“In that event, we’ll turn on the headlights of the car at the crucial moment.” The Mercedes had huge dinner- plate lamps.
The other marksman said, “Listen.”
Five kilometers from Laroque, the village of L’Epine was asleep. Bright moonlight silvered the big church. Behind the church, Moulier’s meat van was parked inconspicuously next to a barn. In the deep moon shadow thrown by a buttress, the surviving Jackdaws sat waiting.
“What are you looking forward to?” said Ruby.
Paul said, “A steak.”
Flick said, “A soft bed with clean sheets. How about you?”
“Seeing Jim.”
Flick recalled that Ruby had had a fling with the firearms instructor. “I thought…” She stopped.
“You thought it was just a casual shag?” Ruby said. Flick nodded, embarrassed.
“So did Jim,” Ruby said. “But I’ve got other plans.” Paul laughed softly. “I’ll bet you get what you want.” “What about you two?” Ruby asked.
They fell silent. A motor vehicle was approaching. They all knelt. Despite the moonlight, they would not be visible against the dark mass of the vines, provided they kept their heads down.
A van came along the road from the village with its lights off It pulled up by the gate to the potato field. A female figure jumped out and swung the gate wide. The van pulled in and its engine was silenced. Two more people got out, another woman and a man.
“Quiet, now,” Dieter whispered.
Suddenly the hush was shattered by the blare of a car horn, incredibly loud.
Dieter jumped and cursed. It came from immediately behind him. “Jesus!” he exploded. It was the Mercedes. He leaped to his feet and ran to the open window of the driver’s door. He saw immediately what had happened.
Michel had sprung forward, leaning across the front seat, and before Hans could stop him he had pressed on the horn with his bound hands. Hans, in the front passenger seat, was now trying to aim his gun, but Gilberte had joined in, and she was lying half over Hans, hampering his movements so that he kept having to push her away.
Dieter reached in and shoved Michel, but Michel resisted, and Dieter’s position, with his arms extended through the car window, was too awkward for him to exert much force. The horn continued to sound a deafening warning that the Resistance agents could not fail to hear.
Dieter fumbled for his gun.
Michel found the light switch, and the car’s headlights came on. Dieter looked up. The riflemen were hideously exposed in the glare of the lights. They both got up off their knees, but before they could throw themselves out of the beam there was a rattle of machine-gun fire from the field. One rifleman cried out, dropped his gun, clutched his belly, and fell across the hood of the Mercedes; then the other was shot in the head. A sharp pain stung Dieter’s left arm, and he let out a yell of shock.
Then there was a shot from within the car, and Michel cried out. Hans had at last flung Gilberte off himself and got his pistol out. He fired again, and Michel slumped, but Michel’s hand was still on the horn, and his body now lay over his hand, pressing it down, so the horn continued to blare. Hans fired a third time, uselessly, for his bullet thudded into the body of a dead man. Gilberte screamed and threw herself at Hans again, grabbing at his gun arm with her manacled hands. Dieter had his gun out but could not shoot at Gilberte for fear of hitting Hans.
There was a fourth shot. It was Hans’s gun again, but now it was somehow pointing upwards, and he shot himself, the bullet hitting him under the chin. He gave a horrid gurgle, blood came out of his mouth, and he slumped back against the door, his eyes staring lifelessly. Dieter took careful aim and shot Gilberte in the head.
He reached through the window with his right arm and shoved the corpse of Michel away from the steering wheel.
The horn was silenced.
He found the light switch and killed the headlights.
He looked across the field.