Eagle Day - Robert Muchamore Page 0,75
could get inside and burgle houses.born
‘I spent three months digging a tunnel under Wall Street. My dad told me we were going to pull off the biggest robbery in history. We’d have fancy cars and a massive house and everything we could ever want. But what happened? My dad, big brother and two cops ended up dead. I end up on the run halfway around the world, I haven’t seen my little brother in two years and I didn’t have a friend worth the name until Maxine invited me back to the pink house to stay with you lot.’
‘So why’d you try to steal my gold and run away?’ Henderson asked. ‘You were getting along with Maxine and the kids. It never even entered my head that you’d do a runner at that point.’
‘I guess once you’ve seen your family ripped apart, you’re scared of getting close to people. You remind me of my dad in a lot of ways. When you first started going on about going north to spy on the invasion and hatching your plan to help destroy the barges, you had the exact mischievous expression that my dad used to get when he was thinking up a robbery.’
‘I guess I’ve always been an adventurer,’ Henderson admitted, as the trees ended and they broke into an open expanse of grazing land. ‘I’d sooner live a short life that counts for something than a long one that counts for nothing.’
PT stopped walking. ‘No offence, Mr Henderson, but after what happened to my family, my ambition is to buy a little farm or a shop, live a quiet life and die peacefully in my sleep aged about seventy-five. I’ll work with you because I hate the Nazis and want to get out of France, but I’ve got no taste for crazy schemes.’
Henderson slapped PT gently between the shoulders. ‘Thanks for being honest with me.’
‘It’s OK,’ PT said, as the bag thudded down in the shaggy grass. ‘But if Paul, Marc or Rosie end up getting hurt in all this, don’t expect me to forgive you.’
‘I don’t like using those youngsters,’ Henderson admitted. ‘But you saw what happened when the Germans invaded here. How many kids like Paul, Rosie and Marc will die if three Panzer divisions start blasting their way towards London?’
PT didn’t answer. Instead he pulled a small torch from his pocket and inspected a map sketched by Paul.
‘This is our spot,’ PT said. ‘How are we for time?’
Henderson glanced at his watch. ‘Eight minutes past one, which gives us seven minutes to set up.’
The pair crouched down. Henderson unzipped the bag and pulled out three identical units. Each one comprised a pair of car headlights mounted in the base of a wooden vegetable pallet. These were linked by twenty metres of electrical wire to a pair of car batteries. The whole apparatus was controlled by a single switch.
The master lighting unit remained by the batteries. PT and Henderson each took one of the slave units twenty metres across the field. When they were both back by the batteries, PT flipped the switch on and off quickly to ensure that all six lamps worked.
‘Three minutes,’ Henderson said, as he craned his neck up to look at the stars in the moonlit sky. ‘At least the sky’s clear.’
They listened intently for the sound of an aeroplane, but as Henderson’s watch passed one-fifteen there was no sign. All they could do was turn the lights on and hope for the best.
‘I’ll handle the lights,’ Henderson said. ‘You go uphill and check on the other two.’
A lot of effort had gone into scouting a good landing zone for the two French spies. Henderson’s main criteria had been open land with a high vantage point nearby. As the lights blazed behind him, PT found his way towards a rusted metal shed. Marc crouched in the tangle of weeds surrounding it, with binoculars swinging around his neck.
‘Any sign?’ PT asked.
‘Couple of German trucks went along the main road way over back about twenty minutes ago,’ Marc answered. ‘No sign of our plane yet.’
‘And Rosie?’
‘She’s looking around the other side of the hill. She’ll let us know if she sees anything coming.’
PT was knackered after lugging the lights and batteries across five kilometres of fields. He greedily drank water from Marc’s hip flask as the minutes dragged.
‘Where the hell’s this plane?’ PT moaned to himself as he watched the stars.
‘Sssssh!’ Marc said, moving suddenly and aiming the binoculars up at the sky.
PT heard the