Before the Dawn

by Candace Camp

  He paused. Tears sparkled on the ends of Jessica’s eyelashes, but she sat quietly, her hands folded in her lap, looking at him, waiting for his explanation. Stephen let out a heavy breath. “I was the one who blew it. I honestly hadn’t expected to come back from that assignment. It had been so damned tough. But all of a sudden there we were at our rendezvous point. We’d made it. We spent the night in a hayloft of a farm owned by a Belgian couple, and the next day we went down to the boats. I saw my contact waiting, his fishing boat ready to go. It was dusk. I knew we’d made it; I was flooded with relief. And I said, ‘Son-of-a-bitch, we’re home free.’”

  His face twisted. “In English!” He slammed one fist down on the counter. “I was the big expert, the one who was supposed to save him, the one who knew exactly what to do. And I made the simplest, stupidest mistake you could make. The kind of mistake the rawest trainee would get canned for. This old lady standing there gasped and began to babble. Suddenly there were a bunch of people around, gabbing and gesturing. Two soldiers up the street noticed the commotion and started toward us. Alan and I broke and ran. I was hoping we could make it to the fishing boat. But Alan got hit. It was my fault. I killed him. Every time I look at you, every time I want to kiss you or hold you, I think about it. How your husband is dead because of me. And I feel like I’m betraying him all over again—taking the woman he loved so much.”

  Silence lay like shattered glass around them. Jessica’s throat was clogged with tears, and she wasn’t sure for who she wanted to cry. “Oh, Stephen…”

  He turned away from her huge, pain-filled eyes.

  “Is that what you’ve been doing the past few months, torturing yourself over that? You think you failed Alan and me and headquarters, too?”

  “I did.”

  Jessica went to him. “You made one mistake. One simple little mistake because you were tired and overjoyed to think you were going to make it home. Anyone could have done that. You aren’t God, you know.”

  “Alan’s dead because of me. Don’t you understand? He could have been here with you now if it weren’t for me.”

  “If it weren’t for you, he would still be in that stalag where you found him! How many times did you speak French or German because Alan couldn’t? How many times did your expertise get both of you away from patrols or guide you across Germany? Alan would have been caught and shipped back in a day if you hadn’t been with him. And when he was shot that day, it was you who pulled him into the boat at the risk of your own neck.”

  “That’s what I’m supposed to do.”

  “That doesn’t make it any less important. Any less courageous.”

  “I’m responsible for his death!”

  “You were also responsible for his freedom. Look—you didn’t have the power of life and death over Alan. He knew what his chances were, and he took them. I know Alan; he would have risked anything to be free. I know he must have been going insane in prison. Alan couldn’t stand being penned up; that’s why he loved flying so—that ability to soar free and unrestrained by even physical limitations. I’m sure he was desperate to get out of there. He chose to run and fight instead of staying cooped up. He chose to risk death. His choice is not your burden.”

  “But I made the mistake…”

  “So what? That proves you were human! It was a costly error, but that doesn’t make you evil. It doesn’t make me hate you. You’ve been grinding yourself into the dust over this, and you know what it’s accomplished?”

  “What?”

  “You’ve lost your confidence in your abilities so that you’re scared to go out in the field again. The war has lost a damned fine agent. And you’ve kept us from having love and happiness.”

  Stephen stared at her, unable to speak. He was shaken and confused; her reaction had been nothing like what he had expected. For the first time since Alan’s death he felt tendrils of hope creeping through him. “How can you—after what I just told you—“

  “I still love you,” Jessica said simply. “I loved Alan, and I’m horribly sorry he’s dead. But that doesn’t mean I blame you. Or that I don’t love you anymore. It’s you who are keeping us apart.” Jessica’s hands clenched with the tension of pleading with him. “Stephen, please don’t waste your life regretting something that can’t be changed. What happened is in the past; you can’t change it, no matter how much you rake yourself over the coals. Don’t continue to punish yourself. To punish us. Give us a chance for the future.”

  Tears shimmered in her eyes. Stephen had never seen her look so lovely. His insides were ripping apart. He turned and walked away. Then, slowly, he turned back. And opened his arms.

  Jessica went running into them.

  They made love in the girlish room where Jessica slept, their mouths slow and hungry on each other. Stephen undressed her slowly, savoring the sight of her body. His hands drifted over Jessica, his roughened fingertips drawing from her every sensation of pleasure she had ever known, and more. He kissed her deeply, lingeringly, as though to learn all of her in this first tasting. He was gentle until he became too greedy to be gentle any longer, and his hands and mouth consumed her.

  Jessica loved it all, the soft touches and the demanding ones, the slow fires he built carefully and the swift, raging ones that flashed into being under his expert mouth. She panted and twisted and tore at his clothes, as eager to see and taste and touch his body as he was for hers. His tongue was agile, wet, and fiery, and it found all her secret places, even ones Jessica hadn’t known existed. Everywhere he touched he brought her to new, trembling heights, so that she shuddered and moaned, even sinking her teeth into his shoulder. Afterward he would touch the mark she made and joke that she wasn’t the lady he thought, his eyes dark and dreamy with the memory. But now the pain-pleasure of her sharp teeth hurled him deep into the dark realm of passion, and he came into her with a hard, wild force.

  She took him with equal fervor, skimming her hands down his back and muscular buttocks, pulling him closer, deeper. He moved, and she answered. “I love you,” He whispered, driving into her, and she moved beneath him, too aching and hungry to even answer. But he felt her love in the arching of her hips and in the breathy, involuntary noises she made as he moved within her. He felt the sweet ripple of ecstasy take her, heat flooding her skin. And he could hold back no more, no longer stem the hot tide of rapture. Stephen shivered and cried out, and for a single instant they were joined in a swirling, timeless realm of joy.

  *****

  Philippe returned to his apartment shortly after lunch to find Alyssa dressed and waiting for him. Philippe barely glanced at Alyssa as he came into the bedroom, but as he walked past her, he silently dropped three pills in her lap. Alyssa glanced down, astonished. They were the three capsules that she had stuck in the drawer and which had since disappeared. He obviously had found them, but why was he giving them back to her?

  Hastily she broke a few threads in the hem of her dress and stuffed the three pills into it. Philippe pulled a small suitcase from the wardrobe closet and packed a few pieces of clothes for both of them. He turned back to Alyssa. “Ready?”

  She nodded. He was as cold and distant as a stranger. It seemed impossible that only a few hours before he had made love to her with such fervor.

  Alyssa rose, and Philippe led her from the room, his hand firmly under her arm. They went down to the street where Philippe’s chauffeur waited for them beside the long, sleek limousine. Walther started the engine, and the car pulled away from the curb and drove slowly through Paris. Alyssa didn’t look at Philippe; she wondered if he, like her, was recalling their journey out of Paris together two years earlier. The trip took longer than it had that summer, for they had to stop at German army checkpoints three times and present their papers. They were always waved through with a minimum of fuss; but often there was more than one car waiting in front of them, and those were scrutinized carefully.

  It was late afternoon when they entered the village
close to Philippe’s estate. Alyssa glanced over at Philippe and found him watching her. For a brief, unguarded moment, his eyes were dark with sorrow. Involuntarily, she moved toward him.

  “Philippe?”

  He took her hand and pulled her the rest of the way across the seat. He squeezed her hand. “We are almost there. Are you tired?”

  She shook her head, still puzzled by what she had read in his eyes. His other hand came up and gently cupped her chin. “Good, for I have a certain amount of activity in mind.” He bent and kissed her lips, not with hunger as he had earlier today, but lingeringly and with softness, as it to capture each nuance of her taste.

  He lifted his head, and for a moment their eyes locked. His were unreadable, but Alyssa was afraid he could read all too clearly the love and despair written in hers. She turned her head and moved a safer distance from him. Philippe watched her without comment.

  The dusk deepened, and Walther turned on the headlamps. He rounded a curve. A barricade of tree limbs blocked the road.

  The driver slammed on his brakes, and the car came to a skidding halt. “Maquis!” Philippe exclaimed.

  The chauffeur straightened dazedly, blood starting from a gash on his forehead where it had hit the steering wheel. Clumsily he reached inside his jacket just as a rifle came through his window and jammed into his chest. The man carrying the rifle reached inside and removed Walther’s Luger from its holster, pocketing the gun.

  The doors on both sides of the limousine were thrown open, and a man reached in and jerked Alyssa out of the car. “Traitor! Informer!” he hissed, and Alyssa stared at him in astonishment. “You’re coming with us. We’ll show you what happens to informers.”

  “No!” Alyssa protested, stunned, as the man dragged her away from the car. “No!” She turned her head in panic to where Philippe stood on the opposite side of the car, two men beside him.

  “Let her go!” Philippe shouted, starting after them, but one of the men swung his rifle, cracking the butt against the side of Philippe’s head. He crumpled into the dirt, blood welling from his head.

  “Philippe!” Alyssa screamed, struggling to escape her captor. But the man swung his gun over his shoulder and wrapped both arms around her, pinning her arms down and holding her still.

  The man who had hit Philippe stood over him. He turned his gun around so that the barrel pointed at Philippe, and Alyssa realized in horror that he meant to shoot him. Hysterically she screamed and struggled. “Such concern for your lover,” said the man holding her. “You better save your concern for yourself, whore.”

  The man who stood over Philippe swung his gun up, his lip curling with contempt. “He’s not worth killing. Let him live to see what happens to the woman.”

  Alyssa sagged in relief. The man turned to Alyssa. He was a wiry man with dark hair and a flamboyantly thick black mustache. His face was hard as a rock. “You were one of us and betrayed us, and that makes you worse than this filth. You will die a slow, painful death, as our men die in Nazi prisons. You will be an example to discourage others who might decide to save their own necks by informing on their comrades.”

  Alyssa’s mouth was dry as cotton and her skin suddenly cold in the warm summer air. Philippe was hurt, perhaps even dead, and her own people were going to kill her for something she hadn’t done!

  “Let’s go.” The man started off, and the other men followed, dragging Alyssa with them. She began to kick and scream and scratch wildly, fighting for her life.

  The man who held her muttered an oath and neatly clipped her on the chin. Her head snapped back, and she sank into a fathomless blackness.

  Chapter 22

  Louis Bousquet took a final assessing look at himself in the mirror. He had cut and dyed his hair earlier this afternoon and combed it to the side in the style that Midnight used. Next, he had pasted a thin mustache across his upper lip. He had practiced until he had Midnight’s walk down pat. Then he had gone to the Gestapo headquarters, where he’d been very relieved to find out that they didn’t plan to beat him to make him look bruised and bloody, as he’d half feared.

  Instead, one of Schlieker’s underlings dressed him in an actual prisoner’s stained clothes, which stank so of sweat and old blood that it had made him gag. Afterward, the man stained his hands and feet with animal blood and matted it in his hair, dripping a realistic trail of blood down his face. Again Bousquet had had to swallow his revulsion at the smell and fix his mind firmly on the money Schlieker would pay him if he played the role—and the punishment Schlieker would inflict if he did not.

  Stage makeup provided the bruises in shades of blue, purple, and black, and a pasty mixture thickened his eyelids so that they looked swollen. The same mixture, colored red, made a gory wound near his eye. When Schlieker’s man, who Bousquet presumed must once have been a makeup artist, was through with him, Bousquet looked nothing like himself and fairly similar to Midnight after a beating—as long as one didn’t look closely enough to see that the marks were all fake.

  Schlieker was pleased with the result and reassured his informer again that Dragon would not be able to see him well. Two guards took Bousquet up to the fourth floor, where important prisoners were kept. The closer he came to the thick wooden doors with the heavy metal locks, the sicker he felt. He thought of the door shutting and locking on him, of Schlieker never getting him out, and he had to fight to control his panic.

  The guards unlocked one of the grim doors and threw him inside. Bousquet stumbled and fell into the cell. Behind him the door slammed shut. He rose to his feet slowly. The single window high up in the wall had been boarded shut, and only a small barred grate in the ceiling, opening onto the roof, allowed in any fresh air. The atmosphere was fetid with the smells of excrement, blood, and the sweat of fear. Bousquet fought his rebellious stomach as he looked around the room.

  There was one cot in the small cell, and in the dim light Bousquet could see only that someone, or something, lay on it. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark and moved closer. Immediately he regretted it. The man who lay there was a bloody mess, completely unrecognizable. He could see now why Schlieker had said the man would hardly be able to see him. One eye was swollen shut, and the other was a mere slit. His stomach heaved and Bousquet whirled and rushed to the corner to retch violently.

  Sometime later, trembling slightly and carefully not looking directly at the man on the cot, he crept closer. Was the man looking at him? Was he awake? Was he even alive?

  “Dragon?” he asked tentatively, remembering to keep his voice low and hoarse, as if he’d screamed his throat raw, for he couldn’t imitate Midnight’s voice. He had forgotten to walk like Midnight in his distress, but he though Dragon was past noticing it.

  There was a long silence, than a weak whisper came back to him. “Do I know you?”

  “God, it is you, then?”

  “Yes. Who are you?”

  “Midnight. One of Allegro’s men.”

  Dragon jerked and made a feeble attempt to sit up. “Allegro? Is he here?”

  “No. He got away. They burst in on us, and he managed to run out the back door.”

  “Thank God.

  Bousquet waited. He didn’t want to make the other man suspicious by broaching the subject too soon, even though he was anxious to get out of there. Cautiously he squatted down on the floor; he hated to think what kind of vermin might be there.

  Dragon’s mind was hazy, aware of little but the sensations of pain throughout his body. He was reaching the end, he knew. He had the blessed pill safely in his mouth. Soon he would have to use it; he couldn’t hold out much longer. He wouldn’t have waited this long if it hadn’t been for his worry about Philippe.

  He was the only person in Paris who knew the identity of le Duc. What would happen to Michaude if he died? How could he get his messages out of France? To whom could he go even to ask Mother for another contact? There must be someone to help Philippe. Someone who knew Philippe was
not a collaborator but a true hero of France. A man of strength and courage. The resistance had wanted to make an example of Philippe time and again, and many times Dragon had calmed them without giving away the true reason. What if an assassin got to Philippe at last, and he died with the world thinking he was a collaborator? Dragon couldn’t let that happen.

  Over the past two days of ceaseless pain, Dragon almost lost his mind. There were now only two clear thoughts in his head: he must not tell the Nazis who le Duc was, and he must reveal the man’s true name to someone safe.

  Now, like a miracle, one of his cousin’s men was in his cell. Had his mind been clearer, he would have questioned the fortuitous event. But at this moment he was only grateful, a man released. If he could get word to Allegro—that was more than he could have hoped for. He was sure he could trust Allegro. It was difficult to speak, but he ignored the pain, “Can you—get word to Allegro?”

  Bousquet hid his excitement and raised his head, trying to look puzzled. “If I am sent back to prison, yes. There is a network of criminals there that communicate with the outside all the time. I could get word to him. But why?”

  Tears leaked from Dragon’s eyes. The agony had been worth it. He had been given the chance to help the man he admired, to do one last thing for his beloved France. “Come closer. I have a message for Allegro. It’s very important.”

  Bousquet swallowed the bile that rose in his throat and crept closer. “What?”

  “Tell Allegro that I was le Duc’s contact. He must find a way to get in touch with him. He must be his new liaison. Tell him the real name of le Duc is Philippe Michaude.”

  “Michaude!” Bousquet repeated in astonishment. “But he is a…”