Dragonfly, page 27
Bridgette was now more convinced than ever that Achim Fleischer was no threat to the clandestine activity going on behind his back. The focus of the street’s watchdog was on the protection of the mural—and on her. If he’d noticed the Dragonfly foursome at all, Victoria especially, he took them for ordinary residents of the neighborhood whose jobs took them daily past the house next door. No danger on that score.
Bridgette recognized her hollow feeling as having little to do with Achim Fleischer. He was just another question mark on a cold, dreary morning when she was wondering when or if she’d ever see her friends again. Her first thought after the alarm clock went off was that if they’d elected to catch those Lysanders, they’d all be waking up in the safety and warmth of Milton Hall, a little hungover after an evening at the Crown and Scepter, their stomachs still full of the pub’s crunchy fish and chips. In a few days, they’d be heading home, addresses exchanged and plans in place to meet earlier than the date in New York.
The Frenchman plainly believed—as did the major—that they would not survive. The poor man had been horrified at their unanimous vote to remain. His face had drooped longer than a basset hound’s at their decisions. As they got up to leave, he’d heard the scrape of their chairs as cell doors slamming and coffin lids closing. “Your case officer is not going to like this,” he’d said, to which Liverwort had replied in her serene way, “We know.”
Achim Fleischer, while an irritating pebble in her shoe, represented familiarity and stability. His absence simply increased her feeling of being alone and lonely on a day that offered no salvation from her gloomy mood. She missed her friends terribly. Seeing them for such a short while yesterday was like a drop of water on a thirsty tongue, and today Frau Helga Richter, the reigning witch from hell, was to come in for a fitting. She was the wife of Sturmbannführer Gottlob Richter, the SS major in charge of the notorious Nazi transit facility in Drancy, a suburb northeast of Paris. The camp was a holding tank to house Jews until they could be transferred to concentration camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka, where it was rumored they would be gassed. Horror stories had leaked out about the brutality of the guards and inhumane living conditions under the whip of Major Richter that, at the risk of their jobs, the staff of the House of Boucher had been warned not to bring up to his wife.
Meeting the woman would discourage even the bravest from ignoring the warning. Flat where she should have been round, round where she should have been flat, possessing the taste of a Parisian streetwalker and the disposition of a killer shark, the woman expected fashion miracles to atone for nature’s cruel injustices to her figure. It was Bridgette to whom she looked to wave her magic wand or, in this case, to apply her drawing pencils.
Having heard the horror stories about Frau Richter, Bridgette had expected the woman to greet her in the haughty manner of other customers who would look her up and down, then say contemptuously to Madame Boucher, “I want an accomplished dress designer to attend me, not a child apprentice.” But surprisingly, Frau Richter had taken one look at her and said simply, “Stick me with a pin, midget, and I will slap you.” So, no problem with acceptance there.
That was the word—acceptance—that Bridgette had been looking for to explain her connection to the team of Dragonfly and Major Renault. Right from the start, they’d all accepted her as she was. She had not had to prove her right to the spot she’d earned. She had not been judged instantly and treated as younger than her age or as delicate as her size suggested. None had addressed her irritatingly, indulgently with asinine tags like little bit, short stuff, or Pee Wee. They had not kindly rushed to her aid during training to offer an unsolicited hand where taller, stronger, smarter people prevailed. They had cut her no slack, given no quarter, nor set the tee box forward. They had trusted her to be their equal in strength and intelligence and capability. How could she not feel connected to people like that? How could she not feel as if…well, it was like being among family?
But the realist in her could not help but anticipate the obstacles that got in the way of the staunchest friendships enduring. As she’d tried to point out to Gladys, time corroded bonds, memories faded, loyalties fossilized. They were the facts of life. Bridgette supposed the weight of that eventuality was responsible for the particular depression she was feeling this morning, so much so that she’d even looked forward to Achim Fleischer’s smiling face and friendly greeting.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
You have a letter, Herr Bauer,” Louis Mueller said when Chris arrived at the academy that Monday morning and handed over a note-sized envelope of heavy vellum. The man’s smirk and the unsealed flap told Chris that he had already read its contents.
“The letter appears to have been opened,” Chris said.
“It came that way. Perhaps the Abwehr courier who delivered it is responsible.”
“Hmm,” said Chris. He took the note to his cubicle, aware that the narrowed eyes of the sports director remained on him until he had shut the door. A shiver of unease ran between his shoulder blades. Herr Mueller’s suspicion seemed intensified this Monday morning. Chris was well aware that he had been under the man’s microscope since his arrival, so he’d taken the precaution of removing certain carelessly written pages from his lesson planner and had warned Jules Garnier to do the same. They were both convinced that someone employed at the school went on the prowl after hours, and Chris was sure it was the sports director. Chris had left a small trap for him, a note concerning one of the students that the boy was to deliver to his father. Instructors were forbidden to make direct contact with the parents. Sure enough, that afternoon, Louis called a meeting to remind his staff that they were not to interact with the students’ parents. It was his job, and his alone, he made clear, directing a blistering look at Chris.
The courier-delivered note was from Major General Konrad March. Please do my son and me the honor of joining us for dinner after your tutoring session today. Herr Wagner will also give us the pleasure of his company.
My goodness, thought Chris. The note was just short of a formal invitation. Maybe the general had expected Louis to read it and the language was for his benefit. But why a written invitation at all? Why not have Hans extend it when he arrived at the general’s this afternoon? Was it to make sure of the presence of his son’s tutor in case he had other plans? Maybe he and Limpet had been invited at the behest of Wilhelm, and the invitation extended this early in the day was simply the general’s way to make sure the boy would not be disappointed.
Yet something about the invitation nibbled at him. It was this sort of subtle gnawing to which the major had urged them to pay particular attention. If the aura of something doesn’t smell right (Major Renault was a good one for the word aura), be alert to it. There’s liable to be something dead in the woodpile somewhere. Use your own judgment and beware.
He’d given the general no reason to be onto him, and he was sure that Limpet hadn’t, either. The general couldn’t possibly know that Herr Bauer had photographed Admiral Canaris’s letter. But he would beware, and he would warn Limpet to be on guard, too.
He’d gotten out of bed yesterday without a trace of regret for his decision to stay in Paris, and he’d not been surprised at the other dragonflies’ votes to remain as well. That was just who they were—all guts and with no expectation of glory. He wished they’d gone home, though. It would have been a comfort knowing they were safe. He’d come up with an idea that he hoped they’d all go for if they made it to New York. He would suggest that they visit a tattoo studio. Chris was sure that any tattoo artist was bound to have a drawing of a dragonfly in his stock.
Anyway, Chris could not in good conscience have left Paris at this time on any account. He was in a place that amounted to a fox set free in a henhouse, and he couldn’t walk away from the intel opportunities that access to the March house afforded him. His only regret was having to take advantage of the trust of a father and son that he and Limpet had both come to care about. But, he reminded himself, in this job trust was a tool that opened locked safes. It made people careless, like the general leaving Admiral Canaris’s letter on his desk for anyone to read. And what a shocker it was! If Chris had interpreted it correctly, the chief of the German Abwehr was a traitor to the Nazi regime.
*
As Bucky shivered through a cold-water shave, a glance out the window of his upstairs room warned him that today deserved the description of “blue Monday.” Skies were overcast, and a heavy fog clung to the air. Bucky thought of this time of year in Oklahoma City, when the weather was at its best—crisp, dry days, blue skies, a golden cast over everything, perfect football weather. He pushed the image from his mind. No good going there. There would be other years to enjoy fall for real in his home state, and then he would recall this time in Paris in November 1942.
He’d had to cast his vote to remain in Paris, no question about it. The firm had received a consulting contract for the construction of a secret mountain facility in the French Alps, where the Nazis planned to build guns with barrels capable of launching bombs across the English Channel. Work was to begin in January. If he could get his hands on the blueprints, he could make sure that plant never got off the ground.
Since Saturday’s meeting, Bucky had been paying extra attention to Dirk Drechsler. On the surface, he could certainly be considered an undetonated grenade. The major had that much cause for alarm. It was possible that the sergeant was waiting to turn him in until he had more on him, but it was clear to Bucky that the guy wanted something from him first, and whatever it was would determine his decision to expose him. Bucky could almost hear those wheels grinding in his fat head. As long as the sergeant did not suspect him of being an American, then he did not suspect him of being a spy. If he were arrested on that score, Bucky had his story ready, and his boss would back him up. Yes, he was an American who had been hired by a French engineering firm before the war and didn’t get out before the borders were locked tight. Being a smart guy, why wouldn’t he have on him a false set of documents made up to protect himself?
The team trusted him to stay out of trouble, and he would. Forewarned was forearmed. Horace Barton was one to say that if you could see it coming, you could ward it off or get out of the way. The major seemed to have forgotten they had their escape hatches. Unless their safe houses had been rolled up, a point the Frenchman would have mentioned, Lodestar would carry on until those blueprints were in Allied hands. Meanwhile he had more reason to worry about the safety of the others. Good God! Little Labrador under the eye of that collaborationist policeman, the beautiful Liverwort tap-dancing with the chief of the counterintelligence division of the SD, and Limpet and Lapwing wining and dining with the head of the Abwehr in France. And they were worried about him? Christ!
Dirk Drechsler was just getting into his overcoat as Bucky came downstairs. A look about him gave Bucky the feeling that the sergeant had been hanging around waiting for him. “Bonjour, Monsieur Beaulieu,” he said. “I see you, too, are just now leaving. Shall we walk to the metro together?”
His Monday just got bluer. “Of course. Why not?” Bucky said. It was only a ten-minute walk. He’d avoided the guy all day Sunday by perusing the stalls of the bouquinistes, Paris’s famed booksellers lined in their green boxes along the Seine, one of the few charms of Paris still in operation.
“How did you spend your weekend?” Dirk asked in his sketchy French as they set out. “We saw nothing of you on Saturday.”
“That’s because you were at the rummage sale.” An alarm went off in Bucky’s head. Why only Saturday? Why not Sunday as well?
“What? Oh, yes, the rummage sale.”
“You had success, no?”
“Success about what?”
“The rummage sale.”
“Oh, yes, very. My old clothes went right away.”
“Where did they go?”
“Where did what go?”
“Your clothes. When they went away.”
“Oh, that’s just my American way of putting things. I meant that they were picked up right away.”
“Picked up? From where? Did they fall to the floor, perhaps?”
“No, what I meant was…oh, forget it. What did you do Saturday?”
“What did I do? First, I rose from my bed, then I went to the toilettes—”
“No! No!” Dirk interrupted impatiently. “I meant what did you do, where did you go to occupy your time for the day?”
Bucky assumed an indignant tone. “Why do you ask, monsieur? Are you interrogating me?”
“No! No!” Dirk threw up his hands, his face flushed with apology. “Not at all. I…was just curious is all. It’s…just always interesting for us Americans to know how Frenchmen enjoy their leisure time.”
“Us? You mean all of you?”
“No, uh, just me, actually. I mean, just me…as your friend…your ami!”
They had arrived at the station. “Monsieur, my train is here. I must bid you adieu or I should be late for work. I wish a good morning to you. Au revoir.”
Squashed between passengers, more alarm bells went off at the sergeant’s interest in his whereabouts Saturday, but Bucky felt the release of at least one source of tension. Dirk Drechsler hadn’t the faintest suspicion that he was an American.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
The glaring Monday morning headline of Le Temps’ November 2 edition, Paris’s most important daily newspaper, read: FAMOUS AUTHOR FOUND DROWNED IN THE SEINE! Victoria saw the newspaper on the concierge’s counter as she passed through the reception lobby on her way to work and on a sudden hunch paused for a quick glance at the deceased’s name in the page-long article. Beaumont Fournier. A fisherman had drawn up his seaweed-draped body in his net. A sick feeling crept through her. She’d forgotten that the author was in Paris until his name had come up last evening in the dubious company of Colonel Derrick Albrecht. No preliminary examination of the corpse suggested foul play, but an investigation was underway to determine the exact cause of his mysterious death. An autopsy was expected to reveal an aneurysm, but a family member of the deceased had reported having no idea why the author was on the bank of the Seine close enough to fall in, since he disliked the smell of the river and could not swim.
Victoria continued slowly, thoughtfully, to the door. Beaumont Fournier…She should not feel relieved at his death, but she could not deny breathing easier knowing that he was not a threat to her identity as she had reason to fear from her conversation with the colonel the previous night. Going by the list of names expressing shock at the author’s untimely death, Victoria would guess that his social acquaintances were among the ranks of Derrick Albrecht’s associates, and she knew only too well how the networking of the small world of the wealthy and well-connected operated. It would have been only a matter of time before Mademoiselle Veronique Colbert, aka Victoria Grayson, came face-to-face with Beaumont Fournier. Even if she’d remembered that he lived in Paris, it would have been unlikely that she’d have run into him unless he caught a chance glimpse of her on the street, but last night, over veal marsala, she had willingly submitted to a proposal that would have eventually put her into his path.
Once in the staff car, she had no idea where the colonel was taking her or what he planned to do. He’d met her silence with silence, and she’d been ready to expect anything. The place was a small café, its posted hours stating that it was closed on Sundays. When they arrived, a fire blazed in the great stone fireplace, and a table before it was laid with glassware and cutlery, a basket of fresh bread, and small crocks of cheese and butter. A stand holding a wine bucket and a bottle of burgundy with a napkin-wrapped neck stood beside it. The French proprietor hurried out of the shadows to take Derrick’s gloves and overcoat. “And yours as well, mademoiselle?” he offered.
“No,” Victoria answered, more forcefully than she intended. She never wanted to be but fingers away from the capsule lightly sewn in the lining of her coat.
“Very well. Soup to begin, I think, monsieur?” he said to Derrick as he pulled out Victoria’s chair.
“Something rich and hearty, I hope, Emile?”
“As you requested, Colonel.” The restaurateur unfolded a napkin to lay in Victoria’s lap, and she risked a longing look at the bread smelling fresh from the oven. The colonel passed her the basket, and with feigned indifference, she took a slice of the warm loaf, refusing to give in to her stomach rumblings or to give the colonel cause to pity her hunger.
But he was not deceived. Immediately, he pushed the crocks of cheese and butter within her reach and said in English once the proprietor had left them, “Really, Miss Grayson, let us not stand on ceremony. You are going hungry, a situation that pains me greatly. I cannot bear to think it. You must allow me to alleviate my pain and correct the most unfortunate grievance I hold against Hitler.”
They were the only ones in the room, but Victoria automatically glanced around to make sure they were alone. He’d said “Hitler,” not “Mein Führer,” as Nazi officials unctuously referred to the dictator, and most implied other grievances the colonel held against the dictator. The statement, spoken with contempt, came close to being seditious and would be dangerous for him if overheard. Had it been a careless slip of the tongue, or a deliberate ploy to lead her to believe he shared her view of the crazy man who had led the world into war? Members of the SD were not known to err in careless slips of the tongue.
“I’m afraid I cannot allow you that comfort, Colonel.”
“Well, then, if not for my comfort, for my sense of fair play. We must keep your strength up.”
