“Gallais will ask you the time. Tell him it’s two o’clock and he’ll reply that he thought it was four. That’s how you’ll know your man. Mission protocols: You’re on your own. Completely. Oh, yes, and one other thing. No killing. We don’t want this one to be messy.” Jessop passed an envelope across the table. “Cash. Same again when you come back. We’ll meet here a week today, same time, or you can reach me on this number.”
“Any back up assets I can contact if it goes pear shaped?” Nick asked pocketing the envelope.
Jessop was already standing, “Unless you have your own, no. Like I said, you’re on your own.” With that he turned and walked back out.
Back in his hotel room Nick reviewed what he’d been able to pull from the body of the man:. one Mauser automatic, some French Francs, and a wallet with the picture of a woman holding a baby, and little else.
Nick had dragged the body into the shop’s entrance where it was at least partly hidden, searched it, then trudged off, back through the rain, to his hotel. He looked at the items on the bare table in front of him. There was nothing there to help him and this looked like it was going to be a short and fruitless trip. He hadn’t meant to kill the man, but when someone goes to shoot you, well, you hit first and then think about asking the guy questions. Nick poured himself a brandy and sat heavily on the end of the bed. He looked at himself in the mirror as he manoeuvred a cigarette into his mouth. He was still in good shape for a man in his thirties, but then he didn’t have the stress of what most people would call an ordinary life. His hair was short at the sides and back, light brown hinting toward blonde as it lengthened, and a parted fringe that was swept back above a well defined face which could have been described as handsome. The hesitation would have come in the blue eyes, which looked like they should dance with laughter, but instead were cold, almost dead. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, still damp from the rain, which was hammering on the window and streaming down. It was even darker outside and the splashes of colour from the bars of Montmartre were leaking through the pane of his room. Nick got up and paced the room one more time.
The man had known his name, but not the meeting protocol, which was what had made Nick suspicious. It meant that someone knew he was here. By now they’d know their man hadn’t come back and assume that Nick was still around. Nick’s hotel hadn’t been pre-booked, he’d chosen it himself when he got to Montmartre, which meant, that unless he’d been followed, no one knew he was here.
He had a choice: he could lie low and go home to report to Jessop, or try to find out why someone had tried to kill him. He looked out of the window at the lights of the bars. With a sigh he turned and picked up his coat from the bed. It was going to be a long night.
It was the fifth bar Nick had tried when she found him. It was a great little place. Dark interior, three piece jazz band playing their hearts out and rough carafes of French red plonked on the chequered tables as soon as you sat down. Nick would have preferred a martini, but after four other bars, he wasn’t picky.
He clocked her as soon as she walked in, so did every other man in the room as she shook off her umbrella. Her dark hair shone in the candlelight of the bar; it was a little longer than was fashionable, but she had the kind of face and body that didn’t care about fashion. Luminous green eyes were set above rose bud lips, tinted dark red with gloss, and under her coat, her body held the kind of curves that would have made a flapper dress simply impractical. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. Even so she was a woman out of step with time, but she didn’t care, and that made her all the more attractive. She looked around the bar and Nick was surprised when her face registered some sort of recognition, even more surprised when she walked over to his table. Surprises weren’t good in this line of work.
“Do you have the time?” She asked in French that held an accent of something else.
“Sure, it’s two o’clock,” Nick answered in English, without looking at his watch.
“Oh, I thought it was four already. May I?” She nodded at the empty seat. She’d replied in English and this time Nick could place the accent, German.
“Be my guest.”
She smiled, placed her umbrella against the wall and unaware of the audience of male gazes, shrugged off her coat to reveal a tweed skirt-suit combination beneath, that seemed to accentuate not only the length of her legs, but the narrowness of her waist and her curves. “I’m glad I found you.” She whispered.
“I’m not sure yet if I’m glad or not. I was hoping someone would find me, I just wasn’t sure who.”
“They’re looking for you.”
“Who?” Nick poured some red into her glass.
“The men who killed Gallais.” She took a sip of from her glass and Nick noticed that her hand wasn’t trembling.
“I figured something like that had happened. And you are?”
She held out a hand, “Forgive me, my name is Alex, Alex Mench.” Nick took her hand, held it and squeezed it hard enough to make her squirm.
“So Alex Mench. I’ve got a Mauser trained on you under the table and I can break just about every bone in your hand and still make it out of here. How do you know who I am?”
“Ouch, you’re hurting me!” She tried in vain to pull her hand away.
“Sorry, it’s just that the last person I met tried to kill me.”
“I’m here to help you,” Alex protested.
“Talk to me and let me be the judge of that.”
“Gallais was working with us. He got snatched last night, at least we think he was snatched. We’ve been looking for him all day, but no sign. We went to the pre-arranged rendevouz but Gallais never showed. We thought the worst.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” Nick squeezed harder.
“Ow! German intelligence. We’re working with you on this one. Gallais was our man on the inside.”
Nick let her hand go, “Have a drink.” She picked up the glass and took a long swig of the liquid. She still wasn’t shaking. A tough cookie. “And you found me how?”
“I’ve been looking all evening in every bar. I figured you’d be in one or another. I read your file.” She smiled.
“I have a file? I’m impressed.”
Her face darkened, “I wouldn’t be too impressed. You haven’t exactly been a friend of Germany.”
“No. Needs must though, here I am now ready to help you.”
“Great job you’ve done so far.”
“Touche, though it wasn’t me that allowed the operation to be compromised at my end. The man that came to kill me knew my name and knew the location of the meet, but not the protocol. I’m guessing all of that came from Gallais before he was killed. Thankfully he held back some of the salient details.”
She nodded gravely, “I agree, it’s likely Gallais is dead. That leaves us with a problem, we don’t have anyone on the inside anymore.”
“What have we got?”
“A small group of deluded French officers and a cabinet minister planning a border incursion to claim a little more of Germany’s industrial wealth. Not officially sanctioned, so far as we know, but the word is, if it happened the French government would protest, but ultimately turn a blind eye. Gallais was our inside man. He was the secretary of a certain cabinet minister who’s involved. We have some names of those involved, an idea of the plan, but no proof.”
“And Gallais was meant to deliver what?”
“A copy of plans for the invasion to you, the idea being, the British government could then put pressure on the French government for it not to happen. No one dies, the ringleaders are retired, life goes on.”
Nick nodded, “Why not get the plans yourself and have the German government kick up a fuss?”
“Come on Nick, who's France going to listen to?”
“Makes sense, so we need those plans.”
“But without Gallais?”
“Then we either wash our hands of it or start paying a visit to the names you have until we strike gold.”
<
br /> Alex smiled, a genuine smile that could have melted hearts at ten paces, “I like your style.”
“You may not, by the time this is over.”
“I’ll risk that. So, where do you want to start?”
“The names, who do we have?”
“Four names: General De Traulle, Colonel Marpauis, Major Vierre and a cabinet minister, Monsieur Lausat.”
“I say we start at the top. Do you have an address for De Traulle or Lausat?”
“Yes. But I think we might need to start earlier than that.” Alex nodded at the bar’s entrance. Two burly men stood there peering intently through the gloom, scanning the tables.
“Looks like it’s time for us to go,” Nick murmured, causally placing some Francs on the table. He stood and moved in front of Alex then bent over to kiss her. Their mouths locked and she wriggled in surprise, before surrendering to his kiss. Nick held the embrace, watching the two men from the corner of his eye until they turned and left, then released her and stood upright.
“You’ve got a nerve!” Spat Alex.
“And you have beautiful lips. Thank you.”
Alex stood angrily and gave Nick a shove. “Never do that again!”
“Point taken, but I think I just brought us some time.”
“Next time find another way!”
Nick shrugged and followed Alex’s bristling back out of the bar and into the night.
It didn’t take them long to pick up the two men from the bar. Nick and Alex slowed to a saunter as the men ahead of them ducked into