She gave him a hostile glare. "Where to?"

"Reims."

She nodded and made a note of the time by the clock on the mantelpiece.

Dieter got the operator and gave the number of the house in the rue du Bois. It was answered immediately by a low, gruff voice reciting the number in a provincial accent. Suddenly alert, Dieter said in French, "This is Pierre Charenton."

The voice at the other end changed into Stephanie's, and she said, "My darling."

He realized she had answered the phone with her imitation of Mademoiselle Lemas, as a precaution. His heart gladdened with relief "Is everything all right?" he asked her.

"I've captured another enemy agent for you," she said coolly.

His mouth went dry. "My God... well done! How did it happen?"

"I picked him up in the Caf de la Gare and brought him here."

Dieter closed his eyes. If something had gone wrong-if she had done anything to make the agent suspect her-she could be dead by now. "And then?"

"Your men tied him up."

She had said him. That meant the terrorist was not flick. Dieter was disappointed. All the same, his strategy was working. This man was the second Allied agent to walk into the trap. "What's he like?"

"A young guy with a limp and half his ear shot off"

"What have you done with him?"

"He's here in the kitchen, on the floor. I was about to call Sainte-Cdcile and have him picked up."

"Don't do that. Lock him in the cellar. I want to talk to him before Weber does."

"Where are you?"

"Some village. We have a damn puncture."

"Hurry back."

"I should be with you in an hour or two."

"Okay."

"How are you?"

"Fine."

Dieter wanted a serious answer. "But really, how do you feel?"

"How do I feel?" She paused. "That's a question you don't usually ask."

Dieter hesitated. "I don't usually involve you in capturing terrorists."

Her voice softened. "I feel fine. Don't worry about me."

He found himself saying something he had not planned. "What will we do after the war?"

There was a surprised silence at the other end of the line.

Dieter said, "Of course, the war could go on for ten years, but on the other hand it might be over in two weeks, and then what would we do?"

She recovered her composure somewhat, but there was an uncharacteristic tremor in her voice as she said, "What would you like to do?"

"I don't know," he said, but that left him dissatisfied, and after a moment he blurted out, "I don't want to lose you."

He waited for her to say something else.

"What are you thinking?" he said.

She said nothing. There was an odd sound at the other end, and he realized she was crying. He felt choked up himself He caught the eye of the mechanic's wife, still timing his phone call. He swallowed hard and turned away, not wanting a stranger to see that he was upset. "I'll be with you soon," he said. "We'll talk some more."

"I love you," she said.

He glanced at the mechanic's wife. She was staring at him. To hell with her, he thought. "I love you, too," he said. Then he hung up the phone.

CHAPTER 41

IT TOOK THE Jackdaws most of the day to get from Paris to Reims.

They passed through all the checkpoints without incident. Their new fake identities worked as well as the old, and no one noticed that Flick's photograph had been retouched with eyebrow pencil.

But their train was delayed repeatedly, stopping for an hour at a time in the middle of nowhere. Flick sat in the hot carriage fuming with impatience as the precious minutes leaked away uselessly. She could see the reason for the holdups: half the track had been destroyed by the bombers of the U.S. Army Air Corps and the RAE When the train chugged into life and moved forward, they looked out of the windows and saw emergency repair crews cutting through twisted rails, picking up smashed sleepers, and laying new track. Her only consolation was that the delays would be even more maddening for Rommel as he attempted to deploy his troops to repel the invasion.

There was a feeling in her chest like a cold, inert lump, and every few minutes her thoughts returned to Diana and Maude. They had certainly been interrogated by now, probably tortured, possibly killed. Flick had known Diana all her life. She was going to have to tell Diana's brother, William, what had happened. Flick's own mother would be almost as upset as William. Ma had helped raise Diana.

They began to see vineyards, then champagne warehouses alongside the track, and at last they arrived in

Reims a few minutes after four on Sunday afternoon. As Flick had feared, it was too late to carry out their mission the same evening. That meant another nerve-racking twenty-four hours in occupied territory. It also gave Flick a more specific problem: Where would the Jackdaws spend the night?

This was not Paris. There was no red-light district with disreputable flophouses whose proprietors asked few questions, and flick did not know of a convent where the nuns would hide anyone who begged for sanctuary. There were no dark alleys in which down-and-outs slept behind rubbish bins ignored by the police.

Flick knew of three possible hideouts: Michel's town house, Gilberte's apartment, and Mademoiselle Lemas's house in the rue du Bois. Unfortunately, any of them might be under surveillance, depending on how deeply the Gestapo had penetrated the Bollinger circuit. If Dieter Franck was in charge of the investigation, she had to fear the worst.

There was nothing to do but go and look. "We must split up into pairs again," she told the others. "Four women together is too conspicuous. Ruby and I will go first. Greta and Jelly, follow a hundred meters behind us."

They walked to Michel's place, not far from the station. It was flick's marital home, but she always thought of it as his house. There was plenty of room for four women. But the Gestapo almost certainly knew of the place: it would be astonishing if none of the men taken captive last Sunday had revealed the address under torture.