She found her voice. “Good.”
“Don’t look pleased. Now you’re going to damage the Resistance.”
She wished she had not been so fierce in ordering Paul and Ruby to wait in hiding. There was now no chance they would come to her rescue.
Dieter shifted the gun from her throat to her shoulder. “I don’t want to kill you, but I’d be happy to give you a crippling wound. I need you able to talk, of course. You’re going to give me all the names and addresses in your head.”
She thought of the suicide pill concealed in the hollow cap of her fountain pen. Would she have a chance to take it?
“It’s a pity you’ve destroyed the interrogation facility at Sainte-Cecile,” he went on. “I’ll have to drive you to Paris. I’ve got all the same equipment there.”
She thought with horror of the hospital operating table and the electric shock machine.
“I wonder what will break you?” he said. “Sheer pain breaks everyone eventually, of course, but I feel that you might bear pain for an inconveniently long time.” He raised his left arm. The wound seemed to give him a twinge, and he winced, but he bore it. He touched her face. “The loss of your looks, perhaps. Imagine this pretty face disfigured: the nose broken, the lips slashed, one eye put out, the ears cut off”
Flick felt sick, but she maintained a stony expression. “No?” His hand moved down, stroking her neck; then he touched her breast. “Sexual humiliation, then. To be naked in front of many people, fondled by a group of drunk men, forced to perform acts of grossness with animals..
“And which of us would be most humiliated by that?” she said defiantly. “Me, the helpless victim… or you, the real perpetrator of obscenity?”
He took his hand away. “Then again, we have tortures which destroy forever a woman’s ability to bear children.”
Flick thought of Paul and flinched involuntarily.
“Ah,” he said with satisfaction. “I believe I have found the key to unlock you.”
She realized she had been foolish to speak to him. Now she had given him information which he could use to break her will.
“We’ll drive straight to Paris,” he said. “We’ll be there by dawn. By midday, you will be begging me to stop the torture and listen to you pour out all the secrets you know. Tomorrow night we will arrest every member of the Resistance in northern France.”
Flick was cold with dread. Franck was not bragging. He could do it.
“I think you can travel in the trunk of the car,” he said. “It’s not airtight, you won’t suffocate. But I’ll put the corpses of your husband and his lover in with you. A few hours bumping around with dead people will put you in the right frame of mind, I think.”
Flick shuddered with loathing. She could not help it.
Keeping the pistol pressed to her shoulder, he reached into his pocket with his other hand. He moved his arm cautiously: the bullet wound hurt but did not incapacitate him. He drew out a pair of handcuffs. “Give me your hands,” he said.
She remained motionless.
“I can either handcuff you, or render your arms useless by shooting you in both shoulders.”
Helpless, she raised her hands.
He closed one cuff over her left wrist. She moved her right toward him. Then she made her last desperate move.
She struck sideways with her handcuffed left hand, knocking his gun away from her shoulder. At the same time she used her right hand to draw the small knife from its hidden sheath behind the lapel of her jacket.
He flinched back, but not fast enough.
She lunged forward and thrust the knife directly into his left eye. He turned his head, but the knife was already in, and Flick moved farther forward, pressing her body up against his, ramming the knife home. Blood and fluid spurted from the wound. Franck screamed in agony and fired his gun, but the shots went into the air.
He staggered back, but she followed him, still pushing the knife with the heel of her hand. The weapon had no hilt, and she continued to shove until its entire three inches had sunk into his head. He fell backwards and hit the ground.
She fell on him, knees on his chest, and she felt ribs crack. He dropped his gun and clawed at his eye with both hands, trying to get at the knife, but it was sunk too deep. Flick grabbed the gun. It was a Walther P38. She stood upright, held it two-handed, and aimed it at Franck.
Then he fell still.
She heard pounding footsteps. Paul rushed up. “Flick! Are you all right?”
She nodded.
She was still pointing the Walther at Dieter Franck. “I don’t think that will be necessary,” Paul said softly. After a moment, he moved her hands, then gently took the gun from her and engaged the safety catch.
Ruby appeared. “Listen!” she cried. “Listen!”
Flick heard the drone of a Hudson.
“Let’s get moving,” Paul said.
They ran out into the field to signal the plane that would take them home.
They crossed the English Channel in strong winds and intermittent rain. During a quiet spell, the navigator came back into the passenger compartment and said, “You might want to take a look outside.”
Flick, Ruby, and Paul were dozing. The floor was hard, but they were exhausted. Flick was wrapped in Paul’s arms, and she did not want to move.
The navigator pressed them. “You’d better be quick, before it clouds over again. You’ll never see anything like this again if you live to be a hundred.”
Curiosity overcame Flick’s tiredness. She got up and staggered to the small rectangular window. Ruby did the same. Obligingly, the pilot dipped a wing.
The English Channel was choppy, and a stiff wind blew, but the moon was full and she could see clearly. At first she could hardly believe her eyes. Immediately below the plane was a gray-painted warship bristling with guns. Alongside it was a small ocean liner, its paint-work gleaming white in the moonlight. Behind them, a rusty old steamer pitched into the swell. Beyond them and behind were cargo boats, troop transports, battered old tankers, and great shallow-draft landing ships. There were ships as far as Flick could see, hundreds of them.
The pilot dipped the other wing, and she looked out the other side. It was the same.
“Paul, look at this!” she cried.
He came and stood beside her. “Jeepers!” he said. “I’ve never seen so many ships in all my life!”
“It’s the invasion!” she said.
“Take a look out the front,” said the navigator.
Flick went forward and looked over the pilot’s shoulder. The ships were spread out over the sea like a carpet, stretching for miles and miles, as far as she could see. She heard Paul’s incredulous voice say, “I didn’t know there were this many ships in the damn world!”
“How many do you think it is?” Ruby said.
The navigator said, “I heard five thousand.”
“Amazing,” Flick said.
The navigator said, “I’d give a lot to be part of that, wouldn’t you?”
Flick looked at Paul and Ruby, and they all smiled. “Oh, we are,” she said. “We’re part of it, all right.”
One year later Wednesday, June 6,1945
CHAPTER 53
THE LONDON STREET called Whitehall was lined on both sides with grandiose buildings that embodied the magnificence of the British empire as it had once been, a hundred years earlier. Inside those fine buildings, many of the high rooms with their long windows had been subdivided by cheap partitions to form offices for lesser officials
