Eye of the Storm (17 page)

“Maybe not,” Dex put in, warming to the idea. “With the prefecture busy rounding up all the undesirables and the guards at the station preparing for Petain’s arrival, we might have the window of opportunity we need.”

“Go,” she told Bernard. “Let us know if you learn more about when Petain is due to arrive.”

He frowned but nodded and left. Once he was gone, Rosa joined the others at the table. “Fernando, we need trucks. And a
panier a salade
. Two—no, three of them. Police prefecture uniforms for the drivers.”

“Police wagons? Why?”

Rosa didn’t take time to answer. Instead she tapped Matilde on the shoulder. “Take some of the girls down to the docks. I need to know what the procedure is for getting those prisoners onto the
Senaia
. Rounding up so many so fast they probably don’t have warrants, but there must be some kind of paperwork, a list, something.”

Dex glanced up. “You can’t be thinking of trying to rescue the prisoners from the
Senaia
? There must be six hundred or more.”

“Oh, there will be more,” Rosa assured him with a smile. “I need you to get a message to the British at Fort St. Jean. Tell them to put on civilian clothing and be prepared to be picked up and transported to the docks.” She glanced out the window. “The tide. Does anyone know when the tide goes out?”

Padraic couldn’t help his burst of laughter. He strode forward to grab her by the waist and swing her around with a glee of delight. “You girl, are a genius.”

The men at the table stared at them as if they’d gone mad, all except Dex, who was busy jotting a list onto a scrap of paper.

“More than the tide,” Paddy said, feeling like his old self for the first time in weeks. “We’ll need to know the tonnage and draft. What kind of engine and navigation—”

“What ships are docked around her and how close,” Dex added, catching on.

Paddy nodded. “Charts of the bay would help. We never sailed the Gulf of Lion.”

The others suddenly got it. “You can’t be serious. Rosa, are you—?”

Rosa’s grin was all the answer anyone needed. “I’m going to steal the
Senaia
and all six hundred prisoners on board.”

<<<>>>

VINCENT LED THE
way back down the hall as he and Cassie left the guard behind. Cassie had taken a folding knife and semi-automatic pistol from the guard; unfortunately, he’d had no cell phone.

“We need to call for help,” she whispered to Vincent as they passed the service desk.

“No phones here,” he answered. “Only Nickolai’s men have them.”

Obviously not all of them, which meant grabbing another guard wouldn’t necessarily solve the problem. “Do you know where Muriel is?”

He unlocked the door leading back to the service bay and closed it softly again behind them. “Who is Muriel?”

“The older woman Kasanov kidnapped when he took me.”

He shook his head, sliding his dagger into his belt and helping himself to a short crowbar. “You came alone. They brought no one else.”

Cassie ejected the magazine from the guard’s pistol and counted the bullets. Four. Four bullets, two knives, and a crowbar to fight… how many men? She remembered the submachine guns Kasanov’s other men wielded.

Outnumbered and outgunned. And she wasn’t even sure where Muriel was being held. Which meant Cassie needed to leverage the only advantage she had: Kasanov wanted her alive.

“Natasha and Thomas are still gone,” Vincent told her. “Maybe they have your friend?”

They reached the outer door and exited into the night. Goose bumps immediately sprang up over Cassie’s bare arms and legs, but she ignored the cold, examining their surroundings. It was an old car lot, turned into a junkyard with abandoned wrecks scattered around towers of smashed cars. Broken glass and metal shone in the moonlight and she realized that with her bare feet and white dress, there was no way she could move quickly or unseen through the maze.

“Are you all family? All these children, they aren’t Natasha’s, are they?”

“We are family, but not family,” he answered. “Natasha, she is our mother. She protects and teaches us, saved us all.”

“You’re all runaways?” That would explain the older kids—but Vincent appeared to be only twelve or so. “What happened to your parents?”

He shrugged as he led her to shelter behind a school bus that sat up on cinder blocks. “My dad went to jail and Mom just left. They put me in a group home but—” His voice trailed off. “It was bad. So I ran. Found some other kids. Then Natasha came by in her van, fed us, told us about a safe place we could crash, and…”

Cassie didn’t press for details. “And Kasanov? Will the other kids do whatever he asks?” She wanted to gauge their loyalty. Could she persuade any of the others to help her?

“Nickolai? He is our protector. No one would dare to not obey him.” A shudder shook his thin body as if he just realized what his own act of betrayal might cost him. Then he straightened, his hand going to the hilt of his dagger. “No one except me. I once saw him hit Natasha. He treats her like she’s nothing. He pretends to be a good man, but he isn’t.”

“Do you know where to find a phone?” Her feet were already sore and bloody and they’d only gone maybe twenty yards. She wouldn’t make it much farther.

He frowned. “There’s a store down the highway. Open twenty-four hours.”

“How fast can you run?”

“Very fast,” he said, shoulders back, standing proud. “But I’m not leaving you.”

“You have to. I need you to run as fast as you can and get to that phone. Call the police, tell them to contact Detective Mickey Drake. Tell them where I am. That they need to come. Can you do that?”

“Of course. But I’m not leaving you.” He repeated the last in the same unyielding tone.

“If you stay, they’ll kill both of us. If you get help, you’ll save us all.”

“I’m not afraid to die.” He drew his dagger, held it at the ready.

“I know you’re not. But we need to save Muriel. You can’t let her die. Or the other members of your family. Only you can save them, Vincent.”

He considered that. “You’ll hide? Stay safe?”

No. But she wasn’t about to tell him that. “I’ll be fine. Now go. Run fast, as fast as you can.”

“For you, my lady, anything.” Then he was gone like a shot in the night. Cassie stared after him, wondering how a kid like him had learned chivalry in this world where so many had forgotten the concept. Nice to know heroes were still around.

She sat in the shadow of the bus, flicking stray beads of shattered safety glass from the soles of her feet. She cut a few strips of silk from the dress’s underskirt and wrapped her feet with them. Slim protection, but better than nothing.

Now, where to go? She needed to stall, give Vincent time, but her dress practically glowed in the night. However, if she did this right, that might be to her advantage, help her save Muriel. Especially as, if the police got here too soon, if Kasanov had time to make a phone call or transmit a single radio message, it might mean Muriel’s death warrant.

Suddenly the yard blazed with light. Men shouted her name. And with them came the sound of dogs barking, howling to be released.

Shit. She wasn’t counting on dogs. Shit, shit, shit. Okay, suddenly hide and seek had turned into a real hunt. With Cassie as the prey.

“YOUR GRAM,” PADDY
had told Cassie one afternoon after she and Rosa quarreled and she’d spent the day sulking in silence, “she’s a lot like you. Stubborn. Says she don’t need nobody.” Paddy leaned back against the tree trunk they were sitting under and puffed on his pipe. “She’s a good liar. I’ll tell you that saved our skins more than once. But she’s still a liar.”

Cassie had held her breath, not wanting to disturb his reverie, knowing that there was a story coming. Paddy’s eyes grew distant as if he himself were traveling back half a century and thousands of miles to a time when ordinary people had to choose between the comfort of compliance and the risk of taking action to save others.

“Was my own damn fault,” he began. “Should’ve never have let her talk me into the tomfoolery to begin with. Stealing a ship loaded with six hundred refugees right from under the Nazis’ noses? While Marshal Petain, the leader of Vichy France, and all his troops were in town, to boot.”

He shook his head, tapped his pipe bowl. “But Rosa pulled it off. Saved me and my mates and other soldiers trapped in Marseilles at the same time. We overpowered the guards, skived off in the dead of night, the good Lord sending a nice blanket of mist and fog to cover our escape. It was so bold, so damned audacious, that the Vichy covered it up. One thing you can always count on with the French—their arrogance. No way Petain was gonna slink to his Nazi handlers and ask for help finding us, not after his own special troops had let the
Sinaia
escape—carrying six hundred people on the Nazi’s most-wanted list.

“I should have been thrilled as we sped toward Gibraltar and freedom. Here I was having survived shipwreck, encounters with the Vichy and Nazis, and this fisherman from Clifden, a lowly radio operator, enlisted man, was now the captain of a ship, responsible for saving six hundred civilians and thirty-two British soldiers and officers. But it didn’t feel right, not having Rosa by my side. And it didn’t feel right that I should want her there at all after how angry she made me....”

<<<>>>

PADDY HAD NEVER
in his life thought to meet a woman so infuriating. Not even a woman. This lass was not yet eighteen, for all her airs of command. Girl thought she was a bloody queen, way she ordered him around! To hell with her. He didn’t care if she had saved his life—twice now. Didn’t care how many lives she had saved. He was better off without her, damned woman would be the death of him yet!

Rosa Costello would do as she damned well please, just as she always did. The sooner she was out of his life the better. Except it probably would have been easier if he hadn’t asked her to marry him—twice now. And if he hadn’t kissed her, made love to her. Or if he hadn’t fallen in love with her.

“Rosa, come with us, come with me,” he’d pleaded before they parted on the dock once he realized the diversion she’d planned meant she’d be staying behind. “For once, let someone else take the risk.”

She looked at him as if she no longer spoke English. “I don’t understand.”

“These people—you’ve done all you can for them. You know you’ll only get caught if you stay here. And they, they don’t—” He looked down at his scraped knuckles, unable to break her heart by telling her the truth of how the people she helped viewed her.

“They think I’m a dirty, gypsy whore looking to rob and cheat them.”

“You know? Then why? Why stay, put yourself in danger for bigots who are just as bad as the Nazis themselves?”

“They only treat me as
gaje
have always treated my people. The same as my people treat the
gaje
.” She shrugged a shoulder. “If I don’t save them, who will?”

“Please come with us. Save yourself.”

She frowned, seemed ready to trust him with some great secret. Instead, she unwrapped the heavy velvet quilt from around her shoulders and pressed it into his hands. “Take this. Keep it safe for me. There’s one more thing I need to do. But I’ll join you. Soon. I promise.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “I’ll find you, Padraic Hart. You can’t hide from me, Fisherman.”

The sound of dogs baying and men shouting had distracted him. The Vichy searching for the man—Rosa—who’d bombed the customs house. He turned to search the night, gauging how close they were. And dropped his hand from her arm. Just long enough for her to slip free from his embrace and vanish into the shadows.

Now Paddy paced the tiny confines of the
Sinaia
’s wheelhouse, cursing with each step. If he didn’t have six hundred-some lives depending on him, he would have dashed after Rosa, stopped her, hauled her back on board kicking and screaming if need be. Even knowing the consequences if he did go after her, he still found his hand on the hatch, had to force himself to step away, return to his post and wait for the signal that they were free of the mooring lines holding them at the dock.

The signal that might announce Rosa’s death. His stomach clutched at the thought and his anger fled. Rosa had out-maneuvered him—again. She’d known exactly what to say to get his temper boiling, to push him away from her exactly when she needed him most.

Not that she’d ever admit any such thing. Stubborn witch. Did he really want to spend the rest of his life with a woman who could make his blood sear, who could outwit him, and who might look like an angel, but who had killed more men in her short life than most of the soldiers on board the
Senaia
?

Alarms blared through the night as search lights cut through the velvet fog that cloaked Marseilles. Gunshots tore the air. Paddy cringed as if they’d slammed into his own flesh. He imagined a too-thin body hurtling to the ground, crimson gushes of blood marring her creamy skin, and blinked back tears.

Dex, looking imposing in his stolen prefecture uniform, appeared in the hatchway. “Lines are cut, we’re free.”

Paddy nodded, his hands closing over the ship’s wheel. “Raise the anchor.”

The three words tore through him as painful as bullets. He stared into the night, grateful for the cover of fog, but cursing his inability to see more than glimpses of light and movement on the docks below. The tide was with them; they wouldn’t be firing up the engines until they were out of earshot, but they needed Rosa’s diversion to last long enough for them to raise anchor—a noisy affair at the best of times.

She had to be alive, he told himself as the lights moved away from the docks and into the narrow alleyways beyond. They’re still chasing her. She’s alive—please Lord, let’s keep it that way?

The wheel shuddered beneath his hands as the
Senaia
slipped free from the docks, past the other ships, and out to sea. The fog closed about her and it was as if she never existed.