The Paris Agent(60)

Hughie,

It is so impossibly hard to leave you but I step back into this war driven only by the need to know that I did everything I could to build a better world for you. Be safe, and know that you were loved and adored by both of your parents from the very first minute of your existence.

Be a great man, my son, just as your father was a great man. He lived his entire life in compassion, love and humility, and it is my hope and prayer that you will do the same.

Love always,

Your maman

“Make sure Hughie gets this if anything happens to me,” I told Turner. “It’s not much, but it will tell him who we were.”

After seeing Hughie in the park that day, the only way I could convince myself to leave him again was to promise myself that I was finishing my work for him, and only him.

C H A P T E R 15

JOSIE

Paris, France

March, 1944

The Paris operation was nothing like the tight triad Noah, Adrien and I had formed. The Success circuit had several w/t operators, a dozen couriers, and when I first joined, one somewhat battered circuit leader, César. At our very first meeting he warned me that the circuit had suffered a recent spate of arrests.

“A few of my agents were here too long and maybe they got complacent…” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “One agent was arrested after he made a habit of eating lunch at the same place every day. Some agents probably pushed too hard in their recruiting. But we’ve had some baffling arrests. One of my w/t operators just disappeared into thin air. Local contacts I thought were completely secure have been captured. I’m starting to think the only explanation is that the Germans have someone in London. Maybe someone right near the top.”

This prospect was fanciful—close to paranoid! The top ranks of the SOE were comprised of the most dedicated personalities I had ever encountered—Elwood, who was stern and could be cold, but who lived and breathed her work. Booth, who had been known to fall asleep midsentence, nap for a few moments, then wake up and get right back to working on some cryptography challenge. Turner, who loved to drink and would always offer a few pounds if the opportunity arose to gamble, but who was quick with a smile or to offer support, and who loved France with every fiber of his being. And Maxwell, who had a wife and children at home but made it very clear that so long as the war raged, his home family would be secondary to his work family.

“Not a chance,” I told César. He seemed dejected to the point of depression, and at my dismissal of this idea, he sighed wearily.

“Perhaps it’s someone here in France, then, but someone is exposing our methods and operations to the Germans. As you join us, you should know to watch your back.”

I got to work right away. The Success circuit was a hotbed of resistance activity—stretching across the city and into the regions around it. I was constantly on the move, cycling or walking or catching trains, delivering messages directly or via dead drop. Sometimes I helped move supplies from one place to another, smuggling cash or small weapons or medicine.

I constantly wished that Noah had been transferred with me, or even in my place. The challenges the Success circuit faced were so immense and he was such a skilled agent—I was doing my best, but felt certain he’d have been better able to rise to the challenge than I was.

At times, the loneliness of my new role seemed more than I could bear. The very nature of my work in that large circuit was that I was moving between other agents and contacts constantly, never forming close bonds with any of them. As I sat alone in my room night after night, I had so much time to worry and to ruminate. I worried about Noah. Was he safe, was he well? Would we both survive to reunite after the war? I worried about Maman, and even Aunt Quinn, and everything we said to one another on that final, awful meeting.

German eyes were on me everywhere I went, the danger every bit as intense in Paris as it had been in Montbeliard right after the bombing. In the first few weeks after my arrival, I heard of seven new arrests. I even had a close call myself during what I thought was a meeting with another courier. I arrived at the apartment to find the door unlocked, just as I had been told to expect, but when I pushed it open, two Gestapo officers were waiting.

“Name and papers,” the first one said. After a split second of panic, I retrieved my falsified papers from my handbag.

“I’m Margot Barre,” I said, giving them the new cover name I’d adopted with the move to Paris. I was trying to sound innocent, but my voice came out rough and uncertain. Their gazes sharpened as they looked back down at my papers. I forced a cough and peered around. “Is this the home of Dr. Le Lievre?”

“There is no doctor in this building.”

“I have been very unwell,” I said, dropping my eyes to the ground as I forced another miserable cough. “It is the scarlet fever, my mother thinks.” I didn’t miss the way both Germans took an automatic step back away from me. I raised my eyes to them now, trying to channel my genuine fear into artificial tears. “None of the doctors in Bougival could determine a cure. I’m staying with an aunt who tells me she was treated by Dr. Le Lievre at this address when she caught the fever herself in her childhood…” I let my voice trail off. “She did say it was many years ago and he might have retired…”

The men conversed quietly, but I caught enough of the conversation to know they were immediately in agreement that they should get me out of the apartment as quickly as possible. I tried to imagine myself through their eyes. A small, rail-thin woman with bags under her eyes—a woman who was genuinely shaking now, although in fear, not because of sickness. I was starting to look ill again—something I loathed but had so far been powerless to change. Fresh food in Paris was so difficult to come by. My faked ration card entitled me to purchase a small allotment of bread and cheese each day and a small portion of pasta and margarine once a week. I didn’t dare eat a bite of any of that so had been swapping this food on the black market as much as I could. The trouble was there wasn’t much worth swapping it for.