Chapter 28
In the very early hours, while they were all asleep, Purdue slipped into the stables outside to report to Lydia and let her know that he was planning to come back. The box lit up, but the power was considerably less this time, hardly out-shining the interior of the empty stables. Still, he spoke into the microphone.
“Hope you can hear me?” he started. “Please ready the chamber. I intend to return in…” he checked the watch he took from the dead Nazi he left at the horse cart, set to the original entry time, “…twelve hours exactly.”
A crackle grew louder and the frequency hummed as he waited with baited breath. There was a weak signal sound, then a voice.
“—ave, Nina says— Helmut… — ds the Tes— papers where no-one can take it from him!’ Lydia shouted. He could hear Nina directing her in the background.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
‘Pur—, you cannot — back yet. We have trouble here…” Nina tried to tell him, but he had no idea what they were talking about.
“Where is Sam? Nina? Nina!”
Before he could continue the light waned and the box was left far cooler than it used to be when he was done transmitting — not steaming like a blacksmith’s iron anymore, but hardly smoldering.
He collected the BAT and slipped it back into his pocket. He checked the time again, just to make sure he knew where twelve hours would take him. There was no more time to waste. He deliberately made a ruckus in washing up in the outside trough so that his guide would wake up.
“If you don’t mind,” Purdue told Jean, “I have urgent business with your prisoner.”
A half hour later Jean and Purdue bade the farmer, Marie and young Celeste goodbye and made the trip to Oradour-sur-Veyres. On the way there Jean hardly spoke a word to the English stranger, but he certainly looked at him a lot.
“What are you going to do with the papers you want from the Nazi officer, then?” he asked. Purdue had to sift through the right phrases to keep up his reputation as a friend while not mentioning anything far-fetched that could alienate Jean and his movement. The French Resistance could not find out that he was a guest of the Reichkanzlei or that he showed up from thin air, so to speak.
“My organization will destroy it after committing it to record for historical documentation,” Purdue employed his tact. He felt like an attorney or a publicist, spinning the truth to twist it into something acceptable. Among all the questions he did his best to answer, Purdue was dying to ask one of his own. He desperately wanted to know why they studied him so, why they could not stop staring at him. He hoped that they did not by chance see him with Diekmann’s company and now recognized him.
“If you don’t mind I will accompany you when you go to see the German officer,” Jean finally said. “That is our only condition for you to be allowed to see him. And only because you saved our Celeste. Just know that.”
“I am grateful for the opportunity, Jean. Believe me, I completely understand that you will not allow a stranger to speak to your prisoner. I have no problem with that,” Purdue smiled respectfully, yet inside he dreaded the notion. He needed to be left alone with Helmut Kämpfe to attain the papers, but if this was the only way to get near him, it would have to suffice.
Just after 10am in the morning they arrived on the hill above the small town of Oradour-sur-Vayres. Purdue’s stomach churned. He had never before felt such a feeling of foreboding from all sides as he did now. Not only was he running out of time with the BAT, but he had to remember that by now, Diekmann had to be aware that he absconded. With German scouts all about the Haute-Vienne department keeping an eye out for him, he could not move about freely without taking note of prying glares in is direction.
“Let me do all the talking, Dave,” Jean told him as they drove into town. “I will make sure they don’t overreact to your presence. This is a very sensitive matter, especially now that the Nazi’s destroyed one of our towns in retaliation for this man’s capture. In fact, most men here are just waiting to kill the pig.”
“I don’t blame them,” Purdue answered inadvertently, but his words pleased Jean.
He gave Purdue a hat to conceal his hair and face and told him that it was so that Diekmann’s men would not see him here, but in truth Jean was hiding Purdue’s looks for quite another reason. “Come, Dave. Let’s get this over with.”
After the men of the Resistance were briefed on who Purdue was and what he did for Celeste he was reluctantly allowed to go into the small shack hidden behind the water mill where they were keeping the Nazi officer. Following Jean and his shotgun into the musty little room decked out with nothing more than a few heaps of straw and a bucket for waste. The Resistance was definitely not kind captors to any Nazi.
“There he is,” Jean said, pointing to the crouched up officer. He was barefoot, his German uniform stripped off with only a dirty vest on his torso. His head was bowed over his folded arms and his legs pulled up.
“Achtung!” Jean mocked him. “You have a visitor!”
The officer did not bother to respond at first, but Purdue stepped forward and said, “Helmut, I bring greetings from Lydia Jenner.” The officer immediately caught his breath and lifted his face to see the man who could achieve the impossible. Jean waited for both reactions, knowing that they would see one another as if in a mirror. Just as Nina had a double in Sigrun, Purdue had the same face and hair as Helmut!
“What in God’s name?” he marveled at the sight of the Nazi officer. In turn Helmut looked absolutely spooked. Helmut rose to his shackled feet with much effort, but he had to. What he saw before him was unbelievable. He stared at Purdue for a moment and then he smiled, “No wonder Lydia Jenner wanted to sleep with me. I look just like the man she had been in love with since college!” He burst out in laughter. Jean raised his gun in defense, not used to the boisterous behavior of the normally quiet prisoner.
“You didn’t know?” he laughed. “She told me all about you, Dave Purdue!”
“What did she tell you?” Purdue shouted, unsettled by his recognition. Jean had no idea what was happening.
“You were the one she loved since she met you. She told me that I reminded her of you, but you know what? It was still my name she screamed!” he sniggered in amusement, winking at Purdue. “Now you are here? She sent you, of all people, back to get the Tesla papers from me? How terribly vindictive!”
“You have the papers with you?” Purdue asked, electing to ignore the hostility seeping from Helmut’s words.
“Nein.”
“Where are they?” he asked Helmut.
“Burned. I pinned them to a Jew in Limoges and watched Tesla’s genius go up in flames with him,” he said nonchalantly. Jean pursed his lips and played with his finger on the trigger. “Tell the French dog to shoot me, then, Dave Purdue!”
Purdue and Jean exchanged glances. They both desired the end of the Nazi. Purdue knew that Helmut would not have gone through the trouble of obtaining Nikola Tesla’s documents all the way from the United States if he did not plan to sell them or use them for the good of the Reich.
“Strip him,” Purdue ordered.
“What?” Jean frowned.
“Strip the Nazi swine,” Purdue repeated, switching his innate jovial nature for one far darker to accommodate the handling of a reprehensible character such as Helmut. “The schematic I am looking for is on him and I want it.”
Jean summoned his men and against the prisoner’s struggling they stripped him of every grain of clothing he wore. Nude, he stood there screaming at them in German, but they stood mute and fascinated at what they saw. On his back and stomach the precise design details of Nikola Tesla’s Teleforce weapon was tattooed, complete with notes.