Gerrit climbed behind the wheel, started the car, and pulled into the street. “How did you get an OT car?”
“This way.” Charlie pointed west. “I didn’t. Bernardus did. He asked me to meet him at your hotel, and we drove to St. Aubin.”
St. Aubin—where Bernardus had proposed sabotage over a month ago.
Gerrit pressed the accelerator. “What has he done?”
Charlie sat forward in the seat as if urging the car faster. “He didn’t tell me his plans until we arrived. He’s committing sabotage. The boot of the car was filled with explosives, and he’d stashed a rowboat in the woods where we parked.”
Gerrit slapped the steering wheel. “He involved you?”
“He only wanted me to stand watch. The tide is heading out, and he’s using the rowboat to tow his explosives.”
“The breakwater.” Gerrit huffed. He’d told Bernardus he couldn’t do it alone. He never dreamed he’d rope Charlie into his plan. “I told him not to.”
“I know. So did I. If he gets caught...” His voice broke.
He’d be executed like Marchenko—and the Germans wouldn’t stop there. “How many others will get arrested?”
“You must stop him. He listens to you.”
Not this time, but Gerrit sped down the Esplanade in the moonless night.
Charlie groaned and pressed his hands to his face. “It’s my fault. I lost my cutout.”
“It isn’t your fault.” If anything, Gerrit carried more blame. For once, he had eased up on the brakes, and Bernardus had accelerated over a cliff.
He peered across the inky expanse of St. Aubin’s Bay, but hecouldn’t pick out the blacked-out village on the far side. Gerrit cranked down the window. No sounds of explosions, no fires.
Gerrit’s jaw set hard as he raced along the bay. Bernardus had chosen well—a cloudy night with no moon, with favorable tides, and with the Aubin Hafen battery unmanned due to construction.
After Gerrit drove through the seaside village of St. Aubin, Charlie directed him to a wooded area along the shore, where he parked.
“This is where he went down to the water. He was going to cut a passageway through the barbed wire.” Charlie led Gerrit through the trees toward the beach.
They stopped inside the tree line, and Gerrit leaned close. “Wait here. If anyone comes, if anything happens, run. Don’t take the car—run, get home. If you get caught, tell the truth. Say Bernardus told you to stand watch, and you fetched me to stop him. Say sabotage is wrong, and you don’t know why he thought you’d approve.”
Gerrit scanned the black sea, the black sky, and the black breakwater dividing them. Where was Bernardus? At least if Gerrit couldn’t see him, the guards in St. Aubin’s Fort on the island in the bay might not see him either.
“He’s wearing black,” Charlie said in a low voice. “Soot on his face.”
And Gerrit wasn’t. Regardless, the breakwater still stood, which meant he had time. Cutting a gap in the barbed wire large enough to accommodate a rowboat must have taken a long while.
Charlie pointed to an indentation in the sand below. “Stay in his footprints. He knows where the mines are.”
Bernardus had asked Gerrit to sneak out the map of land mines. For tracing, he’d said. For sabotage, he’d meant.
Gerrit wrestled down a groan and picked his way to the beach. Halfway down the breakwater, a still patch of black disturbed the sea—probably the rowboat.
A muffled boom. A scream. A plume of water, lit up from inside.
“Bernardus!” Charlie cried.
Gerrit scrambled back up the bank and clapped a hand over the boy’s mouth. He stretched his eyes wide, searching for his friend. What had happened? Was Bernardus hurt? Killed? How long until the Germans came?
Light flashed on in the fort—a searchlight.
Gerrit threw himself flat to the ground, yanking Charlie down beside him.
