MARIE spent three days looking over her shoulder. When she felt certain that her impending arrest might not actually happen, she ventured out in the predawn hour and went to the church.
No one occupied the pews within the dim church interior. She made her way to the appropriate pew and found the hymnal. Inside, on the correct page, she found a slip of a note. Marie decoded the hymn lyrics and read:
Cover blown.
Transmit immediate evac request.
Coordinate with HQ
She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She folded the note into a little tiny ball, then put it in her mouth and swallowed it.
After she left the church, she went to the cemetery. When she arrived at the tomb where she had hidden her wireless, she rushed inside and felt around in the dark. Once her seeking fingers found and secured her equipment, she felt an enormous amount of relief. As far as she could tell, it hadn't been tampered with and was exactly as she'd left it. Not wanting to risk the code book falling into the German's hands, she left it behind. She should be able to code the missive from memory.
She packed her bag carefully and exited the tomb to find no one in the church graveyard. Securing her bag to the back of her bike, she pedaled back to town, back to her boarding house.
The bag felt incredibly heavy to her, and she felt like everyone looking at her knew what it contained. Every glance in her direction transformed into an accusing glare. Anxious, nervous, paranoid, she rushed up the stairs to her room, securing the door behind her.
It took no time at all for her to set up the antenna and hook everything up. Checking over her shoulder in her empty bedroom, she slipped the earphones on her head and started transmitting, using code.
TEMPERANCE COMPROMISED.
NEED IMMED —
The pounding on her door interrupted her transmission.
Unable to do anything but shove the equipment under her bed, she straightened her dress and rushed to the door. On the other side stood a German Sergeant and four men. She felt her eyebrows knot.
"May I help you?" she asked.
He was a large man, with round features and a big nose. He glared at her but did not speak to her. "Durchsuchen den raum," he barked out.
She knew he'd given the order to his men to search the space, just as she knew they would quickly find the wireless equipment.
"Sergeant," she put her hand up in a halting gesture, "men are forbidden from entering this room. It is improper."
The sergeant grinned. It was not a look of happiness. "Papers, Fräulein?" he asked in coarse French and extended his gloved right hand. With his gloved left hand, he gestured impatiently at his men. "Mache schnell! Suche das Zimmer. Suche überall."
Hurry up, he urged. Search the room. Search everywhere.
While the soldiers tore through her closet and bureau, she pulled her identification papers from her pocket and handed it to the sergeant.
He opened the leather cover, nodded once as if confirming something, then looked at her. "Fräulein Marie Perrin?"
"Yes," she said, crossing her arms as one of the men got on his knees to look under the bed. Before the sergeant could say anything else, the soldier made an exclamation and pulled the machine out from under the bed.
"You are under arrest, Fräulein Perrin." Then, with a balled fist, he punched her in the cheek with his leather gloved hand. The impact felt as if he had something metal inside his gloves. Her world turned a nauseatingly dark gray before it went completely black.
MARIE lay on a cot in the corner of a cage. She remembered to pretend she was still unconscious this time. The longer they left her unmolested, the longer she could rest, recuperate, save her energy for what lay ahead.
Every part of her seemed to hurt in one way or another. Her face felt like a giant burning blister from the vicious punch and the dozens of backhanded slaps that followed. Her teeth felt loose in the back of her mouth and she tasted blood every time she swallowed. Her back had deep burning welts from a beating with some kind of whip or riding crop a few hours earlier. But the worst part was the cold. Her damp skin felt freezing cold and she could get no relief from the chill because they had only left her with her light undergarments and a thin cotton slip with which to cover herself.
The first thing they had done when they had taken her into the interrogation room was to manacle her hands far above her head so that she had to stand on the very tips of her toes just to keep her wrists from bleeding. Then they had used a razor sharp bayonet and taken turns cutting her clothes from her body and laughing with each rag of fabric they removed.
One of the soldiers had painfully sawed off a hank of her hair and lewdly inhaled it, making his companions guffaw. Her skin crawled at the memory of the feeling of the cold steel gently caressing the bare skin of her arms, legs, and stomach.
She kept her eyes closed and tried not to groan in pain or shiver too visibly. Her cage had no walls, only bars. It sat in the center of a large room with guards all around her. She had no privacy, no escape from the constant stares of the guards. Not that she spent much time in the cell. They had her out and interrogated her almost constantly. As far as she could tell, she'd been there for fifteen waking hours. She had no idea how long she'd been unconscious or how often. It could have been seconds or hours. Time meant nothing at this point — nothing but a continual state of misery.
She wanted to dab at her cheek, but didn't want any of her watching guards to see. She was certain the sergeant had broken her cheekbone. Her eye had long since swollen shut. She knew she had at least two broken ribs, along with her pinkie finger on her left hand.
Once they'd finished cutting her dress completely off of her body, they had mercifully left her in her cotton slip, barefoot. The bed had neither sheets nor a blanket. Every time she started to fall asleep, someone took a water hose and doused her, which meant that the mattress was soaking wet. The only time they let her be was when they were certain she was unconscious.
A shudder of cold went through her body and she knew if she had no relief from the constant wet, she would soon get sick. Whether they would nurse her back to health remained a giant question mark.
They wanted the code book that she'd left in the tomb. If they got the code book, they'd be able to decipher the transmissions they had intercepted for the past several months. At the very least, they would find out about the mission Praetorian and his team had been planning. That would not only endanger their lives, but it would also hurt the war effort. She could never give them that information, even if it cost her life.
Instead, she refused to talk. They almost broke her. Fracturing her pinkie nearly did her in, but the interrogator did not continue the conversation. He had her removed to her cell, where she could think about whether or not she wanted to continue holding back. She knew it was to reset her brain, which was starting to go into shock, making his interrogation tactics useless.
At that point, she started to drift inside herself. If it were possible to will herself to die, she would have died three hours ago. Maybe she could sleep through the next blast of hose.
Just as she drifted off she heard the guards talking and heard the order given to soak her again just seconds before the burst of water hit her in the face. She reflexively raised her left hand to shield herself from the water and cried out loud when the force of the water pushed against her broken pinkie, causing her to inhale a mouth full of icy water. Choking, gasping, drowning, she pushed herself up and stood, but they kept the stream of water hitting her directly in the face, causing her to stumble back into the corner of the cage and turn her back to them.
Cradling her hand to her chest in case the pressure of the water pushed her up against the bars, she stood and faced out into the room. Through the haze of pain and misery, she looked up and shockingly saw Hope standing next to a German Colonel.
It took every single ounce of control she had not to react. Reaching out with her right hand, she gripped the bars and bowed her head. "Thank you, God," she whispered.
When she looked up again, the Colonel and Hope were gone. She knew she hadn't imagined her. The Virtues knew she was arrested and where they held her. Now they'd either rescue her or kill her. Either way, the end of the agony would come soon.
OBERLEUTNANT Leopold Schäfer stormed into the office of the head interrogator. "What is the meaning of this?" he spat out.
"Meaning of what, sir?" Sergeant Marco Hans asked, warily.
"Is it not obvious you incompetent fool? What is the meaning of your treatment of the female prisoner?" Schäfer spat. "The prisoner who was arrested without my orders and without my permission or foreknowledge."
"Oberleutnant, I am only doing my job," the older man said with disinterest. "What is it to you?" He had resented young Schäfer's placement as head of the prison since his promotion, but Schäfer had pretty much left him alone. Until now.
"Where did you get your training, Sergeant? Let me guess. The gulags of our friends to the east?"
Though, the political landscape had recently changed, the Soviets had partnered with Germany for many years. Until very recently, Stalin had provided Hitler's Nazi party with safe ports for his U-boats, training, weapons, fuel, raw materials, and even rations. He waited for the Sergeant to offer a slight nod of confirmation before slamming his fist on the man's desk. "Idiot! That is not how you interrogate a French woman. You will get nothing from her using these tactics."
"What are you talking about?"
"You are treating her just like a male prisoner and your actions have cost us at least a week, if not two, of work for me. Have her removed to a private cell and get her some dry clothes. See that her wounds are treated. Do it immediately."
"Oberleutnant Schäfer, I must protest. I personally trained with the Schutzstaffel in the Ukraine in 1939 and these tactics were very effective with the local women we interrogated there."
Reaching for patience, Schäfer explained, "Sergeant, when your SS friends beat and tortured a female villager to death without getting the information they needed, what did they do next?" He paused while the noncommissioned officer reflected. "What did they do, Sergeant? Did they simply take another woman into custody? How many women did they kill before they obtained the information they desired."
The sergeant shrugged.
"Fifty? A hundred? Let me speak plainly. Was it more than one? Because, Sergeant, we only have this single prisoner. Just the one. We do not have the luxury of every village in all of the Ukraine we can raid in the middle of the night. You understand?"
The Sergeant looked suddenly resentful. "Exactly what is your training, sir? How many interrogations did you perform in America, Oberleutnant? Who are you to tell me —"
Schäfer put his nose to the other man's. "I assure you there are less desirable duty stations than France, Sergeant. Perhaps you would like to go back and visit some of your Soviet friends in Stalingrad? Who am I? I am your commanding officer, and if you don't follow my orders immediately, I can only assure you that you will regret it for the rest of your time in uniform."
The man came to sharp attention. "Yes, sir." He saluted and said, "Heil Hitler."
Schäfer casually returned the salute without even raising his hand above shoulder height. "Seig heil."
He left the man behind, knowing his orders would be followed exactly, and stormed through the halls of the prison offices. When he reached his own office, he was surprised to find Kapitän Neumann waiting behind his desk. He immediately came to attention.
"Oberleutnant Schäfer," the captain greeted, standing, "congratulations on the arrest."
"It was premature. We had her under surveillance and I did not know she was arrested until an hour ago."
The Captain raised an eyebrow. "Do you need to be replaced as head of this facility?"
"Not at all, sir. I just need competent sergeants who don't act on their own accord without orders."
The Captain froze and murmured, "Without orders?" The man began to pace around the office. Schäfer had not been told to stand at ease and thus had not moved from his position of attention. Therefore, he did not turn his head and visually track his commander as the captain paced around the room. Instead, he stared straight ahead.
"Why did your sergeant arrest her prematurely and without orders?" He asked, looking at a portrait print of his beloved Führer on the wall.
"I had to go to Paris for a meeting. While I was gone, he acted. I think he wanted some glory. Instead, I think he's getting some prison time."
"Just have him beaten and be done with it." The captain waved a hand toward him then realized that the junior officer still stood at stiff attention. Schäfer noted that his commander very carefully asked no questions about his Paris meeting. "At ease. What have you been able to glean from her so far? Anything?"
"Nothing. She's been beaten until she can't sit up by men twice her size. I suspect her jaw is broken. I don't know why they expected to get anything from her."
The Captain met his eyes. "Did they violate the girl?"
Schäfer shrugged. "I do not yet know, sir, but I think not."
His captain said, "Does the girl have family?"
The question had plenty of depth. Did the girl have political connections? Would her rape while in custody prove an embarrassment? Is it possible they were mistaken about their quarry?
"None, here, sir. She is from the south of France originally."
The Captain nodded then waved a hand. "If any of the men violated her, have them publically hanged. Best to set an example early on before the camp is built. Can't have any of the men sullying themselves with any of the filthy Jews we bring to the camp. We must keep the bloodlines pure for the glory of the Fatherland. If they think it's acceptable here with any female prisoner, they're going to continue to think it's acceptable there with those hairless apes."
Schäfer nodded. "It will be done, sir. I'm not sure her interrogation can be salvaged."
The Captain raised an eyebrow. "You have ideas of a different method?"
"Of course. She's a woman. Like all women she'll respond better to silk than to steel."
Neumann narrowed his eyes. "Rather American thinking. I suppose I should have expected no less."
Schäfer felt his cheeks burn, silently cursing his complexion that allowed the captain to see his visceral reaction even though he attempted to hide it from his expression. "I cannot change where my father raised me, Kapitän. Besides, many great minds have come from America and been embraced by the likes of the Führer himself. Effinger, Pelley, Ezra Pound to name a few. Even now, Robert Henry Best is winning countless Americans to the great Nazi cause over the radio."
"Indeed." Neumann cocked his head and looked at Schäfer as if studying a laboratory rat. "I read your file, Oberleutnant, as I do with every officer under my command. I know that William Dudley Pelley and the Friends of New Germany endorsed your commission and I know that none other than Rudolph Hess himself personally pinned on your rank. Very politically expedient, I'm sure. I am only observing that your thinking is very different than most European Arians."
Schäfer wisely kept his mouth shut.
"I will give you three weeks to break her with your silky American kindness. Then, Oberleutnant, and I say this with all sincerity, I will make her talk using the steel."
"Impossible. I need at least four weeks, sir. The girl has been beaten to within an inch of her life."
The captain retrieved his cap from the top of the desk. On his way out of the room, he stopped at Schäfer's shoulder. "Three. I have a schedule to keep."
"Understood sir." He clicked his heels together and saluted. "Seig heil."
"Yes, yes. Heil Hitler," the captain answered tiredly as he walked out of the room.