The Darkest Hour(52)

Minutes pass, and when Sabine returns to us she’s sweating and out of breath. In her arms she carries the dead soldier’s uniform, along with a small pouch she must’ve taken from him. She tosses the clothes at Tilly.

“Those should fit you,” says Sabine.

“Fit me?” Tilly says, slightly aghast.

“To get us into that laboratory. You’ll take Lucienne as your prisoner.” Sabine sniffs when she notes the baffled look on Tilly’s face, and on my own. “We have to get close to that building, don’t we? This should get you access. When you get close enough I’ll set off a grenade at the far corner of the fence. That should distract the guards long enough for you to get underground and plant the bomb.” She pats our valises. “Leave me with a few of the rifles and pistols. I’ll take out as many as I can up here and join you as soon as I can.”

I say nothing while her plan settles into my mind. It’s a preposterous one, yes, and the odds of us pulling this off are nearly impossible. But it might be our best hope of getting inside the laboratory.

Tilly’s voice is quiet when she says, “They’ll find us out as soon as they hear me speak German. I’m far from fluent.”

Not to mention the fact that she isn’t a male soldier, but that’s the least of our problems now. “Hopefully it won’t get to that point. I’ll make sure to set off the grenade long before you have to say anything.” Sabine tosses Tilly a ring of keys. “I found this on the Nazi as well. That should be able to get you through the front gate.”

Tilly gingerly takes the keys. “It could work, I suppose.”

“It’ll have to work,” I murmur. If we had more time, we could come up with a better strategy to get in and get out of Reinhard’s nest, but every minute that ticks by is another one wasted.

Tilly heaves a sigh. “Then I better see if this fits.” She strips out of the clothes Christiane gave her and dons the German uniform piece by piece. It fits her surprisingly well, minus the too-long pants and the jacket that strains against her chest. She turns in a circle for us. “Well?”

“Passable,” I say. As long as no one takes a good long look at her.

“We’ll need to do something about your hair, though,” Sabine offers.

Tilly nods, takes the dagger hidden by a strap next to her ankle, and begins cutting off her hair. It falls to the ground around her in a bright ring, and she hides the aftermath under the soldier’s helmet.

“We better hurry.” Sabine points ahead. “Are you two ready?”

Ready?

Am I ready to become the Nazis’ target practice? Am I ready to set off a bomb that could blow me to pieces?

Am I ready to die?

No, I don’t feel ready at all, but I don’t think Theo did, either, when his unit landed in Algeria. I doubt he was ready to die a few months later, but there will be tens of thousands of Theos dying in the coming months if Operation Zerfall launches and spreads across England and the States.

But not if I can help it.

I will be ready. I have to.

We divide up the weapons. Tilly and I hide an assortment of them underneath our clothes—knives, pistols, tear gas pens—and we stow more in the soldier’s bag, including the pouch of Aunt Jemima and two gas masks. Meanwhile, Sabine carefully extracts a small fist of powder to blow up the fence, bundling it up in a handkerchief. She also gathers her share of grenades and rifles and tosses me a couple extra magazines, which I tuck into my boots. We decide not to wait until nightfall to execute our attack. There’s no point in delaying the inevitable. We can’t give the Nazis another minute to finalize Operation Zerfall.

There’s no time for a good-bye. Sabine goes one way while Tilly and I head in the other direction. If all goes well, Sabine will catch up to us down in the laboratory. If not … we go on without her. We’ll carry on Covert Ops’ mission to the very end.

We draw to the edge of the forest, inching toward the empty field and toward the Nazis’ eyeshot. To properly play this part, I walk a step in front of Tilly with my hands in the air while she holds one of our rifles against my back.

I glance at her. “Are you ready?” I say, echoing Sabine.

“Do you truly want me to answer that?”

“Fair enough.” We’ve reached the gravel path that leads to the fence. The patrols ahead have spotted us, and one of them springs up toward the gate to meet us. I scan the fence line, waiting for the explosion, but there’s none. Where is Sabine? She told us that she’d set off the explosion before we reached that fence.

The soldier’s hand glides to his holstered pistol. “Halt! Wer ist das M?dchen bei dir, Himmel?”

I know enough German to decipher that he’s asking us to stop. My feet hesitate, but Tilly presses the gun into my spine, nudging me forward. The soldier is pointing at us now, shouting in tense and fast German. This time I can’t translate what he’s saying, but by the bark in his voice I know that we’re skating on inch-thin ice.

“Halt sofort an, Himmel!”

Tilly clears her throat, but both of us know that we’re goners once she opens her mouth. Then it hits me. Maybe she can’t talk, but I still can.

“Please, sir! I don’t know what I’ve done wrong!” I cry out in French and fall onto my knees. Keeping my hands up, I force a sob out of my throat. It’s the same routine I used in Madame Rochette’s attic, and I hope it’ll work for us now. “Don’t hurt me!”