“No wonder you couldn’t find a photo,” Michel said.

“Monsieur Rousseau,” Rafael said proudly, “I give you First Lieutenant Tom Jaeger. United States Army Air Forces. He flies the new plane. The P-47.”

“Not so new.” Tom Jaeger shrugged. “She’s been around for a while.”

Michel rose and put out his hand. “I confess, my instinct is to hide my Jews.”

The Viking laughed with a trace of surprise, as if he hadn’t expected to find humor behind enemy lines.

“That was a joke,” Michel assured, smiling himself. “Charlotte doesn’t think it funny. When things get too German, we say, ‘Quick, hide your Jews.’” He looked at Rafael. “I’m sorry I doubted you about not needing a photograph. He is far too distinctive. No other likeness but his own will do. It is not just his face, but the force of his presence.” His focus went back to the blond monstrosity, where it couldn’t help but go. “The kind of attention he will receive means the documents must be flawless. We will make immediate arrangements for a photograph.”

“Shall I contact Wilkie?” Rafael asked.

“Who is Wilkie?” Tom said.

“He is a member of Flame,” Michel answered. “By day he works with his father at a clothing store, by night he operates our transmitter—and performs other magic tricks, like producing hydroquinone in the middle of an occupation. Only God knows where he will get it.” To Rafael, he said, “He’ll be dropping by soon. Have him meet us at my apartment tonight. Where is my brother?”

“Talking with Charlotte.”

“How hard is it to get a photograph taken?” Tom asked, glancing from Rafael to Michel.

“We must not only be sure we have the right film, we must develop it ourselves. We have the film, but getting the right chemicals is difficult. Some we can order through the Cimenterie, and it arouses no suspicion—sodium carbonate, sodium hydroxide, easy enough. Hydroquinone is another story. The censors would flag it. Everything is black market, my friend. Anything you really want.” Michel sniffed. The man smelled awful. His odor certainly didn’t match his looks.

“It isn’t me. It’s these clothes,” Tom said, frowning at Rafael.

“The pig farmer was the only man close to your size,” Rafael said, openly amused. “You would stand out even more if your pants came to your knees. Quit complaining. They don’t smell as bad as they could; there aren’t any pigs anymore.”

“Magnificent, isn’t he?” François came into the room, arms stretched forth in triumph. “A resplendent example of Hitlery.” He stood next to Tom, beaming at him. He then called attention to various attributes; he might have had a pointing stick. “Attendez: This chin. This jaw. This eye color, to say nothing of this height; is he not perfect? Et voilà, attendez—the swelling, gone from his face, the bruise near the cut, diminished. Behold, the Lohengrin of the chancellor’s dreams, the one for whom Wagner surely wrote his opera.”

“Hide your Jews,” Michel agreed.

“Did I not tell you, Brother?” François said sweetly, his face upturned in a comical, supremely satisfied smile. He blinked twice. It was an old face from boyhood, one that never failed to make Michel chuckle.

“You did indeed. And did Rafael tell you his idea?”

François waved his hand airily. “Yes, yes. Make him a Dutch conscript.” He gave a courteous nod to Rafael. “But of course, it is perfect. Formidable.” He patted Tom’s arm. “My poor Lohengrin, to have Dutch blood in those magnificent veins. The Führer weeps at this moment, and knows not why. Now tell me, Michel. Have you come up with his . . . What do you call it? . . . His—”

“Occupation?”

“Surely there is another word,” he said, appealing to all the room. “A far more apropos spy word.”

“Occupation will do. Yes, we have, and it doesn’t concern you.”

François’s rapture deflated. “But he is my greatest triumph.”

Michel came around the desk and put his arm about his brother. “And you are amazing. Your plan will contribute greatly to the war effort. I will see to it myself you are commended by de Gaulle. For now, my brave brother, we—”

Wilkie’s very white face suddenly appeared at the door. “The hauptmann!” he whispered, then vanished.

François put a hand on Michel’s arm and said quietly, “Quickly, as rehearsed. I will detain him.”

Michel stared at the pilot. “François, he will never fit.”

“He will have to.” François hurried to the door, closing it behind. They soon heard his voice raised in greeting.

Rafael moaned, clasping his head. “He will not fit! What about the window?”

“He will be seen. Come.” He took Tom’s arm and pulled him to his father’s side of the room, to the bank of bookshelves along the right wall.

The shelves were built on cupboards fitted with the same library panels that lined the rest of the room. He went to the last cupboard nearest the fireplace and pulled it open. It had long since been cleared of Father’s things, during the early months of the Occupation when the need for such a hiding place had been foreseen. They had taken out a dividing insert. It had never been used, and had not been planned for someone almost two meters tall.

“In, in!”

The pilot dove into the small space, shifted about inside, but could not pull in his knees. Michel shoved against the door, but it was no good.

“Mon Dieu,” Rafael groaned.

Michel swiftly pulled over a wingback chair to block the jutting door, just as the office door swung open.

As Michel had expected him to, Hauptmann Braun first surveyed the business end of the room. When he turned to look for Michel, Michel was innocently examining a patch of the oval rug with the Cimenterie courier, André Besson.

Michel rose, hands on hips, shaking his head. He looked up at Braun. “Good afternoon, Hauptmann.” He looked down at the carpet, flung his hand. “Regardez. I long told my father to put down protection discs. What a pity he did not listen.”

Braun walked over, hat in one hand, briefcase in the other.

“Quel dommage, n’est-ce pas? The claw feet clutch brass balls. You see they have tarnished my rug.”

Braun shook his head. “Too bad, Rousseau. I share your regret. The rug must be an heirloom; I notice you mix your French with your German when you are upset.” He lifted his briefcase, clearly eager to get to the point of his visit. “New ideas, Rousseau! I have not been this excited for a project in a long while. Come, amaze me with what you have done so far.”

He went to the desk, put down his briefcase and hat, and to Michel’s dismay, he took off his suit coat, folded it, and draped it over the back of the chair. He unfastened his cuff links and began to roll up his white sleeves. He noticed Michel’s drawings, and went around the desk to examine them.

Michel turned to Rafael. “André, see if Monsieur Cohen on avenue de la Rochelle is still in business. I do not think this can be cleaned. Perhaps he can find matching inserts.”

Braun glanced up, rolling his sleeve. “A name like that, do not hold your breath.”

“He had beautiful carpets,” Michel said quietly.

Braun tapped one of the drawings. “You are thinking along my lines, Rousseau. Yes, I want a different ventilation system than Richter, but it is more than that. In fact—” He looked at Rafael. “Run along, please.”

When Rafael had gone, Braun’s gray eyes kindled and his voice gained intensity. “I have an idea, Rousseau. I’m sure all the theoretical strategists have had the same, but I really think it is plausible—after all, this is what I do.” He took a map of France out of his briefcase, unfolded it, and laid it on the desk.

Michel strolled over, painfully alert for any sound from behind.

Braun put his finger on the place he had planned for the new subterranean command post, at Fontaine-la-Mallet. “What if, instead of an underground post for command here—” he slid his finger along the coast to Calais—“we begin an underground tunnel here . . . and dig toward England?”

Michel stared where the German’s finger rested. At one time he would have called such a notion preposterous. But Hitler had shown the world that nothing was impossible.

“We can give it a working code name: the Trojan Tunnel. Prosaic, yes; but is it not perfect? Oh, I suppose we’ll have to change it—perhaps Project Zippy—but can you not imagine? Another way to take England? Not by sea, not by air . . . but by earth? Come in through her underbelly? She is not such an island after all.”

On the other side of the room, in a cruelly cramped cupboard where a pig farmer’s clothing began to sadistically itch, producing a trickling sweat that also itched, Tom heard himself recounting the story to the guys.

So I crawl into a cupboard the size of a coffin, where I can’t move or even breathe because it might move the door, and then I hear German, guys—German. It rattles me good, worse than floating down to the middle of a firefight.

Yeah, yeah, yeah—and den what happened?

And then, Oswald, everything Clemmie said became real. Capture, interrogation, torture . . . and I thought, What if I am caught, what if they torture me—will I say anything? You think, Of course not, I’m tough, I won’t say a word. But Rafael said you never know. The toughest talk. The toughest are broken.

And den what happened?

I don’t know yet, Ozzie. That German hears a sound and it’s all over—for me, for this Frenchman, for Rafael, maybe even for Clemmie. It’s real, and I’m not a spy, I’m a fighter pilot. Who am I kidding. I feel like a FOOL and want nothing more than to be in the sky where I belong. I can’t breathe, I can’t move, and this tiny space will drive me NUTS—I can take a COCKPIT because a COCKPIT has SKY!

Think about Clemmie, Captain Fitz said calmly, and you’ll be all right. Not an inch. Not a sound. Win it in your head, Cabby. Win it in your head.

An unprecedented four and a half hours later, during which Charlotte sent for food and wine, Braun finally left.

Michel waited a few moments, then went to the office door. He pried it open and listened. Charlotte was gone; she’d left hours earlier. He at last heard Braun’s driver start the automobile and rev the engine. He waited until he heard the car drive off, then flew to his father’s end of the room.

He shoved aside the chair and yanked open the cupboard door. The pilot’s knees fell out. They lay motionless.

“Monsieur! Are you all right?”

Complete silence.

“Well . . . that was fun,” came a hoarse croak.

Not an ounce of strength left, Michel sank to the floor. He began to laugh. Soon the pilot was laughing, too, with a hoarse dry chuckle, still in the cupboard with his knees sticking out.

Michel laughed until tears came. He was very much afraid he was going to like this man.