Soustelle, however, was neither mesmerized nor convinced. He did not like his influence being usurped and was determined to rectify the situation. He had argued stoutly against the chances of such a coincidence occurring. But von Graff insisted on believing his double agent. Perhaps von Graff has come to the point of being forced to support MacVey, thought Soustelle. If Trinity turns out to be counterfeit, it will reflect very poorly on the S.S. General who recruited him, especially at the very time his fortunes were sagging on other fronts. Nonetheless, Soustelle was going to bring down Trinity, even if it meant taking von Graff with him.
“Stay away from him, Soustelle,” von Graff had warned. “Don’t let that calm exterior deceive you. MacVey is nobody’s patsy!”
“Bah!” replied the Frenchman. “You think I fear such a snail!”
“I doubt you have the senses to fear him,” answered the general. “I’m simply telling you that if you insist on carrying on this petty little rivalry, I cannot help it if you bring trouble upon your own head.”
“I will do what suits me, and even you cannot stop me, General!” sneered Soustelle.
Von Graff smiled. “Do not tempt me, Soustelle,” he said, evidently pleased at the thought of Soustelle crossing the line and going a step too far.
Soustelle said nothing further, only turned and left the general’s office, more resolute than ever.
Thus it was, now knowing the content of the conversation between the general and the Anglais, that Soustelle had taken the next early morning express to Reims—a quicker ride than Logan had enjoyed. Working a couple of local connections, he had been led to a certain bakery which, hardly a surprise to Soustelle, turned out to be a cog in the Resistance network. Three agents had been arrested and interrogated. No telling what gems would be dragged from those three before they were finally shot, thought Soustelle with grim pleasure. He had walked away from the interrogation proceedings, leaving the rest of the questioning in the hands of the local Gestapo chief the moment the first important bit of information had been obtained. A bakery van had been taken to Vouziers.
The pieces were fitting together nicely. MacVey goes to Reims, supposedly on holiday. Then, what do you know? A Resistance van departs to Vouziers, only a few kilometers from the underground operation that had taken place in the area. Soustelle wanted to know: who was driving that van? He could have hung around Reims until the information was forced out of one of the captured agents. But that could take days. Vouziers was a small enough village; it would be a simple matter to circulate a description of MacVey about.
Soustelle glanced at his watch as he bounced along the back road in a commandeered Gestapo automobile. He’d drive back to Paris after he had finished in Vouziers; he’d be there some time tonight.
“Ha! ha!” he said almost merrily. “Before tomorrow I will have Trinity in irons!”
He had already decided to gather his evidence and grab Trinity before saying a word to von Graff. He would handle the whole thing on his own, except perhaps for a few well-placed Gestapo agents to make sure he didn’t slip away from him. But he wouldn’t chance the stupidity of others to foul his coup. Besides, if he nabbed MacVey himself, it would give him time to rough up that pretty face a little before having to turn him in. Above all, he didn’t want to allow that Anglais-loving Nazi von Graff to take the glory for himself of exposing Trinity for the traitor Soustelle knew him to be.
Soustelle popped a licorice drop into his mouth, revelling in fantasies of his great victory.
He turned into the town. His first stop would be the French police inspector. He happened to know him from his own days as a gendarme—a fat, lazy excuse for authority. But he could be easily bought.
54
On the Scent
It was after ten p.m. when Soustelle arrived back in Paris from his successful foray to Vouziers. The drive had been wearing, but he wasn’t about to pause in the hunt, not when he was so close.
Lawrence MacVey had indeed been to Vouziers, not only in the company of a woman but also with a sinister-looking man, so he had gathered from a number of interviews. As far as the ex-policeman was concerned, that was plenty to accuse him of his double game. But he was prepared should von Graff insist on even more evidence. There were a couple of low-lifes in the town whom he had paid handsomely to swear they had seen MacVey in the vicinity of the abandoned airport where a British plane was reported to have landed at the time when MacVey had been around. Soustelle knew the Anglais was guilty, no matter what the softbellied general said. If he had to manufacture a few facts to support it, then so be it.
Unfortunately his successes had come to an abrupt end the moment he entered Paris. He’d driven directly to MacVey’s apartment, but the scoundrel wasn’t there. Then had begun several more hours of wearisome detective work in an attempt to track the traitor down, but to little avail. He’d gone to the cafe he knew to be a favorite with Trinity. He’d rousted several persons out of bed for questioning. He had canvassed the neighborhood. He came back to the apartment, picked the lock, gave the place a thorough search, but saw that the British agent was extremely careful—the rooms were spotlessly clean, except for a book of matches from one of the many Left Bank cafes. He tried that cafe, hung around till it closed, questioned the employees, but learning nothing more than what he had already been told: MacVey had been seen two or three times in the company of the same woman.
At length, before departing to follow a new tack, Soustelle called in a couple of S.D. agents particularly loyal to him, whose silence he knew he could trust. He picked them up, drove them to the apartment, stationed them across the street to watch the building, then ran inside and up the stairs one more time himself. In several moments he emerged back onto the street, crossing it slowly to his cronies.
“Still no sign of him,” he said. “He must be beyond worrying about curfew. It’s almost two a.m.”
“What do you want us to do if he comes, Herr Soustelle?” asked one of the men.
“Make sure he stays inside. Don’t apprehend him unless he tries to leave again. If he goes in, lay low and wait for me. This traitor is mine! If he tries to go out again, nab him. But don’t hurt so much as a hair of his head. That pleasure, too, will be mine!”
“You will be back soon?”
“I don’t know. You just watch the building and wait. I have one other lead to try.”
With that Soustelle turned away and walked down the street quickly into the Paris night. This Trinity, whoever he really was, had proved more slippery than he had anticipated. But if he was not home yet, there could be but one other place he was spending the night. It now seemed this woman with whom he had been seen so often might be his only lead. He knew well enough where to find her. He should have gone straight there in the first place! Where else could the fool MacVey be?
———
Lise had left Logan and returned to her apartment just before midnight. She and Logan and Antoine had spent the entire day spreading the alarm about the coming roundup of Jews, as quickly yet discreetly as possible, so as not to endanger Logan’s cover.
She would still be about that business had not Michel insisted she return to the safety of her home. There was no telling what might befall a Jewish girl on the streets that night.
She lay down on her bed, not intending to sleep. She had not even changed her clothes. She had worked hard knocking on doors, passing along secret messages, warning of the raid. She only hoped no Nazi agents had seen their activities. It wouldn’t take much for them to put two and two together, she thought. Her association with Michel was well known. Yet there was a time to cast caution to the wind. And tonight, with thousands of Jewish lives in the balance, seemed like just such a time.
Reflecting on the day’s events, Lise fell into a deep sleep.
Some hours later, she was suddenly awakened by a sharp sound. She started up, glanced quickly about, and tried to collect her wits.
It was still dark. All was quiet. It must still be the
middle of the night.
She had been dreaming vaguely of gendarmes pounding on Jewish doors, dragging them off to violent deaths. Slowly she lay back down, breathing heavily and perspiring freely.
There came the pounding again! This time it was no dream! Someone was beating on her door, and the angry yells that accompanied it did not sound friendly. Even with all her precautions, was she going to be raided and hauled off to Germany?
Shaking with fear, she jerked up again and leaped from her bed. Flight would be foolish. She would have to confront them, whoever it was.
She threw a bathrobe over her clothes as a precaution, so as not to look like she had been out, then crept to the front room. Desperately she tried to shake off the remnants of sleep and organize her mind. The knock was not one of the prearranged Resistance signals. It could be no friend. Even as she realized it could be only the Gestapo or the French police, she tried to gain confidence thinking how Michel, with his bravado, would handle the situation. “There’s always an angle,” he would say.
She switched on a light, then turned the deadbolt and opened the door, squinting sleepily.
“What is it?” she said in a thick, sluggish voice not too difficult to assume at that hour.
“You are Claire Giraud?”
“Yes, I am,” she answered. The name was an alias she had used to rent the apartment.
The man who spoke seemed vaguely familiar to her, a Frenchman to be sure, judging by his lack of accent. He was a large, barrel-chested man with a strange odor hanging about him that she could not immediately place. He was not Gestapo, but there was something about him . . .
Then she remembered. Arnaud Soustelle.
“You are acquainted with Michel Tanant?” he demanded rather than asked.
“I—” She rubbed her eyes groggily. “It’s so late. What is going on?”
“Do not play games with me, Mademoiselle! I know you are his woman!”
“Is he all right?” she asked. It would have been futile to deny knowing him.
“Quit stalling!” barked Soustelle. “Tell me where he is!”
“I don’t know. Has there been an accident?”
Without answering, Soustelle shoved her aside and stalked into the apartment. Roughly pulling apart drapes, throwing aside bedcovers, and flinging open closet doors, he made a hasty search of the three small rooms. Then he turned on Lise again.
“The man is an enemy agent!” he spat. “Though I have few doubts that piece of information is news to you! And he will be captured . . . tonight! If you do not want to join him, you better tell me where to find him!”
“An agent? What can you mean?”
“Bah! You are a fool for protecting him!”
“I can’t believe it. He told me—”
“Where is he?” yelled Soustelle, losing his grip on what little patience he still possessed.
“I—I assume he is at home in bed, where every sane person ought to be at such an hour.”
“Tanant is neither at home in bed, nor is he a sane man for attempting his dirty double-cross.”
“This is all such a shock,” said Lise in a trembly voice. She ran a frustrated hand through her hair. “I just don’t know anything.”
“You must know that Tanant is not his real name!”
“I thought he was—”
“Thought he was what?” interrupted Soustelle.
“He told me he was from Lyon,” said Lise, praying it was the same story Michel had told the Germans. “He said he was a bookseller.”
Soustelle eyed her thoughtfully for a moment.
“I wonder . . .” he mused. Then in a sudden, lightning-quick move, he grabbed Lise by the arm and spun her around so that the arm twisted up painfully behind her back. The act caught her completely by surprise and she gasped in genuine pain.
“I could force the information from you, you know!”
“P—please,” sputtered Lise. “We’ve gone out a few times—I know nothing about him. A few cafes, that’s all. You must believe me.”
“Which cafes?” She gave him two names, neither of which she or Michel had ever been to.
“Who are his friends?”
“I know none of them.”
Soustelle gave her arm a cruel jerk.
“Don’t you think I would tell you? It was always just he and I—alone. I thought maybe he was married, and so kept our relationship very discreet. Please! I am telling the truth.” Real tears flowed from her eyes. But the act did not seem to move Soustelle.
The Frenchman ruminated a moment over her words, then loosened his grip. But before letting go completely, he gave her a harsh shove and she crumpled to the floor.
“You are lying!” he sneered. “I can smell the deceit in every word! And do not think you will escape! I will be back when I have time, and will take more thorough steps to extract the information from you!”
Soustelle spun around and stomped away. Lise remained a moment longer where she sat on the floor, still stunned that he had left without arresting her.
But there was no time to spend enjoying her momentary triumph.
She had to warn Michel!
Yet, how could she? She had no more idea where he was than Soustelle did! But she had to do something!
In a sudden moment of resolve, Lise jumped from the floor, grabbed her coat and put it on in place of the robe, paused another minute to take her revolver out of hiding, dropped it into her handbag, and flew for the door. If she couldn’t locate Michel to warn him, she at least had to keep an eye on Soustelle. If Michel had been found out, everything could tumble down. She had to keep the Frenchman away from him!
As she exited her building, Lise caught a fading glimpse of Soustelle’s black Renault rounding a corner in the distance. She jumped on her bicycle and hurried in pursuit in that direction. It was going to be difficult keeping him in sight. She would have to stay in the shadows and watch her every move. Not only was it well beyond curfew, but of all nights, this was not a safe one for a Jew to be abroad in the streets of Paris.
55
“La Grande Rafle”
At three a.m., July 16, 1942, nine thousand French policemen were dispatched to conduct the Great Raid.
Truckloads of police roared onto the rue Vieille du Temple and other Jewish districts of Paris. They poured through the narrow streets and stormed the buildings, where, inside, their terrified, helpless victims crouched in dread.
Thousands had been able to heed the warnings tirelessly spread by the underground, but many simply had not the means or the strength or the capacity to believe that such a horror was possible.
Many men fled, leaving wives and children behind, believing they would be spared as they had always been in the past. But the gendarmes beat down doors and dragged them out—not only the men they could find, but women and children also. One frenzied Jewess, clutching her infant child in her arms, leaped from her upper-story window, carrying them both to their deaths on the street below rather than face what she now realized must be their only alternative.
It was a new reign of terror in Paris, and somehow as Logan trudged down a darkened back street with Antoine, he could not find much solace in reminding himself of the thousands that had been saved. Later, when he saw the statistics on von Graff’s desk, he would know the bold facts: almost thirteen thousand Jews would be arrested before this Nazi operation was over, with over four thousand of that number children.
But on that sultry summer night, his eyes saw what no statistics could tell. Hundreds of human beings were prodded like cattle down the street before him, some with suitcases or hastily assembled bundles of their meager belongings.
At one point as Logan watched from the shadows, a woman struggling with three children and two clumsy bundles, shuffled past. One of the children stumbled over a loose brick in the sidewalk, and, skinning his hands and knees, cried out to his mother. Instinctively Logan began to step forward to help, but Antoine grabbed his arm and yanked him back.
Logan wrenched his arm from Antoine’s grasp, but it was too late. A gendarme had grabbed up the child and shoved him toward his mother.
“Keep moving!” he shouted, jabbing each of them in the back with the butt of his rifle.
The sad parade continued past. Neither Logan nor Antoine moved, for they both realized they could do no more. Why they even stayed, watching the procession well beyond the curfew as it was, they could not tell. Perhaps their utter feeling of emotional helplessness had made their legs unable to move also. Perhaps because something deep inside them hoped that the impression of such a sight into the hearts and minds of sane men might prevent it from ever happening again.
In another few minutes an aged rabbi hobbled by, a prayer shawl peeking out from beneath his drab coat, his white sidelocks dripping with perspiration from the intense strain of this late night ordeal. Sewed to the front of his coat was the yellow star all French Jews had recently been forced to wear. But above the star, he had defiantly pinned his Croix de Guerre and Legion d’Honneur medals—a hero of France marching in disgrace, herded aboard a truck like a sheep to the slaughter.
Logan watched, feeling the shame any sensitive man must certainly feel at such a sight. But before he had a chance to reflect on the plight of the old rabbi further, at his side Logan heard a strangled cry. He looked around and saw that Antoine’s face was twisted with agony from the sight. Tears coursed down his cheeks.
“Mon Dieu!” he breathed, his hands clenched into fists at his side.
The old Jew heard Antoine’s words and paused, looking directly at the two Resistance men. His penetrating gaze, to their surprise, was not one that spoke of defeat, but rather was filled with pride, and even displayed a courageous attempt to comfort his countrymen.
“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One” was all he could say before he shuffled off with his people.
Antoine started forward out of the shadows. Now it was Logan’s turn to restrain his friend.
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