by Pam Jenoff
Marie panicked. There was a crush of passengers behind her, jostling into a rough queue as they neared the police. She couldn’t get out of line without avoiding detection. But the package was bulky, impossible to hide or disguise if someone felt her midsection. She eyed a trash bin, wishing she could deposit the package there. Or perhaps in the toilet. But the line had moved forward now and she was nearly at the checkpoint. There was no way to remove the TNT from her body.
She reached the front of the line. “Papers,” a policeman ordered and she delayed, unable to open her coat and access her purse without revealing the package. Travelers waiting behind her began to grumble at the delay. “Out of line!” the policeman shouted, losing patience. He waved her over to another officer who was doing more thorough inspections.
“Toilet?” she asked desperately, expecting the second officer to refuse. “Les regles,” she said, gesturing downward and using the French term for her period. She hoped that the crude reference would, at a minimum, help her avoid a close inspection. The officer looked horrified and waved her quickly into an adjacent ladies’ room. Inside Marie pulled her shirt up, knowing that she only had seconds to stay in the toilet without attracting attention. She pulled the TNT carefully from her body, fighting the urge to cry out where it ripped her skin, causing it to bleed. For a moment, she considered leaving the package in the toilet, rather than risk being caught with it. But Will had said it was critical to the mission. Instead, she wedged it into the secret compartment at the bottom of her purse, squeezing the edges too tightly in order to make it fit.
She stepped from the bathroom and into the inspection queue once more, feeling Julian’s eyes still on her. A few minutes later, she reached the front of the line. The police officer reached to pat her down and she fought not to recoil. Resisting would surely only make things worse. The man’s hands were on her body, in all the places that they shouldn’t have been, bringing back childhood nightmares, worse than the kicks and blows, which she thought she had buried forever. She gritted her teeth, willing herself not to feel the cold, invasive touch, taking from her as much as it could. It did not matter at all, she told herself, as long as it kept him away from the satchel.
Julian was watching the assault on the other side of the checkpoint. His face seethed with anger and his fists were clenched. She saw him reach for his gun. She pleaded with him with her eyes to be still and not react. It would destroy the mission and mean arrest or worse for both of them.
After what seemed an eternity, the policeman removed his filthy hands from her body. He reached for the bag and looked in the main compartment. His search was thorough, determined. In a moment, he would surely find the hidden package.
“Darling!” Julian stepped forward before the policeman could stop him, placing himself between the officer and Marie. “My wife is pregnant,” he said, breaking his own rule of not trying to use his piteous French. He managed the words somehow, but his accent was abysmal. Marie froze. Just a second ago she had told the guard that she had her period; Julian hadn’t heard and his story directly contradicted hers. She waited for the policeman to realize the lie.
“I feel ill,” she chimed in, starting to double over.
The policeman stepped back. “Go!” he ordered. Julian held up his own papers, waving her through the gate.
“Keep walking,” Julian murmured and she did, not looking back, terrified they were going to be stopped at any second.
On the train, he helped her into her seat, then kept a protective arm around her. Her heart was pounding so hard she wondered if he could feel it through the back of her dress. She held her breath, expecting the police to burst into the railcar and arrest them. The train sat still for what seemed an eternity and she prayed for it to go. At last it began to snake with painstaking slowness from the station. Neither of them moved as the train left the station.
There were no lights on the train and as Paris faded behind them, the darkness of the countryside seemed to envelop the railcar. Marie looked up at Julian, his face just visible in the faint moonlight. He was gazing down at her. His eyes conveyed a mixture of worry and relief, and perhaps something more, though she might have imagined it. Her eyes met his, held. She desperately wanted to speak with him, but they dared not talk in English. Finally, when she could bear it no longer, she broke from his gaze and looked away. He kept his arm around her and she let herself rest her head on his shoulder.
It was close to two o’clock in the morning when the train pulled into the same station where Will had dropped her earlier. The car he had been driving was left there, and Julian found where his cousin had hidden the key. He navigated the dark roads expertly to the village. Still neither spoke, as though afraid someone might still be listening even now.
At last they reached Marie’s flat. “Thank God. I thought we were done for,” Julian said in a low voice, mindful of the Germans.
“Because you decided to strap a bomb to my midsection without so much as telling me?” Marie said, her own relief quickly turning to anger. She took the package of TNT from the bottom compartment of her purse and handed it to him.
“I was worried that if I told you, you would be too afraid to go through with it. You did brilliantly.”
She took little comfort in the praise. “I’m not a child. If you’re going to risk my life, I at least deserve to know why.”
“I’m sorry.” He raised his hands. “Never again, okay? I promise. Let me explain everything now. We are to blow up the railway bridge just south of Mantes-la-Jolie,” he said in a low voice. She had earned his trust and he was letting her in on the full scope of the plan at last. He pulled a map from his coat and spread it on the table in front of them. “The bridge is here.” He pointed to a narrow strip of river. “It’s a critical transit point for German tanks and destroying it will hurt their ability to fortify their defenses at Normandy. But we can’t do it too soon or they will have time to repair.” Timing, it seemed, was everything. “So we’re gathering explosives. The piece you retrieved tonight is just one of a dozen we need. All of the work we have done so far, all of the arming and sabotage, pales in comparison to this mission.”
“In what way?”
“The magnitude of the operation, its potential effect—and its danger. Once it works, if it works, we won’t be able to hide in the shadows anymore.”
“And what happens after?” He cocked his head, seeming not to understand. “If we will be out of the shadows, revealed, then how do we continue our work? Is it over?”
“It’s never over,” he replied firmly, snuffing out her hope. “We lie low for a few weeks, go to ground and hide in the safe houses away from the region. We shift our base of operations to other locations.” She admired his single-mindedness and resolve.
“This can’t go on forever,” she said gently.
“No, of course not,” he replied quickly. “No one can go on forever out here.” She wondered if he really believed that. “But if we are taken, then scores of others will rise up to take our place.”
“Then when is it over?”
“When the war is won.” His face was resolute. In his mind, it could not have been otherwise.
“I could have been killed,” she said, her anger returning.
“That was part of the bargain when you signed up, wasn’t it?” Marie bit her lip, feeling that he was wrong but not quite sure how. “This particular type of TNT is actually rather stable,” he added.
“You might have told me that ahead of time,” she said, relaxing somewhat.
“I know, and I’m sorry. Anyway, sending you gave me the chance to see you again,” he said. She was caught off guard by his sudden warmth. She felt herself unexpectedly drawn to him as well. Seeing Julian now, she realized she had missed him in the days since their last meeting, which seemed odd, since in the beginning she really hadn’t liked him at all.
“That was a lucky bre
ak at the station, getting out of the queue just before inspection,” he remarked, shifting topics abruptly. “How did you manage it?”
“I told him I had my period,” she admitted uneasily. “Josie taught me that in training. She said Eleanor had told her that the surest way to get a man to leave you alone is to mention the time of the month.”
“Clever,” he said, a touch of admiration in his voice. “I’ve heard quite a bit about Eleanor. She’s meant to be very good at her job.”
“Yes. She recruited Josie, and me as well. She’s very stern. Not all of the girls like her.”
“But you do?”
“I suppose I admire her. She selected me and I want her to think I’ve been up to the task.”
Marie took off her coat and went to hang it on the rack. “You’re bleeding,” Julian said, moving closer.
She looked down and saw the red that had seeped through her blouse. “From where I tore the tape off,” she said.
He walked to the basin and wet a cloth, then came over to her. “It needs to be cleaned. May I?” She nodded, then lifted her shirt slightly and looked away. He washed the wound tenderly, the pads of his fingers warm, almost hot, against her raw skin. “This needs a dressing,” he fretted. “Or it could get infected.” His hand shook worse than she had seen previously as he tended to her.
“Your tremors...”
“Worse when I’m tired,” he explained.
“Rest then.”
“Easier said than done.” He shook his head. “I have to keep going.”
“Rest here,” she said in a firm voice that she hoped would ward off any argument.
Of course it did not. “I have to go. I’m expected at the airfield at daybreak.” She wondered why; there had been no radio transmission announcing a drop. But she didn’t want to tire him with more questions.
“That’s still hours away. Now sleep,” she said sternly. She pointed to the bed.
He smiled. “Yes, ma’am.” But he sat down in the chair next to it, leaning back and resting his head against the wall. “Just for a bit.”
“You’ll be no good to anyone if you’re dead from exhaustion.” She meant this as a joke, but the words hung hollow between them, too close to the truth. Death, whether by flu or German arrest, was always just steps behind them, pursuing. She offered him her blanket. “I’m afraid this is all I have.”
He waved it away. “I’ve slept in much worse places, I assure you. Rowboats and swamp beds. Once even a sewer. I was in a barn in the countryside last night.”
She turned out the lamp and lay down on the bed. She desperately wanted to go and bathe and scrub off the memory of the day, but she didn’t dare run the water at this hour and risk drawing the attention of the Germans billeted in the house. Neither of them spoke for several seconds. “Don’t you get tired of it?” she asked. “All of the moving around.”
“I don’t mind it much. I don’t really have a place I call home.” There was unmistakable sadness in his voice.
“Will told me about your family,” she said, then hoped he wouldn’t take offense. “I’m so sorry.”
“I met Reba when I was sixteen. I’ve never loved another. I put them on that boat,” he said stiffly. “They had been living in Guernsey. I thought it best to get them out of Europe altogether because of the work I was doing. So I arranged for them to go live with Reba’s sister in Canada. That’s where they were going when the ship went down. I sent them to their deaths.”
“You can’t blame yourself. You were trying to keep them safe.”
“Doesn’t matter in the end, does it? They’re dead—as surely as if they had gone to the camps. I like to imagine they were together at the end, Reba holding the boys. But I’ll never know for sure.” Marie struggled for the right words, but found none. He cleared his throat. “And you? What does your husband think of you signing up for this?”
“I’m not married,” she blurted out. “That is, I know the files say I am, but the truth is my husband isn’t missing in action. He left five years ago after our daughter, Tess, was born.”
She studied his face in the semidarkness to see if he was angry at the lie. “You’ve raised her alone all of this time?” he asked. She nodded. “Then this mission should be a piece of cake.” For the first time since she’d met him, she heard humor in his voice.
Then he reached over and touched her hand. “Your daughter will be very proud when she is old enough to understand.” His fingers curled around hers, stayed. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. His breathing grew longer and even. Watching him rest, his face calm and peaceful, a tenderness rose in her. She stopped, surprised. She could not have feelings for him. She had buried that part of herself away long ago, when Richard left. And she had spent years keeping to herself, so that such a thing could not happen again. But as she lay close to Julian, his hand warm on hers in the darkness, she knew what she felt was undeniably real.
She remembered then the way he had gazed fondly at her on the train. Was it possible that the attraction she felt to Julian was mutual? It was just loneliness, she told herself, the weeks and months he had spent on the move by himself. There couldn’t be more. Josie had joked about “things happening out in the field.” She could not have meant Julian, though. His only focus was the mission. He wouldn’t let anything interfere with that.
Nor would she, Marie thought, sleepily now. She was here to do the job and get back to Tess. She couldn’t afford to let anything get in the way of that. She considered pulling her hand from Julian’s, then decided against it. Instead, lulled by the warm comfort of his touch, she let herself drift off to sleep.
Sometime later her eyes fluttered open. Through the window the sky was turning from gray to pink. Marie sat up, cursing herself for oversleeping when Julian said he needed to go before dawn. She wondered if he had slept too long as well. But when she looked up, he was awake, watching her. Her eyes met his and held as they had on the train. But it was daylight now, their feelings unmasked and out of the shadows.
She forced her gaze away. “What time is it?”
“Nearly dawn,” he said, reading the hour by the color of the sky.
“I should never have fallen asleep,” Marie said, jumping up.
He stood. “It’s all right.” He had been awake and could have gone sooner. But he had not. “That’s the first real sleep I’ve had in weeks.”
There was a rustling sound from the door. When Marie opened it, Will stood there, shifting uncomfortably, staring hard into the space between them. He sensed it, too, she could tell, the growing attraction between his cousin and Marie. “You didn’t come to the airfield,” he said to Julian. “I was worried. We have to go now.”
She turned to Julian. “Go where?”
“I’ve been recalled to England.”
She gasped involuntarily. “When?”
“I leave this morning. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he said quickly, seeming to recall his promise the previous evening not to keep secrets from her anymore. “Only no one is meant to know. It’s only for a few days,” he added hastily. “A week at most.” There was a note of wistfulness in his voice...
“But what about the bridge?”
“Detonation isn’t scheduled for two weeks. I’ll be back by then.” His voice sounded uncertain and she wasn’t sure whether he believed it.
Knowing he was leaving, the feelings she had tried to ignore the night before threatened to burst forth. “Must you go?” she asked in a low voice, already knowing the answer.
“We’re going to have to attempt a daylight takeoff at this point,” Will interrupted before Julian could answer. “We have to hurry.”
“Shall I come with you to the airfield?” she asked, trying to find a reason she might be needed.
But Julian shook his head. “The fewer the better,” he said. “Especially when it isn’t
dark.” It was just as well. She couldn’t bear to see the Lysander swoop in and pluck him from their world. “Be safe until I return.”
He turned to his cousin. “Take care of her.” Will nodded solemnly. Marie wanted to protest that she did not need anyone to take care of her. She was an agent, for goodness sake, not some piece of property or someone’s girl. But it was a solemn bond between the two of them and it seemed to be about something much bigger than her.
Suddenly she was struck with an uneasy feeling that he should not leave. “Do you really have to go? That is, the flying out and back again. It’s so dangerous.”
“There’s no other way,” he replied, his feet firmly set on the path. “I’ll be back in a week,” he promised, then started from the room. But as she watched him walk away with his cousin, she could not help but feel that she had lost him forever.
Chapter Fifteen
Grace
Washington, 1946
“The girls are dead,” Grace repeated aloud, as the taxicab crossed the bridge back into Washington. The idea was unthinkable. Each could not have been more than twenty, twenty-five at most. They should be married with small children or out having gay times with friends in postwar London. Not dead. “How?”
“Nacht und Nebel,” Mark said, “means ‘Night and Fog.’ It was a German program to make people disappear, never to be heard from again.”
“How do you know so much about it?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “I spent some time working for the prosecution at the War Crimes Tribunal last year, just after the war ended.”
“Why didn’t you say anything about that before?” That must have been how he knew so much about SOE. “Mark, that’s such important work.”
“My time there did not end well.” Though his tone was neutral, she sensed pain beneath his words. “I’d rather not discuss it—at least not now.”