Three Hours in Paris

by Cara Black

  “Gruppenführer Jäger’s in a meeting,” said Jäger’s secretary.

  Avoiding him.

  “Tell him it’s urgent.”

  “Under no circumstances can he be disturbed. He’ll return your call as soon as the meeting’s over.”

  Click.

  A mounting dread tingled his spine. Now he studied the report he’d taken from Kostoff’s aide last night, the one Roschmann had submitted without sending a copy to Gunter’s office. The rat hadn’t found the Englishwoman and had skewed the report to make it sound like the whole debacle was the result of Gunter’s incompetence. There was no mention of Gunter’s having been called away from the search.

  Fatigued to the bone, he’d fallen asleep reading it. He should have been on top this. Gottverdammt.

  A setup. Roschmann, always ambitious, had found a way to take over a high-profile case and to make Gunter the fall man all at once. He wanted the glory and a medal from the Führer. And Jäger, never one to stay on a sinking ship, had jumped. Leaving Gunter accountable.

  Gunter didn’t want to think what would happen to him and his family.

  Meanwhile Kostoff had bound him to his office to finish his report.

  But it was Gunter’s neck on the line, not Kostoff’s. Gunter’s neck and his family’s safety. The Führer never forgot. He had to find this woman.

  “Any word from Niels?” he asked the gray mouse in the outer office.

  “He called and left a message, sir.”

  “Why wasn’t I informed?”

  “I was ordered not to disturb you.”

  So she was under the SD’s thumb, too.

  He mustered a small smile. “A miscommunication. The message please.”

  A phone number. He’d instructed Niels not to trust anyone here with information.

  Downstairs, he found a driver. Had him stop at the first café he saw. Bought a phone token from the waiter and called the number.

  “Where’s Doisneau?”

  “I’m at l’École Polytechnique, sir,” said Niels. “He’s already gone.”

  “Where to?”

  “He left with a nurse.”

  So she’d given up cleaning and entered the medical field. Always one step ahead.

  “Tell me what you see, Niels.”

  “Roschmann’s just pulling up, sir, with a troop truck.”

  Gunter could just picture Roschmann trailed by his goons, officious and heavy handed. “Go talk to the concierge. Slip him that hundred francs I gave you. Find out where the scientist and the nurse might have gone. Then slip him the other bill to keep his mouth shut.”

  “Oh, he told me already, sir.”

  Gunter caught his breath.

  “Doisneau’s gone to the Kriegsmarine,” said Niels. “According to the concierge, he’s been taking documents there all week.”

  The Kriegsmarine was six blocks away. Gunter glanced at his watch.

  “Good job, Niels. Meet you there.”

  Monday, June 24, 1940

  The Kriegmarine, Place de la Concorde, Paris | 10:45 a.m.

  Kate stuffed the Minox in her waistband and pulled the nurse’s cape closer despite the heat. She passed the office where Antoine had returned the log book and heard a teletype clacking and conversation—Hinzer?

  A phone slammed and she heard a chair scrape back in the other room. Cigarette smoke wafted accompanied by the creaking of footsteps over the hardwood floors. Holding her breath, she tiptoed past the door. Her heart pounded. How soon until her presence was discovered? If she was caught with . . .

  A car horn interrupted her thoughts. No sign of Antoine. Sounds of car engines and German voices floated. Hunger gnawed at her. She reached the other end of the hallway that overlooked a side courtyard. Here, telephone wires hanging from fresh timber telephone poles and metal grids trailed overhead to the adjoining building, which had a gated garden that opened onto the street. A way out.

  But how to get there without crossing the courtyard?

  Footsteps and voices came down the hallway.

  Her pulse pounding, she searched for a place to hide. Only offices. Under the stairway stood the WC door with the distinctive diamond-shaped window. She wrenched it open to find brooms, mops, a metal pail and boards covering the porcelain drain—a squat toilet. Closed herself in the smell of must and mildew. Smock-like aprons worn by cleaning staff hung from nails.

  Her breath came in panicked gasps. There was not even the possibility of climbing out the barred, dust-filmed window. No escape.

  Kate peered out the small diamond. Several Kriegsmarine officers stood in conversation at the door she’d just run past. One, pockmarked and with bristling red hair, had a cigarette hanging from the side of his mouth. He was shouting as he punched a paper. The tall one next to him turned and she recognized Hinzer’s profile. Her spine stiffened.

  She heard Stepney’s voice in her head: Concentrate and focus. Think and plan your next move. Forget the shaking in your hands. You don’t want to sneeze in a hot cleaning closet reeking of disinfectant. Or forget the fact that the enemy throngs the building.

  RADA.

  She couldn’t worry about Antoine. Her escape with the film was all that mattered. She had to get the hell out of here. Any moment Hinzer could have the building searched for a nurse.

  She advanced the film in the camera until it was completely wound. Tented her hands to protect the film from exposure, popped off the camera cover and slipped the tiny film roll into her bra. She removed the nurse’s outfit, put the Minox back in the compass case, balled it all up and stuck it under some rags. Then she pulled a smock from the nail and slipped into it, buttoning a few buttons to keep it loose in the front and to avoid her pocket’s bulge. She’d saved two diamonds from the scarf and pinned them to her panties. That done, she took a cleaning rag, tied it around her head and waited.

  When she looked again, the hallway was empty. Now was her chance. She’d blend in with the cleaning women, get out and head to the letter drop Philippe picked in Place de la Concorde. She slid out of the stifling closet holding the mop and pail. Five seconds later she’d gone downstairs into a black-and-white-marble-tiled foyer.

  It looked like the whole of the Kriegsmarine had swarmed into the courtyard to greet an arriving Mercedes, swastika flags flying on the side of the hood. Shouts of “Heil Hitler.” Her shoulders tensed—had plans changed and Hitler returned?

  But a quick look revealed a woman in a red cloche hat with a stylish net veiling her face, a matching red froth of a frock on the arm of a bemedaled, corpulent and chubby-faced man in a flamboyant white uniform with epaulets and gold braid trim. Murmurs of “Göring” came from the crowd.

  The head of the Luftwaffe himself. Smiling and saluting to the cheering sailors, reveling in the glory. A known attention seeker, he was visiting the Kriegsmarine HQ. Concerning the invasion, she wondered?

  This was the man who had commanded the Luftwaffe to bomb Orkney. His planes had strafed Hoy’s naval base, killing Greer’s grandmother. Her fingers gripped the mop. Automatically she imagined him in her crosshairs, mentally aligned a clear shot to his temple.

  Wake up, girl.

  She had no Lee-Enfield rifle, only a greasy damp mop.

  Control yourself and move.

  She hunched her shoulders, passed the supply trucks and kept along the walls. Her heart hammered in her chest. At last she joined a cleaning woman mopping the marble entryway under the glass awning. Kate kept her head low, set down her bucket and mopped.

  “Quit making double work for me,” the woman said. She had tired eyes and a scarf tied around her head.

  Kate realized her bucket was empty. Suspicious.

  “Pwahh.” Kate expelled air in a “silly me” gesture. Lifted her bucket and headed to the green metal water spigot. Nerves taut, she noticed a staff service do
or. More pails and buckets inside a stone-paved corridor. This must have been that service exit she couldn’t spot before.

  The woman with tired eyes was watching her. Pretending to exchange her mop, Kate slid into a group of cleaning women dumping their dirty rags into a basket for clean ones.

  Act.

  She hunched lower, trying not to stand out and shuffled ahead with the group.

  At the first opportunity, when no one was looking, she broke off and ducked through the service door. Any moment she expected the Germans to notice a rogue cleaning woman out of line.

  Head down and chest heaving, she kept going. She hurried into the discreet side garden, which was lined by manicured topiary trees in planters. She’d seen this from the landing—she remembered the garden had a back gate to the side street.

  Ditching the mop, she kept on the gravel path past damp ivy-covered walls and blooming primroses. By the open grilled gate in the stone wall stood a lone sentry. Through the gate she could see a laundry truck parked in the side street. Drawing closer she saw straw baskets piled high with dirty rags near the sentry post.

  Sweat trickled down her brow. Her body felt ten degrees hotter with the smock covering her clothes. The film stuck to her breastbone. Dizziness washed over her and she steadied herself against the wall. If she didn’t hurry, she’d pass out.

  A man was loading the laundry baskets into the truck.

  She smiled at the sentry, who examined her pass with a bored expression. Would he notice that her pass came from École Polytechnique? Wonder why a cleaner would have such a pass? Pinpricks of fear ran down her damp spine, the heat overtaking her.

  He was winking at her, an older woman, the flirt. Young, blue-eyed, a cornfed country boy, reminding her of Joss, her middle brother, a rogue-eyed charmer who set hearts fluttering in Beaverton. But this young German was not her brother; he was the enemy.

  From the corner of her eye she saw three uniforms by the roses. One of them was Hinzer. Her heart jumped. She had to get out of here.

  She felt a sharp pinch on her rear. Unbelievable. Kate swatted the guard’s hand away from her behind.

  The guard, now aware of the uniforms, stepped back at strict attention. Had Hinzer and the men noticed her? Without thinking, Kate lifted a laundry basket full of smelly rags. Then she was lugging it through the gate. Grunting and smiling at the surprised truck driver. She shoved the basket in the truck and put her finger to her lips.

  And then she was walking fast, pulling the rag off her head. Down the side street, staying close to the wall toward rue de Rivoli. In a jewelry shop doorway, she unbuttoned the cleaning smock. Panting, she pulled on the long light blue lab coat from École Polytechnique. Took the glasses from her pocket and fluffed out her hair, hoping she looked like a lab assistant.

  Without looking left or right, she stepped back out onto the pavement as if she belonged.

  Act the part. Believe it.

  She mingled with pedestrians, walked pigeon toed and didn’t stop. Kept breathing, expecting a shout for her to stop any moment. Or Hinzer to pull up in a car. She kept her eye on the bright spark of red geranium at the Place de la Concorde station—the letter drop. A long block away.

  Monday, June 24, 1940

  The Defense Ministry Laboratory, London

  11:00 a.m. Paris Time

  Stepney was leaning on his cane but straightened up as the door opened.

  “This way, sir,” said a brisk lab coated technician. “We’ve got those results. Interesting.”

  Finally. Time was running out. This had to lead somewhere.

  Stepney followed, struggling to keep up with the young man’s stride. How he hated growing old.

  “That’s the first one a young boy discovered on the coast near Ramsgate.” The dark green buoy with a blinking blue light sat on the stainless-steel lab table. “Here’s the second one, which was found farther north. On ministry orders we partially disassembled it to see what makes it tick.” The second lab table was covered in neatly sorted piles of wires and metal parts.

  “Recovered where exactly?”

  The young technician pointed to a spot on the map of the southeastern coast. “By the pier here, sir. It’s a restricted area, off limits to civilians but the boy and his grandmother were collecting cockles. In dismantling the buoy we discovered this. Take a look through the microscope.”

  Stepney leaned down and saw a magnified series of letters printed in a dark casing. A telltale signifier of a German-designed product.

  “Typical Siemens product.” Stepney returned to the table with the buoy parts and picked up a piece of wire mesh. Held it in his hands, remembering the last war, the German airfields he’d flown over. The radio towers.

  That was it. “The damn thing’s emitting radio waves.”

  “We need the how of the how, sir.”

  “There’s a whole department at the University of Birmingham developing this. They call it microwaves or some such. It’s classified work,” Stepney added belatedly.

  He reached for the phone on the wall. “Now stop standing around and get working on the how of the how, young man.”

  Monday, June 24, 1940

  The Kriegsmarine, Place de la Concorde, Paris | 11:15 a.m.

  Gunter had avoided all the fanfare of Göring’s entourage and instead took Niels to track down Antoine Doisneau. They stood in a high-ceilinged office where the adjutant made them wait while he tore off a telex. He read it, rolled it up and slid it into a pneumatic tube. The telex whizzed away to the upper regions of the Kriegsmarine and the adjutant sat back down. “Who did you say you’ve got an appointment with, sir?”

  “Antoine Doisneau, where will I find him?”

  “Doisneau’s affiliated with us through the École Polytechnique.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “I don’t know, sir. He doesn’t work in this building, but he was here earlier. He signed out the log book and signed it back in.”

  “Show me.”

  Gunter scanned the entry. Scribbled numbers. “What’s this for?”

  “Several École Polytechnique documents.”

  “Was he accompanied by a woman?”

  He thought. “I think he was with a nurse, but I’m not sure.”

  “Where is she?”

  An officer in a crisp uniform swept in and faced Gunter. His narrow eyes took in Gunter’s rumpled linen suit. “Who are you?”

  Gunter flashed his RSD badge. “Gunter Hoffman, Reichssicherheitsdienst. You are . . . ?”

  “Kriegsmarine Captain Hinzer, at your service.” Hinzer gave a slight bow of his head, clicked his heels. “How may I assist you?”

  Good, the type who knew which side to butter. A naval officer a world away from the intrigues at the Kommandantur.

  “For reasons of security, I need Antoine Doisneau and a nurse who was accompanying him located. Now.” Gunter figured Hinzer would assume this involved Göring’s security and treat the search as a priority.

  “I saw them not ten minutes ago.”

  “Good. Gather a team.”

  Monday, June 24, 1940

  Place de la Concorde, Paris | 11:25 a.m.

  Kate scanned the sidewalk and the people on the stairs of the Métro entrance at Place de la Concorde. No one paid her any attention. Standing sideways so her body shielded her hand, she rooted behind her in the flower box—the dead drop for Philippe’s message. Where was it? Panic struck her at the thought Philippe hadn’t come through as he’d said he would.

  Or maybe he’d been caught.

  Then she felt something metal, rectangular, entwined in the plant.

  Once the thing was in her palm, she hurried past the Métro entrance and up the pitted stone steps into the Jeu de Paume leading to the Tuileries Gardens. She collapsed on the nearest bench. Leaves rustled in the plane trees overhead; sh
e could hear children laughing.

  The tin of Flavigny anise-flavored sweets she’d dug out of the flower box contained a cigarette paper with a message:

  Papers cleared. La Felicité moored at Île de Puteaux leaves at noon. Acknowledge and destroy this.

  So Philippe had fixed her false papers and passage on the barge.

  He’d come through, hadn’t he?

  She smudged the penciled writing and tore off a bit of the cigarette paper, then shredded the rest into tiny pieces. Dumped them in the nearby bin. That done she sat back down and with the pencil stub left inside the tin she wrote carefully so as not to tear the plain remaining thin bit she’d saved of the cigarette paper.

  See you there.

  She took a deep breath. Another.

  She’d do one thing right. She’d escape with the film roll of Directive 17 Nigel gave his life for. In a small way avenge Dafydd and her little Lisbeth.

  Then she’d confront Stepney.

  This would happen. She’d find her way to Île de Puteaux.

  She had to hurry.

  Monday, June 24, 1940

  The Kriegsmarine, Place de la Concorde, Paris | 11:25 a.m.

  Kriegsmarine captain Hinzer was nothing if not efficient. Within fifteen minutes Gunter studied the building plan Hinzer provided as he listened to a cleaning woman, who was twisting a rag in her fingers.

  “If you can believe it,” she said, “here’s me doing all the mopping and she’s got no water in her bucket.”

  Gunter nodded. “Point out where you were.”

  “There. But then she’s in line to get a new rag.”

  Gunter traced the route with his finger; the office, the map room, the courtyard.

  “And then?”

  “Poof, gone.”

  Antoine Doisneau had disappeared, too.

  He re-questioned the young sentry.

  “Yes, sir, a cleaning woman showed me her pass at the gate.”

  “Did she look like this?” He showed both of them the drawing.