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L izzie and Hannah stood side by side, heads together, whispering as they crammed in as many words as they could until they must inevitably part again.

‘When will you set off?’ Lizzie asked.

‘There’s no time to waste. Marguerite told me about the doctor and his family. We’ll leave tomorrow as soon as we can get them out of the village without arousing suspicion.’

‘I’m so glad. They are good people. The doctor did everything he could for the airman.’ Lizzie shook her head and smiled. ‘I still can’t believe we didn’t guess it was you creating an escape route across the Pyrenees. A daring operation like that has your name written all over it!’

‘I couldn’t use Paris as a base after our last operation, so I got organised to help Jews who had fled south. And others who wanted to escape.’

‘Why the male disguise?’ Lizzie asked.

‘I’ve found it simpler in this line of work. I sneak across the demarcation lines into occupied territory regularly, passing as a labourer.’

Lizzie glanced at Jack and saw he was in deep conversation with the airman, who was more composed now.

‘So, you know our man from St. Girons,’ Lev said, approaching them, a smile reaching his eyes.

Lizzie laughed.

‘Today was the first time we met,’ he said, gazing at Hannah. ‘Michel asked me to name our network. Angel is joining forces with us officially and we decided to call it the Lavender Network.’

Lizzie looked from one to the other and got the peculiar feeling this was the start of something monumental.

There was a distant hum on the breeze, and they looked upwards.

‘Here they come,’ Jack said. ‘Everyone in position.’

They retrieved their torches and stood in formation so the approaching plane could see the lights and know where to land.

The hum of the plane grew louder, and Lizzie prayed the chateau residents couldn’t hear it, or they would have some explaining to do in the morning.

Packages tumbled from the sky in quick succession, thumping the ground, and soon the Lysander was flying low, until its wheels skimmed the grass and bounced to a standstill near the Lavender Network’s first reception committee.

Lizzie held her breath. The navigator appeared at the rear door and Jack ran over with Lev to greet him and explain the situation. Jack was training Lev on the job so he would be ready to organise the drops once they returned to London.

They went back to get Billy’s lifeless body and carried him towards the tiny plane.

Once the two airmen were aboard, the navigator signalled they would take off shortly.

British planes only touched down in emergencies such as this, and never stayed more than a few minutes because it was far too risky.

Just as the navigator was about to close the hatch, a bullet whistled past Lizzie.

‘Get down,’ Jack said, his voice sounding odd.

As if in slow motion, Lizzie watched Jack return fire into the shadows. She drew her gun and threw herself down on the grass as she searched for their attacker. ‘What’s going on?’ she hissed.

By now, Hannah, Lev and Marguerite were all in position, weapons poised, searching for the invisible target.

Another volley of bullets ricocheted off the plane as the engine thrummed for lift off.

‘Hold fire,’ Jack commanded.

Lizzie guessed he didn’t want them all shooting because they would make so much noise. They didn’t have silencers on their guns.

She moved closer to Jack. ‘Were you hit?’

‘It’s nothing,’ he whispered.

Lizzie saw blood seeping through his shirt and fear shook her. ‘It’s not nothing.’

Jack didn’t move from his position out in front.

‘Signal the navigator to wait, so you can board the plane and return home,’ Lizzie said, dread clutching at every fibre of her being. ‘You need treatment, and you can’t get it here.’

‘Cover me,’ Jack said, his voice strangled as he moved towards the bushes where the shots had come from. ‘Stay back with the others, Seagrove. That’s an order.’

Lizzie was conflicted. She was terrified Jack had received a mortal wound, but disobeying orders and displaying erratic behaviour in the heat of battle could endanger them all.

More shots rang out. Jack stumbled and he released a groan that turned her nerves to ice.

Lizzie made a snap decision. ‘Get down, Raven. I’m taking over as second in command.’

A hazy figure holding a gun appeared at the edge of the meadow.

A cold fury swept over Lizzie, and she strode towards Jack’s attacker, firing at him with every step.

Suddenly, the assailant was in front of her, his face shrouded in darkness, and she emptied bullets into him with no hesitation.

It was as if someone else had taken over Lizzie’s body and was doing the shooting.

Lizzie watched the man lurch and then tumble to the ground, clutching his chest. His head lay at an unnatural angle on the ground as blood trickled from his lips.

The metallic song of the Lysander’s propellers caught Lizzie’s attention, and she signalled to the plane. With every passing second, staying on enemy soil grew more dangerous, but things had already gone sour. She was determined Jack would be on the plane and not end up like poor Billy.

The navigator waved to confirm he’d understood, and the propellers and the engine noise lessened slightly.

Lizzie’s gun was still trained on the edge of the meadow, but no one else emerged.

After several moments, she calculated the assailant had been a lone shooter or they would be surrounded by now.

She issued orders to the others to check no one was lying in wait, ready to attack, when they turned their backs.

She kneeled next to the man, who was wheezing and whining like a dying animal.

Jack approached, his shirt dripping with blood. ‘Good job, Seagrove.’

‘Is it your shoulder?’ Lizzie took a sharp intake of breath to calm herself. Her voice was strained and his praise barely registered as she prayed silently that the shooter hadn’t hit a vital organ.

‘I’ll be fine. It’s a flesh wound, that’s all.’

Lizzie breathed properly for the first time since he’d been shot.

‘Who have we here?’ Jack said.

When they leaned over and saw the assailant’s face, in the light of the torch, Lizzie and Jack recognised him instantly as Von Schneider’s driver, his features now distorted in agony.

Lizzie pulled off her yellow scarf in one sharp movement and tied it around Jack’s shoulder over the torn, blood-stained shirt. ‘Press this to it until you board the plane, and they can bandage you properly.’

‘Yes, miss,’ Jack replied, a sardonic smile on his lips.

Lizzie rifled through the pockets of the man’s military tunic and withdrew a wad of money, a large ornate key, a gold pocket watch and a slim notebook. She shone the torch onto the pages and scanned the text as she read aloud. ‘It looks like a list of names of informants and notes.’

Jack peered over her shoulder as she ran her finger down the names until it hovered over Michel and Isabelle Dubois, which was the most recent entry. Beside it were the scrawled words: Luc Saint-Clair’s nephew visited every summer. From London.

There was a woman’s name next to theirs, listed as the informant.

Jack let out a low whistle.

‘He was well and truly onto us,’ Lizzie said.

The man shifted on the ground and mouthed something. Lizzie leaned over to catch his laboured words.

‘You’ve lost the war,’ he gasped.

Armand released one final ragged breath as the life shuddered from his body. Then his eyes glazed over like a curtain closing after the last encore.

A vision of Abraham, the Jewish soldier he had executed in a trench in the Great War, before stealing his gold pocket watch, haunted him in his last second of consciousness and accompanied him straight to the gates of hell.