Night of Flames

by Douglas W. Jacobson

  De Smet could feel the sweat running down his forehead. He didn’t move, terrified that he might piss in his pants.

  The Gestapo agent continued on, as though he were giving a weather report. “Let’s see, what else? Oh yes, Leon Marchal’s farm was burned down, as well as the Delacroix’s. Did you know them well?”

  De Smet coughed and cleared his throat. “Non… I didn’t. I didn’t know them at all.”

  “Well, no matter. They’re all dead now anyway, or will be soon.” Reinhardt stepped back to the front of his desk with his back to de Smet. He seemed to be staring at the picture of Hitler. “The butcher I mentioned, and, oh yes, le petit chalet he owned in the woods near Warempage. That was burned down as well. Did you know anything about the people who were living there?” Reinhardt turned and stared at him. “Apparently, it was an attractive redheaded woman and her teenage son. We couldn’t seem to locate them.”

  “Non…non, I didn’t know them,” de Smet said, “none of them.”

  “Are you certain of that? We think she was working with Trooz and the Comet Line.”

  “I’m telling you the truth. I only met Leffard and Boeynants.” He shifted in the hard metal chair.

  Reinhardt sat on the edge of the desk. “I see. Well, then that brings us to Monsieur Boeynants. I’m sure you can help us here. It seems that he was not at home when we dropped in on him. Have you been in contact with him?”

  “Non, I haven’t talked with any of them since I passed along the date of the shipment.”

  Reinhardt glanced at the desk and picked up a letter opener, rolling it over in his fingers. “You’re certain of that. No contact at all?”

  “I swear…I haven’t spoken to anyone.” The sweat dripped down his cheeks, and he had to fish out his handkerchief and wipe his face.

  Reinhardt smiled, then stepped around to the other side of the desk and pushed a buzzer. A few seconds later, the door opened and two SS troopers entered the office.

  De Smet’s stomach tightened.

  Reinhardt folded his arms across his chest, looked down at him again and spoke in German. “Well, Herr de Smet. We had a bargain. When we first met, I showed you a picture of your son, alive and well in Hamburg.”

  De Smet could barely breathe. He nodded.

  Reinhardt continued. “You agreed to set up this little trap and help us round up the terrorists. In return, I would arrange for you and your son to be reunited. Wasn’t that it?”

  De Smet nodded again. “Ja, ja, that was it. My son is coming home, then?”

  Reinhardt smiled. With a quick nod of his head he motioned to the two SS troopers. They grabbed de Smet under the arms and jerked him to his feet. The chair tipped over and clattered on the tile floor.

  Reinhardt’s smile faded into a sneer. “You’re going to be reunited with your son. But there’s been a slight change in plans. The reunion will take place in Germany.”

  De Smet’s knees went weak. If the SS troopers weren’t gripping his arms he would have fallen. “That’s not what we agreed on,” he cried. “I’ve been loyal to the Reich! I’ve performed other services.” De Smet struggled in the iron grip of the troopers. “We had a deal. You said—”

  Reinhardt lunged forward and slapped him in the face. “Ruhe! You rotten turd! How dare you raise your voice to me?” He grabbed de Smet’s tie and jerked his head forward. “Ja, you performed other services—for which you were handsomely rewarded.” He shoved de Smet backward and stepped away, wiping his hands. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Now, however, your services are no longer required.” Reinhardt turned back to his desk, glancing over his shoulder at the SS troopers. “Get this schweinhund out of my office.”

  Chapter 48

  THE TRAIN TO LE HAVRE pulled out of Paris’s Gare du Nord more than an hour late. Anna had barely been able to contain herself while the train sat at the platform, expecting the Feldgendarmes to enter the car at any moment.

  It didn’t help that she wasn’t able to properly communicate with Ryan. For the first time, she felt genuinely sorry for the impudent young man. She didn’t dare speak to him in English so, for the moment, there wasn’t much she could do to relieve his anxiety. Perhaps it was for the better. She just hoped he would keep quiet.

  It was a slow train that stopped at every station along the way. Anna tried to keep track of their progress, but none of the small towns were familiar and she was just too tired. Ryan had fallen asleep and the gentle rocking of the car, warmed by the sun shining through the windows, lulled her into unconsciousness.

  The train jerked to a halt and Anna woke with a start. She blinked a few times, trying to clear her head, and glanced at her watch. She was surprised to see that it was almost eleven o’clock. She had been asleep for almost two hours.

  Anna looked out the window at the small railway station, but the train had already rolled past the sign identifying the town. It was apparently not a major stop since none of the other passengers made any attempt to get off. In the seat beside her Ryan stirred and woke up, rubbing his eyes.

  Anna looked back out the window and spotted two policemen standing near the station house. Her stomach tightened. A few seconds later, a railway conductor joined the policemen, and the three of them walked toward the train. One of the policemen split off toward the rear of the car while the other entered the car from the front with the conductor.

  Ryan nudged Anna’s arm. She shot him a quick glance and touched her lips.

  The conductor and the policeman stood in the front of the car studying some type of document. Anna heard the rear door open and close. She fought to keep her composure.

  Out of the corner of her eye Anna saw the conductor and policeman start down the aisle. She kept her head turned away as the footsteps stopped at their seats.

  “Monsieur, Madame, pardonnez moi, your tickets and passports please?” the conductor asked blandly.

  Anna met his eyes and smiled. “Oui, bien sûr.” She retrieved her purse from the floor, removed both sets of documents and handed them to the conductor.

  He looked them over and showed them to the policeman, who glanced at them and nodded. The conductor opened the small leather case he was carrying and slipped the tickets and passports inside. “Come with us, please—both of you.”

  “Is there a problem?” Anna asked.

  “Ce n’est pas grave, it’s nothing. I’m sure we can straighten it out in a few minutes,” the conductor replied in a bland, bureaucratic monotone.

  “Je ne comprends pas,” Anna persisited. “What sort of problem?” She knew she had to avoid getting off the train, although it was probably not going to be possible.

  “It’s nothing. I’m sure it will take only a few minutes. Now, please, come with us.” The conductor stepped back and motioned with his hand for them to get up.

  Anna noticed the policeman shift his weight and raise his right hand so that it was touching the handle of the revolver strapped around his waist.

  At the same time the policeman standing behind their seats put his hand on Ryan’s shoulder and gave him a shove. “Come on, get up,” he commanded.

  “Hey!” Ryan blurted and jerked around.

  Anna grabbed his arm and said sharply, in Flemish, “Het geeft niet, laten we gaan! Never mind, let’s go!”

  Ryan turned toward her.

  Anna slid her hand down his arm and squeezed his hand as they both stood up and followed the conductor and policeman out of the car. The other passengers stared out the windows or read their newspapers.

  When they stepped down to the platform, two Feldgendarmes moved in around them. One of them pulled a revolver out of his holster and pointed it directly at Ryan. “Halten! Turn around and put your hands behind you!” he barked in German.

  Suddenly Ryan lunged forward and grabbed the Feldgendarme’s hand, forcing the gun toward the ground.

  In a flash, the other Feldgendarme and one of the policemen pulled out their nightsticks and pounded Ryan on the back of the head and
shoulders.

  Ryan grunted and collapsed, blood oozing from the back of his head.

  The Feldgendarme pulled out a pair of handcuffs while the policeman shoved his knee into the small of Ryan’s back.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Anna screamed. “You can’t—” The slap almost knocked her down. A searing pain shot through her jaw.

  “Shut up, bitch!” the other policeman yelled and stuck a revolver into Anna’s ribs, shoving her against the side of the railcar.

  Anna’s head banged into the car and her knees buckled. She sagged to the ground. The policemen grabbed her under the shoulders and jerked her to her feet. He pulled her wrists behind her and snapped on a pair of handcuffs. His face was just a few centimeters from her own. His breath smelled of wine and garlic. “Not another word, bitch. Understand?”

  Anna’s head throbbed and her jaw hurt so badly she thought it was broken. She turned as the two Feldgendarmes pulled Ryan to his feet. The aviator’s head hung down and he could barely stand as they dragged him toward the south end of the platform.

  The policeman in front of Anna grabbed her shoulder and shoved her toward the north end of the platform. “Get moving,” he snarled and shoved her again, almost knocking her off her feet.

  When Anna awoke her first sensation was the pain in her jaw. She opened her mouth and moved it back and forth slowly. The pain brought tears to her eyes but just being able to move it was a good sign, she thought. She probed around with her hand, feeling along each side of her jaw. It was very sore but she doubted it was broken.

  She winced when her fingers brushed across a deep scrape on her cheek. She touched it tenderly, then pulled her hand away and looked at the traces of blood. The bastard who slapped her was probably wearing a ring. When she sat up her forehead throbbed. She swung her feet to the floor and lowered her head into her hands, closing her eyes.

  After a few minutes the pain subsided a bit. Anna sat up and looked around. She was sitting on a cot at one end of a small concrete block room. In the corner of the room opposite the cot was a small hole in the concrete floor. The door looked stout, made of heavy wood with a small barred window. Sunlight shown into the room from behind her, and she turned to look up at another barred window. The effort made her head hurt again, and she turned away.

  Anna stood up and stepped over to the door, trying to peer out of the barred window. It was high enough that she had to stand on her tiptoes, and she couldn’t see much except another concrete wall. She looked down at her wrist to check the time and realized her watch was gone.

  She sighed, stepped back to the cot and sat down again, rubbing her temples. Damn it all, she thought, how could this have happened? Part of her wanted to curse the brash young aviator for being stupid and another part of her felt remorse for having failed to get him to safety. She had no illusions about Ryan’s ability to fake his false identity. Not under the kind of treatment he was sure to receive from the Feldgendarmes—or, even worse, the SS.

  The sound of a key turning in the lock startled her, and Anna got to her feet as the door swung open. Standing in the doorway was a French policeman. He appeared to be no more than nineteen or twenty years old.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  Anna stepped out of the cell into a concrete block hallway lined with ten or twelve identical wooden doors. The young policeman motioned for her to proceed ahead of him, and she walked down the hallway, stopping in front of another wooden door at the end. The policeman rapped on the door with his nightstick. A few seconds later a key turned in the lock and it swung open.

  A much older policeman, fat and rumpled looking with a sweaty brow, motioned for her to step inside. The windowless room was about six meters square with concrete walls painted light blue. There was a metal table in the middle of the room and four metal chairs.

  The young policeman pulled out a chair, motioned for her to sit and departed through a door at the other end of the room. Anna sat down at the table as the fat, older policeman closed the door she had come through, locked it again and retired to a grimy metal desk in the corner. There was a mug of what Anna guessed was coffee on the desk and a half-eaten sandwich on top of a haphazard pile of magazines and newspapers.

  Perhaps twenty minutes later the door opened again and an SS officer stepped into the room. Anna squeezed the arms of the metal chair to keep her composure.

  The fat policeman scrambled to his feet, knocking a pile of papers and the mug of coffee on the floor. The ceramic cup shattered, splattering coffee in all directions.

  The SS officer glared at the slovenly man and jerked his head toward the door. The policeman squeezed past the crisply uniformed officer and exited the room, pulling the door closed behind him.

  The officer laid a thin file folder on the table, then removed his black leather gloves. He removed his hat and laid it on the table with the gloves. He had neatly trimmed blond hair and icy blue eyes. He appeared to be about forty years old and looked like a man who took very good care of himself.

  The officer pulled out one of the chairs and sat down. He smiled at Anna and spoke in German-accented French. “Bonjour, madame. I am Hauptsturmfuhrer Koenig. I apologize for the treatment you received at the railway station. It was unfortunate.”

  He looked at her as though expecting some type of response, but Anna couldn’t think of anything to say.

  Koenig shrugged and continued. “Well, what’s done is done. Perhaps if your friend hadn’t been so impulsive it wouldn’t have happened.”

  Anna decided to take a chance. “Can you tell me where he is?” she asked.

  Koenig smiled again but didn’t respond. He opened the folder, revealing their passports and tickets. He picked up one of the passports and studied it for a few seconds. “Your friend would be this person…Henri Eyskens?” he asked.

  “Oui, Henri. Can you tell me where he is?”

  Koenig set the passport down and folded his hands on top of the file. “Oui, I can tell you where he is. But first, perhaps you should tell me who he is.”

  Anna struggled to control her emotions. She knew she had to stay calm if she had any chance of surviving this. “What do you mean? His name is Henri Eyskens. He’s an engineer with our company, and I would like to know where he is.”

  Koenig’s smile disappeared. He opened the file and removed the other passport. “Please, don’t waste my time, Madame ‘Laurent,’ or whatever your real name is. Your friend is a very poor liar, and he doesn’t know enough Flemish to buy a loaf of bread. We know that he’s British and most likely an aviator. As such, he is responsible for the murder of thousands of German citizens. He will be dealt with accordingly.”

  Anna’s throat was so tight she felt like she wouldn’t be able to take another breath.

  Koenig sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “But as for you, madame, that’s quite another story, isn’t it.”

  “Je ne comprends pas, what do you mean?” Anna replied. It was weak but it was all she could manage.

  Koenig stood up and paced around the room with his hands clasped behind his back. He stared at her as he talked in a quiet monotone. “We know that you and the British murderer got on the train in Brussels. You were trying to pass him off as Flemish, but he was dumb enough to speak to you in English, which, unfortunately for you, was overheard by a patriot, a friend of the Reich. So, we ask ourselves, why is an attractive Belgian woman carrying a fake passport and traveling with a British soldier?”

  Koenig had circled around behind her and stopped moving.

  Anna stared down at the table, willing herself to stay calm.

  He leaned close and whispered in her ear. “How long have you been an agent of the Comet Line, madame?”

  Anna closed her eyes, squeezing the arm of the chair. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck. She counted to three then pushed the chair back.

  Koenig straightened up as Anna stood and turned to face him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she sa
id. “And I resent the implication that my friend and colleague isn’t who I’ve said he is. The whole idea is absurd.”

  Koenig stared at her then stepped back to the other side of the table. “Très bien, madame, très bien. Very good, indeed. I admire spirit in a woman. And especially a woman as attractive as you.”

  “Monsieur, I meant exactly—” Anna began but stopped as Koenig held up his hand.

  He leaned forward with both hands on the table. “I have some information that may interest you, madame. So, please sit down and pay attention.” He picked up the folder and removed a single sheet of paper. “During the last forty-eight hours, some arrests were made in Belgium. Perhaps you know these people.” He looked at the list and said, “Gaston Rompaey.”

  Anna didn’t recognize the name and didn’t react.

  “Richard Berghmans.”

  Again, Anna did not know the name. Perhaps he was off on the wrong track, she thought.

  “Leon Marchal.”

  It was like a rifle shot to her heart. Anna shuddered. Suddenly she was overwhelmed with a feeling of dread about Justyn.

  “Rik Trooz,” Koenig hissed.

  She gripped the chair so hard she thought her fingers would break. Goddamn him!

  “Rene Leffard.”

  The name fell like a sword slicing through her soul. Anna whimpered and squirmed in her chair—then lost control.

  She jumped to her feet, and the metal chair clattered to the floor. She ripped the folder out of the stunned officer’s hand and swatted him in the face with it. “You goddamn sick bastard,” Anna screamed. “Go to hell! Go to hell and be damned!” She flung the folder across the room and sank to her knees, sobbing.

  Hauptsturmfuhrer Koenig stared at her for a minute, not saying a word. Then he picked up the folder, retrieved his hat and gloves and left the room.

  Chapter 49

  THE HARSH POLISH WINTER gave way to spring. The weather warmed and wildflowers bloomed in the soft, rolling terrain east of Krakow. The farmers were back in their fields, strapped to horse-drawn plows, beginning another season scratching out a living from the earth.