White Rose Black Forest(66)

“They’ll have to catch us first.”

She rested her head on him as the tears came again. “You risked the entire mission for me. Why did you do that?”

“No mission is worth standing by and letting that happen,” he said. “I’d do it again a thousand times. I could never let anyone hurt you.”





Chapter 13

Franka looked down at the blood-spattered corpse in the middle of the living room. The Nazi armband adorning his bicep was saturated red, his uniform stained and torn, his belt still unbuckled. She wanted to shoot him again.

John reached for the crutch on the floor. He put an arm over her shoulders and brought her into the kitchen. She was shaking as he sat her down. He brought his hand up to her face. She leaned into it, putting her hand on his.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“No. You’re the one who saved me. Again. I’m just sorry it took me so long to get there.” John took a deep breath. “You are right, though. They’re going to come looking for him. We have to leave here, tonight.”

“We?”

“I’m not leaving you behind. I can’t make it without you. I need you. The mission needs you.”

“What about your legs?”

“I’m going to need you to break the casts off. They’re strong. I didn’t feel any pain when I fought with that animal.”

“They’ll be looking for me now. You’re better off going alone. They don’t know that you’re here.”

“I owe you my life. You’re coming with me. I’m not leaving without you. I’d rather die trying than leave you behind.”

Franka took his hand off her face. “You should take my car. Your papers are good. You can try to slip across the border once you make it down there.”

“Stop. Understand this. I’m not leaving here without you. I’ll take you over my shoulder kicking and screaming if I have to, but we’re leaving together.”

“Okay.” She nodded. “We’ll go together.”

“Good, I need you.”

“And I need you.”

“It’s settled, then. The first thing is to get these casts off. Then we’re going to pack everything we’re going to require for our trip. They’ll be looking for us on the roads, so we’re going to have to go through the forests. It’s our only chance.”

“In winter?”

“We have no choice. We do have a head start, however. It’s almost nine o’clock. My guess is that it wasn’t unusual for our friend on the floor to stay out all night without telling his wife, so he likely won’t be missed for another twelve hours or so. But I’m sure he told someone he was coming up here. We have to scrub this place down and hide his body so that by the time they figure out what happened, we’ll be long gone. It’s about fifty miles to the Swiss border. How far could we get on the back roads if we drive through the night?”

“Halfway perhaps. It’s going to be difficult in the dark.”

“We’ve little choice. It’s too far to walk. We have to try and get as far as we can. That terrain is going to be rough. We might not make more than ten miles in a day walking.” John reached out and took her hands. “This is going to be incredibly hard, Franka, but we can do it together.”

“I know somewhere we can make for, where we may be able to stop off.”

“Franka, we can’t trust anyone . . .”

“My great-uncle, Hermann, lives in a village called Bürchau. It’s twenty-five miles or so south of here, between us and Switzerland.”

John shook his head.

“Hear me out,” Franka said. “He’s in his eighties and almost never leaves the house. I haven’t seen him in a few years, but he has no love for the Nazis. Both of his sons died in the last war. We’re going to need somewhere to lay our heads for a few hours. We can’t go through the night and start walking in the morning, not with your legs.”

“I’ll consider it.”

“We’ll drive every back road and trekking path big enough to take the car. We can get there by morning and then sleep.”

“What will you tell him?”

“That I got lost while hiking and I need somewhere to rest for a few hours. He won’t ask questions.”

“And if he does?”

“I’ll speak to him first. If he suspects anything, we’ll pass through.”

Franka went to the spare bedroom. The floorboards lay across the hole on the floor where John had jumped out. She brought him his other crutch, and on his way back to the room he shunted past Berkel’s dead body. Franka worked in silence, aware of how vital each passing second was. She cut the casts off his legs, using scissors to reveal the wizened, whitened flesh beneath. His legs looked thin in comparison with the rest of his body now, the muscles weakened. He stood up.

“As good as ever,” he said, but she wasn’t convinced. His legs needed another week, but time had slipped away like water through her fingers.

John felt like a child those first few seconds as he reveled in the freedom of movement that removing the casts had given him. The sight of Berkel’s bloodied body lying in the middle of the floor brought him back into the moment.