by Kit Sergeant
Chapter 22
Odette
Odette was able to board a troopship, which brought her as far as the British colony of Gibraltar, on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula. After she was escorted to the safe house, she found a young man in a naval uniform waiting for her. With his lithe body and blonde hair, he could have been a poster boy for Hitler’s Aryan race.
He introduced himself as Jan Buchowski before offering her a cup of tea.
“Do you have anything stronger?” Odette asked. “I’ve been tossed about on rough seas for nearly a week.”
He gave her a wry smile before pulling a flask from his pocket. “Whiskey?”
Odette nodded.
After opening several cabinets, Jan finally produced two glasses. He poured a healthy amount of the amber liquid in each before handing Odette one.
“You are Polish?” she asked before taking a drink. It was somewhat watered down but still potent. She took another sip.
“Yes. I am commander of the boat Dewucca and I’m in charge of the Gibraltar-to-French Riviera run, which is a difficult route for even the most experienced of soldiers. I’m not sure how they expect a woman to manage it.”
“If you are Polish, I don’t suppose you’ve heard of the women of the SOE’s F Section, then?”
“No,” his gaze was still haughty, though now it had developed the tiniest hint of curiosity.
“We’ve been thoroughly trained in all matters of warfare. You needn’t worry about me.”
“Trained?” he laughed. “Trained in what? How to fight the Nazis? How to avoid being taken as a prisoner of war and how to die like a man?”
Odette found a bottle in one of the cabinets and poured him more whiskey. “All of the above.”
“Ah.” He finished his drink in one gulp. “If you don’t mind me being so bold, I don’t suppose you would dance with me when I return to Gibraltar on my next run?”
“But I won’t be here when you return. Your job is to conduct me to France, remember? By orders of the War Office.”
He waved his hand drunkenly. “The English War Office is nearly a continent away.”
She suppressed the urge to throw her glass at him, remembering something her grandmère used to say: you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Odette stuck out her lower lip. “But I’ve had so many setbacks in getting to France. At this point I’d almost swim.”
“You would look quite fetching in a bathing costume,” Jan agreed.
She set her glass down with a clunk. “We will depart for France. Tomorrow.”
“No,” Jan returned. “I refuse to escort a woman such as you in my meager, unkempt boat across, as you called them, rough seas. You should stay here, in Gibraltar, enjoying a life away from the front. I will take you dancing when I come back.”
“No.” Odette’s voice was equally adamant. “I have my orders.” She reached for Jan’s glass to refill it. “Someday you young men will realize that women have just as much to gain in this infernal war.” She poured up to the rim. “Not to mention lose.”
After he’d finished nearly the entire bottle of whiskey, Jan turned his glassy eyes on Odette to ask, “I suppose they gave you a gun, this F Section.”
“No, they did not.” An idea suddenly occurred to Odette. “Do you have one?”
Jan reached into the pocket of his trousers and displayed a pistol. “If I ever meet a German battleship, I plan to sink it with my Vis 35.”
Odette didn’t bother with the logistics of that statement. “If I hit a target of your choice, you have to take me to France.”
He frowned but handed her the pistol anyway. “Be careful of the recoil—this gun makes a very big bang. Maybe too big a bang for a small girl like you.” They walked outside together, Jan holding the empty whiskey bottle. “I’m going to throw this off the cliff over there. If you shoot it before it hits the waves, I will guarantee you a dance.”
“Not in Gibraltar. In France,” Odette clarified. “But first you will bring me to the coast in your boat.”
“Sure. If you can hit the whiskey bottle, I will abide by whatever you say.”
She could tell by his wry smile that he didn’t believe she’d be able to accomplish the feat. She cocked the gun and nodded at him. He flung the bottle, which soon exploded with the gratifying sight of breaking glass. Odette turned to him expectantly.
“We will leave for France tomorrow,” he said, his voice resigned.
Chapter 23
Mathilde
Bleicher set out to destroy the Interallié network agent by agent, and Mathilde was his unwilling accomplice. She saw herself as helpless to intercede—since Bleicher had all the documents from Armand’s apartment, the arrests would have taken place no matter what.
After René Aubertin and the Lejeunes, it was time for Armand’s Polish friends from that fateful dinner party: Bernard Krutki and Lucien de Roquigny. Krutki put up a fight, of course, stating that he had nothing to do with Interallié, but, after a few prying questions from Bleicher, he finally gave in.
The arrest of Lucien was harder for Mathilde: she’d always liked the diminutive Pole and suspected he had amorous feelings for her. Indeed he seemed pleased to see her when he’d answered the door to his flat. “Ma chère Chatte, it is good to see you. Come in, come in.”
She had just entered his lavishly furnished living room when Bleicher and his men rushed in, shouting their usual line, the one that Mathilde heard in her sleep. “German police!” The immense Teutons towered over the terrified Lucien. Mathilde decided to wait in the courtyard rather than listen to them grill yet another of Armand’s closest friends.
They must have gotten what they needed as, after a few minutes, Bleicher led a handcuffed Lucien to the van. As they passed Mathilde, Lucien shot her a faint smile and asked, “The weather is quite lovely today, don’t you think?”
She nodded, wondering if she should apologize to him for what had just happened. As she wrestled with her thoughts, the oblivious Germans loaded Lucien into the van. She took a forlorn drag on her cigarette as she watched it drive away.
Bleicher had also managed to penetrate the letterbox drop at Café La Palette, which meant that he would soon know about the rest of Interallié’s couriers. Mathilde was only too pleased to lead Bleicher to her old enemy Marcel, and though he refused to give the Abwehr any information about his new network, they learned the identity of Kent, Armand’s radio technician, through papers they’d confiscated.
“And now for Rapidé,” Bleicher said, watching Kent being taken away in one of the ubiquitous white vans.
Rapidé was the dispatcher who moved between Occupied and Unoccupied France. Mathilde thought carefully before replying, “I don’t think Rapidé will give anyone else up. He’s not worth our time.”
“Rapidé or La Santé,” Bleicher snarled. “Besides, Viola already told us everything we needed to know, except his address.”
Mathilde had just made up her mind to have them return her to prison, but the mention of Viola hit its mark. Her heart felt as freshly broken as when she first found the woman in the house she’d shared with Armand.
Mathilde relented, as she so often had to these last few days, and sputtered Rapidé’s address, secretly convincing herself that she was biding her time in order to win Bleicher’s confidence and ensure her ability to escape someday.
“Good,” Bleicher declared. “Viola said Rapidé was one of the founders of Interallié. He’ll be able to give us more information about Tudor, the Polish network in Marseille.”
“I’ve only met Rapidé a few times, but I can tell you Viola is wrong—he will say nothing of the sort.”
“We’ll see,” Bleicher replied as the car came to a stop.
Rapidé lived in a small apartment off the Rue des Deux Ponts. As had become the pattern, Bleicher decided to use Mathilde as the bait and she walked up the crumbling, narrow staircase to his third-floor dwelling alone. “It’s Madame la Chatte,” she called through the door.
A plump, sweaty woman holding a baby greeted her with a smile.
“Is Stanislas here?” Mathilde asked, using Rapidé’s real name.
“I’m here,” he said, coming over to the doorframe.
Rapidé’s wife invited her in, but Mathilde waved her off. “Listen, Rapidé,” she said. “Things are not going well with Armand.”
“Yes, I heard he was arrested.”
Mathilde cast her eyes to the wife, who was playing with the baby, pretending not to hear them, though she flinched at the word, ‘arrested.’
“I need the address of Tudor’s headquarters,” Mathilde stated.
“But I thought you’d been there yourself,” Rapidé’s reply was casual. “Surely you know where to find it.”
“No. Give it to me quickly.”
Rapidé, detecting the urgency in her voice, frowned. “I would think that someone so high up in Interallié as you are would know how to locate the Tudor operatives.”
“Well I don’t.” Mathilde could hardly hide her agitation. She hoped that, if Rapidé would just give her the address, she could save him and his family.
But to no avail. She could hear heavy boots pounding up the stairs behind her and moved aside. She took a shallow breath as she felt a gun press into the small of her back.
“German Police!” Bleicher shouted. “Get inside and put your hands up.”
A shocked Mathilde did as commanded. Rapidé and his wife followed her to the center of the living room as several Germans filed in and started tearing the apartment apart.
Mathilde felt Bleicher withdraw the gun from her back. She refrained from bawling him out, knowing he was trying to protect her from Rapidé’s suspicion.
One of the Germans returned with a bottle he’d found in the bathroom. “Strychnine.” Another man pulled a revolver from a pile of couch pillows.
“Okay, that’s enough.” Bleicher nodded at his captives. “You’ll be coming with us now. But don’t fret, it’s just an inquiry into the possession of black-market goods.”
Rapidé’s wife began to wail as she set her baby down in a crib. A girl in her early teens appeared from the back bedroom. “Don’t worry, Maman. I’ll take care of Louise until you get back.” The girl patted her mother’s back, but it only made the woman cry harder.
“It will be less than twenty-four hours,” Bleicher spoke with an unexpected show of empathy.
The heartbroken mother continued to sob as she and her husband were pushed into a car. Mathilde sat frozen in the middle.
Rapidé was not fooled. “This is fine work you’ve done, Madame la Chatte,” he said as the car started.
His wife stopped crying and glanced at Mathilde. Her nose was red and her eyes, though still wet, filled with an unequivocal hatred. “You did this? Why?”
Mathilde had no answer, though her already evident betrayal became unmistakable the moment they arrived at the Édouard VII, when the couple were shoved inside and Mathilde was allowed to stay on the sidewalk to smoke a cigarette.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she told Bleicher when he came back out.
“They’ll be fine,” he told her, the sympathetic timbre back in his voice. “Especially his wife, as she clearly knew nothing of her husband’s betrayal.”
“I just…” Mathilde felt faint all of a sudden and placed her hand against the brick wall to steady herself.
Bleicher put his arm around her other shoulder. “Come on. It’s been a long day of manhunting. Let’s get you something to eat.”
Bleicher took her out to another catégorie exceptionnelle restaurant to fill up on black market food and wine before they returned to the Abwehr headquarters at the Maisons-Laffitte villa. Bleicher then went off to drink brandy with his colleagues while Mathilde went to bed. Later, he stumbled into Mathilde’s bedroom, where he again pulled down the pants of her pajamas and had his way.
Afterwards, Bleicher threw some clothes on and then stood in front of the bed. “Get dressed and come downstairs,” he commanded before leaving.
Mathilde took stock of her image in the mirror. She smoothed down her hair, but kept her black silk pajamas on, figuring they were more than presentable for a bunch of tipsy Germans.
Bleicher had been tinkering on the piano but stood when Mathilde entered the parlor. He poured her some champagne before introducing her to Captain Erich Borchers, an exceedingly fat, balding man and Lieutenant Kayser, a short man with dark eyebrows and a thick mustache.
“What are we celebrating?” Mathilde asked.
Bleicher lifted his glass. “To the success we’ve had this past week, thanks in part to you. The prisons are filling with your colleagues. Your friend Lucien de Roquigny had papers in his château that gave away another member, alias Observer, who then led us to another agent called Coco.”
“Now we need to find the Russian Communist Jew known as Uncle Marco,” Borchers remarked.
Mathilde felt her stomach drop. Uncle Marco might have had some Russian and Jewish blood, but she also knew that he had been a Frenchman in heart and spirit even before the Great War. She took a hesitant sip of champagne as Bleicher sat on the couch across from Kayser and Borchers. He patted the seat beside him.
Mathilde forced a casual tone to her voice as she sat down. “So tell me, how did you find out about Interallié?”
Kayser laughed, causing some of his drink to form droplets on his mustache. “We were informed by a Mademoiselle Boufet that we’d be able to round up an entire network of agents if we arrested a man named Kiki on his arrival at Cherbourg.”
“I am not familiar with Mademoiselle Boufet,” Mathilde commented.
“Ah,” Borchers folded his hands over his protruding stomach. “She was just a lover whom your man Kiki scorned. The vengeance of women!”
All three men laughed this time as Mathilde took another drink.
“Some vengeance,” Bleicher added. “Kiki gave us all the names of your Cherbourg circuit, and we arrested Mademoiselle Boufet as well. She’s in La Santé now, along with the rest of the women, including Viola.”
Kayser nodded. “Once we raided Armand’s apartment, we seized all the messages you had sent and received, and, thanks to Marcel, we also have the transmitting set from the house on Rue Villa Léandre and from the painter’s studio.” He sat forward. “But tell me, Fräulein, what happened to the third?”
Mathilde set her glass down. “I don’t know. I never had anything to do with the radio. I didn’t even know we had three wireless sets.”
“You’re lying.” Borchers’ voice was a growl. “We know that only you and Armand had the right to compose messages.”
“Yes, but I never handled the wireless and I knew nothing about the technical side. That was all Viola and Marcel,” Mathilde spat out.
The bitterness in her tone must have been obvious even to the drunk Bleicher, for he raised a knowing eyebrow. He was clearly an intelligent man and Mathilde couldn’t help comparing him to the invariably idealistic Armand, the complete opposite of Bleicher in almost every way. Armand—and even herself to some extent—had operated Interallié as though espionage were a sport. Compared to the methodical tactics of the Abwehr, Interallié’s procedures appeared haphazard and amateurish. Bleicher had proved that he was no rookie, and they had lost the game. No, Mathilde reminded herself. Armand and Viola have lost. I still have a chance.
Bleicher sat up as though an idea had suddenly occurred to him. “What if we continue the Interallié messages to Britain?”
“What do you mean?” Mathilde brought herself back to reality. “You just said all of our agents have been arrested. London must know of the collapse of the network.”
“No. We’ve covered our tracks well, and it hasn’t been that long since your last transmission,” Bleicher insisted.
“Marseille and Vichy know nothing of your plight, and no one still at large knows you are in our hands,” Borchers agreed.
“But,” Mathilde spluttered. “Why continue? You’ve thoro
ughly pulverized Interallié. The Resistance has been annihilated.”
“No.” Bleicher pointed his fat finger at her. “Interallié was only one piece of the Resistance, albeit a large one. Some of your satellite members will be left without an organization and will try to find another one. That is my ultimate motive—capturing spies.”
There is one thing Bleicher and Armand have in common, Mathilde thought. An appetite for complete domination.
Bleicher nodded to himself before catching Mathilde’s hands in his. “You are going to send messages to London, and sign them as The Cat. We will carry on a secret radio war, using your contacts to feed them false information.”
Mathilde dropped his hand and turned away, wondering how she could possibly justify collaborating with Bleicher’s newest scheme to herself, let alone playing an important part in it. Maybe now it was time to reconsider returning to La Santé.
As if reading her mind, Bleicher stated casually, “I’ve given permission for Viola and Armand to exchange messages with each other from their respective prison cells.”
“Aren’t you afraid they will discuss escape plans?” Kayser asked.
“No. We are inspecting them first and will censor them if necessary.” Bleicher chuckled to himself. “So far it’s been nothing but trite: ‘I miss you, I love you, the worst torture is not seeing you,’ etcetera.”
He glanced at Mathilde to gauge her reaction, but she kept her face blank as she held up her empty flute. “May I have some more champagne?”
Chapter 24
Odette
When Odette finally stepped ashore, she was greeted by the heady scent of palm trees, violets, and sea spray that was as unique to the French Riviera as the smell of Chanel No. 5 and warm croissants were to Paris. She felt so appreciative to be able to aid— in whatever small way—the country of her birth that she could feel tears spring to her eyes.
