Despite exhaustion from the forced march, there was little time to rest. Everyone had been briefed on the plan and understood the timetable. The prisoners at Drancy would be shipped to Auschwitz within a matter of days. If they were still destined for Auschwitz.
During the long walk from Catalonia, Hiram had taken the opportunity to train Team Two on the use of the communications and surveillance equipment he extracted from Jacob’s pod. Each woman operated a drone during the hike. On one three-hour leg of the journey, Agnes followed a large red deer through the woods until it met with a small herd and settled down for a mid-morning snooze. She sent the drone down into the trees when the deer stepped into a dense patch of woods. The drone stayed close, maneuvering through the trees no more than ten feet above the hilled landscape. Nora, Simone, and Ester showed similar talent flying the drones, while Vera and Charlotte picked up on the details captured by the drones. From a shallow wolf’s footprint in the mud, to a French soldier’s hideout camouflaged as a hunting cabin, they picked up on the little details needed to keep the group safe. Hiram had use for their skills.
Now, the time had come to reorganize the women into smaller teams, assigning one newly trained communications specialist to each team. As they sat down to enjoy a well-earned rest and a not so delicious meal, Hiram called for everyone’s attention.
“We are all so thankful to be reunited today. It’s been a long journey. But, it’s not over.”
Deborah translated.
“We should leave tonight,” Barbara said, Deborah translating. “We should all go to Drancy with your nuclear weapons and destroy everything in our path, starting with the Vichy government.”
“We can’t do that,” Hiram said. “The weapons leave residual contamination. We can’t move through the area where we detonate one of the weapons. And, we intend to minimize civilian deaths as much as possible.” Deborah translated his words, which prompted an immediate outburst from Barbara and several other women.
“They want to know why we should care about the French Gentiles◦– they do not care about us?” Deborah said.
Hiram shook his head. “If we kill off innocent people, no matter their beliefs, we are no better than these Nazi sympathizers.”
“Fuck the French. We save the families,” Barbara shouted. She’d learned that much Hebrew along the way.
“You want to kill millions of people to save our families?” Danette retorted in French, Deborah once again translating for Hiram’s sake. The discussion degenerated quickly into a shouting match.
Rosette, who hadn’t expressed an opinion on any topic since the rescue, began yelling at Barbara. She charged the smaller woman, knocking her to ground.
Both women yelled and cursed as they struggled. Rosette gained the upper hand, slamming a fist into the smaller woman’s ribs. On the third strike, Barbara reached for a bayonet in its sheath at her waist. Hiram drew his Taser and let the twin darts fly. He hit Barbara in the ribcage. The two women were so closely locked together that they both collapsed in spasms until he released the trigger. Danette disarmed Barbara and Deborah pulled Rosette more than an arm’s length away. Both women lay on the ground in a stupor.
“What the hell was that all about?” Hiram asked Deborah when she straightened up.
“Rosette’s family lives outside Vichy. Her husband and children were not taken as part of the roundup. She told me a few days ago that she’s only one-eighth Jewish and her husband is all Gentile. One of her great-grandmothers was Jewish, the rest Catholics. She never even thought of herself as a Jew until the roundups began.”
“Her family is worth saving too,” he said. “We will not massacre the French people. Keep those two apart.”
Hiram gave the group a few minutes to calm down. Barbara, red-faced and irritated, stormed away from the group. Rosette wiped a smear of blood from her lip on to her pants leg. The others stood around waiting for further direction.
He looked back at each of his soldiers. The road had been hard for all of them. This most recent leg of the journey from Catalonia had taken its toll on him. Tomorrow, the road would lead them back to their families, hundreds of kilometers from the concealed safety of the forest. “No more arguing. Tonight we rest.”
Nora, the silent soldier who had traveled so far on foot with him, let out a sigh. “Barux Hashem!” Thank God!
0650 hours, Tuesday, August 4, 1942, south of Périllos Pyrénées-Orientales Department, Vichy France
“We’ve got a surprise for you,” Deborah said as Hiram finished his welcome but unappetizing breakfast of pod-food. Even pseudo-turkey medallions with gravy was preferable to another of the protein bars he’d been eating for the last several days.
“I don’t like surprises in the field,” he said. “They tend to get people killed.”
“You’ll like this one.” Deborah took his hand, led him over to the location of a parked sidecar motorcycle. Justine and Emma followed them. “Remember the French soldiers we ran into on our way from Vingrau? Emma and Justine went back for the motorcycle a few nights after we arrived here. They snuck off in the night and wheeled the thing back into camp without anyone noticing.” The German-made BMW R75 was a very capable on and off-road machine and it had been altered. And then he saw pieces of one of the combat robots on the ground near the bike.
“What have you done?”
“It was Emma and Justine’s idea. Emma noticed that the wheelbase of the bike’s rear axle is almost identical to standard gauge railroad tracks here in France. She wondered if we could adapt the bike to run on the tracks. There’d be far fewer checkpoints to bypass if we took the railways instead of the roads, travelling at night. And, the rail lines are more direct.”
Hiram scratched the back of his head, still considering the demolished robot. “I can’t argue with that.”
“Justine figured out we could adapt the robot’s wheels into rail guides.” She pointed to the small wheels mounted beneath the bike, parallel to but offset from the bike’s native tires. “They can be retracted to allow the bike to run on the road.” She pressed one of the hand controls on the bike and the rail guides folded up and out of sight. “The guides will keep the bike’s tires centered on the rails, and if we slightly underinflate the tires, they’ll get a good enough grip to propel the bike.”
“That’s brilliant,” Hiram said. Justine and Emma beamed. “But what did you do with the robot’s drive system?”
“Take a look inside the sidecar.”
Hiram did as instructed. The drive had been connected to the rear axle of the bike.
“The solid rear axle is uncommon among sidecar motorcycles,” Justine said by way of Deborah’s translation. “Lucky those soldiers had this bike.”
“Where’d you get the gears?
Emma made a few dramatic hand movements as she spoke. “Ida was flying the recon drone around and spotted an abandoned tractor a few kilometers away,” Deborah translated. “A few of us went and removed the transmission, then carried it back here. We used the tools in the robot repair kit you left out.”
Hiram liked the initiative and resourcefulness of the women in his absence. Yahweh knows they’re going to need it, since I have to split them up again.
“I wish we had a half-dozen more of them,” Deborah said, bringing him back to the present.
“That’s one wish I can grant. We need to disassemble the whole thing, lower it into my pod.” His stomach turned at he said the words. Even now, after days without accessing either pod, his stomach continued to remind him of his trip into Jacob’s pod. “I should be able to enter the pod multiple times until we have all the parts we need for seven bikes.”