“Where does he work?”

“I do not know, monsieur.”

Dirk raised his voice. “What the hell do you know about your tenants?”

Madame Dupree answered calmly, impaling him with a stare like a dentist’s drill. “Since the German Army invaded my country, as little as possible, monsieur.”

The other boarders had answered his questions with a shaking of heads and a shrugging of shoulders. Nobody knew where Monsieur Stephane Beaulieu worked.

Yeah, sure. Right. Since Saturday, Dirk’s head had been buzzing with unanswered questions like flies captured in a mason jar. What was that café meeting about? What were those people up to, Chris especially? What were they planning? Their escapes? Had Nicholas Cravois attended and then slipped out unseen? Who was the group working for? The Resistance, OSS, SOE? Would they be willing to help him get out in exchange for what he knew? He would not even consider involving Chris. Dirk would leave without his friend ever knowing that he’d been here, seen him, and pretty much got the gist of what he’d signed up for. Maybe someday, when the war was over and they were home again…but for now the Frenchman was his key out the door. Without him all would be lost.

“Madame Dupree, was Monsieur Beaulieu carrying a bag when he left?”

“I did not notice, monsieur.”

“No, of course not.”

His performance at breakfast had not been necessary. The captain had immediately granted his request. “Of course, Sergeant. We can certainly do without you.”

So he had a whole day ahead of him but was still no closer to holding his ticket to freedom. He’d never been one to wait for a slow elevator. He always took the stairs, arriving at his floor out of breath, and feeling like a fool to find that the slow cab had gotten there before he did. So, unable to hang around and wait for the Frenchman to return, Dirk caught a train to Honfleur with the intent to confront Nicholas Cravois, the legendary Black Ghost. To assure that he’d get back alive, he would tell the Resistance leader that he had taken precautions to guarantee his safe return back to Paris, then offer him a trade: the Black Ghost’s help to get to Switzerland in exchange for Dirk’s silence about Stephane Beaulieu. The man’s agreement would depend on what and how much the Frenchman meant to him.