Chapter One #2
Perhaps Henri would have been that one, if he didn’t remind her so much of her little brother. And if they had time for such nonsense. But he did and they didn’t, and over the eleven months they’d been working together, they’d struck up a friendship as deep as it was platonic.
Henri had been more than a little dubious in their initial meeting last year, when he’d realized that Navarre did indeed intend for him, a former naval man, to answer to a woman—unthinkable to anyone in the military.
But after being ordered to stand down and turn over his fleet to the Nazis, he’d returned to France looking for a way to resist. Any way.
Even if it meant accepting Zelie’s role.
As to his unasked question, she took off her hat, slipped a finger between the layers of the double lining she’d carefully pressed into place last night, and pulled out the papers she’d hidden there.
Henri groaned. “Zelie!” He snatched the questionnaires from her. “Are you mad? What if they’d checked the hat?”
She lifted a single shoulder in a shrug, letting slide away the dull expression she’d been wearing to match the increasingly itchy wig.
“They could have searched anything. It was as safe as any other hiding place—and clearly safer than the others, given that they checked the lining in my suitcase and had me down to my knickers.”
Henri snorted a laugh. “I should have been the one to smuggle them in. They didn’t search me at all.”
She shook her head. “This time. Usually it’s the other way around.
” Knowing that at this point he was the one who needed the paperwork in his possession, she fixed her hat and put it back on.
Soon, they’d separate. Henri would get off at Bourdeaux, she would continue to Paris.
And while, yes, she’d be dodging the Gestapo every day she was in the city, it was Henri’s task that had her worried.
A glance at the papers as they disappeared into his suit jacket, and she asked, “How do you intend to go about your sleuthing?”
MI6 had given them very specific requests for this mission, so specific they’d had to risk making those questionnaires to be filled out.
They couldn’t afford to neglect even one of the answers.
The British needed information on the U-boats based near Bourdeaux as badly as she needed a trip to Cannes.
Henri, the fool, grinned. “Easy enough. I’ll get a U-boat crew member drunk, liberate him of his uniform, and board a sub.”
She blinked at him, not sure if this was one of his harebrained schemes or one of his inappropriate jests. “I do hope you’re joking.”
His lack of response did nothing to reassure her.
She huffed out a breath. “Need I remind you, Boutron,” she muttered under her breath, “that you’ll do no one any good if you get yourself killed?”
Technically, she could call him off. Make him come up with a safer way to get the intelligence on the submarines.
But there was no safe way to do the jobs they’d been assigned. And if anyone had a hope of succeeding with such a brash plan, it was Henri.
He repositioned his fedora as the train slowed for the Bourdeaux stop.
“I’ll be fine, and then I’ll proceed to the naval base.
If anyone questions my presence there, I’ll claim I’m creating a report for Vichy.
They’re looking for one, so it should hold water.
” He shot her a grin. “You’re the one who trusted me with this. You can’t start questioning me now.”
A return smile overtook her mouth. He was no more reckless than she was, to be honest. It was one of the reasons they’d become such fast friends. “Start now? I’ve been questioning you since the moment we met.”
He was laughing as he disembarked, and she chose to think of it as a good omen. He’d survive this. Get the information England needed. Radio it to MI6, who would pass it along to the powers that be in London.
They’d prove themselves. Now, tomorrow, next month. They’d prove that the Allies could trust them. Prove they were worthy of the funds, the gadgets, the secrets Britain had promised them.
Somehow, they’d do it. Even if it required a few harebrained schemes.
She sighed and settled back into her seat for the rest of the trip.
Back to Paris, the city she’d fled last June before the Germans arrived.
The place where she’d once been so happy, and so furiously unhappy too.
The place where her marriage had crumbled when she couldn’t mold herself into the useless army wife Jacques had expected her to be, wanting nothing but picnics and theater shows and talk of the latest theories on child-rearing.
Her eyes slid closed as familiar countryside blurred past. She’d tried.
She’d tried to be what he wanted. Tried to forget all the dreams she’d given up to marry him when she was twenty, tried to content herself with his world, despite knowing how big a one was beyond it.
Tried to be content with the memories of her childhood in Shanghai and the adventures she’d had as the daughter of a diplomat, with the early years of their marriage, when they were stationed in Morocco.
Tried to be happy with the memory of having been happy.
We could have fixed it, she told herself, as she always did.
They could have gotten back to their first love or found something better, deeper.
They could have found a compromise somewhere between his desire for the staid and the steady and hers for the next excitement, the next adventure.
They could have, if nothing else, continued to pretend, for the sake of Blaise and Elise.
She hugged her suitcase to her chest as the train slowed, signaling the outskirts of the city.
She hadn’t packed any of their photographs—hadn’t dared.
If she’d been caught, the last thing she wanted was for the Gestapo to have pictures of her children in their possession.
But in Paris . . . in Paris, she’d have a few reminders of them, anyway.
The baby pictures framed and hanging in her flat.
The toys and clothes they hadn’t had time or space to pack when she fled with them last June.
Four months. Four months had passed since she’d last been able to sneak onto the grounds of her family’s villa outside of Cannes, for Christmas.
Since she’d driven her Citroen up the hill to the old farmhouse Maman had moved them into—they’d decided to rent out the villa.
Since she’d gathered Blaise and Elise to her chest and held on so tightly they’d squirmed in protest.
How much had they grown? Blaise was nine—was his face losing more of its baby softness?
Had he sprouted up again, making her mother mutter about keeping the boy in trousers?
And sweet little Elise . . . had her hair darkened more from its original white-blonde?
Was learning to read still frustrating her so much that she threw tantrums and stomped from the room?
Tears burned, but she squeezed her eyes against them.
She should be the one teaching her stubborn little girl how to read.
She should be the one measuring her son’s height against the old doorframe.
She should be the one fussing about letting down their hems and insisting she wasn’t hungry so they could have a bit more.
It should be her. But it couldn’t be. She was a hunted woman, even if the Germans didn’t yet know that she was the one they were after.
They’d figure it out eventually—she knew that.
They’d realize that she was right hand to Jean Loustaunau-Lacau, code-named Navarre and leader of France’s largest organized intelligence network.
They’d discover that she was the one the Brits knew as POZ 55, the one organizing, encoding, and passing along information to help the Allies keep fighting one more day.
They’d connect all the dots, and when they did, she could well meet her end.
But if so, she wouldn’t take her children down with her.
“It’ll be worth it,” she whispered to herself as the train screeched its way into the station. She was giving her children a France worth growing up in. She was fighting for their freedom, their future. She was making a sacrifice that would count for something.
Clutching the handle of her suitcase, she drew in a deep breath. And took her first steps off the train and into Nazi-held Paris.
She thought she’d prepared herself for the differences—the streets empty of automobiles, since petrol could only be gotten from the Nazis, the swastikas hanging and flying, the green-brown uniforms of the German Wehrmacht on so many of the men she passed by.
But it was the sameness that slowed her feet a turn away from her flat.
Parisians still sat at bistro tables outside restaurants.
Men in suits still strode along, briefcases in hand.
Women still pushed their prams and talked about what new show they’d see that weekend.
How? They had Nazis surrounding them, filling their cafés, manning checkpoints. How in the world did they move on as if life hadn’t changed?
Someone rammed into her from behind. “Oh! Pardon!”
At the familiar voice, Zelie spun, eyes going wide. “Marguerite?”
For one moment, her best friend’s face stayed blank as she glanced from the horrible hat to the dull blonde hair to the ugly suit. Then her gaze shot back up to Zelie’s face, and her eyes went round.
“Shh.” Zelie pivoted to Marguerite’s side and nudged her to keep walking. “Don’t draw attention. I’m not officially here.”
Marguerite huffed and tucked a lock of her forever-unruly black curls behind her ear. “You shouldn’t be here even unofficially. The Gestapo has stopped by half a dozen times, looking for you.”
It took all her training to keep from glancing over her shoulder. “I won’t stay in the flat. I just need to fetch a few things. Did they search it?”