Bucky heard about Dirk Drechsler’s defection Wednesday evening, November 13, when he returned to the boardinghouse at the end of his workday. Madame Dupree met him at the door before he had finished scraping his shoes on the front porch mat. “Come to the kitchen,” she said in a lowered voice. He followed her without comment, slipping by the door of the living room unseen by the other boarders, who were conversing in animated tones. “What’s happened?” he asked after Madame Dupree had closed the door firmly behind them.
“Your American friend has deserted and gone back to America,” she whispered. “The sergeant left a note to that effect. Captain Achterberg has just informed us.” His landlady’s lips arched into a rare smile. “We don’t have to worry about him anymore, eh, mon ami. He’s—how do you say?—out of our hair.”
“He’s gone for good?” Bucky could hardly believe it.
“From under this roof at least. If he’s found before he can get out of France, he’ll be shot. A manhunt is on for him.” She released a blissful sigh. “I can already breathe easier. You should, too, Stephane.”
“Yes…” Bucky said doubtfully. The thought he’d had earlier of the rescue squad using a bullet to spare themselves the trouble of dealing with the American traitor might not have been an idle one after all. He wondered if his father or the major had ordered the alternate plan to get the sergeant out of France. Uneasy in his mind, Bucky joined the others in the living room to hear the report of Dirk’s desertion. “He won’t get far,” the captain was saying to his colleagues and the agog Frenchmen. “Damned American. I knew never to trust the quisling. It will be the firing squad for him if he’s caught.”
He won’t be caught, Bucky could have told them, suddenly sure of Dirk Drechsler’s fate. The poor sap should never have left Texas. Somehow, he’d have to let Lapwing know that he no longer had to fear running into his best friend from childhood. Bucky suspected that he would be sad, but he could breathe easier, too.
* * *
On Tuesday evening, the day the story ran in Le Temps, Bridgette said to Sister Mary Frances, “Do you believe it was an accident?”
“What else could it be, ma chère amie? The metro platform at rush hour is one of the most dangerous places in Paris. Achim was standing too close to the tracks, no doubt to bully his way to be first onboard. He had been properly warned and chose not to listen. It was due to his own nature that he met his untimely death.”
Untimely, my eye! thought Bridgette, looking hard at Sister Mary Frances. Achim’s “accident,” only hours after she informed the major of the mother superior’s report, was too timely to be anything but deliberate. A chill seized her. She had not anticipated a drastic and permanent removal of the threat to her safety.
Sister Mary Frances placed cool fingers to Bridgette’s cheek. “You must carry on as you were, my child. You are fighting on the right side—God’s side—to rid the world of a great evil. Sometimes the greater good requires casualties. Achim was on the wrong side.”
Bridgette stared at her. Good Lord! The mother superior was in on this somehow. The nun had an idea of what had happened to Achim Fleischer. “Live in peace, my child,” the woman advised kindly. “Achim now is with God. I will pray that he is shown mercy.”
It would be a while before she would live in peace, assuming she ever would, Bridgette thought, swallowing down a surge of nausea. Achim Fleischer most certainly would have denounced her to the French Milice. His former feeling for her had been as dead as a dried flower pressed in a book, but still…Bridgette sighed. The only peace for her, the only comfort, was the knowledge that Achim no longer presented a threat to the safety of her friends.
* * *
By Saturday, Brad and Chris were feeling relieved of the anxiety that had plagued them night and day all week, but they could not shake the guilt over the interrogation of the innocent Abwehr officer who had been blamed for their crime, never mind that the man, by virtue of belonging to the Abwehr, had likely committed crimes of which he was guilty. They were now living the reality that the major had warned them about: “No one completes their missions with clean consciences. Dirty dealing is part of the job.”
Nonetheless they were grateful they no longer had to sleep with an eye open and look over their shoulders with every step. All indications were that the general had never once considered that Brad and Chris might have been involved with the rollup of the Abwehr’s spies.
On Saturday also, by a stroke of luck, Chris managed to free himself of the dark cloud under which he’d been living. He was spending the morning in Les Halles, Paris’s central fresh food market, the “belly of Paris.” Chris could picture what the exposition looked like before the occupation, the teeming Saturday crowds and the sprawl of carts and stalls overloaded with fresh produce, cheeses, meats, breads, and pastries that had been in operation for eight hundred years. There were still foodstuffs to buy but in scarce supply at exorbitant prices. He had just emerged from one of the labyrinthine underground alleys, where he’d haggled down the price of a bottle of wine for the general and a fortune-telling game for Wilhelm, when he spotted Louis Mueller in civilian clothes with a man unknown to him. They were laughing with abandon, an activity of which Chris had not thought Louis capable, but something about their absorption in each other, subtle though it was, made him say to himself, “Well, I’ll be!”
Curious if he had misunderstood, he decided to follow the pair.
According to the tour books, Les Halles had been a favorite hangout of homosexuals and lesbians ever since the French Revolution had eliminated laws declaring same-sex relations a criminal offense. While German violators of the Third Reich’s law against homosexuality would have been prosecuted, the occupying authorities pretty much turned a blind eye to French offenders. They believed the French were beyond saving from moral corruption anyway. Subsequently, tucked among more sedate establishments were bars, cafés, salons, and spas of long standing that catered exclusively to these clientele. It was toward one of these that Louis and his friend seemed headed.
Chris followed them to a small underground café in an alleyway and took the chance that after a few minutes he could enter without being noticed. As expected, the bar was dimly lit with low lights and the haze of cigarette smoke permanent to such establishments and beginning to fill with the lunch crowd. Chris managed to melt in, unseen by his target, and maneuvered within shooting range of his Minox. Less than sixty seconds later, the moment he had anticipated arrived. With a twinge of regret (a man’s love life should be his own affair, but his own life was in danger), he snapped a picture of Louis in a deep kiss with his lover. Chris took a number of shots more to make sure of the scene that would remove Louis from his life and slipped quietly out to grab a bus headed in the direction of a trusted photography studio that developed film with no questions asked. That afternoon an envelope containing photographs of Louis with his paramour along with an anonymous note of explanation was on the way to Gestapo headquarters at 11 Rue de Saussaies in the eighth arrondissement.