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Everything was going to hell.
Delphine held up her hand to stop the American soldiers from exiting the alley. They complied instantly, silently, the leader's hands hovering over the lapel of his plain, civilian jacket, close to his shoulder holster. The view down the street made Delphine's stomach flip, a wave of nausea hitting her along with a chill of near-panic.
Agent Sabine was being arrested by the Gestapo.
Not fifteen minutes before, Delphine had caught the agent's eye as she strolled past the point of rendezvous. Now the woman was being slammed into the side of a police vehicle, her arms jerked behind her to be thrust into handcuffs.
Delphine had known things weren't right, but she'd been unable to contact Sabine to alter their mission, and she'd had to go through with the original plan at the given time. Now she was responsible for this small group of men, a couple of agents, a pilot and a paratrooper who had been caught behind enemy lines. She had to get them to the next way station on their way out of France. But now they weren't going anywhere but backward.
The Germans were spreading out, quickly. She and these good men could all get captured. They could all get tortured, or killed.
The group quietly backpedalled at her hand signal, and re-entered the basement of the abattoir, the rich smell of blood only heightening their nervousness. One man bumped into a pig carcass, causing it to sway, the hinge on the ceiling hook briefly squealing. They all froze for a moment, then breathed out as no noises from the outside drew nearer.
Delphine felt her way in the near-blackness to the inner door. She tapped on it quickly, once, then twice again.
The butcher's face was flushed, sweaty when he poked his head through the door to see her. His gaze moved beyond her to see the fugitives huddling in the shadows.
"Non…" he whispered, eyes widening, "they can't be here, again…"
Delphine quickly put one finger to the butcher's lips, shushing him quietly, then moving her hand to hold his face, focusing his eyes on hers. They didn't have time to argue. For a beat, even she didn't know what was to come out of her mouth next. A thought came from nowhere.
"Monsieur Boucher, have you any wooden boards? We'll need access to your upper windows." She forced her voice to remain calm, in-control, as if she knew what she was doing. As he stared at her, gears turning, she wasn't sure she had succeeded.
Finally, he gave a quick nod. Within moments, the group of men had climbed through the window and crawled on the boards above the alley into the warehouse next door, from which she hoped her hastily-drawn map would get them to a resistance contact further into town. She hoped they continued to have the sense and luck that had gotten them thus far.
When the Gestapo men stopped by the butcher's shop, Delphine, makeup wiped off, covered in the butcher's daughter's rough coat and headscarf, pretended to be a woman trying to exchange her gold earrings for some scraps of meat. They questioned her briefly, eyes suspicious, and threatened to take her in, but after endless seconds where she, heart pounding, tried to steel herself for the worst, the senior one seemed to decide they hadn't the time. Delphine thanked God that they were of lower-rank and not that bright when they decided to release her with the simple theft of the earrings. They hadn't recognized her, and they must have been in a rush, to leave a pretty girl unscathed.
On her way back to the meeting point with her driver, Delphine stopped in another alleyway and vomited violently. Her hand shook as she used the cuff of the coat sleeve to wipe her mouth. She tasted bile, and also blood. She hadn't even realized how hard she had bitten into her tongue.
"What do I do?"
The words, terrified, pleading, froze Cosima to the core.
Think, she pushed herself. If Sabine had been taken, it didn't mean Delphine had been compromised. But what if it did? She clenched her hand around the edge of the desk before her, knuckles white.
"Okay, Delphine. Do you have evac routes?"
A shuddering breath came over the airwaves. "I… I have some papers, some possibilities. But the security is tightening. People are being stopped at every corner…"
They know we're coming, Cosima thought, they're cleaning house. She smacked her hand down on the desk.
"Dammit, we're so close, Delphine. Just a few days, given the weather…"
"And there will be a battle, miles away," Delphine reminded her, "and who knows if and when the forces reach Paris…"
"But they will," Cosima insisted, trying to reassure the both of them. "If I could just… if we could just protect you, if you could stay underground until—"
"I know, Cosima. I will try. And I know there's so much more yet to be done."
"Not by you, Delphine," Cosima insisted, her voice harsher than she intended, "we've got to get you out."
A car door slammed on the street outside Delphine's window. She turned her head and saw a black car, and a truck. Her breath caught in her throat. The men hanging off the truck were Gestapo, but the officers exiting the car, straightening their uniforms, were SS.
"I haven't much time," she whispered quickly into the microphone. "I— I can't bring the wireless."
"Delphine, no… but… can you take the device? Save it for later…?"
"I'll have to destroy it," Delphine resolved, closing her eyes. "I can't let it be taken. Cosima—"
"What about— God, Delphine, just get out of there. I can't let… you be taken, just…"
She heard voices downstairs. The building attendant's in the lobby, reaching the street through the open front door, brusque answers from men with German accents.
"Au revoir, Cosima," she forced her mouth to utter. "You… thank you." She struggled to breathe, to hold in her tears and panic. "Until after the war…" she offered, knowing it was both too much and too little.
"Delphine—!"
She yanked the cord from the wireless, pulling at the bolts on the casing, twisting with trembling fingers. She struggled, until the side panel flew off, and she reached in, grabbing the mechanical frequency changer and crumpling the tiny roll of paper as she pulled the whole thing out, wires dangling. The voices seemed below her, perhaps the second floor. She looked around, frantic, then flung the device to the floor, stomping it with her heels. Tiny parts cracked, screws scattered. She grabbed all she could find. Some went down the kitchen drain, some the bath tub, some flew out the rear window, so small as to barely ping when they hit the ground. The waxed paper she chewed, and swallowed. It was a part of her now.
Perhaps they were interested in other people in the building, because it took it longer than she expected for them to reach her door. By then she had pulled on her smart suit, smoothed her hair, and sat with a cigarette, face composed. When they knocked and asked for her she opened the door. She fought the tension in her body and met them with an expression of mild surprise and an attitude of lack of concern, and invited them in. There were terse questions, which she met with nonchalance and offers of brandy. But she knew her efforts were fruitless. In no time, they had entered the little room where her father's wireless was kept.
"A souvenir," she told them "I listen to the German broadcasts." The Scharführer looked at her, calmly pulled off a glove, and felt the side of the now-closed wireless.
"Still warm," he told her, then turned to a soldier. "Search for microphones, headsets, papers, anything out of the ordinary. Anything." He turned back to Delphine and gestured at her, two soldiers taking her arms on either side firmly, and said, almost politely, "Now, Fraulein Cormier, you are to come with us."