One Shot Kill - Robert Muchamore Page 0,83

first test came after two hours, when both trucks pulled into a roadside fuel depot to fill up.

Jean and Didier were ready with wodges of military documentation and permits, but the lone soldier on guard waved them towards a roadside tanker and told them to get on with things.

A more thorough check came on the outskirts of Paris. Two German privates went through the individual workers’ documents and shone torches in the back of the vehicle. They were suspicious when they saw Henderson’s bandaged face, but the documents said they were a construction crew and the hole in his cheek was explained away as a painful encounter with a swinging pickaxe.

‘OK, get out of here,’ one of the privates said.

Everyone was relieved, because a physical search would have revealed weapons, notebooks and scientific equipment.

It was 7 a.m. Saturday as the trucks reached Paris’s western suburbs and split up. Each one had three drop-off points for the scientists. Originally a pair of scientists were to be dropped at each location, but as two had died, two men were dropped singly.

After leaving the trucks, the scientists would be met by associates of the Ghost circuit. Each drop was different. One pair had to enter a barber’s shop and ask for Daisy, one was given a Metro ticket and told to report to the station’s lost luggage office, and another pair were told to join a short queue outside a public baths.

They’d all be bathed, shaved, given new clothes and civilian identity papers before setting off on the next phase of carefully planned escape routes. Some would spend a week or more in a safe house, others would be on trains heading towards the Swiss border by lunchtime.

Their chances of making it to Allied territory were excellent. They’d have money, documents and experienced guides from a well-run resistance circuit. Most important of all, the Germans thought they’d all died inside the bunker so nobody was out looking for them.

After the drop-offs, the two trucks met up at a meat warehouse. What little meat was available in Paris came through the black market, so the meat hooks hung bare and only metal wheel rims remained from porter’s handcarts that had been chopped up for firewood.

‘Leave the scientists’ notes and equipment from the laboratory,’ a man dressed like an undertaker told them politely. ‘It will be picked up by Lysander and should arrive in Britain before the scientists.’

‘Upp ruh uh,’ Henderson said, as he found his feet and wobbled slightly.

‘I don’t have a stretcher, but I could bring out a coffin,’ the undertaker suggested.

Nobody could understand a word Henderson said, but it was pretty clear he didn’t like the idea of travelling in a coffin and although he was lightheaded from the blood loss he managed to walk OK with one arm around Luc’s back.

‘I’ll arrange for a doctor,’ the undertaker said. ‘We have an excellent man and decent medical supplies thanks to American equipment drops.’

The undertaker led Henderson, Goldberg, Marc, Paul, Luc, Sam, Rosie, Jean and Didier across the empty marketplace and down some steps to a cellar. The walls to the next building had been knocked through and they emerged into the mortuary beneath the undertaker’s shop.

Then it was up three floors to a luxurious top-floor apartment. They’d made more noise on the stairs than they should have and Edith opened the door before they reached the landing.

‘How did it go?’ she asked.

‘Could have gone a lot worse,’ Paul said, as he stepped in and breathed real coffee and bread baking.

‘Paul’s getting his ears syringed when we get back to campus,’ Marc added before crashing into an armchair and yelling with pain.

‘You don’t sound so good either,’ Edith said.

‘It’s not good,’ Marc explained. ‘My ankle hurts if I stand up, but my arse stings when I sit down.’

There were some laughs at Marc’s expense as Maxine Clere came in from the kitchen and Luc laid Henderson out on a sofa.

‘Henderson’s not as bad as he looks,’ Rosie told Maxine. ‘But I took three loose teeth out of his mouth so he’ll need a dentist as well as a doctor.’

Maxine gave Henderson the gentlest of kisses on his good cheek. Henderson smiled for an instant, but any movement of his face was painful and he’d decided to give up trying to speak because it hurt like hell and nobody understood a word.

‘I might just prefer Henderson like this,’ Maxine said. ‘Can’t usually get a word in when you’re around.’

Luc grunted. ‘I’d heard you preferred