“We lose our liaison with Vichy and the American General.”
Helmut drew in his breath. “That’s a hell of a lot of responsibility for one man.”
“We didn’t have much choice in the matter. But that’s not all. Our man had arranged to transport the gold to Marseille, but how? With whom? I have no idea. I know where the gold is, but that’s all.”
“Scheiss.”
“What we need is someone who can move freely throughout France, who can speak English and French. Someone who already knows our contact in Vichy.”
Suddenly, he understood everything. “So this is what brings you out of Germany. It’s not to keep an eye on me, it’s to give me this.”
“You are a smart man.”
“I don’t know Brun, I’ve met him exactly one time.”
“That’s one time more than anyone else.”
“And I certainly don’t understand the military situation. As soon as I open my mouth to Brun and the American agent, they’ll know I’m hopelessly ignorant.”
“All you need to know is that the French need to stall the German Seventh and hope the Italians are too weak to push in from the east. The operational details are for the Americans and the French to work out.
“But all of this hinges on evading the Gestapo,” Gemeiner added. “Hoekman has taken down two of our men. He knows there is someone in requisitions and suspects this person is Major Ostermann.”
“It’s a stroke of luck that he’s focused on Alfonse,” Helmut said.
“Yes, but it can’t last. Ostermann was protected by his position, a few well-placed friends in the Wehrmacht, and the fact that Hoekman had nothing but suspicions. He has more than suspicions now. An hour after he has Ostermann under questioning he’ll learn his mistake. Another hour of questioning will turn his attention to you.”
“Hoekman must be killed.”
“I have an Opel outside with a full tank of petrol. I want to drive you to the Egyptienne.”
“Tonight? You can’t possibly be serious. It’s seven o’clock already.”
Gemeiner looked at his wristwatch. “Quarter of.”
“There are two military checkpoints before we reach the border of Alsace. At least two more between there and Paris. Six hours drive, add three, maybe four, five hours at check-points, depending on luck. . .it’s impossible.”
“And don’t forget, you have to go upstairs and sleep with the girl, first.”
“And how long are you allotting for that?” he scoffed.
“An hour, two tops. Meanwhile, I’m going to make a few phone calls, drive out to the first checkpoint just outside the city—that will be the toughest one—and prepare the groundwork. By the time you finish seducing the girl—”
“Gabriela. She has a name.”
“By the time you finish seducing the girl,” he repeated, “I’ll have the journey trimmed to seven hours, tops.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay, so I go upstairs, sleep with Gabriela. Let’s say it takes me an hour. Seven hours on the road, just to be safe. We arrive in Paris at three in the morning.”
“And there’s a small problem entering the city. I know the colonel in charge of the checkpoints that run in a ring from Saint-Denis, around the east side, and down to the south of Paris. A real by-the-books officer. I can’t drive into the city through any of those checkpoints. Too risky that I’ll be spotted. The regime thinks I’m in Kiev.”
“At least we still hold Kiev.”
“For now. There’s not much of a city left. You think Paris is hungry.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Helmut said. “I’ve got requisitioning contacts in the Ukraine. The Kievans have been deemed ’superfluous eaters.’”
“If the Gestapo discovers me in Paris, I’ll find myself a superfluous breather.” Gemeiner shook his head. “I can’t be seen on the east side and we don’t have time to circle around and approach from the west. We’ll stop and I’ll climb in the trunk before we reach the city.”
“Okay, so we make our way to the Egyptienne. It’s now three o’clock in the morning.”
“Where the party will still be in full-swing, from what I understand.”
“True, but Hoekman won’t be there,” Helmut said. “He’ll be in bed, resting up for a full day of arrests and torture.”
“Unless he has just received an urgent message from Gabriela that she has information about the simple soldat. She’ll insist on meeting him at the Egyptienne for her own safety. A back room, the kind reserved for private debauchery. He’ll have no reason to suspect a trap, not in such a public place. Soon as they’re alone, she pulls out a gun, and murders him.”
“Hmm.”
“The girl thinks we’re waiting to drive her to safety.” Gemeiner said. “Instead, I kill her, dump her in the Seine with a soggy, but readable suicide note.”
There was a sick feeling in his stomach.
Gemeiner leaned over and rested a hand on his shoulder. “It’s a war, my friend. Horrible things happen. We can’t go soft.”
“I’m not getting soft.”
He pulled his hand away. “Good, there’s no room for it.”
“And me? Where am I while you’re stabbing her in the back?”
“In a bakery truck, speeding toward the French Riviera with a cargo full of gold.”
“Just like that?” Helmut asked.
“Just like that. Or rather, as the French would say: voila tout.”
Chapter Twenty-three:
Helmut found Gabriela sitting in the chair by the window when he returned.
“Helmut, I don’t know what’s wrong, but I think we should talk. First of all—”
“Shhh, please. I have to think.”
He couldn’t figure out how to wiggle free from the situation.
Technically, there was little fault with Gemeiner’s plan. Helmut believed the man could handle the checkpoints. He thought Hoekman would fall for the trap. Gabriela had the nerve to pull the trigger. There might be some difficulty getting her out of the Egyptienne after she fired the pistol, but he guessed Gemeiner had a plan for that.
The plan was risky, of course, with a million things that could go wrong. But that described everything these days. Still, it stood an excellent chance of succeeding. Other than that, it was all wrong.
“Helmut?”
“Just a minute.”
“You’re scaring me. Talk to me, please.”
“I’ve got to think. Please, give me a moment.”
“This isn’t about what just happened between us, is it?”
“No, it’s not,” he admitted.
“Something’s wrong. No, something new is wrong.”
A hint of a plan started to form in his head. He turned to Gabriela. “Two things happened you might find interesting. First, I ran into a friend downstairs at the bar. He offered to drive us to Paris tonight.”
“Tonight? Well, if that’s what you want,” she said after a moment of hesitation. “We can go back instead of spending the night here.”
“Second, I learned Colonel Hoekman is going to be at the Egyptienne tonight. We’ll get there before he leaves, you can lure him to the back room and we can be done with the matter once and for all.”
“Oh.”
“Unless you’re not ready, if you don’t think you can do it. If you need more time. . .”
“I can do it.”
“Are you sure?”
She drew in her breath. Again, a long moment of silence. “Helmut, is there something you’re not telling me?”
“There are a lot of somethings.”
“You left here insisting you wouldn’t let me kill Hoekman.” A slight tension in her voice. “Downstairs, you happen to run into a friend who somehow knows where a Gestapo agent will be several hours from now.”
“I know, it’s funny how that happened, but—”
“Funny? Don’t insult me by claiming this is
a coincidence.”
“Listen to me for a second. You already know Hoekman is my enemy. I’d like nothing better than to see him dead. You might be the tool to do that.”
“The tool? I’m a tool?”
“No, not a tool. That was a poor choice of words. Listen, we both need the same thing, is that so bad?”
“There’s something wrong here. Why do I feel like you’ve been lying to me?”
“I haven’t told you the whole truth, no.”
“Oh, Helmut.” There was disappointment in her voice. “I should have known. You’re just a man, you just wanted what a man wants.”
“What a man wants? If that’s all I wanted, I would have slept with you just now. I would have sent you in there to your death but I tried to talk you out of it. Don’t pin crimes on me I never did.”
She walked to the curtain, lifted the corner, and peered down at the street. When she turned back, the anger was gone from her face, replaced by something flat and cynical. “I see. It’s a practical relationship. Well, let’s not pretend it’s something it’s not or pretend we had something we didn’t.”
“I know I should have told you more, told you earlier,” he said. “You’re angry, I understand. You have a right to be.”
“Don’t be an idiot. I saw my father with part of his brain cut out. I tried to seduce the man who arrested him. I spread my legs for your friend so I could get something to eat. And I just told a boche war profiteer that I was falling in love with him.”
Her words felt like a punch to the gut.
“Well, are you going to say anything?” she demanded. “What’s this all about? Who are you and what do you want?”
“I’ll be honest with you,” he said.
“I doubt it.”
“Yes, I will. I won’t tell you everything, but everything I say will be the truth.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“I’m an enemy of the Reich.”
“Come on, you don’t expect me to believe that. I saw you at the rail yard, ordering those men. They were stealing the wealth of France and shipping it east.”
“I didn’t say I was an enemy of Germany,” Helmut said. “But I’m an enemy of the Nazi regime. There are a lot of us. People try to kill Hitler all the time. They fail, and generally their goal is to overthrow the government and prosecute the war in a more intelligent fashion. We’re not like that. We accept that the war is lost, our enemies are too strong and we’re surrounded.”
“Surrounded all the way from Brittany to the steppes of Russia. Of course.”
“That’s an illusion. The German war machine is like a runner who sprints to a big early lead, but has nothing left to finish the race. I’m not sure we could beat just the Russians, and with the Americans massing in England and North Africa, it’s hopeless.”
“Anyone who is not German has figured that out a long time ago. So how do you plan to save Germany if you have no hope?”
“We have no hope of winning the war, but we can choose who we lose to.”
“What do you mean?”
“If we lose to the Soviets, Germany dies forever. What takes its place is a crippled client state, populated by the offspring of Soviet troops and their German sex slaves. The German men will finish their short, miserable lives in Siberian work camps.”
“And if the Americans win?”
“I don’t know what will happen if the Americans and British defeat us, but it will be better. It certainly couldn’t be worse.”
“This all sounds fine,” she said, “but how can you possibly determine which of your enemies defeats you?”
“I can’t tell you that part.”
“Hmm, but you want me to kill Colonel Hoekman for you. Why?”
“He’s a threat to our plan. He’s been distracted by Alfonse, but that won’t last. We were fortunate. Alfonse isn’t and never has been part of our conspiracy.”
“Of course not. Alfonse doesn’t care about anything but Alfonse. And he talks too much. Only a fool would include him in a conspiracy.”
“Colonel Hoekman is looking for us, that’s what brought him back to France, not Alfonse’s petty embezzlement.”
“Never mind, you don’t need to tell me any more. Say I kill Hoekman for you, then what?”
Helmut said, “My friend downstairs doesn’t care what happens to his tools after they’re used. He’s planning to throw you away when he’s done with you.”
“In other words, I do your dirty work and then you let the Gestapo kill me?”
“Not quite, but close enough. Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan to get you out of there. I’m not going to let anything bad happen.”
“How very noble of you.”
#
Downstairs, at the phone cabin, Helmut placed a call. He looked first to see if Gemeiner was lurking about, but the older man seemed to have made good on his word to prepare the way at the first checkpoint. There was no sign of him or of his Opel.
The call took most of his phone tokens and two switchboard transfers. And then the phone rang and rang and rang at the house in Traunstein.
At last Loise picked up. “Hello? Who is it?”
Her voice was small, practically overwhelmed with static. The phone lines were shockingly degraded since last time he’d called.
“Hello, it’s me. Are you alone?”
“What? I can barely hear you. Helmut, is that you?”
“Are you alone? Can we talk?”
“What? Helmut? Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. Listen, remember what we talked about last time, about Switzerland? I need you to get out. It’s time, you have to go. Tonight, if possible, but if not, first thing in the morning. You have to get out of the country, do you understand?”
“Helmut? What? Can you repeat that?”
He repeated his instructions, reminded her about the box in the basement with the Swiss francs and the papers and the bank information. Without saying box, basement, or Swiss francs, of course. Couldn’t take a chance that a switchboard operator was listening. Again Loise interrupted, unable to hear him, and again he repeated it.
“Did you get all of that? Loise? Loise?”
The line was dead. How much had she heard? Any of it?
He looked down at the tokens in his hand. He didn’t have enough to try Germany again and still make the call to Paris. And without the call to Paris, he had nothing.
He called his man in Paris. David Mayer picked up on the second ring.
“David?”
“Who is this?” The voice was cautious.
“It’s von Cratz. I’m in Strasbourg and I need your help.”
“Hey, boss. Sorry, I didn’t recognize your voice. Did you get the Belgian order shipped?”
That was code. This call is unexpected. Is everything okay?
“Day after tomorrow,” Helmut said, which meant that he was not under any duress. “But let’s hope we don’t have an overly inquisitive switchboard operator. I’m full of risky calls tonight. My luck is bound to run out.”
“You don’t have to tell me about risky calls.”
“Been chatting with your banker friends again?”
“How did you guess? And ordering gefilte fish for the gathering of the Elders of Zion in Berlin next month. I hear Dr. Goebbels is going to be the keynote speaker. No, I had a conversation with a cousin. Still alive, thank god, far underground.”
The tenor of the conversation started to worry Helmut. If they were being listened to—and every minute they kept chatting increased that likelihood—they’d now put David’s cousin at risk and anyone that man might be helping or hiding.
“Listen, David,” he said. “Do you have the Dupuis papers?”
“Yes, they’re here. Safe.”
“Tonight is when you will use them.”
“Tonight as in tonight?” David’s voice tightened. “What is it?”
“There’s no immediate risk. Wake your wife and daughters, pack everything of value. But nothing. .
.religious, you understand. Nothing that would give you away. You have several hours to get them to the train station. You will pick them up in the car in Dijon.”
“You’re sure? You’re positive they’re not in danger?”
“I’m in danger, David, not you, and not your family. But I need your help.”
“You know I’ll do anything for you. Except I can’t risk my girls, you understand.”
“I’m not lying. You’re perfectly safe for the moment. By the time you’re no longer safe, your family will be out of the city and you’ll be on your way to Geneva. I have an account there under the Dupuis name with more than enough for your needs.”
“So this is it, then. I’m done.”
“You’re done,” Helmut confirmed. “Thank you for your years of service, enjoy your retirement, etc. After tonight, it will no longer be safe for you in France, if it ever was. I’ll be sorry to lose you, but there’s a good chance the Gestapo will roll up the whole organization.”
“You’re kidding, everything? After all we’ve worked for?”
“You’ll call Henri and Stephan, warn them? They’ve got their own contingency plans. Oh, and Damien, call him too. He’ll take care of the others. Nobody is going hungry.”
“Yeah, but boss. . .”
“There’s no other choice. It’s over. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, here’s a question. Do you own a gun?”
“Yes, I do.”
“What kind of gun?” Helmut asked.
“I keep a Luger in my flat. I also own an Italian Beretta, although I only have a few rounds.”
“The German gun will be better. Yes, that will be perfect. Now, can you impersonate an agent of the secret police?”
David laughed. “Remember the rabbi comment? I don’t think so.”
“Not Gestapo, your German isn’t good enough and we have to fool a German. A French agent.”
“Well, I still look pretty ethnic. Not too many of our kind in the Franc-garde. Although it helps you haven’t let me see the sun in two years.”
“Cut your hair to the scalp, that will help.”
“And the nose? Got a good surgeon? My brother could pull it off, he looks more Aryan than I do.”
“And your brother, where’s he?”
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