The Iron Storm by CW Browning (classic literature books TXT) 📕

know something is going on. You didn’t insist on driving me all the way to Paris just because you were concerned for my safety.” She held up a hand, stopping him when he would have protested. “Oh, I’m sure you were worried about me in the fleeting kind of way that one is concerned for people one just met whose company they enjoyed, but I don’t think that’s why you came to find me yesterday morning. I think there was something more, another reason. Look me in my eyes and tell me I’m wrong.”

His gaze wavered and he looked away from her face. Evelyn nodded.

“As I thought. Very well then. Shall I tell you what I’ve been thinking for the past two days?” Taking his silence as an affirmative, she continued. “At first I thought you were simply fleeing the Nazis along with everyone else. Perfectly understandable, of course. I wanted nothing more than to get out of their way as well. But we hadn’t been the car for more than two hours when I realized something.”

“What’s that?” he finally spoke, returning his eyes to her face.

“That you were perfectly calm and collected. You weren’t panicking at all!”

“Neither were you,” he pointed out. “You didn’t shed a tear, or cry out at the airplanes overhead, or even wring your hands in worry!”

Evelyn grinned. “Wring my hands?” she repeated. “Whatever for? What good would that do?”

“Well, none, I suppose. But that’s what all the other females of my acquaintance would have done.”

“Yes, I suppose most of mine as well,” she agreed thoughtfully. “I never did have much patience for that sort of thing. All it does is waste an awful lot of energy, and only serves to thoroughly irritate everyone around you!”

“Agreed. So then why are you so suspicious about my remaining calm in the face of an invasion?”

Evelyn shrugged. “Because no one else was. Even the men on the road were honking and trying to go around other cars. They were clearly anxious and panicked at the thought of the Nazis advancing faster than they could run.”

“And I didn’t do that.”

“No. You almost seemed like you knew exactly where you going, and how, and why. And you were just getting on with it.” Evelyn caught the startled look that flashed across his face and smiled faintly. “Why, you even took the time to stop for refreshment along the way.”

“So did many others,” he pointed out. “I wasn’t the only one who stopped at that market stand.”

“No, but you were the only one who was calmly making very sensible selections,” she replied calmly. “I was watching you. All the others were grabbing whatever they could, but you even took the time to talk to the woman helping you.”

His face flushed and he lowered his gaze. “I was trying to be reassuring,” he muttered. “She had to have been frightened.”

“That’s very sweet,” Evelyn said after a moment. “But the question remains, why are you really here? I would have found my way to France. And why did you light up like a lantern at the mention of Marle?”

He was silent for a long time, staring at the ground beneath her feet. When he finally raised his face and looked at her, she could tell that he’d abandoned the pretense. He was going to tell her the truth.

“I did have an ulterior motive,” he admitted. “I was concerned for you, of course, and it was just good luck that you were from Paris. I did go to the hotel to check to make sure were safe, but I also saw a way that I could get to Paris with a guide, instead of going on my own.”

“Why were you going to Paris?”

“Why is your friend entrenched in a farmhouse near the border with five men and a wireless radio?” he countered.

“Because it’s much safer than being entrenched in a farmhouse near the border alone,” a new voice answered.

They swung around to see Josephine walking out of the trees, and Evelyn hid a smile. Her old friend was still full of surprises.

“But why are you hear at all?” Jens asked, not seeming to be the least disconcerted by the fact that she had clearly been listening to his conversation.

“We all work for the Deuxième Bureau,” she told him frankly, surprising Evelyn with her honesty. “We’re military intelligence.”

“Ah. I really should have guessed as much,” he said with a nod. “I thought perhaps you were working alone, like a resistance.”

“Soon we may be, if Hitler has his way,” she said, leaning on the other side of the fence next to Evelyn. “But for now, we have the full support of the French army and government. Well, most of it anyway.”

Jens looked from one to the other, then exhaled. His body relaxed, almost as if he had made a decision that lifted a weight off of him.

“You know that I work for the Belgian State Security. I’m a radio operator and intercept messages going between the German units. We’ve been able to decode about twenty percent of them, which is amazing considering that just a few months ago, we couldn’t read any of them.” He cleared his throat. “A few months ago, I was approached by someone who claimed he was an Allied agent. He said he worked for your group, the Deuxième Bureau, and asked me to pass along any information I came across that I thought the Allies would find useful.”

“And you said yes?” Evelyn asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Not at first. I looked up all the information he gave me, and then began doing some research of my own. I had access to information that most don’t, you understand, and after a couple of weeks I determined that he really was who he said he was. So I contacted him and agreed.”

“You passed on classified information?” Josephine demanded. “To us?”

He nodded. “I don’t agree with my country’s stand in this war, and I never have. I think that we have an obligation to stop