The Alex Kovacs Series Box Set

by Richard Wake

  I wanted to see Manon, to hug her, hold her, console her — but if everyone was unanimous about one aspect of the plan, it was that I was to go nowhere near the back of the lorry when Leon was unlocking the chains. The Combat guy was the first one to say, “You can’t do it. If the other prisoners connect the two of you, and one of them gets caught, they’ll focus on you as the culprit. This way, they’ll have to guess for a little while, at least. They’ll see it as a Resistance operation, not an Alex operation. They still think we’re after you. You want that confusion. It probably won’t last, but even a little while will help.”

  So I stood and watched from 150 feet away as the unlocked prisoners began running, five of them in five different directions. The sixth was Manon, who did not run. She walked quickly in the direction of Marcel’s car, where Raymond was leaning out of the driver’s side window and waving.

  When she got there, she reached for the handle and looked in my direction for some reason. It was total happenstance. But she saw me, and our eyes locked. She stopped for just a second, stopped and placed her right hand over her heart. I did the same thing in reply.

  53

  Cassock on, wide-brimmed hat in place, breviary in hand, I walked out of the alley on Rue Saint-Hippolyte and turned left, away from Petite Rue de Montplaisir. I took the quickest of looks to my right and saw that Leon’s lorry was gone. Just the nose of the Montluc lorry was visible to me during my peek. I couldn’t see either of the bodies, and I didn’t hear any police sirens. I also didn’t see any bystanders. If you didn’t witness what had happened, there really wasn’t anything particularly compelling about the scene. The guard and the driver were both dead, but they were still in their seats in the front cab of the lorry. The prisoners were gone, but there was nothing noteworthy about an empty lorry. And the fact that it was stopped in the middle of a tiny street would draw no natural attention, either, not until a driver came up from behind and couldn’t get through and began leaning on his horn. But that hadn’t happened yet.

  It had all gone so well that it almost beat the natural pessimism out of me. Almost.

  My next task was simple, just to walk back to the flat. That was where Leon, Raymond and I all would meet up to plan for the next steps. I didn’t know who would get there first. My walk would be side streets and small streets, maybe just a little bit windier than a typical walk. Leon, meanwhile, had to drop off the lorry in the back of a warehouse, leaving the keys in the ignition, and then he was to walk the rest of the way, maybe a half-mile.

  Then there was Raymond. This was the part I argued against, but eventually relented. Since none of us knew what kind of physical shape Manon would be in — Manon and the baby, rather — the thought was that she needed to see someone with some medical knowledge as soon as possible after the rescue. That was where Marie’s idea came into play. I was being selfish — I just wanted to see my wife — but the logic of her argument eventually wore me down.

  Because, as it turned out, Marie made a little money on the side by doing laundry for the nuns at the convent of the Church of Saint Bruno des Chartreaux. With that job came two interesting side benefits. First, she would have access to nuns’ habits — dress, veil, the whole deal. Second, she had a relationship with Sister Jerome, who was a trained nurse and a Resistance sympathizer at the same time. All of which meant that, waiting in the back seat of the car lent to us by Marcel were two nuns’ habits, which Manon and Marie slipped into while Raymond drove back toward the convent. Once there, Raymond would let them out about a block away and they would walk into the front door of the convent as any two nuns might — and, once inside, Sister Jerome would give Manon as much of a physical examination as her abilities allowed. Raymond had said, “She’s good — she was a full-time nurse before she received the calling.” So if Manon and/or the baby were in significant distress, we would know and could plan on a next move.

  Me walking in a cassock. Manon dressed up like a nun and hiding out in a convent. The two of us really were going to have to get our asses into a church pretty soon.

  I got back to the flat first, then Leon. Raymond was last, which surprised me. He said there was no particular reason. He just drove slowly, in a little bit of a circuitous route. “It’s like I’m in a fucking daze,” he said. “It’s like I can’t believe it. I mean, are we really going to get away with this?”

  “How is she?” I said.

  “She’s good,” Raymond said.

  “Good how?”

  “She’s tired, but that’s it. She said they never beat her, never really touched her.”

  “Ten fingers and toes?” I said.

  “Ten and ten,” he said. “I didn’t see any bloody stumps. She said they kept her up all night at Montluc — lights bright, guards coming by to wake her every 15 minutes. At Avenue Berthelot, she said Barbie—”

  “Barbie himself?” I said.

  “The man himself, in the flesh. She said he asked where you were, if you shot at Vogl. She said she hadn’t seen you in weeks. He asked again, she said the same thing. Eight hours of questioning on Saturday, then no sleep, then eight more hours of questioning on Sunday, then no sleep. But she’s okay.”

  “Did she say anything about the baby?”

  “She did,” Raymond said. “Marie asked her straight off and Manon said, ‘He’s a kicking bastard.’ She thinks it’s a boy, because he’s such an asshole.”

  She had never guessed at the sex before. I sank back into the couch cushion and just about passed out. And then I said, “I know what you mean about the daze. It’s almost like it went too well.”

  “Don’t celebrate too soon,” Leon said. “We still haven’t figured out how to get you two out of here.”

  “I was think—” Raymond said.

  “You stop thinking right now,” I said. “I can’t begin to thank you, and I’ll never be able to pay you back for your help and your friendship. But it ends here.”

  “Now wait—”

  “Now you fucking wait,” I said. “This is it. You have Marie. You have the kids. You have a life, and you’ve already risked too much. So when you get home tonight, you give Marie and the kids a hug for me, and you tell her that it’s over. We’ve been given a blessing here — nobody saw you two, and nobody suspects you of anything — and we have to accept that blessing. It’s about time we got one.”

  Raymond folded his arms and just stared at me. He was pissed off, but he knew I was right. Leon walked over and put his arm around him and said, “Think about the stories we’ll be able to tell when these motherfucking black uniforms are gone.” Raymond just continued to stare. That was his reply.

  We hadn’t talked about what was next, but I was pretty sure that Manon and I were going to have to leave Lyon specifically, and the area in general. There just wasn’t any way we could survive the manhunt that was ongoing, and that would likely be turned up even hotter now that Manon had escaped. We had to go, and we had to go soon. Manon could say all she wanted that she didn’t run, but this would not be running. This would be surviving to fight another day.

  Leon knew what I was thinking, and the argument that would be coming, and said, “Tell her it’s just a tactical retreat.”

  But when would I be able to tell her? The plan was that Leon and I would hide for as long as we could and somehow get in touch with the Resistance through Marcel to find out the next move. Manon, meanwhile, would stay in the convent until the Resistance scooped her up and got us back together. The truth was, I might not be the one who made the argument to her about leaving after all. It might be someone from the Resistance. She would be livid, and I was silently hoping the messenger would be the motherfucking ass-grabber.

  Whatever, we were going to have to leave the flat and get in the car and find a new place to hide out. We would have to keep moving, never spending more than one night anywhere. And we were going to have to find a way to get in touch with Marcel on a fairly regular basis. And, ideally, we would have an idea about what we were doi
ng in a couple of days, tops.

  We were getting ready to go. Raymond would go first and walk home. He had left a uniform here so that, during the walk, no one would bother him. As he buttoned up and got ready to leave, he just shook his head.

  “I wish we had another bottle of Calvados,” he said.

  54

  The postcard to Marcel said:

  The trip was fantastic! Thanks so much for your hospitality! The 5th course of that late-night dinner will never be forgotten! All our love, and next time, you must visit us.

  Anthon

  Marcel wasn’t a spy, but we were hoping he could figure it out. The key words were “5th,” “late-night” and “Anthon.” What we were hoping was that Marcel would take the local train out to Anthon, a little town about 20 miles east of Lyon, on the 5th of the month, late at night, and find Leon and I sitting in his car, which would be parked just outside the station.

  Which was exactly what happened.

  “Thank fucking God,” he said, when he saw us.

  “I told you he had the makings of a spy,” I said.

  “You’re a spy? Not just a half-assed Resistance fighter?”

  “It’s a long story,” Leon said.

  “I have time, I’m driving,” Marcel said. “But talk loud.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the two of you are laying down on the floor of the back seat and hiding under a blanket. And don’t worry — I’ll give you all the privacy you need.”

  “But there’s nobod—” I said.

  “My ride, my rules,” he said.

  The ride was uneventful. We hadn’t even had to go to the jerry cans in the trunk during the days we were hiding out. One night, we slept in the barn at Marcel Lefebvre’s farm at Chassagny. He gave us homemade wine, and milk, and even poached a couple of eggs for us. I nearly cried. The next night, Leon rented a room at an inn with his most recent identity, and I sneaked in to join him. Another night, we hid behind the barn of what seemed to be an abandoned farm — maybe owned by Jews, but who knew? — and slept in the car. It hadn’t been too bad at all.

  “How’s Manon?” I said. It was when we first stared driving.

  “Good,” Marcel said. “The sister said she and the baby are fine. They said she slept for the better part of two days, only getting up to eat a little. The Resistance has her in a safe house now. We’re just waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?”

  “For the radio,” Marcel said. “For tonight.”

  When the car eventually stopped, Marcel told us to stay where we were. He got out of the car, then unlocked the back door of his shop. He waited for an unusually long time before saying, ‘Okay, come on out,” which we did.

  “Why the wait?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” Marcel said. “I’m losing my nerve, not that I ever had any. But this is killing me. Every time I see a black uniform, I feel like pissing myself. I know it must show on my face. I’m just waiting for the knock.”

  “You’ll be all right,” Leon said. “You’ve been very careful.”

  “But I’ve been more involved than I ever thought I would be,” he said. “It all just… happened.”

  “You sorry you did it?” I said.

  “No, no — it’s not that. I know what I’m doing is important. I know it’s the most important thing I’ve ever done. But I’m just so goddamned scared all the time. I’m seeing shadows that aren’t there.”

  We went up to the second floor, above the shop, where Marcel lived in a fairly cramped flat — living room, bedroom, kitchenette, bathroom, fin. He settled us down and heated up some tomato soup from a tin that he stretched with some water. While we drank it out of mugs, he went back into a bottom cupboard and brought out a small box that looked as if it could hold a pair of shoes. But when he flipped off the lid, he did not bring out a pair of brogues. Instead it was a radio that he plugged in.

  “Wow, it’s tiny,” Leon said.

  “If they did a real search, they’d find it. A half-assed search, probably not. But if I had to move, I could easily take it with me.”

  “How do you get all of this stuff?” I said.

  “You’d be amazed what you can get in exchange for two perfect identity cards.”

  Marcel flipped on the set and we waited for it to warm up. When it was ready, he would turn it to the BBC. Listening to it was a crime in itself, punishable by a visit to Avenue Berthelot at the minimum. They didn’t really hurt you for that — they just did what they could to scare the piss out of you. Oh, and they took the radio. But on the list of Gestapo sins that I had committed in the previous few months, a little BBC radio broadcast was decidedly venial. Like, two Hail Marys’ worth.

  The way Marcel told it, the Resistance, after talking to their bosses in London, made the case that Manon and I needed to be flown to England. “Think about it,” he said. “Married, with a child on the way, both been arrested, both well-known to the Gestapo, and you being wanted for trying to kill a Gestapo officer and for killing two French prison guards.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, they’ve pinned that on you, too,” he said. “It would be highly unfair of them to have made the assumption based on no evidence — highly unfair, that is, if it wasn’t true.”

  “Well, there is that,” I said.

  “Anyway, the Resistance in London agreed immediately that you need to be airlifted out.”

  “And what did my beautiful bride have to say about that?”

  “The way it was described to me was that, when she first heard the plan, she blistered everyone within range, really peeled the paint off the walls. But it was only for about five minutes. Then she calmed down. She knows. She knows how dangerous it is for you two. She knows how tired she is.”

  For the previous couple of days, I had actually allowed myself to think about what life might be like away from France and away from the Nazis. On and off for about five years, I had been either fighting them, or running from them, or both. And while we weren’t there yet, not nearly, and there were still a dozen things that could land me back in Barbie’s fourth floor recreation room at Avenue Berthelot, I was starting to hope that maybe, just maybe, it would all work out for us in the end. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d held a legitimate hope for happiness in my heart. Honestly, it felt a little strange.

  “So, what are we waiting to hear?” Leon said.

  “You’ve listened before, right?” Marcel said.

  “In Paris, all the time — but really just for the news.”

  “After the news, they read off personal messages. It can be kind of hypnotic because they read a bunch of them in random order. Some of them are legitimate — and a happy fortieth birthday to you, too, Andre — but a lot of them are coded messages to the Resistance, just sentences or phrases or quotes from literature. It’s pretty simple. The details have been worked out ahead of time. We’re just waiting for a go or a no-go. And a date.”

  The news came on, and the headlines were all about the war. The summary was that the good guys were doing swell and the Germans were losing in Russia, toe by frostbitten toe. I didn’t know how much of it was true, but I was inclined to believe more than I typically did. It must have been all of that hope in my heart, I guess, or something.

  I started to make a crack about the eastern front when Marcel shushed me. It was apparent that he needed to concentrate. Pencil in hand, pad of paper on the table in front of him, he was leaned over with his ear right next to the radio’s speaker. He was concentrating so hard that he was squinting.

  Then he began writing. When it was over, he snapped off the radio and unplugged it and began to put it back in the box.

  “Well, are you going to tell us?” I said.

  “The message was, ‘They will leave with joy.’ It’s been repeated three times. What that means is, you’re going out tomorrow night.”

  55

  According to Marcel, weather and the moon had a lot to do with how they picked the dat
es for these flying snatches. They needed enough moonlight to be able to see the landing area, although we would help with some torches. And it had to be decent flying weather.

  “The way they explained it to me, somewhat shitty is better than dead clear,” Marcel said. “But, at the same time, too shitty would completely block out the moonlight.”

  “I’m no expert, but this night seems to be in a good place on the shittiness scale,” Leon said. It had drizzled earlier, and now you could see the clouds as they moved gently across the face of a three-quarter moon.

  “Prime shittiness,” Marcel said.

  “Enough with this shit,” I said. “Where’s Manon?”

  We were on our bellies, behind a hedgerow. On the other side was a fallow field that didn’t seem big enough to land a plane. But somebody at the Resistance had told Marcel, “Don’t have a heart attack when you see it. It’s small, but we’ve used it before.”

  “Manon’s on the other side, behind the next hedgerow,” Marcel said. “Don’t worry. She has two people watching her, just like you have Leon and I. It’s going to be fine. They do this all the time.”

  “All the time,” I said.

  “Well, they’ve done it before,” Marcel said.

  “How many times?” At this, Marcel paused.

  “Twice,” he said. “At least that’s what they told me.”

  “And it worked?”

  “Same answer: at least that’s what they told me.”

  Marcel checked his watch and said, “Okay, five minutes.” Then he went over the mechanics of the plan. He handed Leon a torch and told him to crab-walk down to the far end of the hedgerow. When he heard an airplane engine, he was to turn on the torch and point it straight up to the sky.

  “Make sure it’s straight up — don’t go spraying the countryside with the light,” he said. “I’ll be at the other end of the hedgerow with my torch, doing the same thing. On Manon’s side, there will be two more men with two more torches. The pilot will see the four lights and do his best to land in the middle of the box. The moon will help him see just enough to make it work out okay.”