Blind Instinct. Fiona Brand

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      BLIND INSTINCT

      FIONA BRAND

      

www.mirabooks.co.uk

      For Marion.

      The very best of friends.

      

      Thank you to Jenny Haddon, a former bank

      regulator, for her invaluable advice about the world of international banking; Pauline Autet, for help with the French language; Claire Russell of the Kerikeri Medical Centre, for help with the medical details; Robyn Kingston, for lending me two wonderful books about spies and codes; and Tim and Simon Walker, for supplying ballistics and WWII military information. Thank you also to Miranda Stecyk for her professionalism and help with this trilogy.

      Prologue

       France, 1943

      The drone of a Liberator B-24 bomber broke the silence of the forested hills and valleys that flowed like a dark blanket to the Langres Plateau. The plane dipped below ragged clouds that partially obscured the light of a full moon. Below, bonfires pinpointed the drop zone and a light flashed from the edge of the thick pine forest.

      Morse code for “zero.” The agreed signal.

      The engine note deepened as the American aircraft banked and turned to make its drop. A pale shape bloomed against the night sky, growing larger as it floated to earth.

      Icy air burned Marc Cavanaugh’s lungs as he stripped a leather glove from his right hand. Unfastening a flap pocket, he extracted a magazine for the Sten submachine gun that was slung across his chest and slotted it into place.

      Fingers already numbed by the cold, he jerked on the parachute cords, steering himself toward the flashing pinpoint of light. He studied the thick swath of forest from which the signal had originated, the stretch of open country below—a plowed field bare of crops. As he lost altitude, detail rushed at him: a tree, wind-blasted and skeletal; a rock wall snaking across ground plowed into neat furrows; the glitter of frost.

      Shadows flowed across the field. Jacques de Vallois’s men—he hoped.

      Marc jerked on the cords, slowing and controlling his descent then braced for landing. Seconds later, he unlatched the harness and shrugged out of the straps. Stepping away from the distracting brightness of the chute, he dropped into a crouch, the Sten pointed in the direction of a flickering shadow to his right.

      “Benis soient les doux.”

      Blessed are the meek.

      Cavanaugh let the muzzle of the gun drop, but only fractionally. “Car ils hériteront de la terre.”

      For they shall inherit the earth.

      “De Vallois.”

      White teeth flashed and metal gleamed as de Vallois lowered a Schmeisser MP40. “At your service.”

      A brief handshake later, de Vallois barked orders at his men. A former attaché of de Gaulle, de Vallois was formidably skilled in clandestine operations. One of the architects of the French Resistance, he had worked tirelessly refining their systems and training recruits. It was unlikely that his efforts would be fully recognized during his lifetime, but de Vallois’s determination was unshaken. He lived for la France, and he would die for her.

      De Vallois said something in rapid French. With economical movements, two of his men gathered up the chute, which glowed with a ghostly incandescence. Within minutes the field was clear, the bonfires doused.

      De Vallois jerked his head. “Allons-y!” Let’s go.

      Seconds later they were beneath the cover of the pines.

      The parachute was buried in a hole that had been previously dug and the disturbed ground was covered over with a thick scattering of pine needles. As high a price as the silk would command in Lyon or Dijon, the risk of being searched while transporting the parachute was too high and de Vallois’s men too valuable to risk. With the recent incarceration and execution of key Resistance figures, Himmler’s SS and the Geheime Staats Polizei—the Gestapo—were actively hunting insurgents and traitors against the Nazi Regime.

      Half an hour later, they walked free of the trees and stepped onto a stony track. De Vallois checked his watch, then signaled them off the road.

      Lights swept across the bare fields. An armored truck rumbled past.

      Long minutes passed. De Vallois grunted. “Come. That is the last patrol of the night. Even the SS have to sleep.”

      Marc stepped up onto the road. The cloud cover had broken up, leaving the night even colder and very clear. Moonlight illuminated the barren fields and a stark avenue of pines.

      Jacques grinned at the exposure. “Don’t worry—my information is exact. My people understand that many lives are at stake.”

      A truck, its headlights doused, cruised out of a side road and halted beside them. Jacques opened the passenger door and gestured for Marc to climb in. “The only thing I can’t guard against is a traitor.”

      One

      Shreveport, Louisiana, 1981.

      Mae Fischer flicked on her bedside lamp and shook her husband’s shoulder, the pressure urgent.

      Ben’s eyes flipped open, instantly alert. “She’s sleepwalking again.”

      “And talking.”

      “Damn.” He thrust out of bed in time to see his seven-year-old daughter, Sara, dressed in pink flannel pajamas, her long, dark braid trailing down her spine, drift past his bedroom door. He walked out onto the landing as she came to a halt alongside the landing rail, staring fixedly at something only she could see.

      Since the phenomenon had started several months ago, they had blocked off the stairs with the wooden gate they had used for her when she was tiny. There was no danger of her falling down the stairs, but he lived in fear that she would either climb the gate or fall over the landing rail. The drop to the hardwood floor below was a good twelve feet. At the very least, she would break bones.

      She unlocked an invisible door, stepped “inside” and knelt down. He watched, resisting the urge to shake her awake or simply scoop her up and carry her back to bed.

      Their family doctor had warned them against waking her suddenly. Apparently the shock could be dangerous. A specialist, Dr. Dolinski, had seconded the opinion. Ben wasn’t certain what dangerous meant, exactly, but he had assumed Dolinski was talking about physical shock, maybe even a seizure of some kind.

      Mae seemed to have even less understanding of her daughter’s condition than Ben did. At times, she was actively frightened by Sara’s episodes which was why, confused as he was by what was happening to his daughter, he had taken over dealing with the situation.

      Soft lamplight poured from the bedroom as he crouched down beside her. The blank expression on her face and the intensity of her gaze sent a shaft of fear through him. “Sara, honey, you can wake up now. It’s only a dream.”

      Talk softly, and keep talking. Bring her back slow, that had been Dolinski’s advice. Don’t do anything that might jolt her out of that state.

      His heart squeezed tight as he watched her repeat actions he had seen her do a number of times. Her movements were smooth and precise as she reached into some invisible cupboard, pulled out an invisible book and leafed through to a page. When she was finished, she replaced the book, locked the cabinet, pushed to her feet, walked a few steps, then appeared to close another door and lock it. She placed the “keys” she had used on what he had decided was an imaginary shelf, a part of the landscape she had created on the landing that must be, to her, as solid and real as the walls and rooms of this house.

      She paused and stared in the direction of her room, a sharp, adult expression on her