CASSIE HAD NO idea how long she clung to the derrick, but it was long enough for her teeth to start clacking together with the cold. Several times she had to shift position so she could hug her gun hand close to her body and keep it warm enough that she didn’t drop the damn thing.
Kasanov remained inside but the children and three of his teenaged goons encircled the base of the magnet, jeering at Cassie, rough housing with the dogs, even building a fire, as if this were a party. The children acted almost feral, didn’t seem to understand there were lives at stake.
One of the teenagers—the oldest, maybe nineteen or twenty—had a cell phone. He got a call then held it up to Cassie. “Can you see? Your friend and Drake, walking away, unharmed.”
She was too far away to see it, but sooner or later she had to climb down and she hoped she’d given Vincent enough time to alert the police. From her view up on the derrick, she couldn’t see any lights from cars or buildings, so she feared that the highway and store he’d gone to were farther away than she’d thought.
“Throw down your gun,” the kid ordered. The others came alert, the ones with guns aiming them at Cassie, the younger ones scampering around and calling her name in a singsong as if they were playing Red Rover.
Cassie hated guns—had seen too many traumas resulting from them in the ER—but Drake had insisted she learn how to handle one properly. Turned out she was actually a pretty good shot and, although she’d never admit it to him, she enjoyed shooting at the range with him. She released the magazine and dropped it down to the men below, made sure the chamber was also empty, then threw the unloaded pistol down.
“Now, come on down. Don’t keep Nickolai waiting.”
She swung onto the ladder, one hand sliding the folding knife deeper into her bodice where she hoped it would remain hidden. Teeth chattering from the cold and her feet numb, slipping on the rungs, she climbed down. All she had to do now was stay alive long enough for Drake and the police to get here. If Vincent had made it out.
He wasn’t among the group waiting for her on the ground. She stopped on the side of the magnet’s control cab. “No dogs.”
The boys laughed at that, but two of them pulled the dogs back by their collars and held them. She climbed down the rest of the way and stood, hands open at her sides, posing no threat. “Take me to Kasanov. I’ll tell him everything.”
Everything she knew, that was. Which was pretty much nothing Kasanov wanted to hear.
Time to see if any of Paddy’s talent for storytelling had passed down to Cassie.
<<<>>>
ROSA WOKE TO the sounds of a woman screaming. Lashav, she chided herself. Shame. Because she could not deny her relief that the screams were not her own.
She wrapped her arms around her body, shivering in the chill air of the unheated room, rolled over, and huddled in a ball. She almost preferred the barren environs of her cell back in Fresnes to being confined here in the excessively opulent hotel on the rue des Saussaies. The Gestapo leadership had commandeered the hotel both for their living quarters as well as their “special” interrogations, calling it their Gasthaus.
The cold tile floor of the lavatory that comprised her prison gave her little comfort. Often she would awaken to find one side of her body numb and etched with the fleur-de-lis pattern inscribed on the tiles. Her jailers laughed at a gypsy like her being forced to sleep inside one of the most luxurious hotels in Paris.
They slept in the bedroom beyond with silk sheets and thick duvets. They delighted in bringing their food in on silver-plated trays, the smell of braised beef overwhelming as it perfumed the air, and eating in front of her, purposely dropping crumbs to the ground, just out of her reach from where she sat, her ankle chained to the bidet, letting the food rot as her empty stomach gnawed itself.
She kept telling herself food would do her no good. As soon as they finished their meals and began to question her, she would inevitably vomit. One of the many messy side effects of near-drowning. Hence the lavatory as her prison cell. All the easier to fill the bath tub with icy water and dunk her into it, never knowing if this was the last time, the time they would miscalculate and hold her under too long.
Her grandmother had predicted Rosa would die in the water. Now she knew it to be true.
Rosa tried not to waste precious energy in crying. She was stronger than that, better than that. She was Kalderasha.
But the tears came anyway. Her only comfort was that she had yet to tell them anything—anything they could understand at any rate. She’d confined herself to speaking Romani, the gypsy language few outsiders understood. Another thing Grandmother always said, “tshatshimo Romani,” the truth is in Romani, not the ugly gaje tongues.
That thought made her feel better. That and knowing that the longer she hung on, the longer she gave Padraic and the others time to escape to safe harbor. What day was it now? She’d lost track after the first few days—days punctuated by beatings by the prefecture followed by beatings by Patin’s private guard, then a bumpy ride in a panier a salade, followed by more beatings at the Fresnes prison once they arrived.
Back in Marseilles, after that bastard Bernard betrayed her to the police, they had almost let her go as a mistake when she cursed and shouted at them, the image of a crazed gypsy, a ziegeuner. Her people were often reputed to be half-wits and feeble-minded, so Rosa used their preconceptions against them. Plus, she’d noted that the Germans hated dealing with unpredictable quantities in their prisoners. Even if they did arrest her, usually they’d send someone acting crazy to St. Cyprien, one of the camps south of Montpelier.
Perfect. From there she could escape and be back in business within a few weeks. A little holiday in the country. She deserved it after all her hard work. Not to mention the beatings she had endured in the name of resistance.
The only thing she would miss would be Padraic. God, the man was infuriating, the way he’d wormed himself into her mind, into her heart. She was glad she had slept with him—glad she had chosen him to be her first. Maybe her only the way things were going. But that night he had been gentle, patient with her in a way totally unexpected, as if he cherished her, as if she were precious to him. She had slept in his arms afterward, her first full night of uninterrupted sleep in years. He had earned her trust, her fisherman. And so to him, she had entrusted the fate of her apatrides.
But then, just as she was about to skive free of the befuddled local police, Petain’s private guards came. Along with Bernard, who denounced her as the leader of the plot to steal the Sinaia, as the one all of Vichy had searched for, for so long, La Tempête.
They quickly subdued and disarmed her, placing her in manacles. Despite the iron that bound her, she had stormed Barnard, knocked him off his feet, and tried her best to strangle him with her chains. It took three guards to haul her off the bastard.
Bernard had sat up in stunned amazement, his hand rubbing his bruised neck as the guards beat her into submission. She lay on the ground, hands now chained behind her as the guards manacled her feet as well, when Bernard knelt beside her, his face lowered to hers.
“Do not fear for your charges, Rosa,” he whispered in a hoarse rasp. “I have found your radio. I will take care of everything for you. And if we find your gaje lover, we’ll take care of him as well.”
Rosa spat in his face. He stood and kicked her in the head so hard that she blacked out. When she came to, she was face-down in the back of a police wagon, alone in the dark.
Just like now. She wished the lavatory had a window so she could tell if it was day or night. Even just to see a glimpse of the sky—she’d like to see the sky one last time before she died.
She had a feeling that might be today. The Gestapo major who led her interrogations was getting bored with his little games—the dunkings, the beatings, the hauling her up to hang by her arms until her shoulders felt as if they would burst free of her skin and her chest grew so tight she could not breathe. She knew soon her stubborn silence would drive him to push her further.
She also knew what he didn’t know. That she wanted him to lose control, to go too far, end this for good. That her strength had fled from her a long time back. Now she was only hanging on because of sheer panic that if she caved, it would mean death for Padraic and the six hundred she had placed in his care.
Life is hope.
Her grandmother’s words came again. Why was it, as she lay here on the floor beside a filthy toilet, near to death, that she couldn’t get the old bitch out of her head? Her grandmother had been a mean-spirited woman who never raised a hand to do more than order the younger members of her family, particularly her daughter-in-laws, around. She had harangued them all, disparaging their looks, their abilities, their work habits.
Rosa had despised the woman, vowed never to be like her when she grew older.
Maybe she was already dead? Maybe that was why her grandmother’s ghost seemed so near right now?
A cramp spiraled through her side when she took a breath. She coughed; more agony shot through her ribs and lungs. No, not dead yet, Grandmother—you’ll just have to wait, you old haint.
The coughing spell left her gasping. She spit out a wad of mucus that was certain to be blood streaked. She shivered and knew it was from more than the cold. She had a fever, pneumonia no doubt from the repeated near-drowning. She must have swallowed half the Seine these past few days.
The door opened and light flooded the small room, blinding Rosa. She squinted her eyes, able to focus only on a pair of spit-polished black boots. Their owner stood above her; she didn’t bother to waste energy in lifting her head to stare up at him. Here we go again. Won’t be long now, Grandmother.
The officer shouted in German, not the voice of the Major who was her usual inquisitor. She heard thumps as her guards hastily thrashed into their own uniforms and boots. Still night, then. What would bring an officer to her at night? Especially an officer high-ranking enough to intimidate her guards?
Maybe they had given up on her, were giving her to the officer as a plaything, a sex toy to whet his perverted appetites? She’d heard of such things, but thought the Germans were too meticulous to stoop to the level their Vichy compatriots were rumored to. Her own guards seemed repulsed by the thought of touching her at all, had worn leather gloves any time they handled her as if they might be contaminated by an inferior specimen of humanity such as Rosa.
Then Rosa heard the name that struck fear into her heart. Karl Bömelburg. The Director. In charge of Gestapo operations in all of France. Bömelburg was the monster the Gestapo major had threatened her with, gleefully describing in painstaking detail how he’d broken even the strongest resistors.
Rosa curled into a tighter ball, her body shivering uncontrollably. Bömelburg barked out more orders and Rosa’s guards hustled into the lavatory, hauling her to her feet and holding her there while they unlocked her chains. She sagged in their arms, her bare feet barely touching the floor as they dragged her out into the night, wearing only her stained and torn shift, following Bömelburg to a waiting Citroën.
She could tell the man was used to being in command by the way he carried himself, haughty, superior. Even though she could only see the back of his uniform, she had a good idea of the type of man Bömelburg was. For the first time in days, she felt truly afraid. Drifting into the quiet death offered by drowning was far different from anything this man might have planned for her.
Her guards threw her into the back of the staff car, they were so anxious to snap to attention and salute the great man, Bömelburg. Rosa bounced onto the seat, landed face-down. The front passenger door opened and closed, followed by the driver’s side door. They sped into the night, leaving Paris behind.
There was a closed partition between the driver and passenger compartment. All Rosa heard was the deep purr of the well-tuned engine and the occasional muttering of her new captors. They stopped several times at guard posts, but not long enough for the driver to do more than pause.
Of course. No one wanted to annoy the great Karl Bömelburg. Especially when he was in possession of a new plaything: Rosa.
She fell into an oblivious stupor until, finally, they pulled off the main highway and onto a rutted lane that strained even the Citroën’s superior suspension. Every bounce cut through Rosa like a knife, but she kept quiet in the dim hopes that her captors had forgotten her. Then they rolled to a stop.
The door opened and hands reached in and slid her free of the back seat with a gentleness that surprised her. She was lowered to the ground onto a blanket that was then wrapped around her. In her confused state, she could have sworn the blanket was her own perina, the one she had entrusted to Padraic.
It was total darkness, not even stars could be seen, only the glowering shadows of the two men above her. They were in the woods. She could hear the rustle of tree branches, smelled decayed leaves.
The car sped away into the darkness, leaving one man behind—Bömelburg, she could tell by his build. Was he going to kill her here and now? No, not so fast. Bömelburg was known as a man who enjoyed prolonging his pleasure and the misery of others.
A faint moan escaped her as he knelt beside her, pulled her into his arms. She felt his breathing coming in choked gasps, smelled the tang of his sweat through the heavy wool clothes that swathed him.
Rosa felt a stir of hope. Maybe she was already dead? Or dreaming?
She raised a hand to his face, her fingers tracing the contours of his jaw and cheek, sliding against silent tears that slid from his eyes.
He drew his breath in with a ragged gasp and held her tighter. “Rosa, my love. I thought I’d lost you. I’m sorry it took me so long to find you.”
Rosa felt giddy with relief, delight, joy—they all combined to steal her voice as her fingers traced Padraic’s face. She ignored her pain as she curled into her lover’s chest, her face pressed against the steady beating of his heart.
Life is hope.
Damned old woman, why did she always have to be right?
“You’re safe now,” Padraic said. “I’m getting you out of this godforsaken country.”
Rosa shook her head. “No,” she said, her voice sounding strange to her. It was raspy, broken from hours of screaming. “We have to go back. We have to go to Paris.”
“You’re feverish. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Listen to me, Padraic,” she urged. “I must go back.”
He pulled her so tightly to his chest that she lost her breath for a moment as bruises came alive with pain. He quickly released her. “Sorry. Let me get you inside. There’s food, medicine. We’ll get you healed up, then you’ll make more sense.”
Rosa let him gather her into his arms and carry her down a path into the woods to a small hunting cabin. She knew as soon as she had her strength back, she’d be returning to Paris, once a city of light and dreams, now the belly of the beast.
She could not abandon her final mission, leave her precious treasure behind.