Read Chapter 30: The Gold's True Destination

The smoke from the burned truck curled into the night sky, and Colette’s blood was warm against Lucien’s palms. She was slipping, that much was clear—her breath coming in short, ragged gasps, her eyes unfocused as they rolled toward him.

“Listen to me,” he said, pressing the wadded cloth harder against her side. “Who do you actually work for?”

“SOE.” The word cost her. “London. We’ve been tracking the gold since it left the Reichsbank vaults in Berlin.”

“Then the British want it.”

A grim smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “The British want everything that isn’t nailed down.”

Lucien’s mind raced. The truck’s cargo sat behind them, solid and real—a fortune in gold bars wrapped in canvas and strapped to wooden pallets. Beyond the tree line, the farm road stretched empty, but he could hear the distant rumble of engines approaching from the east. The SS escort was coming.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “I get you to safety. Your people extract you. And the gold goes to the Resistance—the real Resistance, the ones who fight. Not London’s pawns.”

“You think the Resistance and London want different things?”

“I think London wants Europe back. The Resistance wants France.” He leaned closer. “That gold funds guns and food for people who will die in the streets of Paris if we don’t stop Brandt and Kohl. Your people can afford to wait. Mine can’t.”

Colette coughed, and a fleck of blood appeared on her lips. “You’re asking me to betray my orders.”

“I’m asking you to die with a clean conscience.”

She laughed, brittle and short. “You really are a bastard, Marchand.”

“That’s why I’m still alive.”

A long moment passed. The engines grew louder. Lucien could see the first pale glow of headlights sweeping around a distant bend.

“Fine,” she said. “Get me out of this. I’ll tell London the courier was destroyed and the gold lost. Your Resistance can have it.” Her hand shot out and grabbed his wrist with surprising strength. “But you owe me. When this is over, there’ll be a reckoning.”

“When this is over, we’ll all be dead,” Lucien said, and hauled her to her feet.

The farmhouse where they had staged the ambush stood two hundred meters through the field, its dark shape barely visible against the bruised sky. Lucien half-carried Colette across the mud, ignoring the burn in his own shoulder where a bullet had grazed him. He had to get her inside, stabilize the wound, then find a way to move the gold before the SS arrived.

They had barely reached the door when he heard it—the crunch of boots on gravel, the click of a pistol being cocked.

“Monsieur Marchand.”

The voice was smooth, relaxed, almost amused. Lucien froze with his hand on the latch.

Brandt stepped out of the shadows beside the farmhouse, flanked by two men in civilian clothes who were clearly anything but. The major wore his field coat unbuttoned and his hat tilted back, like a man who had been waiting for a while.

“I must admit,” Brandt said, “when my men reported the courier was early, I didn’t believe a Paris fixer could have pulled this off.” He gestured to the truck. “Then I saw the smoke.”

Lucien’s brain worked furiously. Brandt was supposed to be in Paris. He was supposed to believe the gold was already across the border. Instead, he was here, on a farm road outside Dijon, at three in the morning, with a hostage situation brewing.

“Major,” Lucien said, keeping his voice level. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”

“No misunderstanding.” Brandt advanced, pistol held loosely at his side. “You have my gold in that truck. And you have—” he squinted at Colette, recognition flickering across his face, “—the young woman who’s been causing me so much trouble.”

“She’s nobody. A local girl I hired to drive.”

“Don’t insult me.” Brandt’s voice hardened. “I know who she is. Or rather, who she claims to be.” He tilted his head. “Colette Vasseur was shot in the back of the head and dumped in the Seine three months ago. So either you’re a corpse, which would be impressive, or you’re something else entirely.”

Colette stirred in Lucien’s arms, her head lifting slightly. “You killed her father,” she managed. “Colonel Vasseur. You put a bullet in his skull and called it suicide.”

Brandt’s smile didn’t waver. “Ah. So you do know the family.”

“You’ll hang for it.”

“I’ll be dining in Berlin by Christmas while you rot in a mass grave.” Brandt gestured to his men, who moved forward. “Take the girl. Leave him.”

“No.” Lucien’s voice cracked like a whip. “You want the gold, you go through me.”

Brandt paused, genuinely curious. “You’d die for her? That doesn’t sound like the Lucien Marchand I know. The man who sells ration cards to widows and information to whoever pays more.”

“The man you know doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Then you’ve become sentimental.” Brandt shook his head, almost sadly. “That’s a shame.”

He moved faster than Lucien expected. Before Lucien could react, Brandt had crossed the distance, grabbed Colette by the hair, and yanked her out of Lucien’s arms. She cried out as the wound in her side pulled, and Brandt twisted her around to face him, pressing the barrel of his pistol under her chin.

“Now,” he said pleasantly, “let’s talk about how this ends.”

Lucien’s hands hung at his sides. He could try for his gun, but Brandt’s trigger finger was already white on the guard. A twitch and Colette would be dead before Lucien cleared leather.

“The gold is yours,” Lucien said. “Take it. Consider it my gift for our partnership.”

“The gold is already mine. I’ve just been waiting for you to realize that.” Brandt’s eyes glittered in the dim light. “But I’m curious about something else. You were supposed to meet me at my office tonight to discuss our arrangement. Instead, you’re here, in the middle of nowhere, playing hero with a British spy.” He leaned closer. “Who else knows about this little excursion, Marchand?”

“No one.”

“Liar.” Brandt’s grip tightened in Colette’s hair, and she gasped. “Try again.”

Lucien’s jaw clenched. He thought of Camille, alone in the convent, wounded and defenseless. He thought of Marcel, the mole, who would sell his own mother if he smelled an advantage. He thought of the other Resistance cells, scattered and fragile, waiting for word that the gold was coming.

“There’s no one else,” he said. “It was just me and her. I planned this alone.”

Brandt studied him for a long moment, then smiled. “You know, I almost believe you. But I’ve learned to trust my instincts, and my instincts tell me you’re hiding something.” He tugged Colette backward, toward the truck. “So here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to unload that gold onto my truck. You’re going to watch me drive away with it. And you’re going to wait forty-eight hours.”

“For what?”

“For me to decide whether to kill your friends.” Brandt’s smile widened. “Starting with the one hiding in the convent.”

Lucien’s blood went cold. “You don’t know where she is.”

“I know everything, Marchand.” Brandt produced a folded map from his coat and tossed it at Lucien’s feet. It fluttered open, and Lucien saw a red circle drawn around a small building on the outskirts of Paris, annotated with a date and a time in Brandt’s precise handwriting. “The convent,” Brandt said. “Sister Agnes’s little sanctuary. Did you think I wouldn’t follow the trail of wounded men and smuggled medicine?”

Colette struggled in his grip. “He’s lying. He’s trying to break you.”

“She’s right that I’m trying to break you,” Brandt said, “but I’m not lying. My men are already moving on the convent as we speak. They have orders to hold everyone inside until I give the word.”

Lucien felt the ground open beneath his feet. Camille was there. Camille, wounded, alone, with no way to fight off a Gestapo squad. And Marcel, the coward, was still out there, waiting to see which way the wind blew.

“What do you want?” Lucien heard his own voice, distant and hollow.

Brandt’s smile was pure poison. “I want you to suffer, Marchand. I want you to choose.” He paused, letting the weight settle. “I have your gold and your spy. You have forty-eight hours to bring me something I want more than both of them. The name of every Resistance leader in Paris. Every safehouse. Every smuggler’s route you’ve used.” He tilted his head. “And when you do, I’ll give you back your friends. Some of them alive, at least.”

Lucien stared at him, and for a moment Brandt saw something in his eyes that made the major’s smile falter—a cold, patient violence that had been coiled in the fixer’s chest for years.

“Forty-eight hours,” Lucien said.

“Starting now.”

Brandt shoved Colette toward his men, who dragged her toward a waiting Citroën. She stumbled, blood streaking down her side, but she caught Lucien’s eye before they shoved her into the back seat. Her lips formed two words, silent in the dark.

*Kill him.*

The car engines turned over. Brandt climbed into the passenger seat of the first vehicle without looking back. The taillights receded down the farm road, taking Colette and the gold and Lucien’s last easy option with them.

Lucien stood alone in the mud, the map crumpled in his fist. The smoke from the burning truck curled around him like a shroud. Somewhere in Paris, Camille was waiting for him to save her. Somewhere in the city, Marcel was polishing his silver tongue, ready to sell whatever was left.

And somewhere in the gutted shell of the church where Lucien had hidden his worst secrets, Brandt’s men were already knocking on the door.