Chapter Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Eight
Hurry, hurry, hurry. As she paced the radio room, the words drummed a cadence in Zelie’s skull, keeping time with her pulse—which hadn’t slowed since a breathless Marcel had burst into the villa twelve hours ago to say he’d spotted Blanchet, given chase, but had lost him in the dark of the forest.
He glanced at his watch, spat out a curse, and tapped the message again.
Downstairs, the phone rang. Ordinarily she would have left it for someone else to answer, but there was no one else to do it. Zelie spun from the room, flew down the stairs, and snatched the phone from its cradle on the fifth ring. “Bonjour, H?tel le Blanc.”
Madame Brouillet’s voice filled the line. “I need to leave a message for a guest of yours, Genevieve Courtois. I’m afraid I’ve come down with the flu and won’t be able to host the guests due to attend my dinner party tonight.”
Zelie squeezed her eyes shut. Nazis had flooded Le Lavandou and were all around the villa, just as they feared. “I’ll give Mademoiselle Courtois the message, madame. Thank you.” She slammed the phone back down.
“The villa’s compromised, I take it?” Marcel appeared from the back hallway.
She jerked her head in a nod. “We need to—”
A lorry tore up the drive, making panic clamp on to her throat. Her first thought was police . . . but that wasn’t an official vehicle. It looked rather like one of the beat-up, decades-old jalopies that the Maquis favored.
Marcel moved to the door. “Are we expecting René? That looks like him behind the wheel.”
“No.” But when the rig rocked to a halt, it was definitely René who jumped from the cab and hurried to the back.
She’d never actually seen him in anything but a neat suit.
It was strange to note the dirty trousers and rough coat, to see his hair rumpled and windblown.
A moment later, four other former musicians from Marcel’s orchestra rounded the back of the lorry—and struggling between them was none other than Blanchet.
Marcel let out an incredulous bark of laughter and opened the door. “Warbler! Where’d you find this one?”
René flashed a smile a few shades darker than usual. “Scurrying through the underbrush like the rat he is. I recognized him from that airdrop.”
Blanchet spat a stream of expletives in several languages and tried again to wrestle himself free, but the burly bassoon player only gripped him tighter. “If you need another fist to your jaw, monsieur, I’m happy to oblige.”
Zelie and Marcel backed out of the way. Her mind was already racing. They couldn’t keep him here, not when they were planning to abandon the place. But they also couldn’t risk moving him elsewhere.
Maybe this was perfect, actually. She met Marcel’s gaze, dark and heavy, and turned toward the stairs.
“This way. We can lock him in the maid’s room.
” It had no windows or even furnishings at the moment, but a sturdy lock on the door.
She grabbed the key from the front desk and soon had the ground-floor chamber opened for them.
The young men shoved him inside, and they quickly shut the door and locked it.
Marcel led his musicians back to the foyer. “Thank you, everyone. We’ll take it from here.”
René looked from Marcel to Zelie. “What are you going to do with him?”
Execution order. Zelie folded her arms over her stomach, clasped her elbows. He’d sold them all out—his native and adopted countries both. He deserved death. And yet . . .
Marcel drew in a long breath. “What we must. Go on. Back to the bush—and hurry. He could have tipped off the gendarmes before you caught him.” He clasped a shoulder here, shook a hand there. “Good work, mes amis. All of Alliance, all of France is in your debt for this one.”
“Just playing our parts, maestro,” René said. But they were all grinning as they hustled back to their dented lorry. They missed the music, she knew—but they knew they were fighting for the right to reclaim it.
Zelie waited until their doors were all shut and then reached for Marcel’s arm. “You don’t have to . . .”
He covered her hand, squeezed it. But then pulled away. “Focus on your work, mon étoile. I’ll take care of this, as I promised.”
She hesitated only one moment more and then turned to the stairs.
When Marcel slid into the room, he fully expected Blanchet to lunge at him and try to make a run for it.
Part of him—just one part—hoped he would. Hoped he’d escape, even if it would be disastrous. He didn’t want this man’s death on his hands, even if he’d volunteered to take it.
But Blanchet sat on the floor, back against the wall, hands limp at his sides. His eyes were closed, but he drew in a sharp breath when Marcel came in and blinked them open. Only for a moment, then he closed them again with a wince. “At least you’re seeing to it yourself. Kind of you.”
Marcel frowned. “Myself?”
Blanchet lifted a hand a few inches, waved it, then let it fall again as if it weighed a ton. “Didn’t pawn it off on your underlings. I appreciate the . . . respect.” He winced again. “MI6 knows, I take it? Issued an execution order?”
Marcel leaned against the door. The man’s breathing was labored, and he looked as though he was in pain. “Why did you do it, Blanchet?”
The Englishman tried a laugh, seemed to choke on it. “Money. Cliché, I know.”
How much, he wondered, had been worth turning on all his allies? “Was it worth it?”
Blanchet lifted his eyelids. “What gave it away?”
“Lucien’s radio. I couldn’t find you when I went to Rouen, though MI6 swore you were there when I was.” He shrugged. “A few other things that didn’t add up.” He frowned when the man winced again. “Are you all right?”
Another breath of laughter. “Thought . . . it would work faster than this.”
Marcel straightened. “What would?”
“Cyanide. They . . . gave me . . . too. Thought . . . thought I’d . . . own terms.”
The tablets he’d swiped from Zelie’s stash weighed like stones in his pocket, yet even so, knowing he’d had the same thought, Marcel found himself kneeling at the man’s side, gripping his shoulder. “Blanchet.”
“Arthur.” He slumped a bit against Marcel.
Marcel wanted to believe it a ploy, but the fingers he put to the agent’s neck told him his pulse was dangerously slow.
“Arthur.” How could he want to pray for the man, pray for healing, even after what he’d come in here intending to do?
How could he at once be grateful Blanchet had taken the decision away and wish he could undo it?
“Tell . . . wife . . .” He slumped, eyes going blank.
Marcel kept his fingers on the man’s neck, but no more beats came. No more breath from his nose.
He should be grateful. Was, in a way. But more than gratitude, he felt sorrow so heavy it bent him in two.
He stood, exited the room, chucked the cyanide capsules in his pocket into the nearest toilet. He strode back into the foyer. And spun for the stairs when he saw automobiles tearing up the drive, plumes of water splashing as they plowed through puddles. “Police!”
Panic clawed its way past all Zelie’s plans. The radio room hadn’t been packed yet—it couldn’t be, Henri had been sending messages every moment today. She began shoving things into boxes they’d had at the ready, Marcel dashing in to help. Not pausing, she asked, “Blanchet?”
His face was grim. “He had cyanide of his own. Had already taken it by the time I got in there. He’s gone.”
What was that squeeze in her chest? Relief? Grief?
Henri switched frequencies and started tapping in their warning again, eyes ablaze with determination. Below, the doors crashed open, shouts echoing up the stairs.
“Arrêtez! Police!”
Hurry, hurry, hurry. But even as she shoved papers into boxes with shaking hands, she knew it was too late. They were already here, there’d be no escaping.
Marcel murmured a prayer as he swept an entire table’s contents into his box. He looked up, met her eyes. “Go. Hide. We’ll make them think we’re the only ones here. That cubby in the attic—go.”
“I can’t leave—”
“Go!” Never had he yelled at her, not once, and even now his volume was low. But the intensity, the determination made up for it. “They can not catch you, Zelie! Go!”
She hesitated a moment, just one, and then obeyed. She darted out of the room and toward the attic access.
A moment too late. Hands grabbed her ankles, pulled her down. She fought, kicked, managed to twist and pull away and crash into one of the rooms along the hall and lock the door behind her. Pointless, but—well, there was a window. She could jump.
Only when she reached for the sash did she realize she still held papers in her hands—incriminating ones. The door splintered open, and she did the only thing she could think to do. She shoved the paper into her mouth and started chewing.
“Found her!” a voice shouted, and a moment later hands were on her shoulders. But then, oddly, the voice quieted. “Chew faster, madame. And scream. Make it sound like you’re fighting me.”
What? But a scream came naturally, so she let it loose.
The gendarme was craning his neck toward the door. “Hurry,” he breathed. “There’s a Gestapo agent with us, we can only cover for you so much.”
Cover for them? Was he . . . did she dare believe he was really a friend? She screamed again, not needing to feign a struggle.
Shouts had never stopped from the radio room, but over them all came the one she’d been waiting for. Henri. “QS5! QS5!”
Transmission received. Thank you, Lord.
Her relief was short-lived. A German-accented voice shouted out, “Look at this! It’s the plans for their entire radio network.”
Zelie lurched toward the door, though she had no idea what she meant to do. She forced the pulp in her mouth down her throat, nausea instantly churning.
The gendarme’s head swung her way, eyes wide. Asking, it seemed, if it were true.
She could only nod. The plans had been there, right beside Henri, because he’d still been using them.
The policeman considered for a split second and then held out an arm. “I need you to trust me. Let me help you.”