Scorched Earth - Robert Muchamore Page 0,47

the bikes and sorted out what they could carry on their backs.

*

Henderson would have liked to take the precaution of killing Gaspard, or at least tying him up. But he needed the little train driver’s influence to get back across the railway bridge. They parted awkwardly, on open ground next to one of the railway bridge’s brick pylons.

Henderson broke into a run, made painful by stiff new boots. His pack was stuffed with explosives, detonators and ammunition, but he still had no civilian ID.

Gaspard hurried back towards the railway guards. Henderson suspected he’d walk the tracks back to the Gare de Rouen. Once there, he’d tell his communist buddies that they’d been ripped off by a British officer, who’d ensure that they never got another equipment drop if he made it out of town alive.

Paul, Joel and Sam were waiting close to Rouen Cathedral. They’d hunted down food, but their stolen ration cards could only buy black bread. After they’d all used a tap over a horse trough to rinse the sweat and grime from their skin, Joel had cut the back out of a spare shirt and used it to bandage the gash on Sam’s arm.

They’d arranged to meet Henderson on a set of steps close to the cathedral. Instead of speaking to the boys, Henderson stopped a couple of paces away and spoke while faking a coughing fit.

‘See if I’m being followed.’

The boys let Henderson go 20 metres before standing up, then they moved off once he’d turned a corner.

‘Something must have gone wrong,’ Sam said.

They were all tense, but Paul managed a smirk. ‘You think, Sherlock?’

It was around 10 a.m. The streets were quieter than they’d been an hour earlier, but still busy enough to make it hard to see if Henderson was being followed. Joel stayed 10 metres back as Henderson walked briskly, heading away from the cathedral into a maze of back streets. Paul and Sam held back even further, hoping to identify any tail and take him from behind.

There was no tail, but Gaspard’s men had phoned around with Henderson’s description. As Henderson stepped through a brick archway, two men ran out of an apartment entrance. The older of the pair pulled a gun, but Henderson elbowed him in the face before he could shoot. Joel broke into a sprint, barging the younger man to the ground as Henderson ripped the revolver out of his attacker’s hand.

By the time Paul and Sam raced in, both attackers were on the ground. Henderson pulled his silenced pistol and shot the older man in the head. The second, much younger man gasped with terror as Henderson rammed the gun in his face.

‘On your feet,’ Henderson ordered. ‘Walk with us.’

It had all happened so fast that they only got a decent look at the young attacker as Henderson began marching him off. The lad wore a white shirt, navy railway worker’s trousers and looked no older than fifteen.

‘You live near here?’ Henderson asked.

The lad nodded.

‘Who do you live with?’

‘Two sisters, my mother. Plus my aunt’s family.’

‘That’s no good,’ Henderson grunted. ‘You know anyone near here who lives alone? A friend, an elderly person?’

The kid stuttered. ‘I …’

Henderson punched the kid’s kidney so hard that he sobbed with pain.

‘We need a spot to hide for a few hours,’ Henderson explained menacingly. ‘Pick a good place, because you’re gonna hide there with us. If anyone finds us, the first thing I’ll do is shoot you in the head. Clear?’

The kid nodded. He paused to snivel, but spoke rapidly when Henderson threatened another punch. ‘There’s a house down the road. The woman hid two Jewish kids there until the Milice took them all away.’

‘Nobody else has moved in?’

‘It just happened, like ten days ago.’

‘How long to walk?’

It was only a couple of minutes. The small detached house still had a big Milice boot-print on the front door. The lock was busted and people had stripped the place, ripping out wood for cooking fires and mindlessly smashing what the Milice hadn’t bothered to steal.

‘Joel, Sam,’ Henderson said, boots crunching broken glass as he threw the trembling railway worker to the floor. ‘Check out every room, then I need your eyes front and back until we’re sure nobody saw us come in.’

‘So what happened?’ Paul asked, as Sam thumped up the stairs.

‘Well, I won’t be exchanging Christmas cards with the local communists,’ Henderson explained. ‘So far I’ve killed three of them, held their leader hostage and ripped off their armoury. Hopefully they’ll stop