Scorched Earth - Robert Muchamore Page 0,3
to guide them over mounds of rubbish and cleaning gear. They turned into a gloomy hallway running beneath a stage, and looked through metal grilles into a 200-seat hall.
‘Married my second wife in there,’ Jean whispered.
A door took them out beneath a staircase, then past the brass rails and oil paintings into the building’s deserted foyer.
PT led the way up two thickly carpeted flights through the gloomy light created by the boarded-up stained glass on the landing. They ignored the German commander’s double-doored office and cut into a long corridor with offices off either side.
‘She told me it’s F, halfway down on our left,’ Jean said.
The door of Room F was already ajar and as PT stepped in, a movement made him jolt.
‘Shit,’ PT blurted, taking a step back and ripping a silenced pistol out of its holster. When there was no further movement, he jumped into the room, sweeping the weapon from side to side.
PT had just about convinced himself that he was imagining things when a vast ginger cat belted out of the gap between two filing cabinets. It brushed PT’s trousers and shot out into the hallway.
‘Judging by the rat shit downstairs, I’d bet that moggy eats better than we do,’ Jean said, shaking his head with relief.
As the cat sloped off, PT holstered his gun and opened the middle of three desk drawers. He picked out two vellum folders and a pair of keys dropped out from between them.
‘Looks like your friend has done us proud,’ PT said.
Jean nodded. ‘I’ve known this woman thirty years. Taught all of her sons.’
The cat stared from the top of the grand staircase as they crossed the hallway into Office 2B. This was a larger space, with five desks, a wooden counter and a waiting area lined with unmatched chairs.
A noticeboard above the chairs had the latest German regulations covering curfew times, penalties for spitting in the street and a reminder that anyone failing to report resistance or Maquis activity faced the death penalty.
PT made a dramatic slide over the polished counter, while Jean took the trouble to lift a flap and step through. They both had the same destination, a huge black and gold safe built into a wall at the far side of the room.
The two keys fitted into slots 3 metres apart. They had to be turned simultaneously, which made it impossible for a single key holder to steal its contents. After some fuss over which key went on which side, Jean began a count.
‘One, two …’
They turned on three. There was a clank as a bolt dropped and the squeal of hinges that needed oiling. The safe was tall and shallow, with shelves designed to hold documents such as blank identity cards, curfew passes and birth certificates. All of these held some value, but for the Maquis the most precious were the small, lime-coloured ration cards which were required to buy any kind of food.
Jean’s informant had not only secured copies of the two safe keys, she’d also told them that the fortnightly ration card delivery had arrived the previous afternoon.
‘Beautiful,’ PT said, kissing one stack of cards before scooping mounds of them into a leather satchel.
As PT picked smaller quantities of less valuable documents, Jean moved between desks stealing the rubber stamps, embossers and wax seals needed to validate their stash of blank documents.
‘Nearly there,’ Jean said, dropping assorted stamps into his backpack. ‘I’m looking for a bottle of the radium ink they use on identity cards.’
PT closed the safe and slid back over the counter. He hadn’t buckled his satchel properly and a few purple tobacco-ration cards trailed behind him. As he crouched to pick them up there was a gunshot.
Jean’s neck snapped towards the sound. PT leaned cautiously into the hallway and saw the huge cat belting towards him with half its innards hanging out. The jumpy marksman who’d shot it was coming around the top of the stairs, dressed in a navy jacket and dented French soldier’s helmet.
‘Milice 2,’ PT shouted, as the agonised cat tripped over its own intestines. ‘I thought you trusted this woman.’
Their planned exit was via a ladder lowered out of a window in the ladies’ toilet. But if they’d been betrayed, would the ladder be there?
PT decided that attack was the best form of defence and took aim at the man coming around the stairs. He couldn’t tell where his bullet struck, but it knocked the man backwards and grunts and shouts came up as his body