Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-One

Max left her at about two thirty and was gone until just after five. By the time he returned, Genevieve was about to jump out of her skin with anxiety. Unable to sleep after he left—not that she’d gotten a lot of sleep before—she’d washed, dressed, examined the heavily carved furniture, worked at deciphering the story the tapestries told, then gave up trying to occupy her mind and simply worried and paced.

When she heard his soft tap at the door, she threw it open and all but dragged him inside.

One look at his face as he closed the door behind him and parked his stick beside it and she knew something was wrong.

“She’s not here.” She voiced her worst fear, grabbing onto the front of his overcoat even as he was unbuttoning it.

“Shh.” It was a reminder that it was not yet dawn, and outside and inside the Gasthaus most everyone was still asleep. “She’s here.”

His words were reassuring; the gravity of his tone was not.

A light scratching at the door interrupted. Genevieve shot an alarmed glance toward it, but Max turned away with a quick “It’s all right” and opened it.

Otto, Emmy and Berthe filed in. They were all fully dressed. Genevieve was slightly surprised at the inclusion of Berthe, but on the other hand, Berthe had been briefed on why they were here, had chosen to come and was therefore putting her life on the line just like the rest of them. She deserved to know what was going to happen, and Max evidently thought so, too, as was evidenced by her inclusion in this, a clearly prearranged meeting.

“Sit down,” Max said to them all as he closed the door. He’d taken off his coat as the others had entered and now walked into the center of the room.

Otto and Berthe took the two chairs. Emmy sat on the edge of the bed, and Genevieve sat beside her. Whatever happened, knowing her sister was in this with her provided at least a small degree of comfort.

They looked at Max expectantly.

He said, “We all know why we’re here. Our mission is to get Baroness de Rocheford out of the hands of the Nazis before she’s tortured into telling what she knows, which is the truth behind Operation Overlord, and which if revealed will be disastrous for the course of the war. Earlier tonight I was able to confirm what I suspected. The baroness is being held at Eber Schloss. Genevieve will be singing there tonight, and we’ll all accompany her as her entourage. That will get us in, and provide us with the opportunity to do the job we came here to do.”

The other three nodded as if this was something they knew. Genevieve frowned. There was something odd...

Max glanced around. “Anybody have any difficulty out there?”

He was talking to the others, not her. They—all three—shook their heads. Genevieve got the distinct impression that they’d been carrying out assignments from Max while she’d been safe in her room waiting for him to return.

Max looked at Otto, who said, “I was able to get what I need.”

Max looked at Emmy. She said, “There are two ways to reach the castle. A road and a cable car. Both are heavily guarded, and both are shut down completely at night. The guards stay on duty all night, however. Getting out is going to be as difficult as we thought.”

Max nodded, and looked at Berthe.

Genevieve’s eyes riveted on Berthe as she started to speak, saying, “There’s a flat field about two kilometers north of town that will work for a landing field.”

“Wait. What?” Genevieve exclaimed. “Berthe—”

Berthe, who, with her round cheeks, braided coronet of hair and loose black dress, looked exactly the same as she always did, smiled at her.

Suspicion crystallized into certainty. Genevieve asked, “Are you an agent?”

“I am, yes.”

Genevieve stared at her for a moment, then shot a fulminating look at Max. “Could I talk to you for just a minute?”

Hopping off the bed, she headed for the bathroom. He followed and closed the door.

“Berthe’s an agent?” Her voice was no less outraged because she was careful to keep it down.

He sighed. “She and her husband were part of the Armia Krajowa, the Polish Resistance. After his execution, and her failed execution, the Nazis were looking for her, and she needed to get out of Warsaw. She’s been working for me since I took her on board.”

“All this time, and you didn’t tell me?”

“What you don’t know, you can’t reveal.”

She practically gnashed her teeth at him. “I can’t believe you didn’t—what about no more secrets? Oh, I see, that’s strictly a one-way street.”

“It was, because you have a role to play.” He took her hands. She jerked them away. “You’re the face of the operation, the Trojan horse that gets us to places and through doors we’d never be able to access without you. Be fair—if you’d known what Berthe was, would you have been able to treat her simply as your dresser and maid?”

Would she have behaved differently toward Berthe if she’d known? Honesty compelled her to admit the truth: probably, at least in subtle but perhaps telltale ways.

Max, clearly able as always to read her face, continued without waiting for her to reply. “Everything we did, all of our safety, depended on the Germans accepting you for what you appeared to be and nothing else. Your knowing the truth about Berthe could have done us no good and might have ruined everything.”

“All right, I see what you’re saying,” she conceded reluctantly.

“So we’re good?”

“Yes.”

He smiled at her. She frowned at him. His smile widened. Opening the door, he gestured to her to precede him and followed her out.

Genevieve found herself the cynosure of three pairs of interested eyes.

Even as she returned to her spot on the bed beside Emmy, she looked back at them—Berthe, the quintessential maid with her round cheeks and placid gaze; Otto, the old man, wrinkled and wizened; Emmy, the lovely showgirl with her head of blond curls and willowy form—and realized with a sense of amazement that this unlikely assortment of individuals was a crack team of seasoned spies. Then she glanced back at Max, who’d just reclaimed his place in the center of the room. Tall and lean in the same dark sweater and trousers he’d been wearing earlier, his black hair pushed carelessly back from his face and still damp from the rain, his jaw rough with early morning stubble, he looked every bit their commanding officer. Which, in fact, was what he was.

“Gave him what for, did you?” Emmy whispered as Genevieve sank down beside her.

Genevieve could do no more than give her sister a quelling look as Max resumed speaking as if there’d been no interruption.

“Ordinarily we’d get down to working out the details now, but something unexpected has come up. The reason why the baroness was brought here, the reason why Genevieve was invited here to sing, is that there is at this very moment a gathering of some of the most important government officials, SS leaders, and military officers in Nazi Germany at Eber Schloss. They’re here to map out possible responses to the potentially imminent Allied invasion. I’ve been on the radio to Baker Street, they’ve been in touch with the blokes in the War Rooms, and as a result we have new orders in addition to the old orders. We are to rub them all out. Oh, and we’re on our own. Tommy Bowden very apologetically explained that he would send a crack team of paratroopers in to help, but the weather here over the next twenty-four hours is supposed to be bad. That also means we can’t count on our ride home.” He looked at Otto. “You have the schloss’s floor plans with you?”

Otto nodded.

Max said, “Right, then, let’s get to work coming up with a way to get the job done. We don’t have much time.”

It was very nearly over for her. Lillian knew it even before the sound of heavy boots approaching along the stone floor of the corridor made every shivering cell in her body tense, even before the metallic clank of a key in the lock followed by a long creak announced the opening of her cell door, even before the sensation of light hit her closed lids and she opened them a wary crack to find Claus von Wagner standing over her cot, shining a torch down at her face.

“It is time, madame,” he said. At a signal, two soldiers stepped around him, pulled her from the cot and, with each grasping an arm, partly carried and partly dragged her from the cold dankness of the unheated cell.

And this time it was a cell. Hewn of rough stone, the windowless walls were fronted by floor-to-ceiling iron bars. The cot was rickety metal with a thin smelly mattress and rag of a blanket. The corridor was narrow, with more rough-hewn stone walls and an uneven stone floor. Light from dim electric bulbs set into the wall was augmented by the merest hint of daylight that spilled around a corner—a window must be out there somewhere, although she couldn’t see it.

But she could smell the damp and mold, the pine notes in Wagner’s aftershave, her own stench. That last shamed her, although it was through no fault of her own—she’d had no opportunity to bathe since they’d captured her.

Beyond the shame, the odor—all the odors—carried an even weightier significance. During the time that had elapsed since her middle-of-the-night removal from her previous prison, during her nightmarish journey by rail and car to this mountain fortress—she’d gotten a glimpse of it as the vehicle in which she’d been transported had driven up a nearly vertical road and then been processed through heavily guarded iron gates—she’d healed sufficiently so that her sense of smell had returned. And last night she’d awakened herself by crying out in her sleep.

The guards—there were three on this corridor alone—must have heard. Someone must have told Wagner.

“Chain her up,” he directed as they passed into a larger room. Frantic darting glances found a metal table against one wall, its surface covered with an ominous selection of tools; beside it, a metal desk with an office chair pulled up to it, a ledger on its top; on the opposite wall, what looked like a doctor’s examining table. Manacles hung from the back wall. Turning her to face the front, the soldiers snapped the manacles around her wrists, yanked her legs roughly apart and clamped more manacles around her ankles so that she was spread-eagle against the wall. The manacles were heavy and cold but loose enough not to be painful, for which she supposed she could thank her emaciated frame. She could feel the shape of the individual stones through the thin brown dress they’d given her to wear, without underclothes, for travel. Her feet were protected from the floor by her own sturdy shoes, returned to her for the same purpose.

On the table with the tools was a Bunsen burner. Her eyes locked on it as Wagner turned it on and ignited the resultant rush of gas. The whoosh of the flame taking hold sent ripples of fear over her. Terror flooded her mouth with acid.

Wagner looked at her. “Now then, Baroness, you will tell me where this invasion by the Allies will happen.” His tone was mild.

The hoarse, strangled sound she made in response was dredged up from somewhere deep in her diaphragm.

“That is not quite Paul, which is what I’m told you cried out in your sleep, but it’s a start. I might even say a promising start.” He picked up a knife from the table. It was long and thin, with a flat blade and a wickedly curved edge. The hilt, incongruously, was painted a cheerful yellow. He turned it over in his hands as if to examine it, then held it out so that the blade was in the flame.

Her stomach cramped.

“First I must apologize,” he said, rotating the knife. “I would start with a small torture, maybe break a finger or two, give you time to consider what keeping your secrets might mean. But I am busy with guests today, so I haven’t much time. Here is what I regret to tell you is going to happen—I am going to destroy your lovely face. You know how ugly and disfiguring burns can be, do you not? Yes, I am sure you do. I am going to place this red-hot blade against your face as many times as it takes until you tell me what I want to know.”

He withdrew the knife from the flame.

Lillian stared at it in horror.

Without another word, he turned and laid the flat of the knife against the side of her jaw.

The sizzling sound made by red-hot metal connecting with cool soft skin was instantaneous.

She screamed, jerked her face away. The pain made her dizzy, made her sick.

The new, charred smell in the air came from her own burnt flesh. She retched and gagged, but her stomach was empty and nothing came out.

“Your voice is regaining its volume,” he said approvingly as he returned the knife to the flame. “We must congratulate ourselves. We’re making progress. Now, I’m going to ask you again—where will the Allies launch their invasion?”

Shaking with fear, eyes on the knife, Lillian made sounds, babbled, tried to turn her face away—and then he grabbed her hair and pressed the knife to the smooth curve of her cheek. She screamed again, fighting his fist in her hair, fighting the chains that held her tight against the wall to no avail as she tried to escape the searing agony.

“Did I mention I have little time?” His tone was genial as he let go of her hair and lifted the blade away, returning it to the flame. Her legs had collapsed. She hung from the chains now, her nostrils filled with the scent of her own burnt flesh, shaking so badly the iron links shackling her to the wall clattered. “I propose to speed things up. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, right now, instead of ruining your face, I’m going to put out your eye.”

Lillian’s heart seized up with horror. Please, God—please, no.

He turned back toward her with the newly reheated blade. Holding it up, he let her see it: the metal glowed red.

“You do have such pretty eyes,” he said, peering into her face as he drew closer. “What a pity.”

A wave of cold sweat drenched her. Tears sprang forth to roll down her cheeks. Blinking, swallowing, she turned her face away, straining her neck in an effort to escape.

He grabbed her hair.

“Where will the Allies launch their invasion?” His voice was gentle. He leaned close.

She closed her eyes, squinched them tight. Shook, gasped, strained.

“Last chance,” he said, and held the knife over her closed left eyelid, so close she could feel the heat.

Her throat convulsed. Her tongue moved. It worked, she could—

“Pas-de-Calais,” she croaked.

He laid the red-hot blade of the knife against her eye anyway.

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