Red Gold (21 page)

Casson went to the back of the truck. Jacquot lay curled up on his side, eyes wide open. Casson could smell sardines, and an oil stain had spread across the wood flooring. Casson tugged at the body, dragging it back until its weight toppled it over the edge and onto the road.

He walked over to the car. The man he’d thought was a younger brother still lay sprawled across the rifle, his blood a dark patch in the dirt. Casson returned to the truck. The leader seemed to be resting, almost asleep. He opened his eyes and saw Casson standing beside him. “I surrender,” he said, raised one hand, then let it fall.

Casson aimed carefully and shot him in the temple. The report echoed over the fields and faded away.

SERVICE B

Night settled on the mountain villages in the late afternoon.

Sometimes a small café lit up a cobbled street, but the cold drifted in with the shadows and the people disappeared. Casson drove with his hands tight on the steering wheel, stopping often to peer at a map, trying to stay on the deserted roads that climbed the western slope of the Basses-Alpes.

He’d spent a long time outside Beaufort, doing what Degrave told him to do. He had managed to drag the bodies of the three
miliciens
into the Citroën, then drove it back toward the village to a place where the hillside fell sharply away from a curve in the road. He turned the engine off, set the gearshift in neutral, and pushed it over the edge.

It barely moved at first, the dense brush crackling under the wheels, then it sped up, bouncing over rocks and fallen trees, finally slewing sideways and rolling over, coming to rest upside down, its tires spinning slowly to a stop. It would be found, he knew, but not immediately, and all he needed was a few hours to be somewhere else when the alarm was sounded.

Degrave died sometime in the middle of the day. After he’d pushed the Citroën down the hill, Casson walked a long way back to the truck and moved him, very carefully, to the passenger side of the front seat. He was conscious for a moment—looked at Casson as though he didn’t know him, mumbled something, then closed his eyes and leaned his head against the window.

Casson drove to the next village as fast as the truck would go. He had intended to seek help from the local priest. It was the general rule, since 1940—if nothing else can be done, find the church, and the
curé.
But by the time they reached a village, Degrave was gone.

Casson drove north. The road wound through a narrow valley by a stream, its banks lined with poplar trees. He stopped the truck. Here, he thought. Degrave would have told him to do it this way, to do what needed to be done. But there was no shovel in the truck. He couldn’t leave Degrave to the dogs and the crows, so he rammed the shift back into gear and drove on. At the end of the valley he found a road marker, ST.-SYLVAIN—14.

The church was in the center of the village. Just inside the door he found a stand with tiers of burning votive lights. Casson took a fresh candle from the box, lit it, and fixed it with melted wax beside the others. Then he went to the vestry and knocked on the door. The priest answered, his dinner left on the table. He was young and bearded, his face weathered by life in the mountains.

Casson explained. A friend had died, he was in the truck outside the church. The priest looked Casson over carefully. “I will have to ask you,” he said, “if your friend died a natural death.”

Casson shook his head. “He was a soldier.”

Together they went to the truck, and Degrave was carried on a blanket into the vestry and laid on the stone floor. “Can we put a marker on the grave?” the priest said.

“Better not to,” Casson said.

The priest thought for a time. “A small plaque,” he said. “
‘Mort
pour la France.’
Among the dead of the last war, it won’t be noticed.”

He drove out of Saint-Sylvain into the darkness. No moon. A fine, light snow dusted the windshield. After an hour, he couldn’t go on. He pulled off the road, forced himself to eat a piece of bread, and drank some water.

He stared out the window; a meadow, the stubble white with frost. The engine ticked as the metal cooled. He was numb, too tired to think about anything. He put the Walther on the floor where he could reach it, pulled his coat tight around him, and fell asleep.

PARIS. 21 JANUARY.

Alexander Kovar wandered through the crowded waiting room of the Gare du Nord. He’d been contacted by Narcisse Somet—a meeting at 6:20 in the evening, when the station was busiest. He searched the faces, finally spotted Somet coming toward him from the entrance. Tinted spectacles, bluish-red nose and cheeks; easy to find in a crowd, Kovar thought.

They had been friends since they were fifteen years old, in Montmartre in 1908. This was not the artists’ quarter, it was the Montmartre where anarchists and thieves lived side by side, where street performers like Hercules and the Boneless Wonder were local heroes. Somet and Kovar had been drawn there by the preaching of the crippled anarchist who called himself Albert Libertad. Libertad was a legend, a passionate free spirit who loved fighting—using his crutches as weapons, the streets of Paris, and the poor. And, especially, women. He had died later that year, after a savage beating in a street brawl.

Together, Somet and Kovar had battled the police, lived on bread and green pears, written poetry, and made speeches on the boulevards.
Revolution is now, today, in your heart, in the streets.
By 1912 they had gone their separate ways, Kovar wandering among the mining villages of northern France, Somet to sea on tramp freighters. They’d met again in Berlin for a few days, during the back-alley brawls of the 1920s, then they’d had to run for their lives.

By 1936 they were both in Spain; Somet an administrative officer with the XIth International Brigade, Kovar the foreign correspondent for half a dozen Left newspapers in Paris and Brussels. But they’d had guns in their hands more than once—had fought side by side in the November defense of Madrid. Using his empty rifle as a club, Kovar had saved Somet’s life when a Moorish legionnaire had aimed a pistol at him at point-blank range.

The loudspeaker in the waiting room announced the seven o’clock train for Reims. Somet and Kovar embraced warmly and sat on a bench to talk.

“Alexander,” Somet said. “I think it may be time for you to disappear.”

“You don’t mean to Melun.”

“No. Far away. They’ve had some kind of meeting—a colonel brought in from the Center, a commissar, Weiss—”

“The eternal Weiss.”

“—and a man called Juron. Do you know him? Bald, wears thick glasses, doesn’t say much.”

“An NKVD thug. From the Foreign Directorate.”

“Yes. There’ll be another meeting, probably, with the French included, head of the FTP, head of the intelligence unit, but that will be a meeting for telling, not a meeting for asking. This was the Soviet control group, the shadow
apparat.
”

“What was it about?”

“I don’t know, my friend was downstairs. But a few days later this Juron questioned me—just how did I go about making contact with you. It came up in the middle of the discussion, but that’s what he wanted.”

Kovar thought it over. “Maybe I’d better run.”

“Do you need help? Money?”

“I can manage. My friends in Mexico are trying to get me a visa. Until then, I have to stay in France. How much time do I have?”

“Not much. I think once they get what they want from Casson’s friends, they’ll come looking for you.”

“They haven’t found me yet.”

“They will. Is there some way I can reach you quickly? By telephone?”

“I’ve been using a friend’s office in Paris, mostly at night.” Kovar gave him the number. Somet looked at his watch. “Are you taking the train for Reims?” Kovar asked.

“Yes.”

“If I don’t see you again, thanks for letting me know.”

Somet smiled—they would see each other again. “Take care of yourself, Alexander,” he said.

When they shook hands, Somet passed him five hundred francs and walked away before he could say a word.

Casson woke suddenly. It was 3:30. He reached under the seat for the map and the flashlight. Degrave had made him memorize a number in case of emergency—Lyons 43 12—and a protocol, then told him that in the Unoccupied Zone the safest telephones were to be found in railroad stations.

Casson ran the beam back and forth across the map and chose the town of Voirons. He started a few minutes after four and was there by midday, having stopped to siphon another tank of gas from the barrel in the back of the truck. He turned into the main street and asked a man walking a bicycle for the railroad station.
“Tout droit,”
the man said, waving directly ahead of him. That meant
go straight,
or, sometimes,
I don’t know.

The railroad station was in the next street. He parked the truck, found the telephones, and dialed the number in Lyons.

A woman answered. “Calvert,” she said.

“This is Monsieur Rivette, I’m calling from the office.”

“Where are you?”

“Voirons. The railroad station.”

“Is there an emergency?”

“Yes. We were stopped by
milice.
Outside a village called Beaufort. The captain was killed.”

“Are you injured?”

“No.”

“Are you being pursued?”

“No. The
milice
are dead.”

“And the rest?”

“I have it.”

“You are meant to go to Chalon. Can you get there by yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know where to go?”

“No.”

“First of all, you’re not to arrive at night. Truck traffic enters Chalon late in the afternoon, you have to be in the middle of it. On the Quai Gambetta that runs by the Saône, you’ll find the warehouses of the
négociants—
all the wine merchants in the region are headquartered there. The one you want is called Coopérative de Beaune. Pull up in the yard, ask for Henri. Clear?”

“Yes.”

“You have maybe a four- to five-hour drive from where you are. But you must go around Lyons—try to stay well east of the river. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“Then, good luck.”

He left the station. The train from Paris had just arrived and he found himself in the middle of a crowd, people greeting friends, carrying baskets and suitcases, hurrying their children along. He stood by the truck and took a long look at the map. Route 75 ran north from Voirons, passing well east of Lyons, to Bourg, then to Tournus, where it joined the major north–south road, Route 6, and continued on into Chalon. All he had to do was drive to the edge of town and pick up Route 75. No problem. He started the truck, drove out of the railroad station area, and turned north on the
grande rue.

Suddenly, metal ground on metal, the truck leaped forward and his head banged against the windshield. He went to jam the gas pedal to the floor
—escape—
then held up. Instead he braked hard and the truck rocked to a stop. He was a little dazed, stumbled out onto the street. All around, people had stopped to watch the show. A few feet behind the truck, a delivery van with its front bashed in and one headlight shattered.

The driver of the van was already out. A man in a peaked cap and an apron, his face bright red. He spotted Casson and shouted “Annnnhh”—the
there he is!
understood. A traditional sound, prelude to Homeric indignation. The crowd was not to be disappointed. The driver ran at Casson, shaking his fist. “You brainless fucking idiot,” he yelled, staggering to a halt.

“Wait—”

“Do you see what you’ve done to me? Dolt! Donkey! Don’t you look where you’re going?” He was so drunk he swayed back and forth as he was cursing.

“Calm down, monsieur,” Casson said. “Please.”

“Calm down?”

From the corner of his eye, Casson could see the approaching
flic,
walking toward them with that look on his face.

“Ah,” the driver said, glad to see the authorities.

“Shut up a second,” Casson said under his breath. “We can work this out between ourselves. Or maybe you just can’t live another minute without a visit to the police station?”

The man stared at him.
What?
He was so drunk, so much in the wrong, that he would defend himself like a lion. Casson, acutely aware of the Walther in his belt and the guns in the truck, took a wad of hundred-franc notes from his pocket and pressed it into the man’s hand and, using his other hand, curled the man’s fingers around it. Dumbfounded, the driver peered at the money; none of the catastrophes in his chaotic life had ever turned out this well.

The
flic
arrived. “It’s all settled,” Casson told him.

“You agree?” he asked the driver.

The driver blinked nervously, bit his lip, looked around for help. He knew there was more money to be had, but how to get it? “Well,” he said.

“So be it,” the
flic
said. “Your papers, right now.”

“No, no,” the driver said. “Nothing happened.”

The
flic
looked him over. “Go home, Philippe,” he said. “Go to bed.”

The driver staggered back to his van. With great concentration he managed to get the key in the ignition. He started the engine, the van lurched forward, then stalled. The
flic
put his hands on his hips. The driver started up again and drove away, with dark smoke pouring from the exhaust pipe. The
flic
turned to Casson, nodded his head at the truck. “Will it run?” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then disappear.”

Casson drove slowly through the snow-covered countryside, bleak and silent. Now, there was nothing but the work of driving a truck, and it steadied him. As he got closer to Chalon the traffic increased. By cutting France into two countries, the Germans had created choke points at the border crossings—Moulins, Bourges, Poitiers, all the towns along the rivers. For the moment, Casson didn’t mind; it felt safe, one truck among many, all of them rumbling north together. But it took longer than he thought it would, and it was six-thirty by the time he found the Quai Gambetta and the warehouse of the Coopérative de Beaune.