White Rose Black Forest(77)

She was beside him now.

“The forest is on our side. It’s the only reason we’re still alive. Outside it, we’re dead.” He pointed across the road to the clearing and the trees beyond. “The stream we’re making for is likely in that clump of forest. We need to make it across, where we’ll have cover again. I’m sure they’ve found Berkel’s body and are looking for us now. There’s nowhere else to go but where we’re headed. They know we’re not going to swim the river in winter. If they’re not here already, they will be soon, but we’re close. We can do this.”

“Who do you think left those footprints in the snow?” she said. Several pairs of footprints crisscrossed the field of snow that led to the trees on the other side of the road.

“Hard to say. It doesn’t seem to have snowed down here for several days. They look old.”

“A farmer and his cows, perhaps?”

“Maybe. I’m sure there’s no one over there waiting for us, if that’s what you mean.”

“It seems quiet.”

“Let’s stop wasting time,” John said as he emerged from the trees, his body low to the ground as he crossed the road. Franka followed a few feet behind, mimicking his movements. John waited for her on the edge of the road as they entered the snow-covered meadow that led to the far tree line. He jogged ahead. She stumbled behind him, her backpack coming off. She reached down to slip the straps over her shoulders. He covered the ground so quickly that she fell thirty yards behind. He was just entering the tree line as the rumble of the truck came around the bend in the road.

Vogel was riding in the front, his eyes scanning both sides of the road as he saw the figure struggling through the snow toward the trees.

“Halt!” he shouted, and the driver jammed his foot down on the brakes. “There she is. Go get her!” He bashed on the tarpaulin hood to wake the troops riding in the back.

Franka turned as the truck stopped, terror flushing through her. She rose to her feet, doing her best to sprint through the sucking snow. John ducked behind a tree, drawing his gun in some kind of false hope that he could outshoot the four heavily armed Wehrmacht soldiers spilling out of the truck. One of the soldiers brought his rifle to his shoulder and began to shoot. Bullets spat around Franka as she ran, John’s desperate face willing her toward him, his hand outstretched.

Vogel followed his men into the snow, the truck abandoned as the six men ran after the figure a hundred yards in front of them. He drew his pistol to shoot just as she disappeared into the thick of the forest.

John grasped her hand and pulled her behind him.

“Come on. We’ve got to outrun them somehow. The border is close. Get rid of your backpack.”

She threw it down, remembering the photos of her family she’d stuffed into her pockets. She threw a glance backward at the soldiers and the fat officer lagging behind them as they struggled through the snow. They seemed to be gaining. John dragged her by the hand as they ran, cresting a hill and then running down, trees all around them. The soldiers were invisible behind them, the hill and the trees blocking their line of vision.

“We’re not far now,” John said as a light formed at the end of her sight. The trees ended two hundred yards in front. A great white light lay beyond them, and Franka saw immediately what the map hadn’t shown. The trees ended, and a forty-foot drop onto jagged rocks lay beyond for a mile in both directions.

John cursed. “No. No. We can climb down.”

“They’re right behind us. They’d pick us off on the way down. There’s no escape from this, not for me.”

“What?”

“They don’t know you’re with me. They won’t have noticed your footprints among the others in the snow. You were hidden in the trees as they came out of the truck. I couldn’t see you, so I know they couldn’t either. Go on without me. You can climb down and be across the border before nightfall.”

“I won’t leave you.”

“It’s useless, John. We can’t make it together. Think of your mission. You have to go now.”

“There has to be another way.”

“There isn’t. I’ll go back and draw them off.”

“No. I can’t leave you. I won’t.”

“Remember your mission. This is beyond us now. Remember what you were sent here to do. Please. We’ve only seconds.”

She could hear the sound of the soldiers approaching through the trees, perhaps a hundred yards behind.

“Do this for me,” she said.

He grasped her against him and kissed her. She drew back after a few seconds and leaned her forehead into his.

“I can’t leave you.”

“You have to go now,” she said.

“I’m so sorry, Franka,” he said as he lowered himself over the edge of the cliff. She looked down at him one last time as he peered up at her. She retreated toward her pursuers, her arms in the air. Franka heard the soldiers shouting at her to get on the ground, to put her hands behind her head. She was miles away, years ago, with her parents in the cabin on a warm summer’s evening as the sun set over the trees.

The fat officer made a whooping sound as he caught up. “Franka Gerber? I am Kriminalinspektor Vogel of the Gestapo. You’re under arrest for the murder of Daniel Berkel, and let me say, you’re mine now. You’re going to pay for what you did to my friend. I’m enjoying those tears on your face. There will be many more.” He replaced the gun in his holster. “Where is your boyfriend?”