"You're in the army," Flick said. "It's much the same thing. So drink your cocoa and go to bed."
They drifted off one by one until only Diana was left. Flick had been expecting this. Seeing the two women in a sexual clinch had been a real shock. She recalled that at school some of the girls had developed crushes on one another, sending loving notes, holding hands, and sometimes even kissing; but as far as she knew it had not gone any further. At some point she and Diana had practiced French kissing on one another, so that they would know what to do when they got boyfriends, and now Flick guessed those kisses had meant more to Diana than they had to her. But she had never known a grown woman who desired other women. Theoretically, she was aware that they existed, the female equivalents of her brother Mark and of Greta, but she had never really imagined them... well, feeling each other up in a garden shed.
Did it matter? Not in everyday life. Mark and his kind were happy, or at least they were when people left them alone. But would Diana's relationship with Maude affect the mission? Not necessarily. Flick herself worked with her husband in the Resistance, after all. This was not quite the same, admittedly. A passionate new romance might prove a distraction.
Flick could try to keep the two lovers separate-but that might make Diana even more insubordinate. And the affair could just as easily be an inspiration. Flick had been trying desperately to get the women to work together as a team, and this might help. She had decided to leave well enough alone. But Diana wanted to talk.
"It's not what it seems, really it isn't," Diana said without preamble. "Christ, you've got to believe me. It was just a stupid thing, a joke-"
"Would you like more cocoa?" Flick said. "I think there's some left in the jug."
Diana stared at her, nonplussed. After a moment she said, "How can you talk about cocoa?"
"I just want you to calm down and realize that the world is not going to come to an end simply because you kissed Maude. You kissed me, once-remember?"
"I knew you'd bring that up. But that was just kid stuff With Maude, it wasn't just a kiss." Diana sat down. Her proud face crumpled and she began to cry. "You know it was more than that, you could see, oh, God, the things I did. What on earth did you think?"
Flick chose her words carefully. "I thought the two of you looked very sweet."
"Sweet?" Diana was incredulous. "You weren't disgusted?"
"Certainly not. Maude is a pretty girl, and you appear to have fallen in love with her."
"That's exactly what happened."
"So stop being ashamed."
"How can I not be ashamed? I'm queer!"
"I wouldn't look at it that way if I were you. You ought to be discreet, to avoid offending narrow-minded people such as Jelly, but there's no need for shame."
"Will I always be like this?"
Flick considered. The answer was probably yes, but she did not want to be brutal. "Look," she said, "I think some people, like Maude, just love to be loved, and they can be made happy by a man or a woman." In truth, Maude was shallow, selfish, and tarty, but Flick suppressed that thought firmly. "Others are more inflexible," she went on. "You should keep an open mind."
"I suppose that's the end of the mission for me and Maude."
"It most certainly is not."
"You'll still take us?"
"I still need you. And I don't see why this should make any difference."
Diana took out a handkerchief and blew her nose. Flick got up and went to the window, giving her time to recover her composure. After a minute, Diana spoke in a calmer voice. "You're frightfully kind," she said with a touch of her old hauteur.
"Go to bed," Flick said.
Diana got up obediently.
"And if I were you..
"What?"
"I'd go to bed with Maude."
Diana looked shocked.
Flick shrugged. "It may be your last chance," she said. "Thank you," Diana whispered. She stepped toward Flick and spread her arms, as if to hug her; then she stopped. "You may not want me to kiss you," she said.
"Don't be silly," Flick said, and embraced her.
"Goodnight," said Diana. She left the room.
Flick turned and looked out at the garden. The moon was three-quarters full. In a few days' time it would be full, and the Allies would invade France. A wind was disturbing the new leaves in the forest: the weather was going to change. She hoped there would not be a storm in the English Channel. The entire invasion plan could be ruined by the capricious British climate. She guessed a lot of people were praying for good weather.
She ought to get some sleep. She left the room and climbed the stairs. She thought of what she had said to Diana: I'd go to bed with Maude. It may be your last chance. She hesitated outside Paul's door. It was different for Diana-she was single. Flick was married.
But it might be her last chance.
She knocked at the door and stepped inside.
CHAPTER 26
SUNK IN GLOOM, Dieter returned to the chƒteau at Sainte-C‚cile in the Citro‰n with the radio detection team. He went to the wireless listening room in the bombproofed basement. Willi Weber was there, looking angry. The one consolation from tonight's fiasco, Dieter thought, was that Weber was not able to crow that he had succeeded where Dieter had failed. But Dieter could have put up with all the triumphalism Weber could muster in return for having Helicopter in the torture chamber.
"You have the message he sent?" Dieter asked.
Weber handed him a carbon copy of the typed message. "It has already been sent to the cryptanalysis office in Berlin."
Dieter looked at the meaningless strings of letters. "They won't be able to decode it. He's using a one-time pad." He folded the sheet and slipped it into his pocket.
"What can you do with it?" Weber said.
"I have a copy of his code book," Dieter said. It was a petty victory, but he felt better.
Weber swallowed. "The message may tell us where he is."
"Yes. He's scheduled to receive a reply at eleven p.m." He looked at his watch. It was a few minutes before eleven. "Let's record that, and I will decrypt the two together."
Weber left. Dieter waited in the windowless room. On the dot of eleven, a receiver tuned to Helicopter's listening frequency began to chatter with the long-and-short beeps of Morse. An operator wrote the letters down while at the same time a wire recorder ran. When the chattering stopped, the operator pulled a typewriter toward him and typed out what he had on his notepad. He gave Dieter a carbon copy.
The two messages could be everything or nothing, Dieter thought as he got behind the wheel of his own car. The moon was bright as he followed the twisting road through the vineyards to Reims and parked in the rue du Bois. It was good weather for an invasion.
Stephanie was waiting for him in the kitchen of Mademoiselle Lemas's house. He put the coded messages on the table and took out the copies Stephanie had made of the pad and the silk handkerchief. He rubbed his eyes and began to decode the first message, the one Helicopter had sent, writing the decrypt on the scratch pad Mademoiselle Lemas had used to make her shopping lists.
Stephanie brewed a pot of coffee. She looked over his shoulder for a while, asked a couple of questions, then took the second message and began to decode it herself.
Dieter's decrypt gave a concise account of the incident at the cathedral, naming Dieter as Charenton and saying he had been recruited by Bourgeoise (Mademoiselle Lemas) because she was worried about the security of the rendezvous. It said Monet (Michel) had taken the unusual step of phoning Bourgeoise to confirm that Charenton was trustworthy, and he was satisfied.
It listed the code names of those members of the Bollinger circuit who had not fallen in the battle last Sunday and were still active. There were only four.
It was useful, but it did not tell him where to find the spies.
He drank a cup of coffee while he waited for Stephanie to finish. She handed him a sheet of paper covered with her flamboyant handwriting.
&
nbsp; When he read it, he could hardly believe his luck. It said:
PREPARE RECEIVE GROUP OF SIX NUMBER PARACHUTISTS CODENAMED JACKDAWS LEADER LEOPARDESS ARRIVING
ELEVEN PIP EMMA FRIDAY SECOND JUNE
CHAMP DE PIERRE.
"My God," he whispered.
Champ de Pierre was a code name, but Dieter knew what it meant, for Gaston had told him during the very first interrogation. It was a drop zone in a pasture outside Chatelle, a small village five miles from Reims. Dieter now knew exactly where Helicopter and Michel would be tomorrow night, and could pick them up.
He could also capture six more Allied agents as they parachuted to earth.
And one of them was "Leopardess": Flick Clairet, the woman who knew more than anyone else about the French Resistance, the woman who, under torture, would give him the information he needed to break the back of the Resistance-just in time to stop them aiding the invasion force.
"Jesus Christ Almighty," Dieter said. "What a break."
THE SIXTH DAY Friday, June 2,1944
CHAPTER 27
PAUL AND FLICK were talking.
They lay side by side on his bed. The lights were off, but the moon shone through the window. He was naked, as he had been when she entered the room. He always slept naked. He wore pajamas only to walk along the corridor to the bathroom.
He had been asleep when she came in, but he had wakened fast and leaped out of bed, his unconscious mind assuming that a clandestine visit in the night must mean the Gestapo. He had had his hands around her throat before he realized who it was.
He was astonished, thrilled, and grateful. He had closed the door, then kissed her, standing there, for a long time. He was unprepared, and it felt like a dream. He was afraid he might wake up.
She had caressed him, feeling his shoulders and his back and his chest. Her hands were soft but her touch was firm, exploring. "You have a lot of hair," she had whispered.
"Like an ape."
"But not as handsome," she teased.
He looked at her lips, delighting in the way they moved when she spoke, thinking that in a moment he would touch them with his own, and it would be lovely. He smiled. "Let's lie down."
They lay on the bed, facing one another, but she did not take off any clothes, not even her shoes. He found it strangely exciting to be naked with a woman who was fully dressed. He enjoyed it so much that he was in no hurry to move to the next base. He wanted this moment to last forever.
"Tell me something," she said in a lazy, sensual voice.
"What?"
"Anything. I feel I don't know you."
What was this? He had never had a girl behave like this. She came to his room in the night, she lay on his bed but kept her clothes on; then she questioned him. "Is that why you came?" he said lightly, watching her face. "To interrogate me?"
She laughed softly. "Don't worry, I want to make love to you, but not in a hurry. Tell me about your first lover."
He stroked her cheek with light fingertips, tracing the curve of her jaw. He did not know what she wanted, where she was going. She had thrown him off balance. "Can we touch while we talk?"
"Yes."
He kissed her lips. "And kiss, too?"
"Yes."
"Then I think we should talk for just a little while, maybe a year or two."
"What was her name?"
Flick was not as confident as she pretended to be, he decided. In fact she was nervous, and that was the reason for the questions. If it made her comfortable, he would answer. "Her name was Linda. We were terribly young-I'm embarrassed at how young we were. The first time I kissed her, she was twelve, and I was fourteen, can you imagine?"
"Of course I can." She giggled, and for an instant she was a girl again. "I used to kiss boys when I was twelve."
"We always had to pretend we were going out with a bunch of friends, and usually we started the evening that way, but pretty soon we would peel off from the crowd and go to a movie or something. We did that for a couple of years before we had real sex."
"Where was this, in America?"
"Paris. My father was military attach‚ at the embassy. Linda's parents owned a hotel that catered specially for
American visitors. We used to run with a whole crowd of expatriate kids."
"Where did you make love?"
"In the hotel. We had it easy. There were always empty rooms."
"What was it like the first time? Did you use any, you know, precautions?"
"She stole one of her father's rubbers."
Flick's fingertips traced a course down his belly. He closed his eyes. She said, "Who put it on?"
"She did. It was very exciting. I nearly came right then. And if you're not careful..
She moved her hand to his hip. "I'd like to have known you when you were sixteen."
He opened his eyes. He no longer wanted to make this moment last forever. In fact, he found he was in a great hurry to move on. "Would you..." His mouth was dry, and he swallowed. "Would you like to take off some clothes?"
"Yes. But speaking of precautions..
"In my billfold. On the bedside table."
"Good." She sat upright and unlaced her shoes, throwing them on the floor. She stood up and unbuttoned her blouse. She was tense, he could see, so he said, "Take your time we have all night."
It was a couple of years since Paul had watched a woman undress. He had been living on a diet of pinups, and they always wore elaborate confections of silk and lace, corsets and garter belts and transparent negligees. Flick was wearing a loose cotton chemise, not a brassiere, and he guessed that the small, neat breasts he could see tantalizingly outlined beneath it did not need support. She dropped her skirt. Her panties were plain white cotton with frills around the legs. Her body was tiny but muscular. She looked like a schoolgirl getting changed for hockey practice, but he found that more exciting than a pinup.
She lay down again. "Is that better?" she said.
He stroked her hip, feeling the warm skin, then the soft cotton, then skin again. She was not yet ready, he could tell. He forced himself to be patient and let her set the pace. "You haven't told me about your first time," he said.
To his surprise, she blushed. "It wasn't as nice as yours."
"In what way?"
"It was a horrible place, a dusty storeroom."
He felt indignant. What kind of idiot could take a girl as special as Flick and submit her to a furtive quickie in a cupboard? "How old were you?"
"Twenty-two."
He had expected her to say seventeen. "Jeepers. At that age you deserve a comfortable bed."
"That wasn't it, though."
She was relaxing again, Paul could tell. He encouraged her to talk some more. "So what was wrong?"
"Probably that I didn't really want to do it. I was talked into it."
"Didn't you love the guy?"
"Yes, I did. But I wasn't ready."
"What was his name?"
"I don't want to tell you."
Paul guessed it was her husband, Michel, and decided not to question her any more. He kissed her and said, "May I touch your breasts?"
"You can touch anything you like."
No one had ever said that to him. He found her openness startling and exciting. He began to explore her body. In his experience, most women closed their eyes at this point, but she kept hers open, studying his face with a mixture of desire and curiosity that inflamed him more. It was as if by watching him she was exploring him, instead of the other way around. His hands discovered the pert shape of her breasts, and his fingertips got to know her shy nipples, learning what they liked. He took off her panties. She had curly hair the color of honey, lots of it, and under the hair, on the left side, a birthmark like a splash of tea. He bent his head and kissed her there, his lips feeling the crisp brush of her hair, his tongue tasting her moisture.
He sensed her yielding to pleasure. Her nervousness vanished. Her arms and legs spread out in a star shape, slack, abandoned, but
her hips strained toward him eagerly. He explored the folds of her sex with slow delight. Her movements became more urgent.
She pushed his head away. Her face was flushed and she was breathing hard. She reached across to the bedside table, opened his billfold, and found the rubbers, three of them in a small paper packet. She ripped the pack with fumbling fingers, took one out, and put it on him. Then she straddled him as he lay on his back. She bent to kiss him, and said into his ear, "Oh, boy, you feel so good inside me." Then she sat upright and began to move.
Ken Follett - Jackdaws Page 24
