triumph that hung just beyond his grasp, he lusted for it with a passion that made his pulse race.
On the other hand, if things went wrong, Weber would make the most of it. He would tell everyone how he had opposed Dieter’s risky plan. But Dieter would not allow himself to worry about such bureaucratic point-scoring. Men such as Weber, who played those games, were the most contemptible people on earth.
The town came slowly to life. First to appear were the women walking to the bakery opposite Michel’s house. The shop was closed, but they stood patiently outside, waiting and talking. Bread was rationed, but Dieter guessed it sometimes ran out anyway, so dutiful housewives shopped early to make sure they got their share. When eventually the doors opened, they all tried to get in at once-unlike German housewives, who would have formed an orderly queue, Dieter thought with a feeling of superiority. When he saw them come out with their loaves, he wished he had eaten some breakfast.
After that, the working men appeared in their boots and berets, each carrying a bag or cheap fiber case containing his lunch. The children were just beginning to set out for school when Helicopter appeared, pedaling the bicycle that had belonged to Marie. Dieter sat upright. In the bicycle’s basket was a rectangular object covered with a rag: the suitcase radio, Dieter guessed.
Hans put his head up out of the manhole and watched.
Helicopter went to Michel’s door and knocked. There was no reply, of course. He stood on the step for a while, then looked in at the windows, then walked up and down the street looking for a back entrance. There was none, Dieter knew.
Dieter had suggested to Helicopter what to do next. “Go to the bar along the street, Chez Regis. Order coffee and rolls, and wait.” Dieter’s hope was that the Resistance might be watching Michel’s house, alert for an emissary from London. He did not expect full-time surveillance, but perhaps a sympathetic neighbor might have agreed to keep an eye on the place. Helicopter’s evident guilelessness would reassure such a watcher. Anyone could tell, just by the way he walked around, that he was not a Gestapo man or an agent of the Milice, the French security police. Dieter felt sure that somehow the Resistance would be alerted, and before too long someone would show up and speak to Helicopter-and that person might lead Dieter to the heart of the Resistance.
A minute later Helicopter did as Dieter had suggested. He wheeled his bicycle along the street to the bar and sat at a pavement table, apparently enjoying the sunshine. He got a cup of coffee. It had to be ersatz, made with roasted grain, but he drank it with apparent relish.
After twenty minutes or so he got another coffee and a newspaper from inside. He began to read the paper thoroughly. He had a patient air, as if he was prepared to wait all day. That was good.
The morning wore on. Dieter began to wonder whether this was going to work. Maybe the Bollinger circuit had been so decimated by the slaughter at Sainte-Cecile that it was no longer operational, and there was no one left to perform even the most essential tasks. It would be a profound disappointment if Helicopter did not lead him to other terrorists. And it would please Weber no end.
The time approached when Helicopter would have to order lunch to justify continuing to use the table. A waiter came out and spoke to him, then brought him a pastis. That, too, would be ersatz, made with a synthetic substitute for aniseed, but all the same Dieter licked his lips: he would have liked a drink.
Another customer sat down at the table next to Helicopter’s. There were five tables, and it would have been natural to take one farther away. Dieter’s hopes rose. The newcomer was a long-limbed man in his thirties. He wore a blue chambray shirt and navy canvas trousers, but to Dieter’s intuition he did not have the air of a workingman. He was something else, perhaps an artist who affected a proletarian look. He sat back in his chair and crossed his legs, resting his right ankle on his left knee, and the pose struck Dieter as familiar. Had he seen this man before?
The waiter came out and the customer ordered something. For a minute or so nothing happened. Was the man covertly studying Helicopter? Or just waiting for his drink? The waiter brought a glass of pale beer on a tray. The man took a long pull and wiped his mouth with a satisfied air. Dieter began to think gloomily that he was just a man with a thirst. But at the same time he felt he had seen that mouth-wiping gesture before.
Then the newcomer spoke to Helicopter.
Dieter tensed. Could this be what he had been waiting for?
They exchanged a few casual words. Even at this distance, Dieter sensed that the newcomer had an engaging personality: Helicopter was smiling and talking with enthusiasm. After a few moments, Helicopter pointed to Michel’s house, and Dieter guessed he was asking where the owner might be found. The other man gave a typical French shrug, and Dieter could imagine him saying, “Me, I don’t know.” But Helicopter seemed to persist.
The newcomer drained his beer glass, and Dieter had a flash of recollection. He suddenly knew exactly who this man was, and the realization so startled him that he jumped in his seat. He had seen the man in the square at Sainte-Cecile, at another cafe table, sitting with Flick Clairet, just before the skirmish-for this was her husband, Michel himself.
“Yes!” Dieter said, and he thumped the dashboard with his fist in satisfaction. His strategy had been proved right-Helicopter had led him to the heart of the local Resistance.
But he had not been expecting this degree of success. He had thought a messenger might come, and the messenger might take Helicopter-and Dieter-to Michel. Now Dieter had a dilemma. Michel was a very big prize. Should Dieter arrest him right away? Or follow him, in the hope of catching even bigger fish?
Hans replaced the manhole cover and got into the van. “Contact, sir?”
“Yes.”
“What next?”
Dieter did not know what to do next-arrest Michel, or follow him?
Michel stood up, and Helicopter did the same.
Dieter decided to follow them.
“What shall I do?” Hans said anxiously.
“Get out the bike, quick.”
Hans opened the back doors of the van and took out the moped.
The two men put money on the cafe tables and moved away. Dieter saw that Michel walked with a limp, and recalled that he had taken a bullet during the skirmish.
He said to Hans, “You follow them, I’ll follow you.” He started the engine of the van.
Hans climbed on the moped and started pedaling, which fired the engine. He drove slowly along the street, keeping a hundred meters behind his quarry. Dieter followed Hans.
Michel and Helicopter turned a corner. Following a minute later, Dieter saw that they had stopped to look in a shop window. It was a pharmacy. They were not shopping for medicines, of course: this was a precaution against surveillance. As Dieter drove by, they turned and headed back the way they had come. They would be watching for a vehicle that made a U-turn, so Dieter could not pursue them. However, he saw Hans pull behind a truck and turn back, remaining on the far side of the street but keeping the two men in sight.
Dieter went around the block and caught up with them again. Michel and Helicopter were approaching the railway station, with Hans still following.
Dieter asked himself whether they knew they were being followed. The trick at the pharmacy might indicate that they were suspicious. He did not think they had noticed the PTJ’ van, for he had been out of their sight most of the time, but they could have spotted the moped. Most likely, Dieter thought, the reversal of direction was a precaution taken routinely by
Michel, who was presumably an experienced undercover operator.
The two men crossed the gardens in front of the station. There were no flowers in the beds, but a few trees were blossoming in defiance of the war. The station was a solidly classical building with pilasters and pediments, heavyweight and over decorated, no doubt like the nineteenth-century businessmen who had built it.
What would Dieter do if Michel and Helicopter caught a train? It was too risky for Dieter to get on the same train. Helicopter would certainly recognize him, and it was even possible that Michel might remember him from the square at Samte-C‚cile. No, Hans would have to board the train, and Dieter would follow by road.
They entered the station through one of three classical arches. Hans left his moped and followed them inside. Dieter pulled up and did the same. If the two men went to the booking office, he would tell Hans to stand behind them in the queue and buy a ticket to the same destination.
They were not at the ticket window. Dieter entered the station just in time to see Hans go down a flight of
