Chapter Three

The swastika was everywhere. The Nazis had branded the beautiful face of Paris with it, from the Eiffel Tower to the Arc de Triomphe and every public building and church in between. Some of the black-and-red banners shouted in bold, barbaric Fraktur script: DEUTSCHLAND SIEGT AN ALLEN FRONTEN—GERMANY EVERYWHERE VICTORIOUS.

Maggie felt fear, a primal reaction to the changed Paris she could see from the slow-moving vélo-taxi. She managed to control her breathing but could do nothing about the blood pounding in her ears.

Paris was gray now, Maggie realized. The limestone buildings with their rusticated bases and tall windows were grimy, the glass windows of the cafés reflected pewter, and the faces of the few people on the streets were ashen and drawn, their eyes haunted, their step nervous. Their sleepwalking quality reminded her of the people she’d seen on a mission to Berlin.

The massive double doors of the apartment buildings, which were usually open, allowing those passing by a glimpse of courtyard and children running and playing, were locked and chained. Windows were either shuttered or daubed with blue paint for the enforced blackout, the people inside unable to tell day from night. Even the Seine was a blackish gray, like tarnished silver.

Maggie was also taken aback by Paris’s emptiness. Most of the blocks they passed were deserted. They rode in near silence, with only the infrequent long black cars adorned by Nazi banners, a few intrepid bicyclists, the occasional vélo-taxi, and a rare horse-drawn carriage for company.

The people she did see were lined up in queues in front of shops where Pétain’s portrait hung in the windows. All waited, silent, their arms folded, their eyes unfocused. Crude wooden posts with signs bearing German names in Gothic lettering had sprung up everywhere, a forest of thorny branches, indicating the direction of this or that office.

As they wended their way closer to the Place Vendôme, more people appeared on the streets, mostly women of all ages. But the customary blue uniforms of French soldiers were absent. The Feldgrau of the German Army had replaced them—as had black-uniformed SS officers. Well-fed off-duty Germans strolled along the avenues with cameras in hand, gawking in shop windows, whistling at the pretty girls.

Paris was irrefutably under complete German control: signage and posters warned the locals in German and French to obey Occupation edicts, rationing laws, and the rigorous curfews—or face punishment. POPULATIONS ABANDONNÉES, FAITES CONFIANCE AU SOLDAT ALLEMAND! ABANDONED PEOPLE, HAVE FAITH IN THE GERMAN SOLDIER!

Maggie gave a grim smile as she saw someone had scribbled underneath in bold lettering, AND THEN WHAT? There were also posters warning of Jews and Communists with ET DERRIÈRE LE JUIF, EXPOSITION LE JUIF ET LA FRANCE, and COMMUNISME ENNEMI DE LA FRANCE. They passed a seemingly endless series of red posters on the walls—photographs of people who’d been executed on the order of General Schaumburg, the Commander of Paris, for treason.

As the vélo-taxi passed a cinema, she saw black lettering on the marquee: LEINEN AUS IRLAND. Maggie had read a review about Linen from Ireland, a “comic” anti-Semitic propaganda film directed by Heinz Helbig. In it, Jewish textile company owners try to sabotage the German linen industry by buying linen from Ireland instead of having it produced in “the Fatherland.” A long line of pallid-faced Parisians waited at a makeshift soup kitchen in front of the theater.

It’s like witnessing a death, Maggie realized. The death of Paris, the death of France…Then, seeing two laughing children play hide-and-seek in their mother’s skirts—but perhaps the patient isn’t quite dead, not just yet. The Occupation was a trauma; Paris was numb, paralyzed, in a state of shock. Marianne, the national symbol of the French Republic, an icon of freedom and democracy, was sleeping under a Nazi spell.

As the vélo-taxi inched closer to the Place Vendôme, there was finally some traffic—long black Mercedes and Citroën saloon cars, their swastika pennants snapping in the breeze; camouflaged Wehrmacht squad cars; motorcycles with sidecars driven by soldiers in helmets and goggles. The Germans owned the chestnut tree–lined streets now.

Without warning, the vélo-taxi veered to the curb and stopped. “Sir?” Maggie called to the driver. “What’s wrong?”

But he was already out the door and wrestling her trunk and suitcases to the damp pavement. “Excusez-moi!” He ignored her. She grabbed her handbag and stepped out of the vélo-taxi. He was breathing heavily.

“Sir, I think we have a misunderstanding—I need to go to the Ritz—”

The man’s face was flushed. He’d taken out a stained handkerchief to wipe beads of sweat from his brow. “Mademoiselle, you may go to the Ritz—with my blessing.” As he grimaced, his steel tooth glinted. “But I’m not going to take you.”

To be left, alone, in Nazi-occupied Paris? “But, sir, that’s what we agreed on—”

He held up one grimy palm. “I don’t know what you’re carrying in that trunk—rocks and concrete maybe—but I’m an old man. I’m not going to risk a heart attack driving you and your wardrobe around.” He got back into the vélo and tipped his beret.

“But I’ll pay you!”

“I value my life more. Au revoir, mademoiselle!” he called as he pedaled off, the wheels making dirty spray of a puddle.

Sidestepping a stinking pile of horse manure, Maggie walked to stand near her luggage. As she watched him leave, her heart sank. Now what?

She looked around, considering her options, glancing up at the blue enamel street plaques. She spotted a téléphone publique and felt a wave of relief. Then she realized the telephone had no receiver.

The weather was changing again, the clouds blowing past to reveal a mackerel sky. Mackerel sky, mackerel sky—Never long wet and never long dry, she thought, remembering the old nursery rhyme. Ciel moutonné, or fleecy sky, as the French say.

She’d been left in a neighborhood with a Baroque church on one side, and a coiffeur and shops—a bakery, a butcher, a pharmacy—along the other. But there were hardly any goods on display in the shop windows. The only things of which there seemed an abundance were portraits of Pétain. In the window of an abandoned cheese shop, a dusty framed photograph of the field marshal’s face stared back at her blankly. Below, in front of empty wine bottles covered in grime, a marmalade cat slept, reminding her of her own ginger tabby, Mr. K, back in London. Maggie was suddenly struck by a wave of homesickness, wanting nothing more than to bury her face in K’s fur and hear his rumbling purr. No time for that now.

Next to the shop were the closed and chained double doors of an apartment building. Maggie squinted to read the swastika-covered placard: HERE LIVED FIVE JEWS, WHO KILLED THEMSELVES. COURSE OF ACTION HIGHLY RECOMMENDED TO OTHERS. She felt ill.

“Le Matin! Le Matin!” cried a news vendor in the distance, while across the street she could hear the grind of metal coming from Coutellerie Dubois & Fils, a knife-sharpening business. She could make out the approaching march of hobnailed boots, growing ever louder, along with the strains of a German folk song:

Es zittern die morschen Knochen,

Der Welt vor dem großen Krieg.

Wir haben den Schrecken gebrochen,

Für uns war’s ein großer Sieg.

She realized what it was they were singing so merrily—

The rotten bones are trembling,

Of the World because of the great War.

We have smashed this terror,

For us it was a great victory.

Good God, she thought in horror, instinctively taking a step back, farther into the shadows. Here she was, alone in occupied Paris, with the German Army marching by. It was almost—almost—funny, and she bit her lip to hold back a peal of hysterical laughter.

The parade was followed by a second line of what could only be off-duty German soldiers—broad-shouldered, loud, and stumbling. A young man, well over six feet tall with corn-yellow hair and blotchy red skin, holding a map, asked in passable French, “Pardon, mademoiselle, but could you please tell us the way to the Eiffel Tower?” His breath reeked of beer.

One of his companions, shorter and darker, with a camera looped around his neck, grinned as he lurched toward her. “We’re lost…”

The rest of the group guffawed in a good-natured way, one turning to stagger into the street, to photograph the church’s bright blue clock.

The German with the map was too close. Maggie struggled to suppress the abject terror she felt. “Of course,” she managed, trying to recall the layout of Paris. “First you—”

Before she could explain where they were and how to get to the tower, there was a loud crack, a guttural cry, and then a thump. The staggering soldier had been struck by a thin, gray-haired man on a bicycle. As the cyclist realized what had happened and pedaled madly to escape, the German fell to the pavement, unconscious, his head bleeding.

Maggie ran to the fallen man; blood streamed down his forehead. She yanked off her gloves and balled them up to press on the wound. The white gloves were quickly stained red.

Like a wolf pack, the Germans ran after the man on the bicycle. Maggie looked up from the injured man’s bloody face to watch in horror. The one with the map whipped a Luger from his inside jacket pocket and shot the terrified man in the back as he pedaled away. Both Frenchman and cycle dropped to the cobblestone street.

As the Germans returned to their fallen comrade, a Grosser Mercedes with swastika flags mounted on its front bumpers rounded the corner and stopped short. The driver, a sharp-featured man with a black eye patch, hopped out. He scurried around the car to open the passenger door.

A German officer emerged. He was not tall but was powerfully built, like a wrestler. Maggie could tell from the gold bullion embroidered oak leaf on his peaked cap that he was a Generaloberst, one of the highest-ranking officers in the German Army. “What happened?” he barked without preamble, hands clasped behind his back, posture impeccable.

“That one”—the tall blond soldier pointed to the crumpled body of the Frenchman lying on the street—“hit our friend with his bicycle. We took care of it, sir.”

The Generaloberst looked down at the hurt German photographer and grimaced, shaking his head. He then looked at Maggie, cradling the man’s head in her lap. “How is he?”

Before she could answer, the injured man took a noisy breath and opened his eyes. “Why, hallo, beautiful Fräulein,” he managed with an unfocused smile up at Maggie, who was still pressing her gloves to his wound.

The General snapped his fingers, pointed, and the soldiers dragged the Frenchman’s body away into an alley. Another kept the bicycle. The hurt German struggled to sit up.

“He seems to be all right,” she told the Generaloberst, doing her best not to look at the pool of the murdered Frenchman’s blood staining the street not far away. “I’d recommend a doctor examine him, though—he could have a concussion.”

The man wobbled to his feet.

“You—go see a doctor as the mademoiselle suggested. I’ll speak with you about your conduct later,” the Generaloberst rebuked.

The injured man hung his head.

Then the German officer extended his hand; Maggie grasped his fingers, rising. The Generaloberst took her in, from her chic Chanel hat to the balled-up, bloody gloves she held, then clicked his heels together and bowed. “May I see your papers, mademoiselle?”

“Of course.” Maggie couldn’t quite conceal the tremor in her voice.

She opened her purse, which she’d carefully prepared for such an occasion. Inside were Métro tickets, a silver compact, a deck of worn French playing cards, and a clipping from the Occupationist newspaper, Je Suis Partout, about Elsa Schiaparelli’s new collection. There was also a large wad of francs in a wallet; if asked, she would say she was obliged to carry the sum for hotel bills.

“Here you go, sir,” she said, handing over her passport. It had been carefully and deliberately frayed, as though handled at dozens of security points, to correspond with her cover story.

He accepted it, eyebrows rising. “Irish,” he said with some surprise, then handed it back to her. “Last weekend, I saw the film Leinen aus Irland. Excellent film. About the Germans and Irish working together.”

“Yes,” Maggie managed, voice stronger, dropping the passport back in her bag, along with the ruined gloves. “I read a review.”

“Ireland is neutral in this war. We Germans like neutrals—‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend,’ as they say.”

Yes, I’ve heard that before.

The Generaloberst clicked his heels together. “You must allow me to replace your gloves. It was good of you to help a young German boy, so far away from home.” He bowed again.

The German soldiers nodded in unison, staring at her with a mixture of admiration and longing. If they weren’t so terrifying—and if a man hadn’t just been murdered—it would have been almost comical.

“I would have helped anyone who was hurt,” Maggie replied.

The Generaloberst gestured to the trunk and cases. “Are these yours, mademoiselle?”

“Yes, my vélo-taxi driver became…winded.”

“He was obviously not German, then,” one of the soldiers said loudly. “A German would never have let a beautiful woman down!”

The Generaloberst made a dismissive gesture, and the soldiers hastily dispersed, two of them helping their injured comrade. “And where were you headed, mademoiselle—before all of this happened?”

“The Hôtel Ritz,” she managed, folding her hands to stop their trembling. She noted there was blood on them, in half-moons under her fingernails. She battled a wave of nausea.

He inclined his head. “Permit me to escort you. To thank you for your service to the Reich.” He snapped his fingers, and the waiting driver opened the car’s trunk and began placing her luggage inside. “To the Hôtel Ritz.”

“Yes, sir!”

Maggie realized the Generaloberst’s permit me was merely a nicety. She had no choice in the matter. “Thank you,” she said as he bowed again and then opened the door for her. She did her best to hide her trembling, blood-flecked palms. A man is dead, she thought. And yet no one even notices. Or thinks it’s important. The driver started the engine, then pulled the Benz out into the street, splashing through puddles.

As they drove, Maggie distracted herself by studying the Generaloberst’s face. He was somewhere in his late thirties, she guessed. Green eyes that sometimes looked blue. Brown hair. Tanned, with the beginnings of fine lines and a few sun spots on the bridge of his nose. Maggie guessed from his complexion that he’d served somewhere in the Middle East or Mediterranean before being transferred to Paris. He caught her gaze, and she looked away, out the window at the empty shops.

“Are you checking in to the Ritz?”

Maggie lifted her chin. “Yes.”

“And how long will you be staying?”

“I—I’m not sure.”

“Well, mademoiselle,” he said, smiling for the first time. “Now I know where to find you.”

Reiner left the Charcots’ house not long after Maggie did. He knew only to go to Café Le Jardin, where someone would meet him to lead him to the head of his network.

At the café, Reiner took his ersatz coffee to one of the wobbly round tables near the window. He picked up an abandoned copy of Le Petit Journal, mouthpiece of Colonel de La Rocque’s Parti Social Français, advocates of “Franco-German Peace and Balance,” and opened it to a random page, pretending to read.

In his peripheral vision, he watched as a woman in heavy orthopedic shoes shuffled by. At the bar, she ordered what passed for Cinzano and carried her glass to a table near his. She was short and round, wearing a much-mended dress with what looked to be a new collar, her wispy silver hair pulled back with a lucite clip. Her face was the picture of annoyance.

Reiner put down the newspaper and strolled over. “Excuse me, madame. Did you call for assistance with your ceiling?”

She drained her drink. “You’re the handyman?” She gave him a stare worthy of Medusa. “Monsieur Corbin Martin?”

It was the agreed-upon name. “Yes, madame.”

She pursed her lips. “Very well, then,” she said, rising. “Follow me.”

Reiner offered his arm to the woman, but she refused it. “When you fix the ceiling,” she said as they left the café, “I don’t want you making a mess of things. Everything—sofas, tables, rugs—exactly the way it was. If not, I’ll take it out of your pay.”

Even though he was terrified of being caught by the Gestapo, Reiner couldn’t help but be amused by how she relished her role. Perhaps she’d once been an actress. “Yes, madame.”

They walked together in silence until she led him down a narrow side street. “Number twelve,” she whispered. He looked up to see where they were—already Number 10. “Third floor, right. Merde,” she wished him and kept walking.

Reiner opened the door, walked up the grubby stairwell, and knocked at the door. There was the sound of footsteps and then “Who is it?”

“Jules.” It was another code name.

The man who opened the door was broad and squat. He, too, wore the dark denim boiler suit that was the uniform of the Parisian sanitation department. His skin was leathery, and his hair sprang from his shiny scalp in black bristles. “Well, what’s wrong with you? Get inside!”

The flat was small, dimly lit, and reeked of fish. “Come, have some potatoes and herring,” the man told Reiner. “You can call me Voltaire—it suits me, doesn’t it?” His smile never reached his eyes.

“First I want to give you these.” Reiner put down his satchel and searched through it until he found what he was looking for: three radio crystals.

Voltaire took them, his stubby fingers surprisingly adroit. “Thank you,” he said. “We’ve been waiting for these.” He put them away carefully in a safe hidden behind a calendar, then went to the kitchen. Reiner followed. On the ancient stove, a cast-iron frying pan sizzled over the blue flames.

“Come, some food, some wine—and then we’ll get you to work. Our shift starts tonight.” Voltaire poked at what was in the pan with a wooden spoon. “Hope you’re not squeamish. The garbage—not always exactly pleasant. But one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, no?”

Reiner sat at the scarred wooden table. “What’s today’s route?”

Voltaire set two plates down with a thump; the fish still had their heads. The Frenchman smiled, and this time it reached his eyes. “Avenue Foch.”

The conference room was plain, with striped wallpaper and tufted leather furniture. A few of the Prime Minister’s own paintings of the gardens of Chartwell, his family home in Kent, graced the walls. A whirring walnut moon-phase grandfather clock with a golden swinging pendulum, chained and weighted, tick-tocked loudly in the stillness.

The P.M., General Ismay, and David had assembled to welcome the newest member of their shadow organization. “He must report directly to you, Pug,” Churchill was saying to Ismay as he made himself a weak scotch and soda at the bar cart. Outside the open windows, the bells of Big Ben and the Horse Guards Parade rang out, chiming the hour. The sky was cloudy, and a damp breeze fluttered the muslin curtains. “There are things happening in this war I don’t need to know the specifics of, do you understand?”

Ismay, already seated at the mahogany table, nodded. “I do, sir.”

As the Prime Minister brought his drink back to the table, David smoothly slipped a coaster under it seconds before the P.M. thumped it down on the glossy mahogany.

Churchill, in a chalk-stripe suit, settled his bulk into the carved chair, the only one with arms, then rubbed his palms together. “Now, who is this man we’ve chosen for the head of our clandestine forces?”

“As Colonel Laycock brought up at the last meeting, Colonel Henrik Rafaelsen Martens recently returned from undercover work in Norway,” Ismay began. “Martens is Welsh—born in Llandaff, Cardiff, to Norwegian parents. Educated at the Cathedral School, then Repton School in Derbyshire. Afterward, he went to Nova Scotia and hiked through Newfoundland with the Public Schools Exploring Society, then joined the Shell Petroleum Company, transferring to Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika. In ’thirty-nine, he joined the Royal Air Force.”

“Ah, one of ‘the few,’ ” the P.M. said approvingly.

Ismay nodded. “Yes, Martens defended our island nobly in the summer of ’forty. He then joined SOE, working with the Norwegian section under Captain Martin Linge, leading commando raids in Norway. Another injury sent him back to London a few months ago. I’ve spoken with him at length. He understands what’s at stake.”

“What else?”

“Of course we’ve thoroughly investigated his personal background. No ties to Communist or Fascist organizations, no issues with drinking or drug use, no known solicitation of prostitutes. Unmarried, with one broken engagement—but no known associations with homosexuals and the like.”

Churchill flicked a glance at David, who reddened but didn’t drop his gaze.

Ismay continued, unaware. “He’s also a lapsed Lutheran, with interests in nature photography and mountain climbing. And this injury…”

There was a knock at the door. “Well, come in then!” the P.M. bellowed.

“Excuse me, Mr. Churchill.” A woman with hair pulled back in a steel-gray chignon opened the door. “Colonel Martens is here,” she announced.

“Well, send him in then, Mrs. Tinsley! Don’t keep the man waiting!” The P.M. pulled a cigar from the breast pocket of his suit and began to gnaw on it.

The man who entered was tall, with streaked blond hair, gray eyes, and a Viking’s profile. “It’s an honor to meet you, Prime Minister—”

“Yes, yes, yes—we don’t have time for all that.” The P.M. lit his cigar and puffed on it vigorously, setting the tip aglow. Smoke framed his round pink face. “Sit down, young man! Now, let me tell you what we’re asking you to do.”

“Yes, sir.” Martens folded his long frame into one of the leather chairs facing the P.M.

“Master of Deception!” Churchill growled. “Wazir of Ruses! Wizard of Trickery! Marquis of Misinformation!” He removed his gold-framed glasses, glowering at Martens. “You are to be the point person in charge of all of the deception plans that will accompany the European invasion. For the truth is so precious she must be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies. You see that, don’t you?

“You’re not limited to strategic deception but will also mislead, misinform, and mystify the Nazis using every ungentlemanly trick in the book.” Churchill pronounced the enemy’s name in his idiosyncratic way, Nazzi. “As Sun Tzu said, ‘Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable. When using our forces, we must seem inactive. When we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away. When far away, we must make him believe we are near.’ ”

If Martens was surprised or shocked in any way, he hid it well. “Yes, sir.”

“You will report only to General Ismay”—the two men nodded to each other—“and have an office in the War Rooms. Mr. Greene has prepared files for you, to get you up to speed.” Martens looked to David, who inclined his head.

“You are to be the coordinator for all of the agencies—MI-Six, MI-Five, SOE, et cetera—that deal in deception. The only way our ultimate plan will work is if, and only if, we’re all following the same playbook. And some of our agencies, well—they don’t play well with the others. MI-Six and SOE in particular don’t get along.”

David passed over a polished steel briefcase, complete with a set of handcuffs attached to the grip. “You will have safes in both your office and your flat,” the private secretary told the Welshman. “Any information pertaining to the invasion or any secret work will be kept either in the safes or in the briefcase chained to your wrist.”

“Do you have any questions?” Ismay asked.

“Only one,” replied Martens, reaching for the briefcase. “When may I start?”

“Now!” the P.M. thundered, rising to shake Martens’s hand. “Mr. Greene, please show our Norse god to his new office downstairs.”

As the men took their leave, Churchill called rapturously after them, “Welcome to the Great Game, Colonel Martens!”