Cars were parked in a line along the curb in the rue Cambon, some of them attended by chauffeurs. Most of the chauffeurs were hurrying toward the hotel to see what was happening. Flick picked a black Mercedes 230 sedan with a spare wheel perched on the running board. She looked into the front: the key was in the dash. “Get in!” she yelled at Ruby. She got behind the wheel and pulled the self-starter. A big engine rumbled into life. She engaged first gear, heaved the steering wheel around, and accelerated away from the Ritz. The car was heavy and sluggish, but stable: at speed, it cornered like a train.
When she was several blocks away she reviewed her position. She had lost a third of her team, including her best marksman. She considered whether to abandon the mission and immediately decided to carry on. It would be awkward: she would have to explain why only four cleaners had come to the chƒteau instead of the usual six, but she could make up some excuse. It meant they might be questioned more closely, but she would take that risk.
She dumped the car in the rue de la Chapelle. She and Ruby were out of immediate danger. They walked quickly to the flophouse. Ruby rounded up Greta and Jelly and brought them to Flick’s room. She told them what had happened.
“Diana and Maude will be questioned immediately,” she said. “Dieter Franck is a capable and ruthless interrogator, so we have to assume they will tell everything they know-including the address of this hotel. That means the Gestapo could be here at any moment. We have to leave right away.”
Jelly was crying. “Poor Maude,” she said. “She was a silly cow, but she didn’t deserve to be tortured.”
Greta was more practical. “Where will we go?”
“We’ll hide in the convent next door to the flophouse. They’ll take anyone in. I’ve hidden escaped prisoners of war there before now. They’ll let us stay until daybreak.”
“Then what?”
“We’ll go to the station as planned. Diana is going to tell Dieter Franck our real names, our code names, and our false identities. He will put out an alert for anyone traveling under our aliases. Fortunately, I have a spare set of papers for all of us, using the same photographs but different identities. The Gestapo don’t have photographs of you three, and I’ve changed my appearance, so the checkpoint guards will have no way of recognizing us. However, to be safe, we won’t go to the station at first light-we’ll wait until about ten o’clock when it should be busy.”
Ruby said, “Diana will also tell them what our mission is.”
“She’ll tell them we’re going to blow up the railway tunnel at Marles. Fortunately, that’s not our real mission. It’s a cover story I gave out.”
Jelly said admiringly, “Flick, you think of everything.”
“Yes,” she said grimly. “That’s why I’m still alive.”
CHAPTER 37
PAUL SAT IN the dismal canteen at Grendon Underwood, brooding anxiously about Flick, for more than an hour. He was beginning to believe that Brian Standish had been compromised. The incident in the cathedral, the fact that Chatelle had been in total darkness, and the unnatural correctness of the third radio message all pointed in the same direction.
In the original plan, Flick would have been met at Chatelle by a reception committee consisting of Michel and the remnants of the Bollinger circuit. Michel would have taken them to a hideaway for a few hours, then arranged transport to Sainte-C‚cile. After they entered the chƒteau and blew up the telephone exchange he would have driven them back to Chatelle to meet their pickup plane. All that had changed now, but Flick would still need both transport and a hiding place when she got to Reims, and she would be relying on the Bollinger circuit to help. However, if Brian had been compromised, would there be any of the circuit left? Was the safe house safe? Was Michelin Gestapo hands, too?
At last, Lucy Briggs came into the canteen and said, “Jean asked me to tell you that Helicopter’s reply is being decrypted now. Would you like to come with me?”