The Tristan Betrayal Page 9

  “Aw’right!” the Brit gasped. “Aw’right! I’ll tell you!”

  “A false answer will guarantee not only your death, but the deaths of everyone you work with.” Kleist had learned from his years of interrogation and torture that the threat of death was usually ineffective. What worked was guilt, the instinct to protect one’s friends and colleagues. And pain: pain worked most quickly to loosen the tongue. That was why he had positioned the catgut where he had. For maximum pain.

  “I’ll tell you!” the Brit shrilled.

  And he did.

  When he had finished telling Kleist everything he needed to know, Kleist abruptly tightened the violin string against the soft tissue of the Brit’s throat. There was an expression of bewilderment, indignation, in the Brit’s eyes, even before they bulged out. I’ve kept my side of the bargain, his eyes seemed to be saying. Why have you not kept yours?

  Kleist never understood why his victims always thought they could make a deal with him. What good was a deal when only one side has the power?

  When the Brit was dead, Kleist got up and, with a shudder of disgust, washed the foul odors off of his hands.

  Chapter Eight

  There was a forger in Paris whom Metcalfe had known for several years and trusted, as much as he allowed himself to trust anyone in his undercover life. Alain Ducroix was much more than a forger, of course, but the Nazi occupation had transformed him, as it had transformed so many. A veteran of the First World War who had been crippled at the Battle of the Somme, Ducroix was a man of many talents: a poet, the owner of a highly regarded bookstore, and a publisher. Editions Ducroix was a tiny press that specialized in chapbooks, beautifully crafted small editions of poets both legendary and unheralded. And on its printing presses, located in a studio behind the bookshop, Alain Ducroix did meticulous handiwork of another sort entirely: cartes d’identité, drivers’ licenses, SD credentials, German identification cards, whatever was required by the small army of brave Resistance fighters. He was a good man who did valuable work.

  As Daniel Eigen, Metcalfe had asked Ducroix to produce documents for him and for friends. Metcalfe had made a point of not revealing his true identity, and not just to protect his own cover. Metcalfe wanted to protect Ducroix. The old forger knew that Eigen was a black marketer who had been useful to him and his colleagues in the Resistance. Eigen was not a political type, Ducroix had long ago concluded, but he was sympathetic, or at least trustworthy.

  And Metcalfe needed Ducroix’s help now. Since he would be leaving France by rail, under the name of Nicolas Mendoza, he would need departure documents issued by the Vichy government. And Ducroix was the only documents man in all of Paris who had paper of just the right weight and composition and who could reproduce the government seals and typography perfectly.

  The Librairie Ducroix was located on the avenue de l’Opéra. Its windows were an elegant stage set, a display of the stunningly beautiful books Alain Ducroix printed and bound by hand. Passersby would stop and marvel at the volumes bound in crimson morocco leather with raised bands on the spine and hand-applied gold leaf. Some were bound in calfskin or vellum, with hand-marbled papers, hand-sewn spines, the front and back boards ornamented with gold, red, and blind tooling, the edges gilded.

  The only jarring note in the display windows was a small framed portrait of Marshal Pétain, a sign beneath it that said: VENDU—sold out. This was a pun, a bitter joke: Pétain had sold all of France out. Not a wise thing to put in his window, Metcalfe reflected. He would have to chide Ducroix. Given his important secret work, it was all the more vital that he keep his political beliefs cloaked.

  Metcalfe pushed open the door. Bells mounted on the door jingled as he entered. The shop, which was crowded with tables and shelves stacked with volumes of poetry and belles lettres, some of them Ducroix’s own publications, was deserted.

  Not entirely empty, of course. “Ah, Daniel!” came a rich baritone from the back of the shop. “Where have you been?”

  Ducroix, a handsome, stout man in his sixties with a shock of white hair, propelled his wheelchair with great speed from the back of the shop down the narrow center aisle. Although he had been paralyzed since the last war, he was a powerful, even athletic-looking man. His hands were large and callused, his forearms muscular.

  Ducroix extended a hand and shook Metcalfe’s hand firmly. “You have come to buy my new edition of Les Fleurs du Mal, hein? Yes, a good choice. The binding is in full black morocco, with red morocco doublures, the flyleaves hand-marbled. A beautiful volume, even if I say it myself. Not to speak of the typography—”

  “This picture of Pétain in the window,” Metcalfe interrupted.

  “Yes,” Ducroix chuckled. “The hero of Verdun, but I spit on him.”

  “Well, you’d better do your spitting in private. I’d take that little joke out of the window if I were you.”

  Ducroix shrugged. “D’accord,” he said. He lowered his voice. “We shall talk in the back.”

  Metcalfe followed Ducroix through the shop and through a set of double doors into the cavernous stone-floored room that held the hand-operated letterpress, the monocaster that was used to cast type from molten lead, and the workbenches where Ducroix did his bookbinding.

  As Metcalfe explained his needs, Ducroix nodded, his eyes closed in concentration. “Yes, yes,” he said at last. “It is possible, yes. I may have a few of the blanks left; I will have to check. They are extremely difficult to obtain. I had to go to the manager of one of the larger Paris printing firms, who is an old friend. He does work for the government, so he had a stock of the blank forms. The official Ministry of Foreign Affairs seal I have cast myself in lead. But the typesetting I shall have to do on the Linotype machine, and it must be done most carefully to avoid detection. I mean, the border guards are a stupid lot, but every so often you come across a sharp one who looks carefully, and we do not want a catastrophe.”

  “No, that we don’t,” Metcalfe agreed.

  “Perhaps I have been reading too much Baudelaire recently, but I keep thinking of what he says: ‘Il n’y a pas de hasard dans l’art, pas plus qu’en mécanique.’ The best art takes much work, yes? Not that I am a great artist, of course, but to do this kind of work right does require some artistry and much concentration. Alors!” He spun around, reached over to the bench behind him, and retrieved a slim volume from a stack. He handed it to Metcalfe.

  “This, mon cher, is a gift for you. Racine’s Phaedra. Perhaps you will read it now while you wait—take the comfortable chair in the shop. The binding is not quite dry, so you must take care. It is beautiful, is it not? The calf vellum is fiendishly hard to get these days—the Germans are sending all of our cows to Germany.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Metcalfe said. “I’ll read it with pleasure.”

  “So, if you will sit for a few minutes, I will see what I can turn up. I shall let you know if this document will take me an hour or twelve. Do you need this very soon?”

  “As soon as possible, my dear Alain.”

  “I shall do my best. You go out front and mind the shop while I look back here. And if the Racine is not to your liking, feel free to browse in my shop. You may find some jewels out there. How does Lamartine put it? ‘Même dans le rebut on trouve des joyaux.’ Jewels may be found among the dross.”

  Metcalfe returned to the bookshop and looked through the shelves with idle curiosity. He was not one to frequent bookstores, and now particularly he had little patience. He was tense, worried about involving his friend.

  Forging exit visas was of a different order of magnitude from printing fake ration books and the like. If Metcalfe was caught, Ducroix might be ensnared as well. The thought was chilling. After all, Metcalfe had signed on to do dangerous undercover work. Ducroix was an intellectual, a bookshop owner, a man of letters. Not a spy. He was a brave man, doing his part to help the Resistance; it was vital that he be protected.

  A few minutes later his thoughts were interrupted by a jingling
at the door. A customer had entered: a man of about forty. Metcalfe felt a spider-crawl of unease, the prickly sense that something was not right about the man. He looked too well fed, in this time of deprivation. There was something sleek, privileged, about this gentleman, in his expensively tailored suit. His hair was cut short, in an almost military manner, and he wore rimless glasses. Was he a German? His shoes were costly-looking, highly polished leather with leather soles. The French tended not to dress this well anymore.

  Metcalfe pretended to examine an edition of Corneille on a shelf at eye level, while secretly inspecting the other man in the shop. The wooden floor creaked underfoot as the man peered around. He seemed to be looking for something, or someone.

  Metcalfe watched in silence. It wasn’t until the man turned slightly that Metcalfe noticed the slight bulk at his waist: a holstered weapon.

  My God, Metcalfe thought. I’ve tracked them in.

  A minute later, he heard a car pull up to the curb in front of the shop. He recognized the type of car from the sound of the powerful engine, even before he saw the black Citroën Traction Avant. It was a Gestapo car. The driver wore a Gestapo uniform. A man got out of the backseat: another plainclothesman, also dressed in a good suit.

  Metcalfe felt a jolt of adrenaline as the second Gestapo agent entered the store. I must have been followed, he realized with terror.

  He did a swift mental calculation. He had a weapon of his own, holstered at his ankle, where it did not show. In theory he was outmanned, but this was not yet a matter of drawing his pistol and firing. That was the very last resort: he could not risk killing a Gestapo agent, particularly not on the eve of his departure from Paris. That would complicate everything.

  Assuming, of course, that he was able to make an escape. There were two of them, and their orders were surely to make arrests, not to kill.

  But whom had they come to arrest?

  Ducroix was the most vulnerable. After all, Metcalfe was doing nothing more than browsing in a bookshop. Let the Gestapo take him in for questioning; it would lead to nothing. But if they burst into the back room while Ducroix was doing his illegal work, it was the Frenchman who would be arrested, sentenced to execution.

  He had to protect Ducroix. He had to warn him; that was the first thing.

  Quietly Metcalfe turned, running his finger along a row of books as if searching for a particular title, then moved to the next aisle of bookshelves. He moved slowly, deliberately, with the patience of a browser immersed in literary pursuit.

  The first Gestapo agent looked up, watching Metcalfe’s movements warily. Instead of speeding up, Metcalfe slowed down in an attempt to divert the German’s suspicion. He stopped, pulled a book off a shelf, opened it, and examined it. Then he shook his head, replaced the book, and continued toward the back of the shop. When he was out of the two Germans’ sight lines, concealed behind a long, tall shelf, he accelerated his pace, keeping his tread light, moving with very little sound.

  Finally he reached the double doors that led to the workshop.

  He pushed at them gently, willing their hinges not to squeak. They did not.

  Ducroix was on the telephone, his wheelchair pulled up to a bench. Metcalfe was relieved to see that there was no incriminating evidence spread out before him, no Wehrmacht seals, no document blanks, nothing of the sort.

  Ducroix turned, smiled at Metcalfe. “I am needed out front, yes? We have paying customers?”

  “Gestapo,” Metcalfe spoke in a whisper. “Two of them. If you have anything out, put it away. Now!”

  Ducroix looked at him with an expression of bewilderment.

  Metcalfe continued, “Is there a back way out of here?” Always know your exit: Corky’s First Commandment. Yet Metcalfe had slipped. He wasn’t prepared.

  “But I forgot to give you the slipcase!” Ducroix protested. “For the Racine!” He lifted a cloth-covered box from the bench, then spun around to face Metcalfe.

  “Damn it, there’s no time for that!” Metcalfe rasped. He scanned the workshop, looking for the exit door. “You don’t understand: The Gestapo is here! I’ve got to get out of here, and you, you’ve got to—”

  “I’ve got to do my duty,” Ducroix interrupted, his voice curiously flat. The slipcase dropped to the floor, revealing an enormous Luger aimed at the center of Metcalfe’s chest.

  Ducroix held the immense weapon in a firm, two-handed grip, his elbows steadied on the arms of his wheelchair. Metcalfe stared at the muzzle of the gun, and as he reached one hand around to his back to retrieve his own gun, Ducroix barked out, “Freeze! Or I will fire!”

  From somewhere behind Metcalfe there were footsteps. He turned, saw the two Gestapo agents enter, their guns leveled at him.

  “Alain!” Metcalfe blurted out. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I suggest you make no sudden moves,” Ducroix said. “If you do, we will not hesitate to kill you. These gentlemen want only to talk to you, and I suggest you cooperate. You see, this pistol is aimed precisely at your seventh thoracic vertebra. You move, I fire, and—voilà! A lifetime in the roulant, just like me. If you survive, that is. Nothing works below the waist, mon frère. It concentrates the mind wonderfully. No more chasing after les femmes. And the calluses you build up on your palms . . . Not to worry—what does that English poet say? ‘For people will always be kind . . .’ You will pray for death, believe me.”

  “Excellent job,” came a voice from behind Metcalfe.

  “I aim to please,” Ducroix said with a shrug, but all the while he gripped the weapon firmly, steadily, as if no time had passed since his military days.

  Metcalfe’s thoughts whirled as his adrenaline surged. He was trapped.

  He froze, but slowly he looked behind him. The two plainclothes Gestapo agents had their weapons pointed at him. They were less than ten feet away, and they were moving in closer. Three weapons leveled at him. He was outnumbered. If he made any sudden moves, he would be dead in seconds. That he was sure of.

  How and why this had happened he didn’t fully understand. It was astonishing: Ducroix had betrayed him! Ducroix, who claimed to loathe the Germans with every fiber of his being, had for some reason cooperated with the Gestapo to turn him in. More than astonishing, it was almost inconceivable. What kind of pressure must they have placed on Ducroix? What kind of threats? What sort of bribe might they have offered?

  Or was it possible that Ducroix had been in league with the Nazis all along?

  While Metcalfe tried to make sense of it all, another part of his brain furiously calculated the odds of his lunging for Ducroix. . . . But it was no use. They had him.

  But for what? What did they know about him? Had his cover identity been somehow blown? Or was it simply that Ducroix had set him up for attempting to procure forged documents—in which case, wouldn’t Ducroix be incriminating himself?

  “Meine Herren,” Metcalfe said in a tone of wry amusement, “don’t you think you are overdoing this?”

  “Hands at your side,” the other Gestapo agent commanded.

  Metcalfe slowly lowered his arms to his sides. He shook his head slowly, an expression of sorrowful puzzlement on his face. “May I at least ask you gentlemen what this is all about?”

  “Herr Eigen, we will talk later. We have an interrogation chamber outfitted for that purpose. For now, you will come with us, and do not make any sudden moves or we are ordered to shoot.”

  Ordered: these were men acting under orders from above, from superior officers. They were drones, low-level street agents, and this was good, Metcalfe considered. They did not act on their own initiative. They responded to authority.

  Metcalfe smiled, glanced at Ducroix. But the Frenchman’s eyes were steely, opaque, his arms still in the firing position, the Luger steady. He radiated no sympathy, no recognition of their old camaraderie. He seemed a changed person—ruthless, unyielding.

  “Gentlemen,” said Metcalfe, “aren’t you required at least to tell me what you’re taking me
in for?”

  He heard the jingling of bells as the door to the bookshop was opened.

  “Turn, please,” the first German said. “Walk toward the door. Arms at your sides.”

  “No, the back way, please!” interrupted Ducroix. “No one must see him come out of my shop!” He pointed with his gun toward one end of the workroom, where Metcalfe now noticed a door. It probably led to the alley.

  “Is this about documents?” Metcalfe persisted. “Papers?” He raised his voice. “About the documents I use in order to get Gerhard Mauntner his cognac, his cigarettes, his caviar? To get Frau Mauntner her silk stockings, her perfume? Gentlemen, really . . . you can’t be serious.” By invoking the name of the number two man at the Paris headquarters of the Gestapo, an occasional client of his, Metcalfe was pulling out his heaviest ammunition. These street agents, obedient to the core, would do nothing to contravene the wishes of a man as highly placed as Mauntner.

  “Oh, we are quite serious,” the second German replied calmly. There was a note of ominous pleasure in his voice. “After all, Gerhard Mauntner’s signature is on the arrest form. We are obeying Gruppenführer Mauntner’s express personal orders. Move, please.”

  They had called his bluff! His ruse had been exposed for the lie it was. There was nothing to do now but go along with the agents. He glanced again at Ducroix, who had not relaxed his firing stance at all, though beads of sweat had appeared on the man’s forehead. A tiny smile played about the forger’s lips. The lover of poetry appreciated the irony, the delicious spectacle of a fabulist being caught in the web of his own fiction.

  “Well,” Metcalfe said, “there’s obviously some terrible mistake, but we’ll straighten this out at the rue des Saussaies.”

  He began walking toward the back of the room, past the great steel Linotype machine. One of the agents fell in beside him, grabbing him by the elbow. In his other hand the Gestapo man pointed his Walther. The second agent followed close behind.

  Ducroix, Metcalfe saw in his peripheral vision, had lowered his gun at last and wheeled himself toward his shop, no doubt to attend to the customer who had entered the shop, the crisis having passed. Now it was just the two Gestapo agents and him, but he was still outnumbered, outgunned.