B004U2USMY EBOK (33 page)

Alfonse shrugged her hand away. “But where
the hell is Helmut? He’s got to tell them, they’ve got to hear it
from him. Now, before they arrest him, while he’ll still be
believed.”

“That’s what you need to tell us,” Gabriela
said. “You have to help us find him.”

Alfonse shook his head. “I don’t know, I have
no way of finding out. Please, all of you just go, I don’t want to
get involved. I’ve got to make a phone call.”

“It’s too late for that. It’s not just
Helmut, all of us in this room are in danger.”

“No, I don’t believe it. All of you go.
Please, for god’s sake.”

“What happened to the man who defended me on
the Boulevard Saint Michel?” Gabriela asked.

“That was different.”

“Right, it was just a zazou. Easy enough to
beat up some kid. But if there’s real danger, Alfonse is nowhere
to be found.”

“It’s the Gestapo. There’s nothing I can do.”

“I was this close to killing him, Alfonse. If
not for goddamn French collaborators, Hoekman would be dead. Now
why are you scared?”

“Why am I scared? It’s the Gestapo. The
Gestapo.
”

“Alfonse, listen to yourself.” Christine
said. There was an element of disgust in her voice. “Be a man and
do something. We’re two whores and a Jew. If we can stand up to
Colonel Hoekman, so can you.”

“You’re wasting your time,” Mayer said. “Come
on, both of you. Let’s get out of here and leave this coward to
the Gestapo. Maybe his friends in Berlin can save him.”

“Oh, come on, that’s not fair.” Alfonse
licked his lips. “What can I do anyway?”

“You can tell us how to find Helmut,”
Gabriela said.

“I already told you, I don’t know.”

“You have an idea, you have to.”

He looked back and forth between Gabriela,
Christine, and Mayer. “He’s not at his flat?”

“No, but he’s somewhere in the city,”
Gabriela said. “Waiting for a shipment.”

She explained what she knew, how the shipment
had to be small enough to fit in a small truck or the trunk of a
car.

“There’s a place Helmut goes to pick up
packages,” Alfonse said. “A little warehouse in the Fifteenth
Arrondissement. I once saw a truck pull up and a man go in with a
large satchel and come out empty-handed. I later saw the same
satchel in the back seat of Helmut’s car, but empty. I’m guessing
it was fake papers for his workers, that sort of business. The
thing about this place is that it has a private garage, big enough
for three, four cars. It’s an excellent place to take a small
shipment because nobody can see what you’re loading or unloading.”

“That sounds exactly right,” Gabriela said.
“Can you show us how to get there?”

“If I do, will you promise I’ll never see any
of you again?”

“With pleasure.”

Chapter Twenty-seven:

Helmut was not pleased to see Gabriela,
Mayer, Christine, and Alfonse arrive at the warehouse. Alfonse,
especially, was a bad sign. And the look of terror on his face
made it instantly clear that something had gone horribly wrong.

He listened with growing alarm as Gabriela
gave a summary of what had happened at the Egyptienne. Hoekman
alive, barely wounded. Gemeiner taken captive. Thank God Gabriela
was alive and free; other than that, the operation had been an
unmitigated disaster.

“So why did you come here?” he asked when she
finished.

“To warn you,” Gabriela said. “And you need
our help. You’ll never get out of the city alone.”

“Out of the question. You’re going with David
to Geneva and that’s final.”

“No, I’m not. I’m going to help.”

“I don’t need help. I’ve loaded the truck and
I’m ready to go.”

The driver of the first truck had helped him
move the boxes without comment, then driven off. All he had left
to do was clean up a few incriminating papers here in the office
and then he’d have been gone. Five more minutes. And then captured
at the first checkpoint he reached, based on what he’d just heard
from Gabriela.

“There were police in the streets, already,”
she said. “I’ll bet every Gestapo agent in the city is awake and
looking for you. How many in Paris?”

“Dozens,” Helmut said. “Add to that probably
hundreds of informers. Plus the police, the
milice
, the
Franc-gardes. Even those laughable junior fascists. They’ll be out
looking for us.”

“You won’t be laughing when JPF kicks in your
face,” Alfonse said. He sat at a desk in the corner, smoking and
muttering to himself, none of his traditional bravado. It occurred
to Helmut that he was the sort of officer who, when caught in a
surprise attack, would cringe in the foxhole while his men begged
for leadership, until finally the position was overrun and
everyone killed.

David Mayer kept guard in the front room of
the safe house, peering through the windows. The cars and the
panel truck sat in the garage, out of sight. There was a back
alley where they could slip out without emerging onto the main
street. Unless the Gestapo surrounded the entire block, of course.
If Gemeiner were alive, and under torture, it would only be a
matter of time until they found him.

“It’s going to be a hell of a chance getting
out of Paris,” Helmut said.

“I know the streets,” Christine said. “I’ve
lived in Paris long enough, I could practically drive a taxi. I
can get us out of here.”

“No, forget it.” He paced the room. “And
you’re sure? Gemeiner is alive?”

“He was an hour ago,” Gabriela said.

“I can’t believe it. After all of that, you’d
think he’d have that cyanide capsule pinched between his teeth
where it could do some good. Not in his pocket.”

“It’s not his fault,” Gabriela said. “Just
bad luck having Franc-gardes on a mission to impress the
boches
.
Gemeiner wasn’t expecting trouble.”

“Of course not.” He forced himself to remain
calm. “Nobody is. That’s why you carry the goddamned capsules,
it’s a contingency.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it now.”

“No.”

“What does he know?” Gabriela asked.
“Everything?”

“Thank god, no. I got a sealed envelope from
the man who helped me load the shipment in the truck. From our
Vichy contact. Gemeiner doesn’t know his name.”

It had seemed a needless complication
earlier, but now Helmut was glad for the precaution.

“But that’s the only good news,” he added.
“He can find this place, or close enough for the Gestapo to finish
the job.”

“Any chance he can stand up to torture?” she
asked.

Helmut considered. “For a little while,
maybe. He’s no coward and he lived through the trenches in the
last war. POW camp for eleven months. Who knows what the Russians
put him through? But Hoekman can be persuasive. Sooner, rather
than later, he’ll talk.”

“Do you have extra cyanide capsules? One for
each of us?”

“Forget about it,” Alfonse said. “ I’m not
taking a goddamned capsule.”

“Nobody expects you to,” Helmut said. “We
expect you to babble everything you know in the first five seconds
of interrogation.”

“Interrogation? Hell, no. I’m going back to
Germany. I’ve got friends who can protect me.”

“Sure they can, Alf.”

“You’ll see, I’ll come out of this just
fine.”

“But I need one,” Gabriela said. She closed
her eyes as if remembering something terrible. Her father, no
doubt, and that angry scar across his forehead. When she opened
her eyes, she looked resolute. “He’s not getting me. I won’t be
taken.”

“Me, either,” Christine said. She looked
pale. There was a tremble at her lip that somehow made her look
more brave, rather than less.

“Come on, think this through,” Helmut told
them. “I can get a third ticket for Geneva. You’ll be safe from
the Gestapo there.”

David Mayer popped in from the front room.
“Time’s almost up, boss. A suspicious car swung by here twice. How
long until they start beating down doors?”

Alfonse ground his cigarette in the ashtray
and rose to his feet. “That’s enough for me. Open that back door
so I can get my car out, I’m going.”

“Sit down,” Helmut said. He turned to Mayer.
“Keep watching. We’ll be done in five minutes.”

“I’m not sitting down,” Alfonse said. “I’m
done.”

“Please listen,” Gabriela said to Helmut. “We
can help you, you need us.”

“Yeah, how?”

“Let Alfonse go, first,” Gabriela said. “I
don’t trust him. The less he knows, the better.”

Alfonse turned with a flash of temper on his
face. “You don’t trust me? Who showed you how to get here?”

“No offense,” Gabriela said, “but you don’t
care and if they catch you, you’ll tell them everything. The
sooner you get out of here, the better. For all of us.”

“You were nothing when I found you.” His
voice rose in pitch. “You’re still nothing. Listen to you, couple
of working girls who think they’re going to be heroes. Go ahead,
Helmut, give them the cyanide, let’s see just how brave they are.”

“Calm down,” Helmut said. “There’s a
residential flat upstairs. Someone will hear you.”

Gabriela was right about Alfonse. Helmut
hadn’t wanted to send him away until he figured out what to do
with him. But if they caught him, he would talk. Helmut wasn’t
bringing him along—even if Alfonse were to agree to go—which meant
it was either kill him or let him go. Gemeiner would say to shoot
him, but that was something he couldn’t do.

“Mayer will let you out. You’re done. Get
back to your friends in Germany, if you can.”

“Sure, send me off with the Jew. Great,
wonderful.” He turned to go, but stopped as he reached the
threshold to the front room. “I never asked for any of this, it
really isn’t fair.”

“Alf,” Helmut said.

“Fine, yes, I’m going.”

He could hear Alfonse still grumbling to
David Mayer as the two went out the back door.

Helmut sighed, then turned back to Gabriela
and Christine. “I’m listening. Give me a reason.”

“For starters, it’s a long drive to
Marseille,” Gabriela said.

He started. “What? What makes you say
Marseille?”

“Colonel Hoekman asked me. You keep going
down there, he said, so why?”

The entire plan balanced on the edge of a
razor. Hoekman knew too much already. Gemeiner had only to fill in
the gaps. It made Helmut want to give up, sprint for his car, and
flee in some random direction.

“Lots of checkpoints between here and
Marseille,” Gabriela said. “Your French is almost perfect, but you
have an accent. They’ll be looking for you. I can drive us through
the checkpoints.”

“I can help, too,” Christine said. “My family
lives in Toulon, not far from Marseille, and I’ve paid the
smugglers five, six times to smuggle me in and out of the Occupied
Zone. I know how to get in contact with them so we can bypass the
checkpoints.”

“Maybe,” Helmut said. “You’d certainly be
safer there than in Paris with Hoekman looking for you.” He turned
to Gabriela. “But why do
you
want to go? It’ll be
dangerous.”

“I know.”

“And what I’m doing is for the German people,
not France. You were furious with me before, so why help me now?”

“I’m not finished, that’s why.”

“You could be.”

“No. You send me to Geneva and then what? I
wait out the war. That could be years, or maybe it never ends. And
meanwhile, Colonel Hoekman keeps hurting people.”

“With any luck, you’ll never see him again.”

“With any luck, I will. And this time I won’t
fail.”

“Be reasonable.”

“I’m not a reasonable girl, Helmut. I never
have been. I don’t forget, and I don’t forgive.”

“What about your father?”

“Yes, what about him? I can’t help him from
Switzerland.”

“You can’t help if you’re dead.”

“I’m not going to die.”

“You might not. It could be worse than that.”

“Hoekman had his pliers in my mouth. He was
going to rip out my teeth. Nothing you can say will scare me more
than that.”

Helmut glanced between the two women, came to
a decision. “If you’re going to help, there’s something you should
know.”

“Yes?”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a
20 franc gold coin. On the front was Marianne with a laurel
wreath, on the back, the proud Gallic Rooster, the
Coq Gaulois
.
“Do you know what this is?”

“Looks like contraband,” Gabriela said.

“French Rooster, 6.45 grams of gold. Enough
to bribe a French police officer to stay in bed instead of making
his rounds. Enough to pay an
ancien soldat
to get his gun
from where it’s hidden in the barn, because he can feed his family
for a month with this coin.”

“And what are you going to do with it?”

“A man will do a lot for a single French
rooster.” Helmut returned the coin to his pocket. “I’ve got 70,000
in the truck.”

Chapter Twenty-eight:

Colonel Hoekman dropped a mouse into each
cage in turn. Within thirty seconds, three mice lay twitching,
eyes dulling, in the coils of three snakes. Below the snakes, in
the cabinets, he could hear rodents in their cages. He’d have
reason to bring out more in a few minutes.

The old man—Hoekman still didn’t know his
true identity—lay strapped to the table, staring up at the
ceiling. He could have watched, but he did not turn his head or
show any interest. He wore a sullen expression, not fear. You
couldn’t break a man until he was afraid. That was Hoekman’s first
task.

Hoekman had made multiple mistakes at the
Egyptienne. Underestimating Gabriela Reyes, of course, that was
one. Secondly, where had this old man come from, and why hadn’t he
noticed him in the lounge? Next, he should have taken his chances
with the Franc-gardes. Instead, his first instinct had been to run
here with the girl, come back for the old man later. First the
girl had tried to kill him, then this old man. Who else was there?
Was Major Ostermann about to burst through the doors, maybe von
Cratz? He should have secured the building, then left with both
prisoners. Instead, he’d stumbled into the night air and been
surprised by a Jew.