Bucky waited out the week tense, as well, ready to leap out of his skin at the touch of a hand on his shoulder. It was now Monday, November 9, four days since he had left work early to drop a note in the tree at Passy-Auteuil asking for an urgent meeting. “In case of extreme emergency,” his father had said. The “emergency” was a chip it galled Bucky to squander. Bucky wanted to hold it in reserve for a true crisis, for which the saving of the likes of Dirk Drechsler did not qualify, but he couldn’t risk the traitor turning him over to the Abwehr. His other option was to depart the boardinghouse one fine morning and never go back, leave the sergeant to wait in vain for his evening return, but exfiltration wasn’t the answer, either. He still had to get his hands on those blueprints of the gun facility underway in the French Alps.
For obvious reasons, he could not explain his need for the meeting in a note. It would have to be conveyed face-to-face. His father would take the simple message as urgent enough. Beloved, we must meet as soon as possible but at your convenience. Bucky speculated on pins and needles how long it would take for the note to be collected and in what guise he’d be contacted. The drop was made November 5, three weeks before Dirk Drechsler’s Thanksgiving deadline. He visualized someone checking the cavity in the tree daily—perhaps his aunt’s old retainer?—and seeing that it got to the proper recipient. Bucky was torn. He had little choice but to leave the summons, yet he was in a stew of agony that his response would expose the Black Ghost to increased danger. Dirk Drechsler wasn’t worth it.
Bucky came within an inch of telling him so the previous Thursday night, when the traitor cornered him at the boardinghouse and spoke so close to his face in such a silly attempt to be secretive that a spray of spit struck his cheek. The idiot had thought his spring from bondage would materialize immediately. “Any news?”
“Non,” Bucky gritted, pushing him back. “You must be patient, monsieur. I took the first step to honor your request only today. These things take time.”
“Well, don’t wait too long, amigo.”
His contact came one day later, Friday, in the form of a jostle of his briefcase from his hand as he waited for the metro. “Pardon, monsieur,” the man muttered, bending down to pick up the satchel. Handing it to Bucky, he turned quickly and headed off before it was possible to catch a glimpse of his face. Bucky at first suspected the man might be a pickpocket—Paris was rampant with them—and patted his breast pocket for his wallet containing his papers when he saw a corner of a note peeking from under the flap of the briefcase. He looked around to find that none among the self-absorbed, grim-faced crowd of metro riders had the slightest interest in the square of paper he slipped into his pocket. When the train was underway, he read that the meeting was set that evening at six o’clock in a convenient and accessible bibliotheque publique, a large public library a block from the engineering firm where he worked. The password to expect was Victor Hugo.
The place was an intelligent and logical choice. Bucky often went there after working hours to read in a relative haven of peace and quiet. The note had given no instructions where he was to meet his contact in the library. At a writing table? The reference room? Reading nooks? In the stacks? Which one? There were a dozen. He did not expect it to be Nicholas Cravois in person. He would send an intermediary, but was Bucky to expect a man or woman? How would the person identify him? Should he wear or have at hand some identifying flag like a scarf or particular book? Bucky supposed he was simply to show up and sit where he could be seen. The messenger would contact him. A few minutes to six, he had taken a seat at one of the tables in the main room facing the door, feeling exposed and thinking that he should be hidden in a corner where he and his contact would not be noticed.
At six o’clock, a wave of people dressed in overcoats and blowing out frosty breaths arrived—Bucky counted five from behind his newspaper—and fanned out about the room with the focused intent of regulars laying claim to their reading spots. No one paid him the least mind. Several minutes later a contingent of merry-cheeked university students blew through the door, laughing and chatting, falling immediately silent at the librarian’s stern hiss. Without paying Bucky a glance, they selected a table in the far corner of the room where they could giggle and whisper over their homework out of sight of the martinet at the circulation counter. Bucky waited, growing more nervous with each passing minute.
An hour crawled by. It was getting on to closing time for the library and for him to catch his train to Saint-Michel. It was a trek to the station, and sometimes the train was delayed or full and he had to wait for the next one. Then factor in the walk to his boardinghouse, which would nudge the hour close to curfew. He must also figure in time for the meeting—that is, if his contact showed up.
She revealed herself ten minutes later. She stepped from the stacks behind the circulation desk, a librarian wearing an identification badge and carrying a load of books to be returned to the shelves. She passed by his table and said in a lowered voice, “Victor Hugo.”
Casually, Bucky folded his paper, collected his briefcase, and rose. He checked his watch—Still time to select a book before I have to leave, it suggested to any who would be watching. To satisfy the chief librarian, busy at her command post but with her eye ever sharp on the field of engagement, he casually browsed shelves until he reached the one where the librarian had disappeared.
She was young, faintly pretty, and all business. Bucky thought she would eventually mature into the stern-faced, gray-haired spinster behind the circulation counter, the stereotypical librarian who would go home at the end of a day to her cat and one-room flat, if, in fact, his contact was a librarian. “How may I help you?” she said.
Bucky had explained. “You will be contacted,” she’d said.
And so he waited, Dirk Drechsler hovering and fuming.
A ray of hope had appeared that Monday morning. As Bucky stepped out of the boardinghouse on his way to work, a check of the bottom doorstep called for a trip to the tree. He set off at once to answer the summons and would later explain his tardiness to his supervisor, his OSS facilitator, who would understand. In the park he found a single command in the depository: Wait on the bench.
Bucky followed the order, wondering how long he’d have to wait before someone showed up. He had not long to worry. Before his feet began to get cold, a man past middle age carrying a paper sack strolled into the park with the obvious aim to share the bench with Bucky. He surmised the man and his sack must be a regular visitor to the spot since a flock of pigeons in the bare trees appeared to be on the lookout for him.
The man acknowledged Bucky with a perfunctory nod as he sat down at the far end and opened the sack, apparently a signal that instantly drew the flock of birds down from the trees to swarm about his feet. Chagrined, Bucky watched him fling the bread, worried how his contact would know which of them to approach. The luxuriousness of the man’s fur-lined overcoat and matching Russian-style cap, and the wanton sharing of a staple scarce to other Parisians, pegged him as a resident of the affluent neighborhood. Indeed, the sunny weather had drawn a number of his well-heeled contemporaries out of their doors to stroll arm in arm about the park.
While Bucky pondered what to do, the man said, “Victor Hugo used to sit here. Did you know that, monsieur?”
Bucky sucked in his breath. His contact! He took a stab at the appropriate response. “Victor Hugo. I’ve heard that name recently.”
The man flicked a crust crumb to the frantically pecking pigeons. “Where?”
“In the public library not far from the Quai André-Citroën.”
“Ah, yes. I was instructed to give you this to pass to your friend.” He handed Bucky a folded note, its ends stapled together. “Tell him to follow the instructions printed inside to the letter. Now tell me what you know about this man, what you have observed of his character, personality, temperament, physical condition, predilections, ability to withstand hardship. Do express your personal feelings about him, monsieur. They are important.”
Rattling the paper sack to show his feathered friends that it was empty, the man folded it and stowed it in a coat pocket—everything was worth saving these days—and sat back with crossed arms like a theatergoer waiting patiently for the play to begin. Meanwhile, Bucky considered his impressions of Dirk Drechsler. He understood that his assessment was needed to determine the type of cargo his father’s associates would be hauling. The route out of France to safe territory would be rough and treacherous, certainly not for the weakhearted or untrustworthy. Other people would be involved, indispensable, brave people risking their lives to return an American traitor back to his homeland. Bucky had no choice but to describe the man he’d observed Dirk Drechsler to be—indecisive, bumbling, easily misled, self-serving, desperate, but intuitive and perceptive.
“I wish I had more positive qualities to relate,” Bucky said when he had finished.
“Tell me one thing more,” the man said as he rose to leave. The flock, having pecked the ground clean, had abandoned him and taken off to the trees in a single flight. “Do you believe the man to be a danger to you if his demand is not fulfilled?”
Bucky hesitated. “He wouldn’t want to be, but…” He lifted his shoulders.
“But he is what he is, no?”
“Yes. That’s why he’s dangerous.”