Now her thoughts wandered to all who had been closest to her. Despite her best efforts, she could only revive her parents in dreams, never in waking hours when the guilt surfaced with a flood of emotions. The spirit of Marie, however, was always there at her side, telling her to remain strong. And how painful to remember Argent, holding her in his arms, asking awkwardly if he wasn’t too young for her. Mon Dieu, a few years’ difference is nothing!
And then dear Ryan, ever confident Ryan, smiling up from the pillow as they found pleasure in bed. How he loved to have her ride him. She would grip him tightly as she met the thrust of his hips, her back arched to show off her youthful breasts, then bend over to frame him in a hood of dark hair and press her lips to his. How sweet to feel again the gentle touch of his hand.
The guards periodically led prisoners away, sometimes for further interrogation, other times for torture. Upon their return the women all shared the suffering and sorrow. Marita guessed the torturers might leave her in peace because her only known crime was daring to cross powerful men who now demanded her death.
Worries about the club filled the long nights. With Florian gone they had surely closed its doors, so who would help with his family, and where might her girls find other places to dance? Though only a decade older, she thought of herself as their mother. Had her two trusted bartenders found other employment? What would become of Pascal with his club foot, or poor damaged Colette? What other club would hire that lovely child whose belly bore the permanent autograph from that venomous Serge?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Biarritz, Occupied France
30 August 1941
Once at the Colmar estate back in 1938, René had driven Erika to Strasbourg to pawn the ring symbolizing her marriage to Horst. Every piece of von Kredow jewelry smuggled into France was to aid Jews moving toward Marseille and on to Palestine. Erika was determined that some fraction of the wealth of a man determined to destroy European Jews would help the fugitives escape Nazi persecution, and ridding herself of that ring would sever her last tie to a despicable tormentor. Or so she had believed.
With Horst again in pursuit the following year, René proposed marriage and she had accepted. His mother offered her own wedding band to commemorate the union. “My dear husband remains forever in my heart and my dreams—I’d rather you two have this ring,” Erika immediately protested, insisting Jeanne keep the ring on her own finger. For several moments his mother remained silent, finally continuing with a catch in her throat: “He would have grown to love you as much as I have in the last few months, my dear, and I couldn’t imagine a better wife for our René.” She patted his hand. “So let this be our wedding gift to the two of you.” They had sized the band for a perfect fit. In lieu of an official marriage, the ring had become a constant symbol of her commitment to René.
Now faced with a chilling task, she removed the simple gold band from her finger and set it on the porcelain plate. A chill raced up her spine. Suddenly she felt the tie to René broken and grabbed for the band. Sliding it onto the finger of her right hand, she exhaled deeply and braced herself on the edge of the kitchen table to steady her nerves.
A heavy cutting block sat before her, the butcher’s knife alongside. Its handle showed the wear of years of daily use. She had honed the blade to a scalpel’s edge, remembering her medical studies in Marburg, where fascination with the workings of human and animal bodies had inured her to dissection. This blade could not possibly cut as cleanly and precisely, but it would have to do.
Erika had requested Agnès be present. Her nurse’s training was a godsend in such a difficult situation, for she could apply pressure to the stumps should Erika faint or lack the strength. She laid out a small sewing needle and thread to suture the wounds as needed.
They had secured the rooms where the children played so no one would burst in to witness her terrifying act. The concierge Louise had asked Heinrich to drive her back to the Bayonne townhome. The group agreed that suspicions would be raised should she also disappear from the Bayonne area. De Brassis wouldn’t be missed for a while since she came and went at her leisure, and few visited the mansion above the beach. But cleaning up the site of the suicide and removing the body of Nicole was a priority.
Horst had demanded her ring finger, of course. His abject cruelty insisted on taking the concept of final severance literally. He hadn’t specified which of Leo’s fingers would satisfy his blood lust so she would also sacrifice her smallest finger in the hope it would pass for her son’s.
“Proof of death,” Agnès had repeated with tear-filled eyes after that fateful phone call. The group was stunned. Even the two young soldiers seemed to pale at von Kredow’s demand. Unlike his orders to kill and dispose of the children, this act couldn’t be faked, and Erika knew Horst’s sadistic mind, knew he wouldn’t accept the “deaths” of wife and son without that tangible proof.
“Perhaps we can…” Agnès’ voice had faded into silence, and she wrung her hands in frustration.
“Let’s just finish up here, burn the two bodies in the basement furnace, and then all of you make a run for the Free Zone.” Agnès smiled encouragement. “Then you can forget that deranged man altogether, right?”
“It’s no good,” Erika replied with a shake of the head, “he’s every bit as powerful there as here. His squads know no boundaries.” Her knees had weakened and she sat down. “There’s no point in fleeing if he suspects Leo and I live. We simply can’t run forever with his sword suspended above our heads.”
The two brothers had never found a home in the Wehrmacht. Their impoverished Sudeten family was ethnic German, but centuries of farming outside the Altreich had made them Czech at heart. When Hitler annexed Czechoslovakia in 1938 the Federbach family holed up on a rural farmstead, but the young men soon came to the attention of the conquerors. Before long they were German soldiers, but adjustment to army life had been difficult. Their comrades in arms treated them as second-class citizens, ridiculing their ancestry. It led to frequent brawls. With no fear of getting their hands dirty, the brothers often came out the winners. His bored troops found hazing “sub-humans” a pleasant enough pastime, but the local commandant found having to punish the instigators along with the victims undermined troop morale.
The brothers’ only farm-acquired skill of value to the German army was keeping heavy equipment functioning properly. The Federbachs eventually found themselves working side-by-side in a maintenance battalion near Biarritz. When Horst demanded some obedient muscle from the local commander, the commandant was happy to rid himself of those troublesome Federbachs. Best for all concerned to send the two belligerent brothers on special assignment, one demanding brawn rather than intelligence. Once they were under de Brassis’ direction, Horst had given the matter no further thought.
Winning first their trust and then their complicity had been easy, according to Agnès and Louise. And Madame de Brassis’ obvious contempt for the brothers helped drive them into the camp of governess and concierge. From the moment the young soldiers arrived to oversee the hostage setup, the sisters had begun planning. Raised in poverty, Heinrich and Hermann marveled at the trappings of de Brassis wealth and social standing, and Agnès had gradually convinced them they deserved to “inherit” some of the de Brassis fortune. The sisters thought the men should head for Spain rather than return to the Bohemian Protectorate, but the men were homesick. They refused to consider that showing up at the family farm as wealthy deserters would fail to ingratiate them with the German authorities. “We’ll make do,” they said.
Erika had requested a few quiet hours to think. She hoped against hope to find some other way but with every passing hour Horst could forget Berlin and suddenly show up, determined to complete his mission of vengeance. In fact, all this might be some new ruse on his part, the bastard coming through the mansion door any moment. She needed to get the blood trophies into the mail. They needed to flee with the children. She stilled her inner voice, seeking distraction in the
distant sounds of hide-and-seek organized by Leo. Such a joy to hear him laugh, and little Sophie, so adorable, her high-pitched giggle a delight to any mother’s ears. Erika forced back the memory of Nicole, dead without reason.
Her decision felt right yet still she questioned her own strength and will. She lifted the butcher knife, felt its heft and balance before extending her two fingers over the edge of the cutting board. Sweat beaded on her forehead. She stilled her trembling hands by sheer force of will. With the knife tip pressed to the wooden surface, she lowered the blade until the edge met skin. A single drop of blood welled up. She gave a nod to Agnès, who stood ready with gauze and bandage, then steadied herself and shut her eyes. Her grip on the handle tightened and the blade came down.
“Frau von Kredow, wait! Don’t do it!” Heinrich burst into the kitchen. “Please wait!” The swinging door barely closed before the concierge hurried in on his heels. Her ill-fitting teeth showed a broad smile. Startled by the sudden interruption, Erika lost all focus, releasing the knife as it entered the flesh of her small finger. The blade clattered to the cutting board and Agnès sprang forward to compress the wound. Erika sagged to the floor, her body shaking. Agnès kept one hand clamped to the bandage as she helped Erika to a chair.
“Why the hell did you interrupt? My God, now I must start over!” Erika trembled, fury in her eyes. “Wasn’t all this hard enough?”
“Relax, madame,” Louise’s eyes sparkled, “we’ve a solution!” Heinrich handed over a small package as if presenting a gift. He made a polite bow. Filled with dread, Erika gingerly unwound the cloth. Two delicate fingers lay encased in waxed paper. One long, one short.
Louise beamed. “I trimmed the fingernail on the small one to look more like a boy’s.”
Erika held her breath, knowing now what they had done, torn by both horror and relief. “Oh my God, you’ve mutilated Nicole’s body!” Tears rolled from her eyes.
“But madame,” Louise protested, “the young woman had already mutilated her body with a bullet to the head! My pruning shears won’t affect her future, but certainly can make yours easier.” She gave Erika a perturbed look. “Madame de Brassis’ fingers were simply too old and wrinkled so they would never have done the trick! If these won’t satisfy you and your brutal husband, carry on with what you were about to do.” She turned to leave. Heinrich looked on, clearly baffled by the quick verbal exchange in French, while Agnès beamed with pride at her sister’s ingenuity.
Erika steadied herself. She took over applying pressure to her finger and called after the concierge. “No, please wait, Madame Trouget. I’m so sorry—do forgive me. I’m simply a bundle of nerves and need a moment to think.”
The concierge turned back begrudgingly, avoiding Erika’s gaze and looking to her sister. Agnès was already wiping down the blade and cutting board. Erika examined the two pitiful fingers, already stiff and darkening. Memories of the young woman who had sacrificed herself needlessly overwhelmed her. She swallowed hard, seeking new strength, but sobs overwhelmed her.
“Come, come, it’ll be fine.” Agnès dried her hands on her apron and squeezed Erika’s shoulder. “Just consider this, my dear. You were determined to save your son from that evil husband of yours, whatever it took, including crippling yourself by severing your own fingers. Why? Out of love, correct?”
Erika accepted the offered handkerchief.
“The young woman shot herself last night out of love for her child, n’est-ce-pas? She couldn’t bear what she thought the final loss, the end of all she’d lived for.” Agnès drew Erika closer. “She has no further use for these fingers, so don’t you think she’d have gladly sacrificed them to save Sophie’s life. You, Madame, will now use them to save that little girl as well as your son.”
Erika managed to nod.
Agnès held Erika’s chin and looked directly into her eyes. “It’s now up to you to be strong and make our plan work. Louise and I love these children. We never had a chance to bear our own, but we’ve done everything to provide a decent life under horrifying circumstances for these innocents. Your job—our job—is to release us all from that man of yours and his Gestapo.”
Erika looked from sister to sister, seeing for the first time the love and generosity which had brought them to this moment. She felt ashamed of her own hesitation in the face of all they risked for the children and slowly re-wrapped the “proof of death.” When she was done she gave them each a half-smile, even poor Heinrich, who appeared embarrassed to be present.
“No, you’re right, you’ve all done well, and I thank you. Years from now all the children will remember and thank you.” She rose from the chair. “Your decision was right. My mutilated hand might have drawn attention on our trip east. She held out the bundle. “Send them off. These should satisfy the bastard and win us all our freedom.”
Feeling light-headed, she dropped back into the chair, a vow forming in her mind, a promise from one mother to another: I swear to you now, Nicole, your daughter will know of your love and sacrifice.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Paris, Occupied France
30 August 1941
Horst’s career move could mean many things and Richard Kohl knew the risks. Von Kredow had distanced himself from Berlin for three long years, acting alone and with no direct supervision from Heydrich. His extraction teams had received praise from Berlin for extraditing numerous traitors, spies and saboteurs, but no one really knew what currents of favor or disfavor might now flow through Gestapo headquarters. A command appearance couldn’t guarantee a pleasurable reception in Berlin, so Kohl chose his words carefully. “So, Horst, seen enough of beautiful France for now?”
“Heydrich calls and I answer.” He checked the clock under the glass-and-steel canopy of the Gare de Montparnasse before stepping off briskly toward the station hall. “So what time’s my flight?”
“I’ve an airplane standing by for you at Le Bourget,” Kohl offered a wry smile, “for you alone, my dear Horst.” Kohl handed his partner the briefcase placed in his charge only a few weeks before. “It’s clear he needs you in Berlin in a hurry.”
Kohl had always envied Horst’s height, his intense blue eyes and that bold mark of courage on his left cheek. Unlike Kohl’s corpulent build and relaxed demeanor, von Kredow’s slim physique and carriage embodied the ideals destined to bring glory to the Reich. In truth, Richard Kohl had always been more the clever thinker than a strong physical specimen.
His German parents had instilled in him great pride in his heritage, and his mental acuity won him a scholarship to Princeton. But his middle-class, mercantile upbringing isolated him from the well-heeled elite he’d hoped to emulate. The young student soon blamed his social troubles on a suspected cabal of wealthy Jewish students determined to block his upward mobility, and the pudgy, oftentimes smug young man found nothing but rejection from the Ivy League co-eds. So Kohl swore off educated women and quietly joined the local German-American Bund where he felt at home promoting a National Socialist party destined to lead the world at the expense of the inferior races.
Recommendations from supportive university faculty opened doors at the State Department. Kohl’s manipulative talents and insight into the German mind quickly moved him up the ladder in German and Austrian Affairs. In 1935, while attending an international law seminar in Berlin, he fell in with Nazi students who shared a vision of restoring Germany’s greatness on the world stage.
Tasked with expanding the Reich’s secret police powers, Reinhard Heydrich found an easy recruit in Kohl. Flattered by the Nazi leader’s recognition, he eagerly volunteered to become an SD mole in Washington. Here at last was an assignment befitting his intellectual talents, and once he took command of the German desk at State, he helped dupe Americans into exposing anti-Nazi cells in Germany.
But it was von Kredow who took all the glory in Berlin by rounding up the actual traitors and bringing them to justice. Richard Kohl had always dreamed of hands-on secret police work rather than remain
ing desk-bound in Washington. The loss of his State Department position had been a blessing in disguise. In Paris he finally found himself in the thick of the action, and despite his lacking the physical attributes of his aristocratic colleague, Kohl knew himself to be von Kredow’s equal in manipulating anyone who got in his way.
Now times had changed. Horst von Kredow appeared much the worse for wear, his face bruised and tattered. The notorious visage remained as intimidating as ever but bore a purplish-green cast and a half-moon of pock-like scabs beneath the left eye. Kohl suspected damaged cartilage in that formerly straight nose, and his colleague carried his head a bit more stiffly. The staged escape of Ryan Lemmon, so carefully planned for months and initiated just weeks prior, had clearly misfired. Kohl hesitated to test his colleague’s limits by inquiring directly, but his curiosity was getting the better of him.
He fell in beside von Kredow as they forged a path across the concourse. Uniformed men and women made way for their passage. Despite his battered face, Horst’s bearing spoke to his authority and the Gestapo control officers waved them through with little delay.
Kohl finally felt compelled to ask. “How’d the Lemmon decoy work out? Did you bag your prey?”
Von Kredow’s cold eyes never left the crowded concourse, and Kohl wondered if his words had failed to register. Horst came to an abrupt halt. Other detraining passengers slipped clumsily past them, a surging river of field-gray to either side of their stationary island. Horst tore open a fresh pack of Aristons and brought a cigarette to his lips. His “Feuer, bitte” was barely perceptible. Kohl obliged with a match. “We’ll discuss all that at the airfield, understood?”
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