Jackdaws (41 page)

Now he imagined himself closing
doors in his soul, shutting his emotions away in cupboards. He thought of the
two women as pieces of machinery that would disgorge information as soon as he
figured out how to switch them on. He felt a familiar coldness settle over him
like a blanket of snow, and he knew he was ready.

"Bring the older one," he
said.

Lieutenant Hesse went to fetch her.

He watched her carefully as she came
in and sat in the chair. She had short hair and broad shoulders and wore a
man-tailored suit. Her right hand hung limply, and she was supporting the
swollen forearm with her left hand: Dieter had broken her wrist. She was
obviously in pain, her face pale and gleaming with sweat, but her lips were set
in a line of grim determination.

He spoke to her in French.
"Everything that happens in this room is under your control," he
said. "The decisions you make, the things you say, will either cause you
unbearable pain or bring you relief. It is entirely up to you."

She said nothing. She was scared,
but she did not panic. She was going to be difficult to break, he could tell already.

He said, "To begin with, tell
me where the London headquarters of the Special Operations Executive is
located."

"Eighty-one Regent Street," she said.

He nodded. "Let me explain
something. I realize that SOE teaches its agents not to remain silent under
questioning but to give false answers that will be difficult to check. Because
I know this, I will ask you many questions to which I already know the answers.
This way I will know whether you are lying to me. Where is the London headquarters?"

"Carlton House Terrace."

He walked across to her and slapped
her face as hard as he could. She cried out in pain. Her cheek turned an angry
red. It was often useful to begin with a slap in the face. The pain was
minimal, but the blow was a humiliating demonstration of the helplessness of
the prisoner, and it quickly sapped their initial bravery.

But she looked defiantly at him.
"Is that how German officers treat ladies?"

She had a haughty manner, and she
spoke French with the accent of the upper classes. She was some kind of
aristocrat, he guessed, "Ladies?" he said scornfully. "You have
just shot and killed two policemen who were going about their lawful business.
Specht's young wife is now a widow, and Rolfe's parents have lost their only
child. You're not a soldier in uniform, you have no excuse. In answer to your
question—no, this is not how we treat ladies, it's how we treat
murderers."

She looked away. He had scored a hit
with that remark. He was beginning to undermine her moral foundation.

"Tell me something else,"
he said. "How well do you know Flick Clairet?"

Her eyes widened in an involuntary
expression of surprise. That told him he had guessed correctly. These two were
part of Major Clairet's team. He had shaken her again.

But she recovered her composure and
said, "I don't know anyone of that name."

He reached down and knocked her left
hand away. She cried out in pain as her broken wrist lost its support and
sagged. He took her right hand and jerked it. She screamed.

"Why were you having dinner at
the Ritz, for God's sake?" he said. He released her hand.

She stopped screaming. He repeated
the question. She caught her breath and said, "I like the food
there."

She was even tougher than he had
thought. "Take her away," he said. "Bring the other one."

The younger girl was quite pretty.
She had put up no resistance when arrested, so she still looked presentable,
her dress unruffled and her makeup intact. She appeared much more frightened
than her colleague. He asked her the question he had asked the older one:

"Why were you having dinner at
the Ritz?"

"I've always wanted to go
there," she replied.

He could hardly believe his ears.
"Weren't you afraid it might be dangerous?"

"I thought Diana would look
after me."

So the other one's name was Diana.
"What's your name?"

"Maude."

This was suspiciously easy.
"And what are you doing in France, Maude?"

"We were supposed to blow
something up."

"What?"

"I don't remember. Would it
have something to do with railways?"

Dieter began to wonder whether he
was being led up the garden path. "How long have you known Felicity
Clairet?" he tried.

"Do you mean Flick? Only a few
days. She's awfully bossy." A thought crossed her mind. "She was
right, though—we shouldn't have gone to the Ritz." She began to cry.
"I never meant to do anything wrong. I just wanted to have a good time and
see places, that's all I've ever wanted."

"What's your team's code
name?"

"The Blackbirds," she said
in English.

He frowned. The radio message to
Helicopter had referred to them as Jackdaws. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. It's because of some
poem, 'The Blackbird of Reims,' I think. No, 'The Jackdaw of Reims,' that's
it."

If she was not completely stupid,
she was doing a very good imitation. "Where do you think Flick is
now?"

Maude thought for a long moment,
then said, "I really don't know."

Dieter sighed in frustration. One
prisoner was too tough to talk, the other too stupid to know anything useful.
This was going to take longer than he had hoped.

There might be a way of shortening
the process. He was curious about the relationship between these two. Why had
the dominant, mannish older woman risked her life to take the pretty, empty-headed
girl to dinner at the Ritz? Perhaps I've got a dirty mind, he said to himself
But still…

"Take her away," he said
in German. "Put her in with the other one. Make sure the room has a
judas."

When they had been locked away,
Lieutenant Hesse showed Dieter to a small room in the attic. He looked through
a peephole into the room next door. The two women were sitting side by side on
the edge of the narrow bed. Maude was crying and Diana was comforting her.
Dieter watched carefully. Diana's broken right wrist rested in her lap. With
her left hand she stroked Maude's hair. She was talking in a low voice, but
Dieter could not hear the words.

How close a relationship was this?
Were they comrades in arms, bosom friends… or more? Diana leaned forward and
kissed Maude's forehead. That did not mean much. Then Diana put a forefinger on
Maude's chin, turned the girl's face to her own, and kissed her lips. It was a
gesture of comfort, but surely too intimate for a mere friend?

Finally Diana poked out the tip of
her tongue and licked Maude's tears. That made up Dieter's mind. It was not
foreplay—no one could have sex in such circumstances—but it was the kind of
comfort that would be offered only by a lover, not by a mere friend. Diana and
Maude were lesbians. And that solved the problem.

"Bring the older one
again," he said, and he returned to the interview room.

When Diana was brought in the second
time, he had her tied to the chair. Then he said, "Prepare the electrical
machinery." He waited impatiently while the electric shock machine was
rolled in on its trolley and plugged to a socket in the wall. Every minute that
passed was taking Flick Clairet farther away from him.

When everything was ready, he seized
Diana by the hair with his left hand. Holding her head still, he attached two
crocodile clips to her lower lip.

He turned the power on. Diana
screamed. He left it on for ten seconds, then switched off.

When her sobbing began to ease he
said, "That was less than half power." It was true. He had rarely
used full power. Only when the torture had gone on a long time, and the
prisoner kept passing out, was full power used in an effort to penetrate the
subject's fading consciousness. And by then it was generally too late, for
madness was setting in.

But Diana did not know that.

"Not again," she begged.
"Please, please, not again."

"Are you willing to answer my
questions?"

She groaned, but she did not say
yes.

Dieter said, "Bring the other
one."

Diana gasped.

Lieutenant Hesse brought Maude in
and tied her to a chair.

"What do you want?" Maude
cried.

Diana said, "Don't say
anything—it's better." Maude was wearing a light summer blouse. She had a
neat, trim figure with full breasts. Dieter tore her blouse open, sending the
buttons flying.

"Please!" Maude said.
"I'll tell you anything!" Under her blouse she wore a cotton chemise
with a lacy trim. He took hold of the neckline and ripped it off. Maude
screamed.

He stood back and looked. Maude's
breasts were round and firm. A part of his mind noticed how pretty they were.
Diana must love them, he thought.

He took the crocodile clips from
Diana's mouth and carefully fastened one to each of Maude's small pink nipples.
Then he returned to the machine and put his hand on the control.

"All right," Diana said
quietly. "I'll tell you everything."

DIETER ARRANGED FOR the railway
tunnel at Manes to be heavily guarded. If the Jackdaws got that far, they would
find it almost impossible to enter the tunnel. He felt confident that Flick
would not now achieve her objective. But that was secondary. His burning
ambition was to capture her and interrogate her.

It was already two o'clock on Sunday
morning. Tuesday would be the night of the full moon. The invasion could be
hours away. But in those few hours Dieter could break the back of the French
Resistance—if he could get Flick in a torture chamber. He only needed the list
of names and addresses that she had in her head. The Gestapo in every city in
France could be galvanized into action, thousands of trained staff. They were
not the brightest of men, but they knew how to arrest people. In a couple of
hours they could jail hundreds of Resistance cadres. Instead of the massive
uprising that the Allies were no doubt hoping for to aid their invasion, there
would be calm and order for the Germans to organize their response and push the
invaders back into the sea.

He had sent a Gestapo team to raid
the Hotel de la Chapelle, but that was a matter of form: he was certain Flick
and the other three would have left within minutes of the arrest of their
comrades. Where was Flick now? Reims was the natural jumping-off point for an
attack on Marles, which was why the Jackdaws had originally planned to land
near the city. Dieter thought it likely Flick would still pass through Reims.
It was on the road and rail routes to Marles, and there was probably some kind
of help she needed from the remnants of the Bollinger circuit. He was betting
she was now on her way from Paris to Reims.

He arranged for every Gestapo
checkpoint between the two cities to be given details of the false identities
being used by Flick and her team. However that, too, was something of a
formality: either they had alternative identities, or they would find ways to
avoid the checkpoints.

He called Reims, got Weber out of
bed, and explained the situation. For once Weber was not obstructive. He agreed
to send two Gestapo men to keep an eye on Michel's town house, two more to
watch Gilberte's building, and two to the house in the rue du Bois to guard
Stéphanie.

Finally, as the headache began,
Dieter called Stéphanie. "The British terrorists are on their way to
Reims," he told her. "I'm sending two men to guard you."

She was as calm as ever. "Thank
you."

"But it's important that you
continue to go to the rendezvous." With luck, Flick would not suspect the
extent to which Dieter had penetrated the Bollinger circuit, and she would walk
into his arms. "Remember, we changed the location. It's not the cathedral
crypt any more, it's the Café de la Gare. If anyone shows up, just drive them
back to the house, the way you did with Helicopter. Then the Gestapo can take
over from that point."

"Okay."

"Are you sure? I've minimized
the risk to you, but it's still dangerous."

"I'm sure. You sound as if you
have a migraine."

"It's just beginning."

"Do you have the
medicine?"

"Hans has it."

"I'm sorry I'm not there to
give it to you."

He was, too. "I wanted to drive
back to Reims tonight, but I don't think I can make it."

"Don't you dare. I'll be fine.
Take a shot and go to bed. Come back here tomorrow."

He knew she was right. It was going
to be hard enough getting back to his apartment, less than a kilometer away. He
could not travel to Reims until he had recovered from the strain of the
interrogation. "Okay," he said. "I'll get a few hours' sleep and
leave here in the morning."

"Happy birthday."

"You remembered! I forgot it
myself."

"I have something for you."

"A gift?"

"More like… an action."

He grinned, despite his headache.
"Oh, boy."

"I'll give it to you
tomorrow."

"I can't wait."

"I love you."

The words I love you, too, came to
his lips, but he hesitated, reluctant from old habit to say them, and then
there was a click as Stéphanie hung up.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-NINE

IN THE EARLY hours of Sunday
morning, Paul Chancellor parachuted into a potato field near the village of
Laroque, west of Reims, without the benefit—or the risk—of a reception
committee.

The landing gave him a tremendous
jolt of pain in his wounded knee. He grit his teeth and lay motionless on the
ground, waiting for it to ease. The knee would probably hurt him every so often
for the rest of his life. When he was an old man he would say a twinge meant
rain—if he lived to be an old man.

After five minutes, he felt able to
struggle to his feet and get out of his parachute harness. He found the road,
oriented himself by the stars, and started walking, but he was limping badly,
and progress was slow.