The Paris Agent(73)
“Okay,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. “I know of a Citroen we can borrow. We’ll leave in an hour.”
The trip was uneventful at first. It was a beautiful day—a light breeze had blown in overnight and pushed every hint of cloud away. But despite the beauty of my surroundings and the calm start to our journey, I couldn’t shake a sense of foreboding that morning. My injured ankle left me unusually helpless. Baker Street sent some munitions with Remy and I to be distributed to the Maquisards around Brive-La-Galliarde. Marcel wanted to hide the Sten gun and ammunition in the boot of the car, but I insisted they remain in the back seat with me. If things went awry and I couldn’t run, I could at least try to shoot my way out of trouble.
“It will only take a few hours even traveling the back roads,” Remy said. He had made it very clear that he agreed that the car was the smartest way for us to travel. It seemed that Marcel was the only one with any reservations, but even he could see there was little alternative.
They took the front seats automatically—Remy driving, Marcel beside him in the passenger seat with the map. On an ordinary day in the field, I might have argued for a more active role, but I was distracted, staring down at my misshapen ankle and wondering how long it was going to take me to be useful again. As we neared the village of Salon-La-Tour, I was startled out of my reverie when Marcel suddenly cursed.
“What’s this…” Remy asked uncertainly. A few hundred feet ahead, at the bottom of a hill with a long, gradual slope, a cluster of German vehicles stretched across the road.
“It’s a roadblock,” Marcel muttered.
“Turn around,” I said, leaning forward to rest my hands against the back of the front seat. Remy did not react, so I said it again, more urgently this time. “Remy, turn the car around.”
Marcel glanced back at me, and his gaze dropped towards my foot.
“Our options are limited…” he said, then he swallowed. “There’s nowhere to turn off unless we try to drive through a field, and that will only draw attention to us. And if we turn around now, they’ll surely follow us.”
A sudden vision of Elwood and Booth at the airfield flashed through my mind. Turner assured me it was safe for me to return to the field, but what if he was wrong, what if the Germans had already been alerted to our mission, and by someone right there in Baker Street?
“There’s every chance that roadblock might have been setup to look for us. We have to turn around!”
Marcel looked at me, stricken.
“Fleur, we can’t out-run them. We’d have to ditch the car at some point, and you can’t even walk!”
“What’s the alternative?” I said fiercely. “Surrender? Never!”
Remy cursed and spun the car around in a U-turn so violent I rolled from one side of the back seat to the other. Just as the car shifted direction, a shot sounded, and the car veered wildly off the road. Marcel was caught off guard by the sudden shifts, and as he was thrown around, his head hit the window beside him with such force that the glass shattered and he slumped in his seat.
“Remy!” I exclaimed. “For God’s sake, keep your head!”
“The car is pulling!” he shouted, his voice shaking. “The tire is gone. What do I do?”
Just then, the back window shattered behind me and the scent of gunpowder tore through the car as I fumbled for the Sten gun. We spent weeks at training learning how to assemble them quickly—how to move our hands without pinching the skin between the components, how to put the pieces together without conscious thought, eventually how to assemble the whole thing blindfolded, working by muscle memory only. I was grateful for that now as the gun came together in seconds, and I swung up on my knees to peek out the back window of the car. The Germans were scrambling into armored cars to give chase, and it wouldn’t take them long to catch up to us.
“Fleur,” Remy cried, and when I glanced back, he was flicking his panicked gaze between the road and Marcel, who was limp and unconscious. There was a wound in his left shoulder and blood was already seeping through his shirt. Behind us, the Germans again fired at the car but the shots flicked up dust on the road behind us.
They were trying to shoot out the rest of our tires. If they caught up to us, Remy could run, but Marcel and I would be defenseless.
“There!” I shouted, pointing to a barn off the main road.
“But they’ll just follow us—” Remy protested, voice thick with tears. He was panicked beyond reason now, and I knew I had to take charge.
“I have a plan. Pull into the damned barn!”
Remy pulled the car off the road and brought it to a stop in the barn so abrupt that Marcel was thrown forward. I grabbed his bloodied shirt and caught the fabric just in time to stop his head from slamming into the dashboard.
The path forward was crystal clear. There was no way to save all three of us—but there was also no reason we all had to be captured.
“Get him out of the car,” I ordered, dragging the canvas bag with me as I limped from the back seat. Remy was moving slowly and visibly in shock. “Remy, now. Do it now!”
He shook himself, then raced around to the passenger side to hoist Marcel over his shoulder.
“What do I do?” he asked me. He looked like a child in that moment—a frightened little boy who needed reassurance and guidance. Just the thought brought my Hughie to mind, and my frustration with the young man softened.