Worn though they were, Brad reflected he’d not had much time to break in his river-plying duds of peacoat and Breton top, set off with a red scarf. He’d been in Paris only five days. After his successful drop, his contact had escorted him to the arranged spot on the River Seine where he’d been picked up by a transport barge and taken as the sun rose to meet Claude Allard, a wizened riverboat captain and owner of a fishing-tour company. They’d gone to a nearby café for what passed as breakfast and a private chat. The captain had explained to his other two fishing guides that Brad’s addition to the payroll was necessary to his business. Barnard Wagner was German, spoke passable French, and was an experienced fishing guide, he’d told them. He’d been hired part-time mainly as an interpreter to assist in communicating with the company’s growing customer base in the German military. Brad’s papers supported his cover name and import from Austria where he had worked as a “fish finder” for a large cannery. His forged Ausweispapiere—identity papers—also served to exempt him, a German, from the current conscription of able-bodied Frenchmen hauled to Germany to replenish its diminished labor ranks.

“Do not trust my other two guides,” Captain Allard had warned him in a voice barnacled from age, gray head drawn close to Brad’s over the table, hard seaman’s hands warmed by a cup of toasted barley mixed with chicory that served as coffee. “They have proved to be collabos, both of them. They are generally good men. I’ve known them since they were babies, but these are very desperate times, monsieur. They’ll do anything to feed their families, and one of them, Desmond Martine, has a brother in the French police. You’d be quite the prize if either discovers you. Neither would hesitate to turn you over to the Gestapo in exchange for a goose for their table.” The captain held up a hand to add one final admonition before Brad spoke. “And do not tell me why you’ve been sent. I don’t want to know. I have my wife and children and grandchildren to consider. Your employment is all I can risk.”