Read Chapter 27: The Trap

The barn smelled of rot and dry hay. Dust hung in the still air, lit gold by cracks in the warped boards. Jack pressed his back against the wall beside a sagging stable door, listening to the dogs in the distance. They were close now. Hoarse shouts in German cut through the marsh quiet, answered by others from the tree line. They had circled wide, the way hunters did when driving game.

Henri leaned against a rusted plow, his face pale beneath the grime, the fresh bandage on his left arm already dark with blood where Claire's men had put a round through him outside the village. He was breathing hard through his teeth, holding the wound with his right hand while his .32 dangled loose in his fingers.

"Your shoulder," Henri said, nodding at Jack's arm.

"It'll hold."

"You are lying."

The dogs bayed again, closer. Jack moved to the slatted window and counted shapes between the barn's sagging slats. Eight, maybe nine men. They were spreading out in a half arc, rifles up, their movements crisp and practiced. One of them pointed at the barn. Jack pulled back.

"Okay," he said. "Listen. There's a hay loft. A hatch in the back wall, under all that rat shit. We go up, we go through, we drop into the ditch and break west toward the river."

Henri shook his head. "They have the west covered. That is where they expect us. We go east, into the marsh again."

"East is open ground for two hundred yards. They'll cut us down before we clear the fence."

"Then we stay here and shoot until they bring the mortar." Henri pushed himself up from the plow, swaying. "They have already brought it. I saw the tripod."

Outside, a German officer barked an order. The dogs quieted. Jack didn't need to speak German to know what came next.

There was a moment of silence, long and breathless, and then the shooting started.

Slugs tore through the barn's plank walls, splintering wood, whining off the plow. Jack dropped flat, pulling Henri down with him as the air filled with splinters and shredded hay. The fire was methodical—riflemen walking their rounds along the length of the structure, trying to punch holes in anything that moved. Dust choked the air. Somewhere above, a rafter groaned.

Jack waited for a lull, then raised his M1 over the windowsill and squeezed off three fast rounds. A cry answered. One down, maybe two. A German machine gun opened up from the right, stitching a line through the wall so close Jack felt the wind of it against his cheek. He ducked.

Henri was on one knee, his pistol up, waiting. His breath came fast and shallow. Jack saw the dark patch spreading under the bandage, saw the tremble in Henri's aim. The man was fading, and he had maybe five minutes of fight left in him.

"We move now," Jack said. "Or we die in here."

Henri nodded. "The loft. Go."

Jack came up low, grabbing Henri by the collar and hauling him toward the ladder. The German fire shifted, tracking the movement, and the wall behind them exploded into a shower of light and dust. Jack shoved Henri up the rungs and followed, taking the steps two at a time as the structure shuddered beneath them.

At the top, a thick blanket of hay covered a loose plank hatch that opened onto the north side of the barn, away from the main line of fire. Jack kicked it open and saw the ditch below—three feet of muddy water and dead reeds, bounded by a fence and, beyond that, a field that ran flat to the marsh.

He turned to help Henri through the opening when a single rifle crack split the air. Henri bucked, a wet cough escaping his chest, and fell forward onto Jack, nearly knocking them both through the hatch.

Jack caught him in his one good arm and hauled him out. They dropped into the ditch together, the cold water swallowing them to the chest. Henri's face was the color of linen. A bullet had torn through his right side, just above the hip, and bright arterial blood pulsed between his fingers.

"No," Henri whispered. "Not now."

Jack pulled Henri's arm over his shoulder and started moving west, through the ditch, away from the field, away from the barn, the weight of the Frenchman dragging at his good shoulder until the pain sang white behind his eyes. The Germans kept firing into the barn, unaware their quarry had slipped out the back.

The safehouse was a half-destroyed farmhouse at the edge of the marsh, its roof partially caved in, long abandoned. Jack kicked the door open and carried Henri inside, laying him on a straw mattress that smelled of mildew and rats. He found a lantern and lit it, turning the wick low.

Henri's jaw was clamped tight. A thin line of blood ran from the corner of his mouth. When Jack peeled back the man's coat, the wound was bad—a deep tear through his side, ragged and ugly, but not the shot that would kill him if they could stop the bleeding. The earlier arm wound had opened again too, painting Henri's whole left side red.

Jack packed the side wound with torn cloth, pressing hard until Henri's breath caught and his eyes rolled. But he stayed conscious, focusing on Jack with a desperate clarity.

"The key," Henri said. "Did it get—"

"Safe. Still on me." Jack pulled the heavy iron master key from his pocket, wrapped in oilcloth. It gleamed dully in the lantern light.

Henri nodded, then winced. "The bridge is a fortress now. Kessler will have doubled the guards. He will be waiting for you."

"I know."

"Then you will die."

Jack said nothing. He pressed the cloth harder.

Henri grabbed his wrist with surprising strength. "The junction box is not the only way. There is another path. A maintenance tunnel, beneath the bridge's southern pylon. The Germans built it to reach the detonator lines in case of flood damage. Émile—my brother—he helped dig it. He worked under their guard. He knows the way."

Jack frowned. "You held that back."

"I was not sure I trusted you. Then."

"And now?"

Henri's grip loosened. He laughed, a thin, wet sound. "Now you are bleeding and exhausted and you still carried me across a field. I trust you." He swallowed, face contorting. "Émile is in the labor camp, two kilometers east of the bridge. If you can get to him, he will show you the tunnel. It will be guarded, but less than the surface."

Jack looked down at his hands. His shoulder was a dull throb of abused muscle and old wound. His body felt like a wall the Germans had taken a battering ram to. But there was no one else.

"The camp will be locked down," he said. "There will be patrols."

"You are a scout, are you not? A ghost." Henri closed his eyes. "Do what ghosts do."

Jack sat back on his heels, breathing hard. The lantern flickered, casting monstrous shadows on the ruined walls. Outside, the distant crack of rifle fire had faded to nothing. The hunt was still on, though; he knew that. The Germans would search the marsh all night, maybe longer. They would find the farmhouse eventually, drag him out and put a bullet in his neck.

But not tonight. Not if he moved fast.

He found Henri's pistol and set it on the mattress beside the man's good hand. Then he took Henri's knife and slid it into his own belt. He pulled the oilcloth from the master key and looked at it in the yellow glow: an unassuming thing, heavy, designed to switch the entire electrical system of the château at once. Kessler had known its purpose. Claire had told him. The Baron had lied about its location, and that lie had bought them—what? Hours, maybe. A day, if they were lucky.

Jack stood. He looked down at Henri, whose eyes had drifted shut, his chest rising in shallow, unsteady waves.

"Rest," Jack said. "I'll be back."

Henri did not answer.

Jack left the lantern burning. He stepped through the broken doorway into the moonless dark. Fog rolled off the marsh, thick and cold, muffling sound. He checked his rifle, moved the bolt, and began walking east toward the bridge and the camp, alone for the first time since landing in France. The weight of the mission settled on him like a stone in the chest.

Behind him, the farmhouse faded into mist. The bridge was still standing. For now, it would remain standing until he decided otherwise. He kept walking, following the smell of diesel and cordite that drifted on the wind, toward the place where the Germans would be waiting.