Holy mackerel! Dirk mouthed silently. Christoph Brandt in Paris? Not a chance. Impossible. The guy might look like Chris Brandt, but he couldn’t be. His friend was living in Austin, Texas, enjoying safety and peace and comfort in the land of barbecue and Western swing. He fixed his eye to the opening in the tower wall again and peered harder. The blood pounded in his head. Dear God, it was Chris. Despite the French clothes, the turned-up collar and high-standing scarf, and the bill of his cap pulled down to obstruct his face, no one else stood with the loose-limbed joints particular to his buddy, the New Braunfels High School’s track-and-field star. When he pulled his hands from his pockets to draw on his gloves, Dirk knew for sure. A chill, sharp as a Texas hill country wind, passed through him. What the hell was Christoph Brandt doing halfway round the world in German-occupied France?

His hometown friend also checked both directions of the street, his gaze lighting on the bell tower across from the café. Dirk kept his eye to the peephole, halfway hoping Chris would spot it and walk across the street to investigate. He’d see the jimmied lock on the door and poke his head in to investigate and then…

Dirk didn’t know. Would they embrace, pound each other on the back, cry, and Dirk apologize for his crazy, stupid, ridiculous belief in Hitler and the whole damn, crappy Nazi war machine, and tell him that he wanted to go home? Home, Chris, you hear me? Back to New Braunfels, Texas, baby! You’ve got to find a way to get me outta here, buddy, before I go crazy—or get sent to the Russian front and be killed. Because Dirk knew, he just knew that Chris was up to some covert work for the Allies, probably an American intelligence organization. It didn’t take much of a leap of logic to figure out that once the army rejected him, Chris, desperate to serve, would have turned to the secret services, and they would have snapped him up. They wouldn’t give a damn about his thumb. He was fluent in German, hale as a lumberjack, and smart as a whip. And somehow he was in league with the blond girl and Stephane Beaulieu, who seemed tight with Nicholas Cravois. They were all in it together.

Or…would Chris back away from him, want nothing to do with him, call him a traitor, a disgrace to his family and friends, and refuse to help him? Dirk drilled him with his eye, hoping to beam a message. Look at me, Chris. Look at your old buddy! I’m over here in the bell tower, Chris, boy!