The Limoges Dilemma (Alex Kovacs thriller series Book 4)

by Richard Wake

  Regardless, they denied everything. The militia men didn’t believe them. They beat the farmer, but he didn’t change his story. Then, exasperated, they brought the wife in from the bedroom, grabbed a carving knife out of a wood block, held her left wrist down on the kitchen table and threatened to cut off her finger if the husband didn’t tell the truth.

  He was near fainting, but the threat on his wife was too much. He admitted that they had hid the Resistance members for two nights. You would have thought the militia men would have been satisfied. But they weren’t. Instead of just leaving, they grabbed the wife’s left wrist again, slammed it down on the wooden plank table, took the carving knife and hacked off her left pinky and ring finger. Then they took the ring finger, still bearing her wedding ring, and walked across the kitchen to where the husband was tied to a chair. He was barely conscious, but he was still horrified as they held up the bloody ring finger, and the wedding ring, right in front of his face.

  And then, as his wife watched and shrieked, they shot the husband in the head. And only then did they leave the farm. That was the Free Guard, in one story. The source was obviously the wife, and even if she embellished, I mean, how much better could it have been? It wasn’t as if she could invent the stump of flesh on her left hand.

  The militia had local knowledge. They spoke the language. And their reputation was even worse than the Gestapo’s when it came to ruthlessness, which seemed impossible. But it was the truth — and now they had Maurice.

  The lorry was stopped about a block ahead of me, and I stopped too, getting off the bicycle and pretending to fiddle with the front tire. I could see that Maurice was sitting up in the back, staring in my direction, but there was no way he could have spotted me. I’m not even sure his eyes were open. The driver had gotten out of the lorry and gone into a building — I couldn’t see what it was. A minute later, he returned with two bottles. He kept one for himself and tossed one to the men in the back. They immediately opened it — it was just past 9 a.m. but, then again, who was I to talk? — and passed it back and forth. They even poured a little down Maurice’s throat. They held the bottle for him, either because they didn’t trust him not to use it as a weapon, or didn’t trust him not to drink the whole thing down. Or maybe he was too hurt to hold the bottle himself. That was probably it.

  In a minute or so, they were moving again. The more I thought about it, the easier it was for me to rule out coincidence. It just didn’t make any sense. Maurice had to have been betrayed. The question was, who? As I pedaled along, I kept thinking about that circle of assholes in the porcelain factory, particularly the one whose heroic men had been ducking under the rifle shots Leon and I were lobbing into the canopy of trees. Maybe he knew that Maurice had stolen the canisters intended for his group and was getting even. Maybe they were all getting even. I mean, it wasn’t as if Maurice didn’t treat them like the crud between his toes — and right to their faces besides.

  So maybe it was them, in some combination. Maybe it was the unnamed redhead — but, then again, if it was her, why didn’t they grab him when his pants were around his ankles? Why let him leave and be loose in the city? Or maybe she didn’t tell the Free Guard until after Maurice left her place.

  Questions. Maybe it was one of the above, or maybe it was the carelessness of always having Place Jourdan at 9 a.m. as the meeting place. I had done it twice, and thinking back on it, Richard had said they had done it at least one other time before that. It seemed innocuous enough, but who knew? Who really knows what gives you away in the end?

  After a couple of minutes, the lorry stopped again — this time, for good. They manhandled Maurice out of the back and he was able to walk inside the building, a militia goon holding each arm.

  39

  The alley next to the building was six feet wide, give or take. Once the Free Guard had gotten Maurice inside, I cruised into the alley and propped the bicycle up against the building. I was just hiding in the shadows, trying to figure out what to do next.

  I walked deeper into the alley and saw, at the end, the four-story stone wall of the building had been replaced by a six-foot wooden picket fence. On my toes, I was able to peek over the top and look between the points of two pickets. It was an open dirt area that would have made for a nice little garden — if even an ounce of sunlight ever reached the space. My guess was that the sun was high enough in the sky for a shaft of warming rays to hit the space between about noon and 2 p.m. in July and August. Other than that, the shade was either cool or cold, and persistent most of all. There was no grass growing in the dirt. Three or four tired ferns grew along the base of the wooden fence on the opposite side, and that was it.

  I went back to the bicycle, sat on the ground, and tried to think. The only thing I could think to do was try to contact the de Gaulle group for help. The problem was, I had no idea where they had moved. There also was the small chance that they were the ones who had betrayed Maurice — a small chance but not infinitesimal.

  My only other two options — seeing as how they were really the only other two people I knew in Limoges — were Louis at the bar where Leon and I had taken those rooms, and Clarisse. The odds that Louis would be able to round up an armed posse for me were zero, I realized. And as for Clarisse, no. Even if she could help — and she might know someone who knew someone else — there was no way. I just couldn’t do it.

  As I sat there in the alley, someone opened up a window that was about 10 feet off of the ground. If the someone had leaned out and looked down, I was going to be the next one inside. But he didn’t.

  With the window open, I could hear at least some of what was going on inside. It was mostly chairs or tables scraping along the floor, and the grunting and mild swearing of the people moving the furniture. When it was done, there was a small silence and then a door opening, and some heavy-footed walking, and then a thud. And then someone with a deep and important-sounding voice announced, “Tribunal starts in three minutes. Three minutes.”

  Tribunal? This was a new one to me. The Gestapo didn’t do tribunals — they just fucking shot you. What were the legal niceties all about here? I assumed that the thud was Maurice being dropped into a chair, and that the tribunal was called in his honor. But I really had no idea.

  Across the alley — again, it was only six feet — an ancient woman sat in a chair directly opposite the open window. Her window was open, too. She had a front-row seat for whatever was about to happen. Dressed in black, as if in mourning — and who the hell wasn’t in mourning, in one way or another? — she had some knitting in her lap, or maybe needlepoint. I couldn’t tell — it was all below the sill — but you could sense from the rest of her body movements that her hands were working on something, and that she was paying attention to it. Except she wasn’t, not completely.

  Because as I looked up at her, she scrunched a little closer to the window and looked down at me. And when our eyes met, she offered me a bit of sign language — her index and middle fingers pointed at her own eyes, and then just her index finger pointed at me. Did I want to watch? I nodded yes. She pointed down and to her right, to a door farther down the alley that provided entrance to her building.

  I scuttled along, staying low, and prayed that the door would open quietly. When it did, without even the hint of a squeak of the hinges, I said a silent thank you to the diligence of the concierge. I was up the stairs, two at a time, and to the old lady’s door in seconds. She had already unlocked it and left it open. She also had pulled another chair into place, hiding me nicely in the shadows.

  The room in the building across the alley was as I had expected. Maurice was seated at a small table, alone. He was barely vertical. Both of his elbows were on the table, and his two hands were holding up his head. Facing him was a longer dining table with three chairs set up on the opposite side. There also was a chair at one end with a tablet of paper and a pencil in front of it. Scattered behind were the rest of the stiff wooden chairs from the dining set, four in all.


  Suddenly, the door opened and a half-dozen men in Free Guard uniforms walked into the room — three taking the chairs facing Maurice, the scrivener at the end of the table, and two others who must have been there for the entertainment. The guy at the end of the table stood up and started talking, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. The old lady’s perch was great for watching but not so much for hearing, and I needed to hear. With my own sign language — basically just pointing to my ear — I mouthed a silent thank-you and got up to leave. She stopped me for a second and showed me her needlepoint. It was the Cross of Lorraine. I kissed her on both cheeks and sprinted back to the alley.

  I had missed the beginning, when they likely read whatever charges they had. That was a big miss for me, because the charges would have given me a hint about how compromised the rest of the group was and how much danger they, and I, were in. I was kicking myself, but there wasn’t time for second-guessing. As I got back into place beneath the window, someone was already testifying. My guess was that it was one of the men from the lorry.

  “… from one of our intelligence sources that the defendant would be in Limoges for approximately 24 hours, and that he would be in Place Jourdan at 9 a.m. today. That was where my men and I apprehended him. We brought him directly here.”

  “Thank you. That is all. The prisoner will stand.”

  There was the scraping sound of more than one chair on the wooden floor. In all likelihood, Maurice was again being supported by a goon on either side.

  “Do you deny the charges?”

  There was no specific enumeration of what they were. Maurice’s response was silence.

  “The murders?”

  That didn’t exactly narrow it down. Maurice’s response was still silence.

  “The theft?”

  Silence.

  “The sabotage?”

  Silence.

  “The treason?”

  This was especially rich, a Frenchman accusing a Frenchman of treason because he fought against German occupiers. Again, Maurice said nothing.

  “The treason?” This time, the question was shouted. The accusation boomed and then hung in the air. I would have been able to hear that one from the old lady’s flat across the alley. And this time, Maurice did say something in reply. But it was weak, muffled. It sounded like “fuck you,” but I wasn’t sure. I could only imagine how swollen his face was.

  “The prisoner will repeat his statement.”

  There was another short silence, and then Maurice must have mustered every ounce of energy when he said, “May your god do justice to your evil souls. Vive la France.”

  Then there was another thud and the sound of a chair skittering along the floor. It was as if Maurice had collapsed backward and missed the chair. I couldn’t see him, but I just knew he was laying in a heap on the floor. I couldn’t see the rest of them, but I knew the three men were looking down at him from behind the long table, the fourth man had his head down and was busily scribbling what Maurice had just said on his tablet, and the rest of them were sitting there, arms folded, enjoying the entertainment.

  40

  Into the dramatic silence, a bored-sounding voice intoned, “The tribunal will announce its verdict in five minutes.” With that, there was the simultaneous scraping of several chairs on the floor, and a quick thunder of bootsteps, and the gentle slamming of a door. I was surprised they were even going to bother deliberating. Then again, maybe they were just thirsty. In all likelihood, that’s what the second bottle was for when the lorry made its stop.

  As I sat in the dirt in the alley, I looked down and saw that my hand was shaking. The truth was that if Maurice was known to them, how could the rest of us not be next? I really should be getting on the bicycle and getting out of town. There was nothing I could do here, not realistically. I was scared, and maybe I could alert the rest. How that might help wasn’t clear, mostly because I didn’t know what the Free Guard knew. But it would be doing something, and it would be creating some distance.

  I was just about convinced to leave when I heard some noise from the window above me. The judges, if that’s what you called them, were back. It hadn’t been five minutes after all. It had been two quick snorts apiece, give or take.

  “After deliberating on the matter, the tribunal rules that the prisoner is guilty as charged and will be put to death for his crimes against France.”

  More chairs scraping. Another thunder of bootsteps. This time, adding to the sounds, was the grunting of the men who undoubtedly were hoisting Maurice off the floor, and the moaning of Maurice.

  How much time did I have? Where were they going to kill him? The unalterable truth was that I could not save him — certainly not as long as he was in that building. I was without a weapon and without a clue. I couldn’t bluff my way in there and take Maurice out, even if I had a decent bluff — and without a gun, or some assistance, it was folly. It would have been suicide to try.

  But if they took him to a prison and held him for a while, there were possibilities — provided that Frenchmen were still running the prison, locals, not the Gestapo or the militia. And if they transported him someplace else to kill him, there were possibilities, too — there was always a chance amid the uncertainty of the streets. So that would have to be my play. I would have to get back on the bicycle and back on the street, a half-block away or so. I would have to wait and watch and hope that some possibility presented itself.

  That was what I had decided, until I heard the noise from my left, from deeper in the alley. It was coming from the back garden that never saw the sun. As I crept down closer, the boisterousness grew louder. It sounded like a half-dozen men — laughing, joking. I could smell cigarette smoke.

  Then a door opened, and the noise stopped, a bunch of schoolboys suddenly in the presence of the principal. I wanted to peer over the top of the fence but didn’t for obvious reasons. Then I looked around and saw it, a small knothole that was maybe waist high. From my knees, I was able to press my eye up to it and see the panorama before me.

  Five men were lined up with rifles. A sixth, the judge who had sat in the middle seat at the table, stood at attention beside them. The door opened again and the same two goons from the lorry dragged Maurice into the courtyard, one beneath each armpit. They propped him up against the wall, but he couldn’t stand for more than a second or two. He sank slowly, not falling but sliding down, his back scraping against the stone wall.

  He ended up in a kind of fetal position. This seemed to bother the man in charge, who directed the two goons to make another attempt. They grunted as they lifted Maurice, and Maurice moaned, but the same thing happened. The best they could manage was propping him into a seated position against the wall.

  “Enough,” the boss said. He pulled a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his blue jacket. It was neatly folded and ironed. He must have lived at home, not in a barracks. He held the handkerchief out in his hand, an offering.

  “A blindfold?”

  Maurice didn’t reply.

  “Any last words?”

  Nothing.

  The officer half-shrugged and stuffed the linen back into his pocket, but not before wiping his own mouth. Then he stiffened and gave the order. It was simple and trite and horrifying. It was three words: ready, aim, fire.

  Maurice’s body jerked against the wall and fell over. The blood was pooling quickly, creating its own terrible mud. Part of me was hoping that Maurice was already pretty much dead as he sat there against the wall, that he was passed out, that he did not hear the final words. But I was kidding myself, and I knew it. Because I could see, through the knothole, that with the command of “ready,” Maurice opened his eyes and stared straight back at the line of rifles that killed him.

  And then I ran. My ears were still ringing from the echo of the rifles in the alley. The smell of the gunfire was still in the air. But I was running, and then I was on the bicycle, and then I was pedaling as fast as I could, not thinking, not feeling. T
he time for mourning would have to be later. But I did stop a few blocks away, just for a quick second. I did it to orient myself, turning until I saw the clock tower of Benedictins station. Then I knew which way to go.

  41

  I got through the one checkpoint with just a wave, the German soldier unable to raise even an eyebrow at a tired, dirty, middle-aged man on a bicycle in the middle of nowhere. I likely looked too old to be much of a threat — the truth was, most of the Resistance were a bunch of kids. I was too old, too tired, barely making it up even modest hills. I told myself it was because of the piece of shit bicycle with the under-inflated front tire, but I knew. I was beat. I was aging before my time. This war was going to kill me, even if it didn’t kill me.

  It was somewhere after that when I began crying. It was likely for a bunch of reasons, for my premature aging, for Maurice, for how I had treated Clarisse, for my break with Leon, for Manon. There was a time in my adult life where I went whole decades without crying, but every emotion was just so raw now. There was so much loss, so much death, and there was no end in sight. Not only was there no end, but there was no map and no compass. Forget tomorrow — I didn’t know where I was going to be in five minutes. The truth was, I didn’t know where I was at that very moment. I was just pedaling in what I thought was the proper direction, hoping to run into something that looked familiar and then navigating from there. But it had been probably an hour since the German checkpoint, and the last hill had been particularly onerous, and I still had not recognized anything. The hopelessness of the whole thing just hit me.

  I probably cried for a half-mile, and then I remembered from a couple of months earlier in Lyon when I was in a jam and my mind was racing with recriminations and what-ifs, and I just kept yelling at myself, “Focus, goddammit.” It became my mantra, the only thing that got me through the seemingly endless recitation of personal fuck-ups that played in my head. “Focus, goddammit.” And here I was again.