Day of Vengeance (11 page)
Authors: Johnny O'Brien
Sophie was surprised, to say the least. Tentatively, she put the earphones in her ears and Angus tapped at the screen. Her eyes
opened in amazement and slowly her lips grew into a smile. After a while, she pulled out the earplugs.
“Amazing. What did you call it? ‘Cool’?”
“No that’s not the name of the thing, it’s just an expression, it means, er, well, I’m not sure what it means,” Angus struggled. “It’s just cool. Or if it’s funny, it’s ‘LOL’.”
“LOL?”
“Er, yeah. LOL. Laugh Out Loud.”
“But the music, I, it, well, it sounds so strange…”
“Yeah, er, Arcade Fire, I guess it is… They’re cool too.”
Angus’s stunt with the iPhone was prompting Sophie to ask more and more questions.
Jack tried to take control, “Sophie, er, it’s a secret thing – you know for messages, navigation and stuff – for pilots – you mustn’t mention it. Never. In fact we brought it down here… because we need to get rid of it – the technology is advanced, we can’t have it getting into enemy hands.”
Sophie looked at the iPhone and then looked at Jack and Angus. It was if she could not quite believe what she was hearing or seeing.
Suddenly, Jack took the iPhone and threw it as far as he could out into the river.
“What are you doing?” Angus said, crossly.
Jack replied through gritted teeth, “Secret. Military. Pilot stuff. Right? Get it, Angus?”
“Can’t believe you just did that…”
“Well I did – I’ll explain later.”
Sophie observed the sudden angry exchange between Jack and
Angus with quiet amusement. When they had finally stopped bickering she looked up at them, smiled and said, “You two are LOL.”
Angus looked at her for a moment and then laughed. “Yeah. I guess we are.”
The sun had already dropped below the Paris rooftops and the light was draining from the day. They gazed out across the Seine as the sky darkened. After a while, Sophie put one arm around Jack and the other around Angus.
“I am glad you will help us tomorrow. You are RAF – it is good you are here.”
Jack looked into her eyes and tried to smile. “Sophie… I wish I could explain. We understand your parents’ motives, but we are worried it is not going to work. I think they are endangering themselves… all of us. There are things…” he struggled to find the right words, “things you don’t know, we don’t know. I’m just saying I don’t think it is meant to happen, it is too risky…”
But Sophie was having none of it. “My mother and father – I know they are doing the right thing. They had friends die fighting in the Battle for France. I knew some of them too. They were good people. You must help.”
Jack shook his head. He was torn. He desperately wanted to help, but he had seen the future and he knew it was not meant to be. On the other hand these people, Jean-Yves, Marianne and Sophie had saved their lives and were their only real hope of survival in France. Perhaps he and Angus did not have a choice.
Jack woke with a start. His sheet was wet with sweat.
“Jack.” He heard a soothing voice say his name. “It’s just a dream…”
Sophie put a gentle hand on his forehead and ran her fingers through his sticky blonde hair.
“A terrible nightmare. Where am I?” Jack pushed himself up onto one elbow. The first light of dawn was just discernible at the window. He looked around the room. There were sleeping bodies lying huddled on the floor. Then he remembered. Today was the day. As Jean-Yves had said, “The day we change history.”
“I think we have to get up now,” Sophie whispered.
Jack could not really make out the features of Sophie’s face, but he could feel her breath and smell her close to him. She stroked his forehead again. “You’ll see, it will be fine. Have no regrets,
mon ami
.”
Jack stood opposite the hulking mass of the Arc de Triomphe and peered back down the Champs-Elysées. It was six-thirty on the morning of Friday 28th June and the most famous street in the world was eerily quiet. The broad, leafy avenue fringed with elegant shops and cafés stretched endlessly before him. The only traffic was way in the distance – two low-slung black Citroëns trailing behind a convoy of canvas-covered army vehicles heading towards the Place de la Concorde. Despite the early hour, opposite him an official, wearing a black beret and with a large bucket at his feet, was painting over what looked like an evacuation plan for the city. Some of the writing could still be seen (‘For the South, Itinerary 2, leaving from Porte d’Italie, for Essonnes, Fontainebleau and Nemours’). Nearby, a young bleary-eyed mother had emerged to see if the fresh morning air might quieten her children. With one hand she rocked a pram and with her other she tried to hold on to an energetic toddler who kicked dust and stones under one of the great roadside trees.
Jack found it unnerving that he knew what was about to happen. The app had showed it all. In a few minutes, a number of large, open-top, six-wheeled vehicles would drive up the Champs-Elysées towards him. In the front seat of the first car
would sit Adolf Hitler – leader of the Third Reich. He would be absorbed by the grandeur of Paris and satiated by the blood of conquest. The entourage would almost completely circumnavigate the Arc de Triomphe and would then proceed directly down Avenue Victor Hugo before arriving at the Palais de Chaillot for the
Führer’s
first view of the Eiffel Tower. Hitler would be inspired by his visit to Paris and, as a result, would instruct his favourite architect, Albert Speer, who was accompanying him, to resume building work in Berlin.
Except now Jack knew that, if Jean-Yves, Marianne, Ours and Patrice carried out their plan, Hitler would never see the Eiffel Tower and would not leave Paris alive.
Jack could just see Angus further down the Champs-Elysées. Angus had his head turned away from Jack and in turn was looking even further down the avenue to where Sophie would be. The three of them were spread out along the avenue, Jack at the Arc de Triomphe, Sophie about halfway down and Angus in between. As soon as Hitler’s motorcade passed Sophie, she would signal to Angus, who would signal back up to Jack. Jack would then signal to Ours and Patrice, who were waiting opposite in Avenue de Friedland to make their move. Jean-Yves and Marianne waited on Avenue Foch as backup. The circular plan of grand avenues arranged around the mighty Arc de Triomphe made for a natural arena to target the motorcade and would allow an easy escape.
Although Jack could not see it, far away down the
Champs-Elysées
, Sophie had already spotted the
Führer
’s motorcade rumbling towards her. She immediately took a red scarf and wrapped it around her neck. Angus saw the signal. He took
a white cap from inside his jacket and put it on. The motorcade drove towards him. Although he was far away, Jack could clearly see the white hat on Angus’s head. He waited for a few seconds, then, sure enough, he spotted the motorcade rumbling into view. Jack took a large blue handkerchief from his pocket and put it to his nose. Red, white and blue. There was no turning back now. Across the street, where Avenue de Friedland joined the Place de l’Étoile, Ours mounted his 100cc Peugeot motor scooter and revved the engine. Patrice got up behind him, riding pillion. He reached inside his leather jacket with one hand to check his revolver. In ten seconds the leading car would be moving into the Place de l’Étoile and around the Arc de Triomphe. Ours would drive his scooter right up to the side of the leading car and Patrice would fire at point-blank range at the
Führer
in the passenger seat.
Jack knew that he should do what he had been told and, having given the signal, disappear quickly to make his way back to the rendezvous. But the scene before him had a curious, hypnotic momentum. It was too much for him just to walk away. The Mercedes sedan was a great lump of a car – more like a military vehicle, and, as it moved near, Jack found himself staring, dumbfounded. It was then, finally, sitting up high in the passenger’s seat that Jack saw him. The
Führer
. Adolf Hitler. He wore a dark, leather overcoat and a high, peaked army cap – like the one Gottschalk had worn at Bonaparte’s. He was staring up at the great bulwark of the Arc de Triomphe, and then, for no explicable reason he lowered his gaze and looked towards Jack, standing by the road a few metres ahead. For a split second, their eyes met. Hitler’s eyes were unblinking. Jack tried to understand what they communicated.
He remembered what he knew about the
Führer
. He had survived the First World War and had hacked his way through the confusion of post-war Germany to grasp control of the most powerful country in the world. Through a pernicious blend of nationalism, racism and risk taking he had harnessed an undercurrent of bitterness amongst many Germans. His bullying demands had, for many years, appeared reasonable and had been rewarded by good people inside and outside of Germany. They had the power to resist him but they were too scared to act in case they unwittingly unleashed a second war – that might be even worse than the First World War. It was only now, with nearly the whole of Europe under Nazi control, that these good people had started to understand the true horror that had been unleashed. Here was the man responsible for millions of deaths. And that was exactly what those eyes communicated – death.
Jack’s trance was broken by the sound of a motorcycle engine. Almost at exactly the same time as Jack heard the engine, there was a gust of wind. It seemed odd, because the morning so far had been quite still. The wind rolled up the Champs-Elysées and dust swirled around. Jack still held his blue handkerchief limply in one hand; the wind caught it and carried it off across the street into the path of the on-coming Mercedes. It flapped and twitched in the air like a miniature kite or a pricked balloon. Nearby, the toddler spotted the flapping blue cloth. He giggled and jumped and then suddenly he broke free from his mother’s hand and, to her horror, charged into the Champs-Elysées directly in front of the
Führer
’s thundering motorcade. The blue handkerchief twirled and twisted in the air and the toddler followed, his little arms outstretched to the sky, entranced and delighted by the dancing cloth.
Jack looked on aghast as the giant Mercedes zeroed in on the small child. The toddler must have heard the rumble of the engine, because he was suddenly distracted and half turned towards the on-coming car. It was at that moment Jack saw that in his little fat fingers, the boy held a small flag – a French tri-colour – and as he stared unblinking at the black bonnet of the Mercedes he gave it a little wave as if in a poignant gesture of welcome, or perhaps surrender. In five seconds he would be flattened.
The boy’s mother screamed. But Jack was already in full flight. Just as the hulking vehicle slewed sideways to avoid crushing the boy, Jack appeared in front of it, reached down and, without breaking step, enveloped the boy in his arms and ran on. The Mercedes missed them by an inch. But Ours and Patrice, aboard their little Peugeot motorcycle, were not so lucky. The boy’s chase across the Champs Elysées had coincided almost exactly with Ours and Patrice’s interception. As the car slewed sideways to avoid Jack and the little boy, Ours and Patrice stood no chance. The wing of the car slammed into the scooter. Ours flew over the handlebars and bounced once on the bonnet before landing on the road. Patrice was thrown high and wide from his position as pillion and he too landed with a smack on the road. The Mercedes stopped and the cars in the pursuing motorcade came to a halt. Soon the whole place was swarming with German officers. The little boy held Jack’s hand and observed the mayhem he had caused with bemusement. He waved his little French flag at the scene in front of him as if in some way this would magic things better. His mother appeared beside them still pushing her pram. Her face was white. She picked up the little boy and hugged him with
tears streaming down her face. The little boy wriggled in her arms. Jack looked on at the melée of officers who now surrounded Ours and Patrice. What they had not yet noticed, but surely would in just a few moments, was that in the collision, something had flown free from Patrice’s jacket and it now lay on the road only a few metres away. It pointed accusingly towards Patrice’s prostrate body, which lay beneath the Arc de Triomphe.
A loaded revolver.
No one felt hungry. They sat round a table at the back of Berthillon’s café on the Ile Saint-Louis. Jean-Yves stared into the dregs of his coffee and puffed on a Gauloise – an occasional habit and one only brought on at times of acute anxiety.
“What will they do to them?” said Sophie. It was about the twentieth time she had asked the same question.
Marianne tried to comfort her, putting an arm around her shoulder. “Stop saying that, my dear. You know Ours and Patrice… they can look after themselves.” Seeking reassurance, she glanced at Jean-Yves, but he did not look up.
“They might just be taken for petty criminals – in the wrong place at the wrong time – an unfortunate accident,” he said quietly. “There is no reason for the Nazis to think that they were actually trying to assassinate Hitler.”
The image flashed through Jack’s mind again: plucking the little boy from the on-coming Mercedes, the car slewing sideways to avoid impact and the collision with the scooter… then Ours and Patrice flat out on the road and the revolver lying there for all to see. In the mayhem, Jack, Angus and Sophie had slipped away from the scene, picked their way back to Rue le Regrattier and, thankfully, Jean-Yves and Marianne had joined them an hour later.
They had been sick with worry and had spent a sleepless night at the safe-house. Jack shivered.
“It’s my fault,” he said.
“No!” Marianne said. She touched his hand. “You did what we asked… against your better judgement… and you rescued that little boy. He would have died. Another innocent victim of this stupid war.”
“Marianne is right,” Jean-Yves said, looking up. “You were very brave,
mon ami
.” He shook his head. “Perhaps we should have listened to you.” He gave a little shrug. “It’s almost like you knew that we were not going to succeed.”
When Jean-Yves said the words, Jack felt his heart give a little jump. No one else seemed to register the comment, but, just for a moment, Jack thought that he saw Sophie looking at him with a rather odd expression from the other side of the table.
“Anyway, we can’t stay in Paris any longer,” Jean-Yves continued. “They will question Ours and Patrice and will already have questioned everyone at Bonaparte’s. Eventually someone will talk and the Nazis will make the connection. Then they will be onto us. The whole Network is at risk, everything we have worked for.”
Marianne nodded. “The longer we stay, the more dangerous it gets…”
Just as Jean-Yves took a final drag from his Gauloise, the door of the café swung open. A boy appeared from the street; he looked about ten years old. He wore shorts, a scruffy jumper and an old beret. For a moment he waited in the doorway, scanning the inside of the café. Then his eyes locked onto Marianne. He trotted over to her and removed a letter from a worn leather satchel. He put
it down on the table in front of her, looked around and put a grubby index finger to his lips as if to say, ‘Sshh.’ Then, without saying another word, he turned and slipped quietly away.
Marianne held the letter in front of her.
Jean-Yves’s eyebrows arched knowingly. “Open it, then.”
Marianne unsealed the envelope and pulled out a blotchy, poorly typed piece of thin office paper. Quietly, she read out the words on the paper in a whisper and as she did so her brow furrowed.
“G has returned to VO. H with him. Celebration still planned for tonight. Join us with as many friends as you can – P.”
Beneath the ‘P’, there was a picture of a crucifix with not one but two horizontal spars. The
Croix de Lorraine
. The symbol of the French Resistance.
Marianne took the Gauloise that smouldered at Jean-Yves lips and blew gently on its tip. Ash flickered into the air and the end of the cigarette burned a bright orange. She touched the burning cigarette to the corner of the paper and it caught fire – flaming up briefly before disintegrating in black-and-white ash.
“What does it mean, Marianne?” Jack asked.
Marianne smiled. “A message from the Network, from Pierre at Villiers. ‘
G has returned to VO
’ – Gottschalk has returned to his headquarters in Villiers-sur-Oise.
‘H with him’. ‘H’
is Hitler. It means Hitler has gone to Villiers as planned, despite what happened yesterday.
‘Celebration still planned for tonight.’
It means that Pierre and his friends are still planning the attack.
‘Join us with as many friends as you can.’
They want us to join them in Villiers-sur-Oise, if we can. Today.”
Jean-Yves thumped the table. “It’s still on. We can still get them.”
The note had a transforming effect on Jean-Yves and Marianne. They were suddenly re-energised.
“We need to hurry… it will just depend on the trains,”
Jean-Yves
said.
Marianne started to scribble on a scrap of paper. “Here Sophie, a few things to get. Meet back at the flat in thirty minutes. Then we go.”