Near the end of the week, Major Renault sent word to that effect to Brad and Chris via cutouts but, surprisingly, did not command them to abandon their posts. The men had expected the order because their access to Major General March’s desk would put them immediately under the Abwehr’s suspicion. By Saturday, no squiggly lines had appeared on their symbols, but their flight bags remained packed. They would give it another week before drawing a full breath. On the other side of the city, shortly after the roundup began, Major General Konrad March and Colonel Derrick Albrecht tapped glasses filled with a fine French Merlot in celebration of a successful coup.

By week’s end, Achim Fleischer had compiled mental notes of familiars who passed the wall more than twice daily. At the top of his list upon whom he would keep a sharpened eye was the strapping young man huddled deep in his peacoat that he’d noticed on Monday, followed by another familiar of equal build and outer swaddling, this one a blond man about the seaman’s age. In his position of authority, Achim could have stopped them at any time, asked for their papers, and questioned their business in the area, but he preferred to wait for more rope by which to drag them into an interrogation cell—not, of course, at the office of his district commander, but in January at Milice headquarters in the free zone of Vichy France.

Wednesday, Dirk Drechsler had been waiting for Bucky when he returned to the boardinghouse from Honfleur in late afternoon. “Monsieur Beaulieu, may we talk?” he had asked quietly.

The anxiety chewing away at Bucky’s insides bit harder, and his fingers closed around his belt buckle containing his L pill. “Of course, monsieur,” Bucky said. “Where do you wish to converse?”

“I don’t want to cause you trouble, Stephane,” Dirk had said when they were seated in the relative warmth of the sergeant’s room. “You got to trust me on that. Let me put all my cards on the table…”