Flame of Resistance

by Tracy Groot

  “She is a German! It was her duty!”

  Wallen convulsively gripped the stock of his rifle. Kreutz began to softly hum the song of the Volga boatmen.

  “Johann,” Krista said.

  She came to his side. She placed a small hand over his on the rifle stock. She stood on her toes and whispered, as she had done to countless prisoners. The words flowed into his ear, and the wall of red wavered. She whispered again, and it buckled. Breathing hard, Wallen lowered the rifle.

  “This wouldn’t happen if Metzger was here,” he told Schiffer.

  “Is everything all right?” someone called from the hallway. A rifle nosed into view. One of the front house guards looked in. “Sturmbann—”

  “Yes, yes!” Schiffer said. “Get back to your post!” To Wallen, he said, “Metzger wouldn’t have gotten this confession.” Pride flushed Schiffer’s cheeks. He displayed the unconscious, dangling ball of battered flesh with a flourish. “Behold, my brave young soldier: Greenland.”

  “You think he’s Greenland,” Wallen sneered. “Even I’m not that stupid.”

  “Yes . . . it would be welcome news to my friend, here.”

  All turned to behold the strapping German officer who now filled the doorway. He pushed a bound and gagged little Frenchman into the room.

  “I tried to tell you!” came the indignant cry of Hermann, who writhed, unattended, on the hallway floor.

  Hauptmann Braun made use of his size, uniform, and bearing when he strolled into the interrogation room. He placed his briefcase on the table, glancing at Krista Hegel’s report. He touched the report, drew it over with a fingertip, pretended to read a few lines, using the time to gather himself.

  He had been unprepared for the sight of the American pilot, trussed up and dangling beneath an A-frame ladder, beaten to a slick, gruesome pulp, his bound hands purple and white; but when he saw Krista Hegel’s face, he had to summon composure from the four corners of his being, he had to find it from Elsewhere, and he cried out in his heart for aid.

  Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.

  Stick to cement. Cement, cement.

  He raised an eyebrow at Schiffer. “I regret, Sturmbannführer, with respect for your dedication to duty, that the pilot’s confession must have been to protect the young woman.” He glanced at the two guards, rifles gripped and pointing at the floor, unsure but ready to engage conflict. He looked at Krista. “Young lady, I know the good German stock from which you come; I fear you will protest your removal, in light of the momentous revelations about to take place—a victory for the Führer, and indeed, for the sturmbannführer—” Braun inclined his head to Schiffer—“but I request that your wounds be attended to, in order that you may swiftly return to serve the Reich in the full of good health. Perhaps one of these men can escort you to the infirmary?”

  Krista placed her hand on the arm of the guard nearest her. His arm came around her, and when she looked up into his face, Braun knew his plans for Franz were over. At least the look the boy gave her in return mollified Braun. Krista was safe. Nothing could happen to her with this fellow around. Surely, this was the guard who had helped her give the pilot water.

  Schiffer’s face was a comedy of fluctuation. He stared at Rousseau. He stared at Braun. He stared at Rousseau. His mouth had fallen to an unflattering gape.

  Braun pulled out a chair for Rousseau and motioned him to sit, then went to the door. He watched the soldier walk away with Krista, tenderly gazing down at her. He looked down at Hermann. “Get out of here.”

  Hermann struggled to his feet, clutching his arm, and hurried after the two. Braun turned to the other soldier. “I request for you to take up position at the other end of the hallway.”

  The soldier saluted smartly and trotted after Krista and her guard.

  “She could have taken notes!” Schiffer scorned when Braun came back in. Braun ignored him and tried to pull the door shut. The blown-apart lock would not allow the door to close properly.

  “Keep your voice down. Of course she could have taken notes.” He dragged over a chair to keep the door shut, then turned to Schiffer and gave him a first taste: “You complete, and utter, and absolute fool.”

  Stunned, Schiffer’s mouth fell lower.

  Braun went to the pathetic dangling hulk. He touched the blond head, damp with blood. “Get over here,” he barked at Schiffer.

  Schiffer complied slowly, likely from some unpleasant instinct that told him things had radically changed.

  Braun had feared the American was dead, but when Schiffer pulled a metal pin and grasped the chain to lower him, a small groan escaped the pilot. Braun flashed a look at Rousseau and saw torment in the brown eyes.

  It took some time to unloose the boy. His limbs were swollen and purpled from untold hours in the cramped position. Braun cut his hands free with a pocketknife, pulled away the rod, and when he carefully straightened out his limbs, another groan rumbled, stronger, and he gave Rousseau a swift and discreet nod. He was almost certain the Frenchman was blinking back tears. Schiffer was too occupied in making sure no blood touched him to notice. The boy opened his eyes for a brief moment, they swam about, his eyelids fluttered and closed.

  Braun gently massaged the boy’s cruelly swollen hands. He hardly knew which position to let him lie in. Finally Braun eased him to his side, and it seemed the pilot was mercifully unconscious.

  He went to the stainless-steel table and dropped into a chair at one end. Schiffer hesitated and then sat on the other end, closest to the door. He watched Braun warily while Braun regarded Rousseau, who sat at the table lost in his thoughts.

  “Rousseau is not Greenland,” Braun said.

  Two sets of eyes flew to his face. And Braun finally allowed what he had not allowed since he had arrived in France, what he prayed to God he’d never allow again.

  He unbarred the gate, swung it wide, and allowed himself to feel his ocean of hatred for the war, for what had happened to his precious son, for what had happened to his beloved wife, for men like Schiffer, who did unspeakable things to old women, young women, young men, who made German a word to be feared and despised. The torrent filled him until he could hardly see for hate’s obscuring nature, until he tasted bile, until he knew Schiffer would believe.

  “I am Greenland.”

  Rousseau’s strangled cry escaped Schiffer’s notice. Schiffer stared, mesmerized, at Braun.

  “Open my briefcase.”

  Schiffer pulled over the briefcase, opened it. He looked at Braun.

  “Take out the folder.”

  He peered into the briefcase, tilted it to the light, and pulled out a thick folder.

  “Open it.”

  Schiffer opened the folder. He picked up a map, glanced at it, set it aside. He took the cover page and read the heading. “Project Zippy,” he murmured.

  “You have quite possibly blown the biggest undercover operation since Sea Lion.” Braun flicked his fingers at the folder. “Please, continue.”

  For the first time, Schiffer looked as if someone were walking on his grave. He wet his lips and lowered his gaze to the folder. He set the cover page aside.

  “You could not take my clues when I told you Rousseau was no trouble?”

  Schiffer glanced over the page on which Braun had sketched his ventilation system. He set it aside, then found sketches from General Richter’s subterranean command post right here in Caen. Richter commanded the 716th Infantry Division. He was a friend and had given Braun the original sketches as a keepsake. Braun had used the design for inspiration.

  “Ask yourself this: Why has the name Greenland swept only the northern coast, when the name of Max, Jean Moulin, fell upon all of France—even in the Unoccupied Zone?”

  Schiffer turned over the page, took another. This was the plan for the installment at Fontaine-la-Mallet, but Schiffer wouldn’t know that, and it was not labeled. He appeared to study the drawing.

  “Are you saying—” Schiffer cleared his t
hroat, tried again. “Are you saying—”

  “Moulin was Resistance. I am not. I am an engineer, Sturmbannführer, the engineer, the man you will tell your children about if Rommel doesn’t execute you. I am in cover so deep, the name Greenland was connected to the French Resistance alone—as intended.” He nodded at the pages. “Go ahead. One more, and you will see what you have exposed.”

  Schiffer paled. “Metzger arrives in the morning. He can sort all this—”

  “Look at it!”

  He blinked, convulsively swallowed, and took the next page. He studied the depth chart sketched in the margin and a list of computations for air pressure, sea pressure. He narrowed his eyes. He saw the sketch of the coastlines, the sketch of the connecting tunnel, the grid with a cross section of the tunnel. He snatched the map and compared the tracings on it to the sketch. He looked again at the plans for the ventilation system. And finally, he put a trembling finger on the map at Calais.

  “Mein Gott,” he breathed. “A tunnel to England.”

  “I must leave immediately with my agents, when there are fewer people to witness.”

  “Your agents . . .” Schiffer’s eyes flickered to Rousseau, then, with undisguised horror to the pilot.

  “Rousseau has served me faithfully since they raised the Todt sign over his door. His reputation as a noncollaborationist is a front. And the boy would have died to keep me secret. Lucky for you he did not.” Braun tilted his head. “You have no idea who he is.”

  Schiffer’s face said he’d rather keep it that way. And praying with all his heart the pilot did not rouse, Braun threw down the final card.

  “He is the beloved nephew of Marshal Erwin Rommel.”

  The blow drained the last of Schiffer’s bravado. He slumped in his seat.

  “He requested the honor to serve under me. Yet the honor has been mine. Despite his youth, he is as fine an agent as any with whom I have worked. The zeal for the Fatherland is in his blood.” He had to follow through while Schiffer still reeled. He rose, gripped the edge of the table, and leaned toward Schiffer.

  “You will call in my driver,” Braun said, voice dangerously soft. “You will announce to all in the reception area a great victory for the Fatherland. You will then instruct my driver to conduct myself, the boy, and Michel Rousseau to Fort de Romainville for immediate processing, and you will assign an escort of your elite guards. It is imperative that all who see believe what they see, that the man Rousseau is Greenland. I want pomp, I want circumstance, I want them to think they escort Churchill himself to the gallows.”

  He had no idea how they’d lose the guards. Perhaps not until Paris. What he would do then, he could not tell.

  “You have cost me two fine agents, Herr Schiffer,” he continued, and he strolled around the table to Schiffer. “They were irreplaceable.” He looked down at him for a moment, then gave a nod at the designs. Schiffer hastily gathered them, stuffed them in the folder, and put the folder in the briefcase. “They will be transferred to Berlin, and there they will languish in deprocessing, talents wasted, and all the while those who ask questions will wonder about the one who brought the operation to a standstill.”

  “I thought I was doing my duty!” A fine sheen of sweat had broken over Schiffer’s face. “How could I know? How could I?”

  “Metzger would have known!” Braun shouted. “Everything I told you in my report on Rousseau, Metzger would have picked up! You fool! Who trained you?”

  “But Metzger read the reports!”

  “And you don’t see him here, do you?”

  He smoothed his coat, adjusted his hat, giving the impression that he was trying to calm himself.

  He glanced at Krista’s notes. “Burn those. Call your guards, get a stretcher. Perhaps your . . . misapprehension of events can be forgiven. But pray to God Rommel’s nephew does not die. Have you seen Rommel in a rage?”

  They had to land in the backseat of a philosopher.

  While Brigitte hung on the German’s every word, translating the drivel over her shoulder, Rafael rolled his eyes and exchanged looks with Wilkie. Rafael sat directly behind the driver, staring darkly at his head. For a little glass of Calvados, he’d slip his fingers around the man’s neck and choke him to death.

  “Alric says, ‘That which is felt within is known, overall, without,’” Brigitte translated in awe. “He says that which is called occupation is really oppression. It holds all in . . .” She shook her head, unsure of the German word, flapping her hand with excitement. “Oh, I don’t know what he means, I think he means ‘thrall.’ Holds everyone in its thrall, the oppressed and oppressors alike. Basically, he is saying that we are all under a Great Evil, French and German alike, victims everyone, and that—”

  “I don’t give a merry rat’s—” Rafael began.

  “Little Alric will be my victim if he keeps this up!” Wilkie erupted.

  “Brigitte, is he for us or against us?” Rafael demanded.

  “He is for Braun,” she hissed, scowling at them for barbarians. She looked at the driver. “I think that means he is for us.”

  The driver turned a bewildered face to the men in the back. He likely thought he’d held them in thrall.

  Rafael banged his fist on the seat. “That’s it! You two deal with this moron. There’s no more time.” He glared at the building. “By now Rousseau may have confessed that he is Greenland. I’ll request to see Braun, and if they kick up a fuss, I’ll show them the transreceiver—”

  Wilkie squeaked.

  “—to prove that my request is legitimate.” He looked past the driver to the automobile parked ahead of them. He looked over his shoulder at the automobile behind. “Be ready for anything. I wish he wasn’t so packed in.”

  He started to grab the suitcase, but Brigitte reached over and seized his hand. She held it to her cheek, then kissed it. “Be careful.”

  He smiled, grabbed the suitcase, and was gone.

  They watched him trot up the courthouse stairs.

  “Greenland?” the driver said.

  Wilkie and Brigitte froze.

  “Ja, Greenland.” He nodded. He pointed at the building. Then he jabbered to Brigitte in German, waited expectantly for her to translate.

  Brigitte stared at the driver. “Braun is for us,” she said faintly. “Braun is for us.” She turned to the window. “Oh, Rafael. Don’t mess anything up.”

  He stood at the top of the courthouse steps, under the rifles of two guards, hands in the air. One of them searched the suitcase, looked up at Rafael, and then motioned with his rifle. Rafael picked it up and walked into the building.

  “Shouldn’t he stay in the infirmary?” Schiffer said doubtfully, now quite anxious over the pilot’s health. The ladder rattled as a soldier dragged it aside. The soldier helped another to lift the man by the stained drop cloth to the stretcher.

  “He recognized me before he passed out,” Braun said. “He knows I’ve been exposed. Let me put it this way: you don’t want him around when he comes to.”

  Braun, Schiffer, and Rousseau watched them take the stretcher from the room. Braun grabbed his briefcase, then took Krista’s notes and gave them to Schiffer. Schiffer looked at them blankly, then hastily stuffed them inside his coat. He started after the stretcher bearers, but Braun held him back.

  “Listen very carefully. This is not over. If you cannot convince the forward group that this man is Greenland, then your life will be in Rommel’s hands.”

  “What do I do?” Schiffer said anxiously.

  Braun put a hand on Rousseau’s shoulder. Deep impressions lined Michel’s cheeks from the recently removed gag; he’d only removed it when he could be sure Michel was with him. “Rousseau, you have conducted yourself admirably. I must ask a little more.”

  Rousseau inclined his head. “All for the Cause.”

  Braun looked at Schiffer, who dashed at a line of sweat on his upper lip. “When we enter the reception area, treat this man as you would have Jean Moulin.”


  Jean Moulin. Jean Moulin.

  They walked behind the stretcher bearers. Schiffer felt the sweat in his scalp as he walked abreast of Hauptmann Braun, behind the hateful little Frenchman. Such a parade they would make, emptying into the foyer.

  Metzger returned in the morning.

  Sweat gathered and rolled down the side of his face.

  The disgrace he would bear once Metzger learned of his failure. Had Metzger seen the boy before he was beaten, he surely would have said, “How did you not see the resemblance? He could be Rommel’s son!”

  He did see the resemblance, too late. The man was German to the core. Somehow Schiffer had known it all along. He looked far less like Rommel’s nephew than he did Rommel’s son.

  Rommel’s son, Rommel’s son.

  Footsteps echoed down the hallway. Sweat gathered and rolled.

  Schiffer’s steps slowed. He did not have to be here when Metzger returned. He did not have to be here! He would leave early—he would leave tonight! He would say he’d received orders for a transfer, and then—

  “Are you ready to convince them?” Braun said in a low tone.

  “Of course!” Schiffer exulted. Braun gave him a glance. Schiffer wanted to laugh out loud. He’d not see the look on Metzger’s face! “I can do anything!”

  Rafael gripped the handle of the transreceiver suitcase and followed the guard into the building. He had useful talents, he had wit, he was quick on the uptake, but most of all he had the ability to beguile. His mother said he could sell fish to a fisherman. Today he’d sell himself as . . .

  Beneath the portrait of Hitler came a stretcher. Upon the stretcher was a brutalized man, whose blood soaked through the canvas.

  Behind the stretcher came Monsieur Rousseau, disheveled, bound.

  Behind Monsieur Rousseau was Sturmbannführer Schiffer, the man responsible for Jasmine’s torture and death.

  The brutalized man was Tom.

  The transreceiver slipped from his hand.

  The world became a place of dampened sound, as if an explosion had gone off at his ear.