Jackdaws

The car did not have a second spare wheel, so the tire had to be mended before they could drive on. They left the car and walked. After a mile or so they came to a farmhouse. A large family was sitting around the remains of a substantial Sunday lunch: on the table were cheese and strawberries and several empty wine bottles. Country folk were the only French people who were well fed. Dieter bullied the farmer into hitching up his horse and cart and driving them to the next town.

In the town square was a single gas pump on the pavement outside a wheelwright’s shop with a Closed sign in the window. They banged on the door and woke a surly garagisre from his Sunday-afternoon nap. The mechanic fired up an ancient truck and drove off with Hans beside him.

Dieter sat in the living room of the mechanic’s house, stared at by three small children in ragged clothes. The mechanic’s wife, a tired woman with dirty hair, bustled about in the kitchen but did not offer him so much as a glass of cold water.

Dieter thought of Stephanie again. There was a phone in the hallway. He looked into the kitchen. “May I make a call?” he asked politely. “I will pay you, of course.”

She gave him a hostile glare. “Where to?”

“Reims.”

She nodded and made a note of the time by the clock on the mantelpiece.

Dieter got the operator and gave the number of the house in the rue du Bois. It was answered immediately by a low, gruff voice reciting the number in a provincial accent. Suddenly alert, Dieter said in French, “This is Pierre Charenton.”

The voice at the other end changed into Stephanie’s, and she said, “My darling.”

He realized she had answered the phone with her imitation of Mademoiselle Lemas, as a precaution. His heart gladdened with relief “Is everything all right?” he asked her.

“I’ve captured another enemy agent for you,” she said coolly.

His mouth went dry. “My God… well done! How did it happen?”

“I picked him up in the Café de la Gare and brought him here.”

Dieter closed his eyes. If something had gone wrong-if she had done anything to make the agent suspect her-she could be dead by now. “And then?”

“Your men tied him up.”

She had said him. That meant the terrorist was not flick. Dieter was disappointed. All the same, his strategy was working. This man was the second Allied agent to walk into the trap. “What’s he like?”

“A young guy with a limp and half his ear shot off”

“What have you done with him?”

“He’s here in the kitchen, on the floor. I was about to call Sainte-Cécile and have him picked up.”

“Don’t do that. Lock him in the cellar. I want to talk to him before Weber does.”

“Where are you?”

“Some village. We have a damn puncture.”

“Hurry back.”

“I should be with you in an hour or two.”

“Okay.”

“How are you?”

“Fine.”

Dieter wanted a serious answer. “But really, how do you feel?”

“How do I feel?” She paused. “That’s a question you don’t usually ask.”

Dieter hesitated. “I don’t usually involve you in capturing terrorists.”

Her voice softened. “I feel fine. Don’t worry about me.”

He found himself saying something he had not planned. “What will we do after the war?”

There was a surprised silence at the other end of the line.

Dieter said, “Of course, the war could go on for ten years, but on the other hand it might be over in two weeks, and then what would we do?”

She recovered her composure somewhat, but there was an uncharacteristic tremor in her voice as she said, “What would you like to do?”

“I don’t know,” he said, but that left him dissatisfied, and after a moment he blurted out, “I don’t want to lose you.”

He waited for her to say something else.

“What are you thinking?” he said.

She said nothing. There was an odd sound at the other end, and he realized she was crying. He felt choked up himself He caught the eye of the mechanic’s wife, still timing his phone call. He swallowed hard and turned away, not wanting a stranger to see that he was upset. “I’ll be with you soon,” he said. “We’ll talk some more.”

“I love you,” she said.

He glanced at the mechanic’s wife. She was staring at him. To hell with her, he thought. “I love you, too,” he said. Then he hung up the phone.

CHAPTER 41

IT TOOK THE Jackdaws most of the day to get from Paris to Reims.

They passed through all the checkpoints without incident. Their new fake identities worked as well as the old, and no one noticed that Flick’s photograph had been retouched with eyebrow pencil.