Jackdaws

DIETER'S MIGRAINE BEGAN shortly after midnight, as he stood in his room at the Hotel Frankfort, looking at the bed he would never again share with Stephanie. He felt that if he could weep, the pain would fade, but no tears came, and he injected himself with morphine and collapsed on the counterpane.

The phone woke him before daylight. It was Walter Goedel, Rommel’s aide. Groggily, Dieter said, “Has the invasion begun?”

“Not today,” Goedel replied. “The weather is bad in the English Channel.”

Dieter sat upright and shook his head to clear it. “What, then?”

“The Resistance were clearly expecting something. Overnight, there has been an eruption of sabotage throughout northern France.” Goedel’s voice, already cool, descended to an arctic chill. “It was supposed to be your job to prevent that. What are you doing in bed?”

Caught off guard, Dieter struggled to regain his usual poise. “I’m right on the tail of the most important of all Resistance leaders,” he said, trying hard not to sound as if he was making excuses for failure. “I almost caught her last night. I’ll arrest her today. Don’t worry-by tomorrow morning we’ll be rounding up terrorists by the hundreds. I promise you.” He immediately regretted the pleading tone of the last three words.

Goedel was unmoved. “After tomorrow, it will probably be too late.”

“I know—” Dieter stopped. The line was dead. Goedel had hung up.

Dieter cradled the phone and looked at his wristwatch. It was four o’clock. He got up.

His migraine had gone, but he felt queasy, either from the morphine or the unpleasant phone call. He drank a glass of water and swallowed three aspirins, then began to shave. As he lathered his face, he nervously ran over the events of the previous evening, asking himself if he had done everything possible.

Leaving Lieutenant Hesse outside Chez Regis, he had followed Michel Clairet to the premises of Philippe Moulier, a supplier of fresh meat to restaurants and military kitchens. It was a storefront property with living quarters above and a yard at the side. Dieter bad watched the place for an hour, but no one had come out.

Deciding that Michel intended to spend the night there, Dieter had found a bar and phoned Hans Hesse. Hans had got on a motorcycle and joined him outside the Moulier place at ten. The lieutenant told Dieter the story of the inexplicably empty room above Chez Regis. “There’s some early-warning system,” Dieter speculated. “The barman downstairs is ready to sound the alarm if anyone comes looking.”

“You think the Resistance were using the place?”

“Probably. I’d guess the Communist Party used to hold meetings there, and the Resistance took over the system.”

“But how did they get away last night?”

“A trapdoor under the carpet, something like that-the communists would have been prepared for trouble. Did you arrest the barman?”

“I arrested everyone in the place. They’re at the château now.”

Dieter had left Hans watching the Moulier property and had driven to Sainte-Cécile. There he questioned the terrified proprietor, Alexandre Regis, and learned within minutes that his speculation had been off target. The place was neither a Resistance hideout nor a communist meeting place, but an illegal gambling club. Nevertheless, Alexandre confirmed that Michel Clairet had gone there last night. And, he said, Michel had met his wife there.

It was another maddeningly near miss for Dieter. He had captured one Resistance member after another, but Flick always eluded him.

Now he finished shaving, wiped his face, and phoned the château to order a car with a driver and two Gestapo men to pick him up. He got dressed and went to the hotel kitchen to beg half a dozen warm croissants, which he wrapped in a linen napkin. Then he went out into the cool of the early morning. The towers of the cathedral were silvered by the breaking dawn. One of the fast Citroëns favored by the Gestapo was waiting.

He gave the driver the address of the Moulier place. He found Hans lurking in a warehouse doorway fifty meters along the street. No one had come or gone all night, Hans said, so Michel must still be inside. Dieter told his driver to wait around the next corner, then stood with Hans, sharing the croissants and watching the sun come up over the roofs of the city.