Or it might go nowhere.
He drank a liter of water and took three aspirins to get rid of the morphine hangover; then he picked up the phone.
First he called Lieutenant Hesse, who was staying in a less grand room at the same hotel. “Good morning, Hans, did you sleep well?”
“Yes, thank you, Major. Sir, I went to the town hall to check out the address in the rue du Bois.”
“Good lad,” Dieter said. “What did you find out?”
“The house is owned and occupied by one person, a Mademoiselle Jeanne Lemas.”
“But there may be other people staying there.”
“I also drove past, just to have a look, and the place seemed quiet.”
“Be ready to leave, with my car, in an hour.”
“Very good.”
“And, Hans-well done for using your initiative.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Dieter hung up. He wondered what Mademoiselle Lemas was like. Gaston said no one in the Bollinger circuit had ever met her, and Dieter believed him: the house was a security cut-out. Incoming agents knew nothing more than where to contact the woman: if caught, they could not reveal any information about the Resistance. At least, that was the theory. There was no such thing as perfect security.
Presumably Mademoiselle Lemas was unmarried. She could be a young woman who had inherited the house from her parents, a middle-aged spinster looking for a husband, or an old maid. It might help to take a woman with him, he decided.
He returned to the bedroom. Stephanie had brushed her abundant red hair and was sitting up in bed, with her breasts showing over the top of the sheet. She really knew how to look tempting. But he resisted the impulse to get back into bed. “Would you do something for me?” he said.
“I would do anything for you.”
“Anything?” He sat on the bed and touched her bare shoulder. “Would you watch me with another woman?”
“Of course,” she said. “I would lick her nipples while you made love to her.”
“You would, I know.” He laughed with pleasure. He had had mistresses before, but none like her. “It’s not that, though. I want you to come with me while I arrest a woman in the Resistance.”
Her face showed no emotion. “Very well,” she said calmly.
He was tempted to press her for a reaction, to ask her how she felt about this, and was she sure she was happy about it, but he decided to take her consent at face value. “Thank you,” he said, and he returned to the living room.
Mademoiselle Lemas might be alone but, on the other hand, the house could be crawling with Allied agents, all armed to the teeth. He needed some backup. He consulted his notebook and gave the hotel operator Rommel’s number in La Roche-Guyon.
When the Germans had first occupied the country, the French telephone system had been swamped. Since then, the Germans had improved the equipment, adding thousands of kilometers of cable and installing automatic exchanges. The system was still overloaded, but it was better than it had been.
He asked for Rommel’s aide Major Goedel. A moment later he heard the familiar cold, precise voice:
“Goedel.”
“This is Dieter Franck,” he said. “How are you, Walter?”
“Busy,” Goedel said crisply. “What is it?”
“I’m making rapid progress here. I don’t want to give details, because I’m speaking on a hotel phone, but I’m about to arrest at least one spy, perhaps several. I thought the Field Marshal might like to know that.”
“I shall tell him.”
“But I could use some assistance. I’m doing all this with one lieutenant. I’m so desperate, I’m using my French girlfriend to help me.”
“That seems unwise.”
“Oh, she’s trustworthy. But she won’t be much use against trained terrorists. Can you get me half a dozen good men?”
“Use the Gestapo-that’s what they’re for.”
“They’re unreliable. You know they’re cooperating with us only reluctantly. I need people I can rely on.”
“It’s out of the question,” Goedel said.
“Look, Walter, you know how important Rommel feels this is-he’s given me the job of making sure the Resistance can’t hamper our mobility.”
“Yes. But the Field Marshal expects you to do it without depriving him of combat troops.”