Shadows of the World » Band of Brothers

32: What Does Anyone Know

"What else have you told them? Come on, out with it," Martin pressed, his jaw clenching tighter with each passing second.

"I told them of some of my contacts in Paris, but I am certain they already knew of them." She paused, her eyes flickering briefly to Juliette before landing resolutely back on the worn wooden floorboards. "I told them that you were in the safe house, before we left. And..."

"What?" Martin spat.

The woman sighed loudly, a sound filled with both exhaustion and regret, before her sobs filled her words again. "I told them of the previous group who had stayed with me. The people you are replacing."

Juliette sucked in a breath, her eyes snapping to the woman and her throat constricting tightly. "No. No, tell me that's not true."

"Juliette, je suis désolé! Je suis vraiment désolé!"

"That's not enough!" Juliette erupted. She quickly tired to diffuse her anger, however; it was still the early hours of the morning.

"I didn't mean to -"

"Yes you did!" She was finding it very difficult to keep her voice down. She had to keep her voice low out of necessity, but she could project all of her fury, all of her disgust, into it. She stormed over to the woman and pushed Martin aside to stand before her. "You betrayed four people who were fighting to free you. You betrayed a whole network of Resistance who trusted you. You betrayed us!" She was panting, her words emerging shaky and hoarse. Her entire body was trembling. She fought back an angry sob. "You betrayed me. You knew who I was and you sold me out. You betrayed me. And you meant to! So don't say that you didn't because you did."

Alexis entered at that moment and took in the scene, locking eyes with Juliette before turning to Martin. "How much do they know?"

"Locations of safe houses and Resistance cells, names of Resistance fighters both here and in Paris, and she sold out the team we're here for," Martin quickly explained.

"They likely know about Resistance operations as well, then." Alex sighed, running a hand down the centre of his face. "She's a liability. As soon as we leave she could go off running to them and describe us in vivid detail. She already knows Juliette's full name."

Juliette lifted her own gun and pressed it against Brigitte's forehead. The woman shrunk back into the couch pillows but Juliette only pressed it harder into her skin. "Juliette, s'il te plaît! Please! S'il te plaît! Juliette, I am sorry!"

Juliette's eyes were glassy with unshed tears. "I trusted you."

"Please! I did not mean to! I am sorry! Je suis -!"

The gunshot silenced her immediately. Juliette didn't flinch.

She paused, leaving the gun aimed at the woman for a few moments more before closing her eyes and lowering her arm slowly. She opened them only when she had turned her head to the side, her eyes seeking out Alex's instinctively. "She knew my parents," she explained quietly, her voice barely above a whisper. "I couldn't take the risk."

Alex nodded, and Martin tried to smile, though it was shaky and flat. "You did the right thing, Jules."

Juliette tried to nod but could barely move with the stiffness that had overcome her body. She turned away.

"Did she know anything of why we're here?" she asked, trying to get her mind off of the corpse sitting less than a meter away from her. The corpse of the woman who had played princesses with her and read her bedtime stories as a child. The corpse of the woman who had known her parents and treated her as one of her own. "Anything that could compromise the mission?"

"No," Martin assured her, his voice firm. "We made sure not to talk about anything just in case she started to ask questions. She didn't hear anything."

"Okay. How long do we have?" She looked to Alex expectantly, who checked his wrist and chewed on his cheek before he looked back up at her.

"Twenty-four minutes until you have to move out."

"Okay."

Juliette moved back out into the hallway and pushed into the first room she found, which turned out to be a bedroom. She paced for a few moments, trying to do whatever she could to keep her mind off of what had just happened before she halted abruptly and sat on the bed, leaning her elbows on her knees and putting her head in her hands.

"Calm down. You're fine. Calm down," she repeated to herself, her words getting harsher with each cycle. She said the words over and over until she realised they weren't working. Pushing herself up from her seated position, she soon resumed her pacing, covering her face with both hands before taking them off and leaving only the tips of her fingers pressed against her forehead.

She was panting again, the breaths not seeming to come fast enough for her to breathe properly, and the familiar ache of tears burned behind her eyes. Jules tried desperately to swallow the hard lump in her throat, biting down hard on her bottom lip when it wouldn't go away.

"Don't cry," she demanded of herself. She shook her head before removing her hands from her face and clenching them into fists at her sides. She needed to calm down. "Calm down, Juliette, for God's sake!"

Shaking her hands out, Jules walked over to the small dressing table tucked up against the wall by the door and fixed her makeup, traces of black having begun to streak under her eyes and her red lipstick having smudged slightly. She stared into her own eyes until she felt herself resume some semblance of calm, and nodded to herself, as if reassuring herself that she was okay.

When she put a hand on the doorknob it pulled away from her, and she looked up to find Tom looking down at her.

"You okay?" he asked. She nodded, offering him the best smile she could muster, which was good enough for him. "Okay, good. Alex wants to go over the plan one last time before we go. We've got ten minutes until we're due to leave."

Jules nodded, "Okay," and followed him from the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

She wondered if any of them could read the almost-breakdown she had just had on her face, but if they could none of them acknowledged it. She nodded to Will and Martin from where they were watching the windows before coming to stand before Alex with Tom.

"I know you know what you're doing," Alex began, looking between the pair of them in the low light of the living room; they daren't turn on too many lights for fear of attracting unwanted attention, "but the nature of the mission compels me to brief you one final time."

Both Jules and Tom nodded, and thus Alex began to reiterate to them each of their fake identities and what they would be doing, just like he had done in the truck in England. Though it had merely been a few hours ago, it felt like it had been years since they were last in Aldbourne. Not even five hours before, she was competing in another boat race with Tom and the paratroopers. The course of time was unfathomable. She wondered if any of the Americans had noticed their absence, or whether they were simply pleased that they hadn't had to hold up their end of the bargain as a result of their losses.

Briefly, she wondered what it had been that had sobered her up completely; had it been the jump into France, seeing such a distant friendly face again, or killing her? Regardless, any traces of the buzz of alcohol were gone from her system, and all of her jollity and contentedness along with it.

"Is that clear?" Alex asked, rounding up his briefing.

Both Juliette and Thomas nodded, glancing once at each other before turning back to their CO. "Yes."

"Right. Have you got everything ready?"

Juliette walked over to where she had placed her bag on the sofa before interrogating Brigitte - who she didn't fail to notice had been moved elsewhere, out of the common line of sight. She removed the forged documents she would need along with her papers for identification (also forged, naturally).

When she returned to stand before Alex, Tom did the same, his own forged documents in his hands. Alex nodded once more. "Good. Are you ready?"

Jules and Tom shared a glance intended on both ends to reassure the other, and laughed lightly when they realised. They turned back to Alex simultaneously.

"Yes."