Ken Follett - Jackdaws

by Jackdaws [lit]

  "Not yet," he said. Michel was the only hope he had left. It was too soon to risk losing that weapon. "We'll wait."

  Dieter and Hans walked to the end of the street and watched the LaperriŠre place from the corner. There were a tall, elegant house, a courtyard full of empty barrels, and a low industrial building with a flat roof Dieter guessed the cellars ran beneath the flat-roofed building. Moulier's van was parked in the yard.

  Dieter's pulse was racing. Any moment now, Michel would reappear with Flick and the other Jackdaws, he guessed. They would get into the van, ready to drive to their target-and Dieter and the Gestapo would move in and arrest them.

  As they watched, Michel came out of the low building. He wore a frown and he stood indecisively in the yard, looking around him in a perplexed fashion. Hans said, "What's the matter with him?"

  Dieter's heart sank. "Something he didn't expect." Surely Flick had not evaded him again?

  After a minute, Michel climbed the short flight of steps to the door of the house and knocked. A maid in a little white cap let him in.

  He came out again a few minutes later. He still looked puzzled, but he was no longer indecisive. He walked to the van, got in, and turned it around.

  Dieter cursed. It seemed the Jackdaws were not here. Michel appeared just as surprised as Dieter was, but that was small consolation.

  Dieter had to find out what had happened here. He said to Hans, "We'll do the same as last night, only this time you follow Michel and I'll raid the place."

  Hans started his motorcycle.

  Dieter watched Michel drive away in Moulier's van, followed at a discreet distance by Hans Hesse on his motorcycle. When they were out of sight, he summoned the three Gestapo men with a wave and walked quickly to the LaperriŠre house.

  He pointed at two of the men. "Check the house. Make sure no one leaves." Nodding at the third man, he said, "You and I will search the winery." He led the way into the low building.

  On the ground floor there was a large grape press and three enormous vats. The press was pristine: the harvest was three or four months away. There was no one present but an old man sweeping the floor. Dieter found the stairs and ran down. In the cool underground chamber there was more activity: racked bottles were being turned by a handful of blue-coated workers. They stopped and stared at the intruders.

  Dieter and the Gestapo man searched room after room of bottles of champagne, thousands of them, some stacked against the walls, others racked slantwise with the necks down in special A-shaped frames. But there were no women anywhere.

  In an alcove at the far end of the last tunnel, Dieter found crumbs of bread, cigarette ends, and a hair clip. His worst fears were dismally confirmed. The Jackdaws had spent the night here. But they had escaped.

  He cast about for a focus for his anger. The workers would probably know nothing about the Jackdaws, but the owner must have given permission for them to hide here. He would suffer for it. Dieter returned to the ground floor, crossed the yard, and went to the house. A Gestapo man opened the door. "They're all in the front room," he said.

  Dieter entered a large, gracious room with elegant but shabby furnishings: heavy curtains that had not been cleaned for years, a worn carpet, a long dining table and a matching set of twelve chairs. The terrified household staff were standing at the near end of the room: the maid who opened the door, an elderly man who looked like a butler in his threadbare black suit, and a plump woman wearing an apron who must have been the cook. A Gestapo man held a pistol pointed at them. At the far end of the table sat a thin woman of about fifty, with red hair threaded with silver, dressed in a summer frock of pale yellow silk. She had an air of calm superiority.

  Dieter turned to the Gestapo man and said in a low voice, "Where's the husband?"

  "He left the house at eight. They don't know where he went. He's expected home for lunch."

  Dieter gave the woman a hard look. "Madame Laperriere?"

  She nodded gravely but did not deign to speak. Dieter decided to puncture her dignity. Some German officers behaved with deference to upper-class French people, but Dieter thought they were fools. He would not pander to her by walking the length of the room to speak to her. "Bring her to me," he said.

  One of the men spoke to her. Slowly, she got up from her chair and approached Dieter. "What do you want?" she said.

  "A group of terrorists from England escaped from me yesterday after killing two German officers and a French woman civilian."

  "I'm sorry to hear that," said Madame Laperriere.

  "They tied the woman up and shot her in the back of the head at point-blank range," he went on. "Her brains spilled out onto her dress."

  She closed her eyes and turned her head aside. Dieter went on, "Last night your husband sheltered those terrorists in your cellar. Can you think of any reason why he should not be hanged?"

  Behind him, the maid began to cry.

  Madame Laperriere was shaken. Her face turned pale and she sat down suddenly. "No, please," she whispered.

  Dieter said, "You can help your husband by telling me what you know."

  "I don't know anything," she said in a low voice. "They came after dinner, and they left before dawn. I never saw them."

  "How did they leave? Did your husband provide them with a car?"

  She shook her head. "We have no gas."

  "Then how do you deliver the champagne you make?"

  "Our customers have to come to us."

  Dieter did not believe her. He felt sure Flick needed transportation. That was why Michel had borrowed a van from Philippe Moulier and brought it here. Yet, when Michel got here, Flick and the Jackdaws had gone. They must have found alternative means of transport and decided to go on ahead. No doubt Flick had left a message explaining the situation and telling Michel to catch up with her.

  Dieter said, "Are you asking me to believe they left here on foot?"

  "No," she replied. "I'm telling you that I don't know. When I woke up, they had gone."

  Dieter still thought she was lying, but to get the truth out of her would take time and patience, and he was running out of both. "Arrest them all," he said, and his angry frustration injected a petulant note into his voice.

  The phone rang in the hall. Dieter stepped out of the dining room and picked it up.

  A voice with a German accent said, "Let me speak to Major Franck."

  "This is he."

  "Lieutenant Hesse here, Major."

  "Hans, what happened?"

  "I'm at the station. Michel parked the van and bought a ticket to Marles. The train is about to leave."

  It was as Dieter had thought. The Jackdaws had gone ahead and left instructions for Michel to join them. They were still planning to blow up the railway tunnel. He felt frustrated that Flick was continuing to stay one step ahead of him. However, she had not been able to escape him completely. He was still on her tail. He would catch her soon. "Get on the train, quickly," he said to Hans. "Stay with him. I'll meet you at Marles."

  "Very good," said Hans, and he hung up.

  Dieter returned to the dining room. "Call the chƒteau and have them send transportation," he said to the Gestapo men. "Turn all the prisoners over to Sergeant Becker for interrogation. Tell him to start with Madame." He pointed to the driver. "You can drive me to Marles."

  CHAPTER 47

  IN THE CAF de La Gare, near the railway station, Flick and Paul had a breakfast of ersatz coffee, black bread, and sausage with little or no meat in it. Ruby, Jelly, and Greta sat at a separate table, not acknowledging them. Flick kept an eye on the street outside.

  She knew that Michel was in terrible danger. She had contemplated going to warn him. She could have gone to the Moulier place-but that would have played into the hands of the Gestapo, who must be following Michelin the hope that he would lead them to her. Even to phone the Moulier place would have risked betraying her hideout to a Gestapo eavesdropper at the telephone exchange. In fact, she had decided, the best thing she cou
ld do to help Michel was not to contact him directly. If her theory was right, Dieter Franck would let Michel remain at large until Flick was caught.

  So she had left a message for Michel with Madame LapemŠre. It read:

  Michel- I am sure you are under surveillance. The place we were at last night was raided after you left. You have probably been followed this morning. We will leave before you get here and make ourselves inconspicuous in the town center. Park the van near the railway station and leave the key under the driver's seat. Get a train to Marles. Shake off your shadow and come back.

  Be careful-please!

  -Flick

  Now burn this.

  It seemed good in theory, but she waited all morning in a fever of tension to see whether it would work.

  Then, at eleven o'clock, she saw a high van draw up and park near the station entrance. Flick held her breath. On the side, in white lettering, she read Moulier Fils-Viandes.

  Michel got out, and she breathed again.

  He walked into the station. He was carrying out her plan.

  She looked to see who might be following him, but it was impossible. People arrived at the station constantly, on foot, on bicycles, and in cars, and any of them might have been shadowing Michel.

  She remained in the caf‚, pretending to drink the bitter, unsatisfying coffee substitute, keeping an eye on the van, trying to discover whether it was under surveillance. She studied the people and vehicles coming and going outside the station, but she did not spot anyone who might have been watching the van. After fifteen minutes, she nodded to Paul. They got up, picked up their cases, and walked out.

  Flick opened the van door and got into the driver's seat. Paul got in the other side. Flick's heart was in her mouth. If this was a Gestapo trap, now would be the moment when they arrested her. She fumbled beneath her seat and found a key. She started the van.

  She looked around. No one seemed to have noticed her. Ruby, Jelly, and Greta came out of the caf‚. Flick jerked her head to indicate that they should get in the back.

  She looked over her shoulder. The van was fitted out with shelves and cupboards, and trays for ice to keep the temperature down. Everything looked as if it had been well scrubbed, but there remained a faint, unpleasant odor of raw meat.

  The rear doors opened. The other three women threw their suitcases into the van and clambered in after them. Ruby pulled the doors shut.

  Flick put the gearshift into first and drove away.

  "We did it!" Jelly said. "Thank gordon."

  Flick smiled thinly. The hard part was still ahead.

  She drove out of town on the road to Sainte-C‚cile. She watched for police cars and Gestapo Citro‰ns, but she felt fairly safe for the moment. The van's lettering announced its legitimacy. And it was not unusual for a woman to be driving such a vehicle, when so many Frenchmen were in labor camps in Germany-or had fled to the hills and joined the Maquis to avoid being sent to the camps.

  Soon after midday they reached Sainte-C‚cile. Flick noted the sudden miraculous quiet that always fell on French streets at the stroke of noon, as the people turned their attention to the first serious meal of the day. She drove to Antoinette's building. A pair of tall wooden doors, half-open, led to the inner courtyard. Paul leaped out of the van and opened the doors, Flick drove in, and Paul closed the doors behind her. Now the van, with its distinctive legend, could not be seen from the street.

  "Come when I whistle," Flick said, and she jumped out. She went to Antoinette's door while the others waited in the van. Last time she had knocked on this door, eight days and a lifetime ago, Michel's aunt Antoinette had hesitated to answer, jumpy on account of the gunfire from the square, but today she came right away. She opened the door, a slim middle-aged woman in a stylish but faded yellow cotton dress. She looked blankly at Flick for a moment: Flick still had on the dark wig. Then recognition dawned. "You!" she said. A look of panic came over her face. "What do you want?"

  Flick whistled to the others, then pushed Antoinette back inside. "Don't worry," she said. "We're going to tie you up so the Germans will think we forced you."

  "What is this?" Antoinette said shakily

  "I'll explain in a moment. Are you alone?"

  "Yes."

  "Good."

  The others came in and Ruby closed the apartment door. They went into Antoinette's kitchen. A meal was laid out on the table: black bread, a salad of shredded carrots, a heel of cheese, a wine bottle without a label. Antoinette said again, "What is this?"

  "Sit down," Flick said. "Finish your lunch."

  She sat down, but she said, "I can't eat."

  "It's very simple," Flick said. "You and your ladies are not going to clean the chƒteau tonight... we are."

  She looked baffled. "How will that happen?"

  "We're going to send notes to each of the women on duty tonight, telling them to come here and see you before they go to work. When they arrive, we will tie them up. Then we will go to the chƒteau instead of them."

  "You can't, you don't have passes."

  "Yes, we do."

  "How... ?" Antoinette gasped. "You stole my pass! Last Sunday. I thought I had lost it. I got into the most terrible trouble with the Germans!"

  "I'm sorry you got into trouble."

  "But this will be worse-you're going to blow the place up!" Antoinette began to moan and rock. "They'll blame me, you know what they're like, we'll all be tortured."

  Flick gritted her teeth. She knew that Antoinette could be right. The Gestapo might easily kill the real cleaners just in case they had had something to do with the deception. "We're going to do everything we can to make you look innocent," she said. "You will be our victims, the same as the Germans." All the same, there remained a risk, Flick knew.

  "They won't believe us," Antoinette moaned. "We might be killed."

  Flick hardened her heart. "Yes," she said. "That's why it's called a war."

  CHAPTER 48

  MARLES WAS A small town to the east of Reims, where the railway line began its long climb into the mountains on its way to Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and Nuremberg. The tunnel just beyond the town carried a constant stream of supplies from the home country to the German forces occupying France. The destruction of the tunnel would starve Rommel of ammunition.

  The town itself looked Bavarian, with half-timbered houses painted in bright colors. The town hall stood on the leafy square opposite the railway station. The local Gestapo chief had taken over the mayor's grand office and now stood poring over a map with Dieter Franck and a Captain Bern, who was in charge of the military guard on the tunnel.

  "I have twenty men at each end of the tunnel and another group constantly patrolling the mountain," said Bern. "The Resistance would need a large force to overcome them."

  Dieter frowned. According to the confession of the lesbian he had interrogated, Diana Colefield, Flick had started with a team of six women, including herself, and must now be down to four. However, she might have joined up with another group, or made contact with more French Resistance cadres in and around Marles. "They have plenty of people," he said. "The French think the invasion is coming."

  "But a large force is hard to conceal. So far we have seen nothing suspicious."

  Bern was short and slight and wore spectacles with thick lenses, which was presumably why he was stationed in this backwater rather than with a fighting unit, but he struck Dieter as an intelligent and efficient young officer. Dieter was inclined to take what he said at face value.

  Dieter said, "How vulnerable is the tunnel to explosives?"

  "It goes through solid rock. Of course it can be destroyed, but they will need a truckload of dynamite."

  "They have plenty of dynamite."

  "But they need to get it here-again, without our seeing it."

  "Indeed." Dieter turned to the Gestapo chief "Have you received any reports of strange vehicles, or a group of people arriving in the town?"

  "None at all. There is only one hotel in
town, and at present it has no guests. My men visited the bars and restaurants at lunchtime, as they do every day, and saw nothing unusual."

  Captain Bern said hesitantly, "Is it conceivable, Major, that the report you received, of an attack on the tunnel, was some kind of deception? A diversion, as it were, to draw your attention away from the real target?"

  That infuriating possibility had already begun to dawn on Dieter. He knew from bitter experience that Flick Clairet was a master of deception. Had she fooled him again? The thought was too humiliating to contemplate. "I interrogated the informant myself, and I'm sure she was being honest," Dieter replied, trying hard to keep the rage out of his voice. "But you could still be right. It's possible she had been misinformed, deliberately, as a precaution."