Three Hours in Paris

by Cara Black

  “Stand by.” Gunter strode to the window. “Is she down there at the meeting, Gilberte?”

  Stricken, Gilberte looked up. Then at the postcard Gunter had set on the table.

  “You’ll leave my children alone?”

  “It will be left out of my report. Never mentioned. I want the woman.”

  A sigh escaped her. “No idea if she’s there. I sent her to Dédé’s.”

  Gunter took out his notebook. “The address?”

  Five minutes later Gilberte had revealed it was Dédé’s group who met downstairs. He’d be there.

  And Gilberte was the front. Her clientele’s comings and goings were a perfect screen for the underground’s meeting downstairs.

  Gunter sensed the assassin was close—so close he could feel it. She’d been here, she’d return. Verdou’s info had led him to this apartment; now he needed the right outcome to wind up this operation

  Gunter noticed Niels’s still-crisp uniform. He took off his jacket. “Put this on like you’re a civilian and go meet our friend outside.”

  “Friend, sir?”

  “Strongly remind our Monsieur Verdou that we expect her,” he said under his breath. “He needs to deliver.”

  Gunter motioned for the shaking Gilberte to sit back down.

  “Now tell me about her.”

  Sunday, June 23, 1940

  Grand Palais Garden, Paris | 8:45 p.m.

  Kate crept away from her bike. She searched behind the hedge for cover. The Grand Palais garden was a maze of shrubbery, trees, the odd statue, and she could hardly see in the growing shadows. The damn blackout didn’t help.

  A guard lugged a pedestrian barrier between her and the bike. She needed a place to hide, quick. She tucked herself up into a wall niche and tried hiding behind a winged statue of a nymph. If she could just blend into the shadows for now and figure out her next move . . . She pulled herself around the nymph using the handy wing, squeezed her chest against the marble and—

  “You again?”

  Fear shafted through her.

  “You’ll never fit in there.” Speaking English, too.

  She turned to see the guard wagging his finger at her. Not the guard she’d queried for the conference location—Philippe, the man she’d met in Gilberte’s apartment, in a guard’s uniform and a cap. At first she hadn’t recognize him because of the uniform; after all, she’d only seen him naked.

  “Such a genius for finding a tight spot,” he said.

  “You were the one following me?” she snapped. Wary, she looked around. Only the canopy of dark branches.

  “You should be so lucky.”

  Nice. “I wouldn’t call that luck. What are you doing here?”

  Under his cap, she saw he wasn’t smiling. Gilberte’s sweat-soaked dress weighed heavy under the apron.

  “I’m here to meet someone—someone who was meeting someone,” he said. “A man. Not you.”

  “Who sent you?”

  Philippe shook his head at her ruefully. Of course he wouldn’t say.

  “Was it Ramou?” she blurted out before she could think it through.

  He narrowed his eyes at her and nodded once.

  Philippe was here to meet up with the engineer who was supposed to meet Antoine. He must be part of the same network; he might have access to an escape channel. Sly Ramou had kept it all from her—all he’d done was give her a crummy bike and itchy clothing. It made sense now—Dédé, Ramou, Philippe and Antoine were in the same underground group. But how was Philippe involved in the rendezvous with Antoine? Something wasn’t adding up.

  And wait—it didn’t make sense. Ramou knew the engineer was dead.

  She couldn’t trust Philippe.

  Controlling her fear, she said, “How long ago did Ramou set this up?”

  “Got word this afternoon. Why?” said Philippe, irritation in his voice.

  Swan had been alive then.

  “Why are you involved, Philippe?”

  Her toehold in the niche was slipping. She grabbed the broken wing.

  He studied her, then decided to answer her question. “Not that it’s your business, but the man needs a bolt-hole. My job’s to provide it. That’s all you need to know.”

  “The engineer’s dead. I’ve taken his place.”

  A snort. “Impossible.”

  “Get it though your head, I’m his replacement, understand?”

  “No replacements,” he said, more stern than irritated.

  Such gall, arguing with her.

  Infuriated, she said, “Why not? I’m taking the information and leaving on the barge.”

  “Didn’t you hear me?” Anger vibrated in his low voice. “The barge escape’s only for the engineer; the plans were organized this way. You think it was easy to arrange false papers? That’s not how it works.”

  Her hand slipped from the wing and she fell to the gravel with a loud thump. Like an idiot she’d landed flat on her belly, arms sprawled.

  The bright beam of a flashlight shone through the bushes.

  “What’s going on here?” said a loud German voice. “Papers.”

  Philippe had stepped in front of Kate shield-like. He quickly kicked her with his heel, then again, so hard she twitched in pain.

  “Mon Dieu, I could use some help, please,” said Philippe. “This old woman’s suffering some kind of seizure. I just found her.”

  Kate moaned. Not hard to do—it hurt.

  “Quoi?”

  The flashlight beam played over the bushes and blinded her. Trembling, she knew she was caught. Next stop a German prison.

  “Can’t you see, she needs a doctor.” Philippe raised his voice. “We must get her to a clinique.”

  Terrified, she played along, jerking her body, rolling her head back and forth. Spitting and drooling. The actor’s instruction played in her mind: Believe.

  “It’s close to curfew,” said Philippe. “Please, Officers, I need your assistance. It’s not far.”

  “Is she contagious?” one of the Germans asked, taking a step back. They didn’t want to get involved.

  “Mais non, she’s épileptique. My boss, the director, has told us we can count on the German soldiers.” His voice was commanding. “That as French people we can trust you. Please, it’s an emergency.”

  Some murmurings in German.

  “Jawohl.”

  Suddenly the two men in black uniforms were in her face, the flashlight’s beam blinding her. She yelled, writhing on the gravel, until Philippe and one of the soldiers, grunting, lifted her up by their strong arms. The other German was ushering them through the bushes toward the street, into the back seat of a Mercedes.

  One took the wheel; the other, his superior by the look of his medals, handed him the keys. “Schnell.”

  The car lurched ahead.

  In the seat next to her, Philippe leaned forward, directing the nervous driver, who ground the clutch, past the Pont Alexandre III, the dark Seine rippling below, then along narrow dark streets. Meanwhile, Kate writhed and moaned in the back seat. Desperate and terrified, she was pretty sure she would have been able to play-act just as well without Philippe’s incessant pinching. If she survived this car ride, she would be completely black-and-blue.

  Will this work?

  It felt like an hour before the car stopped but couldn’t have been more than ten minutes. Above them a darkened sign read clinique nicot. Philippe pounded on the massive wood door until a light went on above. Shutters banged open revealing an open window on the upper floor.

  “An emergency, please open up, Doctor.”

  A yawn. “J’arrive.”

  Five minutes later, Kate rubbed her bruised arm on an examining table. She sat alone in the sheeted cubicle while Philippe and the doctor spoke in the front office with the black-uniformed Ge
rman soldier, who insisted on writing up a report.

  Tense, she looked around her for an exit. Only the curtains divided the cubicle from the front office. What would happen if the German demanded to observe the examination?

  As she gripped the thick skirt to stop her hands from shaking, something crinkled in her pocket. She pulled out a cigarette pack containing only a single cigarette paper. She unrolled it, revealing a message. Idiot. Ramou had slipped this in her pocket on the quai, told her to read it later, and she’d forgotten with everything that happened.

  The message said:

  Meet before curfew

  224 rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin

  That was Gilberte’s address. And curfew was at 10 p.m.

  If she’d managed to leave directly after meeting Antoine, she’d have made it there by now. Not possibly dug her own grave.

  She tore the cigarette paper into tiny pieces, dropped it in the bin and hopped back on the examining table. She needed to hurry.

  In the office, she heard the German asking for her papers. If he examined her carte d’identité, he’d find the photo was that of a young woman without a scar.

  Prickles ran up her scalp. The conversation in the doctor’s office receded as she descended into panic. She was dead. This was the end of her line. She fought to make herself breathe.

  She heard the clicking of heels departing from the front office and the closing of the door. Outside in the street the car’s engine started up. There was a grinding of gears that faded in the night.

  Could it be? She had escaped again?

  Kate pulled off the apron, blouse and skirt, careful to transfer the contents to the pocket in Gilberte’s dress, which she was still wearing underneath. The cubicle curtains slid open to reveal Philippe and the puffy-eyed middle-aged doctor, glasses perched on his nose. The doctor lit a cigarette.

  “Need a doctor’s note to get out of class?”

  Just what she didn’t need—a joker.

  “I’m fine,” she said, throwing a dirty look at Philippe, “apart from the bruising.”

  The doctor shrugged and took a small brown bottle from the shelf. “Arnica. Apply several times in the next twenty-four hours.”

  If she lived that long.

  “Merci, docteur,” said Philippe, “didn’t mean to drop you in the merde.”

  “He asked for your papers,” said the doctor. “I told him I wouldn’t know anything until after I examined you, but who can say if he bought my excuses. If the Boche check back, they’ll hear I referred you to a hospital in the suburbs.”

  Philippe whispered in his ear.

  “Impossible,” the doctor said. “You can’t stay here. A German commandant requisitioned the top floor apartment.” From his pocket the doctor withdrew a key and handed it to Philippe. “But you can stay at 124 rue de Provence. Second floor, the name’s Chaumiere. Tonight only. Leave this under the mat in the morning.”

  The doctor showed them out the clinic’s rear door without even a goodbye.

  They kept to the shadows in case the German had circled back, but the narrow street lay deserted. Tomblike. “Fill me in on the man you were talking to,” said Philippe.

  Philippe had saved her. He had ties in London, as well as with Gilberte and Ramou, who had each helped Kate stay alive. Still she held back. What did she really know about him? She couldn’t discount the fact that he might have ulterior motives.

  Stepney said trust no one.

  Did she even trust Stepney, the man who’d sent her here?

  “Why should I?”

  “Stubborn, eh?” he said. “You’re thinking of your own skin.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “Tant pis, you’re upset that the barge won’t work out . . .”

  Upset?

  “Thank you for saving me, Philippe,” she said instead with unconcealed sarcasm, “or whatever your name is.”

  She still didn’t trust him. Without the barge she was on her own. Her best bet was to learn something at the meeting and find somewhere to hide. Beg Gilberte, if she had to, for help until she figured out what to do. Ahead of them, a red and white Métro sign shone at Solférino, but, following her gut instinct, she took off in the opposite direction toward the bus that was pulling up at the stop on the corner.

  Threw back over her shoulder, “Adieu, Philippe.”

  Sunday, June 23, 1940

  Near Canal Saint-Martin, Paris | 9:15 p.m.

  Kate used the bus ticket she had ready and changed twice to get to Gilberte’s apartment near the canal on the Right Bank. From the mountain of material Stepney had given her to read, she knew the occupation meant no gasoline rations except for those in reserved professions like doctors. With traffic limited to vélo-taxis, buses, an infrequent horse cart and the occasional Mercedes, the bus made good time.

  She could see bands of color layering the sky; dark blue, light azure melting to burnt orange.

  Concentrate.

  She hurried off the bus and reached Gilberte’s street a half hour before curfew and just in time for the meeting in Ramou’s note. Catching her breath by the art nouveau Métro sign across the street from the corset shop, Kate spied a familiar loping walk. She recognized the man wearing the corduroy jacket with elbow patches passing the shuttered music store. Could it be? Her heart thumped in her chest.

  Max, her tutor.

  She’d caught sight of Max this afternoon going into the Latin bookstore. Like he’d always done at lunchtime.

  But here, now, on the Right Bank?

  She remembered he’d had a room near the Sorbonne. His stomping grounds were the Latin Quarter. Coming here so close to curfew?

  There was no reason, unless Max was headed to Ramou’s underground meeting.

  And despite Stepney’s advice to never return to the same place, here she was returning to Gilberte’s building, where she’d been sent by the sewer worker she didn’t know if she could trust in the first place. She wondered how safe any of these connections were—as Stepney had said, it only took one person to talk. And they all seemed connected. Hadn’t the sewer worker said there was a traitor? She wondered if this had been a good idea.

  She stepped behind the thick trunk of a leafy linden tree, watching.

  Max had paused at the faded aqua double doors at the side of Gilberte’s corset shop. He pulled out a blue pack of cigarettes—Gitanes, if she remembered right. She had once taken a sharp, woody drag off of one of his. Never again.

  She watched Max light up. Her thoughts raced. The quarter pill had made her jumpy. There was a traitor, she knew. But Max? Would their old friendship at the Sorbonne mean anything now?

  She remembered Stepney’s warning against contacting anyone from the past: “Don’t trust anyone. I can’t stress this enough. It’s lonely, I know, I’ve done this myself. One friendly face from the past and the mission is ruined. Speak to no one. It’s safer for you and for them.”

  If Max belonged to the cell, he’d help her. Wouldn’t he? Or was she a fool not to believe he was the one who had set her up at the café?

  Before she could decide which risk to take, a figure appeared out of the shadows. It was difficult to make out much in the low light from where she stood behind the linden tree. She could see the flame of a match, the brief illumination of the young man’s face and dark hair as he bent toward Max to light a cigarette, pausing to exchange some conversation.

  Her mind flickered to that summer of ’37, the hot and stifling nights like this. Max sitting across from Kate after the Sorbonne class, in the café with that ragtag cast of international misfits: Jews, Poles, the radical Spaniard who’d gone to fight Franco. Max was always witty, patient with her slaughter of the French language. Before her coup de foudre, when she fell so hard for Dafydd, Max had been her best friend in Paris.

  A radio blared jazz from an open w
indow. Then the window slammed shut, slamming her back into the here and now, with Max sharing a cigarette with a man outside a building where an underground meeting was being held. Was Max a lookout? Or the traitor?

  She tried to put together everything she knew. From the café terasse she’d seen Max enter the Latin bookstore like usual during his lunch. And not ten minutes later she’d been running away desperate to avoid capture. Yet how could Max have even known she’d be at the café?

  Then again, if he hadn’t known she’d be there, if he hadn’t been the one to set her up, why hadn’t he come over to say hello? Could she believe he hadn’t noticed her? Or that he’d guessed the danger she was in?

  The back of her throat was dry with fear.

  Think.

  Hadn’t Dédé intimated he’d get her a message when contact with London was made? After helping the engineer she hoped he’d make good on that and somehow let Stepney know. She might find out here.

  Or not.

  She was frozen with doubt. She needed to make a choice.

  Maybe she didn’t want to believe Max could have betrayed her.

  She thought of the engineer—ambushed, probably betrayed and shot. How the whole cell stood at risk. What were the odds she’d make it out of France even if Antoine came through? Tired and frustrated, she was invaded by a sense of hopelessness. Face it, this whole thing was suicide.

  But her father’s words echoed in her mind: Katie, if you hit the ground, get up. And get even.

  She felt the pistol in her pocket. Traitors deserved to die.

  She hardened her resolve. She’d go to the meeting.

  She had to know.

  The man he’d smoked with had gone back inside the blue double doors.

  All her senses went to high alert as she watched Max stub out the cigarette with his toe. Then he was pushing one of the blue double doors open.

  Her nerves jangled. As calmly as she could, trying to look like she belonged, she walked the fifty feet to the door. The street lay deserted.