"Beer," said Dieter. "Draft." He hoped that if he kept his conversation to a minimum the barman would not notice his slight German accent and accept him as a cyclist who had stopped to quench his thirst.

"Coming up."

"Where's the toilet?"

The barman pointed to a door in the corner. Dieter went through it. Michel was not in the men's room. Dieter risked a glance into the ladies': it was empty. He opened what looked like a cupboard door and saw that it led to a staircase. He went up the stairs. At the top was a heavy door with a peephole. He knocked on the door, but there was no answer. He listened for a moment. He could hear nothing, but the door was thick. He felt sure there was someone on the other side, looking at him through the peephole, realizing he was not a regular customer. He tried to act as if he had taken a wrong turn on the way to the toilet. He scratched his head, shrugged, and went back down the stairs.

There was no sign of a back entrance to the place. Michel was here, Dieter felt sure, in the locked room upstairs. But what should Dieter do about it?

He took his glass to a table so that the barman would not try to engage him in small talk. The beer was watery and tasteless. Even in Germany, the quality of beer had declined during the war. He forced himself to finish it, then went out.

Hans was on the other side of the street, looking in the window of a bookshop. Dieter went across. "He's in some kind of private room upstairs," he told Hans. "He may be meeting with other Resistance cadres. On the other hand, it may be a brothel, or something, and I don't want to bust in on him before he's led us to anyone worthwhile."

Hans nodded, understanding the dilemma.

Dieter made a decision. It was too soon to rearrest Michel. "When he comes out, I'll follow him. As soon as we're out of sight, you can raid the place."

"On my own?"

Dieter pointed to two Gestapo men in a Citron keeping watch on Michel's house. "Get them to help you.',

"Okay."

"Try to make it look like a vice thing-arrest the whores, if there are any. Don't mention the Resistance."

"Okay."

"Until then, we wait."

CHAPTER 45

UNTIL THE MOMENT when Michel walked in, Flick was feeling pessimistic.

She sat at the bar in the little makeshift casino, making desultory conversation with Yvette, indifferently watching the intent faces of the men as they concentrated on their cards, their dice, and the spinning roulette wheel. No one took much notice of her: they were serious gamblers, not to be distracted by a pretty face.

If she did not find Michel, she was in trouble. The other Jackdaws were in the cathedral, but they could not stay there all night. They could sleep in the open- they would survive the weather, in June-but they could so easily be caught.

They also needed transport. If they could not get a car or van from the Bollinger circuit, they would have to steal one. But then they would be forced to carry out the mission using a vehicle for which the police were searching. It added more dangers to an already perilous enterprise.

There was another reason for her gloom: the image of Stephanie Vinson kept coming back to her. It was the first time Flick had killed a bound, helpless captive, and the first time she had shot a woman.

Any killing disturbed her profoundly. The Gestapo man she had shot a few minutes before Stephanie had been a combatant with a gun in his hand, but still it seemed dreadful to her that she had brought his life to an end. So it had been with the other men she had killed: two Milice cops in Paris, a Gestapo colonel in Lille, and a French traitor in Rouen. But Stephanie was worse. Flick had put a gun to the back of her head and executed her. It was exactly how she had taught trainees to do it in the SOE course. Stephanie had deserved it, of course-Flick had no doubt about that. But she wondered about herself. What kind of person was capable of the cold-blooded killing of a helpless prisoner? Had she become some kind of brutish executioner?

She drained her whisky but declined a refill for fear of becoming maudlin. Then Michel came through the door.

Overwhelming relief flooded her. Michel knew everyone in town. He would be able to help her. Suddenly the mission seemed possible again.

She felt a wry affection as she took in the lanky figure in a rumpled jacket, the handsome face with the smiling eyes. She would always be fond of him, she imagined. She suffered a painful stab of regret as she thought of the passionate love she had once had for him. That would never come back, she was sure.

As he came closer, she saw that he was not looking so good. His face seemed to have new lines. Her heart filled with compassion for him. Exhaustion and fear showed in his expression, and he might have been fifty rather than thirty-five, she thought anxiously.

But her greatest anxiety came from the thought of telling him that their marriage was over. She was afraid. It struck her as ironic: she had just shot and killed a Gestapo man and a French traitress, and she was undercover in occupied territory, yet her worst fear was of hurting her husband's feelings.

He was visibly delighted to see her. "Flick!" he cried. "I knew you would get here!" He crossed the room to her, still limping from his bullet wound.

She said quietly, "I was afraid the Gestapo had captured you."

"They did!" He turned so that his back was to the room and no one could see, and showed her his hands, bound at the wrists with stout rope.

She drew the little knife from its sheath under her lapel and discreetly cut through his bonds. The gamblers saw nothing. She put the knife away.

Mm Regis spotted him just as he was stuffing the ropes into his trousers pockets. She embraced and kissed him on both cheeks. Flick watched him flirt with the older woman, talking to her in his come-to-bed voice, giving her the benefit of his sexy grin. Then Mm resumed her work, serving drinks to the gamblers, and Michel told Flick how he had escaped. She had been afraid he would want to kiss her passionately, and she had not known how she would deal with that but, in the event, he was too full of his own adventures to get romantic with her.

"I was so lucky!" he finished. He sat on a bar stool, rubbing his wrists, and asked for a beer.

Flick nodded. "Too lucky, perhaps," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"It could be some kind of trick."

He was indignant, no doubt resenting the implication that he was gullible. "I don't think so."

"Could you have been followed here?"

"No," he said firmly. "I checked, of course."

She was uneasy, but she let it go. "So Brian Standish is dead, and three others are in custody-Mademoiselle Lemas, Gilberte, and Dr. Bouler."

"The rest are dead. The Germans released the bodies of those killed in the skirmish. And the survivors, Gaston, Genevieve, and Bertrand, were shot by a firing squad in the square at Sainte-Cecile."

"Dear God."

They were silent for a moment. Flick was weighed down by the thought of the lives lost, and the suffering endured, for the sake of this mission.

Michel's beer came. He drank half in a single draft and wiped his lips. "I presume you've come back for another attempt on the chteau."

She nodded. "But the cover story is that we're going to blow up the railway tunnel at Manes."

"It's a good idea, we should do it anyway."

"Not now. Two of my team were taken in Paris, and they must have talked. They will have told the cover story-they had no idea of the real mission-and the Germans are sure to have doubled the guard on the railway tunnel. We'll leave that to the RAF and concentrate on Sainte-Ccile."

"What can I do?"