FLICK COULD HARDLY believe she had got this far.

Four of the original six Jackdaws had evaded capture, despite a brilliant adversary and some mixed luck, and now they were in Antoinette's kitchen, a few steps away from the square at Sainte-Cecile, right under the noses of the Gestapo.

In ten minutes time they would walk up to the gates of the chateau.

Antoinette and four of the other five cleaners were firmly tied to kitchen chairs.

Paul had gagged all but Antoinette.

Each cleaner had arrived carrying a little shopping basket or canvas bag containing food and drink-bread, cold potatoes, fruit, and a flask of wine or ersatz coffee-which they would normally have during their 9:30 break, not being allowed to use the German canteen.

Now the Jackdaws were hastily emptying the bags and reloading them with the things they needed to carry into the chateau: electric torches, guns, ammunition, and yellow plastic explosive in 250-grain sticks.

The Jackdaws' own suitcases, which had held the stuff until now, would have looked odd in the hands of cleaners going to work.

Flick quickly realized that the cleaners' own bags were not big enough.

She herself had a Sten submachine gun with a silencer, each of its three parts about a foot long.

Jelly had sixteen detonators in a shockproof can, an incendiary thermite bomb, and a chemical block that produced oxygen, for setting fires in enclosed spaces such as bunkers.

After loading their ordnance into the bags, they had to conceal it with the cleaners' packets of food.

There was not enough room.

"Damn," Flick said edgily.

"Antoinette, do you have any big bags?" "What do you mean?" "Bags, big bags, like shopping bags, you must have some." "There's one in the pantry that I use for buying vegetables." Flick found the bag, a cheap rectangular basket made of woven reeds.

"It's perfect," she said.

"Have you any more like it?" "No, why would I have two?" Flick needed four.

There was a knock.

Flick went to the door.

A woman in a flowered overall and a hair net stood there: the last of the cleaners.

"Good evening," Flick said.

The woman hesitated, surprised to see a stranger.

"Is Antoinette here? I received a note .

.

Flick smiled reassuringly.

"In the kitchen.

Please come in." The woman walked through the apartment, evidently familiar with the place, and entered the kitchen, where she stopped dead and gave a little scream.

Antoinette said, "Don't worry, Francoise-they're tying us up so that the Germans will know we didn't help them." Flick relieved the woman of her bag.

It was made of knotted string-fine for carrying a loaf and a bottle but no good to Flick.

- This infuriatingly petty detail had Flick stymied just minutes before the climax of the mission.

She could not go on until she solved the problem.

She forced herself to think calmly, then said to Antoinette, "Where did you get your basket?" "At the little shop across the street.

You can see it from the window." The windows were open, as it was a warm evening, but the shutters were closed for shade.

Flick pushed a shutter open a couple of inches and looked out onto the rue du chateau.

On the other side of the street was a store selling candles, firewood, brooms, and clothespins.

She turned to Ruby.

"Go and buy three more bags, quickly." Ruby went to the door.

"If you can, get different shapes and colors." Flick was afraid the bags might attract attention if they were all the same.

"Right." Paul tied the last of the cleaners to a chair and gagged her.

He was apologetic and charming, and she did not resist.

Flick gave cleaners' passes to Jelly and Greta.

She had held them back until the last minute because they would have given away the mission if found on the person of a captured Jackdaw.

With Ruby's pass in her hand, she went to the window.

Ruby was coming out of the store carrying three shopping baskets of different kinds.

Flick was relieved.

She checked her watch: it was two minutes to seven.

Then disaster struck.

As Ruby was about to cross the road, she was accosted by a man in military-style clothes.

He wore a blue denim shirt with buttoned pockets, a dark blue tie, a beret, and dark trousers tucked into high boots.

Flick recognized the uniform of the Milice, the security militia that did the dirty work of the regime.

"Oh, no!" she said.

Like the Gestapo, the Milice was made up of men too stupid and thuggish to get into the normal police.

Their officers were upper-class versions of the same type, snobbish patriots who talked of the glory of France and sent their underlings to arrest Jewish children hiding in cellars.

Paul came and looked over Flick's shoulder.

"Hell, it's a frigging Militian," he said.

Flick's mind raced.

Was this a chance encounter, or part of an organized security sweep directed at the Jackdaws? The Milice were infamous busybodies, reveling in their power to harass their fellow citizens.

They would stop people they did not like the look of, examine their papers minutely, and seek a pretext to arrest them.

Was the questioning of Ruby such an incident? Flick hoped so.

If the police were stopping everyone on the streets of Sainte-Cecile, the Jackdaws might never reach the gates of the chateau.

The cop started to question Ruby aggressively.

Flick could not hear clearly, but she picked up the words "mongrel" and "black," and she wondered if the man was accusing the dark-skinned Ruby of being a gypsy.

Ruby took out her papers.

The man examined them, then continued to question her without handing them back.

Paul drew his pistol.

"Put it away," Flick commanded.

"You're not going to let him arrest her?" "Yes, I am," Flick said coldly.

"If we have a shootout now, we're finished-the mission is blown, whatever happens.

Ruby's life is not as important as disabling the telephone exchange.

Put away the damn gun." Paul tucked it under the waistband of his trousers.

The conversation between Ruby and the Militian became heated.

Flick watched with trepidation as Ruby shifted the three baskets to her left hand and put her right hand into her raincoat pocket.

The man grabbed Ruby's left shoulder in a decisive way, obviously arresting her.

Ruby moved fast.

She dropped the baskets.

Her right hand came out of her pocket holding a knife.

She took a step forward and swung the knife up from hip level with great force, sticking the blade through his uniform shirt just below the ribs, angled up toward the heart.

Flick said, "Oh, shit." The man gave a scream that quickly died off into a horrible gurgle.

Ruby tugged the knife out and stuck it in again, this time from the side.

He threw back his head and opened his mouth in a soundless cry of pain.

Flick was thinking ahead.

If she could get the body out of sight quickly, they might get away with this.

Had anyone seen the stabbing? Flick's view from the window was restricted by the shutters.

She pushed them wide and leaned out.

To her left, the rue du chateau was deserted except for a parked truck and a dog asleep on a doorstep.

Looking the other way she saw, coming along the pavement, three young people in police-style uniforms, two men and a woman.

They had to be Gestapo personnel from the chateau.

The Militian fell to the pavement, blood coming from his mouth.

Before Flick could shout a warning, the two Gestapo men sprang forward and grabbed Ruby by the arms.

Flick quickly pulled her head back in and drew the shutters together.

Ruby was lost.

She continued to watch through a narrow gap between the shutters.

One of the Gestapo men banged Ruby's right hand against the shop wall until she dropped the knife.

The girl bent over the bleeding Militian.

She lifted his head and spoke to him, then said something to the two men.

There was a short exchange of barked words.

The girl ran into the shop and came out with a storekeeper in a white apron.

He bent over the Militian, then stood up again, his face showing distaste- whether for the man's ugly wounds or for the hated uniform, Flick could not tell.

The girl ran off, back in the direction of the chateau, presumably to get help; and the two men frog-marched Ruby in the same direction.

Flick said, "Paul-go and get the baskets Ruby dropped." Paul did not hesitate.

"Yes, ma'am." He went out.

Flick watched him emerge onto the street and cross the road.

What would the storekeeper say? The man looked at Paul and said something.

Paul did not reply but bent down, swiftly picked up the three baskets, and came back.

The storekeeper stared at Paul, and Flick could read his thoughts on his face: at first shocked by Paul's apparent callousness, then puzzled and searching for possible reasons, then beginning to understand.

"Let's move quickly," Flick said as Paul came into the kitchen.

"Load the bags and out, now! I want us to pass through that checkpoint while the guards are still excited about Ruby." She quickly stuffed one of the baskets with a powerful flashlight, her disassembled Sten gun, six 32-round magazines, and her share of the plastic explosive.

Her pistol and knife were in her pockets.

She covered the weapons in the basket with a cloth and put in a slice of vegetable terrine wrapped in baking paper.

Jelly said, "What if the guards at the gate search the baskets?" "Then we're dead," Flick said.

"We'll just try to take as many of the enemy with us as we can.

Don't let the Nazis capture you alive." "Oh, my gordon," said Jelly, but she checked the magazine in her automatic pistol professionally and pushed it home with a decisive click.

The church bell in the town square struck seven.

They were ready.

Flick said to Paul, "Someone is sure to notice there are only three cleaners instead of the usual six.

Antoinette is the supervisor, so they may decide to ask her what's gone wrong.

If anyone shows up here, you'll just have to shoot him." "Okay." Flick kissed Paul on the mouth, briefly but hard, then went out, with Jelly and Greta following.

On the other side of the street, the storekeeper was staring down at the Militian dying on the pavement.

He glanced up at the three women, then looked away again.

Flick guessed he was already rehearsing his answers to questions: "I saw nothing.

No one else was there." The three remaining Jackdaws turned toward the square.

Flick set a brisk pace, wanting to get to the chateau as quickly as possible.

She could see the gates directly ahead of her, on the far side of the square.

Ruby and her two captors were just passing through.

Well, Flick thought, at least Ruby is inside.

The Jackdaws reached the end of the street and started across the square.

The window of the Cafe des Sports, smashed in last week's shootout, was boarded over.

Two guards from the chateau came across the square at a run, carrying their rifles, their boots clattering on the cobblestones, no doubt heading for the wounded Militian.

They took no notice of the little group of cleaning women, who scuttled out of the way.

Flick reached the gate.

This was the first really dangerous moment.

One guard was left.

He kept looking past Flick at his comrades running across the square.

He glanced at Flick's pass and waved her in.

She stepped through the gate, then turned to wait for the others.

Greta came next, and the guard did the same.

He was more interested in what was going on in the rue du chateau.

Flick thought they were home and dry, but when he had checked Jelly's pass he glanced into her basket.

"Something smells good," he said.

Flick held her breath.

"It's some sausage for my supper," Jelly said.

"You can smell the garlic." He waved her on and looked across the square again.

The three Jackdaws walked up the short drive, mounted the steps, and at last entered the chateau.