Dangerous Territory

La Résistance Française

The next morning, a runner came to the home Eren had taken over with his platoon. He was needed to deal with their new translator.

"An interrogation?" Jean asked with interest. "That sounds like fun."

Eren shook his head as he pulled on his uniform. "They are never fun."

Armin pouted at the idea of what an interrogation implied. "Doesn't the Gestapo normally handle that?"

"They do," Eren said, "but for the same reason Berlin can't send us a proper translator, they can't send someone from the Gestapo." He paused and looked down at the tiny soldier. "Would you really want one of those sorts of men around here anyway?"

"I have nothing to hide," Armin replied innocently.

Eren chuckled and patted Armin's golden hair. "Because you're a perfect little German boy."

"Hey!" he shouted, yanking back from the childish treatment while the platoon laughed.

Reiner had been visiting that morning, and he stepped forward. "May I accompany you, Herr Leutnant?"

Eren looked up at the bullish man. "You may, since you are an officer, but it will be the captain who decides who may be present for the interrogation. It's not some form of entertainment, after all. The prisoner may have sensitive information."

"I've sat in on Gestapo interrogations," Reiner said with a dark smile. "I may know a few techniques that can break him."

"Her," Eren corrected.

Reiner's eyes widened fractionally. "A woman?"

"Do you still want to go?"

After a slight hesitation, he nodded. "If the captain allows it, I would like to see other interrogators at work."

Eren noted that Reiner had instantly gone from wanting a part in the questioning to wanting merely to observe. "Perhaps it is a future calling in your career with the Waffen-SS," he joked, and with a tug on his hat, the two left the house.

They went to the village's small castle and were instructed to go down to a cellar just off the kitchens. Unlike the dungeons, it smelled clean here, but the room was horribly cold even on that warm May day, meant to keep food fresh in ancient times.

Eren saw that Levi was already there, and his face was more bitter than the day before. He also had a discolored mark on his cheek that Eren knew was a punch to the face. When the Jew saw the young Nazi approaching, his face changed slightly. It was not a smile, but it was a bit of relief.

"About damn time," he said in English. "I can tell they want me to translate, but I don't know German. I can't question her if I don't know the damn questions."

"I'll deal with it," Eren said softly. He approached Kitz Woermann and saluted. "I could have fetched the Jew, Herr Hauptmann. He will obey if he knows what is being asked."

"I didn't want to waste time," Kitz said, but then he smiled, "and I was getting sick of hitting a woman. I needed something more worthy of my fists, and punching a Jew a few times eased the sickness in my stomach."

Eren merely nodded. He had thought Levi must have resisted, but knowing the captain, Levi very well could have said nothing at all and still have gotten hit.

"She was carrying this letter." Kitz flicking up a folded and wrinkled letter between his fingers. "The Jew has translated it for us, although it makes little sense. An encoded message, most likely. It'll be sent to cryptographers for analysis. One thing is clear. It's a message to the Resistance leader known as Didier. What we need is to know where this Didier is. If she is a courier, she knows where to deliver the message."