I must have been here a hundred times, Delphine thought, looking around von Leekie's office. Perhaps this one will be little different from the rest, she tried to reassure herself. Perhaps all they have on me is a rumour and a warm radio.
But there had never been an armed guard inside the room with her, his eyes on her from the doorway, his finger close to the trigger of his gun.
She had been left waiting there for some time, and even the well-cushioned leather guest chair was beginning to feel uncomfortable. She had asked to go to the bathroom a while ago, but the guard merely stared at her, saying nothing, until she sat back down.
So, she gazed out the window, trying to control her breathing. A pigeon fluttered by at one point, and she wished she could go back to that first surprise visit from Cosima's pigeon — or better, have some way to contact her.
She heard the door open behind her, but before she could rise, von Leekie was striding past her to round his desk, carefully laying down a sheaf of papers on his blotter before he even glanced at her, then seating himself in his chair, his fingers steepled before him, to look at her appraisingly. He was silent for a moment, and when he spoke he sounded slightly pained or annoyed, as if she had been a great inconvenience.
"Delphine," he said, narrowing his eyes, "you never told me how much you enjoy listening to the radio."
Delphine worked not to nervously bite her lip.
"I have always enjoyed it, Aldous," she answered, putting a hint of the familiar huskiness she often used to convince him of his attractiveness into his given name. "You know I love music, and I grew up in a household with an excellent wireless. It reminds me of my girlhood."
"Hmm," von Leekie pondered, pursing his lips. "Tell me, does it remind you, also, of your parents? The ones who colluded against the Third Reich, against your very own government and police here in France?"
He knew this would hurt her, would scare her and pierce her shell. She tried, but she wasn't sure she entirely kept the tremble out of her voice.
"I have never been told the crimes they committed," she replied, "but I trust they were serious. I've never questioned the government's absolute right to take them… and as for my childhood, that was a long time ago."
She met his eyes now, willing herself to stare, unwavering, through his cynicism.
"Really, Aldous, all this fuss over a little hobby of listening to news and music?"
Von Leekie paused for a moment, just staring at her, then licked his pointer finger and thumb and riffled his papers, finally pulling out one and tracing the rows of sentences with his finger.
"Well, that might be one thing, but then you have this other 'little hobby' of aiding enemy soldiers." He looked up at her almost mildly, with just a hint of expectation as he let that soak in.
Delphine tried her best to look shocked, wrongfully accused.
"What? Aiding enemy soldiers? What—"
"Oh, you know what I'm talking about, darling," he interrupted her, stretching out the endearment into a parody. "Just as you know an agent who goes by the name Sabine."
Delphine felt her stomach drop, and her lungs freeze mid-breath. She started to open her mouth.
"Don't," von Leekie stopped her, leaning back in his chair. "We know everything about you and what you've done 'Swan.' Such a pretty name for a Resistance whore."
Delphine made a great effort to level her voice.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Aldous, but if any Resistance spy has been talking about me, it's probably made up tales to save their own skin." Her mouth twisted. "And you well know, if I'm anyone's whore, it's yours."
Her voice had become more biting than she intended, but she swore she saw a brief flicker of desire in his eyes, a response to the sort of talk he'd always most enjoyed from her. But then that window closed.
"Really, Delphine, don't embarrass yourself," he countered, his words clipped. "You have already done enough to embarrass me." His last words rang with suppressed rage, and she realized that was her true crime. Never insult the Öberführer's pride.
"Besides," he continued, "Agent Sabine has been working with us for some time now, so anything she told us about you would hardly require a forced confession."
That was it, then. She had been stupid, not careful enough. So stupid.
She had nothing left to say. They merely glared at each other over his desk for a moment.
"Now," he finally resumed, riffling his papers and then steepling his fingers again, "I really think you should do yourself a favour and tell me everything I want to know. Shall we begin?"
Delphine said nothing, forcing her face to remain stoic, her back straight.
"No? Hm. I know you have some inside knowledge on how things work. Have you ever heard of Die Klinge?"
A cold wash of fear flash-flooded through Delphine's body. Die Klinge… The Blade. An "interrogator," he was called in Nazi circles, a "torturer," a "devil" in others. His reputation preceded him.
Delphine's brain whirled, her face cycling through emotions she fought to control. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. Finally, she closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them, turning her head to gaze out the window, to stare into the approaching line of grey, threatening clouds spreading across the sky above Paris.
Von Leekie clucked his tongue.
"Very well, then," he said simply, and got up. He rounded the desk and paused in front of her. His right hand clenched into a fist, and his eyes burned with cold fire. Delphine thought he would hit her, but he did not. Instead, he touched one of the golden curls by her face lightly, almost tenderly.
"Such a disappointment," he finally said, "you could have been something." He seemed about to say something more, but his face became hard, instead, and he walked out the door.
"Take her to Die Klinge," she heard him say as he exited, and when the guards came to get her, she found her legs too weak to lift her weight herself.
There had been distant noises for a while, but now, nothing save the sound of the breeze and a few birds. Cosima and Scott had found more solid ground after Cosima deduced that the Nazis must have deliberately flooded the area to make paratrooper landings unsafe, and Scott had calculated elevations and distances on their map. The only soldiers they had seen — from the American's units or the Germans — were dead, mostly shot or drowned, sprawled out at intervals, partially hidden by hedges or high plants in fields. There had been evidence of movement — trodden mud, broken branches, even a burned patch or two — but they seemed to lead in all directions. Cosima peered up at the glaring, white-grey, cloudy sky, and quietly cursed the decision to do the drop in such poor weather. It probably had made the Germans suspect an attempted attack less, but she doubted many of the advance pathfinder paratroopers had landed in their actual drop zones.
"This should be it, Scott," she declared, not for the first time. "I'm ninety percent sure this the target area."
Scott nodded, again, looking at the conspicuous absence of any of their jump mates, and took a slow, small pull of water from his canteen.
"I know," he responded, his voice strained from fatigue and tension. "So, it looks like our only choice for finding our allies is to move northwest." His tone indicated he was trying to sound rational, convincing, supportive, but his expression proved he knew the effort was probably futile.
Cosima shook her head.
"There's no guarantee we'll meet anyone but Nazis," she countered. Her lips compressed into a grim line, and she re-folded the map. "Five more minutes rest, and then we're heading towards Paris."
Scott blew his cheeks out and stood to stretch.
"Be right back. Gotta, you know…" he looked embarrassed until Cosima nodded.
"I know, drain the hose," she waved him off. If they were going to be in such dire circumstances, little moments of levity would help them get through, and making Scotty blush always amused her and distracted him.
He disappeared into the bushes and Cosima rubbed her hands over her face. Paris was going to take days to reach, going by foot and skirting any fighting or German troops. Once again she thought about how grateful she was to Scott for joining her — she probably couldn't do it without him — while simultaneously fighting off guilt for involving him in this hastily put-together and life-threatening scheme.
A strangled cry and a thud from the bushes made her instantly shoot to her feet. There was a rustling, and she fumbled to wrap one hand around the butt of her revolver.
"Aw, jeez," came from that direction in Scott's voice, after what seemed far too long. She inched forward.
"Scott? You okay?"
She edged into the bushes and found him pushing himself up from having fallen.
"Yeah, I just tripped," he explained, "and this… thing I tripped over about scared the life out of me."
Cosima followed his eyeline to find a small, splayed body — a kind of crude doll in human form, about three feet tall — attached to a pack and parachute that was trailing off into the weeds. She squatted on her haunches to look at it.
"It's a British Rupert paradummy," she concluded, scrunching her nose to push up her glasses. "It's supposed to throw the Jerries off by making 'em think there are more troops coming to get them than there really are, so they pull back from the beaches to defend against them. I don't know why its incendiary device didn't go off, though. These things are supposed to burn up and not leave a trace."
Scott paled.
"Do you think it could've gone off when I tripped over it?" He was envisioning catching himself on fire.
Cosima peered up at him from over her glasses with a wry look.
"It could have, but it didn't, fortunately for you." She peered at it a little closer, and then stood up, looking around.
"This could mean a few things," she mused. "It definitely means we're well inland, as we figured, and both some American and British drops went awry. But it also could mean that we have to be extra careful around here. If these dummies, plus the recordings of gunfire the few real paras dropped with them play, actually fooled anyone, there could be more Germans nearby than we hoped."
"Great," Scott breathed, with a little groan. He turned his head to look all around them. "So what do we do now?"
"Well, first we set this thing on fire," she answered, rubbing her head with one hand, "and then we make sure we're even more on alert and careful than we have been so far."
She, too, let her eyes roam the brush and grasses around them. They both started when they heard the sudden crack of gunfire in the distance, along with some indistinguishable shouts. They looked at each other, finding themselves both crouched down out of instinct, staying below the line of the foliage.
"Shit," Cosima exclaimed, and this time Scott was too distracted to blush. "We'd better unpack our stuff. It's time to get less conspicuous."