The Darkest Hour(32)

“When this man learned that he was next in line to be injected with the Zerfall virus, he broke. He started spilling secrets left and right—and he was apparently a higher-ranking member of the Resistance.”

“So?”

“He told us that there’s a double agent within the Allies’ espionage network. This agent is in France. In Paris, to be exact.”

In Paris? He certainly has hooked my attention with that, but I don’t put the gun away. I keep it right where I want it pointed. “You really expect me to believe the words of this man? A ‘patient’ at your laboratory who the Nazis likely beat and tortured?”

“He told me something else,” Dorner says. “He said that this double agent isn’t French.”

“Then what is he?” I scoff. “Finnish?”

“Either British or American. The man wasn’t sure which, but that must narrow down your choices.”

My heart thunders. “The Americans have barely entered the war.”

“They could’ve parachuted their spies into France.”

“You seem to be making many assumptions above your pay grade.”

“Are you willing to take the risk that I’m lying to you?”

He has me there and, by the way his back has gone straighter, he knows it, too. I think of the most awful French words I’ve heard. The chances that he’s lying to me are high, a desperate move he’s making to push me to take him to the coast. But what if he’s telling me the truth? What if there really is a double agent within the Resistance? There aren’t many foreign members within the group—a couple brave Brits and a handful of other nationalities. Canadian. Dutch. And yes, American.

Could it be someone within the OSS? Within Covert Ops, even?

I shove that thought aside and curse Dorner for even planting it in my head. Delphine is rotting in a Nazi prison, and Sabine might be joining her soon. My agent sisters are risking their necks every hour of every day, and I trust them far more than this Austrian standing in front of me. And yet I can’t ignore what he has told me.

“Do you want to bargain with me, Dorner? Then let’s bargain. Tell me this supposed double agent’s name, and I’ll make the arrangements to get you to England. If not, I’ll choke it out of you.”

He tilts his head to one side, measuring my offer. “Here’s what I have in mind. Bring me to the Brits—alive and well—and I’ll give you both pieces of intelligence.”

“That’s not how this is going to work,” I say through tight teeth. If he wants this to go to blows, then so be it. We’ll see how long it takes before he squeals like Travert.

I lurch onto my feet, ready to throw him to the floor, but before I touch him there’s a pounding below us. Someone is at Madame Rochette’s front door. Sabine, maybe? I shake my head. She’d never make that much racket.

“They’re here!” Dorner says, his body tightening.

I close the distance between us and place a firm hand over his mouth. I don’t need to ask who “they” are.

It’s the Nazis.





Not a second later, there’s a crash below our feet. Boots march through the front door of the house, quick and heavy drumbeats that can only belong to the soldiers. The shouting soon follows, in angry clipped German. I can barely hear Madame Rochette’s response.

“What’s the problem, mein Herr?” she says. “No, no, I live alone. My husband passed away years ago, and my only daughter resides in Toulouse. Her sons, my grandsons, were both taken in the draft.”

There’s another shout. Something I can’t make out.

“Of course you may look at my papers,” replies Madame Rochette. “I keep them in my kitchen drawer.”

And not too far from her butcher knife, I think. I bet Madame Rochette could stick that knife of hers into the Nazi in a few seconds flat, but there should be more than one German downstairs and she won’t be able to take them all, not without a whole block of kitchen knives.

“What should we do?” Dorner whispers.

I glower at him to keep him quiet.

“You must have weapons,” he says. “Give one to me.”

Is he insane? Arm him, a Nazi I’d just met? Somehow I doubt that his professors taught him hand-to-hand combat at university.

“Let me handle them.” I silence him with a glare, and thankfully he doesn’t say anything after that. If he had kept jabbering, I might have placed him in a chokehold. Actually, I wouldn’t have minded doing that. I could’ve squeezed my fingers around his neck until he coughed up the name of the double agent.

Madame Rochette’s voice takes on a sweet edge. “That’s my bedroom upstairs. I’ve had a bit of a rat problem, so do take care.” Despite her warning, the soldiers soon infiltrate the second floor. I wince as they overturn the bed and yank out drawers from the dresser, the same sounds I’d hear whenever Papa flew into one of his rages.

“Search for any signs of the Resistance!” one of the men says.

I can hear every one of their movements, every step that they take. There’s just a thin wall that separates us from their fury. I stare at the panel to the attic, hoping to keep it closed through sheer willpower alone. I clutch the knife from my shoe in one hand while I hold my last remaining pistol pen in the other. One shot. That’s all we have.