“I’ve got another six with me. Hiram’s off making life difficult for the bad guys. He said something about blowing up a bridge or two. He’ll meet up with us tomorrow.”
“I made it home, Ida. But, Sophia and Leverette◦– my babies◦– were gone. I can’t believe he did it. They are children.” She tried to contain her tears. “My bastard husband turned them over to the police after I was taken. Said they were tainted by my blood. How could he throw away his own sweet children?”
“Oh, Rosette. I am so sorry,” Ida hugged her friend. “We need to focus on slipping out of here, then we can get your children back, along with the rest of our families. The policeman is on his way back. Follow me.”
As Ida reached for the door handle, they heard the car coming up the dirt drive. Rosette risked a peek out the front window and recognized Locard in the driver’s seat. Another man sat beside him.
When the car stopped, Locard stepped out of the car, then the passenger door opened. Rosette looked at Locard and at the other man now climbing out. She refused to let him take her away. “Come on! We have to go.” Rosette guided Ida to the open side window, which looked out over the Benoit’s field. Alphonse, now distracted by Locard’s arrival, headed back toward the house. “Stay close to the house. We can get to the woods around back.”
The two crept around the outside of the weathered, stone farmhouse. Once around back, they took off toward the thick border of trees separating the property from the one behind it. Once hidden, they could make their way to the woods less than a kilometer away.
As she cleared the garden, a familiar voice called out. “Mère!”
Rosette stopped.
“What are you doing? Run!” Ida said.
“Mère!” the small voice called again.
“Leverette,” Rosette whispered. She turned and ran back to the farmhouse, not caring who might see her now. She cut through the garden and almost demolished a row of Brussel sprout stalks.
When she reached the front of the house, a little boy of about five, stood next to the policeman.
“It is you!” Leverette cried.
Rosette took a few steps toward him and fell to her knees. The child ran to her, moving as fast as he could go. Mother and son reunited in the dirt driveway. Locard and the stranger watched from a respectful distance. “Are you here to take us away?” Rosette said with the boy in her arms.
Before Locard or the other man answered, Ida stepped around from the back of the house with her M22 assault rifle held against her shoulder. “Hands up!” she said. Their hands went up without hesitation. Ida’s six companions appeared out of the fields surrounding the farmhouse, weapons aimed toward the policeman and his comrade.
36
0610 hours, Friday, August 14, 1942, Saint Chamond, Loire Department, Vichy France
Hiram, Trembley, and Charlotte joined teams Bravo and Echo in Saint Chamond just before daybreak. It had been a productive, or rather, a destructive night. Hiram had planted satchel charges on each trestle of the two bridges crossing the Loire River, then detonated them as freight trains crossed from the east. The train carrying munitions had provided a spectacular fireworks show. Now, two fewer routes existed for the Holocaust Trains to travel.
They left the railbike with Charlotte’s Team Echo compatriots in the woods west of the farmer’s fields. Isadore informed Hiram that Team Delta had checked in from Moulins. As they walked up to the farmhouse, he wondered how far Team Charlie had gone on their move south toward Liborne.
Ida greeted them at the door, then led them into the parlor where two men sat in straight-backed chairs, guarded by Charlotte. The taller man wore a rumpled grey suit, his long legs crossed at the ankles well out front of the chair. His thick framed glasses disrupted the style of his hair, which lay at awkward, messy angles around his ears. The other man was older, maybe mid-fifties with greying hair and piercing blue eyes. In contrast, he wore a tailored black suit and expensive, well-shined shoes.
Hiram turned to Ida. “Rosette?”
As Ida spoke, Trembley translated for him. Hiram did not want to expose the secret of the Babel Fish to either prisoner.
“Upstairs in one of the bedrooms with her son. These men brought him back from Camp des Milles. The farmer and his wife are in the kitchen.” Ida’s words sounded grim despite the good news she had just delivered.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She pointed her gun at Locard. “This one is Inspector Locard, says he’s a French policeman. He says our families are being moved again. By train, through Belgium, and then east.”
“Kak!” Hiram said. Shit.
“Who’s this guy?” Hiram directed his words to Locard, and was surprised when the man answered in English before Trembley completed the translation.
“May I present my good friend, Oberst Hans Paul Oster. Deputy Director of counter-espionage, German military intelligence,” Locard said.
Without thinking, Hiram took a step backward and leveled his rifle at the German colonel.
“Delighted to meet you.” Oster held out a hand to Hiram, the motion quick and confident.
“Yasher koach,” Hiram tested whether the man spoke Hebrew. May God grant you the strength to continue your good deeds.
Oster said, “Shalom. And that, I’m afraid, is the full extent of my Hebrew,” he continued in English. Hiram lowered his gun and Oster rescinded his offer to shake.
The German’s name sounded familiar to Hiram. His father had mentioned a General Major Hans Oster several times in connection with his research. Probably the same man, not yet promoted from the German equivalent of full colonel to brigadier general. Of course, the Oster Conspiracy! Oster plotted to kill Hitler back in 1939. He would be arrested in 1943 for helping Jews escape Europe, which precluded his personal participation in the Operation Valkyrie plot to supersede Hitler’s regime in 1944. His execution in 1945 followed another attempt to terminate Hitler. But Oster’s story had changed. Everything had changed.
“Hiram,” Charlotte said as she burst into the room. She said a few more words that Hiram didn’t understand.
“Sounds urgent,” Trembley said.
“Ida, these men are not our prisoners. Let’s get them more comfortable accommodations,” Hiram said.
Hiram and Trembley followed Charlotte out into the hallway. Charlotte spoke again in French.
“She’s found Deborah and Danette,” Trembley said.
“Where? Are they safe?” Hiram wanted to leave immediately to get them.
“Vosges Mountains, south of La Bresse. About seventy-five kilometers east of Vittel. They lost the railbike somehow. Not in imminent danger, but travelling on foot. They’re following the French-German border south, staying well west of the demarcation zone.”
“Show me,” Hiram said
Charlotte held up the C2ID2 display. Danette and Deborah walked up a steep mountain path among heavy woods. Both alert and watchful. They each carried their M22 assault rifles at port arms. Hiram noticed their backpacks had changed from the IDF-issued ones to smaller canvas packs, the C2ID2s nowhere in sight. It explained his inability to contact them.
“Can we get the drone down where they can see it, so they know we’ve found them?” He was eager to see Deborah’s face again.
Trembley translated.
Charlotte zoomed the view back out and looked further up the trail the women climbed, then zoomed in closer.
Trembley said, “She can bring the drone down and buzz them when they enter that clearing.”