World War II Thriller Collection (72 page)

The two messages could be everything or nothing, Dieter thought as he got behind the wheel of his own car. The moon was bright as he followed the twisting road through the vineyards to Reims and parked in the rue du Bois. It was good weather for an invasion.

Stéphanie was waiting for him in the kitchen of Mademoiselle Lemas's house. He put the coded messages on the table and took out the copies Stéphanie had made of the pad and the silk handkerchief. He rubbed his eyes and began to decode the first message, the one Helicopter had sent, writing the decrypt on the scratch pad Mademoiselle Lemas had used to make her shopping lists.

Stéphanie brewed a pot of coffee. She looked over his shoulder for a while, asked a couple of questions, then took the second message and began to decode it herself.

Dieter's decrypt gave a concise account of the incident at the cathedral, naming Dieter as Charenton and saying he had been recruited by Bourgeoise (Mademoiselle Lemas) because she was worried about the security of the rendezvous. It said Monet (Michel) had taken the unusual step of phoning Bourgeoise to confirm that Charenton was trustworthy, and he was satisfied.

It listed the code names of those members of the Bollinger circuit who had not fallen in the battle last Sunday and were still active. There were only four.

It was useful, but it did not tell him where to find the spies.

He drank a cup of coffee while he waited for Stéphanie to finish. She handed him a sheet of paper covered with her flamboyant handwriting.

When he read it, he could hardly believe his luck. It said:

 

PREPARE RECEIVE GROUP OF SIX NUMBER PARACHUTISTS CODENAMED JACKDAWS LEADER LEOPARDESS ARRIVING ELEVEN PIP EMMA FRIDAY SECOND JUNE CHAMP DE PIERRE.

 

“My God,” he whispered.

Champ de Pierre was a code name, but Dieter knew what it meant, for Gaston had told him during the very first interrogation. It was a drop zone in a pasture outside Chatelle, a small village five miles from Reims. Dieter now knew exactly where Helicopter and Michel would be tomorrow night, and could pick them up.

He could also capture six more Allied agents as they parachuted to earth.

And one of them was “Leopardess”: Flick Clairet, the woman who knew more than anyone else about the French Resistance, the woman who, under torture, would give him the information he needed to break the back of the Resistance—just in time to stop them aiding the invasion force.

“Jesus Christ Almighty,” Dieter said. “What a break.”

PAUL AND FLICK
were talking.

They lay side by side on his bed. The lights were off, but the moon shone through the window. He was naked, as he had been when she entered the room. He always slept naked. He wore pyjamas only to walk along the corridor to the bathroom.

He had been asleep when she came in, but he had wakened fast and leaped out of bed, his unconscious mind assuming that a clandestine visit in the night must mean the Gestapo. He had had his hands around her throat before he realized who it was.

He was astonished, thrilled, and grateful. He had closed the door, then kissed her, standing there, for a long time. He was unprepared, and it felt like a dream. He was afraid he might wake up.

She had caressed him, feeling his shoulders and his back and his chest. Her hands were soft but her touch was firm, exploring. “You have a lot of hair,” she had whispered.

“Like an ape.”

“But not as handsome,” she teased.

He looked at her lips, delighting in the way they moved when she spoke, thinking that in a moment he would touch them with his own, and it would be lovely. He smiled. “Let's lie down.”

They lay on the bed, facing one another, but she did not take off any clothes, not even her shoes. He found it strangely exciting to be naked with a woman who was fully dressed. He enjoyed it so much that he was in no
hurry to move to the next base. He wanted this moment to last forever.

“Tell me something,” she said in a lazy, sensual voice.

“What?”

“Anything. I feel I don't know you.”

What was this? He had never had a girl behave like this. She came to his room in the night, she lay on his bed but kept her clothes on; then she questioned him. “Is that why you came?” he said lightly, watching her face. “To interrogate me?”

She laughed softly. “Don't worry, I want to make love to you, but not in a hurry. Tell me about your first lover.”

He stroked her cheek with light fingertips, tracing the curve of her jaw. He did not know what she wanted, where she was going. She had thrown him off balance. “Can we touch while we talk?”

“Yes.”

He kissed her lips. “And kiss, too?”

“Yes.”

“Then I think we should talk for just a little while, maybe a year or two.”

“What was her name?”

Flick was not as confident as she pretended to be, he decided. In fact she was nervous, and that was the reason for the questions. If it made her comfortable, he would answer. “Her name was Linda. We were terribly young—I'm embarrassed at how young we were. The first time I kissed her, she was twelve, and I was fourteen, can you imagine?”

“Of course I can.” She giggled, and for an instant she was a girl again. “I used to kiss boys when I was twelve.”

“We always had to pretend we were going out with a bunch of friends, and usually we started the evening that way, but pretty soon we would peel off from the crowd and go to a movie or something. We did that for a couple of years before we had real sex.”

“Where was this, in America?”

“Paris. My father was military attaché at the embassy. Linda's parents owned a hotel that catered specially for
American visitors. We used to run with a whole crowd of expatriate kids.”

“Where did you make love?”

“In the hotel. We had it easy. There were always empty rooms.”

“What was it like the first time? Did you use any, you know, precautions?”

“She stole one of her father's rubbers.”

Flick's fingertips traced a course down his belly. He closed his eyes. She said, “Who put it on?”

“She did. It was very exciting. I nearly came right then. And if you're not careful . . .”

She moved her hand to his hip. “I'd like to have known you when you were sixteen.”

He opened his eyes. He no longer wanted to make this moment last forever. In fact, he found he was in a great hurry to move on. “Would you . . .” His mouth was dry, and he swallowed. “Would you like to take off some clothes?”

“Yes. But speaking of precautions . . .”

“In my billfold. On the bedside table.”

“Good.” She sat upright and unlaced her shoes, throwing them on the floor. She stood up and unbuttoned her blouse. She was tense, he could see, so he said, “Take your time we have all night.”

It was a couple of years since Paul had watched a woman undress. He had been living on a diet of pinups, and they always wore elaborate confections of silk and lace, corsets and garter belts and transparent negligees. Flick was wearing a loose cotton chemise, not a brassiere, and he guessed that the small, neat breasts he could see tantalizingly outlined beneath it did not need support. She dropped her skirt. Her panties were plain white cotton with frills around the legs. Her body was tiny but muscular. She looked like a schoolgirl getting changed for hockey practice, but he found that more exciting than a pinup.

She lay down again. “Is that better?” she said.

He stroked her hip, feeling the warm skin, then the
soft cotton, then skin again. She was not yet ready, he could tell. He forced himself to be patient and let her set the pace. “You haven't told me about your first time,” he said.

To his surprise, she blushed. “It wasn't as nice as yours.”

“In what way?”

“It was a horrible place, a dusty storeroom.”

He felt indignant. What kind of idiot could take a girl as special as Flick and submit her to a furtive quickie in a cupboard? “How old were you?”

“Twenty-two.”

He had expected her to say seventeen. “Jeepers. At that age you deserve a comfortable bed.”

“That wasn't it, though.”

She was relaxing again, Paul could tell. He encouraged her to talk some more. “So what was wrong?”

“Probably that I didn't really want to do it. I was talked into it.”

“Didn't you love the guy?”

“Yes, I did. But I wasn't ready.”

“What was his name?”

“I don't want to tell you.”

Paul guessed it was her husband, Michel, and decided not to question her any more. He kissed her and said, “May I touch your breasts?”

“You can touch anything you like.”

No one had ever said that to him. He found her openness startling and exciting. He began to explore her body. In his experience, most women closed their eyes at this point, but she kept hers open, studying his face with a mixture of desire and curiosity that inflamed him more. It was as if by watching him she was exploring him, instead of the other way around. His hands discovered the pert shape of her breasts, and his fingertips got to know her shy nipples, learning what they liked. He took off her panties. She had curly hair the color of honey, lots of it, and under the hair, on the left side, a birthmark like a splash of tea. He bent his head and
kissed her there, his lips feeling the crisp brush of her hair, his tongue tasting her moisture.

He sensed her yielding to pleasure. Her nervousness vanished. Her arms and legs spread out in a star shape, slack, abandoned, but her hips strained toward him eagerly. He explored the folds of her sex with slow delight. Her movements became more urgent.

She pushed his head away. Her face was flushed and she was breathing hard. She reached across to the bedside table, opened his billfold, and found the rubbers, three of them in a small paper packet. She ripped the pack with fumbling fingers, took one out, and put it on him. Then she straddled him as he lay on his back. She bent to kiss him, and said into his ear, “Oh, boy, you feel so good inside me.” Then she sat upright and began to move.

“Take off your chemise,” he said.

She pulled it over her head.

He watched her above him, her lovely face drawn into an expression of fierce concentration, her pretty breasts moving delightfully. He felt like the luckiest man in the world. He wanted this to go on forever: no dawn, no tomorrow, no plane, no parachute, no war.

In all of life, he thought, there was nothing better than love.

. . . .

WHEN IT WAS
over, Flick's first thought was: What will I say to Michel?

She did not feel unhappy. She was full of love and desire for Paul. In a short time she had come to feel more intimate with him than she ever had with Michel. She wanted to make love to him every day for the rest of her life. That was the trouble. Her marriage was over. And she would have to tell Michel as soon as she saw him. She could not pretend, even for a few minutes, to feel the same about him.

Michel was the only man she had been intimate with
before Paul. She would have told Paul that, but she felt disloyal talking about Michel. It seemed more of a betrayal than simple adultery. One day she would tell Paul he was only her second lover, and she might say he was her best, but she would never talk to him about how sex was with Michel.

However, it was not just sex that was different with Paul, it was herself. She had never asked Michel, the way she had questioned Paul, about his early sexual experiences. She had never said to him
You can touch anything you like.
She had never put a rubber on him, or climbed on top of him to make love, or told him he felt good inside her.

When she had lain down on the bed beside Paul, another personality had seemed to come out of her, just as a transformation had come over Mark when he walked into the Criss-Cross Club. She suddenly felt she could say anything she liked, do anything that took her fancy, be herself without worrying what would be thought of her.

It had never been like that with Michel. Beginning as his student, wanting to impress him, she had never really got on an even footing with him. She had continued to seek his approval, something he had never done with her. In bed, she tried to please him, not herself.

After a while, Paul said, “What are you thinking?”

“About my marriage,” she said.

“What about it?”

She wondered how much to confess. He had said, earlier in the evening, that he wanted to marry her, but that was before she came to his bedroom. Men never married girls who slept with them first, according to female folklore. It was not always true, Flick knew from her own experience with Michel. But all the same she decided to tell Paul half the truth. “That it's over.”

“A drastic decision.”

She raised herself on her elbow and looked at him. “Does that bother you?”

“On the contrary. I hope it means we might see each other again.”

“Do you mean that?”

He put his arms around her. “I'm scared to tell you how much I mean it.”

“Scared?”

“Of frightening you off. I said a foolish thing earlier.”

“About marrying me and having children?”

“I meant it, but I said it in an arrogant way.”

“That's okay,” she said. “When people are perfectly polite, it usually means they don't really care. A little awkwardness is more sincere.”

“I guess you're right. I never thought of that.”

She stroked his face. She could see the bristles of his beard, and she realized the dawn light was strengthening. She forced herself not to look at her watch: she did not want to keep checking how much time they had left.

She ran her hand over his face, mapping his features with her fingertips: the bushy eyebrows, the deep eye sockets, the big nose, the shot-off ear, the sensual lips, the lantern jaw. “Do you have hot water?” she said suddenly.

“Yes, it's a swanky room. There's a basin in the corner.”

She got up.

He said, “What are you doing?”

“Stay there.” She padded across the floor in her bare feet, feeling his eyes on her naked body, wishing she were not quite so broad across the hips. On a shelf over the sink was a mug containing toothpaste and a wooden toothbrush that she recognized as French. Next to the glass were a safety razor, a brush, and a bowl of shaving soap. She ran the hot tap, dipped the shaving brush in it, and worked up a lather in his soap bowl.

“Come on,” he said. “What is this?”

“I'm going to shave you.”

“Why?”

“You'll see.”

She covered his face with lather, then got his safety razor and filled the tooth mug with hot water. She straddled him the way she had when they made love and shaved his face with careful, tender strokes.

“How did you learn to do this?” he asked.

“Don't speak,” she said. “I watched my mother do it for my father, many times. Dad was a drunk, and toward the end he couldn't hold the razor steady, so Ma had to shave him every day. Lift your chin.”

He did so obediently, and she shaved the sensitive skin of his throat. When she had finished she soaked a flannel in hot water and wiped his face with it, then patted him dry with a clean towel. “I should put on some face cream, but I bet you're too masculine to use it.”