Clash by Night (25 page)

Laura entered and stood before him, wearing a navy print dress. Her titian hair was piled on top of her head. As always, her level green gaze made him testy.

“Madame Duclos,” he said shortly. “I understand you would like to take a trip?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“To London.”

His brow furrowed. “Why?”

“For a vacation.”

Becker studied her in silence. He felt that the timing of her departure was suspicious coming so soon after the boy’s funeral.

“Surely you can vacation in France?” he said.

“I have a friend in London I wish to see.”

Becker didn’t like it but there was little he could do about it. Her American citizenship protected her. If he attempted to interfere with her plans she could complain to the consulate, and the last thing he needed was a diplomatic problem to add to his host of others.
 

He pulled the appropriate form out of a drawer and picked up his pen again. “For how long?” he said.

She told him.

“I would have thought you’d prefer to stay and comfort your husband’s relatives on their recent loss,” he said mildly, filling in the blanks on the pass.

Laura clutched her purse more tightly, her knuckles whitening. “My father-in-law is beyond comfort, Commandant. And my sister-in-law urges me to go. She has her work at the hospital to occupy her.”
 

And other work as well no doubt, Becker thought. He was certain the whole family was in league with the rebels and would bear watching.

“How nice for you that you can get away,” he said acidly, aware that he was pushing her, because she resented it and because he could. “There are others, I’m sure, who would like to go but cannot.” He signed his name with a stabbing motion that left a blot on the paper.

Laura knew that he meant a French citizen would most likely not be permitted to leave the town. She extended her hand for the pass, which he still held.

“I have always known, Colonel,” she said politely, “what an advantage it is to be an American.”

Becker held her gaze, his dark eyes emotionless. Then with a slight flourish he put the letter of transit in her hand.

“May I go?” Laura asked steadily.

He nodded coldly. Laura escaped to the hall, clutching the piece of paper as if it were a lifeline. She shivered slightly.

What an icy replica of a man, she thought. She felt as if she’d caught a chill from him. She looked down at what he’d given her curiously.

It was made out in French, with blanks left for name, point of origin and destination.

“
Ville de Bar-le-Duc
,” it said across the top. “
Laissez Passer
.” Becker had completed it in his flowing, surprisingly legible script, indicating that Laura Duclos, “
citoyen Americaine,”
had permission to travel from Fains-les-Sources to “
Londres
” and back again, with the dates. At the bottom, under the space labeled “Military Governor of Meuse, France,” he had written, “Anton Becker,
Oberst
.” There was a 15 franc stamp in one corner, and on the lower left margin the letter was engraved with an eagle, its wings spread atop a globe clutched in its talons.

Laura removed her “
Carte D’Identite
,” with its black and white photo of her, from her purse and clipped the two documents together.

Now all she had to do was speak to Lysette about opening the school, and then go home and pack.

* * *

Brigitte Duclos was leaving the hospital at the end of her shift when Kurt Hesse appeared at the exit and blocked her path.

She turned on her heel to avoid him as he grabbed her arm and hauled her almost bodily into Becker’s office, where he locked the door.

“Let me go!” she protested loudly, shrugging off his hands. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“But I want to talk to you,” he said, standing with his back to the door.

“About what?” she spat. “How many French citizens you murdered today?”

Hesse was silent. He could see that the shock over Alain’s death ,which had made her lean on him initially, had worn off. It had left anger and bitterness in its place.

“I’m surprised you didn’t volunteer for the firing squad,” she sneered.

“The Colonel selected marksmen for that duty,” Hesse said quietly.

“Oh, of course,” Brigitte said flippantly. “Wouldn’t want to take a chance on missing a bound and blindfolded target thirty feet away!”

“It was done for humane reasons. So he wouldn’t be wounded and survive in pain to endure another round.”

“You mean like a clubbed heifer in an abattoir,” Brigitte said nastily. “Staggering around in a daze, waiting for the fatal blow.”

“Yes,” Hesse concurred.

Suddenly her demeanor changed and she clutched his tunic. “They did kill him first thing, didn’t they?” she whispered in a begging tone. “He didn’t suffer? You saw it?”

“He was heartshot, Brigitte,” he replied, using the German word,
herzwunde
. “He died right away.”

“What does that mean?” she asked. “
Herzwunde
?”

Hesse explained.

She nodded. “Trust you Germans to have a word for it. You must have a whole vocabulary like that: heartshot, gutshot, headshot...”
 

Hesse grabbed her hands and she twisted away. “Don’t touch me,” she sobbed. “You killed my brother.”

He pinned her arms and held her fast. “I didn’t kill him,” he said through gritted teeth, steadying her. She was stronger than he would have guessed. “I wanted to save him.”

She drew back and stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“When Becker told me to pick up your father I tried to talk him out of it.”

“Why?”

“I figured the old man would give Alain away.”

“You knew Alain was behind the factory explosion?”

He released her and stepped back. “I suspected it.”

“And you didn’t tell Becker?”

Hesse shrugged. “He figured it out anyway. I just did what he ordered me to do. I rounded up suspects for questioning. I didn’t volunteer my thoughts on the subject.”

Brigitte looked up at him. “For my sake?”

He gazed back at her. “Certainly not for mine.”

“Don’t you care that my brother was working against your government here?” she asked softly.

“I don’t care about anything but me and you,” he said simply.

Brigitte moved forward and laid her head on his shoulder. His arms came around her slowly.

“Are we safe here?” she whispered.

“For the moment,” Hesse answered, wondering if they would really ever be safe anywhere. “Becker won’t be back for an hour or so.”

She was silent for a minute and then he felt her shoulders shaking.

“What is it?” he said, as her sorrow transmitted itself to his body.

“My brother is dead,” she wept, burrowing into his shoulder. “Oh, Kurt, my darling Alain is dead.”

Hesse held her and let her cry, aware that he could do nothing else to comfort her.

* * *

Before Laura departed Fains she hid the gun Harris had given her, along with the bulk of the American money, in the Duclos house. She debated taking the pistol with her, but realized that if she got into any trouble and was searched she would have a lot of explaining to do. And the money would come in handy for further resistance work. She left home with fifty dollars concealed in her shoe, some French money in her overnight bag, and the proper papers to get her out of France.

She had not traveled by rail since the occupation, and found the experience unnerving. The trains ran efficiently, but German guards prowled every station like bloodhounds, checking
lettres
at each stop and entering the compartments at will to search luggage. She displayed her documents so often that they were dirty and dog eared by the time she reached the coast. Laura was heartsick of gray uniforms and guttural commands and the sight of the channel, choppy and blue in the autumn sunlight, was like balm to her soul.

She was searched again before she was permitted to board the ferry, and some significant glances were exchanged when her
citoyen Americaine
status was revealed. At length, relieved that she had made it so far, she hung over the railing on the upper deck. She turned her face up to the enclosing mist, waiting for the dock crew to throw off the ropes.

She tried not to think about what awaited her in London. She was too uneasy about it. She knew Harris only in the context of his work for Vipère; what would he be like in a strange city, surrounded by strangers? There was only one thing about which she was certain. She couldn’t refuse his request.
 

The trip across the Strait of Dover was smooth and she was very glad to reach English soil. When she boarded the last train from Dover north to London she was tired enough to sleep through the rest of the journey. She awoke in Victoria Station, and the welcome sound of voices speaking her native language reminded her where she was. Even the clipped British version was like the music of water slipping over polished stones. She showed her papers for the last time when she got off the train in a cloud of steam, and then walked out to the Embankment and into a fine rain.
 

She was not prepared for the sight that met her eyes. London was a city under siege. She’d heard about the recent rash of bombings on French radio, but that like everything else was controlled by the Germans, and she’d taken the reports as mostly propaganda. A cursory glance at her surroundings assured her that for once the occupation forces had been telling the truth.

 
The entire roadway was littered with rubble, as if under construction. Piles of masonry and asphalt paving had been hastily shoved to the side and roped off to make way for traffic. The building across the street was destroyed, the remains of it leaning crazily with the facade half gone, the interior exposed down to the supporting timbers and the buttresses pushed onto the walkway. Pieces of brick and chips of wood crunched underfoot as Laura passed, and she almost tripped over a uniformed workman who was sweeping up fragments of metal and dropping them into a container.

“What’s that?” she asked him, startled.

“Bomb casing from the raid last night, miss,” he replied. “Taking the bits in for the authorities to have a look.”
 

Soberly, Laura picked her way around the site and headed for the red Underground sign at the corner. She descended to the subway station and located the route map posted under glass at the foot of the stairs. She found the way to Russell Square and as she waited in the midday crowd of Brits on their lunch break, her anxiety began to mount. She felt like turning around and going back.

You’ve come too far to chicken out now, she told herself severely. If you can handle Colonel Becker you can handle this. But the butterflies in her stomach had proliferated into a second, more active, generation by the time she emerged from the Underground exit and glanced around the square.

The hotel loomed on the far corner, dark moss stained stone with a flight of steps leading up to a glass door. It was raining harder now and she tied a kerchief over her hair as she walked across the intersection. It was streaming with buses and official transports but few cars, as all private vehicles were subject to severe petrol rationing. The area was filled with servicemen in a variety of uniforms and women in navy nursing auxiliary outfits, coming from George’s Hospital in Kensington Church Street. Laura made her way to the hotel and entered the bustling lobby with her heart in her mouth.
 

A babble of accents surrounded her as she paused inside the vestibule to remove her light coat, wondering at the last moment if she had made the trip for nothing. Maybe Harris had dismissed the message and the impulse that had led him to send it. Maybe Fournier had gotten the information wrong. Maybe the marine’s leave had been cancelled. Maybe... and then she saw him.

He was sitting in a chair by the window, smoking, his eyes on the street. His expression was tense and he was leaning forward, every fiber of his being alert. He had missed her because he was looking in the direction of the bus stop, not the underground.

Laura’s pulses leapt and she began to move toward him as if in a trance, unable to think of a single word of greeting.

Harris turned when she was almost at his side. He started, jumping to his feet, dropping his cigarette into a standing tray by his chair. He was in full uniform, dark blue tunic and trousers with a red side stripe, white belt at his waist and white cap in hand, his silver captain’s bars gleaming. They stared at each other as Laura’s eyes filled with tears.

“I didn’t think you would come,” he said finally, his voice hoarse with emotion.

“I almost didn’t,” she replied.

“I’ve been sitting in that chair for two days,” he told her, half laughing, still rooted to the spot.

She blinked, and the tears ran down her face. He sobered and took a step forward, reaching out with a brown forefinger to touch her cheek.

“Why are you crying?” he asked huskily.