However, as the church bell stopped ringing, a Gestapo officer in major’s uniform came strutting through the tall iron gates of the chƒteau and headed straight for Dieter. In bad French he shouted, “Give me that camera!”
Dieter turned away, pretending not to hear.
“It is forbidden to take photographs of the chƒteau, imbecile!” the man yelled. “Can’t you see this is a military installation?”
Dieter turned to him and replied quietly in German, “You took a damn long time to notice me.”
The man was taken aback. People in civilian clothing were usually frightened of the Gestapo. “What are you talking about?” he said less aggressively.
Dieter checked his watch. “I’ve been here for thirty-two minutes. I could have taken a dozen photographs and driven away long ago. Are you in charge of security?”
“Who are you?”
“Major Dieter Franck, from Field Marshal Rommel’s personal staff.”
“Franck!” said the man. “I remember you.”
Dieter looked harder at him. “My God,” he said as recognition dawned. “Willi Weber.”
“Sturmbannfuhrer Weber, at your service.” Like most senior Gestapo men, Weber held an SS rank, which he felt was more prestigious than his ordinary police rank.
“Well, I’m damned,” Dieter said. No wonder security was slack.
Weber and Dieter had been young policemen together in Cologne in the twenties. Dieter had been a high flyer, Weber a failure. Weber resented Dieter’s success and attributed it to his privileged background. (Dieter’s background was not extraordinarily privileged, but it seemed so to Weber, the son of a stevedore.)
In the end, Weber had been fired. The details began to come back to Dieter: there had been a road accident, a crowd had gathered, Weber had panicked and fired his weapon, and a rubbernecking bystander had been killed.
Dieter had not seen the man for fifteen years, but he could guess the course of Weber’s career: he had joined the Nazi party, become a volunteer organizer, applied for a job with the Gestapo citing his police training, and risen swiftly in that community of embittered second- raters.
Weber said, “What are you doing here?”
“Checking your security, on behalf of the Field Marshal.”
Weber bristled. “Our security is good.”
“Good enough for a sausage factory. Look around you.” Dieter waved a hand, indicating the town square. “What if these people belonged to the Resistance? They could pick off your guards in a few seconds.” He pointed to a tall girl wearing a light summer coat over her dress. “What if she had a gun under her coat? What if..
He stopped.
This was not just a fantasy he was weaving to illustrate a point, he realized. His unconscious mind had seen the people in the square deploying in battle formation. The tiny blonde and her husband had taken cover in the bar. The two men in the church doorway had moved behind pillars. The tall girl in the summer coat, who had been staring into a shop window until a moment ago, was now standing in the shadow of Dieter’s car. As Dieter looked, her coat flapped open, and to his astonishment he saw that his imagination had been prophetic: under the coat she had a submachine gun with a skeleton-frame butt, exactly the type favored by the Resistance. “My God!” he said.
He reached inside his suit jacket and remembered he was not carrying a gun.
Where was Stephanie? He looked around, momentarily shocked into a state close to panic, but she was standing behind him, waiting patiently for him to finish his conversation with Weber. “Get down!” he yelled.
Then there was a bang.
CHAPTER 3
FLICK WAS IN the doorway of the Caf‚ des Sports, behind Michel, standing on tiptoe to look over his shoulder. She was alert, her heart pounding, her muscles tensed for action, but in her brain the blood flowed like ice water, and she watched and calculated with cool detachment.
There were eight guards in sight: two at the gate checking passes, two just inside the gate, two patrolling the grounds behind the iron railings, and two at the top of the short flight of steps leading to the chƒteau’s grand doorway. But Michel’s main force would bypass the gate.