Sons of Thunder (34 page)

The guard at the entrance had apparently forgotten her. Oh, she hoped, even as she eased out, found the shadows, then darted across the yard. She pocketed herself against the far wall of the building that housed the brothers’ cells.

She needed to get into the two-story—

Crying. Or something that sounded like it. She held her breath, willed herself to listen. Yes, something soft, or perhaps just the walls muffled it. Still, it sounded…

She peered out—nothing stirred in the courtyard. Her hands slick, she scurried to the first window.

Raised up on her toes to peer inside.

No… Her breath caught even as she tried to get a fix on what she saw—

People. Maybe four of them, huddled together in the tiny cell. Dirty, yet they seemed healthy; however, they wouldn’t be for long, if she were to believe the rumors of the German brutalities. A woman, a boy, a girl—and what looked like an old man.

Why—

She lowered herself before they could spot her, cry out—or perhaps before she could retch.

Jews.

How had they been caught? She’d heard the rumors—over two hundred Jews hidden in dark nooks and crannies across the island of Zante.

Not as well as they’d hoped.

She fled back into the shadows, pressing both hands to her mouth. It didn’t matter anymore
what
Markos’s treasure might be. They couldn’t leave these people to be murdered.

Now what? She couldn’t leave. What if they decided to move them tonight? But—

From the entrance, the German guard shouted. Sofia dared a look and her heart sank. The officer on duty had exited his office.

She translated his German perfectly…

Where is the woman?

CHAPTER 25

Where is the woman?

The guard called again to the officer, who shut the door of his car, stood up to scan the yard.

She flattened herself against the building.
Where is the woman?

Out of her mind, obviously, but of course Sofia couldn’t scream. Although screaming seemed exactly the right thing to do. Scream at her own stupidity.

Scream that Markos had been right. At least about her being in over her head.

The crying inside the building had stopped. A breeze hissed in the trees, the tang of cedar laden the air.

She pressed her hands against her chest, trying to silence her beating heart.

She’d come here because the colonel invited her….

And if she ran, simply vanished, they’d know—and he’d go straight to Dino.

She stepped out into the shadows, fixed an angry look on her face. “Where is Colonel Kessler?”

She even surprised herself with the way she marched up to the officer, spouting the colonel’s name without a quiver.

She placed the officer in his midthirties, clean shaven, dirty blond hair, the scrub of a late-afternoon beard, and yes, he looked familiar.
Perhaps she’d seen him at the taverna, hopefully one of those times when the colonel had forced her down to perch on his knee.

The man hesitated a moment, glanced past her as if she might have in her wake a cadre of partisans. No, not yet. But the second she returned to the villa, she planned on tracking down Lucien.

She’d found Markos’s so-called treasure. Or at least the one he
should
be rescuing. She raised an eyebrow, budded her lips in annoyance. Ignored the screaming in her head.

“The colonel’s not here. But I will take you to him.” The man opened the door to his car—and what choice did she have?

She slid into the backseat, knotted her hands on her lap to keep them from shaking.

The vehicle reminded her of the days she’d ridden with Uncle Jimmy, Markos at the wheel, and she imagined him now, climbing inside, glancing back at her to tell her he’d take care of her. That she didn’t need to be afraid.

Then, she’d believed him too much, but now, she let the memory cajole her out of the reality of being driven along the winding roads, through the skinny, cobbled streets to the Zante city square where Ari hung in the breeze and the
Wehrmacht
—the Waffen SS—prowled like rats, on the hunt for partisans.

Like her.

Her hands lost their circulation.

“Stay here,” the officer said as he pulled up to the municipal building. In the center courtyard, the sharp fronds of the palm trees cut the twilight like knives. Armored cars—two of them—rumbled by.

Mercifully, they had cut Ari’s body down.

“Come with me.” The officer reappeared at her door—why hadn’t she run?—and she pried her frozen legs from the car.

A crisp wind curled around her, raised gooseflesh on her arms as she followed the officer up the steps, past the two guards, and inside the building. He took her by the arm—never mind the ache of her bruise—and guided her none-too-gently down the hall and to a tiny room, the high window allowing only the barest of light to spider through.

“The colonel isn’t here. You will wait for him here.”

She rubbed her arm as the door shut.

Darkness enclosed her like dust. Placing her hands on the wall, she slid down, letting the cold seep into her back.

Perhaps this was how those poor people in the monastery felt—afraid. Alone. Helpless.

God will deliver us.
Ava’s words rushed at her, filled her head, burned her eyes. She closed them, trying to remember.
Everyone thinks that believing in God means that He will deliver us from trouble. But God delivers us
through
trouble.

It is in the middle of trouble that we truly discover what it means to live.

Live? Hardly. She’d survived. Okay, perhaps there were times, with Markos, when she felt like she lived. Even the day she’d buried her grandfather into the lap of the sea. That night Markos had given her a glimpse of his dream, and somehow that image—of him as a fisherman—allowed her to cling to Zante. To hold on to hope, all the way into her life with Dino. He’d made her laugh—in Chicago and even Minneapolis. Made her believe that she could someday return home. And yes, she had felt safe—even alive, however briefly—in his arms.

Perhaps, yes, the challenges of life made those moments sweeter. Richer.

We discover who we are.

She wasn’t so sure she really wanted to know. She wiped her cheeks. But yes, she wanted to live. Because out of the rubble, well…

God had given her little Dino. She saw his pudgy face, the lopsided smile—the very image of his father. And his uncle.

She sucked a breath. She’d survive. She didn’t care what it took, how the colonel might punish her. She’d—

The door pushed open, light cutting like a blade into the room. She jumped.

A guard stood in the outline, his features hidden under an officer’s hat. “Let’s go.”

She froze.

He extended a hand. “Sofia—now, let’s go. We don’t have much time.”

Somehow she moved, somehow she put her hand in Markos’s. Somehow she let him rescue her off the floor.

And then she let him lead her out of the room like a prisoner, right out the front door, and back into the officer’s car.

Which he neatly stole and drove out of the square as if he owned it.

She let herself exhale, ever so briefly. “What are you doing?”

“Getting you out of there.” And he didn’t sound happy about it. No, his tone could reach out and strangle her. “What were you
doing
? Trying to get yourself shot, maybe hung from the square?”

She recoiled into the plush velvet seat. “Yes. That’s exactly what I had in mind. What are
you
doing? Where did you get this uniform—have you lost your mind? The colonel is going to come looking for me.” She unloaded a harsh laugh. “I was safer with him.”

In front, Markos’s hands whitened on the steering wheel. “You’re going to say that one of the officers told you to go home. They’ll spend days looking for the man who should be wearing this uniform.”

“And…where is
he
?” She leaned up, grabbed Markos’s arm. “You didn’t—”

“No. He’s actually a sympathizer. There are a few, you know. Now that the Nazis are pulling out, some of the Germans have come forward, handing over their uniforms, asking to be smuggled out of the country, or even joining forces with the partisans. The ones that don’t want to fight will barter information in exchange for the guarantee that when the British and Americans invade, they’ll be taken prisoner. Apparently they’re afraid of the Russian front.”

They cut down streets, turned back, made more turns.

Finally he wove his fingers into hers, still clutching to his arm. His anger seemed flushed out. “You scared me.”

He drew in a long breath, cut down another street, slowing for a man on a bicycle. “What were you doing at the monastery? I thought we made an agreement.”

She unhinged her hand from his, sat back, stared out the window. “No. You made an ultimatum.”

He finally pulled the car into the open courtyard of a house, U-shaped, with an overhanging porch and a red-tiled roof.

Just like that, the gate shut behind them.

Three young men appeared from the colonnade; one opened her door to help her out, another ducked in behind the vacated driver’s seat.

Markos stood in the headlights, stripping off the uniform—handing over the jacket, the hat, the weapon.

Then he rounded the car, slipped her hand into his, and pulled her toward the house.

She realized immediately he’d taken her to the partisan safe house. An apartment complex turned renegade hangout, judging by
the supply of angry, dark-eyed young men lounging around the main room. A group sat at a long wooden table playing cards; a man sat in the window and played mournful tunes on an accordion. From the kitchen, the smell of baked bread and some sort of meat stirred her empty stomach.

“What’s going on?”

“We’re honoring our fallen—Ari and Nikos.” Lucien stepped out from the kitchen, rolling a keg of beer.

She eyed it. “Do I want to ask where you got that?”

He didn’t smile as he shook his head. He set the keg upright, tapped it, and then left it for the card players. He walked over to her, glancing fast at Markos. “What happened?”

“She went to the monastery, that’s what. Just like I told her not to.” Markos narrowed his eyes at her a second before he disappeared into an adjacent room.

Lucien filled a beer stein, brought it to her. She shook her head, her gaze darting to Markos’s closed door.

“You went to the monastery? Why?”

“The colonel told me that if I was ever scared, I could go there—that I’d be safe there. So—I thought maybe….”

“She thought he might be hiding something there, and that she’d walk right in, maybe ask for a map and a key.” Markos emerged, pulling a shirt over his chest, having changed into green army trousers. She noticed that yes, his shoulders had widened, his body leaned over the years.

A blush pressed her face, and she hid it behind a biting glare before she turned back to Lucien. “No, that’s not what I thought, although, if they’d asked I planned on using Ari’s”—she winced as a couple of the men at the table lifted their eyes to her—“death as a reason why I might
be afraid. I thought maybe I could ask the colonel for protection. Only, he wasn’t there.”

Markos poured himself a glass of water. Drank it fast. “I nearly died when I saw you at the gate.”

“You were spying on me?”

He frowned at her. “No. I was watching the monastery for any suspicious activity. Like a beautiful young woman trying to sneak in.” He raised an eyebrow. “You know that if they have anything there, right now they’re moving it.”

His words caught her breath. “No—” She turned to Lucien, the only one able to listen apparently. “I found something.”

In Lucien’s eyes flashed too much hope. “A treasure? What—artwork? Maybe gold icons from one of the churches?”

“Jews. They’re hiding Jews there. Four of them, at least—maybe more, I couldn’t tell. It doesn’t matter why Markos is here—we need to help—”

“No.”

Lucien’s words stripped the room of movement, noise—the men playing cards, the accordion in the corner—all stilled. Markos wore a terrible look, dashing it between Sofia and Lucien.

Lucien took his hat off and banged it against his knee. “I’m sorry, but that’s not Markos’s mission. We have to keep looking for the treasure.”

“Lucien—we have to rescue them!”

Two men got up from the table, walked to the window. The accordion began to sigh.

“We can’t leave them there. The Nazis will kill them before they leave—we all know it.”

Two more players threw down their cards, pushed away from the table.

“What? Don’t you remember the stories from Thessalonica? They lined them up, put them onto ships…”

“You forget, Sofia, Zante does protect its people,” Lucien said, his tone schooled. “I was in the square the day the bishop’s and the mayor’s blood spilled into the stones. I know the price. And I too helped hide—friends.”

“So how did this family get caught?”

Lucien shook his head.

“You read the papers. You listen to the radio. You know what will happen to this family—”