Thirst No. 5 (22 page)

He shrugs. “It’s nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“Rommel’s gone. He’s gone home to see his wife.”

“You’re joking. Now? He would never leave at a time like this,”

“He has. Tonight at the opera I spoke to Speidel, his chief of staff. He told me Rommel’s already left.”

“But why?”

Straffer sighs. “Our finest meteorologists assure us that the English Channel will be impassable for the next few days. They say the Allies would be insane to launch an attack. Their ships would sink before they reached the French coast.”

“Sounds reasonable,” I say. “Why so gloomy?”

“Because it is reasonable! But Eisenhower is a gambler—he knows when to take a calculated risk. Every storm has its peaks and valleys. He will look for a lull in the weather. Then he will attack, I’m sure of it. And he will attack where we least expect. He will hit Normandy.”

I nod. “He will do the last thing the Germans expect.”

“Worse. He will do it when we least expect.” Straffer stares at the burning tip of his cigar as if it represents the forces under his command. He is definitely convinced of his beliefs. He expects everything he has worked for to go up in smoke.

I, on the other hand, can hardly contain my excitement. If the Allies know Rommel is no longer in France, that essentially no one who can even argue with Hitler is in control, they will not postpone the attack no matter how bad the weather.

I must get the information to my contact in the Allies. But I fear to use the Resistance to get it to them. Not because
I don’t trust Anton. He would never betray his people. Unfortunately, the Resistance is not as tight as he believes. There are spies close to him. I know because Straffer often knows things he shouldn’t know. Although I’ve tried to warn Anton of the leaks, he sees my fears as paranoia, rooted in my lack of faith in the French. He’s very proud and doesn’t take criticism well.

There’s no choice. I have to go to London tonight.

But I can’t take a plane, even a small boat. Despite the fact that the Germans are not expecting an attack in the next week, the coast is too closely guarded.

I’ll have to swim across the English Channel.

Straffer has gotten his worst fears off his chest. Even if he suspects me of being a spy—which I think he sometimes does—he believes there is nothing I could do with the information he has supplied. For one thing, he knows no one would believe it.

I stand and lead him back to bed. I kiss him as if I’m ready for a final round but he pats my naked bottom and wishes me sweet dreams. He’s asleep in minutes.

I’m out of his house moments later.

The best way to get to the coast is a question mark. Lieutenant Jakob Baum is Straffer’s personal assistant and often drives me home at night. The advantage of using Jakob is he’ll be able to get me through the many roadblocks that lie between Paris and Normandy. Hypnotizing him to obey me will not be a problem. But once he’s deep in a trance, he might have trouble
driving, never mind answering questions from the soldiers who are going to want to know what we’re doing out so late.

Yet I can see no other alternative.

Jakob—I call him that when we’re alone—has a flat near Straffer’s house. I knock on his door and find him up, listening to music on the radio. He’s happy to see me; the odd hour does not surprise him. He assumes I’ve come for a ride. He invites me in and slips on his boots before I can say a word. It’s while he’s sitting that I take the opportunity to gaze deep into his eyes.

Even though Jakob has a threatening demeanor, he’s a child at heart, which makes him susceptible to the wild fire in my eyes and silky softness of my voice. We’re on the road shortly, and if I have to occasionally grab the steering wheel to keep us from ending up in a ditch, it’s all right with me.

We go through a half dozen roadblocks with no difficulty. I make sure that Jakob keeps his answers short and brisk. And, after all, Jakob is an officer and German soldiers hate to question authority. I’m hopeful I’ll be able to send him home without incident.

I do not get my wish. Two hundred yards from Omaha Beach, so close to the sea that the noise of the crashing waves sounds like thunder, we encounter a roadblock staffed with a dozen soldiers. One of who happens to be a captain checking up on his men. It’s this captain that has to give the final okay to let us pass. He sticks his head in the driver’s window while
another soldier shines a flashlight over his shoulder. The light is blinding, although Jakob stares into it without blinking—not the least suspicious move on his part. It’s not his fault. I have him so dazed he could stare at the sun for an hour straight.

“What business do you have out here?” the captain demands. He’s as young as Jakob’s twenty-two years but hard as a rocket shell. Jakob gives his standard answer.

“My name is Lieutenant Jakob Baum, General Straffer’s chief aide. We are on an important mission for the general. Please let us pass.”

“What is your important mission?” the captain demands.

“It is top secret and time sensitive. You must let us pass.”

“Who is this woman you have with you? She looks like a girl.”

“I am Alys Perne,” I speak sharply in rough German. I cannot pass myself off as German, because the papers I carry say I’m French. “I am no girl. Check the lieutenant’s papers. You have no reason to stop him.”

“I’m more interested in you than him. Get out of the car.”

“Why?”

“I said get out of the car!”

I lean over and whisper in Jakob’s ear. “If I don’t return, drive to your flat and forget all about tonight. You never saw me tonight. Repeat.”

“I never saw you tonight,” he mumbles.

I get out of the car and stroll around it to confront the
captain. I’d hypnotize him as well but he’s surrounded by too many of his men. A few are suspicious. They stand with their rifles held ready. The captain, he has the cruel face of a street punk, demands to see my papers. I hand them over and he studies them in the lightly falling rain, obviously not caring that he’s ruining what he must assume is my sole form of identification.

This one I don’t like.

This one I would like to kill.

“What is a French bitch like you doing here?” he asks.

I shrug. “Lieutenant Baum told you. I’m here on behalf of General Hans Straffer. I’m sure you know the general. He’s a personal friend of mine, and I doubt he’ll be happy to hear how you’ve treated me.” I pause. “Bastard.”

The men laugh and the captain flashes a cold smile. “You are not here on top-secret business. The Third Reich doesn’t use French bitches except for one thing. Now, tell me what you are up to or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

A half dozen men point their rifles at my head and heart.

I catch the captain’s eyes. The fire in my gaze is like a volcano about to erupt. He winces as I speak. “I’ll tell you what you want to know but we must speak in private,” I say softly.

“God!” he gasps. He raises his hand as if I’ve shone a bright light in his eyes. I know he feels head pressure. I can only hope he will obey. He waves me toward a well-lit shack—it appears to be a hastily constructed office—twenty yards off the road.

The captain’s men act uneasy but he stops them with a sharp retort when one questions what he’s doing. “I’ll speak to her in private,” he says.

Unfortunately, there are three men in the office, all lieutenants. They sit around a table drinking coffee and studying maps of the local area. The maps show where thousands of mines have been set, as well as mark where every machine gun and mortar nest, plus heavy gun placements, is hidden. The Americans would die to hold such charts.

The captain orders me to take a seat.

“No,” I say. “I have to go.”

He is amused. “And where do you think you’re going?”

“London,” I say as I leap up and smash the overhead light with my fist. Simultaneously I kick the captain in the face, sending the whole of his nasal cavity into his brain, and with the other foot I kick the nearest seated lieutenant in the back of his head, breaking his upper neck. Landing on top of the table, I kill the final two men with my feet. The entire operation takes less than a second and I make little noise. Outside, the soldiers by the road notice nothing amiss. After collecting the maps into a tight roll, I find a perfectly sized waterproof container to put them in.

I exit out the back door and run to the Omaha Beach cliffs. Straffer might feel the beaches are not well protected but I’m not so sure. There are a half dozen pillboxes—concrete structures, all lined with narrow windows that peer toward the restless water.
The machine-gun barrels are not visible but it will take only minutes to mount and load them. The Americans who land at this beach will face an inferno of bullets.

They will face something else if they’re not careful. The tide is out, and I see that large, jagged mines have been placed all along the edge of the water. In other words, if the American transport vessels come in at high tide—which I assume they will so the men will have less beach to cover before they attack the machine-gun nests—the ships will strike the mines before they can even deposit their men on the sand.

There are countless mines. They can be avoided if visible, but it will be a suicide run if they’re not. Just another detail I have to get to the Allies.

I pin my hair back in a ponytail, kick off my boots, and hide my black leather coat in the sand. The tube holding the maps I pin to my back beneath my belt. The night is black as ink and I doubt any snipers will see me. Still, I sprint over the sand as fast as I can before diving into the crashing waves.

The English coast is twenty miles away.

The water is cold and I do not like the cold. I will have to generate my own heat. My arms and legs move like a machine, and I plow through the water faster than a man can run, turning my head to take a breath every two minutes. Nothing can spot me, I know. But if perchance a pair of eyes aboard a low-flying plane or a passing ship should catch a glimpse of my white-water wake, they would assume I’m a creature of the sea.

Three miles from the French coast I begin to have second thoughts about the schedule of the invasion. The swells have grown to ridiculous size. I plow between mountains of water twenty-five feet high. They crash over me and slow my progress. However, I’m tireless, they can’t stop me.

But what will they do to the invasion force? The bulk of the men will be stuffed into landing craft like sardines in a can and driven from a British port across the Channel. I have seen the craft, the Allies have thousands. Most are small, cramped, with metal sides that reach only six feet above the surface. If Eisenhower fails to time the attack perfectly and doesn’t hit a lull in the stormy weather, a quarter of a million men will drown.

What makes the situation more precarious is how swiftly the Channel’s mood can change. Boarding at dock, the soldiers leaving Britain might be looking at calm water. Half an hour later they could be staring at tidal waves. What a roll of the dice the whole plan is. A part of me wishes the Allies would stop and regroup and invade through the Mediterranean.

Yet the more time that goes by, the more Jews are rounded up and sent east. Damn Harrah and Ralph! If only the fools would listen to me about the Nazis’ Final Solution. While they continue to pray that the two words mean nothing, their entire race is being exterminated. When I return, I swear, I’m going to drag them across the border into Spain. I don’t care what kind of fight they put up. I’ll drug them if I have to and carry them on my back.

The sun rises as I crawl onto the beach beneath the white cliffs of Dover. Not so tireless after all, I am exhausted. A soldier in a jeep rushes toward me over the hard sand, sending forth a spray of foam. He jumps from his vehicle with his rifle in hand, but seeing my face he lowers it.

“Who are you?” he asks in amazement.

I slowly climb to my feet, shivering, my flesh like ice. Still, I’m able to adopt a flawless British accent. “My name is Alys Perne. I have vital information. I must see Lieutenant Frank Darling immediately. He’s a member of Eisenhower’s personal staff.” I take a shaky step forward. “Please drive me to London.”

He helps me into his jeep. “Did you just come from France?”

“Yes,” I say.

He takes a blanket from the backseat and wraps it around me. I lay the sealed maps between my knees. He jumps behind the wheel and revs the engine. We race over the sand.

“Did your boat sink?” he asks.

“It was a plane. It crashed in the sea a mile out.”

He hoots. “Lady, you must be one hell of a swimmer!”

“You have no idea,” I say.

We reach Darling’s flat in an hour. He greets me warmly and thanks the soldier for his help. Frank—he’s not big on titles—gives me a change of clothes that belong to his girlfriend: trousers and a heavy woolen sweater. He fixes scrambled eggs, toast, and tea. The dry clothes and hot food do wonders
for my condition. We eat together for half an hour before he asks his first question.

“Don’t tell me you swam here,” he says.

“All right.”

“Jesus, Alys, even you can’t risk weather like this. You’re lucky you didn’t drown.”

“It’s worse than you know in the middle of the Channel. Pray there’s a break in the weather in two days.”