“Take care of him while I fetch the car,” Flick said. She ran back into the street.
The gunfire was dying down. She did not have long. She raced along the street and turned two corners.
Outside a closed bakery, two vehicles were parked with their engines running: one a rusty Renault, the other a van with a faded sign on the side that had once read Blanchisserie Bisset-Bisset’s Laundry. The van was borrowed from the father of Bertrand, who was able to get fuel because he washed sheets for hotels used by the Germans. The Renault had been stolen this morning in Chƒlons, and Michel had changed its license plates. Flick decided to take the car, leaving the van for any survivors who might get away from the carnage in the chƒteau grounds.
She spoke briefly to the driver of the van. “Wait here for five minutes, then leave.” She ran to the car, jumped into the passenger seat, and said, “Let’s go, quickly!”
At the wheel of the Renault was Gilberte, a nineteen- year-old girl with long dark hair, pretty but stupid. Flick did not know why she was in the Resistance-she was not the usual type. Instead of pulling away, Gilberte said, “Where to?”
“I’ll direct you-for the love of Christ, move!”
Gilberte put the car in gear and drove off.
“Left, then right,” Flick said.
In the two minutes of inaction that followed, the full realization of her failure hit her. Most of the Bollinger circuit was wiped out. Albert and others had died. Genevieve, Bertrand, and any others who survived would probably be tortured.
And it was all for nothing. The telephone exchange was undamaged, and German communications were intact. Flick felt worthless. She tried to think what she had done wrong. Had it been a mistake to try a frontal attack on a guarded military installation? Not necessarily-the plan might have worked but for the inaccurate intelligence supplied by MI6. However, it would have been safer, she now thought, to get inside the building by some clandestine means. That would have given the Resistance a better chance of getting to the crucial equipment.
Gilberte pulled up at the courtyard entrance. “Turn the car around,” Flick said, and jumped out.
Michel was lying facedown on Antoinette’s sofa, trousers pulled down, looking undignified. Antoinette knelt beside him, holding a bloodstained towel, a pair of glasses perched on her nose, peering at his backside. “The bleeding has slowed, but the bullet is still in there,” she said.
On the floor beside the sofa was her handbag. She had emptied the contents onto a small table, presumably while hurriedly searching for her spectacles. Flick’s eye was caught by a sheet of paper, typed on and stamped, with a small photograph of Antoinette pasted to it, the whole thing in a little cardboard folder. It was the pass that permitted her to enter the chƒteau. In that moment, Flick had the glimmer of an idea.
“I’ve got a car outside,” Flick said.
Antoinette continued to study the wound. “He shouldn’t be moved.”
“If he stays here, the Boche will kill him.” Flick casually picked up Antoinette’s pass. As she did so she asked Michel, “How do you feel?”
“I might be able to walk now,” he said. “The pain is easing.”
Flick slipped the pass into her shoulder bag. Antoinette did not notice. Flick said to her, “Help me get him up.”
The two women raised Michel to his feet. Antoinette pulled up his blue canvas trousers and fastened his worn leather belt.
“Stay inside,” Flick said to Antoinette. “I don’t want anyone to see you with us.” She had not yet begun to work out her idea, but she already knew it would be blighted if any suspicion were to fall on Antoinette and her cleaners.
Michel put his arm around Flick’s shoulders and leaned heavily on her. She took his weight, and he hobbled out of the building into the street. By the time they reached the car, he was white with pain. Gilberte stared through the window at them, looking terrified. Flick hissed at her, “Get out and open the fucking door, dimwit!” Gilberte leaped out of the car and threw open the rear door. With her help, Flick bundled Mitel onto the