Jackdaws by Ken Follett

he might not be able to keep.
    The waiter returned with his lunch,
and the spell was broken. Dieter was almost too tired to be hungry, but he ate
a few mouthfuls and drank all the coffee. Afterwards he washed and shaved, and
then he felt better. As he was buttoning a clean uniform shirt, Lieutenant
Hesse tapped at the door. Dieter kissed Stéphanie and went out.
    The car was diverted around a
blocked street: there had been another bombing raid overnight, and a whole row
of houses near the railway station had been destroyed. They got out of town and
headed for Sainte-Cécile.
    Dieter had told Rommel that the
interrogation of the prisoners might enable him to cripple the Resistance
before the invasion—but Rommel, like any military commander, took a maybe for a
promise and would now expect results. Unfortunately, there was nothing
guaranteed about an interrogation. Clever prisoners told lies that were
impossible to check. Some found ingenious ways to kill themselves before the
torture became unbearable. If security was really tight in their particular
Resistance circuit, each would know only the minimum about the others, and have
little information of value. Worst of all, they might have been fed false
information by the perfidious Allies, so that when they finally broke under
torture, what they said was part of a deception plan.
    Dieter began to put himself in the
mood. He needed to be completely hard-hearted and calculating. He must not
allow himself to be touched by the physical and mental suffering he was about
to inflict on human beings. All that mattered was whether it worked. He closed
his eyes and felt a profound calm settle over him, a familiar bone-deep chill
that he sometimes thought must be like the cold of death itself.
    The car pulled into the grounds of
the château. Workmen were repairing the smashed glass in the windows and
filling the holes made by grenades. In the ornate hall, the telephonists
murmured into their microphones in a perpetual undertone. Dieter marched
through the perfectly proportioned rooms of the east wing, with Hans Hesse in
tow. They went down the stairs to the fortified basement. The sentry at the
door saluted and made no attempt to detain Dieter, who was in uniform. He found
the door marked Interrogation Center and went in.
    In the outer room, Willi Weber sat
at the table. Dieter barked, "Heil Hitler!" and saluted, forcing
Weber to stand. Then Dieter pulled out a chair, sat down, and said,
"Please be seated, Major."
    Weber was furious at being invited
to sit in his own headquarters, but he had no choice.
    Dieter said, "How many
prisoners do we have?"
    "Three."
    Dieter was disappointed. "So
few?"
    "We killed eight of the enemy
in the skirmish. Two more died of their wounds overnight."
    Dieter grunted with dismay. He had
ordered that the wounded be kept alive. But there was no point now in
questioning Weber about their treatment.
    Weber went on, "I believe two
escaped—"
    "Yes," Dieter said.
"The woman in the square, and the man she carried away."
    "Exactly. So, from a total of
fifteen attackers, we have three prisoners."
    "Where are they?"
    Weber looked shifty. "Two are
in the cells."
    Dieter narrowed his eyes. "And
the third?"
    Weber inclined his head toward the
inner room. "The third is under interrogation at this moment."
    Dieter got up, apprehensive, and
opened the door. The hunched figure of Sergeant Becker stood just inside the
room, holding in his hand a wooden club like a large policeman's truncheon. He
was sweating and breathing hard, as if he had been taking vigorous exercise. He
was staring at a prisoner who was tied to a post.
    Dieter looked at the prisoner, and
his fears were confirmed. Despite his self-imposed calm, he grimaced with
revulsion. The prisoner was the young woman, Geneviève, who had carried a Sten
gun under her coat. She was naked, tied to the pillar by a rope that passed
under her arms and supported her slumped weight. Her face was so swollen that
she could not