Victoria sighed and closed her eyes. Oh, damn! She got the picture. The man must be important for her employer, the OSS facilitator responsible for her insertion into L’Ecole d’Escrime Français, to yank her out of bed on Sunday when the school was closed. She figured he was some pompous high Nazi official who’d heard of the attractive foil instructor and thought to make a little time with her when Monsieur Vogel, certified in all three weapons of fencing—a prévôt d’armes—was perfectly “suitable” to serve as his bout partner.

“Well, what do you know about him?” she asked. “What’s he doing in France? I need to know who I am dealing with.”

A pause followed that told Victoria the news would not be welcome, to her or to the fencing master whose assistance to the OSS had exposed him to more danger than he’d bargained for. “What is it you are not telling me, Monsieur Vogel?”

Another weighty pause, then, apologetically: “He is a Standartenführer in the SS, mademoiselle.”

Victoria drew a sharp breath. Oh God. A colonel in the Schutzstaffel—the dreaded SS. “What…does he do? What are his duties?” There were two branches of the Schutzstaffel, administration and combat, both vile.

Victoria could hear the fencing master let out a sigh. “He is the chief of the counterintelligence division of the Sicherheitsdienst here in Paris, mademoiselle.”

The news got worse. The Sicherheitsdienst, better known as the SD, was the security service of the Reichsführer, a police unit as brutal as its equally vicious brother organization, the Gestapo. Its role was “to discover the enemies of the Nazi Party and to initiate countermeasures through official police authorities.” Those countermeasures involved unspeakable crimes against those deemed enemies of the Third Reich.

That would be Victoria Grayson, also known as Liverwort and Veronique Colbert.

“Have you ever met him?” she asked.

“Yes, but only once, years ago when we engaged in an international fencing competition. He was a formidable opponent. I bested him, but barely. I don’t believe he ever lost another bout. His request came by telephone.”

“How old is he?”

“I would estimate about thirty.”

Victoria imagined him older, closer to Jacques Vogel’s age, trim, still fast on his feet, but pushing past his prime. “That’s awfully young to be in charge of an organization like the SD,” she remarked.

“They rise quickly in German military ranks, but he would have soared up the SS ladder in any case. Colonel Albrecht comes from a very wealthy and influential family, members of the top hierarchy of German aristocracy. His forebears once ruled a powerful duchy until the unification of Germany in 1871, but his lineage and connections are not responsible for his rank and position, mademoiselle. You will see, so you must be very, very careful.” A faint trace of cheer entered his voice. “A good source of information, no?”