ROSA GATHERED HER people, sending as many as she could out to warn her hidden refugees, while she, Paddy, Dex, Fernando, and Matilde, the woman who ran the brothel, gathered in the dining room and tried to prepare for the worst.
Paddy stood on the other side of Rosa as they stared out the window. A police wagon, panier a salade Rosa’s people called the bowl-shaped vans, passed on the street below, its wheels raising plumes of mud and water so high it was rendered invisible. Rain pelted the windowpanes, mixing with the fog. It was as if the bright and raucous Marseilles he’d come to know had suddenly been transported into a gray, barren dreamscape populated only by ghosts.
The view outside didn’t worry him as much as Rosa. Her face and body hidden from the others by the thick drapes, he sensed her dejection and despair as she pressed a hand against the glass.
Behind them the others kept up their funeral dirge, bemoaning their fate alternating with outlandish ideas for escape or protestations of how they’d never be caught alive. Empty words all of it.
The door crashed open and Bernard Lavelle, one of Rosa’s lieutenants, ran inside. “They picked up Varian Fry, his entire office staff. Most of his refugees as well.”
“All to the Senaia?” Fernando, the Basque, asked.
“Loaded up in a panier a salade and carted off to the docks.” Bernard didn’t join the bedraggled group around the table. Instead, he leaned against the still open door. Staring at Rosa, a challenge in his eyes. Paddy was glad Rosa had her back to Bernard, although her posture stiffened as if she felt his gaze.
During his time here, he’d learned that Bernard was a gypsy, like Rosa, but from a different clan. For some reason, that seemed to give the man the idea that he was superior to Rosa. More than that, Barnard often had a possessive attitude about Rosa—Paddy had come across them screaming at each other in their own language, followed by Barnard stalking away after hurling insults at Paddy.
Despite the fact that he was married, it was clear Barnard wanted more from Rosa than she was willing to offer. And that he resented Paddy for gaining her favor.
“I told you,” Dex said, his voice filled with false joviality as he reached for the last of the bottle of Armagnac. “When a dictator comes to town, the best thing to do is to flee for the country.”
“Any word on when Petain is due to arrive?” Rosa asked, still staring out into the fog.
“No,” Bernard answered. “He’s coming by private coach, so the train station is in an uproar.”
That got her attention. She turned her head to glance over her shoulder at him. “But they haven’t stopped the trains?”
He shrugged. “How could they? He might not even arrive for another day.”
She nodded even though she was already turned back, focused on the street below. It was empty—no cars, no pedestrians, not even any beggars or street urchins. Eerily silent as the fog rolled in, so thick it was impossible to see the buildings directly across from them.
“Haven’t seen a pea soup like this since I left home,” Paddy said, more to fill the silence than anything else. “Glad I’m not sailing in it, you’d be blind and lost to the selkies.”
He waited for her to ask what a selkie was, hoping to distract her with a story. Instead, she straightened, her hand pressed against the glass curling into a fist. She turned to face him, not just her head, her entire body. Stared at him as if they were the last two people alive on the planet. At that moment, the weight of her gaze on him, he rather wished they were.
Then he spotted the slow smile curling her lips and crinkling her eyes. “You, Padraic Hart,” she said in a low tone, “are the most brilliant man I’ve ever met.”
Before he could answer, she whirled to the assembly. Her energy was contagious as they all stirred to life, looking to her for salvation. Paddy marveled at the sight—these men, most battle-tested, all older than her by a half a decade or more, and they didn’t think twice about letting her lead.
“Bernard,” she ordered, “get back to the station, keep an eye on things there. Anything you can do to increase the chaos, distract the guards and police, do it. Nothing big, just little things that will keep them off-balance.”
“You can’t be thinking of using your usual route, the train to Toulouse,” he protested. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Maybe not,” Dex put in, warming to the idea. “With the prefecture busy rounding up all the undesirables and the guards at the station preparing for Petain’s arrival, we might have the window of opportunity we need.”
“Go,” she told Bernard. “Let us know if you learn more about when Petain is due to arrive.”
He frowned but nodded and left. Once he was gone, Rosa joined the others at the table. “Fernando, we need trucks. And a panier a salade. Two—no, three of them. Police prefecture uniforms for the drivers.”
“Police wagons? Why?”
Rosa didn’t take time to answer. Instead she tapped Matilde on the shoulder. “Take some of the girls down to the docks. I need to know what the procedure is for getting those prisoners onto the Senaia. Rounding up so many so fast they probably don’t have warrants, but there must be some kind of paperwork, a list, something.”
Dex glanced up. “You can’t be thinking of trying to rescue the prisoners from the Senaia? There must be six hundred or more.”
“Oh, there will be more,” Rosa assured him with a smile. “I need you to get a message to the British at Fort St. Jean. Tell them to put on civilian clothing and be prepared to be picked up and transported to the docks.” She glanced out the window. “The tide. Does anyone know when the tide goes out?”
Padraic couldn’t help his burst of laughter. He strode forward to grab her by the waist and swing her around with a glee of delight. “You girl, are a genius.”
The men at the table stared at them as if they’d gone mad, all except Dex, who was busy jotting a list onto a scrap of paper.
“More than the tide,” Paddy said, feeling like his old self for the first time in weeks. “We’ll need to know the tonnage and draft. What kind of engine and navigation—”
“What ships are docked around her and how close,” Dex added, catching on.
Paddy nodded. “Charts of the bay would help. We never sailed the Gulf of Lion.”
The others suddenly got it. “You can’t be serious. Rosa, are you—?”
Rosa’s grin was all the answer anyone needed. “I’m going to steal the Senaia and all six hundred prisoners on board.”
<<<>>>
VINCENT LED THE way back down the hall as he and Cassie left the guard behind. Cassie had taken a folding knife and semi-automatic pistol from the guard; unfortunately, he’d had no cell phone.
“We need to call for help,” she whispered to Vincent as they passed the service desk.
“No phones here,” he answered. “Only Nickolai’s men have them.”
Obviously not all of them, which meant grabbing another guard wouldn’t necessarily solve the problem. “Do you know where Muriel is?”
He unlocked the door leading back to the service bay and closed it softly again behind them. “Who is Muriel?”
“The older woman Kasanov kidnapped when he took me.”
He shook his head, sliding his dagger into his belt and helping himself to a short crowbar. “You came alone. They brought no one else.”
Cassie ejected the magazine from the guard’s pistol and counted the bullets. Four. Four bullets, two knives, and a crowbar to fight… how many men? She remembered the submachine guns Kasanov’s other men wielded.
Outnumbered and outgunned. And she wasn’t even sure where Muriel was being held. Which meant Cassie needed to leverage the only advantage she had: Kasanov wanted her alive.
“Natasha and Thomas are still gone,” Vincent told her. “Maybe they have your friend?”
They reached the outer door and exited into the night. Goose bumps immediately sprang up over Cassie’s bare arms and legs, but she ignored the cold, examining their surroundings. It was an old car lot, turned into a junkyard with abandoned wrecks scattered around towers of smashed cars. Broken glass and metal shone in the moonlight and she realized that with her bare feet and white dress, there was no way she could move quickly or unseen through the maze.
“Are you all family? All these children, they aren’t Natasha’s, are they?”
“We are family, but not family,” he answered. “Natasha, she is our mother. She protects and teaches us, saved us all.”
“You’re all runaways?” That would explain the older kids—but Vincent appeared to be only twelve or so. “What happened to your parents?”
He shrugged as he led her to shelter behind a school bus that sat up on cinder blocks. “My dad went to jail and Mom just left. They put me in a group home but—” His voice trailed off. “It was bad. So I ran. Found some other kids. Then Natasha came by in her van, fed us, told us about a safe place we could crash, and…”
Cassie didn’t press for details. “And Kasanov? Will the other kids do whatever he asks?” She wanted to gauge their loyalty. Could she persuade any of the others to help her?
“Nickolai? He is our protector. No one would dare to not obey him.” A shudder shook his thin body as if he just realized what his own act of betrayal might cost him. Then he straightened, his hand going to the hilt of his dagger. “No one except me. I once saw him hit Natasha. He treats her like she’s nothing. He pretends to be a good man, but he isn’t.”
“Do you know where to find a phone?” Her feet were already sore and bloody and they’d only gone maybe twenty yards. She wouldn’t make it much farther.
He frowned. “There’s a store down the highway. Open twenty-four hours.”
“How fast can you run?”
“Very fast,” he said, shoulders back, standing proud. “But I’m not leaving you.”
“You have to. I need you to run as fast as you can and get to that phone. Call the police, tell them to contact Detective Mickey Drake. Tell them where I am. That they need to come. Can you do that?”
“Of course. But I’m not leaving you.” He repeated the last in the same unyielding tone.
“If you stay, they’ll kill both of us. If you get help, you’ll save us all.”
“I’m not afraid to die.” He drew his dagger, held it at the ready.
“I know you’re not. But we need to save Muriel. You can’t let her die. Or the other members of your family. Only you can save them, Vincent.”
He considered that. “You’ll hide? Stay safe?”
No. But she wasn’t about to tell him that. “I’ll be fine. Now go. Run fast, as fast as you can.”
“For you, my lady, anything.” Then he was gone like a shot in the night. Cassie stared after him, wondering how a kid like him had learned chivalry in this world where so many had forgotten the concept. Nice to know heroes were still around.
She sat in the shadow of the bus, flicking stray beads of shattered safety glass from the soles of her feet. She cut a few strips of silk from the dress’s underskirt and wrapped her feet with them. Slim protection, but better than nothing.
Now, where to go? She needed to stall, give Vincent time, but her dress practically glowed in the night. However, if she did this right, that might be to her advantage, help her save Muriel. Especially as, if the police got here too soon, if Kasanov had time to make a phone call or transmit a single radio message, it might mean Muriel’s death warrant.
Suddenly the yard blazed with light. Men shouted her name. And with them came the sound of dogs barking, howling to be released.
Shit. She wasn’t counting on dogs. Shit, shit, shit. Okay, suddenly hide and seek had turned into a real hunt. With Cassie as the prey.