Chapter Eleven

Outside the church, Jacques leaned against one of the columns, hat at a slant, a collaborationist newspaper under his arm. He was dressed well, as he had been at Maxim’s—flannel trousers, white shirt and striped tie, houndstooth jacket. When he saw Maggie, he grinned like a matinee idol and raised his hat.

Their eyes met. He made a “follow me” gesture with his head. She felt a stab of irritation—she had another lead on Elise—but she followed anyway. Jacques was her contact; he must have something important to tell her if he had made a point of tracking her down.

He led her to a park, a small one—only a city block’s worth of space—but beautiful, with yellow and red roses and pleached trees. It was surrounded by boxwood hedges, and a fountain in the center was topped by a statue of Joan of Arc. A few dun-colored sparrows perched on her outstretched bronze arms while others splashed in the water.

They reached a wooden bench, greenish with lichen and age. Jacques sat on one end and opened his newspaper. Maggie sat on the other. Except for two men in tweed caps playing chess in a far corner of the park, they were alone, with only the faint sound of a car in the distance and the occasional birdcall.

“You know, when they invaded, I left Paris—on a motorcycle, if you can believe,” he said softly. “People were leaving in cars, on bicycles, with horses and carts, walking and pushing their belongings in baby carriages or strapped to their backs.”

He turned a page of the paper. “When cars stalled or ran out of gas, people would scream at each other, cursing, ready to kill to gain a few more feet in the endless queue out.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Crisis may bring out the best in the British, but it produces the worst in us French. I have never seen so much ugliness and selfishness. And that was before the Nazis got here.”

“It must have been terrible,” Maggie said.

“Others had it worse. I survived. And I made it to England.”

“How did that happen?”

Jacques folded the newspaper, slid a bit closer to Maggie, and put an arm along the back of the bench. “I was a pilot for Air France and was offered a job flying planes for the Vichy government, which I couldn’t turn down—or else they’d send me to a work camp. So I flew for Service Civil des Liaisons Aériennes de la Métropole.” He glanced upward, as if remembering his time in the sky. “I’d fly from Paris to Vichy and back. To the colonies in North Africa, to Italy. At one point, I had a layover in Marseilles and through another French pilot made contact with British intelligence. We were transported out of France via the Pat line to Gibraltar. It was more than I’d ever hoped for—I had a chance to go to England. To fight for France.”

The church bell behind them rang the half hour. Maggie watched as the birds, ruffled and wet with their bath, hopped to the edge of the fountain to begin their preening, and tried to be patient. “How did you end up with the Firm?”

“I was recommended to F-Section, because I was a pilot who knew France well, and could convince farmers to let us use their fields for landing our Lysanders and Hudsons. Before I came along, they were landing in bogs. Or running into trees on unchecked fields. And so I came to be an Air Movements officer, in charge of getting all of the SOE agents working in and around Paris in and out. I also coordinate with the farmers who own those fields we use and the various Resistance workers who run the safe houses here in Paris.”

Maggie had looked away from him again, scanning the park to see if anyone was watching them. “What’s that like?”

“We French can’t agree on anything.” He laughed, without humor. “We’re a country with over three hundred types of cheese. How easy do you think secretly organizing a bunch of Frogs is?”

Maggie snorted. Jacques turned to her, and their eyes met. “What did you do before the war?” he asked, suddenly serious.

“I was a student. And then a secretary. And then a tutor.” No need to say to whom. “Why aren’t you flying now?”

“The people in the Firm—they want me on the ground. Organizing.” He gave her a sardonic grin. “My parents died before the war. Perhaps they were lucky.” He shook his head. “But I will continue to fight, to my last breath. My country is still at war with Germany, even if it looks like we’ve surrendered. Pétain and the generals have given up, but the people have not. The war is still being fought, in the shadows. The Boche may have won this skirmish, but they have not won the war—and they will never win this war.”

Maggie was moved by the fervor in his voice. Across the park, she could see a boy, dressed in raggedy clothes, searching through garbage bins.

She felt a sudden flash of hot shame. How could she wear such frivolous clothes in an occupied country? She knew she and Jacques looked like comfortable and well-fed collaborators. There were two versions of Paris, she realized. Versions that existed simultaneously, like Notre Dame and its rippling reflection in the Seine, like yin and yang—collaborator and resister. She bit her lip and tucked one ankle tightly behind the other.

A flock of ducks swooped down and landed on the grass, quacking and strutting, the drakes with their vivid purple sashes and iridescent heads waddling after the more dowdy hens. The boy at the garbage bins turned and smiled, taking a small slingshot from his pocket. He whistled to the ducks as he crept up to them, as softly as he could in his wood-soled shoes. “Hello my lovely L’Orange,” he called, taking aim. “Come here, dear Salmis, darling Confit!” He had the face of a child and the eyes of an old man.

“And you,” Jacques asked. “How are you faring in Paris?”

“This Paris”—Maggie gestured with one hand to the park, to the boy hunting ducks—“this is not the real Paris, the Paris I love. The one I knew before the war. That part is hidden now. And the rest—well, it makes me sick.”

“I know. Me, too.”

“So why did you need to talk to me—” But before she could finish, a group of Germans in uniform began to file in with instrument cases—a lunchtime brass band. As an officer carrying a trombone case passed by, Jacques slid across the bench to Maggie and kissed her—hiding their faces.

She found she didn’t mind. As they drew apart, his hand caressed her cheek, and for a moment she savored the human contact. When she opened her eyes, she saw he was smiling. They stayed that way, gazing into each other’s eyes, until the band started tuning. A cacophony of notes broke the stillness.

“I hate these bands,” Jacques said abruptly, pulling away. “Nothing like our beautiful French music.” Nazi officers were streaming in, wearing their various uniforms—green, gray, the grim black of the SS. They looked almost like actors in a play. But their “costumes,” unlike those of the theater or the colors of a sports team, were reminders of a deadly moral order.

Maggie wasn’t fooled by their posturing and ludicrous collections of badges and medals. One might secretly laugh at Hitler and his disciples, with their goose stepping and their shouting, but, as German philosophers long before the Nazis might have argued, abstract evil did not choose the form in which it emerged in the particular.

An off-duty German, a Teuton with close-cropped blond hair and a peachy complexion, ridiculous-looking in a paint-stained smock and black beret, began setting up a canvas on an easel. “Did you actually need me for something? If not, I have to go,” Maggie said, rising.

Jacques didn’t answer her question, only offering, “I’ll walk you to where you’re headed.”

When she looked askance at him, he added loudly, “Really, mademoiselle, I can get you a better price for your wedding Champagne than anything those other thieves have promised you!”

The band started to play, and the birds scattered. “I can come with you,” Jacques said. “Wherever you’re going.”

“No—this is my mission. I need to do it alone.”

A shadowy cloud passed overhead and a sun shower began, the raindrops marking dark spots on Maggie’s ensemble. She knew a bit more about this man now, but still so little. Perhaps this is what happens in wartime, she thought. There are few rules, after all. She blinked away a raindrop that had fallen in her eye, like a cold tear.

The gritty streets of Paris with their compressed dust gave off a sort of shimmer when the sun hit them at a certain angle. Finally, she and Jacques reached the shadowed edge of the Place Vendôme. A man in a cap played the accordion, a cat perched on a ragged blanket at his feet; a passing Nazi soldier said “Bonjour” as he dropped a coin in the man’s basket. The musician looked up with a wide, acquiescing smile, which vanished as soon as the German strode on.

“I’ll go the rest of the way alone,” she told Jacques.

“As you wish.” He stepped closer.

She had the feeling he might try to kiss her again. She wanted him to—and yet it was wrong. Definitely wrong.

“Lovely to see you, mademoiselle,” was all he said, stepping back. “Please keep me in mind for that Champagne.” He turned on his heel and strode away, buttoning up his jacket against the rain.

Maggie ran to the revolving door of the Ritz, only now realizing the risks she’d just taken. The meeting about nothing in the park, the kiss, revealing real information about herself—it was all foolish for a spy, for an English spy in occupied Paris. And yet part of her wanted to find out if she could manage to see him again.

The man known as Gibbon shivered as the rain eased and the swirling breeze picked up. With his hat pulled low and collar turned up, he set off through the streets of Paris, documents in a courier packet tucked inside his buttoned jacket.

Looking both ways and satisfied he wasn’t being tailed, he turned in to a glass-covered Belle Époque arcade, looked both ways again, then ducked into a stairwell. Taking the worn marble stairs two at a time, he climbed to the third-floor landing. Looking around, he rapped at one of the black doors, using its brass knocker in the shape of a two-headed snake.

A man opened the door. He was plump, with a doughy face and glossy platinum hair brushed back without a part and wore a dark suit and a burgundy silk bow tie. He nodded when he recognized Gibbon, then stepped aside to let him enter.

The flat was unfurnished and shadowy. Any light from the windows was blocked out with taped-up newspapers. The living area was empty, except for a table, a chair, and a large black camera clamped to a wooden desk. The photographer’s monolight had a silver metallic interior, to reflect the light and increase brightness.

The man with the bright hair sat at the table, then held out his hand. Gibbon unbuttoned his rain-speckled jacket and took out the courier packet.

The seated man nodded. “Our boss wants to speak to you,” he said in German-inflected French, as he took the packet.

“When?”

“As soon as I’m done photographing the mail. There will be an unmarked car waiting outside. When the door opens, get in.”

A look of fear crossed the agent’s face. “Where will it take me?”

The German centered the first document in the bright beam of light. He picked up the camera and squinted through the eyehole before he pressed the button. “Avenue Foch, of course.”

“But what if I’m spotted?”

“The car will go all the way up the drive—you’ll use the servants’ back entrance.”

At the Ritz, Maggie changed into a plain cotton dress, raincoat, and sensible shoes before heading to the convent. It was her last chance to try to find Elise.

Still, she wanted to check in at the Place Vendôme front desk before she left. She had a distinct feeling Sarah might have tried to get in touch. She half-smiled, remembering Scotland Yard’s Detective Chief Inspector Durgin and all his talk of listening to “the gut.” Still, the DCI had been right, and she had the nagging worry that, somehow, Sarah needed her. “Bonjour, monsieur,” she said to the man with the thick, tortoiseshell framed glasses. “Do you have anything for me?”

The receptionist looked at the cubbies behind him and saw nothing in the K cubby, then checked underneath the desk for any packages. “I’m so sorry, Mademoiselle Kelly,” he told her. “Were you expecting something?”

“No, no,” Maggie replied. Gut? I must be getting paranoid.

There were florists arranging massive banks of flowers around the lobby, even more than usual. “Is something special going on?” she asked.

“There’s a ball tomorrow evening,” he replied. “A masked ball. Given by Reichsmarshal Hermann Goering. Didn’t you receive an invitation, mademoiselle? All the hotel’s guests are expected.”

A party with Goering? Who would remember me from Berlin? No—no thank you. “As you know, I only recently checked in,” she replied, hoping the bespectacled man couldn’t hear the quaver in her voice.

“Well, if you’re a guest of the hotel, you simply must come,” said a woman in a smart suit and ropes of pearls passing by, leading an overweight poodle with an equally bejeweled collar. “After all, it’s the event of the season!”

The sanitation truck rumbled noisily down Avenue Foch, stopping regularly to pick up each elegant building’s trash. As Voltaire parked, Reiner opened the huge metal back doors, bracing himself against whatever insulting new odors he might encounter. Nodding to the German guards on duty, who waved him through, Reiner made his way on a side walkway to the back of Number 84, where the building’s metal trash cans were neatly lined up. He dragged them back, struggling to empty the contents into the truck. When they were all empty, he hoisted the last two onto his shoulders and made his way back to return them.

Later, at the dump, they would dig through the garbage until they found the trash from the Sicherheitsdienst offices and sifted through it—everything from coffee grounds and half-eaten pastries to discarded documents. They would report any important findings to F-Section via courier.

As Reiner wrestled the empty bins back into their row, a man dressed in civilian clothes cut through the garden. The man looked both ways, then approached the servants’ entrance. His eyes slipped over Reiner in his overalls and cap. The agent felt a jolt of recognition but made sure to keep his head down, spending extra time lining up the cans perfectly as the other man knocked at the door and waited to enter.

Pulling his cap low, Reiner positioned himself to take a good look at the man’s face.

Yes, he was absolutely sure: it was Raoul, another SOE agent working in Paris.

Who was now being warmly welcomed to the heart of the counterespionage division of Sicherheitsdienst.

“Gibbon!” von Waltz called. “Come in!” He stood. “Take Monsieur Gibbon’s coat and hat, Fräulein Schmidt! And put on the coffee! Pastries, too—those delicious chestnut ones if we have them.” The German clapped the Frenchman on the back with genuine affection. “It’s good to see you again, my friend. It’s been far, far too long.” He pointed the agent toward the chairs in front of the fireplace.

Gibbon looked around, took a seat, and gave a low whistle. “Nice office you have here. Who would have thought back in Spain that someday you’d be a bigwig in Paris?”

“Ah, those were the days, my friend! Remember Madrid? The drinking, the señoritas…The Spanish Civil War was only a precursor to our partnership now.”

“You’re doing quite well for yourself.”

“I’ve never had you here?” von Waltz exclaimed, also sitting. “Well, thank goodness we’re rectifying that now.”

“It’s dangerous for me here,” Gibbon countered. “Although I miss our drunken nights in Spain, I have no wish to be seen with you.” He smiled. “No offense, of course.”

“None taken,” replied von Waltz. “And rest assured we’re taking every precaution to make sure you’re not seen. You’ve done a superb job for us. We’ve gleaned more from those courier packets to England than you’ll ever know.”

“I’m glad. It’s not you Nazis that scare me—it’s the damn Communists. The Resistance is all Commies.”

“British intelligence must have complete trust in you now.”

“They seem pleased with my work,” Gibbon replied carefully. “But, of course, you never know.” He shrugged.

“We have a little change of plans, here at Avenue Foch. What I’m doing now is setting up what I’m calling a ‘radio game.’ ” As Hertha Schmidt brought in a tray, he rubbed his hands together. “Ah, we do have those chestnut pastries! How wonderful!”

“I’m afraid they’re hazelnut, sir.” Hertha studiously avoided his eyes by picking up the silver pot and pouring cups of coffee, then handing them to the men.

“Ah, how we suffer here in Paris—”

“Sir?”

“Thank you, Fräulein Schmidt. That will be all. Please close the doors on your way out.”

Gibbon blew on his hot coffee, then took a small sip. “You have SOE agents here?” he asked the German.

“Yes!” von Waltz exclaimed. “We’re using their radios to communicate with the British. I have one radio with no operator—poor Miss Calvert, I told you about her. I have just captured another agent and picked up his radio. He’s in the basement being ‘persuaded’ to cooperate. And his partner’s on her way. And already I’ve radioed our friends in England for more agents—with yet more radios!” He looked up with reverence at the painting of Hitler. “They will undoubtedly be flying in with the next full moon.”

“Well that’s…new,” Gibbon ventured. “But if the Gestapo shows up at the airfield, the English will get wise to what you’re doing. They’ll stop the missions.”

“Oh, we will be much more circumspect than that. We’ll watch them land, then trail them to their safe houses. We’ll follow them as they go about their business in Paris. Like wolves, we’ll pick off the weakest. It will look natural. Inevitable. Besides”—von Waltz leaned back, crossing his legs—“what do you care?”

“I don’t want to be caught, is all. I only signed on for letting you photograph the mail,” Gibbon answered. “I didn’t agree to turning over British agents.”

“What is that British expression? ‘In for a penny, in for a pound’?” Von Waltz grinned. “Oh, don’t worry—we need you too much to ever betray you.” He took a bite of his pastry. “Oh, delicious!”

Gibbon nodded, keeping his expression blank. He lowered his coffee cup to the saucer with a clink.

“At some point, perhaps even already, a crucial decision will be made by the Allies about where and when the invasions will take place,” von Waltz continued, taking another bite.

“The spies sent over don’t know that—they’re deliberately kept in the dark.”

“For now. But at some point, they’ll be asked to prepare,” von Waltz replied, wiping whipped cream off his upper lip with a napkin. “There will be details—when and where. That is our endgame: to obtain that information. As they say here, Petit a petit, l’oiseau fait son nid—Little by little, the bird makes its nest.”

“Do you ever worry that they might figure out your trap? Then play you at your own game?”

“Oh, no, never. Our English gentlemen friends would never knowingly drop an agent into an enemy trap. Their sense of fair play prohibits it. Above all else, the British are honorable.” Von Waltz smiled and held out the plate of pastries. “Come now, these are marvelous. You simply must have one.”

Gibbon shook his head, then asked, “By the way, what’s in the cage? Under the cover?”

Von Waltz grimaced, a fleck of powdered sugar on his chin. “Don’t ask.”

It was impossible to know the hour in the basement of 84 Avenue Foch. The interrogation room was dim and stank of mildew and the faint metallic tang of blood. The walls were stone, and there was a drain in the middle of the concrete floor. Two muscular men, their denim shirts soaked with sweat, stood in the shadows.

Hugh Thompson stood under one of the fluorescent lights. He was naked. His hands were cuffed above his head, bound by chains leading from hooks on the ceiling. He was bleeding, from a cut below his eye and several on his chest. The first bruises on his torso and arms and legs were beginning to bloom, while his back was striped with long red welts.

A third man, stocky and dark, with the body of a boxer, circled him. “We know who you are, Hubert Taillier—or should we say Hugh Thompson, code name Aristide?” He wore thick-soled shoes, and the soles squeaked on the damp floor. The only other sound in the room was Hugh’s ragged breathing.

The man continued. “We know you’re working for SOE in F-Section, for the Prosper network. We know you and your partner, Sarah Sanderson, targeted Reichsminister Hans Fortner to steal information on the French automobile industry’s assistance in Nazi weapons production, so you could prepare SOE sabotage targets. And we know you compromised yourself before you were able to obtain any information from Reichsminister Fortner.”

Hugh grimaced; the knowledge that he himself had betrayed his cause, betrayed Sarah, hurt far worse than any of the blows the men had inflicted.

The interrogator lifted the Englishman’s chin gently, with one finger. “What we want is for you to work with us. Do that, and this will all go away. You will be given a bath, clean clothes. Decent meals. And when this wretched, futile war is over, we will give you the name of the person in your organization who betrayed you.”

Hugh looked away. “Piss off.”

The stocky man nodded, and one of the men from the shadows flung a bucket of cold water at the naked Englishman. As Hugh struggled in his bonds against the icy spray, the man said, “Work with us, Mr. Thompson.”

Hugh spat and shook his head, breathing hard. The water dripped down his face, mixing with blood.

The man backhanded the Englishman with all his considerable might. Hugh staggered and swayed in his chains, groaning low in his throat. With a look of disgust, the man gestured to the others. “Continue!”

They picked up rubber truncheons.