Suddenly the man darted into an alley. Seconds later, Brad saw an SS officer emerge from a stationery shop, hand patting his pocket, presumably to locate a light for the unlit cigarette between his lips. Soon, two other SS men stepped from the shop, packages under their arms. Brad could not imagine how the Jew had known to jump out of sight. Possibly a sixth sense had warned of the presence of evil. Brad was not completely familiar with the nomenclature of SS ranks, but he recognized the piping, silver pips, and single oak leaves on the first man’s collar as indicative of a Standartenführer, or colonel. The others were junior officers to their taller regiment leader. All wore the skull and crossbones emblem of the Schutzstaffel above their hat visors and the dreaded earth-gray uniforms with the eagle-and-swastika patch on their left sleeves. Men of their notoriety were accustomed to Parisians hurrying to the other side of the street, but as Brad made his move to do so, the colonel called out in halting French, “Pardon me, seaman!”

Brad halted. He turned toward the three men and said in German, “Ich spreche Deutsch.” (I speak German.)

The three men visibly relaxed. They started toward him, heels of their jackboots striking the cobblestones, and the colonel held up the cigarette. “Hast du ein Streichholz?” (Do you have a match?)

“Nein,” Brad said, shaking his head. Too late, he stuck his hand into the slanted outer pocket of his pea jacket to cover the exposed tip of his French briar pipe with its contraband concealments. The pipe could be smoked, but it was really a pistol that could fire .22-caliber bullets through its stem.

“I see you smoke a pipe,” the regiment leader said.

“Ja,” Brad answered.

“Well, how do you light it?” one of the junior officers snapped impatiently.

“With a lighter,” Brad said.

“Let’s see.” The colonel held out his palm and motioned with his fingers to hand it over.

Heart racing, Brad fished in his trousers pocket and produced his OSS-designed camera lighter that could also spark a flame. Only a few days in Paris and he was already done for. Besides the pipe, his pocket weapon of choice was a cigarette case that exploded once the lid was removed. The colonel meant to confiscate his lighter. Cigarettes were so scarce that Brad could offer a full case in exchange for his lighter’s return and be gone, and the Nazis blown to damnation before they learned the Gauloises were fake. He carried the case for just such situations as this predicament, but the device was useless to him. There were too many innocent civilians nearby, some of them children, and the killing or wounding of three SS officers would result in brutal reprisals against the French.