Ken Follett - Jackdaws

by Jackdaws [lit]

  All the same, he was not yet ready to trust her. He got up and left the caf‚.

  He walked along the pavement to the railway station and stood in the entrance, watching the caf‚. He was not conspicuous: as usual, there were several people hanging around the station waiting to meet friends.

  He monitored the caf‚'s clientele. A woman walked by with a child who was demanding pastry and, as they reached the caf‚, the mother gave in and took the child inside. The two grape experts left. A gendarme went in and came out immediately with a packet of cigarettes in his hand.

  Paul began to believe this was not a Gestapo trap. There was no one in sight who looked remotely dangerous. Changing the location of the rendezvous had shaken them off

  Only one thing puzzled him. When Brian Standish had been caught at the cathedral, he had been rescued by Bourgeoise's friend Charenton. Where was he today? If he had been keeping an eye on her in the cathedral, why not here, too? But the circumstance was not dangerous in itself And there could be a hundred simple explanations.

  The mother and child left the caf‚. Then, at three thirty, Bourgeoise came out. She walked along the pavement away from the station. Paul followed on the other side of the street. She went up to a small black car of Italian design, the one the French called a Simca Cinq. Paul crossed the street. She got into the car and started the engine.

  It was time for Paul to decide. He could not be sure this was safe, but he had gone as far as he could with caution, short of not making the rendezvous at all. At some point, risks had to be taken. Otherwise he might as well have stayed at home.

  He went up to the car on the passenger side and opened the door.

  She looked coolly at him. "Monsieur?"

  "Pray for me," he said.

  "I pray for peace."

  Paul got into the car. Giving himself a code name, he said, "I am Danton."

  She pulled away. "Why didn't you speak to me in the caf‚?" she said. "I saw you as soon as I walked in. You made me wait there half an hour. It's dangerous."

  "I wanted to be sure this wasn't a trap."

  She glanced over at him. "You heard what happened to Helicopter."

  "Yes. Where's your friend who rescued him, Charenton?"

  She headed south, driving fast. "He's working today."

  "On Sunday? What does he do?"

  "Fireman. He's on duty."

  That explained that. Paul moved quickly to the real purpose of his visit. "Where's Helicopter?"

  She shook her head. "No idea. My house is a cut-out. I meet people, I pass them on to Monet. I'm not supposed to know anything."

  "Is Monet all right?"

  "Yes. He phoned me on Thursday afternoon, checking up on Charenton."

  "Not since?"

  "No. But that's not unusual."

  "When did you last see him?"

  "In person? I've never seen him."

  "Have you heard from Leopardess?"

  Paul brooded as the car threaded through the suburbs. Bourgeoise really had no information for him. He would have to move to the next link in the chain.

  She pulled into a courtyard alongside a tall house. "Come inside and get cleaned up," she said.

  He got out of the car. Everything seemed to be in order: Bourgeoise had been at the right rendezvous and had given all the correct signals, and there had been no one following her. On the other hand, she had given him no useful information, and he still had no notion how deeply the Bollinger circuit had been penetrated, nor how much danger Flick was in. As Bourgeoise led him to the front door and opened it with her key, he touched the wooden toothbrush in his shirt pocket: it was French-made, so he had been permitted to bring it with him. Now an impulse seized him. As Bourgeoise stepped into the house, he slipped the toothbrush from his pocket and dropped it on the ground just in front of the door.

  He followed her inside. "Big place," he said. It had dark, old-fashioned wallpaper and heavy furniture, quite out of character with its owner. "Have you been here long?"

  "I inherited it three or four years ago. I'd like to redecorate, but you can't get the materials." She opened a door and stood aside for him to go first. "Come into the kitchen."

  He stepped inside and saw two men in uniform. Both held automatic pistols. And both guns were pointed at Paul.

  CHAPTER 40

  DIETER'S CAR SUFFERED a puncture on the RN3 road between Paris and Meaux. A bent nail was stuck in the tire. The delay irritated him, and he paced the roadside restlessly, but Lieutenant Hesse jacked up the car and changed the wheel with calm efficiency, and they were on their way again within a few minutes.

  Dieter had slept late, under the influence of the morphine injection Hans had given him in the early hours, and now he watched with impatience as the ugly industrial landscape east of Paris changed gradually to farming country. He wanted be in Reims. He had set a trap for Flick Clairet, and he needed to be there when she fell into it.

  The big Hispano-Suiza flew along an arrow-straight road lined with poplars-a road probably built by the Romans. At the start of the war, Dieter had thought the Third Reich would be like the Roman Empire, a pan-European hegemony that would bring unprecedented peace and prosperity to all its subjects. Now he was not so sure.

  He worried about his mistress. Stephanie was in danger, and he was responsible. Everyone's life was at risk now, he told himself Modern warfare put the entire population on the front line. The best way to protect Stephanie-and himself, and his family in Germany- was to defeat the invasion. But there were moments when he cursed himself for involving his lover so closely in his mission. He was playing a risky game and using her in an exposed position.

  Resistance fighters did not take prisoners. Being in constant peril themselves, they had no scruples about killing French people who collaborated with the enemy.

  The thought that Stephanie might be killed made his chest tighten and his breathing difficult. He could hardly contemplate life without her. The prospect seemed dismal, and he realized he must be in love with her. He had always told himself that she was just a beautiful courtesan, and he was using her the way men always used such women. Now he saw that he had been fooling himself And he wished all the more that he was already in Reims at her side.

  It was Sunday afternoon, so there was little traffic on the road, and they made good progress.

  The second puncture occurred when they were less than an hour from Reims. Dieter wanted to scream with frustration. It was another bent nail. Were wartime tires poor quality? he wondered. Or did French people deliberately drop their old nails on the road, knowing that nine vehicles out of ten were driven by the occupying forces?

  The car did not have a second spare wheel, so the tire had to be mended before they could drive on. They left the car and walked. After a mile or so they came to a farmhouse. A large family was sitting around the remains of a substantial Sunday lunch: on the table were cheese and strawberries and several empty wine bottles. Country folk were the only French people who were well fed. Dieter bullied the farmer into hitching up his horse and cart and driving them to the next town.

  In the town square was a single gas pump on the pavement outside a wheelwright's shop with a Closed sign in the window. They banged on the door and woke a surly garagisre from his Sunday-afternoon nap. The mechanic fired up an ancient truck and drove off with Hans beside him.

  Dieter sat in the living room of the mechanic's house, stared at by three small children in ragged clothes. The mechanic's wife, a tired woman with dirty hair, bustled about in the kitchen but did not offer him so much as a glass of cold water.

  Dieter thought of Stephanie again. There was a phone in the hallway. He looked into the kitchen. "May I make a call?" he asked politely. "I will pay you, of course."

  She gave him a hostile glare. "Where to?"

  "Reims."

  She nodded and made a note of the time by the clock on the mantelpiece.

  Dieter got the operator and gave the number of the house in the rue
du Bois. It was answered immediately by a low, gruff voice reciting the number in a provincial accent. Suddenly alert, Dieter said in French, "This is Pierre Charenton."

  The voice at the other end changed into Stephanie's, and she said, "My darling."

  He realized she had answered the phone with her imitation of Mademoiselle Lemas, as a precaution. His heart gladdened with relief "Is everything all right?" he asked her.

  "I've captured another enemy agent for you," she said coolly.

  His mouth went dry. "My God... well done! How did it happen?"

  "I picked him up in the Caf‚ de la Gare and brought him here."

  Dieter closed his eyes. If something had gone wrong-if she had done anything to make the agent suspect her-she could be dead by now. "And then?"

  "Your men tied him up."

  She had said him. That meant the terrorist was not flick. Dieter was disappointed. All the same, his strategy was working. This man was the second Allied agent to walk into the trap. "What's he like?"

  "A young guy with a limp and half his ear shot off"

  "What have you done with him?"

  "He's here in the kitchen, on the floor. I was about to call Sainte-Cdcile and have him picked up."

  "Don't do that. Lock him in the cellar. I want to talk to him before Weber does."

  "Where are you?"

  "Some village. We have a damn puncture."

  "Hurry back."

  "I should be with you in an hour or two."

  "Okay."

  "How are you?"

  "Fine."

  Dieter wanted a serious answer. "But really, how do you feel?"

  "How do I feel?" She paused. "That's a question you don't usually ask."

  Dieter hesitated. "I don't usually involve you in capturing terrorists."

  Her voice softened. "I feel fine. Don't worry about me."

  He found himself saying something he had not planned. "What will we do after the war?"

  There was a surprised silence at the other end of the line.

  Dieter said, "Of course, the war could go on for ten years, but on the other hand it might be over in two weeks, and then what would we do?"

  She recovered her composure somewhat, but there was an uncharacteristic tremor in her voice as she said, "What would you like to do?"

  "I don't know," he said, but that left him dissatisfied, and after a moment he blurted out, "I don't want to lose you."

  He waited for her to say something else.

  "What are you thinking?" he said.

  She said nothing. There was an odd sound at the other end, and he realized she was crying. He felt choked up himself He caught the eye of the mechanic's wife, still timing his phone call. He swallowed hard and turned away, not wanting a stranger to see that he was upset. "I'll be with you soon," he said. "We'll talk some more."

  "I love you," she said.

  He glanced at the mechanic's wife. She was staring at him. To hell with her, he thought. "I love you, too," he said. Then he hung up the phone.

  CHAPTER 41

  IT TOOK THE Jackdaws most of the day to get from Paris to Reims.

  They passed through all the checkpoints without incident. Their new fake identities worked as well as the old, and no one noticed that Flick's photograph had been retouched with eyebrow pencil.

  But their train was delayed repeatedly, stopping for an hour at a time in the middle of nowhere. Flick sat in the hot carriage fuming with impatience as the precious minutes leaked away uselessly. She could see the reason for the holdups: half the track had been destroyed by the bombers of the U.S. Army Air Corps and the RAE When the train chugged into life and moved forward, they looked out of the windows and saw emergency repair crews cutting through twisted rails, picking up smashed sleepers, and laying new track. Her only consolation was that the delays would be even more maddening for Rommel as he attempted to deploy his troops to repel the invasion.

  There was a feeling in her chest like a cold, inert lump, and every few minutes her thoughts returned to Diana and Maude. They had certainly been interrogated by now, probably tortured, possibly killed. Flick had known Diana all her life. She was going to have to tell Diana's brother, William, what had happened. Flick's own mother would be almost as upset as William. Ma had helped raise Diana.

  They began to see vineyards, then champagne warehouses alongside the track, and at last they arrived in

  Reims a few minutes after four on Sunday afternoon. As Flick had feared, it was too late to carry out their mission the same evening. That meant another nerve-racking twenty-four hours in occupied territory. It also gave Flick a more specific problem: Where would the Jackdaws spend the night?

  This was not Paris. There was no red-light district with disreputable flophouses whose proprietors asked few questions, and flick did not know of a convent where the nuns would hide anyone who begged for sanctuary. There were no dark alleys in which down-and-outs slept behind rubbish bins ignored by the police.

  Flick knew of three possible hideouts: Michel's town house, Gilberte's apartment, and Mademoiselle Lemas's house in the rue du Bois. Unfortunately, any of them might be under surveillance, depending on how deeply the Gestapo had penetrated the Bollinger circuit. If Dieter Franck was in charge of the investigation, she had to fear the worst.

  There was nothing to do but go and look. "We must split up into pairs again," she told the others. "Four women together is too conspicuous. Ruby and I will go first. Greta and Jelly, follow a hundred meters behind us."

  They walked to Michel's place, not far from the station. It was flick's marital home, but she always thought of it as his house. There was plenty of room for four women. But the Gestapo almost certainly knew of the place: it would be astonishing if none of the men taken captive last Sunday had revealed the address under torture.

  The house was in a busy street with several shops. Walking along the pavement, Flick surreptitiously looked into each parked car while Ruby checked the houses and shops. Michel's property was a high, narrow building in an elegant eighteenth-century row. It had a small front yard with a magnolia tree. The place was still and quiet, with no movement at the windows. The doorstep was dusty.

  On their first pass along the street, they saw nothing suspicious: no workmen digging up the road, no watchful loiterers at the pavement tables outside the bar, Chez Regis, no one leaning on a telegraph pole reading a newspaper.

  They returned on the opposite side. Outside the baker's shop was a black Citro‰n Traction Avant with two men in suits sitting in the front, smoking cigarettes and looking bored.

  Flick tensed. She was wearing her dark wig, so she felt sure they would not recognize her as the girl on the Wanted poster, but all the same her pulse beat faster and she hurried past them. All along the pavement she listened for a shout behind her, but it did not come, and at last she turned the corner and breathed easier.

  She slowed her pace. Her fears had been justified.

  Michel's house was no use to her. It did not have a rear entrance, being part of a row with no back alley. The Jackdaws could not enter without being seen by the Gestapo.

  She considered the other two possibilities. Michel was presumably still living at Gilberte's apartment, unless he had been captured. The building had a useful back entrance. But it was a tiny place, and four overnight guests at a one-room apartment would not only be uncomfortable but also might be noticed by other people in the building.

  The obvious place for them to spend the night was the house in the rue du Bois. Flick had been there twice. It was a big house with lots of bedrooms. Mademoiselle Lemas was completely trustworthy and was more than willing to feed unexpected guests. She had been sheltering British agents, downed airmen, and escaping prisoners of war for years. And she might know what had happened to Brian Standish.

  It was a mile or two from the center of town. The four women set out to walk there, still in pairs a hundred meters apart.

  They arrived half an hour later. The rue du Bois was a qu
iet suburban street: a surveillance team would have trouble concealing themselves here. There was only one parked car within sight, an impeccably upright Peugeot 201 that was much too slow for the Gestapo. It was empty.

  Flick and Ruby took a preliminary walk past Mademoiselle Lemas's house. It looked the same as always. Her Simca Cinq stood in the courtyard, which was unusual only in that she normally parked it in the garage. Flick slowed her pace and surreptitiously looked in at the window. She saw no one. Mademoiselle Lemas used that room only rarely: it was an old-fashioned front parlor, the piano immaculately dusted, the cushions always plumped, the door kept firmly closed except for formal visits. Her secret guests always sat in the kitchen at the back of the house, where there was no chance they would be seen by passersby.