Late that night, Jeremy lay in his bed, feeling a modicum of peace for the first time in weeks, resulting from a sense of having some control over his future. Then he dozed off, and the cycle of recollections began. This time, he took his mind deliberately to memories of Amélie. He lingered over visions of her face, her eyes, her lips. He listened to the echo of her voice in the recesses of his mind, and her laughter. He imagined taking her in his arms and kissing those wondrous lips.
Uneasiness suddenly gripped him as he remembered that Nicolas had said Amélie’s family had fled their home. Where is she? Is she safe? Her family?
He sat up in the dark. They’re still in danger. I have to get there.
Almost immediately, a sense of guilt pervaded, of deserting his own mother and father, and Lance. He struggled with the notion that he should be doing something to help them. Help those you can when you can, he admonished himself.
35
Marseille, France
“You’re going to be treated like an adult,” Amélie told Chantal earlier that morning. “Are you up to it?”
“I don’t know,” Chantal had replied. For a split second, she looked like the vulnerable young girl she had been the night Amélie had spotted Jeremy on the beach, afraid of what might happen if they helped him. The expression disappeared, replaced by a fury that evoked its own concern in Amélie.
“I will try my best,” Chantal continued. Her voice hardened, and her eyes flashed anger. “I won’t be a victim of these Nazi animals. Whatever our resistance needs for me to do, I will do it. That includes…” She drew her hand across her throat in a slicing motion. “Just name the target.”
Amélie studied her sister. Chantal’s tone concerned her. She recalled that Chantal had used that same slicing motion the night they had rescued Jeremy. She had been fearful and used the gesture to show what the Nazis would do to their family if they were caught aiding a fugitive. The new context worried Amélie, but she tucked the sense away in her mind.
“Jacques and Nicolas will be here soon,” she said. “If you’d like to come along, we’re going for a walk on the beach where we can talk without being overheard.”
Fifteen minutes later, the four of them meandered through the sand by the water’s edge, keeping their distance from other beachgoers.
“There’s a woman here in Marseille,” Jacques began. “I know her only by her codename, Hérisson, and I’ve never met her. She leads a resistance network. It’s the one British intelligence put me in contact with before I closed down my shortwave radio.”
“Why did you close it?” Chantal asked.
“The governments in a lot of countries in the war are closing down licensed operators. Without codes, the radios are insecure, and with them, they’re too easy for spies to use. Pétain already outlawed their use, and British intelligence won’t respond to my transmissions now.”
“Who is this Hérisson?” Amélie said.
“A very smart woman, from all I can learn about her. She lives in Marseille and is good friends with a man who was high up in the French government before the German attack. He went to join the Pétain government and expects to be appointed in an intelligence role. The rumor is that, a long time ago, he anticipated exactly what the Germans did in attacking through Belgium and decided that the best way to fight them was to be close to the intelligence center. He’ll do that while running a resistance organization through Hérisson. He’ll feed useful information to her for action. That’s as much as I’ve heard about them, and more than I’m supposed to know.”
“That sounds almost impossible,” Amélie interrupted.
“I have a hard time believing it too, but so far, the story checks out. What I can tell you is that all three of you have been referred to Hérisson. There’s a vegetable vendor here in Marseille. He sells to all the big hotels and restaurants. Hérisson set the man up in business as a great way for him to circulate in places where people gather and talk, so he can learn what’s going on. It’s a very profitable business and helps fund the resistance locally. You’ll meet him later today.”
“He already knows about us?” Nicolas cut in.
“I told him about you before yesterday,” Jacques replied. “I went to see him early this morning to let him know about your cousins. Under the circumstances, surprises are not a good thing.”
Nicolas grimaced. “Sorry—”
“That was my fault,” Amélie cut in. “I gave him no choice.”
Chantal also started to speak, but Jacques held up his hands.
“It’s all right,” he interrupted. “Nicolas had no way to reach me, and anyway, I told him the whole story when I learned it. The man wants to meet you to make his own assessment. Their organization already has defined roles. The question is, how can you best participate?”
The vegetable vendor, Maurice, was huge, a man suited in appearance to be a butcher. His cover lacked any subtlety whatsoever, which is how he was able to maneuver around so freely: surely a man with such a friendly, in-your-face manner could not be engaged in resistance activities. His eyes bulged below a wide forehead, and his demeanor appeared guileless. Despite his size, his overpowering, engaging personality compelled people to open up to him, and talk.
His real value, however, lay in his ability to recruit and manage scores of patriots wishing to join and be active in the resistance. Within days of the German advance around the Maginot Line, still less than a month ago, people across France joined in small groups to oppose the German war machine as
