B004U2USMY EBOK (23 page)

“Snakes?” Gabriela said.

“Exactly. How did you know? Yes, he’s got two
rooms filled with the disgusting things. It’s like a zoo in there,
he breeds vermin to feed to his animals. Smells like mice. Piss
and shit.”

“I’ve heard about the snakes,” Helmut said.
“First thing he does when he visits a new country, is go
collecting.”

Helmut seemed to have warmed to the
crème
de cassis,
and poured himself another glass. He took a
nibble from one of the more pungent goat cheeses.

“Wonder who takes care of the snakes when
he’s not home,” Alfonse said. “Can’t imagine the maid or the cook
would be too keen to clean up snake turds.”

“He brought some with him,” Gabriela said.
“One is this big, black rat snake from Bulgaria.”

“How do you know that?” Alfonse asked.

“Uhm, the girls like to gossip.” She thought
of a convincing lie. “He took home a girl from the
Egyptienne
and made her watch
while he fed mice to his snakes.”

“There’s got to be a better way to seduce a
girl.
Mademoiselle
, do you want to see my snake? It is big
and strong.” Alfonse chuckled. “It lacks a certain subtlety.”

“Interesting,” Helmut said. A thoughtful look
came over his face. “How many snakes has he got in France? Did
this girl tell you?”

“I don’t know. Three in his office, anyway.”

“Wait,” Alfonse said. “Let me get this
straight. He took a girl to his office and made her look at his
snakes? Is that supposed to make her horny or scare the hell out
of her?”

“Does it have to be either, or?” Helmut
asked. “Hoekman probably doesn’t know the difference.”

Some time later, after they’d finished the
crème
de cassis
and moved on to a bottle of wine, Helmut asked to
be excused to visit the WC.

“Probably won’t be gone long enough for us to
slip upstairs,” Alfonse said when Helmut was gone. He was slurring
some of his words now.

“The longer you wait, the hornier you’ll be.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

She leaned across the table until their lips
were almost touching. “That will be a very good thing, I promise.”

“Come on, let’s go now. Helmut’s a big boy,
he can take care of himself.”

But Helmut came back moments later. Alfonse
looked disappointed.

Helmut poured more wine for everyone. “Let’s
have a toast.”

“A toast? Whatever for?” Alfonse asked.

“To the piss-poor British pilots who bombed a
cow pasture instead of our railway depot.”

Alfonse laughed. “I’ll drink to that.”

“We’re alive,” Gabriela said, “and that’s a
good thing.”

They drank their wine and Alfonse started a
story about a midget sex show he claimed to have seen in Pigalle.
It sounded suspiciously like a setup for a joke, with a punchline
that would make the others groan. But then one of Helmut’s
sarcastic asides distracted him and soon he was talking about
Oxford again.

Helmut stood up some time later. “I’m going
to my room. All this wine has gone to my head.”

“That’s what it’s supposed to do, you know,”
Alfonse said.

“Nevertheless, I think I’ve had enough.”

“Finally,” Alfonse said after he’d left.
“Come on, let’s go to bed, I’m horny as hell.”

Gabriela had no enthusiasm for it. The drinks
had calmed her nerves after the bombing at the rail yard, but she
wasn’t particularly aroused by Alfonse’s loud, drunk voice and red
face.

“Come on,” he said in a pleading tone. He
tugged at her sleeve.

“Okay, okay, I’m coming.”

#

Later, when Alfonse was snoring in bed with
all the noise and enthusiasm of a Ruhr Valley steel mill, she
slipped into her clothes and stepped onto the balcony. The air was
brisk, and a welcome change from the booze and sweat that radiated
from the bed. The village slept below her, dark but for a few
lamps in windows and the moonlight overhead. Swallows flitted
above the tile roofs.

Helmut stood on the adjacent balcony. “Good
evening.”

“Can’t sleep?”

“Too much running through my mind. You?”

“With Alfonse snoring like that? It’ll be a
miracle if I get any sleep at all.”

“I can hear it from here. He keeps up that
racket and the Brits will think they discovered a secret munitions
factory and come drop a few bombs on our heads.”

“They’ll never bomb here. There aren’t any
cow pastures next to the hotel.”

He smiled. “I’m glad you came out. I’ve been
called away. We might not see each other for a few days.”

She was surprised to feel a twinge of
disappointment. “Oh? Where are you going?”

“Called away. You know, the war effort.”

“Always the war effort. Well, be careful. I
don’t want to see you killed or worse.”

“I need to ask you something before I go.”

“You can ask.”

“What does Colonel Hoekman want?”

“I told you before.”

“Right, you said he wants spies. Gaby, please
be open with me. He didn’t bring you in for a herpetological
exhibition.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Gaby, I’m trying to help you, you’ve got to
understand that.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“What does Hoekman want? Are you spying on
Alfonse, or is it someone else?”

There was no reason to deny it, was there? If
he suspected already, he could say something to Alfonse whether
she lied or not.

He must have read her worries. “Alfonse is a
big talker,” he said, “but I’m not. He’s careless, he lives above
his pay grade, and that attracts attention. We sat through a hell
of an inspection of Alfonse’s paperwork the other day and it could
have gone even worse.”

“I’m worried about him,” Gabriela said,
truthfully. “He’s always going to be that guy who stands up in the
boat before it crosses the finish line.”

“That’s why his friends have to look out for
him.”

She didn’t answer.

“Look, if you can tell me, we can
help—quietly, without making Alfonse panic and do something
stupid.”

“You really think so?” she asked.

“I do think so, and you know what?” He leaned
over the railing that separated the two balconies. “I might be
able to help
you
with Hoekman, too.”

“How? What could you possibly do against the
Gestapo?”

“Nothing, directly. But I’m a rich man.
Hoekman himself is untouchable, but I can work on other people.”

“Sounds a lot like Alfonse’s General Dorf
solution to me.”

“I’m not Alfonse. Surely you’ve noticed by
now.”

“Fine, you say you can help. Could you help
me find my father?”

“Your father.” He hesitated. “I want to lie
and say yes, of course, but I don’t know. Gaby, surely it has
occurred to you he might be dead.”

“He’s not.”

“It’s been how long? Two and a half years? A
lot of people have died in camps.”

“He’s not dead and I’m going to find him. Can
you help me or not?”

He sighed. “I can try, but I want to be
honest. They’re tough odds. But if I’m going to look, you’ve got
to give me something.”

“Give you something. That’s exactly what
Colonel Hoekman told me.”

“I’m not Colonel Hoekman, either. Surely,
you’ve noticed
that
as well.”

“You’re more sophisticated in your technique,
I’ll grant you that.”

“Give me some credit, please.”

She’d been vacillating, but now she made her
decision. She had few allies, and the friends she had—Christine,
the Demarais, perhaps Monsieur Leblanc—were weak. Alfonse? He’d
never help, she couldn’t trust him. So what about Helmut? Did she
have any choice?

“Hoekman’s looking for a private in the
army,” she said. “He thinks the man works for Alfonse.”

Helmut frowned. “A private, you say?”

“That’s what he said. A
simple soldat.
I don’t know if he’s French or German.”

“A private.” The frown deepened. “None of
Alfonse’s aides are privates. Even his driver is a corporal. He
give you a name?”

“No name.” Gabriela remembered how Hoekman
had put it. “Actually,
simple soldat
was my word choice,
since he couldn’t remember how to say it. His French is getting
better, but it still has gaps.”

“How exactly did he say it, then? How did you
know that’s what he meant?”

“He said, ’the lowest rank of enlisted man.’
I filled in words in French.”

“The lowest rank of enlisted man.
Simple
soldat
, that would be
Schütze
in German.” Helmut
looked blank for a long moment and then a worried expression
crossed his face. “
Mein Gott!
Oh, I see. Yes, that must be
it.” Helmut turned from the balcony.

“Wait, what is it?”

“Tell Alfonse to drink lots of water, it will
help with the hangover.” He opened the door to his room.

“But what about my father?”

“Later,” he said. “Later.”

Chapter Eighteen:

“
Simple soldat
?” Gemeiner repeated.
There was static on the line; perhaps he was unsure he’d heard
right.

“It’s something like
Schütze
in
German,” Helmut said. “Literally, a simple soldier. Listen, are
you sure your line isn’t tapped? There’s a lot of crackling and
popping.”

“Positive,” Gemeiner said. “Both phone lines
were chosen at random. The call is going through a switchboard in
Flanders.”

It was pouring rain outside the phone booth
in the village of Villejust. Helmut had called from another booth
near the depot, said a certain thing to Gemeiner’s secretary,
received a number in return: 965391. The first two
numbers—96—corresponded to a phone booth location on a map Helmut
kept in his possession. The second number, taken backwards, worked
out to 19:35, or the time he should wait at the booth for
Gemeiner’s call. The call had come precisely on time.

“So who is this private?” Gemeiner asked.

“It’s not actually a private,” Helmut said.
“It translates as ’simple soldier’ in French, but what Hoekman
said literally was, ’the lowest rank of enlisted soldier.’ What
are the other ways you could say that?”

“
Kanonier
?
Pionier, Kraftfahrer?
Let’s
see. . .
Flieger
for the Luftwaffe.”

“The old way.”

A pause, then, “Oh. Oh, I see.”

The old word had been replaced by newer words
and had since become merely slang for a country fool. But it used
to mean a man drafted up from the village with a pike or musket
thrust into his hands and ordered to the front lines. It had been
the word for private before the reformation of the army in the
last big war. Common man:
Gemeiner.

“That’s right,” Helmut said. “He’s looking
for you.”

“So he’s on to our operation.”

“It would appear so, except he thinks Major
Ostermann is your liaison, not me.”

“We can’t count on that confusion forever.”

“No,” Helmut said.

He looked out the glass doors, but it was
dark outside the phone booth and the rain pounded so hard that it
ran in rivulets down the glass doors.

“They arrested our man in Provence
yesterday,” Gemeiner said. “He bit a cyanide capsule before they
could interrogate him, thank god.”

More disquieting news. “Who is taking his
place?”

“It might be you,” Gemeiner said. “I’m rather
short of English speakers.”

“Needless to say, I’m not in a position to
meet with American agents in Provence.”

“Last resort only. First, we need to deal
with our Gestapo friend before he penetrates the organization.”

“You know my answer,” Helmut said. “We need
to kill him.” He thought about Roger Leblanc, dragged out of
Le Coq Rouge,
still
protesting his innocence. “We’ll be doing the Reich a favor,
believe me.”

“I’m sure we would, but that bastard keeps
notes. It’ll be obvious he was onto us and if he dies, that would
probably double the attention turned our way.”

“Unless we make it look like an accident. A
car accident, a robbery gone bad, something like that.”

“Damned tricky.”
“Did you know Colonel Hoekman fancies himself an amateur
herpetologist?” Helmut asked. “He keeps snakes in his office and
probably his flat, too. Raises mice to feed them. It occurs to me
we could do something with that.”

“Go on.”

“Do you remember the Arab who put us in
contact with the Americans in Algeria?”

“Mahmoud Something-or-Other, right? Smuggles
goods between Algiers and Marseille.”

“Something like that, yes,” Helmut said. “He
has cohorts in North Africa. There are some deadly snakes in the
Sahara.”

“What are you thinking?”

“We get an asp or a viper or whatever is most
deadly and release it in his office. It bites him, he dies, and
everybody shakes their heads and says, ’That crazy Colonel
Hoekman, keeping all those snakes. He was bound to get bit sooner
or later.’”

There was a long moment of static and Helmut
began to wonder if they’d lost the connection, but then Gemeiner
said, “It’s just weird enough to throw people off, if you could
manage the details.”

“Should I contact the Arab?”

Another long pause from the other end. “No. I
don’t think it would work. I was in Africa in the last war, a base
outside of Windhoek. We lost a man to a cobra bite once. It’s a
horrible way to go, but not as fast as you might think. The snake
was longer than a man and as big around as a child’s arm, but it
still took all night and half the next day for the guy to die.
Same thing happens here and that will leave plenty of time for
Hoekman to linger, to tell people he never had a poisonous snake.
Oh, and to say, ’I’m on the trail of a major smuggling operation,
maybe something more. Maybe even traitors. It was probably them
who planted the snake.’”