“But of course,” said Oltramare, as if such a thing was obvious. “Don’t you remember what happened in August 1914? Germany gambled on defeating France before Russia could mobilize and declare war. Which didn’t happen. It’s the same situation now, only the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact meant that attacking France was much less of a gamble than it was before. And you mark my words, Captain. Now that France is defeated, the Soviet Union, the true enemy of Western democracy, will be next.”

In the little town of Naverrenx we saw some German tanks and a couple of truckloads of SS and stopped to say hello and share cigarettes. Oltramare went to a shop to buy some matches and found there were none to be had. There was nothing to be had of anything—no food, no vegetables, no wine, and no cigarettes. He returned to the bucket, cursing the locals.

“You can bet these bastards are hiding what they’ve got and waiting for the prices to go up so that they can gouge us,” he said.

“Wouldn’t you do the same?” I said.

While he and I were talking, many women came out of the local town hall, and it turned out that nearly all of them were German internees from the nearby camp at Gurs, where they’d been taken from locations all over France. They were pretty bitter about the conditions there, but also because they’d been ordered to leave the area or face internment again as enemy aliens. And this was why the SS had stayed on in Naverrenx—to prevent this from happening. A truckload of SS and one of the women agreed to guide us to the camp at Gurs—which we were assured was not easily found—so that we might conduct our search for wanted persons. Meanwhile, the French lawyer Monsieur Savigny began to argue with Commissioner Matignon and Major Bömelburg about the presence of these SS troops in the French zone.

“In my opinion,” Oltramare told Bömelburg afterward, “you should shoot that man. Yes, I think that would be best. Frankly, I am surprised you have not shot more. Myself, I would have shot a great many people. Especially the people who were in charge of this country. To punish them would have been a mercy. To let them go was barbarous and cruel. Frankly, I don’t know why you bother to take prisoners back to Germany when you could just shoot them here by the roadside and save yourselves a lot of time and effort.”

I frowned and shook my head at this display of pragmatic fascism. “Why are you here, Chief Commissioner?”

“I’m looking for someone, too,” he said with a shrug. “A fugitive. Just like you, Captain. During the Spanish Civil War I fought on the Nationalist side. And I have a few scores to settle with some Republicans.”

“You mean it’s personal.”