‘It’s a place for children and she was immersed in them and holding hands with two of them-a school-class visit, I believed, and we quickly spoke Deutsch, the children and the teacher not knowing a word of what was being said.’
‘Cut the Schmarrn or I will cut it for you.’
‘Certainly. She was with a group of schoolchildren and used them to conceal her presence, but we did stand apart under one of the palms and very quickly she told me what had been asked of her.’
‘Sell that boart and get the money to her and those other Banditen, but how?’
‘We’re working on it, but they’ve been using her, Kriminalrat, just as you and the colonel have been.’
‘She would have had no other choice but to obey,’ said Hermann, reaching for Ludin’s cigarettes and lighter only to have a hand laid on them.
‘Your weapon, Kohler, and yours.’
‘Not with what we have to do. You need us, Kriminalrat. She won’t deal with anyone else and neither will those who are telling her what to do.’
But how could that girl have gone to such a public place and not have been spotted and arrested? wondered Ludin. Blonde, blue-eyed, a little taller than most, and very Aryan, attractive too, and fluent in the language.
Of course. That had to have been it. And as for these two, they had been constantly evasive, even to lying about those damned shoes. Rocheleau-hadn’t that been the name of that rural policeman and didn’t he now work for Merode and this one to whose son she had given that dried herb?
‘Kriminalrat …’ called out Hector Bolduc, hustling that former fiancee of his toward them, she resisting, her overcoat undone and hat askew. ‘Ach, but I’m glad to have found you. Jacqueline has something you need to know. The Jardin des Plantes …’
Scheisse! thought Kohler. Now it was all going to come out.
But Kleiber followed, and wearing a black armband to honour those who had been lost at the tannery, didn’t hesitate.
‘Kriminalrat, you’re finished. Mistake after mistake, I tell you. The Reichssicherheitshauptamtchef is furious and is demanding your immediate recall, so I’ve taken the liberty of booking you onto the early morning Lufthansa. Here are the necessary papers.’
Out on the street, sitting in the Citroen he’d been allowed and enveloped in the darkness, Ludin said to himself, A student. The Left Bank, the Sorbonne, the boulevard Saint-Germain. Places she would know only too well, yet a uniform, a Blitz. No one would have thought to look for that, Kleiber least of all.
The storeroom to which they were shown was yet another Ali Baba’s cave, felt Kohler, this one obviously also having had Hector Bolduc’s help, for chagrin clouded the banker’s expression, malicious delight that of the former mistress. But photos had been secretly taken of Annette-Melanie Veroche, both when alone and not. Later they’d been deliberately burned, along with the Mademoiselle Lemaire’s file on that girl, and Louis had made a point of telling Kleiber not only why that had happened but by whom and when.
Angrily tossing a fist, Bolduc said, ‘Sacre nom de nom, that was not how it was. Who am I to tell my bank’s overseers what they can and cannot do? It was they who had those photos taken, not myself who has never even looked at any of them, but when Jacqueline heard of it, of course she wanted prints for her file on that girl. Tell them, cherie. You must.’
Be forceful and I’ll take you back-was that it, eh? wondered Jacqueline. Yet if Hector could be convinced, would his having ‘begged’ her to return not wipe away rejection’s shame and cause Nicole Bordeaux and the others to admit they’d been wrong to have said such hateful things? Nicole who had bought that girl the dress, the shoes and had suggested time and again that what Annette-Melanie really needed was une sacree bonne baise. ‘Hector is absolutely correct. I did mention the snapshots, but we were in a hurry and he said he would look at them later but never did.’
Trust a woman scorned to have said it, thought Kohler. ‘And Hauptmann Reinecke and Leutnant Heiss have been recalled, I gather.’
‘And sent to Russia, I think,’ said St-Cyr, ‘but as to my not having gone to the Jardin des Plantes to look for the source of that rosemary, I had had it in mind.’
‘But not now, Louis. You’d only tip them off. We’ll have to leave it until after we’ve made the exchange and the dust has settled.’
‘What exchange?’ asked Kleiber. ‘Surely you don’t think I’m going to agree to …’
There had been no time to talk to Louis about it, but something would have to be said. ‘The boart for the cash in fivers. Ach, don’t worry, Standartenfuhrer. It can be done and will get you everything the Sonderkommando needs, including that girl.’
‘Let Rudy de Merode and me take care of her,’ said Lebeznikov. ‘We have the men and know the city far better even than those two.’
‘Later,’ said Kleiber. ‘First, let’s hear what Kohler has to say.’
‘Yes, let’s,’ said Rheal Lachance, ‘since it is through Munimin-Pimetex that such a purchase must be made.’
‘Reichsmarschall Goring will okay it, mes amis,’ said Girandoux. ‘We’ll telex him tonight and by 0700 hours tomorrow will have the necessary via the early-morning Lufthansa or an ME 109.’
The fivers, and one could have relied on Girandoux to have said it, thought Horst Lammers. ‘The Todt would still like to come in on it. Two organizations will lend weight.’
‘Oh for sure, we’ll be only too glad to convey your interest,’ said Lachance, ‘but will have to let the Reichsmarschall decide.’
Goring? Was Lachance crazy? wondered Kohler. If the Fat One couldn’t get his hands on those black diamonds, no one else was going to. ‘Three medium-size suitcases, Standartenfuhrer, each to be packed with fifteen thousand of the notes, and all with a little something else.’
‘What?’ demanded Kleiber.
Now for the crunch. ‘Didn’t I hear somewhere that the Philips Works in Eindhoven had come up with a very small but powerful transmitter?’
‘One that’s easily concealed,’ said Kleiber, lifting a forefinger in pause. ‘Preset, I think, to something in the range of 3,000 to 4,000 kilocycles per second. Ach, I like it, Kohler. Wherever those suitcases are taken, the locations can be pinpointed by our wireless tracking vans.’
And just like clandestine wireless sets, thought St-Cyr. To give Hermann his due, he had tried, but this … How could they possibly work for and with the enemy yet ensure that Anna-Marie and others of her equipe weren’t arrested? ‘Surely those suitcases will have to be opened and the cash payment examined before the boart is handed over, Hermann?’
‘Ach, don’t argue. The pitch is far too high for anyone to actually hear it. All three of the transmitters will be sounding away in unison and allowing the tracking vans to lock onto them right from the start. We do the exchange with no one else near, Colonel. Everyone to be held well back until I give the sign, since we don’t want to scare them off. Just let that girl come in to hand over the boart and take the fivers, which will then nail down whatever safe house or houses they’ve been taken to, just as you’ve stated.’
Apart from broadcasting all of this to Lebeznikov of all people, and the others, Hermann had forgotten entirely about Heinrich Ludin who would be furious about having been so summarily dismissed. Then, too, there was the leader of that equipe and what he might think of such a scheme.
But Hermann wasn’t quite finished.
‘With all that cash, Louis and me can’t be expected to carry shy; it around in the Citroen. We’ll need one of your bank vans, Chairman Bolduc. You to drive it and that one-yes, you, Lebeznikov-to ride up front. That’ll see that the cash gets to where the exchange is to be made and the boart then safely taken to the avenue Foch first and later to Munimin-Pimetex.’