Chapter Thirty
Thirty
Zelie’s cheek stung from the slap, but that wasn’t what had her ears ringing. That roar—pain? Defeat?—that was Marcel. She would know his voice anywhere.
What were they doing to him? Where was he? The sound had echoed, reverberated, seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. She tried not to react, but her hands shook, her breath fisted in her chest.
Her interrogator laughed. He’d introduced himself as Gerhard when he’d first come in, as if he expected them to be great friends. “Ah, I see what gets your attention. Which one of your cohorts was that, do you think? Was it perhaps your beloved Greenfinch?”
They must have pulled the note from her pocket while she was unconscious, because it had been there in Gerhard’s hand when she woke up with a gasp and a face dripping from the water he’d thrown into it.
There was a knock on the metal door, and while Gerhard turned to open it, Zelie lifted a hand to probe at her cheek.
Her ankles were bound to the legs of her chair, but they’d left her arms free.
Presumably from sheer optimism, since the interrogator had demanded she write down the names of all the agents she knew and their call signs.
She’d stared him dead in the eye and said in a tremulous voice, “I can’t. I can’t remember them.”
No doubt they’d figure out soon enough, if they hadn’t already, that she knew far more than they’d think. But until they left her no other recourse, she intended to play dumb.
It had worked plenty of times before.
She tried to listen to the conversation in the corridor, but it was too hushed for her to make out much more than . . . Noah? She frowned. Then recalled that they’d taken to calling Alliance Noah’s Ark. That must be what they were talking about.
A moment later, Gerhard returned, and her stomach sank at the smug look on his face. “As it turns out, we don’t need anything from you after all. It seems your esteemed leader has told us everything.”
The very fact that they called one of her colleagues her leader said he didn’t know as much as he thought. But even so, that scream . . .
Had Marcel let something slip? He wouldn’t if he could help it, she knew that. But men cracked under torture all the time, and that was when they’d had training to resist it.
What training did any of them have in such things? He was a musician, she a wife and mother. Nothing in his years at conservatory would have prepared him for this, any more than her years as . . .
Actually, come to think of it. Jacques had taught her quite a bit about smiling when she was crying inside.
And Marcel? He’d already survived a POW camp.
He could maintain order in a group of seventy young men who could be clowns as easily as they could be serious.
He’d somehow survived loving her for the last year and a half without going mad from it.
He too was made of sterner stuff than one might think.
Gerhard folded his arms over his chest. And sneered.
“You make me sick, you know that? It’s degenerate women like you who make it clear your people need the guiding hand of the Reich.
How many of them did you seduce? Navarre, Noah, Greenfinch—who else?
All of them? Were you the company light-skirts? ”
She glared . . . and tried to make sense of the list of names. Who was Noah? And did they actually know who Greenfinch was or—
“Laurent will be dead tomorrow.” This he delivered cooly, calmly.
“Perhaps that won’t even faze you, you whore.
But we have the others too. Chamois and Eagle and Beaver and Greenfinch.
We have Honey Badger and Wolf and Fox. We have the whole ark, and there’s nothing you can do to save any of them now. ”
Gerhard yanked the door open, let it slam against the wall, and barked out, “Take her to her cell!” Over his shoulder, he gave her one last sneer. “Perhaps you’ll be readier to chat tomorrow.”
Her head spun as soldiers untied her and then all but carried her to a cell. Her hip gave out again at the first step. But she didn’t try to still her mind, not yet. Not while they were there, their hands on her arms. Crowding her.
They tossed her into a bare cell, stones on three walls and bars for the fourth, straight out of some kind of medieval dungeon.
Zelie collapsed to the floor. Pressed her forehead to the cold stones. And wept.
They were lying. They couldn’t have Honey Badger—she was Honey Badger. The other names, they’d been nowhere near that police lorry. They were lying.
And yet . . . they weren’t about everything. They did have Marcel, and someone must have recognized him, otherwise they’d have no reason to tie his real name to Alliance.
Was that part true, then? Would he be dead by tomorrow? Was that soul-piercing bellow his reaction when they told him? Or . . . or had they given him a lie too? Perhaps told him she was dead?
Noah . . . your leader.
She sucked in a breath and raised her head. He’d known the Nazis called them Noah’s Ark. He must have . . . idiot man. He’d told them he was their leader. Did that mean a quick execution, or would they try to pry as much information out of him as they could?
Metal clanged, keys rattled, feet shuffled outside her cell. And then another door slammed, and silence. They’d left her alone.
Easing up, she winced as her hip protested. But it wouldn’t get better down here on the floor. She pulled herself up and went through the stretches that would ease everything back into place.
Urgency weighed heavy on her spirit as she got her body in working order. That same thrumming chant picked up in her mind again, as it had done that last day at the hotel. Hurry, hurry, hurry.
But hurry and . . . what? Was the Lord trying to warn her that someone would come to their rescue, and she needed to be ready? But who would come? No one knew they were here, no one could. Everyone else had gone to their new headquarters or scattered.
They were on their own, here in this medieval prison. Her, Marcel, Henri, presumably. What about Daviau and his men? Were they here too?
The chant shifted, Sister Ursule’s voice echoing in her memory again. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Zelie pressed on the knee of her bad leg, leaned forward, and twisted away from the painful side.
She knew God was here—always here. But he didn’t always choose to rescue.
He let Navarre get arrested, Gabriel, Lucien, so many others.
Thus far she’d been saved, yes . . . but what if her physical salvation had only been to guarantee her spiritual? To get her to the point of surrender?
What if her work, their work here on earth was done? What if all of Alliance was done, now that there was no more Free France?
Tears burned, and it wasn’t because of the stretch in her hip.
She wasn’t ready to be finished. She wanted to hold her children again and marvel at how much they’d grown.
To marry Marcel. To see what life could be like with a family built on the right foundations.
She wanted to teach her daughter she could chase whatever dreams seized her heart and watch her son grow into a man who would cherish and protect those God put in his care.
She wanted to weep into her mother’s shoulder. Cheer in victory with her brother.
She wanted to see her neighbors free again, truly free.
But maybe . . . maybe that wasn’t what God was calling her to. She went still, let her eyes slide shut. How many times must she struggle to submit her will to his? At least once more. Even if the end was near, at least once more.
Your will, Father, she said over and again in her mind. Your will, not mine. Your will on earth as it is in heaven. Your perfect will.
She sank back down to the cold stones and drew her knees to her chest. If this is my end, then still you are God. If this is my end, then take the work I’ve done already and build on it how you will. If this is my end, then make me yours.
Resting her head against her knees, she drew in a deep breath.
And if this is your beginning?
Images bombarded her, too familiar. This position, but tighter, in a mailbag. Darkness and pressure and pain, pain, pain.
She gasped and opened her eyes again, but the impressions still echoed—not memory, but words. You thought that was your end—but it was your beginning. Behold, I make all things new. I knit you together, just so, in your mother’s womb. My mercies are new every morning.
She let go of her knees, stretched out her legs. Lifted her eyes to the bars of her cell. What were the chances . . . ?
Pushing to her feet, she turned sideways and pressed against the bars. She didn’t fit.
But then, she hadn’t fit in the mailbag either, not on her first try.
Lord? Was this her foolish imagination or his prodding?
She didn’t hear his voice this time—but something close. Keys running up a piano. Was she going mad? Imagining things? There shouldn’t be a piano in a place like this.
But it spurred her into action. She stripped off her shoes, her stockings, her skirt and blouse and put them all in a pile right by the bars.
Then she sucked in a breath, drew herself up as tall and thin as she could, and did what she’d done for the mailbag.
She moved one body part at a time, deliberately.
A leg through—easy—then worked her good hip centimeter by centimeter, keeping her torso inside the cell.