Read Online Cold Lonely Courage (Madeleine toche Series Book 2) by Soren Petrek - Free Book Online

my life, I’ll tell you what I can. Before I left France, I was being held by the Gestapo at one of their interrogation centers. I was in my cell between discussions and pretended to have a seizure. The guard came in and I hit him with a wooden chair leg, a bit too hard it turned out. Then I took his gun and shot my way out. And here I am.”
    “No wonder they like you so much,” Madeleine said.
    “That’s not the first time you shot someone, is it?” DuPont said, reaching into the breast pocket of the body nearest him, searching for identification.
    “They’re not the first Germans I’ve killed,” Madeleine said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “What are we going to do with the bodies?”
    “Exactly what they were going to do with me once they had beaten information out of me,” DuPont said. “Throw me overboard.”
    “What information?” Madeleine asked.
    “Names of Resistance fighters in northern France,”
    “So you’re with the Resistance then,” Madeleine said.
    “And now, so are you,” DuPont smiled grimly, pulling the closest body into the small bathroom through a door and out of sight.
    “Do you think the storm covered the sound of the shots?” Madeleine said.
    “Nobody’s breaking the door down,” DuPont answered.
    “I guess we got lucky, then,” Madeleine said, grabbing the wrist of the second man and helping DuPont pull him into the bathroom. “When do these two go over the side?”
    “Very early in the morning. You keep a look out and I’ll throw them over. The rough seas will cover the splash,” DuPont said.
    “What do we do until then?” Madeleine said.
    “I have plenty of wine and cigarettes. Now that the danger has passed and we’ve won a small victory, we should celebrate. But first let’s put them into the bathtub and mop up some of this blood.”
    “I could use some wine and about a hundred cigarettes,” Madeleine said. “But I want to know more about fighting with the Resistance.”
    “I’ll tell you what I know. But I’ll also tell you about an invitation I got to help the British fight the war,” DuPont said.
    “What kind of invitation?” Madeleine said, sitting down on a small settee opposite the bed.
    “Have you ever heard of the British Special Operations Executive?” DuPont said.
    “Never.”
    “I was just told about them a few days ago,” DuPont said, pulling up a chair.
    “What do they do?” Madeleine asked.
    “Kill Germans,” he said, gesturing towards the bathroom, a smile on his face.
    “They sound exactly like the people I’m going to England to find,” she said, smiling back at him.

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    CHAPTER FOURTEEN
    From her position underwater, Madeleine could see the bright light of an overhead bulb shining on the surface a few inches above her mouth. Her training told her to remain calm. I might as well be at the bottom of a lake, she thought as she hung upside down in a tank of water. Her body was strapped to a board; she struggled to control her panic, trying to balance the terror that increased with her lack of oxygen. All at once, Madeleine was lifted from the tank. As she gasped for air, a man punched her in the stomach, driving the oxygen out of her lungs. Choking and gasping, she was dunked back under the water before she could get a breath. She tried to scream and struggled not to open her mouth. She threw herself at the straps pinning her to the board, thrashing violently, trying to get her head up. I’m not going to die like this, she raged in her mind, desperately thinking that she’d lost her chance at revenge. Her mouth opened, searching for oxygen. Death is easy, right? she screamed to herself, barely hearing the pounding of the blood in her ears over her fury.
    Sliding into unconsciousness, Madeleine was pulled out of the water. She sputtered and gasped, sucking in huge gulps of air. Completely disorientated, she coughed uncontrollably, her body taking over as it raced back from near death. The door flew open and a tall