But his face remained grave. “Marie, there’s something else.” His voice was somber. “You know about the railway bridge?”
She nodded. “Of course.” Everything they had done, including her life-threatening trip back from Montmartre with the TNT, had led up to this.
“The detonation is scheduled for tomorrow night.”
“So soon?”
“We’ve received word that a large German convoy is to cross it the day after next. So we had to move it up.”
“But Julian said not to proceed without him.”
“We won’t be. We will lay the charge and then retrieve him from the landing site before it explodes. It shouldn’t be a problem.”
She did not understand why his tone was so grave. “Then what’s the matter?”
He hesitated. “The agent who was to lay the charge at the bridge tomorrow, she’s gone missing.”
She. There was only one woman in the network capable of undertaking such a task. Marie sank to the edge of the bed, praying that she had heard him wrong. “Will,” she said slowly, “who is it?”
“Josie is missing,” he confirmed bluntly, sitting down beside her. “She and Albert and one of the partisans, Marcin, were delivering guns to the Maquis when they went dark four days ago. We don’t actually know if they were arrested,” he added quickly. “They could just be lying low.”
“Or injured or dead,” Marie said, the awful possibilities flowing from her. “Have they checked the location of her last transmission? What about the town where she was last seen? We must send word to headquarters...” If Julian knew, he could make inquiries in London.
“We have. And a reconnaissance team is doing everything they can.” Marie knew from the sound of his voice that it was futile. If Josie was all right, she would have found a way to get back or at least to be in touch. No, the only one thing that would have kept Josie from completing the mission was if she had been arrested—or killed.
She saw Josie at Arisaig House, so strong and defiant. Tears filled Marie’s eyes as she turned to Will. “How could this have happened?” She leaned into him and cried then into the front of his shirt. It wasn’t just for Josie she mourned, but for all of them. Josie had been unbreakable. If the Germans had gotten her, then what chance did Marie or the others have?
Marie felt paralyzed by her sadness, ready to give up then and there. But Josie would not have stood for her falling apart like this. She forced herself to breathe more calmly, and her sobs began to subside. A few minutes later, she straightened, dried her eyes.
“There is nothing we can do from here but wait,” Will added.
“And destroy the railway bridge,” she managed, forcing herself to focus on the task at hand. Julian had said the operation must go ahead at all costs. “Who’s going to lay the charge now?”
“I don’t know. I’m going to a few of the safe houses to see who’s nearby that might be a good fit. Worst case, I’ll do it myself.”
“I’ll do it.” The words came out before she realized it. What on earth was she thinking? He looked at her for several seconds, as if not comprehending. “Lay the charge. I can do it.”
“Marie, no. You aren’t trained for this. You’re a radio operator.” She’d only had the most cursory training in explosives at Arisaig House. To actually lay the charge for the entire detonation was something else entirely. “Julian would never allow it,” he added.
“Why?”
Will shrugged. “He’s very protective.” Of me, she wanted to ask, or all the female agents? He had been perfectly willing to let Marie risk herself with the trip into Paris to fetch the explosives. What had changed? She remembered the closeness between them the night before he left for London. She wondered whether Will had sensed it the next morning. Or perhaps Julian had said something to his cousin about her before he had gone.
But that had nothing to do with the question at hand. “Julian isn’t here now. And there’s no one else to do it. You need to be at the airfield. You go to receive him,” she continued, a plan forming in her mind. “I’ll lay the charge and meet you. Julian knows how to find the underground routes out of the region. We will get Julian and by the time the charge has detonated, we will all be long gone.”
Will hesitated. Julian would have fought this plan to the last, and they both knew it. But Will’s expression seemed to fold as he realized she was right. And even if she was wrong, there was no time to find an alternative.
“Very well. Quickly, follow me.” They started out of the flat and down the stairs, across the town, going this time on foot. Will was as hard to keep up with as his cousin, legs shorter but steps rapid-fire.
“What do I do?” she asked. “I mean, after I set the charge.”
“You’ll need to cross the bridge to get to the rendezvous spot. Follow the riverbank south to the bend I showed you on the map, then east to the field where I dropped you the night you came.” He made it all sound so easy. “Can you find it?” She nodded.
They pressed on in silence. “What did you do before the war?” she asked finally.
She expected him to chastise, as Julian might have done, for talking needlessly and risking detection. “I raced.”
“Cars?” She was surprised.
“Motorbikes, actually.” Somehow given his love of flying, it made sense. The excitement of the two seemed somehow the same. “Completely frivolous, I know. But true.” They had all been such different people before the war, she realized.
Soon the woods began to thin. A railway bridge appeared ahead, looming like a giant skeleton. Marie’s heartbeat quickened. It was so much larger than she imagined. “Do we have enough explosives to bring it down?”
“There’s TNT positioned in at least a dozen spots along the bridge,” he said. “We don’t have to take the whole thing, just enough to make it unpassable. You remember how to set the charge from training?”
“Yes...” Marie faltered. She had not paid attention to explosives as well as she might have. She had been sent as a radio operator; blowing things up was simply not a job she had ever expected to do.
“It’s not too late to change your mind,” he said, seeming to read her doubts.
She lifted her chin defiantly. “I can do this.”
He pulled the detonator from his bag, then pointed at the corner of the bridge. “You’ll need to lodge it up there in the joint. Wait until it’s completely dark. I wish that I could do it for you,” he added.
She shook her head. She was smaller and less easily seen. And her French would help if she got caught. “You need to go prepare the landing site for Julian.”