Scorched Earth - Robert Muchamore Page 0,66
a side wall.
Henderson nodded to Maxine, who sat in the front row next to the American liaison officer, Colonel Hawk. There were a few other people scattered in the front three rows. The ones Henderson recognised were either Maxine’s most trusted lieutenants, or influential members of other resistance groups.
PT, Marc, Luc and Paul went to grab seats, but Henderson smiled and shook his head. ‘Maxine has a special job for you four. Go right up the back, and knock on the projection booth door.’
‘Why?’ Marc asked.
‘Just do what you’re bloody told for once,’ Henderson snapped.
The rear of the cinema was pitch black. PT led the way, brushing a hand along the wall to guide himself. A pretty teenaged projectionist led them up to the projection booth. It was cramped, but there was a small skylight and a wall had been crudely knocked down so that the space continued into what had once been the cinema manager’s office.
The four boys were nearly flattened by a stench of BO. There was an array of car batteries wired up along the office floor and two standing bicycles. These had their back wheels off the ground and rigged up to drive large dynamos.
‘You need to get a move on,’ the projectionist said. ‘The American said that his film lasts thirteen minutes. Pedalling both bikes for three minutes makes enough charge to run the projector for one minute.’
The boys looked appalled, not so much by the prospect of forced exercise but by the smell of those who’d gone before them.
‘I’ve already walked twenty kilometres today,’ Luc moaned.
Paul shrugged. ‘Look on the bright side – Maxine didn’t have you shot.’
The projectionist picked a voltage meter off the floor. ‘Don’t make this needle go into the red,’ she explained. ‘If you generate too much current you’ll fuse the charging circuit.’
PT and Marc put their legs over the stationary bikes and both almost shot head first over the handlebars when they gave their first push on the pedals.
The projectionist smirked. ‘It is heavier turning the dynamo than riding a bike.’
‘Now you tell me,’ Marc said, before shaking his head and giving the pedal a slower but more powerful push.
As PT and Marc began making their contribution to the room’s aroma, Paul looked out of a small opening and watched more resistance leaders arriving. An argument broke out as one man turned up with a retinue of bodyguards and hangers-on. Maxine furiously ordered them to the back of the auditorium, hemmed in by members of her own security team.
By the time Maxine was satisfied that everyone had arrived, PT and Marc were stepping off the bikes.
Marc pulled a wringing-wet shirt over his head before giving Paul a slap on the back. ‘Your turn, old pal.’
Paul was weedy and, with a hangover and weakened from eight weeks in a cellar, he could barely get the pedals turning.
Luc showed his typical lack of sympathy. ‘If I have to do all the work I’m gonna beat the shit out of you.’
The projectionist saw Paul’s struggle and took pity on him. ‘I can take over from you,’ she said.
PT was the oldest and couldn’t stand by while a girl did the work, so he quickly drank some water and stepped back to the bike. Paul felt humiliated as he got relieved.
‘I don’t know what Henderson was thinking after what you’ve been through,’ PT told Paul. ‘Get out of here, go watch the show.’
As Paul stepped down from the projection booth and took a seat in the back row, Colonel Hawk was finishing a brief introduction.
‘… My role is to ensure that Allied command and the resistance in the Paris area are all working to the same end. The military values all the work the resistance has done, but you must now work with us if we are to avoid unnecessary loss of life.
‘Over the past few days, groups inside the police, the railways and communist resistance groups have increasingly called for a general uprising among the people of Paris. Today’s mass evacuation of German administrative staff and non-essential personnel is sure to ramp these feelings up further.
‘As I’m sure none of you need reminding, at the start of this month a similar resistance uprising took place as Soviet troops neared the Polish capital. But the Warsaw resistance acted too hastily. The Soviets didn’t advance into the city and the Nazis staged a merciless crackdown. Entire streets were dynamited and thousands of civilians rounded up and slaughtered. The resistance was forced down into the