The Darkest Hour(79)

My fingers twitch, but I keep them at my sides.

“Have you lost your nerve?” Dorner teases. “I can see it in your eyes. You’d like nothing more than to kill me.”

Be done with it, Lucie, a voice whispers inside me.

“Did my uncle get to you after all? Did his serum make you sympathize a little for me, Fr?ulein?”

I see red. Hearing him call me that—how Dr. Nacht used to address me—sends me hurtling to the edge, and I don’t care one bit that Colonel James is watching from the window. I could snap Dorner’s neck before the SOE or the OSS or the entire Allied forces combined could stop me.

I’m ready to break him, but for some reason I hold back. There’s something in his eye. In the edge of his laugh.

The realization smacks me right in the face.

He’s baiting me.

Dorner wants to die. He sees the writing on the wall, and he isn’t stupid. He’ll be tried and executed months from now. With that bleak of a future ahead of him, he must view me as the easy way out. Until the very end, he’ll use me.

I turn my face away from his in order to steady my breath, to stop myself from killing him now. Because nothing would make me happier. Then an idea comes to a boil in my mind, and I let it bubble over. One side of my mouth kicks up. I won’t give him what he wants, but I will give him what he deserves.

“You’ve grown too soft-hearted, Blaise,” Dorner says.

I ignore that and say, “I don’t believe you met my friend Tilly. She was another one of your uncle’s subjects.”

“Did she die?” he asks, all round-eyed.

“No, she’s alive.” I resist slapping him. “What a relief for her family, too. You might have heard of them—the Fairbanks? They’re very well known in America. They come from money. Heaps of it.”

“How nice. They will need that money to pay for her recovery, I imagine.”

I’m tempted to claw his eyes out. “She’ll recover, don’t you worry. Her parents and uncles will make sure of it. Both of her uncles are politicians, by the way. I’ve been sending them updates about you.” The last part is a lie, but only a partial one. I do plan on contacting Congressman Fairbanks and Governor Fairbanks, and I’m sure they’ll rally to this cause.

I sharpen my own smile for Dorner. “Tilly’s uncles are powerful men with powerful friends—friends who will make sure that you remain in prison for the rest of your life.”

He rolls this over in his mind before he smirks. “You’re bluffing.”

“I could be, yes.” I lean forward so that he hears every word I have to say. “But let’s see who’s bluffing a year from now, when you’re rotting in this cage. Let’s see who’s bluffing in a decade, when you’ve forgotten the feel of the sun. And let’s see who’s bluffing when you’re a bent old man and your brain has rotted into insanity.”

A vein pulses on Dorner’s forehead. His smile has disappeared. “We shall see, Fr?ulein. You’re not the only one with powerful friends.”

“You truly think the Nazis will come to your aid?” I jut my chin at the damp walls. “Hitler hasn’t been able to conquer England yet—what makes you think he can get in to rescue you?” I turn away from him, and a beat passes.

“Wait.”

I tilt my head back toward him.

“Listen to me. Perhaps we can make an arrangement.” Somehow his voice has gone tender. He sounds like Dorner again, all soft vowels and rounded consonants.

“An arrangement?”

“Yes. I have intelligence about the Wunderwaffe and the Nazi high command.”

“What sort of intelligence?”

His smile reappears shyly. “Important intelligence. Highly classified. We could work together, you and I.”

I remain where I stand. An image of Major Harken flashes in my mind, followed by Sabine. Then Tilly comes to me, alive but so terribly broken. All because of this man. I make sure that Dorner is staring straight at me before I spit into his face. He lurches back, disgusted, and tries to attack me, but I plant a kick into his stomach. He goes down onto one knee and gasps for air.

“That’s for Harken!” I say.

Another kick, this time in the ribs.

“For Sabine!”

An elbow to his nose.

“For Tilly!”

I’m about to dig my fingers into his throat when Colonel James barrels into the room and tears me off Dorner. “That’s enough!” he shouts. “That’s more than enough.”

I don’t fight him on that. I wasn’t going to kill Dorner, but I didn’t want to leave him without a few mementos.

“Out,” says Colonel James to me. He thrusts me toward the door, but I twist around to see Dorner one more time. He’s lying on the floor, blood gushing from his nostrils. He looks ready to murder me.

“Farewell, Reinhard,” I say, panting. “I hope you enjoy this cell.”

As Colonel James shoves me into the corridor, Dorner screams a list of expletives behind me, but I hardly hear them. Let him scream. Let him beg. I’ll make sure that no one will come to help him.

“I thought I made myself clear,” Colonel James says, obviously not pleased with my behavior.

“He’s alive.”