We're going to a better hotel. We'll meet you at the Gare de l'Est at 5 a.m. Don't worry!

She showed it to Ruby, then ripped it to shreds. She was most angry with herself. She had known Diana all her life, it was no surprise that she was foolish and irresponsible. Why did I bring her? she asked herself Because I had no one else, was the answer.

They left the flophouse. Flick did not want to use the Metro, for she knew there were Gestapo checkpoints at some stations and occasional spot checks on the trains. The Ritz was in the Place Vend"me, a brisk half-hour walk from La Charbo. The sun had gone down, and night was falling fast. They would have to keep an eye on the time: there was an eleven o'clock curfew.

Flick wondered how long it would take the Ritz staff to call the Gestapo about Diana and Maude. They would have known immediately that there was something odd about them. Their papers said they were secretaries from Reims-what were two such women doing at the Ritz? They were dressed respectably enough, by the standards of occupied France, but they certainly did not look like typical Ritz clients-the wives of diplomats from neutral countries, the girlfriends of black marketers, or the mistresses of German officers. The hotel manager himself might not do anything, especially if he was anti-Nazi, but the Gestapo had informants in every large hotel and restaurant in the city, and strangers with implausible stories were just what they were paid to report. This kind of detail was drummed into people on SOE's training course-but that course lasted three months, and Diana and Maude had been given only two days.

Flick quickened her step.

CHAPTER 35

DIETER WAS EXHAUSTED. To get a thousand posters printed and distributed in half a day had taken all his powers of persuasion and intimidation. He had been patient and persistent when he could and had flown into a mad rage when necessary. In addition, he had not slept the previous night. His nerves were jangled, he had a headache, and his temper was short.

But a feeling of peace descended on him as soon as he entered the grand apartment building at the Porte de la Muette, overlooking the Bois de Boulogne. The job he had been doing for Rommel required him to travel all over northern France, so he needed to be based in Paris, but getting this place had taken a lot of bribery and bullying. It had been worth it. He loved the dark mahogany paneling, the heavy curtains, the high ceilings, the eighteenth-century silver on the sideboard. He walked around the cool, dim apartment, renewing his acquaintance with his favorite possessions: a small Rodin sculpture of a hand, a Degas pastel of a dancer putting on a ballet slipper, a first edition of The Count of Monte Cristo. He sat at the Steinway baby grand piano and played a languid version of "Ain't Misbehavin' ":

No one to talk with, all by myself...

Before the war, the apartment and much of the furniture had belonged to an engineer from Lyon, who had made a fortune manufacturing small electrical goods, vacuum cleaners and radios and doorbells. Dieter had learned this from a neighbor, a rich widow whose husband had been a leading French Fascist in the thirties. The engineer was a vulgarian, she said: he had hired people to choose the right wallpaper and antiques. For him, the only purpose of objects of beauty had been to impress his wife's friends. He had gone to America, where everyone was vulgar, said the widow. She was pleased the apartment now had a tenant who really appreciated it.

Dieter took off his jacket and shirt and washed the Paris grime from his face and neck. Then he put on a clean white shirt, inserted gold links in the French cuffs, and chose a silver-gray tie. While he was tying it, he switched on the radio. The news from Italy was bad. The newscaster said the Germans were fighting a fierce rearguard action. Dieter concluded that Rome must fall in the next few days.

But Italy was not France.

He now had to wait for someone to spot Felicity Clairet. He could not be certain she would pass through Paris, of course, but it was undoubtedly the likeliest place, after Reims, for her to be seen. Anyway, there was nothing more he could do. He wished he had brought Stephanie with him from Reims. However, he needed her to occupy the house in the rue du Bois. There was a chance that more Allied agents would land and find their way to her door. It was important to draw them gently into the net. He had left instructions that neither Michel nor Dr. Bouler was to be tortured in his absence: he might yet have uses for them.

There was a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne in the icebox. He opened it and poured some into a crystal flute. Then, with a feeling that life was good, he sat down at his desk to read his mail.

There was a letter from his wife, Waltraud.

My beloved Dieter, I am so sorry we will not be together on your fortieth birthday.

Dieter had forgotten his birthday. He looked at the date on his Cartier desk clock. It was June 3. He was forty years old today. He poured another glass of champagne to celebrate.

In the envelope from his wife were two other missives. His seven-year-old daughter, Margarete, known as Mausi, had drawn a picture of him in uniform standing by the Eiffel Tower. In the picture, he was taller than the tower: so children magnified their fathers. His son, Rudi, ten years old, had written a grown-up letter, carefully rounded letters in dark blue ink:

My dear Papa,

I am doing well in school although Dr. Richter's classroom has been bombed. Fortunately it was nighttime and the school was empty.

Dieter closed his eyes in pain. He could not bear the thought of bombs falling on the city where his children lived. He cursed the murderers of the RAF, even though he knew German bombs had fallen on British schoolchildren.

He looked at the phone on his desk, contemplating trying to call home. It was difficult to get through: the French phone system was overloaded, and military traffic had priority, so you could wait hours for a personal call to be connected. All the same, he decided to try. He felt a sudden longing to hear the voices of his children and reassure himself that they were still alive.

He reached for the phone. It rang before he touched it. He picked it up. "Major Franck here."

"This is Lieutenant Hesse."

Dieter's pulse quickened. "You have found Felicity Clairet?"

"No. But something almost as good."

CHAPTER 36

FLICK HAD BEEN to the Ritz once, when she was a student in Paris before the war. She and a girlfriend had put on hats and makeup, gloves and stockings, and walked through the door as if they did it every day. They had sauntered along the hotel's internal arcade of shops, giggling at the absurd prices of scarves and fountain pens and perfume. Then they had sat in the lobby, pretending they were meeting someone who was late, and criticized the outfits of the women who came there to tea. They themselves had not dared to order so much as a glass of water. In those days, Flick had saved every spare penny for cheap seats at the Comdie Franaise.

Since the occupation began, she had heard that the owners were attempting to run the hotel as normally as possible, even though many of the rooms had been taken over permanently by top Nazis. She had no gloves or stockings today, but she had powdered her face and set her beret at a jaunty angle, and she just had to hope that some of the hotel's wartime patrons would be forced into similar compromises.

Lines of gray military vehicles and black limousines were lined up outside the hotel in the Place Vend"me. On the facade of the building, six blood red Nazi banners flapped boastfully in the breeze. A commissionaire in top hat and red trousers looked doubtfully at Flick and Ruby. "You can't come in," he said.

Flick was in a light blue suit, very creased, and Ruby in a navy frock and a man's raincoat. They were not dressed to dine at the Ritz. Flick tried to imitate the hauteur of a French woman dealing with an irritating inferior. Putting her nose in the air, she said, "What is the matter?"

"This entrance is reserved for the top brass, Madame. Even German colonels can't come in this way. You have to go around to the rue Cambon and use the back door."

"As you wish," Flick said with an air of weary courtesy, but in truth she was pleased he had not told them they were underdressed. She and Ruby walked quickly around the block and found the rear entrance.

The lobby was bright with light, and the bars on either side were full of men in evening dress or uniform. The buzz of conversation clicked and whirred with German consonants, not the languid vowels of French. Flick felt as though she were walking into the enemy's stronghold.

She went up to the desk. A concierge in a coat with brass buttons looked down his nose at her. Judging her to be neither a German nor a wealthy French woman, he said coldly, "What is it?"

"Check whether Mademoiselle Legrand is in her room," Flick said peremptorily. She assumed that Diana must be using the false name on her papers, Simone Legrand. "I have an appointment."

He backed off "May I tell her who is inquiring?"

"Madame Martigny. I am her employee."

"Very good. In fact, Mademoiselle is in the rear dining room with her companion. Perhaps you would speak to the head waiter."

Flick and Ruby crossed the lobby and entered the restaurant. It was a picture of elegant living: white tablecloths, silver cutlery, candles, and waiters in black gliding around the room with dishes of food. No one would have guessed that half Paris was starving. Flick smelled real coffee.

Pausing on the threshold, she immediately saw Diana and Maude. They were at a small table on the far side of the room. As Flick watched, Diana took a bottle of wine out of a gleaming bucket beside the table and poured for Maude and herself. Flick could have throttled her.

She turned to make for the table, but the head waiter stood in her way. Pointedly looking at her cheap suit, he said, "Yes, Madame?"

"Good evening," she said. "I must speak with that lady over there."

He did not move. He was a small man with a worried air, but he was not to be bullied. "Perhaps I can give her a message for you."

"I'm afraid not, it's too personal."

"Then I will tell her that you are here. The name?"