The Last Time I Saw Paris - Lynn Sheene [59]
Christophe spoke for the first time, the immaculately smooth voice of a learned man. “I suggest we run.”
They charged down the stairs, pressing through the crowd. Claire jerked Christophe into a tiled hallway off the main passage.
“Where are we going?” he gasped. He wasn’t up for a sprint.
“I don’t know.” Claire pulled him around a sharp corner. The hallway ended past them at a closed door. They pressed themselves against a wall. Christophe reached out and rattled the knob. The door was locked.
Across the hall, a thick, wirehaired woman hunched over a mop in a dirty puddle flecked with suds. She paused mopping and looked up, her eyes dull. A low shout echoed from the main corridor. The woman stared.
Claire peered around the corner. A group of soldiers ran past. The captain walked by, paused in the hallway and looked down toward them. Claire jerked her head back and faced the woman, pleading for silence with her eyes. One word, one look. She was with a known Resistánt. They would both be dead.
Christophe struggled to catch his breath. He spoke softly to the woman, as if to a child. “Madame.”
A shout echoed down the hall. Heavy footsteps pounded closer. The woman reached a gnarled finger toward them.
“Madame,” Christophe said, his voice cracking.
She lurched past them to a second locked door nearly invisible against the white tile wall. With the flick of a key, the door opened.
Claire and Christophe charged into the darkness. The door clicked shut behind them. They held their breath, heard the footsteps pass. The other door rattled as the soldiers tried the lock.
Claire held one hand in front of her; the other clutched Christophe’s arm.
“Are you alright?” Christophe said.
“Better now. Do you have a light?”
“Yes. Hold on.”
A match flared. The flickering flame lit their faces. The tunnel was dark and wet. Moss-covered concrete walls led away into the distance. The air smelled old and sour.
“Where the hell are we?” Claire tightened her grip on his arm.
“Think of it as a wine cellar, my dear, and we are on our way to an exceptional Bordeaux. Say a Latour ’29?” Christophe’s teeth glinted.
Claire grinned weakly. “How about champagne? Bollinger, Grande Année?”
“I think a bottle of each would do nicely.” He took a step forward. “Did you say your name was Evelyn?”
“Yes.”
He nodded, as if she answered an important question. “Well, Evelyn, we better get moving. I don’t know how far back the vintner keeps the good bottles.”
Light was fading as they crawled out of a vent hole near the Métro’s rue d’Odessa exit. They had walked underground for hours, arm in arm, each foot testing the next step, the only sounds their footfalls and the relentless drip of water down the carved rock walls around them.
Once outside, Claire and Christophe slipped into the rush of people trying to make it home before curfew. It was pitch dark when they entered the apartment building on rue Férou. As Odette directed, Claire led Christophe up three flights of stairs, then knocked softly on the door marked 33. “It is Evelyn.”
The door opened an inch. “Entrez,” a low voice commanded.
They slipped through the entry into a dark room. The lights flicked on and they stared into a ring of pointed gun barrels. A tense breath then a thick man, one cheek puckered with a curved scar, pushed through and hugged Christophe. At that, the men lowered their guns and joined in greeting Christophe or as they called him now, Monsieur Kinsel.
Claire allowed herself to be pushed aside in the rush. Even she knew Kinsel was famous. She had read articles in Le Temps about this mysterious criminal who set up a network of alliances throughout southern France. What the Nazis would have done to her if she had been caught with Kinsel . . . Her knees wobbled and she sagged against the door, seemingly forgotten. And, for once, grateful for the lack of attention.
The men took turns shaking Kinsel’s hand. In crumpled overalls and pressed suits, they all shared a hard-eyed look. A familiar face pushed through to Claire.
Jacques squeezed her shoulder, his normally