Tears forming, Brad and Chris stepped back from the window with slumped shoulders and bowed heads, unable to bear the sight of Victoria’s bullet-ridden body sagging and hanging limply from the pole. Only Bucky, eyes clouding and throat burning, witnessed a burial team rush out to unleash her body and wrap it in a covering. Brad and Chris raised their heads in time to see it carted out like a rolled rug while the spectators disassembled and filed past the SD colonel to shake his hand and offer congratulations. They were still staring, sorrow boiling to rage, when the man, the courtyard cleared, turned his face to the window. Immediately the captives began to hurl invectives at him, mindless of the punishment they’d receive for the insult, but the colonel merely responded with a small smile and walked away.

*  *  *

Karl drove carefully, slowly to avoid the roll of Mademoiselle Colbert’s shrouded body in the back of the bumping van. He still couldn’t believe it. Colonel Albrecht had ordered the execution of the magnificent woman that Karl thought had finally won his heart. Karl had thought he’d surely change his mind at the last minute, but he had proved himself an indoctrinated officer and son of the Schutzstaffel first and foremost, after all. Once Mademoiselle Colbert had been delivered into the hands of the same Abwehr soldiers who had taken charge of the other three prisoners, the colonel had ordered him to park the van some distance from the camp compound and to remain with it. Karl did not have to question the reason. His superior wanted him as far removed from the scene of the execution as possible, but he could do nothing about the sound of the volley of shots. The crack of the rifles had sent him blurry-eyed and stumbling headlong to the riverbank to heave his breakfast into the water.

He’d adjusted his expression to reveal nothing of his rage and disappointment when the colonel signaled him to bring the van around to collect mademoiselle’s swaddled body, beginning to leak blood. He expected to be instructed to take it to the usual burial fields where attendants waited with shovels and rakes, but again his superior surprised him.

“You are to drive Mademoiselle Colbert’s body to Count Darold Archambault’s country chateau, where you’ll be expected, and then you’re free to enjoy the rest of your Sunday, Karl,” he said.