The Last Time I Saw Paris - Lynn Sheene [69]
“Have you heard of Foyer du Soldat?”
Soldier’s Hearth? Claire shook her head.
“They are an American organization from the Great War. In Paris, they currently collect food and toiletries to provide to captured Americans and Allies. With their Red Cross armbands, they go to hospitals and prisons. Tomorrow morning, at nine o’clock, you will wear an armband and take a package to an American man held in custody.” Orchestra music welled from scratchy speakers. Odette paused, frowning until it died away. “He is on your donation list, nothing more. His name is Mathew Nash. A rich playboy.”
“What’s in the package?”
“As you tell them. A couple of shirts, bread, tobacco.” Odette reached into her coat, pulling out an envelope she slipped onto Claire’s lap.
Claire ran her fingers over the envelope, traced the outline of a heavy fabric, felt a cold slender tube. The armband, she guessed. The other?
“Of course, they won’t let you see him. They will take the package and tell you to go. But on your way out of the lobby, you will see a large bas-relief carving, on the wall to the left of a corridor. The hall is guarded. The lobby is not.” Odette glanced toward the package in Claire’s lap. “You will slip the small glass vial into a crevice in the lower left corner of the carving.”
“Then what?”
“Give them that special smile and walk out the door.”
“What is inside the vial?”
“Pills.”
It took a moment for Claire to process this. Not medicine. Cyanide. Someone had been captured. Someone important. Someone who couldn’t afford to tell secrets. Claire was their angel of death. A flash of anger, she welcomed the heat, banked it against her fear. “Who? The American?”
Odette shook her head. “He is an innocent, mostly. This is for a patriot.”
“You give up so easily on a patriot?” Claire twisted the last word in like a knife.
Odette faced Claire. Her eyes were dark and sunken; they shined glassy in the flickering light. “He will never see the sky again. There is nothing we can do to change that. All we can do is stop his suffering.”
“And keep him from talking.” Unease crawled up Claire’s skin. “Where is he?”
“Rue de Saussaies.”
She felt a cold sweat damp on her neck. “You don’t expect me to go into Gestapo headquarters as Claire Badeau?”
“That is exactly what we expect.”
“They’ll check my papers,” Claire hissed. “What if there is a problem? It will destroy my identity.”
“It is our identity. We paid for it.” Odette sighed and looked away to the movie screen for a moment. “You will be given the American’s package on your walk there in the morning. You will arrive just after they open. Your armband and your list of prisoners are in the envelope in your hands. Look official. Look American.”
“What happens to Mathew?”
“He is privileged. And well connected. He will be free in a few days. An older and wiser man.”
Claire’s instincts were screaming. Stand up, walk away, a voice shouted in her head. She opened her mouth to argue, to question, to put an end to this grievous mistake.
“May God be with you, mon ami.” Odette rose and walked out without a glance.
Claire clamped her mouth shut and ground the corner of the envelope between her fingers, slid a finger into the crease. A gentle shake and the vial slid into her hand. She held it up as high as she dared into the light. A quarter of the size of a tube of lipstick, the pills were two dark gems, their glass coating shining black against the white tissue paper that held them in place. They gave her two pills, she thought, not one. She slid the vial back into the envelope. Her head sank back against the seat. She knew what it meant. One for the patriot, another, if necessary, then, for her.
You can be brave when you know you are dreaming, the man said on-screen.
That night, Claire curled up inside the open windowsill of her balcony, her forgotten blanket puddled around her legs on the wood floor. A siren shrilled in the distance. She shivered as a dark chill ran through her. Rue du Saussaies