The two women jumped in the front “Let’s get out of here,” said Flick.
CHAPTER 4
DIETER WAS DISMAYED and appalled. As the shooting began to peter out, and his heartbeat returned to normal, he started to reflect on what he had seen. He had not thought the Resistance capable of such a well- planned and carefully executed attack. From everything he had learned in the last few months, he believed their raids were normally hit-and-run affairs. But this had been his first sight of them in action. They had been bristling with guns and obviously not short of ammunition-unlike the German army! Worst of all, they had been courageous. Dieter had been impressed by the rifleman who had dashed across the square, by the girl with the Sten gun who had given him covering fire, and most of all by the little blonde who had picked up the wounded rifleman and had carried him-a man six inches taller than she-out of the square to safety. Such people could not fail to be a profound threat to the occupying military force. These were not like the criminals Dieter had dealt with as a cop in Cologne before the war. Criminals were stupid, lazy, cowardly, and brutish. These French Resistance people were fighters.
But their defeat gave him a rare opportunity.
When he was sure the shooting had stopped, he got to his feet and helped Stephanie up. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was breathing hard. She held his hands and looked into his face.-“You protected me,” she said. Tears came to her eyes. “You made yourself a shield for me.”
He brushed dirt from her hip. He was surprised by his own gallantry. The action had been instinctive. When he thought about it, he was not at all sure he would really be willing to give his life to save Stephanie. He tried to pass over it lightly. “No harm should come to this perfect body,” he said.
She began to cry.
He took her hand and led her across the square to the gates. “Let’s go inside,” he said. “You can sit down for a while.” They entered the grounds. Dieter saw a hole in the wall of the church. That explained how the main force had got inside.
The Waffen-SS troops had come out of the building and were disarming the attackers. Dieter looked keenly at the Resistance fighters. Most were dead, but some were only wounded, and one or two appeared to have surrendered unhurt. There should be several for him to interrogate.
Until now, his work had been defensive. The most he had been able to do was fortify key installations against the Resistance by beefing up security. The occasional prisoner had yielded little information. But having several prisoners, all from one large and evidently well-organized circuit, was a different matter. This might be his chance of going on the attack, he thought eagerly.
He shouted at a sergeant, “You-get a doctor for these prisoners. I want to interrogate them. Don’t let any die.”
Although Dieter was not in uniform, the sergeant assumed from his manner that he was a superior officer, and said, “Very good, sir.”
Dieter took Stephanie up the steps and through the stately doorway into the wide hall. It was a breathtaking sight: a pink marble floor, tall windows with elaborate curtains, walls with Etniscan motifs in plaster picked out in dusty shades of pink and green, and a ceiling painted with fading cherubs. Once, Dieter assumed, the room had been filled with gorgeous furniture: pier tables under high mirrors, sideboards encrusted with ormolu, dainty chairs with gilded legs, oil paintings, huge vases, little marble statuettes. All that was gone now, of course. Instead there were rows of switchboards, each with its chair, and a snake’s nest of cables on the floor.
The telephone operators seemed to have fled into the grounds at the rear but, now that the shooting had stopped, a few of them were standing at the glazed doors, still wearing their headsets and breast microphones, wondering if it was safe to come back inside. Dieter sat Stephanie at one of the switchboards, then beckoned a middle-aged woman telephonist. “Madame,” he said in a polite but commanding voice. He spoke French. “Please bring a cup of hot coffee for this lady.”