Eye of the Storm

by C. J. Lyons

  “We go in as if we belong there,” Dex said. “Order the removal of our prisoners from the prison hospital. The French won’t risk angering the Germans—”

  “Or waking them,” Rosa put in.

  “What if they ask me medical questions? Or to read a patient’s chart?”

  “Your role isn’t to play a doctor. You’re an officer on a mission. You want those prisoners. Now.”

  “Schnell, schnell,” Paddy snapped.

  “Right,” Dex said with approval. “Any medical issues, you delegate to Rosa, Nurse Stein.”

  “Keep the French busy,” Rosa added. “Order them to carry the patients out to the ambulance, to grab their paperwork, all their medications. Don’t give them time to think and we’ll be in and out again in less than an hour.”

  “And past the security checks before sun-up.”

  Padraic scanned the map and nodded. “Where do we meet if things go wrong?”

  Dex answered. “We don’t. We split up. I’ll stay with the ambulance. You make your way to the train station, head south or east. Sooner or later you’ll end up in Marseilles.”

  “And you, Rosa?” She liked the way Padraic looked at her—not challenging her ability, rather with concern.

  Dex laughed. “Don’t worry about Rosa. They’ll never catch her.”

  Rosa said nothing, merely folded the map and handed it back to Dex, who moved up front to slide into the driver’s seat. She grabbed her nurse’s satchel, made sure everything she needed was there: bandages, chloroform, scalpels, sutures, Luger pistol. She had two more knives concealed on her body within easy reach.

  “You’ve done this before?” Padraic asked while they sped down the road to Bayonne, their knees jostling together as they perched on the stretchers.

  “Yes.”

  “And it works?”

  She smiled. “One thing Germans are good at is following orders. Remember that and it will be fine.”

  As they approached the first checkpoint, Padraic moved up to take the seat next to Dex, leaving Rosa alone in the back. The sleepy guard never knew it but she had him in the sights of her pistol the entire time. Lucky man waved them through with no more than a cursory glance at their papers.

  The next sentry was a bit more punctilious. He actually shone his flashlight in at both Dex and Padraic, but when he saw Padraic’s rank, he meekly handed their papers back and asked if they needed him to call ahead to the prison.

  “Nein,” Dex said as he put the ambulance in gear. “They’re expecting us.”

  Bayonne was hardly the bustling town Marseilles was even in the full light of day, but this time of night, the city was as quiet as any back roads country village. Maybe more so since farmers often rose before the sun.

  They approached the prison. Instead of tensing when they stopped at the outer gate, Rosa relaxed, acting exactly as a nurse harried from her bed to retrieve a valuable prisoner would. While the French guard searched the rear of the ambulance, she straightened her uniform jacket, checked her hairpins, then flashed him a disdainful glare when he brushed his hand against her calf.

  “Pardon,” he muttered. Finding no contraband, he sent them through the gate and directly to the hospital ward.

  This was where the Irishman could ruin everything. Until now, Padraic had played his role admirably, being neither too strident and overbearing nor too meek. Instead, he’d acted as if the sentries were simply beneath his notice.

  But now the entire plan depended on him. As befitting a German officer, he waited for Dex to come around and open his door. Rosa was already out of the rear of the ambulance, leaving the stretchers behind. Padraic immediately waved two guards over and ordered them to bring the stretchers. They were inside the hospital doors before anyone even asked to see their papers.

  “Where are the Englishmen?” Padraic demanded. “They are to be taken for interrogation immediately.”

  An orderly appeared, his hair rumpled with sleep, uniform crooked. “Which Englishmen, Major?” he asked, smoothing his face with one palm. “We’ve the pilots shot down two days ago and several sailors brought in just tonight.”

  Padraic halted, his posture snapping to attention, delivering a glare that made the orderly take a step back. Rosa moved forward. “Do the courtesy of saluting an officer,” she told him in a tone that suggested she was saving his career, if not his life. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t question his orders.”

  The orderly straightened and saluted Padraic. He was a Frenchman, so it was an awkward motion, doused in arrogance. Rosa found that trait useful in the French who worked for the Nazis. The collaborators all had a haughty disregard for their countrymen who fought what they felt was a useless war, yet they also despised their German partners. Such ambivalence made it easy to find their weak spots—usually anything that would make their lives easier.

  “We have orders for the pilots.” Rosa handed the papers to the orderly who relaxed slightly at the routine. “But the Gestapo will also want the others—should we take them all tonight or do you want Major Strauss to make the trip back again tomorrow?” She kept her tone soft as if the decision rested in his hands. Padraic, meanwhile, was prowling the cramped facilities, acting as if he were an inspector general, barking notes to Dex on “infractions.”

  “Unacceptable,” Padraic growled as he came upon a pile of soiled linens left in the hallway. He kicked them aside. “You there. Name?”

  The orderly blanched. “Henri Allard, sir, Major Strauss, sir.”

  “Allard, I will be speaking to your commanding officer.” Padraic glanced at his watch. “We are now behind schedule.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, we’ll get the prisoners straight away. Do you have room for them all?”

  “We’ll make room,” Padraic assured him. “Let them have a miserable ride to Paris. It’s the last they’ll ever be taking.”

  The orderly chuckled nervously and waved to the guards. Twenty minutes later, the ambulance was packed with two RAF pilots; Lieutenant Carstairs, who was second in command of Padraic’s ship; two more junior officers; and three sailors all with a variety of minor injuries. The lieutenant was the worst off. He had a nasty head wound and was unconscious, so he got a stretcher to himself while the rest crowded onto the floor and second stretcher. One of the sailors, a reedy Scotsman named Kerr, perched on the lap of one of the pilots, while Rosa braced against the rear doors where she could watch out the windows.

  Dex steered them out of the prison, barely slowing to salute the guard, out of the city, past the first guard post, again with a quick stop, and past the second sentry who was asleep and didn’t even see them come or go.

  Rosa glanced at her watch. Fifty-two minutes. Mission accomplished. From his place in the front, Padraic twisted around and sought her out across the bodies of the rescued men. He grinned at her, a boyish expression that, despite him being years older than she was, made her roll her eyes and laugh.

  “And to think me dear ma said I had no gift beyond working the nets. What do you say, boys, should I see if there’s room on a West End stage for me?”

  The men howled with laughter, hurling ribald responses about the kind of roles Padraic was best suited for. Rosa turned to watch their rear flank, hiding her smile.

  Chapter 22

  CASSIE SAW HER chance when one of Kasanov’s teenaged thugs rushed through the office door and handed him a phone. He waved Cassie to silence right in the middle of the most exciting part of Rosa and Paddy’s hospital escape, got up, and, accompanied by two more of his men, strode out the door. The kids in the office scrambled away, out of sight. Cassie watched through the window as Kasanov kept going past the reception desk and through another door, vanishing.

  That left only one guard. He wasn’t much taller than Cassie, but had the bulky build of a weight lifter. Not very old, maybe late teens. She was still puzzled by that. Other than the middle-aged lady she’d met at the gallery, the fake psychic, Natasha, they were all very young. Why was that? A way to ke
ep himself at the top of the power pyramid with no one to challenge him?

  Vincent had squirreled himself into the shadows behind a large wheeled toolbox similar in size to the crash carts in the ER. He caught her gaze and nodded, holding his knife at the ready. No way was she about to risk a kid’s life, but she might not have to.

  She squirmed and shifted her weight. “I need to use the bathroom.”

  It was a tried and tired escape ploy, but had the advantage of being true. The guard frowned at her then looked away as if deciding she was beneath his notice.

  “I don’t think Mr. Kasanov wants to sit here smelling urine all night,” she tried again.

  He considered that and stepped forward. He hoisted her onto her feet and shoved her in the direction of the office. She fell sprawling back to her knees.

  “Either cut my ankles free or carry me,” she told him. She had a glass shard secreted in her fist and could have cut herself free, but she hoped she’d seem more vulnerable, less of a threat, by letting him do it.

  Of course, the larger question was then what? As she’d spun her tale for Kasanov, she’d been massaging her legs back to life; she thought she could run. But first she’d need to incapacitate the guard. She had a weapon. Small as it was, the shard was sharp enough to slice flesh down to a major vessel or take out an eye. With her Kempo training and medical knowledge of a body’s vulnerabilities, she could kill or maim.

  But to take a life? Despite Kasanov’s threats, he’d made no move to harm her—in fact, it was obvious he needed her alive until he learned whatever secret from Rosa’s past he thought Cassie held.

  If this were a movie, the gutsy heroine wouldn’t hesitate to slit the nasty guard’s throat and make her escape. But Cassie had killed before. With her own hands. Betraying everything she believed in, everything she worked for with every patient she treated.

  It had been an act of desperation; the only way to save her and Drake. Deemed justifiable by law, by society, by anyone who heard the story. But not by Cassie. The weight of that act, the final screams that had dwindled to sad whimpers before an infinite silence, these haunted her.

  Could she do it again? No, she knew she could—she was physically able. The question was would she kill again?

  There was no one else’s life at stake here except her own. In fact, by escaping, she might be endangering Muriel.

  But one thing she knew. She could not stay and allow Kasanov to continue to use Drake’s mother as hostage against her. She had to save Muriel.

  All this went through her mind faster than the time it took the guard to decide to cut her bonds.

  “On your belly,” he ordered. Cassie obeyed, rolling over to lay face down on the oil stained concrete floor. The guard planted one foot on the small of her back, pinning her in place, then bent down and pulled her skirt up. There was the click of a knife blade snapping into place. He tugged at the zip ties encircling her ankles and sliced through them.

  When he was done, he took hold of her arm and hauled her to her feet. “Don’t try anything.”

  “Thank you.” Cassie kept her face lowered and her gait wobbly, pretending that her feet were still numb. She leaned heavily on him, stumbling, as he guided her to the office door. In her peripheral vision, she saw Vincent, as silent as a shadow, move from his hiding place to follow them.

  They crossed through the door and she realized the space she’d thought was an office-reception area was actually part of a much larger building. The door Kasanov had disappeared through was across the waiting area and had a window that revealed a wide-open space beyond it. It also had a keypad lock on it as did the door she and the guard had just come through. Which meant she was now trapped in this small section of the building.

  A car dealer’s showroom? she wondered, straining to see more through the tiny window. But the guard wrenched her in the opposite direction, down a short hall to a small unisex cinderblock bathroom behind the service desk. No windows and it stank as if it hadn’t been cleaned in decades.

  “Could I have more water, please?” she asked.

  “Drink from the sink.” He shoved her inside the room and stood in the doorway. “Go on.”

  She said nothing, merely glanced around the room and then pled silently as she met his gaze. It was obvious there was no escaping from this room barren of everything except the toilet and sink. There wasn’t even a paper towel dispenser or toilet paper holder she could rip from the wall and use as a weapon. Just a soggy, tattered roll of paper on the back of the toilet.

  The strange staring match continued, Cassie remaining silent and meek, until the guard finally flushed, looked away, and closed the door, giving her privacy. She quickly used the facilities, then ran the water, washing her face and cuts, but mostly drinking as much as possible. Leaving the water running, she pulled the lid off the back of the toilet. It was a better weapon than the glass shard, if not as elegant.

  Only problem. She’d get just one shot with it, and it was so bulky that there wasn’t enough room to swing it inside the cramped quarters of the bathroom. No way could she smuggle it out of here, so she returned it to the toilet and grabbed her shard of glass.

  It was about two inches long, curved on one side, from the heavier base of the bottle, which meant she could hold it without being cut herself. She braced herself and opened the door.

  The guard leaned against the wall outside, waiting.

  “Thank you,” she said, forcing a smile at him.

  Again, he looked away, as if embarrassed being caught being kind. She stepped past him then stumbled back as if she’d lost her balance. Instinctively, he caught her before she could fall.

  Pushing off with one leg, Cassie pivoted, jabbing her palm up under his chin hard and fast. He cracked his head against the wall he was pinned against. With her other hand, she pressed the sharp edge of the glass against his cheekbone so that if he made the slightest movement it would pierce his eye.

  Vincent appeared from the other end of the short hallway. Together they hustled the guard into the bathroom, Cassie exchanging the glass for Vincent’s dagger. The guard said nothing—by that time, Cassie had the dagger at his throat—but his expression was murderous.

  He had zip ties in his jacket pocket. Vincent quickly hogtied him, then used the man’s socks and shoelaces to gag him. Cassie took the guard’s knife and pistol—he had no cell phone, unfortunately. They locked the bathroom door from the inside and left, the whole thing had only taken a few minutes.

  A rush of adrenalin sparked through Cassie. They’d done it—she was free! Now she just needed to get help, find Muriel, and get them both out of here alive.

  Then she realized. She had no idea where “here” was. Or where Muriel was.

  Chapter 23

  ROSA TOOK PADDY and his compatriots to a brothel near Marseille’s Vieux-Port. At first, he was nonplussed, but it was the perfect place to hide from Vichy and German eyes. Most of the working girls had fled for more prosperous locales and Rosa had recruited the few who remained into her intelligence-gathering network. Thick drapes blanketed every window, there were hidden tunnels and passages to expedite clandestine exits, and more than enough beds for all. The only thing lacking for the others was fresh air and relief from the boredom brought on by confinement. After three weeks, tempers began to flare.

  Paddy, because of his fluency in German and growing competency with the Marseilles French dialect, was the only one able to leave the bordello, accompanied by Rosa, of course. She watched over all of her “apatrides,” persons without papers or a country to claim, with the possessiveness of a mother hen. Especially the soldiers. She told Paddy that most of the British Expeditionary Forces stranded in France were at Fort St. Jean, but the city was too mad with fear after news that Vichy’s leader, Marshal Petain, was coming for an inspection tour for her to risk moving Paddy’s men there.

  Each journey outside the walls of the brothel was filled with anxiety and the risk of detection, but the entire city seeme
d to thrive on cloak-and-dagger machinations. Walking along the cobblestoned streets, watching the reactions of the others who crowded the cafes, gossiping about new routes over the Pyrenees or the cost of counterfeit transit visas, it seemed as if the very air of the port city thrummed with anticipation. The same thrill of anticipation shared by a cornered rat right before a terrier pounced.

  People of every social strata clamored for an audience with the “relief” agencies—in actuality small groups of determined men and women who had funds and contacts to help arrange for emigration, either legally or illegally. Mainly Jews, they were of every nationality, out-spoken socialists and communists, artists, writers, scientists, rich, and poor. They shared only one thing in common: they were on the Nazis’ list of unwanted. With growing rumors of what was actually happening in the camps to the east, few dared take the chance of turning themselves in when Vichy government decreed it. And so all made their way to border towns like Marseilles where they waited and hid and hoped for salvation.

  During the three weeks since Rosa and her group had rescued him and the others, Paddy watched in amazement as this young snippet of a girl calmly and competently organized the exodus of several dozen people across the Pyrenees to freedom. But the German and Vichy crackdowns were taking its toll—two of her groups had to turn back because of heightened border security.

  But still, she persevered, finding the means to feed and shelter them and others without funds or papers until she developed a new route.

  They were at the Cafe Pelikan, sipping postum, a bitter grain brew that made for a poor substitute for real coffee, when Rosa informed Paddy that she’d be taking him and his men across the border the next day. She even swiped the pepper pot from the table as they left. “Put it in the cuffs of your trousers,” she said, slipping it into his coat pocket. “It will keep the dogs off your track.”

  Later that night, Paddy tossed and turned in his small room papered in fraying brocade and smelling of musk, perfume, and the stale smell of sex. Of course he wanted his men safe, but despite the danger, he didn’t want to leave Marseilles. He had tried to express his feelings for Rosa, but each time she had turned him aside, moving the conversation to logistics about his escape.