Page 8 of One More Truth
“I don’t know what you are talking about?” I rush to say, my voice infused with soft-spoken innocence. “I haven’t done anything traitorous.”
He grabs my arm, roughly yanks it behind me, and snaps on the handcuffs. He does the same with my other arm.Fight. Fight for your life because you’re about to lose it.
The more rational part of my brain warns me I won’t survive if I attempt to fight my way to freedom. I’ll be shot before I step out the door. If I can convince them I am not who they think I am, I’ll be safe. They have no proof that I am indeed Carmen.
He shoves me out of the farmhouse and towards the first black car. He opens the rear passenger door and pushes me into the vehicle. I duck and narrowly miss hitting my head on the frame.
I sit on the hard seat, the cold black surface biting my legs through my dress. I swivel around as much as possible to look over my shoulder at the house. The movement is awkward and uncomfortable with my hands cuffed behind me.
One of the Gestapo agents—with a small scar on his chin—slides in next to me.
Two others lead Jacques from his house, and my insides clench.OhGodOhGodOhGod, what are they going to do to him? All they have to do is find proof I am not his daughter, and they will kill him for aiding an English agent.
Tears slide down my face. “Please don’t hurt my papa,” I whisper, my voice strained. “He did nothing wrong.”
I don’t turn to face the front. I stare at the car with Jacques in it, repeating the words until my voice is hoarse. Silently willing them to let him go. I’ll never forgive myself if something should happen to him.
“Face forward,” the Gestapo agent sitting next to me says in French. His tone is harsh, his unspoken warning clear in each syllable. Ignoring him won’t help me. He’ll roughen me up if it suits him.
I do as I am told. The agent who accused me of treason is sitting in the driver’s seat. The stocky agent sits next to him.
How could they have figured out I am an English spy? The question keeps pounding in my head like a drum and forms into a headache. Was it Johann? It couldn’t have been. Not after all we have shared…
But the more time that passes, the more doubt lurks in the recesses of my mind. If not him, then who?
There’s simply no one else—no one else who knows.
How could he do this to me?
I’d been a fool to trust him? He must have informed on me. I’d thought he was different. I’d thought he was nothing like the Nazis, that he had a heart.
I was wrong. So very wrong.
A sharp pain slices through my heart at how he betrayed me.
My thoughts shift to Oskar, Margrit, and Sonja, and the pain in my heart lessens a tiny amount. Sonja’s brave smile squeezes my insides like a precious hug. Oskar’s words fill me with warmth:“Johann is a good man. He is not like the rest of them.”
How would Johann have even known that Carmen is my code name? I was careful and would know if someone had broken into my hiding spots in the farmhouse. My security measures have never been disturbed. And if he had gained access to them, there was nothing in them to link me to the name.
No, it could not have been Johann who told the Gestapo. At most, he would have guessed I was a member of the maquis or the local resistance.
Was the traitor someone from within those organizations?
But how would they know the name Angelique D’Aboville, the name I use as my cover? They would only know my code name.
Except…that isn’t completely true. Some people, the people I thought I could trust, know both, but they don’t know I work directly for the SOE. They believed I was recruited into theCashmerenetwork like they were. They have no idea I am English.
The only exception is Allaire. He too is English. But why would he betray the SOE and our mission? Or was it his wife, Élise? She is French, not English. But that means she betrayed her husband, the man who I know she deeply loves.
Or…or was it Pierre? The SS tortured him before they hung him in the village square. In a moment of weakness, when he hoped the truth would be enough to save him, he might have told them his suspicions that I am English.
It’s feasible, but I don’t believe that is what happened. Not unless they found another way to torture him. They might have given him a choice: tell them the truth or be forced to watch them torture someone he loved. That would be enough to make most people crumple.
But his capture occurred three months ago. Surely they would not have waited so long to arrest me. None of it makes sense.
In the end, it doesn’t matter who betrayed me. The Gestapo knows the truth, and I will pay dearly for it.
The car I’m in pulls away from the farmhouse. The autumn colours of the vineyards stretch in all directions outside the car windows. It’s the middle of harvest season, and Jacques is behind schedule because of the lack of workers to help him. A heavy percentage of the wine will be taken by the Germans without compensation, leaving only a tiny fraction for the French.
