There was a low hum. The man on the table let out a strangled scream. His strapped-down body shook with convulsions. Ruby looked at him for a moment; then she said, “Let’s go.”
They went out, leaving Sergeant Becker writhing on the table, squealing like a pig in the slaughterhouse.
Flick checked her watch. Two minutes had passed since Jelly lit the fuses.
They passed through the Interview Room and stepped out into the corridor. The confusion had died down. There were just three soldiers near the entrance, talking calmly. Flick walked rapidly toward them with Ruby close behind.
Flick’s instinct was to walk straight past the soldiers, relying on a confident air to get her through, but then she glimpsed, through the door, the tall figure of Dieter Franck approaching, followed by two or three other people she could not clearly see. She stopped abruptly. Ruby bumped into her back. Flick turned to the nearest door. It was marked Wireless Room. She opened it. The room was empty. They stepped inside.
She left the door an inch open. She heard Major Franck bark in German, “Captain, where are the two men who should be guarding this entrance?”
“I don’t know, Major, I was just asking.”
Flick took the silencer off her Sten gun and flicked the switch for rapid fire. She had used only four bullets so far, leaving twenty-eight in the magazine.
“Sergeant, you and this corporal stand guard. Captain, you go up to Major Weber’s office and tell him Major Franck strongly recommends he conduct a search of the basement immediately. Off you go, on the double!”
A moment later, Franck’s footsteps passed the Wireless Room. Flick waited, listening. A door slammed. She peeped out. Franck had disappeared.
“Let’s go,” she said to Ruby. They left the Wireless Room and walked to the main door.
The corporal said in French, “What are you doing here?”
Flick had an answer ready. “My friend Valerie is new to the job, and she came to the wrong place in the confusion of the blackout.”
The corporal looked dubious. “It’s still light upstairs, how could she get lost?”
Ruby said, “I’m very sorry, sir, I thought I was supposed to clean here, and no one stopped me.”
The sergeant said in German, “We’re supposed to keep them out, not keep them in, Corporal.” He laughed and waved them on.
Dieter tied the prisoner to a chair, then dismissed the cook who had escorted her from the kitchen. He looked at the woman for a moment, wondering how much time he had. One agent had been arrested in the street outside the chƒteau. Another, if she was an agent, had been caught coming up the stairs from the basement. Had the others come and gone? Were they waiting somewhere to be let in? Or were they here in the building right now? It was maddening not to know what was happening. But he had ordered the basement searched. The only other thing he could do was interrogate the prisoner.
Dieter began with the traditional slap in the face, sudden and demoralizing. The woman gasped with shock and pain.
“Where are your friends?” he asked her.
The woman’s cheek reddened. He studied her expression. What he saw mystified him.
She looked happy.
“You’re in the basement of the chƒteau,” he told her. “Through that door is the torture chamber. On the other side, beyond that partition wall, is the telephone switchgear. We are at the end of a tunnel, the bottom of the sack, as the French say. If your friends plan to blow up the building, you and I will surely die here in this room.”
Her expression did not change.
Perhaps the chƒteau was not about to blow up, Dieter thought. But then what was the mission? “You’re German,” he said. “Why are you helping your country’s enemies?”
At last she spoke. “I’ll tell you,” she said. She spoke German with a Hamburg accent. “Many years ago, I had a lover. His name was Manfred.” She looked away, remembering. “Your Nazis arrested him and sent him to a camp. I think he died there-I never heard.” She paused, swallowing. Dieter waited. After a moment she went on. “When they took him away from me, I swore I would have my revenge-and this is it.” She smiled happily. “Your foul regime is almost finished. And I’ve helped to destroy it.”