One Shot Kill

by Robert Muchamore

  Apart from trees there were a couple of dilapidated wooden sheds and a clearing where the scientists came up in pairs to exercise and smoke. The only other indications of life below ground were concrete ventilation shafts poking through the soil and a heavily reinforced reception building.

  This reception was the only way down into the bunker and critical to Henderson’s planned operation. It was one and a half storeys high and set three hundred metres back from the front gate. On three sides its reinforced concrete roof sloped to the ground in order to deflect any bomb that might hit. The fourth side was a flat wall with two entrances.

  The larger entrance went down into a garage where trucks could reverse in to load or unload by a freight elevator, while the smaller entrance was a regular door. In an emergency, or during an air raid, an additional pair of armoured-steel blast doors could slam shut, making the entire building impregnable.

  ‘Have you ever seen them shut?’ Henderson asked, as he squatted in the undergrowth next to Rosie.

  She nodded. ‘From the weight of them, you’d think they’d be slow. But I’ve been here when an air raid warning goes off and they don’t hang about. There’s a whoosh of air, and they clang shut within twenty seconds.’

  ‘Not much room for error then,’ Henderson said.

  ‘So what’s your exact plan?’ Rosie asked.

  Henderson had briefed the boys before leaving campus, but Rosie had sent her undeveloped photographs back to Britain via the resistance in Paris and since then her only direct communication with campus had been through short radio messages.

  ‘As soon as we found that the notebook was genuine we put out discreet feelers about the bunker within the French exile community, in both Britain and the USA,’ Henderson began, speaking just above a whisper. ‘We were lucky enough to track down a French draughtsman in Chicago, who worked on the bunker while it was being built. He’s made us a decent drawing from memory, which we’ve used in conjunction with your notes and photographs of more recent German alterations.

  ‘Our first job is to cut off communications so that nobody can get the message out that the base is under attack. Next we lure as many Germans as possible to the surface and get the snipers to take them out, simultaneously and from a distance. The trickiest part comes next: we’ve got to storm the base and get into the reception building before someone below ground finds out what’s happened and closes those blast doors.

  ‘Once we’re below ground, we’ve got to go room to room until we’ve killed or secured all the Germans and located the scientists. With so many bombs down there, we can’t go in with guns blazing, so we’ll use knockout gas. It’s absolutely crucial that the Germans don’t know we’ve pulled the scientists out and have no knowledge that this was a resistance raid. So once the bunker is secure, we’ll need to drag all the dead bodies inside, set a couple of explosives to go off underground and prime a few German bombs.

  ‘As we leave we set off the homing beacon for the USAF. While we drive towards Paris disguised as German guards escorting a work party, three dozen B-17s will bomb the bunker. It’s unlikely that any bombs will break through the reinforced concrete, but the explosives we’ve left will set off the bombs inside the bunker.’

  Rosie nodded. ‘So, even if the Americans miss the bunker, the Germans will think that one of their own bombs was triggered accidentally during the air raid?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Henderson said. ‘Caused by vibration, or whatever. And with hundreds of bombs in storage down there we’re hoping that there’s gonna be nothing but a big crater and a lot of charred trees in the forest come Saturday morning.’

  ‘And the Germans will think all the scientists died below ground,’ Rosie said as she broke into a smile. ‘So nobody comes looking for them.’

  Henderson nodded.

  ‘It won’t be easy,’ Rosie said. ‘But it’s a perfect plan if it works.’

  Henderson laughed as he took another glance through his binoculars. ‘Of course it’ll work,’ he joked. ‘When have I ever given you kids reason to doubt me?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The train from Rennes to Paris took four and a half hours, but on arrival Marc found the platform barricaded and an hour-long queue while Gendarmes checked identity documents and opened every passenger’s baggage.

  ‘Is Paris your final destination?’ an officer asked, when Marc finally reached the front. He knew his documents were perfect, but still felt uncomfortable as an elderly officer rifled through his identity card, ration card and employment status document.

  ‘I’m visiting a friend in Beauvais.’

  ‘How much money do you have on you?’

  ‘Twenty-two francs.’

  ‘No luggage?’

  Marc shook his head. ‘I’ll be travelling back tomorrow morning.’

  As he spoke another train was steaming into the adjacent platform. People opened doors and jumped off before the train stopped moving, so that they could grab a good place in the inspection line.

  ‘Let me see.’

  Marc peeled some crumpled francs out of his pocket, along with a return ticket for Rennes.

  ‘Move out,’ the gendarme said rudely, as he looked forlornly down his rapidly swelling queue.

  There was a German-manned inspection point at the station exit, but Marc skipped it by going down the steps into the Metro. After a short ride under Paris, a mainline train took him fifty minutes out to Beauvais.

  The security around the station looked relaxed, but a new pass had been introduced by the Luftwaffe who controlled the area around Beauvais. Marc had left France the previous summer under heavy fire aboard a stolen German fighter plane, so he was more jittery than he’d been in Paris as a Luftwaffe man copied all his identity details into a ledger and then made him empty his pockets.

  Marc left the station office with a square of canary-yellow cardboard which allowed him to enter the Luftwaffe zone and a strip of paper with details of how to apply for a special ration card if he wanted to eat or drink during his stay.

  The last stretch was an hour’s walk. Marc felt his emotions rise as he ducked past the orphanage where he’d lived for the first twelve years of his life, reaching Morel’s farm just before three in the afternoon.

  ‘Are you back to work?’ the farm manager asked eagerly. ‘I lost four workers to German factories. Three more have gone on the run to avoid being rounded up.’

  ‘Just visiting,’ Marc said.

  ‘And who might you be looking for?’ the manager asked, before laughing at the absurdity of having to ask. ‘You’ll find her pulling up potatoes between the cow sheds.’

  Marc smiled. Although it was relatively safe in the countryside, there was a war on and until that moment he wasn’t even certain Jae was still alive. He bolted off, passing through fields that verged on derelict.

  France would face a long and hungry winter if Morel’s farm was typical, but aching legs and doom-laden thoughts vanished the instant Marc saw the girl he loved. Jae had grown a couple of centimetres and farm work had built shoulders atop her thin body. To make the moment more perfect, Jae had her back to Marc, so he crept up.

  ‘Need a hand with those?’ he asked noisily.

  Jae jumped and screamed when she saw who it was. ‘Bloody hell!’

  They were both crying as they embraced. Marc gulped Jae’s smell, the mix of earth and sweat dredging up a million memories of the previous summer.

  ‘I love you so much,’ Marc said. ‘I’ve thought about you every day.’

  ‘One of Daddy’s Luftwaffe friends mentioned that a plane got stolen,’ Jae said. ‘But I had no idea if you’d made it back to Britain alive.’

  ‘Our landing was a bit bumpy,’ Marc said, but tailed off as they joined at the lips.

  The next ten minutes was all slurps and groping. Jae was always in Marc’s dreams and he half expected to wake up in his campus dorm, breathing Luc’s farts. When they finally broke apart, they backed away and stood admiring one another in
a state of awe.

  ‘So how’s life?’ Marc asked.

  ‘Horrible,’ Jae said. ‘And not just because I miss you. We’ve got nobody to work the land and Mr Tomas and the requisition authority make our lives hell. He’s never liked my dad, and he’s really had it in for him since you left last year.’

  Marc shook his head at the thought of Tomas. As orphanage director Tomas had made Marc’s childhood a misery. When the war began, he’d taken a job with the Nazi Requisition Authority. This much-loathed organisation controlled everything France produced, from trucks to tomatoes, and demanded that an ever increasing share of it was sent to Germany to feed the war effort.

  ‘Tomas constantly has my dad arrested on charges of black-market dealing,’ Jae explained. ‘It’s like the stress is rotting him from inside. He’s lost his hair. And he was always thin, but now he’s like a ghost.’

  ‘I can only stay one night,’ Marc said sadly. ‘I’m in France for another mission.’

  ‘Dangerous?’ Jae asked.

  Marc tried to make light of it. ‘When are they not dangerous?’ he asked. ‘But they haven’t killed me yet.’

  ‘What a hero,’ Jae said, as she gave Marc a kiss. ‘I’ve been arrested too. Three times. The last time Tomas’ mob dragged me off the land in my rubber boots. They put me in a room and wouldn’t let me go to the toilet, so I peed in a boot and threw it in Tomas’ face.’

  ‘Classic,’ Marc laughed.

  ‘Daddy told me off. He said I could have got into serious trouble.’

  ‘He’s not wrong,’ Marc said, but Jae gave him a soft slap across the arm.

  ‘Don’t take his side. It’s OK for you, gallivanting off having adventures. What do I get? Cow shit under my nails and constant backache.’

  ‘But you’re the world’s sexiest crap-sweeping potato-picker,’ Marc said cheekily.

  Marc turned and ducked as Jae sent a dry clod of earth skimming over his head. Her next shot disintegrated as it hit him in the back and they threw more stuff at each other until Marc fell over and they started snogging again.

  *

  Even in bad times a family with as much land as the Morels can eat well. There wasn’t much wrong with Pippa’s cooking on campus, but Marc preferred French food to English and he bolted down onion soup, beef stew and more wine than was good for him.

  Jae had warned Marc that her father looked unwell. The level of Morel’s physical decay wasn’t nice to see, but it was the change in status that Marc found most poignant.

  All through Marc’s childhood, Morel had been an aloof and vaguely terrifying man. Slim, well dressed and with the power to do horrible things to scruffy orphan boys with a crush on his only daughter.

  But now Morel accepted Marc’s position at his table, close to Jae. Morel had drunk too much and candlelight reflected off his bald patch as he listened to Marc’s news about the outside world. At fifteen, Marc was beginning to match many adults physically, but he’d never previously encountered a situation where a person of such authority looked up to him.

  ‘What happened to the Luftwaffe officers you had living here?’ Marc asked.

  ‘There were several assassinations by communists,’ Jae explained. ‘All Luftwaffe personnel now have to live on an airbase, or in Beauvais where there’s more security.’

  ‘Damned shame too,’ Morel added, slurring a little as he drained his fifth glass of wine. ‘They were always gentlemen. Plus they scared off Tomas, and got me out of lock-up a couple of times. I mean, how can a man live?’

  Morel tailed off before shooting to his feet and erupting into a boozy rant. ‘The Requisition Authority sets me a production quota. Then it takes half my men away. Then they arrest me because I’ve not met my quota and accuse me of selling food on the black market. This farm was so beautiful. If my father or grandfather could see the state of things now it would kill them.’

  Morel’s loud voice caused the cook to peer in from the adjoining kitchen as Jae stood up and put a soothing hand on her father’s back.

  ‘Maybe you should go to bed, Daddy,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll go to the library for a brandy,’ he said. Then a flash of the old Morel came through as he pointed accusingly at Marc. ‘And I may not be all that I was, but I’ll still come at you with a shotgun if you try sticking your penis into my daughter.’

  ‘Daddy,’ Jae said, through gritted teeth. ‘You’re so embarrassing.’

  ‘You’re a good boy really,’ Morel said, as his tone changed completely. ‘Admirable.’

  As Jae helped her drunken daddy up the stairs, Marc turned to the cook.

  ‘It’s hard seeing him like that,’ he told her.

  The elderly cook looked at the floor, as if commenting on her boss was some horrible sin. ‘The Morel men have always been drinkers, but the harassment and having no workers has done him in.’

  Marc licked the cream out of his pudding bowl and drained his wine glass, then waited for Jae at the base of the stairs.

  ‘I didn’t realise he’d—’

  Jae cut him off by pressing a fingertip to his lips. ‘Don’t,’ she said sadly. ‘Everyone talks about my dad all the time. I get sick of hearing it.’

  Marc thought about saying sorry, but somehow sensed that Jae didn’t want him to.

  ‘I know you’ve got to catch an early train,’ Jae said. ‘But when I was with you at the lake last summer, I think it was about the happiest I’ve ever been.’

  ‘The lake,’ Marc said, smiling and a little tipsy from the wine he’d drunk with dinner. ‘Perfect.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  It was dark as Marc and Jae strolled out. The day had been warm, but the lake water was always cold and night-time brought a chill to the air. They swam naked and came out shivering, then lay against each other on a grass embankment.

  They were both virgins. They’d kissed and seen each other naked, but their bodies had only touched through clothes before now. Marc wasn’t sure if the manly thing was to try having sex, but he didn’t want Jae getting pregnant in the middle of a war and knew that sex had killed off the relationship between Rosie and PT.

  When Marc pushed his fingertips between Jae’s thighs, he was relieved when her head tilted backwards and she made a barely perceptible, ‘No.’

  A second swim chilled Marc’s lust and after that they put clothes back on and cuddled. Marc tried to focus on here and now, but there was a clock in his head that he couldn’t shut off, constantly telling him how much time there was before he had to leave.

  Jae fell asleep with her head in Marc’s lap, but he stayed awake watching her breathe, trying to fix the way she looked into his head.

  He nudged her awake when the sun poked over the horizon. The smile when she woke up and recognised him sent a sob through his body.

  ‘It’s half five,’ Marc said. ‘I’ve got to start walking if I’m catching the first train back to Paris.’

  A pair of tears raced each other down Jae’s cheek as she found her shoes and rubbed a stiff shoulder.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘Stiff,’ Jae said, as she stretched to a yawn. ‘I need a day off, but I’ll never get one.’

  ‘If all goes well, I’ll be back in Paris on Saturday morning,’ Marc said, as he held up crossed fingers. ‘We might have some spare time before we go back to Britain. I may be able to come here and help for a few days.’

  Jae held up her crossed fingers too. ‘I hope it’s not another year. Will you be in trouble for running away from your unit?’

  ‘Whatever happens to me, you’re worth it. Will you walk part of the way into town with me?’

  ‘I’d love to,’ Jae said. ‘But cows have to be milked.’

  Marc could think of nothing better than being with Jae in a muggy stinking cowshed, but he was the best sniper after Goldberg and had to go back. They both broke down completely during their final hug.

  ‘I hate this,’ Marc said. ‘I’m sorry I’ve got to go.’

  Marc couldn’t bear
it any longer, and tore himself away. After a few metres he waved, but then he strode without looking back because he was scared that he’d be unable to leave if he saw her again.

  There was nobody on the road this early and fifteen minutes brought the orphanage into view. A lot of people knew Marc around here. It was best that they didn’t see him, so he dived over a wall and walked behind it for a couple of hundred metres.

  When he climbed back, he glanced at a cottage. It was tiny, with a whiff of smoke coming out of the chimney. It was summer, so someone had to be inside cooking and that someone had to be Mr Tomas.

  Marc had told Jae that he’d be in Paris by the weekend, but the bunker mission was a huge risk and there was a chance he’d get killed or taken prisoner. He didn’t like the idea of being outlived by his former tormentor and he was intrigued by the possibility of an ambush. He’d stayed with Jae until the last possible second and his watch told him he could spare no more than a couple of minutes.

  Dry grass crunched underfoot as Marc approached the cottage. He leaned his shoulder to the whitewashed wall and peeked into the single ground-floor room. Tomas stood in vest and boxers, eating bread with one hand, while stirring a large metal pot on the wood-burning stove in front of him.

  The window was half open. Marc was an expert knife thrower and even with his clumsily unbalanced pen-knife he’d have had no problem spearing Tomas’ chest from this range. The thought of killing in cold blood troubled Marc, but it was the one way he could help Jae and he detested Tomas more than anyone else on earth.

  But Tomas was also one of the most senior Frenchmen working with the Nazi regime. A bloody end might be taken as a sign of resistance activity and lead to German reprisals. So Marc didn’t just need to be quick, Tomas’ death also had to look natural.

  He ran around to the front of the house and gave a playful triple knock on the door. As Tomas swore and turned to answer the knock, Marc dashed back to the window. He opened the leaded pane as quietly as he could, then dropped down into the only room on the ground floor, timing his jump to coincide with Tomas opening his front door.