Page 35 of The Mademoiselle Alliance

34

The Very Last Station Before Paris

Bouillancy, France, September 1943

As the Lysander banks to the left, Léon can see Caen on the north coast. A smile soars over his face. He’s back in France, ready to help prepare Alliance for an invasion sometime next year and to prove to both MI6 and Minerva that he can survive for at least a month.

Below, lights flash as the reception committee signals the Morse letter A . The plane banks again, descends, then touches down in the thirty feet of space it’s allowed. Léon climbs out, feet coming to rest on the soil of the country whose soul he’s fighting for.

He claps Mahout on the back, then the duke of Magenta, who whispers, “Don’t stay here a second longer. This stinks.”

Léon scans the field. There are more people here than there should be.

Go straight to Paris. Don’t linger. The rules Marie-Madeleine had set, rules that seemed overdramatic and put in place only because he was the man who loved her and not just her lieutenant, come rushing back. Suddenly, he believes them. He needs to get out of there.

A second plane lands and Magpie darts over, worry etched on his brow, too.

“Why are there so many agents here?” Léon asks Mahout as they drive to the farmhouse, where they’ll store the supplies that came in with them.

“The Gestapo are busier than usual,” Mahout explains, his gypsy ease relaxing Léon a little. “I thought we might need reinforcements.”

It makes sense. But something feels wrong—the air is too crisp for September, as though a hailstorm lurks, waiting to fall.

At the farmhouse, Léon’s hackles rise still more when he sees two men from Alliance’s security team who have no links to this sector. One of them is Lanky, whose errors were responsible for Elephant’s capture a few months ago. Léon doesn’t want his life in that man’s hands, and besides, they’re breaking all of Marie-Madeleine’s rules about not mixing different teams, which is how multiple sectors fall, rather than just one.

“Why are they here?” he demands, not just curt now, but angry.

“You’ve been away for some time, Commandant,” Mahout replies, face trustworthy as always. “There are more Gestapo out there than leaves of grass. If I let Alliance’s Eagle be captured, nobody will forgive me. I wanted more security.”

Again, it makes sense. Mahout lives by his instincts, and they’ve proven sound for the past two years. “Let’s get to Paris,” Léon tells him.

“The Gestapo know that Noah’s Ark moves at night. We’ll go at first light.”

Does he want to take his chances out there alone in an area crawling with Gestapo who all have the name Léon Faye tattooed onto their bullets? Even Minerva wouldn’t want him to do that.

So he stays at the farmhouse. But he doesn’t sleep. He stares at the ceiling, recalling what Marie-Madeleine told him. You’ve used all your lives—and then some.

One more, he thinks. He needs only one more: one that ends with him and Marie-Madeleine together.

“What do you think?” he asks Magpie.

“I don’t like it.”

They rise from their beds. Léon takes the front of the house, Magpie the back, and they watch for those glacial shadows they can both feel until dawn breaks.

But nothing happens.

They leave the farmhouse just after five and walk to the station at Nanteuil-le-Haudouin; all of them spaced out in small groups along the road. At the station, Lanky, who seems to think he’s in charge, bustles them all into the same carriage, saying, “We can protect you more easily if we stay together.”

I don’t need protection, Léon almost growls. He’s always protected himself. And never before has he broken so many of Marie-Madeleine’s rules: that he should go straight to Paris, travel alone. That he should not sit in a goddamn compartment with eleven other Alliance agents.

His hand aches to touch their wedding ring, but he won’t do that in a public place. That’s a private devotion he’ll resume when he’s alone.

But then it happens.

At Aulnay-sous-Bois, the very last station before Paris, the carriage doors burst open. And the Gestapo rush in.