The marché noir—Nora knew that’s what they meant. Paris, like everywhere else only more so, had a roaring black market. Gangsters fought to control it; so, too, did the German Army and others of the Occupier but the Résistance was also involved, as were lots and lots of others and just about every citizen.
‘Thérèse sends her love.’ Blank, blank. ‘And tells us.’ Blank, blank. ‘It was only a dream.’
Jen had never had anything much of value in that flat but had lived with the lie of it to hide what could well have been a big failure to her family’s business. Having been so worried that this would eventually come out, she had started stealing little things and, once started, had found she couldn’t resist the impulse.
Vittel’s internment camp, its Internierungslager, was one of those all-but-overlooked episodes of WWII. At the time in which Bellringer is set, the British and American internees were still not getting along, but they soon did, and quite well. The camp was appropriately liberated by the US Third Army on 4 August, 1944.
* The armée de l’armistice of 100,000 was disbanded on 21 November, 1942, after the Wehrmacht took over the zone libre on the eleventh of that month.
** The Mark VI.
*** Ground ham and chicken.
**** Later, about 300 were modified to carry up to the 9,979-kilogram (22,000 pound) “Earthquake” or “Grand Slam” bombs, the largest of the European war
***** From the King James version of the Bible: Job 4:15–16 and Job 5:1.
Acknowledgments
All of the novels in the St-Cyr/Kohler series incorporate a few words and brief passages of French and German. Dr. Dennis Essar of Brock University very kindly assisted with the French, as did the artist Pierrette Laroche, while Professor Schutz, of Germanic and Slavic Studies at Brock, helped with the German. Should there be any errors, however, they are my own, and for these I apologize.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 2012 by J. Robert Janes
ISBN: 978-1-4532-5222-2
Published in 2012 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
EBOOKS BY J. ROBERT JANES
FROM MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
AND OPEN ROAD MEDIA
Available wherever ebooks are sold
MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
FIND OUT MORE AT WWW.OPENROADMEDIA.COM
FOLLOW US:
@eMysteries and Facebook.com/MysteriousPressCom
@openroadmedia and Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia
Videos, Archival Documents, and New Releases
Sign up for the Open Road Media newsletter and get news delivered straight to your inbox.
FOLLOW US:
@openroadmedia and
Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia
SIGN UP NOW at
www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters
Bellringer Page 36