J. Janes - Clandestine

The suitcases were being lifted out, her own being shoved in, Herr Kohler shouting, ‘Standartenfuhrer, wait! Give me five, then check that bag for the boart.’

Closing and locking that door-leaving the key in it-he gathered up the suitcases and hurried toward her, but of course three of them could never have been fitted into her trailer and he’d have to be told. ‘Put the one on top and tie this around them.’

She had even thought to bring a rope! ‘Let me have the pistol. He’ll expect me to take it from you, that’s why Sergei Lebeznikov isn’t already out here. Kleiber’s told him to stay put for the moment.’

Opening only one of the suitcases, he showed her what had to be a fortune’s worth of those big white notes, Aram having wondered why the SD would ever agree to do such a thing, Herr Kohler saying, ‘Don’t worry, the other suitcases are the same. This unlocks them all.’ But now brakes were being slammed, a sergeant leaning out from behind the wheel of that truck and shouting, ‘ Gefrieter Mannstein, Weiss und Rath, schnell machen! Bike, trailer and angel into the back!’

Racing through the pompiers , clipping one of the ambulances, Dillmann headed for the exit even as Kleiber must have opened that suitcase of hers and given the little string tie of that kilo bag a tug.

The flash in the rearview was every bit as thought, felt Kohler, the sound the usual. Plastic for sure and probably the equivalent of at least five or six sticks of 808, and so much for the Reich ever getting their hands on that boart.

Speeding after Dillmann, he turned east onto the rue des Morillons. Others were giving chase but as yet without wheels. Street by street it wasn’t far, but place Denfert-Rochereau was busy. Too many bicycles and velo-taxis , pedestrians crossing where they shouldn’t, buses off-loading Wehrmacht for late visits to the Catacombs, a gazo truck, a horse-drawn wagon …

Ach , Dillmann had stopped. Bike, trailer and angel were being set on the pavement, that deceitful son of a bitch having done exactly as thought, even to tossing him a joyful wave and yelling, ‘ Vielen Dank, mein Hermann . See you in Spain,’ and keeping all the cash.

‘Into the car,’ he said.

‘I can’t leave my bike. I mustn’t!’

Liebe Zeit , what the hell was this? ‘Are you crazy?’

‘It’s all I have.’

Those tracking vans were coming, police cars too, but Louis would have said, Do it, Hermann.

Using the rope, they tied it onto the back bumper but had to shove the trailer into the car.

‘Barbizon,’ she said when asked. Just that, but first a little detour to the north to where some architect had, in 1934, installed big windows around the cinema Studio Raspail so that the apartments he had built would be all the rage and look like artists’ studios.

Shattered, there was glass everywhere, scorched fivers floating down, the collective citizenry still cowering, for Werner hadn’t been able to resist the temptation and had done exactly as felt, Kleiber having also done the same to make certain none of those verfluchter Banditen ever got away no matter what.

Having jerry cans of gasoline to pay off those in the marche noir wasn’t helping. The fire trucks would soon be here, those tracking vans as well. ‘Barbizon,’ he said. ‘Maybe Louis will be there and maybe not, but I sure hope he is because he’ll have to admit that this time I really did think it all through.’

At 2147 hours Hermann still hadn’t arrived. Maybe it was just the blackout and driving far too fast on roads that ought to be familiar to him after three years of this Occupation. But maybe, too, he hadn’t pulled things off at that abattoir, maybe they had gone terribly wrong just as they had here.

Oh for sure, Ludin was now desperately ill. Having vomited fresh blood again and again, he had forced Michele Guillaumet to her knees and had put the muzzle of that pistol to the back of her head. Tearful prayers were being rapidly given, the neck-chain’s silver cross being pressed to those lips, the girl begging God for forgiveness of sins that could never have amounted to much.

‘Michele, you must,’ urged Rousel. ‘If you have hidden any such thing-and Kriminalrat, I knew nothing of it-please tell us. Josef would never hold you to account. Not Josef. Did he give you anything to keep for him?’

All was dully translated, Michele finally blurting, ‘Only that sand in the cellar.’

‘But … but those bags were for your aquarium at home?’ stammered Rousel.

Again, Ludin, having snatched up the towel, vomited; again he cried out and clutched at his stomach, then harshly said, ‘Get it!’ to Rousel.

No translation was necessary. Four bags of sand, each weighing a good twenty kilos, were placed on the table, each bearing the name tag of a tropical fish: TETRAS, DANIOS, GUPPIES and HARLEQUINS.

It had to be a code, felt St-Cyr, each representing the name of the firm and its owner or owners, Meyerhof having been persuaded on that last trip to Paris before the Blitzkrieg to do as others had begged, though doubtless never for himself and his firm.

Each had to be emptied before the hidden could spill: gem rough of all sizes, fancies among them, the clear whites mingling with the exceedingly rare emerald green to soft rose and ruby-red, the sky-blue as well and deepest of sapphire-blue, the citron-yellow, too, even those subtle shades of what were known as the naturally occurring black.

Having hurriedly managed to light yet another cigarette, Ludin dug a hand into them and began to laugh only to cough, panic and vomit repeatedly. Dropping gun and diamonds, he collapsed, hitting his head on the edge of the table.

‘Ah merde,’ swore St-Cyr, leaping up from the chair to press fingers to that neck, ‘now he’s even more of a problem and Hermann … Hermann is nowhere near when so desperately needed, for how am I alone to deal with this and keep you both and all you have from the Occupier?’

Clutching two rabbits he had been about to gently toss into the kitchen to cause havoc of their own, Kohler nudged the blackout curtain aside and stepped into the kitchen, Anna-Marie right behind him and quickly closing the door to shut out the night.

‘Walter, Hermann. What are we to tell him?’

Ludin was definitely dead, but in death was there not the answer or answers?

To the cellars of the rue des Saussaies, there was but a rending scream, from the front desk but the brutal snapping of fingers. Known here by all, they were not only to show their identity papers but to leave their weapons.

Formerly the headquarters of the Surete before the defeat of June 1940, the rue des Saussaies had become that of the Gestapo and the Surete. Major Osias Pharand, that acid little boss of Louis’s, had been shoved out of his palatial office and down the corridor to that of his secretary, Boemelburg having tossed out the arty clutter and plastered the walls with maps of Paris and the country.

Teleprinters were never silent, telephones constantly ringing, orderlies coming and going, that beautifully carved Louis XIV lime-wood desk of Pharand’s having been enlarged with plain pine planks to hold the accumulated clutter of the Occupier, the death notices of the ‘troublemakers’ as well.

They wouldn’t even be allowed to sit, felt Kohler. Those rheumy Nordic-blue eyes didn’t lift from the document in hand. The dome of that blunt head bristled with all-but-shaven iron-grey hairs. Quite obviously beyond the threatened retirement and having gained weight as a result, but with muscles, too, as head of SIPO-SD Section IV, the Gestapo in France, Boemelburg knew Paris like the back of his hand, having in his early days been a heating and ventilating engineer here before returning to the Reich to become a cop. A good one, too, Louis had always insisted.