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The plan is straightforward but not easy. The target is a German fuel depot supposedly containing hundreds if not thousands of fifty-five-gallon drums of gasoline. This is part of the fuel supply for the Das Reich, and Rainy can see definite advantages in knocking it out. In fact, she is rehearsing explanations in the back of her mind for her boss, Colonel Herkemeier.
They will arrive at the fuel dump from two directions. Étienne, Marie, and Wickham will walk up the railroad tracks and provide a diversion at exactly 1:05 a.m.
Philippe and Rainy will take a horse-drawn cart with one barrel of the cognac taken from their disabled truck. They will go right up to the gate of the dump and see if they find a willing buyer. But whether they are stopped at the gate or allowed inside, the 1:05 diversion will give them an opportunity to make their play.
A smaller detachment of freedom fighters, older men and some children, has been detailed to set up an ambush to slow any German reinforcements. The Germans won’t take long to get past the ambush, but every minute will help.
Simple. Simple and extremely dangerous. They could be stopped en route. They could be shot on sight at the gate. Étienne could fail to start a diversion. If he did start a diversion, the Germans may not be fooled. If Rainy and Philippe do make their way into the facility, they may still be shot or be burned in the explosion they hope to start.
There are, Rainy thinks as she sways along in the wooden seat of the cart, many ways to fail or die on this mission. And few ways to explain her decisions to Herkemeier.
The horse’s hooves make a pleasant clip-clop as they set off into the chilly night.
If they are stopped by French milice, Philippe will do the talking; if stopped by Germans, it will be up to Rainy to talk their way through. Philippe is dressed like an older man in a voluminous and oft-patched coat and a beret. He sits hunched over as he holds the reins. He will look to a casual observer like an old man out with his sister or wife.
At one in the morning.
“How do we start the fire?” Rainy asks as they roll slowly past a graveyard on one side of the road and a vineyard on the other.
“Shoot up the barrels and toss a Molotov cocktail,” he says. He points to his coat pocket. A damp rag protrudes from the mouth of a wine bottle.
“How far can you throw that?” she asks pointedly.
He hesitates. “Maybe not far enough,” he admits.
“Thousands of gallons—sorry, liters—of gasoline could make a hell of a big explosion.”
“I hope so,” he says. Then, lightly as if he doesn’t really need to ask, “What would your intelligence people say is the best way?”
“Something with a fuse if we had it.”
“We do not.”
Rainy shrugs. “Shoot holes then send a burning truck into it?”
“So . . . We figure it out when we get there?”
Rainy says nothing. She has a personal and professional dislike of half-baked plans. But she sees no alternative to improvising.
“I suppose Marie does not speak of me?” Philippe says, trying with no success at all to sound casual.
Rainy deflects. “How do you know her?”
“Oh, we knew each other before the war as children. Étienne as well. We are all from the same small town, though we moved away.”
“Why move away?”
He hands her the reins and begins to roll himself a cigarette. “Étienne got a job as a schoolteacher in Fouras. Their mother died, their father was taken away to Germany. Forced labor. So Marie went with Étienne.”
“And you?”
“I left when the war started. Oradour is a small town, full of friends and relatives. I knew I would resist, and I feared German reprisals.”
“Oradour.” Rainy’s French is good, but she struggles with the soft, throaty French r sounds.
“Oradour-sur-Glane,” he clarifies. “There’s a completely separate Oradour-sur-Vayres, just thirty-five kilometers away.”
“What, you’re short of names so you used that one twice?”
