The Black Swan of Paris

by Karen Robards

  The other three nodded as if this was something they knew. Genevieve frowned. There was something odd...

  Max glanced around. “Anybody have any difficulty out there?”

  He was talking to the others, not her. They—all three—shook their heads. Genevieve got the distinct impression that they’d been carrying out assignments from Max while she’d been safe in her room waiting for him to return.

  Max looked at Otto, who said, “I was able to get what I need.”

  Max looked at Emmy. She said, “There are two ways to reach the castle. A road and a cable car. Both are heavily guarded, and both are shut down completely at night. The guards stay on duty all night, however. Getting out is going to be as difficult as we thought.”

  Max nodded, and looked at Berthe.

  Genevieve’s eyes riveted on Berthe as she started to speak, saying, “There’s a flat field about two kilometers north of town that will work for a landing field.”

  “Wait. What?” Genevieve exclaimed. “Berthe—”

  Berthe, who, with her round cheeks, braided coronet of hair and loose black dress, looked exactly the same as she always did, smiled at her.

  Suspicion crystallized into certainty. Genevieve asked, “Are you an agent?”

  “I am, yes.”

  Genevieve stared at her for a moment, then shot a fulminating look at Max. “Could I talk to you for just a minute?”

  Hopping off the bed, she headed for the bathroom. He followed and closed the door.

  “Berthe’s an agent?” Her voice was no less outraged because she was careful to keep it down.

  He sighed. “She and her husband were part of the Armia Krajowa, the Polish Resistance. After his execution, and her failed execution, the Nazis were looking for her, and she needed to get out of Warsaw. She’s been working for me since I took her on board.”

  “All this time, and you didn’t tell me?”

  “What you don’t know, you can’t reveal.”

  She practically gnashed her teeth at him. “I can’t believe you didn’t—what about no more secrets? Oh, I see, that’s strictly a one-way street.”

  “It was, because you have a role to play.” He took her hands. She jerked them away. “You’re the face of the operation, the Trojan horse that gets us to places and through doors we’d never be able to access without you. Be fair—if you’d known what Berthe was, would you have been able to treat her simply as your dresser and maid?”

  Would she have behaved differently toward Berthe if she’d known? Honesty compelled her to admit the truth: probably, at least in subtle but perhaps telltale ways.

  Max, clearly able as always to read her face, continued without waiting for her to reply. “Everything we did, all of our safety, depended on the Germans accepting you for what you appeared to be and nothing else. Your knowing the truth about Berthe could have done us no good and might have ruined everything.”

  “All right, I see what you’re saying,” she conceded reluctantly.

  “So we’re good?”

  “Yes.”

  He smiled at her. She frowned at him. His smile widened. Opening the door, he gestured to her to precede him and followed her out.

  Genevieve found herself the cynosure of three pairs of interested eyes.

  Even as she returned to her spot on the bed beside Emmy, she looked back at them—Berthe, the quintessential maid with her round cheeks and placid gaze; Otto, the old man, wrinkled and wizened; Emmy, the lovely showgirl with her head of blond curls and willowy form—and realized with a sense of amazement that this unlikely assortment of individuals was a crack team of seasoned spies. Then she glanced back at Max, who’d just reclaimed his place in the center of the room. Tall and lean in the same dark sweater and trousers he’d been wearing earlier, his black hair pushed carelessly back from his face and still damp from the rain, his jaw rough with early morning stubble, he looked every bit their commanding officer. Which, in fact, was what he was.

  “Gave him what for, did you?” Emmy whispered as Genevieve sank down beside her.

  Genevieve could do no more than give her sister a quelling look as Max resumed speaking as if there’d been no interruption.

  “Ordinarily we’d get down to working out the details now, but something unexpected has come up. The reason why the baroness was brought here, the reason why Genevieve was invited here to sing, is that there is at this very moment a gathering of some of the most important government officials, SS leaders, and military officers in Nazi Germany at Eber Schloss. They’re here to map out possible responses to the potentially imminent Allied invasion. I’ve been on the radio to Baker Street, they’ve been in touch with the blokes in the War Rooms, and as a result we have new orders in addition to the old orders. We are to rub them all out. Oh, and we’re on our own. Tommy Bowden very apologetically explained that he would send a crack team of paratroopers in to help, but the weather here over the next twenty-four hours is supposed to be bad. That also means we can’t count on our ride home.” He looked at Otto. “You have the schloss’s floor plans with you?”

  Otto nodded.

  Max said, “Right, then, let’s get to work coming up with a way to get the job done. We don’t have much time.”

  * * *

  It was very nearly over for her. Lillian knew it even before the sound of heavy boots approaching along the stone floor of the corridor made every shivering cell in her body tense, even before the metallic clank of a key in the lock followed by a long creak announced the opening of her cell door, even before the sensation of light hit her closed lids and she opened them a wary crack to find Claus von Wagner standing over her cot, shining a torch down at her face.

  “It is time, madame,” he said. At a signal, two soldiers stepped around him, pulled her from the cot and, with each grasping an arm, partly carried and partly dragged her from the cold dankness of the unheated cell.

  And this time it was a cell. Hewn of rough stone, the windowless walls were fronted by floor-to-ceiling iron bars. The cot was rickety metal with a thin smelly mattress and rag of a blanket. The corridor was narrow, with more rough-hewn stone walls and an uneven stone floor. Light from dim electric bulbs set into the wall was augmented by the merest hint of daylight that spilled around a corner—a window must be out there somewhere, although she couldn’t see it.

  But she could smell the damp and mold, the pine notes in Wagner’s aftershave, her own stench. That last shamed her, although it was through no fault of her own—she’d had no opportunity to bathe since they’d captured her.

  Beyond the shame, the odor—all the odors—carried an even weightier significance. During the time that had elapsed since her middle-of-the-night removal from her previous prison, during her nightmarish journey by rail and car to this mountain fortress—she’d gotten a glimpse of it as the vehicle in which she’d been transported had driven up a nearly vertical road and then been processed through heavily guarded iron gates—she’d healed sufficiently so that her sense of smell had returned. And last night she’d awakened herself by crying out in her sleep.

  The guards—there were three on this corridor alone—must have heard. Someone must have told Wagner.

  “Chain her up,” he directed as they passed into a larger room. Frantic darting glances found a metal table against one wall, its surface covered with an ominous selection of tools; beside it, a metal desk with an office chair pulled up to it, a ledger on its top; on the opposite wall, what looked like a doctor’s examining table. Manacles hung from the back wall. Turning her to face the front, the soldiers snapped the manacles around her wrists, yanked her legs roughly apart and clamped more manacles around her ankles so that she was spread-eagle against the wall. The manacles were heavy and cold but loose enough not to be painful, for which she supposed she could thank her emaciated frame. She could feel the shape of the individual stones through the thin brown dres
s they’d given her to wear, without underclothes, for travel. Her feet were protected from the floor by her own sturdy shoes, returned to her for the same purpose.

  On the table with the tools was a Bunsen burner. Her eyes locked on it as Wagner turned it on and ignited the resultant rush of gas. The whoosh of the flame taking hold sent ripples of fear over her. Terror flooded her mouth with acid.

  Wagner looked at her. “Now then, Baroness, you will tell me where this invasion by the Allies will happen.” His tone was mild.

  The hoarse, strangled sound she made in response was dredged up from somewhere deep in her diaphragm.

  “That is not quite Paul, which is what I’m told you cried out in your sleep, but it’s a start. I might even say a promising start.” He picked up a knife from the table. It was long and thin, with a flat blade and a wickedly curved edge. The hilt, incongruously, was painted a cheerful yellow. He turned it over in his hands as if to examine it, then held it out so that the blade was in the flame.

  Her stomach cramped.

  “First I must apologize,” he said, rotating the knife. “I would start with a small torture, maybe break a finger or two, give you time to consider what keeping your secrets might mean. But I am busy with guests today, so I haven’t much time. Here is what I regret to tell you is going to happen—I am going to destroy your lovely face. You know how ugly and disfiguring burns can be, do you not? Yes, I am sure you do. I am going to place this red-hot blade against your face as many times as it takes until you tell me what I want to know.”

  He withdrew the knife from the flame.

  Lillian stared at it in horror.

  Without another word, he turned and laid the flat of the knife against the side of her jaw.

  The sizzling sound made by red-hot metal connecting with cool soft skin was instantaneous.

  She screamed, jerked her face away. The pain made her dizzy, made her sick.

  The new, charred smell in the air came from her own burnt flesh. She retched and gagged, but her stomach was empty and nothing came out.

  “Your voice is regaining its volume,” he said approvingly as he returned the knife to the flame. “We must congratulate ourselves. We’re making progress. Now, I’m going to ask you again—where will the Allies launch their invasion?”

  Shaking with fear, eyes on the knife, Lillian made sounds, babbled, tried to turn her face away—and then he grabbed her hair and pressed the knife to the smooth curve of her cheek. She screamed again, fighting his fist in her hair, fighting the chains that held her tight against the wall to no avail as she tried to escape the searing agony.

  “Did I mention I have little time?” His tone was genial as he let go of her hair and lifted the blade away, returning it to the flame. Her legs had collapsed. She hung from the chains now, her nostrils filled with the scent of her own burnt flesh, shaking so badly the iron links shackling her to the wall clattered. “I propose to speed things up. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, right now, instead of ruining your face, I’m going to put out your eye.”

  Lillian’s heart seized up with horror. Please, God—please, no.

  He turned back toward her with the newly reheated blade. Holding it up, he let her see it: the metal glowed red.

  “You do have such pretty eyes,” he said, peering into her face as he drew closer. “What a pity.”

  A wave of cold sweat drenched her. Tears sprang forth to roll down her cheeks. Blinking, swallowing, she turned her face away, straining her neck in an effort to escape.

  He grabbed her hair.

  “Where will the Allies launch their invasion?” His voice was gentle. He leaned close.

  She closed her eyes, squinched them tight. Shook, gasped, strained.

  “Last chance,” he said, and held the knife over her closed left eyelid, so close she could feel the heat.

  Her throat convulsed. Her tongue moved. It worked, she could—

  “Pas-de-Calais,” she croaked.

  He laid the red-hot blade of the knife against her eye anyway.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  “Mademoiselle Dumont, I am sorry, but only your name and an accompanying maid are on my list.” The sentry at the big iron gate at the top of the mountain looked at her unhappily through the Daimler’s rear window, which Genevieve had rolled down at the first hint of trouble. In the driver’s seat, Lutz, already frazzled at being dragooned into transporting five passengers when he had expected two, had been making apologetic sounds at the guard leaning into the car. They’d already had to pass through an armed checkpoint at the base of the mountain, and military vehicles packed with soldiers had lined the road. But this sergeant in his heavy greatcoat and fur-lined hat that was buckled tight beneath his chin to protect him against the cold came armed with something else: a list fastened to a clipboard.

  And Max, Otto and Emmy weren’t on it.

  “If I’m to put on a show for Herr Obergruppenführer Wagner and his guests, I must have what I need,” Genevieve said. Her breath created small puffs of vapor in the pine-scented air. The temperature in the town below had been chilly. Up on this snowy mountainside high in the clouds, it felt as if winter had no intention of going away. “Monsieur Bonet is my accompanist, Monsieur Cordier is my piano tuner and sound engineer, and Madame Chastain—” the name on Emmy’s forged travel documents “—is my duet partner. I would not have paid for their travel from Paris to Stuttgart if I did not need them.” She paused and did her best to look affronted. “Indeed, if I cannot have them, I cannot perform. Corporal Lutz, please turn around and take me back to town.”

  “Mademoiselle Dumont—” Eyes wide with alarm, Lutz skewed around in his seat to look at her. Berthe, beside him, all bundled up in her black coat and scarf with her hands folded on her lap, stared stolidly straight ahead. Beside her, Otto in his scruffy Russian hat looked old and shrunken and anxious. “I cannot! Herr Obergruppenführer Wagner will be most upset. He—”

  “Turn around,” Genevieve interrupted firmly. “I will not do a show that is not up to my standards. I will go back to Paris.”

  “No, no, that won’t be necessary,” the sentry said. Having taken the measure of the two in the front seat, he looked at Max and Emmy, who sat with Genevieve in the back, then withdrew from the window. “Go ahead,” he said to Lutz, and waved to whoever was in charge of opening the gates.

  As the Daimler passed through to the final sweep of road leading up to Eber Schloss, Genevieve glanced back to find him busily jotting down a note on his list.

  Big dirty drifts of snow lay on either side of the narrow road, and more snow, deep and pristine, covered the steep slopes leading up to the castle. When the car went around the last in a series of hairpin turns, Genevieve had a breathtaking view of the valley below. Spread out over a succession of rolling hills and deep valleys, tucked around the curling blue ribbon that was the Neckar River, it was covered in a light dusting of snow that made it look like it had been sprinkled with powdered sugar. The town itself boasted a beautiful Flemish Gothic town hall and a baroque palace that had once belonged to the House of Württemberg. In addition, it featured a variety of seventeenth-, eighteenth-and nineteenth-century architecture as well as many parks and churches. On the outskirts of the city, the ugliness of what looked like an army barracks spread out over a flat plain. It was actually a labor camp for the conscripts brought in to work the factories for which Stuttgart was known. Those same factories had caused the city to become a target for numerous Allied bombing raids. Seen from her vantage point high on the mountain, Stuttgart looked like a giant had stomped through, wantonly breaking buildings and trees, leaving craterous footprints in the streets and on the ground.

  On what was almost the opposite side of the mountain, she caught the briefest of glimpses of a pair of steel cables, appearing spider-silk thin at this distance, glinting silver against the leaden sky. Suspended high above vertical
cliffs and deep ravines, those cables and the cable cars they ordinarily carried represented the only other means of accessing Eber Schloss. Rising from the valley below up an even steeper section of mountain than the one the Daimler was climbing, the cable cars had been stopped as a security measure while the VIPs were visiting the schloss.

  Genevieve thought she probably wouldn’t even have spotted the cables if she hadn’t been looking for them. But she was looking for them because the cable cars had been tapped as their only way out.

  Assuming they survived long enough to attempt escaping by them.

  Just thinking about it made her heart pound, so she tried not to.

  They turned a final corner. Sweeping vistas of pine trees and snowdrifts and low-floating wisps of gray clouds blocked the cables from her sight. Instead she was treated to the full glory of Eber Schloss as the Daimler arrived with a swish of tires at its front door.

  Rising from a plateau that had been blasted out of the top of the mountain, Eber Schloss was a fairy-tale castle à la the Brothers Grimm. Built of dark gray limestone that sparkled faintly even on this overcast day, its turrets were tall enough to disappear into the clouds. Crenellated battlements, narrow mullioned windows and an enormous oaken front door blackened by time added to the impression it gave of an ancient and impregnable fortress.

  Genevieve’s attention was distracted as one of the soldiers on guard hurried up to open her door for her—and Wagner came running down the castle’s wide front steps.

  Her heart slammed into double time even as she allowed the soldier to hand her out of the car. Shivering a little at the cold despite her trim wool coat, she assumed her best smile and held out both hands to him.

  “Claus!”

  He beamed, dimples forming deep creases on either side of his mouth, his eyes sparkling blue as he came toward her.