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“I told you to follow and watch, not confront!” Hans Voss said furiously, jogging down the spiral steps of the library to the first floor. “How dare you disobey my order!”
“She was retrieving something Karl Gerst left here,” the man argued, hurrying to keep up.
Hans stopped suddenly and swung around, causing the man to pull up short or plow into him.
“You don’t know that! I wanted her watched until I came. Instead, you caused a scene!”
“I didn’t cause a scene.”
“You confronted her and she hit you. I’m curious. What would you call that, if not a scene?” He made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat and turned to stride angrily across the lobby to the front entrance of the library. “Now we’ve lost her and anyone else who might have been with her.”
“There was no one with her,” the man muttered.
Hans sent him a scathing look. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t take your word for that, Herr Sturmmann Maurer.”
Herr Maurer’s lips tightened and he was silent as they strode outside. Hans looked up and down the busy road and shook his head in disgust.
“She’s long gone, and who would blame her?”
“If she wasn’t doing anything wrong, then she had nothing to fear,” Herr Maurer pointed out. “Yet she was afraid. I could smell it.”
“Of course she was! You accosted her and grabbed her arm in a secluded section of a library!” Hans turned his arctic gaze on him. “How many times have I told you that if you want to attract bears, you must use honey? There is a time to threaten, and a time to placate.”
“But she had retrieved—”
“Nothing! Absolutely nothing! An empty envelope!” Hans took a few steps then stopped and swung around again in his frustration. “Which probably did indeed hold theatre tickets at one point in time! She was never a suspect, you fool!”
Herr Maurer stared at him. “Then why did you have me follow her?”
“To see if she met with anyone else.” Hans turned and continued walking back towards the tram stop. “We know Herr Gerst brought something with him from Munich, but we don’t know what. He met with her, yes, but we have no proof that he gave it to her. In fact, I saw nothing of the sort. The only thing he handed her was a cigarette, which she took from his case herself!”
“But we saw him come out of the library earlier!” Herr Maurer protested. “Why else would he have gone to a library if not to hide what he brought across the border?”
“Agreed. But there is no indication that Fräulein Richardson was the intended recipient.”
“She went to the same library!”
“Which is also the closest library to the café! Think! She is a reporter. Where would a reporter go to write? I swear you had a brain when you were first assigned to me. What happened? Are you bored? Shall I recommend a transfer for you? To Vienna, perhaps?”
Herr Maurer’s face flushed a dull red.
“Perhaps it is you who have grown too cautious,” he retorted. “You are quiet and polite when we should be asserting our will.”
Hans glared at him.
“You will watch your words carefully when you address me, Herr Sturmmann Maurer,” he said icily, stressing the other man’s enlisted rank.
Herr Maurer swallowed and inclined his head deferentially. “My apologies, Herr Untersturmführer.”
Hans held his gaze for a long moment coldly, then finally gave a clipped nod. Herr Maurer breathed a sigh of relief.
“You would have me charge in like an American cowboy, causing a scene in a French city when the Führer has expressly ordered that no confrontations take place outside of German borders?” he demanded. “Why? To what purpose?”
“To get back whatever Karl Gerst stole from the Fatherland,” Herr Maurer answered promptly.
“I can promise you this,” Hans said as the tram rumbled towards them, “whatever Karl Gerst brought across the border is not worth the repercussions of going against a direct order. Not that I’d expect you to appreciate that. You seem to take great delight in disregarding direct orders.”
“I did what I thought was best at the time. I had to make a decision. It was clear that she had moved to retrieve the information.”
“Clear?” Hans arched one eyebrow. “Was it?”
Something in the look on his face made his companion flush again and uncertainty crept across his face.
“Not quite as clear as you thought, eh Herr Sturmmann?”
The tram stopped before them and he climbed on, heading to the back where they could speak without fear of being overheard. Strasbourg had been part of Germany for the better part of fifty years before the Treaty of Versailles awarded it back to France. Many of the population spoke German, even if they now predominantly used French. He sank into a seat and looked out the window over the city street. If the Führer had his way, Strasbourg would once more be part of the Reich. When that day came, the French would be expelled and the city would return to what it was meant to be.
“Let me suggest an alternate scenario,” he said as Herr Maurer seated himself beside him, not taking his gaze from the street. “Herr Gerst met with a man in Strasbourg twice before. This we know. He comes this time carrying information stolen from the Reich. But he knows we are following him. He cannot give the information to his contact. He thinks he lost us in the city and goes to the library. He is inside for nine minutes and twenty-three seconds precisely before he leaves and goes to the café.”
“This is hardly an alternate scenario. It’s what happened.”
Hans waved a hand impatiently. “You assume that the person he is meeting at the café is his contact.”
“Who else would it be?”
The tram began to move and Hans turned his eyes from the window.
“The previous visits to the café were to meet with a man. Today, it was a woman. Even if the previous meetings were with his contact, this one was not. Contacts do not change. They remain the same.”
Herr Maurer’s eyebrows knit together into a frown. “Go on.”
“If Fräulein Richardson was telling the truth, she stole another reporter’s source for a newspaper column. Perhaps the other reporter was the contact? If that is so, then Herr Gerst knew he was not meeting with his contact.”
“Yet he brought the information across the border anyway,” Herr Maurer said slowly, trying to follow Hans’ theory.
“Why would he do that?”
Hans waited patiently while his companion frowned in concentration.
“Because he was going to meet him before the café?” he finally ventured a full a two minutes later.
“And he begins to understand,” Hans muttered dryly.
“Then...why follow the woman?”
“I can see I will have to offer another scenario. Perhaps she is a reporter and goes to the library to write her story. Or, perhaps she has arranged to go to the library to meet someone. Perhaps the reporter she stole the informant from?”
“The man Gerst was meeting with before! His contact!”
“So you see why I told you to follow and observe, and not approach. She may have led us to his contact, which would have told us who he is giving information to. Instead, you confronted her and she fled. We now have no information and no leads other than Karl Gerst, which is exactly how we started the day.”
“Or she was his contact and she had just retrieved the information when I intercepted her,” Herr Maurer said stubbornly.
“In which case we still have neither the information nor her, so our situation has not changed,” Hans said brusquely.
“We still have Karl Gerst,” Herr Maurer pointed out after a moment.
“Herr Gerst is on a train going back to Munich as we speak. I had no reason to detain him. Whatever he brought out of Germany is no longer with him.”
“What do we do now?”
“We watch him. If he does anything out of his normal routine, we will arrest him.”
“Why don’t we just arrest him now?”
“Because I want to see where he goes when he gets back. I want to see who he speaks to. But if he suddenly changes his routine, we bring him in. I can’t risk losing the only lead we have.”
Evelyn looked up as Josephine came out of the small shop, joining her on the pavement. She handed Evelyn a folded up map.
“Here. I’ve marked the streets around the section of Petite France where you left your car,” she said. “I’ll accompany you as far as the bus stop and make sure you get on the correct bus. It will drop you near the Café de Toussier.”
“Thank you.”
Josephine nodded and they turned to walk down the street.
“Avoid the Rue du Bain aux Plantes. If the young Himmlers are still looking for you, they will be there.”
“Do you think they are?” Evelyn asked, glancing at her. “After all, it’s been over an hour now. I would think they would go back to the train station and follow Karl.”
“That’s probably what they’ve done, but it’s best to get into the habit of being cautious, especially if you think you might make a habit of this kind of adventure.” Josephine looked at her, her eyes twinkling. “Will you?”
Evelyn shrugged. “I’ve no idea.”
“I hope you consider it. I don’t need to tell you how important it is that we gather as much intelligence as we can and use it to our advantage,” Josephine said slowly. “And you’re in a very unique position to do that.”
“How do you mean?” Evelyn asked, shooting the other woman a curious look. “I’ve no idea what I’m doing. I don’t have any contacts, nor do I even know how to make them!”
Josephine smiled. “Oh, but you do. You’ve made three today alone in just a few short hours.”
“What?”
“From what you told me about your lunch at the Café de Toussier, Karl will remember you and be willing to work with you again because you took a great risk on his behalf today. Not only that, but you succeeded. It goes without saying that I would most definitely be pleased to work with you, having seen how you keep your head and function under dangerous conditions without any training or warning whatsoever. So you see, you’ve already made two solid connections, one in France and one in Germany.”
“And the third?”
Josephine looked at her in surprise. “Why, Herr Voss, of course!”
Evelyn gaped at her.
“Voss! But he’s the enemy!”
“Even the enemy can be a powerful contact, or so they say,” Josephine replied. “After all, you now know him. You know first-hand how he works and something of how he thinks. You approached him and walked away, having made an impression.”
“What sort of impression is somewhat in doubt,” Evelyn said ruefully. “Clearly he didn’t believe a word of the story I gave him.”
“You don’t know that. Just because he showed up at the library doesn’t mean he didn’t believe you. He knew Karl had been to the library. That’s all. Don’t underestimate the fact that he allowed you to return to your lunch with Karl. He could just as well have arrested Karl then and there.”
“In France?” Evelyn looked at her, startled. “But he has no authority here!”
“Karl is a German citizen. My country would not have got involved, and the SD and Gestapo both know that.” Josephine looked at her. “You may think you didn’t do well today, but I assure you, you did. We need more people like you. You have a natural ability, Evelyn, and that is something rare.”
The two women walked in silence as Evelyn digested what had been said and all that had happened in the past few hours.
“How long have you been doing this?” she finally asked.
Josephine shrugged. “Officially? A few months. Unofficially, all my life, practically. My father is a general in the Army and works regularly with intelligence. It is how I know so much about the struggles of building a reliable network right now. He’s been training me for years without really knowing it. Only in the past year has he started openly teaching me. He knows it will be up to people like us, if war breaks out again, to do what needs to be done.”
“Do you think it will come to that?”
“I’ve no idea, but we need to be prepared if it does.”
Evelyn nodded in agreement, falling silent again. It was comforting to find that she was not the only woman to concern herself with affairs that most of the population believed were the province of men like their respective fathers. Her lips twisted. While she had no doubt that there were many others like them, Evelyn felt a kindred solidarity with the dark-haired woman at her side. They were two women who had fought against the brutal arm of the Nazi regime today and come out ahead. It was just one battle, to be sure, but it was a start.
They came to a small group of people and Josephine stopped, turning to face her.
“This is where I leave you,” she said with a smile. A bus was lumbering towards them, still a few blocks away. “I hope you consider what I’ve said, and everything that happened today. And please give Bill my regards.”
“Of course.” Evelyn held out her hand. “Thank you for everything.”
“You can thank me by getting back to Paris safely,” Josephine told her, shaking her hand.
“I’ll do my best,” she assured her.
Josephine nodded and released her hand.
“I wish you luck, my friend. Farewell.”
She turned to leave as the bus pulled to a stop before the small group on the pavement. Evelyn watched her walk away, wondering if she would ever have cause to see the extraordinary young woman again. It seemed strange to leave when Josephine had risked so much to help her escape. Somehow, she felt like she was leaving behind a guardian angel of sorts.
Shaking her head, she turned to climb onto the bus. Aside from everything else, this entire day had been one of revelation. When she told Bill she would happily help in any way needed, she’d no idea just what that would entail. This was a whole different world from the one she was used to, or even the one she had been led to believe existed outside the safe circle of her social world. As she seated herself next to a window, Evelyn felt her lips twist. Just twenty-four hours ago, she had naively believed that the threat posed by the Nazis was something distant, confined to greater Germany. Now she knew that it had already spread.
Her lips tightened as the bus jerked into motion, her eyes focused on the street. The threat to the continent in Europe was not just a threat, but a reality for people like Karl and Josephine. They lived and breathed the material truth that a dangerous shadow was gathering, growing stronger with each passing day, and spreading beyond the confines of Germany.
How was she supposed to simply walk away and go back to her parties and luncheons, knowing there were other Josephines and Karls out there fighting a threat that most of Europe refused to acknowledge even existed? And yet, how did she expect to make a difference?
A violent tremor went through her as she thought of the look on the man’s face in the library just before she hit him. It had been terrifying, filled with such hate that the memory made Evelyn’s heart thump in her chest. In that instant, she had seen firsthand the determination of years of anger. They would not be stopped.
And who was she to try?
