The Darkest Hour(41)

By the time my feet meet the sand, we’re late. I tell Dorner to stay put while I forge ahead alone. I’ll be faster that way. As long as I can flag down the SOE boatman, that’ll buy us a little time. But the fog is thick and gray, cutting my visibility to next to nothing, and I see only dark waves in front of me.

The Brits aren’t here.

I fumble with my watch. It’s 0405. We’re five minutes late. Could they have left already? My knees give out and sink onto the frigid sand. We’ve come too far to find an empty beach. Sabine may have given her life so that we’d make it here.

All that, for nothing?

“Marie-Louise!”

My senses come alive, and I curse myself for leaving Dorner behind. I race back to find him, thinking that a patrol has followed us, but when I reach him he’s pointing frantically at the water.

“There! Do you see it?” he says.

I squint toward where he’s pointing—and I see it indeed. It’s a rowboat coming ashore, guided by a lone boatman. I nearly crumple to the sand one more time, but I can’t let my relief get the best of me.

“Stay here,” I tell Dorner again. As the boat swiftly approaches shore, the man rowing catches sight of me. He goes rigid and begins reaching for something at his waist—a gun?—and I spill out the passcode that Harken gave me.

“There might be rough waters tonight!”

His hand falls to his side, and I hear a sharp sigh. “But the sea appears calm enough to me.”

He’s SOE, all right. I march into the waves, shivering as the cold water climbs up my dress, and I help him tow the boat onto the beach. “You sure are a sight for sore eyes,” I say, my words nearly drowned in the crash of the waves.

“So are you,” he replies in accented French. “I had a devil of a time coming to shore with that storm, but my superiors would’ve boxed my ears if I came back empty-handed.” He blinks into the fog. “Where is … ?”

“He’s here. I wasn’t going to let you boys miss out on this parcel.” As if on cue, Dorner steps into our view. I’m about to make the introductions when the boatman stops me.

“That’s for my commanding officers to know, miss. My orders are to get him on the boat and back to the sub as quick as I can.”

I call for Dorner to get onto the boat, but he doesn’t come running. Rather, he tucks his head down to ask me, “This gentleman will take me to England? You’re certain of his credentials?”

There isn’t time for any more caution. “He knew the correct passcode. He’s SOE. You have my word on that.”

He straightens, then nods. Just three days ago I would’ve thought this impossible—a Nazi scientist placing his trust in an Allied spy—but I suppose I’ve come to grudgingly trust him, too. He may have played a hand in setting Operation Zerfall into motion, but with his help we’ll stop the virus from spreading. Who knows? Maybe Dorner’s intel will tip the war into the Allies’ favor—but that doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten our bargain.

“Now give me the coordinates,” I say.

He sweeps the wet hair from his forehead and gives me the numbers, then repeats them twice. “The laboratory isn’t far from the city of Verdun.”

“By the eastern border?”

“Yes, very close to Belgium. But you should know that you won’t find the laboratory at the coordinates I gave you,” he says.

I go numb all over. “What?” In mere seconds, my numbness shifts into a red-hot anger, and I’m ready to slap him and shove him onto the sand.

“Let me finish! The entire facility was built underground.”

“You wait until now to tell me that?” I wish I had slapped him before because now I’m so dazed that I couldn’t muster the energy if I wanted to. How are the Allies supposed to destroy a laboratory underground? We won’t be able to use our bombers. We’ll have to take out the lab with ground forces, but it could take years for our soldiers to infiltrate France. We’re still trying to claw our way into Italy.

“Listen to me. You can access the laboratory through an outbuilding at the coordinates. An elevator will take you to the facility. But it’s heavily guarded.” He digs out his precious folder of documents, still dry from the tarp we wrapped around it, and yanks out a few pages. “Take these. They’re schematics of the building.”

“What am I supposed to do with them? Give them to the Brits?”

“Take them before they get wet! I made copies.” He waits until I fold the pages and stow them under my dress before he continues. “Show the papers to the Resistance in case … in case something happens to me before I get to London.”

“You’ll get to London just fine,” I assure him.

“Just in case there’s a U-boat attack.”

“Very well,” I say grimly. At this point, the boatman is waving his arms and getting ready to push off. I have to make this quick. “Give me the name of the double agent.”

Dorner bends down so that our foreheads nearly bump. “T.J.H. Those are the agent’s initials. I’m sorry but I never did find out the full name.”

“Mademoiselle, monsieur!” the boatman interrupts us.

But I can’t let Dorner go just yet. My fingers dig into his arm. “You’re sure? You’re absolutely sure?”