Ken Follett - Jackdaws

by Jackdaws [lit]

  As Flick passed the door, her eye was caught by something on the ground. It was a wooden toothbrush. Without pausing in her stride, she stooped and picked it up.

  Ruby said, "Do you need to clean your teeth?"

  "This looks like Paul's." She almost thought it was Paul's, although there must be hundreds like it in France, maybe thousands.

  "Do you think he might be here?"

  "Maybe."

  "Why would he have come?"

  "I don't know. To warn us of danger, perhaps."

  They walked on around the block. Before approaching the house again, she let Greta and Jelly catch up. "This time we'll go together," she said. "Greta and Jelly, knock on the front door."

  Jelly said, "Thank gordon, my feet are killing me."

  "Ruby and I will go around to the back, just as a precaution. Don't say anything about us, just wait for us to appear."

  They walked along the street again, all together this time. Flick and Ruby went into the courtyard and past the Simca Cinq and crept around to the back. The kitchen ran almost the whole width of the house at the rear, with two windows and a door between. Flick waited until she heard the metallic ring of the doorbell; then she risked a peep through a window.

  Her heart stopped.

  There were three people in the kitchen: two men in uniform, and a tall woman with luxuriant red hair who was definitely not the middle-aged Mademoiselle Lemas.

  In a frozen fraction of a second, Flick noted that all three were looking away from the windows, reflexively turning in the direction of the front door.

  Then she ducked down again.

  She thought fast. The men were obviously Gestapo officers. The woman must be a French traitor, posing as Mademoiselle Lemas. She had looked vaguely familiar, even from the back: there was something about the stylish drape of her green summer dress that struck a chord in Flick's memory.

  It was dismayingly clear to Flick that the safe house had been betrayed. The place was now a trap for Allied agents. Poor Brian Standish must have fallen straight into it. Flick wondered whether he was still alive.

  A feeling of cold determination came over her. She drew her pistol. Ruby did the same.

  "Three people," she told Ruby in a low voice. "Two men and a woman." She took a deep breath. It was time to be ruthless. "We're going to kill the men," she said. "Okay?"

  Ruby nodded.

  Flick thanked heaven for Ruby's cool head. "I'd prefer to keep the woman alive for questioning, but we'll shoot her if she seems likely to escape."

  "Got it."

  "The men are at the left-hand end of the kitchen. The woman will probably go to the door. You take this window, I'll take the far one. Aim at the man nearest to you. Shoot when I shoot."

  She crept across the width of the house and crouched under the other window. Her breath was coming fast and her heart was beating like a steam hammer, but she was thinking as clearly as if she were playing chess. She had no experience of firing through glass. She decided to shoot three times in rapid succession: once to shatter the window, a second time to kill her man, and a third time to be sure of him. She thumbed the safety catch on her pistol and held it pointing to the sky. Then she straightened up and looked in through the window.

  The two men were standing facing the door to the hail. Both had pistols drawn. Flick leveled her gun at the one nearest her.

  The woman had gone, but as Flick looked she returned, holding the kitchen door open. Greta and Jelly walked in ahead of her, all unsuspecting; then they saw the Gestapo men. Greta gave a small scream of fear. Something was said-Flick could not hear what-then Greta and Jelly raised their hands in the air.

  The fake Mademoiselle Lemas walked into the kitchen behind them. Seeing her full-face, Flick felt a shock of recognition. She had seen her before. An instant later she remembered where. The woman had been in the square at Sainte-C‚cile last Sunday with Dieter Franck. Flick had thought she was the officer's mistress. Obviously she was something more than that.

  A moment later the woman saw Flick's face at the window. Her mouth dropped open, her eyes widened, and she lifted her hand to point at what she had seen. The two men began to turn.

  Flick pulled the trigger. The bang of the gun seemed simultaneous with the crash of breaking glass. Holding the gun level and steady, she fired twice more.

  A second later, Ruby fired.

  Both men fell to the ground.

  Flick threw open the back door and stepped inside.

  The young woman had already turned away. She was making a dash for the front door. Flick raised her gun, but too late: in a split second the woman was in the hail and out of Flick's line of sight. Then Jelly, moving surprisingly fast, threw herself through the door. There was a crash of falling bodies and breaking furniture.

  Flick crossed the kitchen and looked. Jelly had brought the woman down on the tiled floor of the hall. She had also broken the delicate curved legs of a kidney-shaped table, smashed a Chinese vase that had stood on the table, and scattered a spray of dried grasses that had been in the vase. The French woman struggled to get up. Flick aimed her pistol but did not fire. Jelly, showing remarkably quick reactions, grabbed the woman by the hair and banged her head on the tiles until she stopped wriggling.

  The woman was wearing odd shoes, one black and one brown.

  Flick turned back and looked at the two Gestapo men on the kitchen floor. Both lay still. She picked up their guns and pocketed them. Loose firearms left lying around might be used by the enemy.

  For the moment, the four Jackdaws were safe.

  Flick was operating on adrenaline. The time would come, she knew, when she would think about the man she had killed. The end of a life was a dreadful moment. Its solemnity might be postponed but would return. Hours or days from now, Flick would wonder if the young man in uniform had left behind a wife who was now alone, and children fatherless. But for the present, she was able to put that aside and think only of her mission.

  She said, "Jelly, keep the woman covered. Greta, find some string and tie her to a chair. Ruby, go upstairs and make sure there's no one else in the house. I'll check the basement."

  She ran down the stairs to the cellar. There on the dirt floor she saw the figure of a man, tied up and gagged. The gag covered much of his face, but she could see that half his ear had been shot oft

  She pulled the gag from his mouth, bent down, and gave him a long, passionate kiss. "Welcome to France."

  He grinned. "Best welcome I ever had."

  "I've got your toothbrush."

  "It was a last-second thing, because I wasn't perfectly sure of the redhead."

  "It made me just that little bit more suspicious."

  "Thank God."

  She took the sharp little knife from its sheath under her lapel and began to cut the cords that bound him. "How did you get here?"

  "Parachuted in last night."

  "What the hell for?"

  "Brian's radio is definitely being operated by the Gestapo. I wanted to warn you."

  She threw her arms around him in a burst of affection. "I'm so glad you're here!"

  He hugged and kissed her. "In that case I'm glad I came."

  They went upstairs. "Look who I found in the cellar," Flick said.

  They were all waiting for instructions. She thought for a moment. Five minutes had passed since the shooting. The neighbors must have heard gunfire, but few French citizens were quick to call the police nowadays: they were afraid they would end up answering questions at the Gestapo office. However, she would not take needless risks. They had to be out of here as soon as possible.

  She turned her attention to the fake Mademoiselle Lemas, now tied to a kitchen chair. She knew what had to be done, and her heart sank at the prospect. "What is your name?" she asked her.

  "Stephanie Vinson."

  "You're the mistress of Dieter Franck."

  She was as pale as a sheet but looked defiant, and Flick thought how beautiful she was. "He saved my life."<
br />
  So that was how Franck had won her loyalty, Flick thought. It made no difference: a traitor was a traitor, whatever the motive. "You brought Helicopter to this house to be captured."

  She said nothing.

  "Is Helicopter alive or dead?"

  "I don't know."

  Flick pointed to Paul. "You brought him here, too. You would have helped the Gestapo capture us all." The anger sounded in her voice as she thought of the danger to Paul.

  Stephanie lowered her gaze.

  Flick walked behind the chair and drew her gun. "You're French, yet you collaborated with the Gestapo. You might have killed us all."

  The others, seeing what was coming, stood aside, out of the line of fire.

  St‚phame could not see the gun, but she sensed what was happening. She whispered, "What are you going to do with me?"

  Flick said, "If we leave you here now, you will tell Dieter Franck how many we are, and describe us to him, and help him to capture us so that we can be tortured and killed... won't you?"

  She did not answer.

  Flick pointed the gun at the back of Stephanie's head. "Do you have any excuse for helping the enemy?"

  "I did what I had to. Doesn't everyone?"

  "Exactly," Flick said, and she pulled the trigger twice. The gun boomed in the confined space. Blood and something else spurted from the woman's face and splashed on the skirt of her elegant green dress, and she slumped forward soundlessly.

  Jelly flinched and Greta turned away. Even Paul went white. Only Ruby remained expressionless.

  They were all silent for a moment. Then Flick said, "Let's get out of here."

  CHAPTER 42

  IT WAS SIX o'clock in the evening when Dieter parked outside the house in the rue du Bois. His sky- blue car was covered with dust and dead insects after the long journey. As he got out, the evening sun slipped behind a cloud, and the suburban street was thrown into shadow. He shivered.

  He took off his motoring goggles-he had been driving with the top down-and ran his fingers through his hair to flatten it. "Wait for me here, please, Hans," he said. He wanted to be alone with Stephanie.

  Opening the gate and entering the front garden, he noticed that Mademoiselle Lemas's Simca Cinq was gone. The garage door was open and the garage was empty. Was Stephanie using the car? But where would she have gone? She should be waiting here for him, guarded by two Gestapo men.

  He strode up the garden path and pulled the bell rope. The ring of the bell died away, leaving the house strangely silent. He looked through the window into the front parlor, but that room was always empty. He rang again. There was no response. He bent down to look through the letter box, but he could not see much: part of the staircase, a painting of a Swiss mountain scene, and the door to the kitchen, half open. There was no movement.

  He glanced at the house next door and saw a face hastily withdraw from a window, and a curtain fall back into place.

  He walked around the side of the house and through the courtyard to the rear garden. Two windows were broken and the back door stood open. Fear grew in his heart. What had happened here?

  "Stephanie?" he called. There was no answer.

  He stepped into the kitchen.

  At first he did not understand what he was looking at. A bundle was tied to a kitchen chair with ordinary household string. It looked like a woman's body with a disgusting mess on top. After a moment, his police experience told him that the disgusting thing was a human head that had been shot. Then he saw that the dead woman was wearing odd shoes, one black and one brown, and he understood she was Stephanie. He let out a howl of anguish, covered his eyes with his hands, and sank slowly to his knees, sobbing.

  After a minute, he dragged his hands from his eyes and forced himself to look again. The detective in him noted the blood on the skirt of her dress and concluded that she had been shot from behind. Perhaps that was merciful; she might not have suffered the terror of knowing she was about to die. There had been two shots, he thought. It was the large exit wounds that had made her lovely face look so dreadful, destroying her eyes and nose, leaving her sensual lips bloodstained but intact. Had it not been for the shoes, he would not have known her. His eyes filled with tears until she became a blur.

  The sense of loss was like a wound. He had never known a shock like this sudden knowledge that she was gone. She would not throw him that proud glance again; she would no longer turn heads walking through restaurants; he would never again see her pull silk stockings over her perfect calves. Her style and her wit, her fears and her desires, were all canceled, wiped out, ended. He felt as if he had been shot, and had lost part of himself. He whispered her name: at least he had that.

  Then he heard a voice behind him.

  He cried out, startled.

  It came again: a wordless grunt, but human. He leaped to his feet, turning around and wiping the moisture from his eyes. For the first time he noticed two men on the floor. Both wore uniforms. They were Stephanie's Gestapo bodyguards. They had failed to protect her, but at least they had given their lives trying.

  Or one of them had.

  One lay still, but the other was trying to speak. He was a young chap, nineteen or twenty, with black hair and a small mustache. His uniform cap lay on the linoleum floor beside his head.

  Dieter stepped across the room and knelt beside him. He noted exit wounds in the chest: the man had been shot from behind. He was lying in a pool of blood. His head jerked and his lips were moving. Dieter put his ear to the man's mouth.

  "Water," the man whispered.

  He was bleeding to death. They always asked for water near the end, Dieter knew-he had seen it in the desert. He found a cup, filled it at the tap, and held it to the man's lips. He drank it all, the water dribbling down his chin onto his blood-soaked tunic.

  Dieter knew he should phone for a doctor, but he had to find out what had happened here. If he delayed, the man might expire without telling what he knew. Dieter hesitated only a moment over the decision. The man was dispensable. Dieter would question him first, then call the doctor. "Who was it?" he said, and he bent his head again to hear the dying man's whispers.

  "Four women," the man said hoarsely.

  "The Jackdaws," Dieter said bitterly.

  "Two at the front... two at the back."

  Dieter nodded. He could visualize the course of events. Stephanie had gone to the front door to answer the knock. The Gestapo men had stood ready, looking toward the hail. The terrorists had sneaked up to the kitchen windows and shot them from behind. And then...

  "Who killed Stephanie?"

  "Water..

  Dieter controlled his sense of urgency with an effort of will. He went to the sink, refilled the cup, and put it to the man's mouth again. Once again he drank it all, and sighed with relief, a sigh that turned into a dreadful groan.

  "Who killed Stephanie?" Dieter repeated.

  "The small one," said the Gestapo man.

  "Flick," said Dieter, and his heart filled with a raging desire for revenge.

  The man whispered: "I'm sorry, Major..

  "How did it happen?"

  "Quick... it was very quick."

  "Tell me."

  "They tied her up... said she was a traitor... gun to the back of the head... then they went away."

  "Traitor?" Dieter said.

  The man nodded.

  Dieter choked back a sob. "She never shot anyone in the back of the head," he said in a grief-stricken whisper.

  The Gestapo man did not hear him. His lips were still and his breathing had stopped.

  Dieter reached out with his right hand and closed the man's eyelids gently with his fingertips. "Rest in peace," he said.

  Then, keeping his back to the body of the woman he loved, he went to the phone.

  CHAPTER 43

  IT WAS A struggle to fit five people into the Simca Cinq. Ruby and Jelly sat on the rudimentary backseat.

  Paul drove. Greta took the front passenger seat, and

/>   Flick sat on Greta's lap.

  Ordinarily they would have giggled about it, but they were in a somber mood. They had killed three people, and they had come close to' being captured by the Gestapo. Now they were watchful, hyper alert, ready to react fast to anything that happened. They had nothing on their minds but survival.