One Shot Kill - Robert Muchamore Page 0,4

as he staggered backwards and collapsed over the typist’s desk.

The Gestapo compound was well guarded, but it seemed a shame not to at least try escaping. Her bare foot skidded in Huber’s blood as she headed for the door. She grabbed the door handle, but the guard was on the other side, about to enter with a coffee and a bowl of water.

Edith gave the metal bowl a shove, knocking the guard back and showering him with hot water. She made a couple of steps but the guard was too fast and too strong.

‘Security,’ he shouted.

Edith tried stabbing the guard, but he easily twisted the bloody fountain pen out of her hand, bent her fingers back painfully then smashed her head first into the hallway wall.

As Edith slumped to the floor unconscious, two uniformed men rounded the top of the staircase, while the guard stepped into the interrogation room and was staggered by the sight of Huber splayed over the typewriter and drenched in his own blood.

‘Is he dead?’ someone asked from behind.

‘Look at him, you idiot,’ the guard shouted. ‘What do you think?’

CHAPTER THREE

One of the Germans shouted at Rosie in heavily-accented French. ‘Stay down,’ he ordered. ‘Raise your hands slowly into the air.’

But in darkness, with fifteen metres and a fence between herself and the enemy, Rosie had no plans for a meek surrender. She unbuckled the equipment pack strapped to her thigh before ripping a small pistol from her boot and taking two wild shots into the torch beams.

‘Eugene?’ Rosie shouted, her boots churning soft earth as she started to run.

Rosie’s shots hadn’t hit anything, but they’d had the intended effect of making the two Germans wary of climbing the fence and coming after her. The moonlight lit billowing silk from the other parachutes, and gave her a clue where to find Eugene.

‘Rosie, get down,’ Eugene shouted.

It was good to hear Eugene’s voice, but Rosie couldn’t see where it was coming from as she scrambled up a slight hill.

‘Get down,’ Eugene repeated.

As Rosie hit the dirt, Eugene lit up a nearby copse of trees with the muzzle blast from a small machine gun.

‘Get here, now,’ Eugene shouted.

‘What’s going on?’ Rosie gasped, as Eugene shoved her back against a thick tree trunk.

‘They must have known we were coming,’ Eugene said. ‘I know this area well and I think we’ve come down a few hundred metres off target. If we hadn’t, we’d have been surrounded.’

Rosie felt queasy, realising that she’d have landed at the German’s feet but for her last-second tug on the steering rope.

‘Are you fit?’ Eugene asked.

‘Leg bashed a fence, but it’s not much,’ Rosie said.

‘The machine gun blast will make ’em wary, but we’ve got to move before they try and encircle us. They’ll have seen five parachutes, so hopefully they’ll think there’s more than two of us.’

Eugene kept low as he led Rosie downhill. Besides the machine gun slung around his neck, he’d strapped on a large backpack that had been dropped on one of the equipment chutes. There were plenty of torch beams and Germans shouting orders behind them, but as Eugene predicted they showed no appetite for a head-on charge into a potential machine gun ambush.

The pair kept up running pace for twenty-five minutes over five kilometres of countryside. They finally stopped behind a brick stable to catch breath and drink from a standpipe.

‘Can you carry on?’ Eugene asked.

‘Just sweaty,’ Rosie gasped, as she splashed her face and sucked water from the palm of her hand. For the first time in her life she was grateful for the fitness she’d earned on gruelling training runs.

‘I’ve not heard any sign of Germans, but if they had sniffer dogs at the landing site they might still track us,’ Eugene said.

‘What do you think happened?’ Rosie asked. ‘How could they have been waiting for us?’

Eugene shrugged. ‘If we’re lucky, a local patrol stumbled into our drop zone and arrested a couple of members of our reception team. But for all we know the Gestapo have penetrated and destroyed my entire organisation while I’ve been away.’

‘Why didn’t the Germans spread out over a wider area?’ Rosie asked. ‘They didn’t seem well organised.’

‘Probably a lot of Germans in one place, because they overestimated the accuracy of our parachute landings. Or one of my people could have given a slightly inaccurate location under torture, giving us a fighting chance of getting away.’

‘But we’ve been getting regular radio transmissions from your people,’ Rosie pointed out.

‘They could have captured my wireless