out of Belgium, the French and British may be able to retake it.”

  Marc looked up at him, his lips twisting sardonically. “That’s a large if. Where’s Luc?”

  “I ran on ahead,” Josephine told him. “He’s on his way.”

  “He’s here,” a new voice said from the door into the house. Luc walked in, unbuttoning his coat as he went. “I spoke to a farmer in the road after you ran on ahead. There’s more bad news.”

  They all looked at him apprehensively, then Josephine made an impatient sound in the back of her throat. “Well go on. Tell us what it is.”

  “The German Panzer divisions have all but broken through the Ardennes,” he said grimly, walking over to the counter next to the sink. He picked up an open bottle of wine and poured some into a glass. “It’s believed that they’ll reach Sedan tomorrow.”

  Silence greeted his announcement and he turned to find all three of them staring at him in shock. He nodded wordlessly and lifted the wine to his lips. Even Evelyn was shaken with the speed with which the tanks had made it through the heavily forested area.

  “Impossible!” Josephine breathed, her face pale.

  “Precisely what I said,” Luc muttered, “but it must be true. The farmer heard it from a soldier not half an hour ago. The army is in an uproar.”

  “I’m sure they are. They don’t have any competent divisions anywhere near there!” Marc said, getting up to pour himself a glass of wine. “They’ve all moved into Belgium!”

  “But I don’t understand,” Josephine said, shaking her head. “I thought the Germans didn’t have the numbers to do something like this.”

  Marc snorted. “Clearly we were never told the true numbers.”

  “And don’t forget the Wehrmacht divisions still in Norway,” Evelyn said. “The third Reich has been rebuilding its armies for years. It was only a matter of time until we discovered just how strong their forces have become.”

  “Yes, and while they were busy building a war machine, our governments were busy turning a blind eye,” Luc said disgustedly. “Now we’re facing the demons that we helped create.”

  Marc glanced at him, amused. “You’re always so dramatic,” he said. “They are no more demons than you or I. They are simply men following orders.”

  “Well those men will be rolling right through France if they get past Sedan.”

  Evelyn met Jens’s sober gaze across the kitchen. The Germans were moving much more quickly than they anticipated. The worry on his face was clear, and it was mirrored on her own. Josephine looked from one to the other.

  “Are you thinking you should wait to go to Paris?” she asked.

  “I don’t think it will make much difference now,” Jens said. “They’re moving so quickly that whether we stay or we go, we’re just as likely to end up in the line of fire.”

  “Don’t panic yet,” Marc advised before draining his glass of wine. “They’re still a long way off, and even further from Paris. It is true that none of us thought they would reach Sedan so quickly, but they still have to cross the Meuse. That is no small feat.”

  “Marc is right,” Josephine said. “We may be worrying prematurely. Let’s see what happens in the next few hours, and if nothing outrageous occurs, then you can be on your way in the morning.”

  Jens was clearly not happy with that arrangement, but he nodded reluctantly after glancing at Evelyn. As he turned away, Evelyn met Josephine’s gaze. The other woman had a trace of a smile on her lips and she nodded imperceptibly. She had bought Evelyn a few more hours.

  Now it was up to her to find out what she could about Jens.

  Maubeuge, France

  Eisenjager walked out of the small hotel and squinted against the glare of the late afternoon sun. That was the last one, and the employee behind the desk had said the same thing all the others had said. They were fully booked with refugees from Belgium, but none of them had the name of Jens Bernard.

  Tilting his hat low over his brow, Eisenjager turned to walk towards his car parked at the end of the road. One of the establishments had suggested that he try Valenciennes, to the west. They had been sending many people in that direction when they had no more rooms. He supposed it was possible that Jens had gone to the neighboring town, but he wasn’t willing to waste even more time finding out for certain. He was going to have to accept the fact that he’d lost his target’s trail once they passed over the border into France.

  And that infuriated the assassin.

  Reaching his car, he opened the door and got behind the wheel, glancing at the square box on the backseat. He would have to contact Hamburg and ask for additional help, something he’d never had to do before. It was unthinkable, really, that it had come to this. Starting the engine, he pulled away from the curb. It was the fault of the German advance, of course. If they hadn’t invaded when they had, then he would already have Jens and
be well on his way to Berlin. The invasion was out of his control, but it didn’t make it smart any less. For the second time in as many months, he had failed.

  Not yet, he reminded himself, driving out of the busy center of Maubeuge and making his way out of the city. He hadn’t failed yet. He would pull to the side of the road once he was out of the city and contact Hamburg. They might have additional information that would help him pick up the trail once again. The man might have family in France, or an associate. Anything would help.

  As he drove out of the city, Eisenjager passed a line of army trucks undoubtedly heading for one of the fortifications along the border. Maubeuge was part of the French’s famed Maginot Line, thought it didn’t appear to be one of the more heavily defended sections. He wondered briefly if the Wehrmacht would attack it head on or go around it, then dismissed the thought almost immediately. The battle plan of the High Command was no business of his. His business was with a young Belgian from Brussels. Nothing more. Even so, he found himself making mental note of the positions of the city defenses to include in a report back to Hamburg. It wouldn’t hurt to send back additional information to help the army, even if their reconnaissance flights would give them most of what they needed to know.

  It was ten minutes before he was well into the countryside and the bustling city was behind him. Eisenjager pulled off the road and behind a hedge before turning off the engine. Twisting in his seat, he pulled the square case from the back and set it on the passenger seat beside him, undoing the leather straps. Opening the case, he pulled out a long wire with an adapter on the end, plugging one end into the cigarette lighter of the car before inserting the other end into the side of the wireless radio unit. He started the engine again and reached for the headset, settling it over his head before he began tuning the dials for the frequency. He found it a minute later and began transmitting a coded message with the little metal paddle. He didn’t need to write it out first. He knew the code well, and for such a short message, it was unnecessary to take the time to jot it down. He would keep it short and sweet, relaying his position and asking for more information to help with his hunt. He would have to wait for an answer, but he could use the time to study the road map of France. When he was finished transmitting, he pulled the folded map from the pocket inside the door and spread it out over the steering wheel.

  It was over twenty minutes later when the headset came alive with the sound of a reply. Setting the map aside, Eisenjager pulled out a little pad of paper and pencil from the case, scrawling down the code as it came back. When he was finished, he looked at it with a slight frown. After waiting to ensure that there was no more coming, he removed the headset and decoded the message, staring at the neatly printed words a minute later.

  MAN IN MARLE FRANCE CAN ASSIST. NAME IS ASP. CODEWORD: ORANGE.

  Eisenjager unplugged the radio and rolled up the cord with quick, practiced movements. A few minutes later, he was pulling out from behind the hedge and back onto the road.

  He was going to Marle.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Luc finished loading logs into the fireplace and reached for a box of long matches. The sun had all but disappeared and a cold rain had moved across the county, making the old house damp. The shower had been short-lived, but the chill had remained. Evelyn watched as he lit the kindling, remembering the roaring fire in her father’s drawing room on nights like these. A feeling of intense sadness went through her at the memory. She missed Ainsworth Manor and the comfort of her home, especially at times like this, far from home.

  “Have you heard anything from the others yet?” Josephine asked, walking into the room with two steaming cups of tea. “They should have contacted us by now.”

  Marc looked up from the table in front of the window where he had a wireless radio set up.

  “No. Their last message was this morning to say that they had arrived.”

  Josephine handed Evelyn one of the cups and settled onto the couch next to her, sipping her tea.

  “Do you think something’s happened to them?”

  “It’s too early to think that,” Luc said, standing up and brushing his hands off. “They’re probably moving around, trying to gather as much information on the German movements as possible. You know how they are. They will contact us when they have something.”

  Evelyn sipped the hot liquid in her cup thankfully. The tea was atrocious, but it was hot and warmed her, and that was all that she cared about right now. She wiggled her toes in her shoes and watched as the logs caught light in the hearth. Once the fire got going, her feet would warm up. Her lips twisted at the thought as she remembered hiking through the mountains in Norway just last month. Her cold feet now were nothing compared to the frozen limbs she’s experienced there. Had it really only been a month since that flight across the snow-covered mountains, escaping the same army that was now threatening France? It seemed almost a lifetime ago that she’d left Anna and Erik on the ridge above Namsos; and Peder in a ravine to die.

  “Are you all right?” Josephine asked her, drawing Evelyn from her reverie.

  “Yes, why?”

  “You had a strange look on your face.”

  “Did I? I was just thinking about how I can’t feel my toes,” Evelyn said with a laugh. “Thank you for the tea. It’s wonderful.”

  “It’s perfectly horrid, but it’s hot,” Josephine said cheerfully. “Don’t you have any boots with you? You really need them for the country around here.”

  “No doubt, but I didn’t need them for Brussels. I have some wonderful high-heeled sandals that are stunning, but they won’t do anything for the cold.”

  Josephine laughed. “No they won’t. I have an extra pair of boots, but I think your feet are smaller than mine.”

  “I’ll be fine, really. I just need to warm up. It’s the damp, that’s all.”

  “The fire will be warm soon,” Luc said with a nod. “It will be better then. This is a cold house. It’s old and drafty.”

  Evelyn smiled and sipped her tea, looking up as Jens came into the room. He had a scarf wrapped around his neck and looked as cold as she felt.

  “Marie, have you seen the map we were looking at earlier?” he asked. “I thought we left it in the kitchen, but I can’t find it now.”

  “I put it on the table in the hall,” Josephine said. “I was afraid it would get something spilled on it at supper.”

  “Thank you,” Jens said with a smile. As he was turning towards the door again, he caught sight of Marc and his radio and stopped, the map forgotten. “Is that yours?” he asked, walking over to the table. “This is impressive. It’s a good one.”

  Marc looked at him in surprise. “Do you know radios?”

  “Yes. It’s what I do. I’m a wireless radio operator, or was until the Nazis invaded.” Jens leaned down to examine the machine. “Very nice. I have mine with me. It’s smaller than this, but it does what I need it to. I used much larger ones in my work, of course.”

  “This was given to me by my government,” Marc told him. “I’ll have to give it back.”

  Jens looked around and pulled up a chair, sitting down next to the table.

  “It’s got fantastic range.”

  Josephine looked at Evelyn. “Have we lost them both for the rest of the night?”

  “It appears so,” Evelyn said with a laugh. “I suppose there are worse things for them to be fascinated by.”

  “They’re certainly necessary, at any rate,” Josephine said. “Are you really going to go to Paris?”

  Evelyn looked at her in surprise. “Of course. Why do you ask?”

  “It just seems that with the Germans moving so unpredictably, perhaps the capital is not where you want to be right now,” the other woman said slowly. “I’ve been thinking about the situation all afternoon. If we can’t hold the German army at Sedan, it would be an easy, straight shot to Paris.”

  “And then I would be trapped there,” Evelyn finished for her. “Perhaps.”

>   “It’s certainly something you should consider.”

  “What about you? If we can’t hold them at Sedan, what will you do?” Evelyn asked after a moment.

  “We have to remain here as long as possible, at least until the others return from across the border.”

  “If the Nazis keep advancing at this pace, we’ll have to fall back whether or not the others have returned,” Luc said, lighting a cigarette and tossing the match into the fire.

  “Fall back to where?” Jens asked from the table near the window, his attention caught by the conversation taking place in front of the fireplace. “Towards Paris?”

  “Yes.”

  “We could go to Vervins,” Josephine said thoughtfully. “I know someone there who could put us up for a few days.”

  Luc made a face. “A few days? And then what? If we have to start falling back, it would be best to split up. If we stay together, it will be harder to find accommodations.”

  “There’s always Marle,” Marc said, looking up from his radio. “My uncle has a farm just outside town with several outbuildings. We would be more comfortable there. I’m sure he would allow us the use of one of the barns, at the very least.”

  “Marle!” Jens exclaimed, looking startled.

  The others looked at him in surprise and Evelyn raised her eyebrows.

  “Have you heard of it?” she asked. “That’s strange. It’s not a very well-known town at all.”

  Jens looked flustered for a moment, then he chuckled and scratched his neck ruefully.

  “I’ve heard of it, yes. Someone I went to school lived there before moving to Belgium. I’d completely forgotten until just now. I’m sorry. I was just excited that there was somewhere I knew besides Paris!”

  Luc chuckled. “If nothing else, this war will introduce you to many more places you never knew existed,” he told him. “Then you can tell your grandchildren of your adventures in France during the war.”

  Evelyn watched Jens thoughtfully for a moment before turning her attention back to the others.