“Yes!” von Waltz exclaimed. “We’re using their radios to communicate with the British. I have one radio with no operator—poor Miss Calvert, I told you about her. I have just captured another agent and picked up his radio. He’s in the basement being ‘persuaded’ to cooperate. And his partner’s on her way. And already I’ve radioed our friends in England for more agents—with yet more radios!” He looked up with reverence at the painting of Hitler. “They will undoubtedly be flying in with the next full moon.”
“Well that’s…new,” Gibbon ventured. “But if the Gestapo shows up at the airfield, the English will get wise to what you’re doing. They’ll stop the missions.”
“Oh, we will be much more circumspect than that. We’ll watch them land, then trail them to their safe houses. We’ll follow them as they go about their business in Paris. Like wolves, we’ll pick off the weakest. It will look natural. Inevitable. Besides”—von Waltz leaned back, crossing his legs—“what do you care?”
“I don’t want to be caught, is all. I only signed on for letting you photograph the mail,” Gibbon answered. “I didn’t agree to turning over British agents.”
“What is that British expression? ‘In for a penny, in for a pound’?” Von Waltz grinned. “Oh, don’t worry—we need you too much to ever betray you.” He took a bite of his pastry. “Oh, delicious!”
Gibbon nodded, keeping his expression blank. He lowered his coffee cup to the saucer with a clink.
“At some point, perhaps even already, a crucial decision will be made by the Allies about where and when the invasions will take place,” von Waltz continued, taking another bite.
“The spies sent over don’t know that—they’re deliberately kept in the dark.”
“For now. But at some point, they’ll be asked to prepare,” von Waltz replied, wiping whipped cream off his upper lip with a napkin. “There will be details—when and where. That is our endgame: to obtain that information. As they say here, Petit a petit, l’oiseau fait son nid—Little by little, the bird makes its nest.”
“Do you ever worry that they might figure out your trap? Then play you at your own game?”
“Oh, no, never. Our English gentlemen friends would never knowingly drop an agent into an enemy trap. Their sense of fair play prohibits it. Above all else, the British are honorable.” Von Waltz smiled and held out the plate of pastries. “Come now, these are marvelous. You simply must have one.”
Gibbon shook his head, then asked, “By the way, what’s in the cage? Under the cover?”
Von Waltz grimaced, a fleck of powdered sugar on his chin. “Don’t ask.”
—
It was impossible to know the hour in the basement of 84 Avenue Foch. The interrogation room was dim and stank of mildew and the faint metallic tang of blood. The walls were stone, and there was a drain in the middle of the concrete floor. Two muscular men, their denim shirts soaked with sweat, stood in the shadows.
Hugh Thompson stood under one of the fluorescent lights. He was naked. His hands were cuffed above his head, bound by chains leading from hooks on the ceiling. He was bleeding, from a cut below his eye and several on his chest. The first bruises on his torso and arms and legs were beginning to bloom, while his back was striped with long red welts.
A third man, stocky and dark, with the body of a boxer, circled him. “We know who you are, Hubert Taillier—or should we say Hugh Thompson, code name Aristide?” He wore thick-soled shoes, and the soles squeaked on the damp floor. The only other sound in the room was Hugh’s ragged breathing.
The man continued. “We know you’re working for SOE in F-Section, for the Prosper network. We know you and your partner, Sarah Sanderson, targeted Reichsminister Hans Fortner to steal information on the French automobile industry’s assistance in Nazi weapons production, so you could prepare SOE sabotage targets. And we know you compromised yourself before you were able to obtain any information from Reichsminister Fortner.”
Hugh grimaced; the knowledge that he himself had betrayed his cause, betrayed Sarah, hurt far worse than any of the blows the men had inflicted.
The interrogator lifted the Englishman’s chin gently, with one finger. “What we want is for you to work with us. Do that, and this will all go away. You will be given a bath, clean clothes. Decent meals. And when this wretched, futile war is over, we will give you the name of the person in your organization who betrayed you.”
Hugh looked away. “Piss off.”
The stocky man nodded, and one of the men from the shadows flung a bucket of cold water at the naked Englishman. As Hugh struggled in his bonds against the icy spray, the man said, “Work with us, Mr. Thompson.”
Hugh spat and shook his head, breathing hard. The water dripped down his face, mixing with blood.
The man backhanded the Englishman with all his considerable might. Hugh staggered and swayed in his chains, groaning low in his throat. With a look of disgust, the man gestured to the others. “Continue!”
They picked up rubber truncheons.
Chapter Twelve
As Gibbon was shown out through the back, into a waiting unmarked sedan, von Waltz watched Avenue Foch from his window. Children played hide-and-seek on the contre-allée, their nursemaids overseeing prams and picnic baskets. Finally, a long, glossy Mercedes pulled up to the sidewalk.
The Obersturmbannführer clapped his hands in delight. “Another guest!” he called out cheerily. “More coffee, Fr?ulein Schmidt!” She narrowed her eyes, but rose to do his bidding.
“More coffee!” Ludwig gabbled. “More coffee!”
“Shut. Up!” Von Waltz yanked the curtain down over the bird’s cage.
Ludwig managed, “Snowpisser! Beer idiot! Bed wetter!” before he quieted again in the darkness.
Two uniformed SS agents climbed the staircase with Sarah in front of them, pushing her with the tips of their guns. Her head was covered by a sack, her hands bound behind her. When they reached the second floor, they shoved her into von Waltz’s office. She stumbled and fell.
Von Waltz eyed the two officers. Both looked the worse for wear. One had ugly red gouges down his cheeks, while the other’s hand was bound in a bloody handkerchief.
“Gentlemen,” he inquired. “What happened?”
The first SS officer poked the barrel of his gun into Sarah’s ribs. “She scratches, Obersturmbannführer.”
The second grimaced. “And bites.”
“Lift her up.” As they did, von Waltz sighed. “Well, remove the hood and untie her hands. Let’s see our little hellcat.” They removed the covering, revealing Sarah—eyes wild, lips chapped, hair snarled. A bruise bloomed on one cheek.
“Ah.” Von Waltz eyed her. “You must be Madame Sabine Severin.” He smiled. “Or should I say—Sarah Sanderson? We’ve been waiting for you, Miss Sanderson. We’re well aware the British are recruiting and using women as terrorists in Europe. Colonel Gaskell of Special Operations Executive has no shame.”
She stared at him, but said nothing.
“We know how frightened you’ve been,” von Waltz continued in honeyed tones, approaching her slowly, as one would a cornered wild animal. “You confessed as much in your letters home to your mother. She lives where? Ah, yes—Liverpool. You’re a long way from home, Miss Sanderson.”
Sarah’s eyes darted around the office; she recoiled when she saw the painting of Hitler.
“We know about SOE. We know about Sir Frank Nelson and Lord Selborne and Sir Charles Hambro. We know about Colonel Gaskell and F-Section. We also know about your paramilitary training at Arisaig House, about parachute school at Fulshaw Hall, about ‘finishing school’ in Beaulieu.”
Sarah schooled her face.
“We have a friend of yours here in custody as well—Hugh Thompson.” The Obersturmbannführer gave a sugary smile and paused. “Mr. Thompson has been rather…uncooperative. First with Hans Fortner and now with us.”
Sarah’s chest rose with a sharp intake of breath, but she refused to give von Waltz the satisfaction of an outburst. “I have nothing to say to you,” she said, haughty as a princess despite her bound hands and bruises. “You represent everything I despise.”
Von Waltz pressed his lips together and knit his eyebrows in a facsimile of sympathy. “Work with us, Miss Sanderson. Work with us and you will live. Not only that, but you will live fairly well. And your Mr. Thompson, too.”