“They were through the door quickly. I tried to stop them,” he said in English as James helped him to the chair. He grabbed hold of James' sleeve.
“Valentine and your friend...they took them.”
“How many?” James asked.
“Four, they wore masks. One of them was a woman, I am certain of it. “
A woman. Alyia Malik? James thought.
“Did they say anything?”
Albert shook his head. “It happened very fast; they said they would kill them if anyone followed. They wanted Valentine to take them to the quarry.” His hand tightened and the expression in the old man's eyes was that of a young boy who had once fought against the Germans.
James checked him over. He didn't seem to have any other injuries, and a cold compress and a bandage stopped the bleeding on his head. But still, he couldn't be certain there weren't other injuries that could be especially dangerous for an old man, no matter how tough he had once been.
“You need to see a physician.”
“Bah!” Albert made a gesture as if knocking on wood. “What is a little blood? I have had worse.” His gaze sharpened.
“I know people like this. They care nothing about human life. They will kill Valentine and your friend when they have what they want.” Then he added. “We must find them.”
“You're not going anywhere.”
“You think that because I am old that I cannot keep up, that I will hold you back. I know the countryside and the forest since I was a child able to walk. And I know the inside of the quarry. You do not.”
He knew Albert was right. Still he hesitated. He didn't have the right to risk another person's life.
“You think I do not know the risk? That I am afraid?” He pointed to a wood box at the mantel over the woodstove.
“Bring me the box.”
It was old, the shape of a shoe box, and scarred.
“Open it,” Albert told him.
The pistol was old, vintage World War II, 9mm, wrapped in a wool cloth.
“I was nine when the Germans first came to the village. They took everything—food, any weapons that could be found, men from their farms, my father and older brother. I never saw them again. It was a warning to the rest of us.” He stopped then and gathered himself before continuing.
“Micheleine's brothers and father were gone by then, and she had joined the Resistance. I went to someone I knew and told him I wanted to join the Resistance too. Too young, they said. But they could not stop me.” He pointed to the pistol.
“I took that off a German officer after I killed him. I was eleven years old. Not too young. Not too old, now.”
“All right,” James conceded. He took a look around. “We'll need a few things.”
“This.” Albert held up the pistol. And the shotgun.
The old man's expression was hard, stubborn, and he had the impression he was glimpsing the young boy he had once been, who had fought in another war, childhood lost too soon.
“Dieu nous choisit,” Albert said, in that quiet determined voice. “God chooses us, my friend.”
CHAPTER
FORTY-FIVE
The cell phone was useless. Montigny was almost twenty kilometers in the opposite direction. It would take too much time to return and contact the authorities. By then Kris and Valentine would be dead.
James turned the rental car around and headed away from the farmhouse. Following Albert's directions, they found the cut-off road Valentine had spoken of the night before, deep tire marks in the snow that matched the ones at the farmhouse. They followed those tracks, stopping short of the end of the road as they rounded a curve and spotted the van, the same white van he had seen at the gallery warehouse. And the same van that had been used to run Kris down in London.
