Franka took the stale bread and cheese he handed her. She chewed three times before swallowing it down. John took out the detailed map of the Swiss frontier. Franka wondered how accurate it was, considering their lives depended on it.
“We’re probably only five miles or so from the border. How are you feeling?”
“I feel good. I feel like we’re going to be in Switzerland soon. How about you?”
“The same way.”
Franka leaned back against a tree and looked up the trunk as it ascended into the sky for thirty feet or more. The smell of morning in the woods—pine mixed with soil and snow—hung heavy in the air. The familiarity of the scent comforted her. This was her place. The Gestapo agents were the ones encroaching. The low-hung clouds looked like sheets of dirtied cotton, and an easy wind from the south was swirling around them, shaking tree branches as it went. John took a knife from his belt, sliced up the last of the cheese, and handed Franka a piece.
“What would you be doing if we weren’t at war?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t think I would have taken over the company, even without the war. I’d have to find some other cause to fight for. Maybe I’d still be married. Who knows? What about you?”
“It’s not so simple for me. If this war weren’t on, we’d still have the Nazis and the war within my country would still be raging.”
“What if the Nazis weren’t in power?”
“I don’t know. They’re all I’ve known since I was a teenager.”
“You’ll never be able to live here again, not while they’re in power.”
“I’m ready. My old life died a long time ago.” She brought the piece of cheese to her mouth. “I’m ready,” she said again. Neither spoke for a few seconds. “There’s nothing left for me here. I have no country now. No family. Only myself.”
It would be her decision to make if they made it across the border alive. If. His legs had been aching all night, and he brought his hands down to massage the worst of the pain away. His body yearned for sleep. He knew that if he lay down on this blanket now, it would come, and they would find him, and then they would both die. It was time to leave. He stood up.
“Why did you rescue me from the snow?”
“What?”
“I was in a Luftwaffe uniform. For all you knew I was part of the regime that destroyed your life and your country. Why did you rescue me?”
“Because you’re a human being, and I’m a nurse. That’s what I do.”
“But you risked your life for a stranger, and a Luftwaffe flier at that.”
“I needed something.”
“We all do,” John said, and helped her to her feet. “Now, let’s push on. We can make the border in the next hour or two.”
Vogel laid out the map on the kitchen table, making sure to avoid staining it with the spattered blood. They weren’t going to swim the Rhine. Not in January. They would make for Inzlingen, where the border between Switzerland and Germany jutted away from the freezing waters of the river. He had already dispatched fifty men there to work their way back up through the forest, and a hundred men were sweeping the area from ten miles in. Soon that whore would be caught like a rat in a trap, and slow vengeance would be his. An example needed to be made. Would it be possible to hang her body up in the middle of town like the Gestapo did in the occupied territories? That was an argument he looked forward to having with his superiors. He bundled the map back up and made for the car, his escorts in tow. It was a forty-five-minute drive to the border, and he intended to be there when they found her, to see the look on her face as she realized there was no power greater in her world than his.
Each step was a minor triumph now. The full rigor of the previous day’s walk began to bring itself to bear on their battered bodies. John dragged each leg through the snow, using trees for support, leaning all of his weight on the walking stick he’d fashioned for himself.
“This is nearly over,” he said. “You’ll be free soon, for the first time since you were a teenager.”
It was ironic that she would have to spend her days of freedom in a detention center in Switzerland, unable to gain employment, but this war would be over soon. He longed to be the one to free her. The mission had morphed into something different. He imagined delivering the microfilm to Wild Bill Donovan himself, the handshake, the flag, but her essence lingered in every thought. Every glimpse of his future contained her, and he drew comfort and reason from that.
They lumbered on through the snow. He was sure that Berkel had been found by now, and the pursuing forces of the Gestapo were close behind. They weren’t more than a mile from the stream that would lead them unmolested across the border—if indeed the map was accurate.
They came to a clearing. A road bisected their path. John motioned for Franka to stop and continued alone to poke his head out of the tree line. He peered both ways down the road. It was quiet, empty for as far as he could see before it curled off. The road was only a few feet from the tree line they were emerging from. The trees on the other side were two hundred yards or more from the roadside. They would be out in the open for several minutes as they crossed, but there was no other way. The stream that would lead them to freedom was half a mile away. There must have been listening posts close by, and this road would not be quiet for long.
She was beside him now.
“The forest is on our side. It’s the only reason we’re still alive. Outside it, we’re dead.” He pointed across the road to the clearing and the trees beyond. “The stream we’re making for is likely in that clump of forest. We need to make it across, where we’ll have cover again. I’m sure they’ve found Berkel’s body and are looking for us now. There’s nowhere else to go but where we’re headed. They know we’re not going to swim the river in winter. If they’re not here already, they will be soon, but we’re close. We can do this.”
“Who do you think left those footprints in the snow?” she said. Several pairs of footprints crisscrossed the field of snow that led to the trees on the other side of the road.
“Hard to say. It doesn’t seem to have snowed down here for several days. They look old.”
“A farmer and his cows, perhaps?”
“Maybe. I’m sure there’s no one over there waiting for us, if that’s what you mean.”
“It seems quiet.”
“Let’s stop wasting time,” John said as he emerged from the trees, his body low to the ground as he crossed the road. Franka followed a few feet behind, mimicking his movements. John waited for her on the edge of the road as they entered the snow-covered meadow that led to the far tree line. He jogged ahead. She stumbled behind him, her backpack coming off. She reached down to slip the straps over her shoulders. He covered the ground so quickly that she fell thirty yards behind. He was just entering the tree line as the rumble of the truck came around the bend in the road.
Vogel was riding in the front, his eyes scanning both sides of the road as he saw the figure struggling through the snow toward the trees.
“Halt!” he shouted, and the driver jammed his foot down on the brakes. “There she is. Go get her!” He bashed on the tarpaulin hood to wake the troops riding in the back.
Franka turned as the truck stopped, terror flushing through her. She rose to her feet, doing her best to sprint through the sucking snow. John ducked behind a tree, drawing his gun in some kind of false hope that he could outshoot the four heavily armed Wehrmacht soldiers spilling out of the truck. One of the soldiers brought his rifle to his shoulder and began to shoot. Bullets spat around Franka as she ran, John’s desperate face willing her toward him, his hand outstretched.
Vogel followed his men into the snow, the truck abandoned as the six men ran after the figure a hundred yards in front of them. He drew his pistol to shoot just as she disappeared into the thick of the forest.
John grasped her hand and pulled her behind him.