Final impact

But he was still a German, and no matter that he needed to hide out while waiting to “defect”-a new word, much in use these days-he remained a German, and so his presence here might bring any number of evil consequences down upon her house.

“It shouldn’t be long,” he promised her, holding up his flexipad. “I have had word. They are very close. In the next arrondissement, in fact. Coming up the Boulevarde Haussman.”

Madam Colbert worked the greasy belt of her old bathrobe into a huge Gordian knot. “It is just that I have word, too, monsieur. My lookouts, they tell me there are Germans coming. They are two streets away now. Gestapo. They must be looking for you. They are checking all the bordellos in Place Pigalle.”

Damn.

Brasch checked the two collaborators again at the end of the alleyway. The man remained stock still, but the woman continued dancing around in her nervous fashion. He could have sworn she’d glanced up at his window, then turned her head quickly at the last moment.

He did not want to break cover. He had run out of bolt-holes, and he was so close to being safe.

But what good would it serve staying here, if the Gestapo arrived ahead of his extraction team? He could hold them off for a few minutes at best. How long did he have?

Not very long at all, to judge by the sick terror contorting the features of Madam Colbert. He had no faith in her ability to bluff it out. The Gestapo would see through her without even trying.

“You are sure they are Gestapo? Coming this way?” he asked.

“My little pigeons do not lie. They have been dodging the gendarmerie for years. They say it is certain, monsieur. Please. You must go.”

Brasch checked the widow again. The woman in the helmet was staring straight at him now, smiling wolfishly.

That sealed it.

He brought his flexipad awake and opened a file stored on the desktop. An encrypted signal pulsed out of the handset, up through the roof, and away into the summer sky. At ten thousand meters it painted the smart-skin arrays of a Big Eye drone on station above the French capital. The drone’s Restricted Intelligence recognized the distress beacon from a high-value asset, consulted its daily protocol, and discovered an extraction team five kilometers from the asset, headed in its direction. It alerted both the team and the Combat Intelligence back on its home vessel, HMS Trident.

“What is that?” Colbert asked, back in the cramped, musty bedroom.

“A cry for help,” Brasch said as he fetched his Luger and checked the load.

“But what shall we do? They will kill us, torture us,” Colbert protested.

Brasch took a fat envelope from within his jacket and tossed it across to her. “American dollars,” he said. “Close enough to four thousand. I would get your girls out of here, and be quick about it.” He paused. “I cannot go any farther. I have to wait here. Go. Quickly.”

Confusion, fear, and greed all played across the woman’s face. Greed and self-preservation won out. She nodded.

“Thank you, monsieur, and thank you for saving my little Michelle. You are a good German.”

Brasch shook his head. “Please don’t call me that. Now go, quickly, before it is too late.”

Colbert fled, calling out to her girls as she thundered down the hallway. Brasch pushed aside the window curtain again, using the muzzle of his sidearm. The woman was clearly anxious that he not get away. He thought about shooting her but decided against it. It would only speed things up, and he needed all the time-and ammunition-he could get. Downstairs he could hear the squeals and cries of the whores as they exited. He probably had less than five minutes.

It was probably too late.

D-DAY + 33. 5 JUNE 1944. 1351 HOURS.

HMS TRIDENT, BAY OF BISCAY.

The radar confirmed reports of a storm system building in the mid-Atlantic. History told them that one of the great storms of the decade was due to touch down on this side of the ocean in a few days, but then history had been an increasingly erratic guide of late, and Captain Karen Halabi didn’t fancy hanging around in the comparatively shallow Bay of Biscay with a force-nine gale bearing down on her. It’d be hellish enough in the CI-controlled trimaran, but she feared for the lives of the men-they were all men-on the ships of her escorting force. Some of them would founder for sure.

“Keep me informed, Ms. Novak, and make sure your bulletins go out to group and back to London on Fleetnet. Everyone will want to know what’s happening.”

“Everybody talks about the weather…,” mugged her chief forecaster.

“…but nobody ever does anything about it,” Halabi finished. “Even so, Lieutenant, stay alert. Some of our escorts would roll in a duck pond.”

Halabi turned to leave the small office devoted to the ship’s Meteorology Division, taking one last look at the radar. On the screen a deep red low-pressure cell was unquestionably forming. She could almost feel the ship beginning to move on the swell in response.