All this time, bicycles streamed past, their bells sounding one crisis after another, along with urgent shouts for him to get out of the way, but there wasn’t the sharply intent flame of the usual lighter fuel of gasoline. Instead, it was of the long-remembered, but one thing was for sure: that accent wasn’t French. He had seen this one before, but where, and did that then mean that extra troops had been brought in?
‘You’re heading where?’ asked the donor.
‘The Banque Nationale de Credit et Commercial. It’s address is on …’
‘We can read.’
‘Who told you to follow?’
‘All we know is that something big is coming to town and that you and that partner of yours have been brought in on it.’
‘Radio-trottoir?’
Pavement radio. ‘Our ears are constantly tuned. Aren’t yours? Here, take the package. We’ve lots.’
Hermann would have advised leaving things as they were, but Hermann had Oona to think of and they had, of course, to first take care of her and not let these others know where.
‘Merci, I’ll continue to lead the way, shall I?’
‘Of course. An entourage.’
‘Excellent!’
Stepping quickly back and in among the oncoming cyclists, he did the unforgivable and shoved the first to come along against the car. Another and another gave cries of dismay, he driving the Opinel into both of that car’s front tires, the altercation continuing with the opening of its doors as the headlamps were shattered by the butt of a Lebel 1873.
The front tires of the lead vehicle followed and then its headlamps.
‘Now I’ll deal with the velo-taxi you missed,’ said Hermann, taking a first and welcoming drag and handing the cigarette to Oona to hold for him.
‘Later, mon vieux. Later. Let’s give them a bit of distance, then you to the left, me to the right and we’ll squeeze its driver between us and find out who they’re working for.’
It didn’t take long, and when Hermann finally found him waiting with the van in place Vendome before the shop Enchantement, he took Oona from the Citroen to that door and, ringing its bell, got the lecture of his life from Giselle, who quickly pulled her inside and slammed the door in his face.
Alone again, they shared a cigarette even though they still had the extras.
‘Rudy de Merode,’ said St-Cyr with evident dismay, for the so-called ‘Neuilly Gestapo’ was but one of at least ten major gangs of gestapistes francais operating in and from Paris, Lyon and other cities and towns. Back in the summer and autumn of 1940, the Occupier had needed purchasing agencies as well as Frenchmen and women to watch the French. Deliberately, the Abwehr, the counterintelligence service of the German High Command, had let far too many gangsters and others out of jail and put them to work they enjoyed immensely. Given the directorships of some of those purchasing agencies, for the Reich had needed, and still did even more so now, vast quantities of nearly everything France could supply, they had done that as well as a lot of other things and continued to but with even more determination. And the unfortunate thing was that far too many of them had been put in prison by himself.
‘Apparently, Hermann, word came through to those pavement listeners of a control on the RD 380 just to the east of Reims last Tuesday and Wednesday. A very determined SD colonel who wouldn’t listen to anyone but himself. Every truck, car or wagon was ripped apart, no matter the lineup, even though it was at the start of the vendage and the grapes needed pressing. Every other entrance to Paris was also placed on the same alert.’
‘Which still continues, and since de Merode and his gang have been sniffing the air, we can assume the others have. Merde, this isn’t good, Louis.’
‘And they’ll all want to hear the reason first from herself before turning over what’s left of her to Kriminalrat Ludin who, with that colonel, must have been following her and that gazo and its crew since the Netherlands.’
‘Just what the hell is she carrying that’s so goddamned important Kaltenbrunner would demand absolute silence? A girl who’s only in her early twenties?’
‘We have to be missing something, Hermann, including the name of that last one I just met. I’ve heard and seen him before, but where?’
‘It’ll come to you. It always does.’
‘The pseudo-robbery of a bank van whose driver and assistant willingly gave a lift to a complete stranger, no matter how vulnerable and tempting?’
‘Did she know of them, Louis? Did they of her?’
The question of questions, for if so, it implied a whole lot more. ‘And when both vehicles turned off the RD 380 to avoid that control, did she look back to gratefully see the distance between them steadily increase and think she had got safely away?’
Only to then discover something else. ‘Monnier won’t open until 0900 hours.’
* The Royal Dutch Aviation Company used Douglas aircraft, one of which was ‘mistakenly’ shot down by a Luftwaffe fighter over the Bay of Biscay in June 1943.
* In early August 1944, eight German soldiers were ambushed in Aubervilliers and shot, the first such major incident in what was to become known as the Battle for Paris.
* A pocket flashlight activated by pumping a thumb lever.
* The Dutch fascists, the Nationaal Socialistische Beweging.
3
French banks were nothing but trouble, felt Kohler. They opened when they wanted and closed soon afterward, this one at 1100 hours, with the customary two-hour lunch from 1230 to 1430. But they all even took the half-day holiday on Wednesday afternoons.
It was still dark. Fortunately a carriage entrance lay off the rue Volney, and having squeezed through it into the courtyard, van and Citroen were locked and left as they headed for the little blue wire-caged light above the tradesman’s entrance.
‘Me or you, Louis?’
‘Both.’
All too soon a throaty voice rebelled. ‘Merde alors, messieurs, even the roosters on the roof haven’t had time to crow! It’s also a Saturday and since when did banks ever open on such days?’
‘As of right now. Gestapo and Surete, my fine one. Just let us in,’ shouted Hermann. ‘We’ve brought your president a little present.’
Something would have to be said to stall them until contact could be made, felt Olivier Gaudin, concierge and of some importance to the Credit et Commercial. ‘Monsieur le President Bolduc, he is away at the autumn pot-shoot with Hauptmann Reinecke and Leutnant Heiss, the overseers of the bank. La Cote Sud des Landes. Les palombes, n’est-ce pas, et les ortolans.’
‘The coastal dunes back of the beaches to the south of Bordeaux, Louis. Wood pigeons and songbirds.’
The autumn migration and within the forbidden zone that bordered the Atlantic Ocean. ‘Ortolans are caught in nets, Hermann. Monsieur le Concierge, we’ll wait in his office for his second- shy;in-command.’
‘See that coffee is sent up,’ said Kohler. ‘Hot croissants, fried Reim’s ham, omelettes, too, and wedges of Brie de Meaux for starters. Just the usual that president of yours must serve up to those bank overseers you mentioned.’
Merde! ‘And where, please, am I to find such things, let alone pay for them?’
A tough one. ‘Here’s a 5,000 franc note that’s not from the van. Use it and bring me the change and a receipt. Don’t and you’ll have to deal with me since like yourself, I’m not an early riser. Add four shots of cognac to the coffee. We’ll wait in your president’s office as the chief inspector here has suggested.’
‘Not without his key. The boardroom will have to do.’
Under flashlight, the ghost of another and far better time appeared, felt St-Cyr, for the staircase to which they were led had been done by Hector Guimard of metro-entrance fame. Serpentine in seductively curved wrought iron, its banister led the way up as if to the gods. Equally of art nouveau and the belle epoque, enamel-and-bronze, sugar-cake elevator cages waited out of commission since the Occupation’s all-out drive for tanks, trucks, aircraft engines and lots else had robbed them and most of such others of the needed electricity in June of 1940. But business had been so good and still was, taking the stairs would be no problem. There was even the taint of leftover cigar smoke, and among the bank’s primary tenets to those with far less would be the admonishment of ‘one mustn’t grumble.’