World War II Thriller Collection (80 page)

DIETER WAS EXHAUSTED.
To get a thousand posters printed and distributed in half a day had taken all his powers of persuasion and intimidation. He had been patient and persistent when he could and had flown into a mad rage when necessary. In addition, he had not slept the previous night. His nerves were jangled, he had a headache, and his temper was short.

But a feeling of peace descended on him as soon as he entered the grand apartment building at the Porte de la Muette, overlooking the Bois de Boulogne. The job he had been doing for Rommel required him to travel all over northern France, so he needed to be based in Paris, but getting this place had taken a lot of bribery and bullying. It had been worth it. He loved the dark mahogany paneling, the heavy curtains, the high ceilings, the eighteenth-century silver on the sideboard. He walked around the cool, dim apartment, renewing his acquaintance with his favorite possessions: a small Rodin sculpture of a hand, a Degas pastel of a dancer putting on a ballet slipper, a first edition of
The Count of Monte Cristo.
He sat at the Steinway baby grand piano and played a languid version of
“Ain't Misbehavin' ”:

 

No one to talk with, all by myself . . .

 

Before the war, the apartment and much of the furniture had belonged to an engineer from Lyon, who had made a fortune manufacturing small electrical goods, vacuum cleaners and radios and doorbells. Dieter had
learned this from a neighbor, a rich widow whose husband had been a leading French Fascist in the thirties. The engineer was a vulgarian, she said: he had hired people to choose the right wallpaper and antiques. For him, the only purpose of objects of beauty had been to impress his wife's friends. He had gone to America, where everyone was vulgar, said the widow. She was pleased the apartment now had a tenant who really appreciated it.

Dieter took off his jacket and shirt and washed the Paris grime from his face and neck. Then he put on a clean white shirt, inserted gold links in the French cuffs, and chose a silver-gray tie. While he was tying it, he switched on the radio. The news from Italy was bad. The newscaster said the Germans were fighting a fierce rearguard action. Dieter concluded that Rome must fall in the next few days.

But Italy was not France.

He now had to wait for someone to spot Felicity Clairet. He could not be certain she would pass through Paris, of course, but it was undoubtedly the likeliest place, after Reims, for her to be seen. Anyway, there was nothing more he could do. He wished he had brought Stéphanie with him from Reims. However, he needed her to occupy the house in the rue du Bois. There was a chance that more Allied agents would land and find their way to her door. It was important to draw them gently into the net. He had left instructions that neither Michel nor Dr. Bouler was to be tortured in his absence: he might yet have uses for them.

There was a bottle of Dom Pérignon champagne in the icebox. He opened it and poured some into a crystal flute. Then, with a feeling that life was good, he sat down at his desk to read his mail.

There was a letter from his wife, Waltraud.

 

My beloved Dieter,

I am so sorry we will not be together on your fortieth birthday.

 

Dieter had forgotten his birthday. He looked at the date on his Cartier desk clock. It was June 3. He was forty years old today. He poured another glass of champagne to celebrate.

In the envelope from his wife were two other missives. His seven-year-old daughter, Margarete, known as Mausi, had drawn a picture of him in uniform standing by the Eiffel Tower. In the picture, he was taller than the tower: so children magnified their fathers. His son, Rudi, ten years old, had written a grown-up letter, carefully rounded letters in dark blue ink:

 

My dear Papa,

I am doing well in school although Dr. Richter's classroom has been bombed. Fortunately it was nighttime and the school was empty.

 

Dieter closed his eyes in pain. He could not bear the thought of bombs falling on the city where his children lived. He cursed the murderers of the RAF, even though he knew German bombs had fallen on British schoolchildren.

He looked at the phone on his desk, contemplating trying to call home. It was difficult to get through: the French phone system was overloaded, and military traffic had priority, so you could wait hours for a personal call to be connected. All the same, he decided to try. He felt a sudden longing to hear the voices of his children and reassure himself that they were still alive.

He reached for the phone. It rang before he touched it. He picked it up. “Major Franck here.”

“This is Lieutenant Hesse.”

Dieter's pulse quickened. “You have found Felicity Clairet?”

“No. But something almost as good.”

FLICK HAD BEEN
to the Ritz once, when she was a student in Paris before the war. She and a girlfriend had put on hats and makeup, gloves and stockings, and walked through the door as if they did it every day. They had sauntered along the hotel's internal arcade of shops, giggling at the absurd prices of scarves and fountain pens and perfume. Then they had sat in the lobby, pretending they were meeting someone who was late, and criticized the outfits of the women who came there to tea. They themselves had not dared to order so much as a glass of water. In those days, Flick had saved every spare penny for cheap seats at the Comédie Française.

Since the occupation began, she had heard that the owners were attempting to run the hotel as normally as possible, even though many of the rooms had been taken over permanently by top Nazis. She had no gloves or stockings today, but she had powdered her face and set her beret at a jaunty angle, and she just had to hope that some of the hotel's wartime patrons would be forced into similar compromises.

Lines of gray military vehicles and black limousines were lined up outside the hotel in the Place Vendôme. On the facade of the building, six bloodred Nazi banners flapped boastfully in the breeze. A commissionaire in top hat and red trousers looked doubtfully at Flick and Ruby. “You can't come in,” he said.

Flick was in a light blue suit, very creased, and Ruby in a navy frock and a man's raincoat. They were not dressed to dine at the Ritz. Flick tried to imitate the
hauteur
of a French woman dealing with an irritating inferior. Putting her nose in the air, she said, “What is the matter?”

“This entrance is reserved for the top brass, Madame. Even German colonels can't come in this way. You have to go around to the rue Cambon and use the back door.”

“As you wish,” Flick said with an air of weary courtesy, but in truth she was pleased he had not told them they were underdressed. She and Ruby walked quickly around the block and found the rear entrance.

The lobby was bright with light, and the bars on either side were full of men in evening dress or uniform. The buzz of conversation clicked and whirred with German consonants, not the languid vowels of French. Flick felt as though she were walking into the enemy's stronghold.

She went up to the desk. A concierge in a coat with brass buttons looked down his nose at her. Judging her to be neither a German nor a wealthy French woman, he said coldly, “What is it?”

“Check whether Mademoiselle Legrand is in her room,” Flick said peremptorily. She assumed that Diana must be using the false name on her papers, Simone Legrand. “I have an appointment.”

He backed off. “May I tell her who is inquiring?”

“Madame Martigny. I am her employee.”

“Very good. In fact, Mademoiselle is in the rear dining room with her companion. Perhaps you would speak to the head waiter.”

Flick and Ruby crossed the lobby and entered the restaurant. It was a picture of elegant living: white tablecloths, silver cutlery, candles, and waiters in black gliding around the room with dishes of food. No one would have guessed that half Paris was starving. Flick smelled real coffee.

Pausing on the threshold, she immediately saw Diana and Maude. They were at a small table on the far side of the room. As Flick watched, Diana took a bottle of wine out of a gleaming bucket beside the table and poured
for Maude and herself. Flick could have throttled her.

She turned to make for the table, but the head waiter stood in her way. Pointedly looking at her cheap suit, he said, “Yes, Madame?”

“Good evening,” she said. “I must speak with that lady over there.”

He did not move. He was a small man with a worried air, but he was not to be bullied. “Perhaps I can give her a message for you.”

“I'm afraid not, it's too personal.”

“Then I will tell her that you are here. The name?”

Flick glared in Diana's direction, but Diana did not look up. “I am Madame Martigny,” Flick said, giving up. “Tell her I must speak to her immediately.”

“Very well. If Madame would care to wait here.”

Flick ground her teeth with frustration. As the head waiter walked away, she was tempted just to run past him. Then she noticed a young man in the black uniform of an SS major at a nearby table staring at her. She met his eye and looked away, fear rising in her throat. Had he merely taken an idle interest in her altercation with the head waiter? Was he trying to remember where he had seen her before, having seen the poster but not yet made the connection? Or did he simply find her attractive? In any event, Flick realized, it would be dangerous for her to make a fuss.

Every second she stood here was dangerous. She resisted the temptation to turn and run.

The head waiter spoke to Diana, then turned and beckoned Flick.

Flick said to Ruby, “You'd better wait here—one is less conspicuous than two.” Then she walked quickly across the room to Diana's table.

Neither Diana nor Maude had the grace to look guilty, Flick observed angrily. Maude appeared pleased with herself, Diana haughty. Flick put her hands on the edge of the table and leaned forward to speak in a low voice. “This is terribly dangerous. Get up, now, and leave with me. We'll pay the bill on the way out.”

She had been as forceful as she knew how, but they were living in a fantasy world. “Be reasonable, Flick,” Diana said.

Flick was outraged. How could Diana be such an arrogant idiot? “You stupid cow,” she said. “Don't you realize you'll get killed?”

She saw immediately that it had been a mistake to use abuse. Diana looked superior. “It's my life. I'm entitled to take that risk—”

“You're endangering us too, and the whole mission. Now get up off that chair!”

“Look here—” There was a commotion behind Flick. Diana stopped and looked past her.

Flick turned around and gasped.

Standing in the entrance was the well-dressed German officer she had last seen in the square at Sainte-Cécile. She took him in at a glance: a tall figure in an elegant dark suit with a white handkerchief in the breast pocket.

She quickly turned her back, heart pounding, and prayed that he had not noticed her. With her dark wig, there was a good chance he would not have recognized her at first glance.

His name came back to her: Dieter Franck. She had found his photograph in Percy Thwaite's files. He was a former police detective. She recalled the note on the back of his photo: “A star of Rommel's intelligence staff, this officer is said to be a skilled interrogator and a ruthless torturer.”

For the second time in a week, she was close enough to shoot him.

Flick did not believe in coincidence. There was a reason he was here at the same time as she.

She soon found out what it was. She looked again and saw him striding across the restaurant toward her, with four Gestapo types trailing him. The head waiter came after them, a look of panic on his face.

Keeping her face averted, Flick walked away.

Franck went straight to Diana's table.

The whole place suddenly became quiet: customers fell silent in midsentence, waiters stopped serving vegetables, the sommelier froze with a decanter of claret in his hand.

Flick reached the doorway, where Ruby stood waiting. Ruby whispered, “He's going to arrest them.” Her hand moved toward her gun.

Flick again caught the eye of the SS major. “Leave it in your pocket,” she murmured. “There's nothing we can do. We might take on him and four Gestapo men, but we're surrounded by German officers. Even if we killed all those five we'd be mowed down by the others.”

Franck was questioning Diana and Maude. Flick could not make out the words. Diana's voice took on the tone of supercilious indifference she used when she was in the wrong. Maude became tearful.

Franck must have asked for their papers, because the two women simultaneously reached for their handbags, on the floor beside their chairs. Franck shifted his position so that he was to one side of Diana and slightly behind her, looking over her shoulder, and suddenly Flick knew what was going to happen next.

Maude took out her identity papers, but Diana pulled a gun. A shot rang out, and one of the uniformed Gestapo men doubled over and fell. The restaurant erupted. Women screamed, men dived for cover. There was a second shot, and another Gestapo man cried out. Some diners ran for the exit.

Diana's gun hand moved toward a third Gestapo man. Flick had a flash of memory: Diana in the woods at Somersholme, sitting on the ground smoking a cigarette with dead rabbits all around her. She remembered what she had said to Diana: “You're a killer.” She had been right.

But Diana did not fire the third shot.

Dieter Franck kept a cool head. He seized Diana's right forearm with both his hands and banged her wrist on the edge of the table. She screamed with pain and the gun fell from her grasp. He yanked her out of her chair,
threw her facedown on the carpet, and fell on her with both knees in the small of her back. He pulled her hands behind her back and handcuffed her, ignoring the screams of pain she gave as he jerked her injured wrist. He stood up.

Flick said to Ruby, “Let's get out of here.”

There was a crush at the doorway, panicky men and women all trying to pass through at the same time. Before Flick could move, the young SS major who had been staring at her earlier sprang to his feet and grabbed her arm. “Wait a moment,” he said in French.

Flick fought down panic. “Take your hands off me!”

He tightened his grip. “You seem to know those women over there,” he said.

“No, I don't!” She tried to move away.

He pulled her back with a jerk. “You'd better stay here and answer some questions.”

There was another shot. Several women screamed, but no one knew where the shot had come from. The SS officer's face twisted in a grimace of agony. As he slumped to the floor, Flick saw Ruby, behind him, slipping her pistol back into her raincoat pocket.

They both forced their way through the crowd at the door, shoving ruthlessly, and burst out into the lobby. They were able to run without drawing attention to themselves, because everyone else was running.

Cars were parked in a line along the curb in the rue Cambon, some of them attended by chauffeurs. Most of the chauffeurs were hurrying toward the hotel to see what was happening. Flick picked a black Mercedes 230 sedan with a spare wheel perched on the running board. She looked into the front: the key was in the dash. “Get in!” she yelled at Ruby. She got behind the wheel and pulled the self-starter. A big engine rumbled into life. She engaged first gear, heaved the steering wheel around, and accelerated away from the Ritz. The car was heavy and sluggish, but stable: at speed, it cornered like a train.

When she was several blocks away she reviewed her position. She had lost a third of her team, including her
best marksman. She considered whether to abandon the mission and immediately decided to carry on. It would be awkward: she would have to explain why only four cleaners had come to the château instead of the usual six, but she could make up some excuse. It meant they might be questioned more closely, but she would take that risk.

She dumped the car in the rue de la Chapelle. She and Ruby were out of immediate danger. They walked quickly to the flophouse. Ruby rounded up Greta and Jelly and brought them to Flick's room. She told them what had happened.

“Diana and Maude will be questioned immediately,” she said. “Dieter Franck is a capable and ruthless interrogator, so we have to assume they will tell everything they know—including the address of this hotel. That means the Gestapo could be here at any moment. We have to leave right away.”

Jelly was crying. “Poor Maude,” she said. “She was a silly cow, but she didn't deserve to be tortured.”

Greta was more practical. “Where will we go?”

“We'll hide in the convent next door to the flophouse. They'll take anyone in. I've hidden escaped prisoners of war there before now. They'll let us stay until daybreak.”

“Then what?”

“We'll go to the station as planned. Diana is going to tell Dieter Franck our real names, our code names, and our false identities. He will put out an alert for anyone traveling under our aliases. Fortunately, I have a spare set of papers for all of us, using the same photographs but different identities. The Gestapo don't have photographs of you three, and I've changed my appearance, so the checkpoint guards will have no way of recognizing us. However, to be safe, we won't go to the station at first light—we'll wait until about ten o'clock when it should be busy.”

Ruby said, “Diana will also tell them what our mission is.”

“She'll tell them we're going to blow up the railway tunnel at Marles. Fortunately, that's not our real mission. It's a cover story I gave out.”

Jelly said admiringly, “Flick, you think of everything.”

“Yes,” she said grimly. “That's why I'm still alive.”