Chasing Mona Lisa (17 page)

An hour later, they still hadn’t emerged from the Zeughauskeller. Growing impatient, Ernst decided to go inside to investigate. The after-church crowd had thinned a little, but he was unable to spot his marks as he surveyed the room. Stopping one of the waiters, he offered a brief description and asked if he’d seen them.

“They left five minutes ago,” the waiter replied, “but they headed toward the back, to the men’s room.”

After checking the restroom and finding it vacant, Ernst rushed outside.

They were gone.

Eric and Gabi arrived a half hour before their dinnertime rendezvous and found a table for two at the sidewalk café. The sun cast long shadows across Boulevard Saint-Germain, where more couples strolled in the shade on an undemanding late afternoon. A general feeling of relief was the mood du jour.

Eric flagged down a passing waiter. “Two cappuccinos, please.”

Gabi settled into her rattan chair, surveying the early evening patrons. She knew as an agent that she should never let down her guard, but as she looked around—and gazed across the table to Eric—she felt herself relax. “This is something I wanted to do before we left Paris—sit at an outdoor café and watch the world pass by.”

“It’s hard to believe how much has happened since we left Switzerland.” Eric paused. “Actually, it’s been quite a month.”

Gabi nodded in silent agreement. Her thoughts raced back to the events, just a few weeks ago, that preceded their drive to Paris. “I wonder how Captain Palmer is doing? That American was quite a pilot. If it hadn’t been for his flying prowess, I wouldn’t be here. I’m guessing he’s in a Swiss theater watching his favorite Bogart movie.”

“He sure loved spouting lines from
Casablanca
.” Eric chuckled.

“I think he had memorized the entire movie after seeing it so many times in Davos with the other interned Allied pilots. But I know what you’re going to say.”

Eric switched from Swiss-German to English. “Darling, we’ll always have Paris,” he said in a nasal-like imitation of Humphrey Bogart.

Gabi made a show of setting her napkin on the table. “If Bogey had been a redheaded Swiss dairyman, that still would have been an awful impersonation!”

Her smile slowly disappeared as she focused on something across the street. Eric swiveled in his seat to see what had attracted her attention.

“Take a look at that guy—the one with the scruffy beard, leaning against the building. He looks agitated, and his eyes keep darting back and forth like he’s searching for someone.”

“The one in the tan shirt?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Seems intent on something,” Eric said.

“He’s been there ever since we sat down.”

“Anything else look amiss?”

Gabi’s eyes scoured the wide sidewalks fronting Boulevard Saint-Germain as well as the entrance to the Brasserie Lipp, which was directly across the broad avenue. “No, I don’t see anything else—ooh, wait a minute. There’s Bernard and Colette.”

Gabi caught Colette’s attention and waved them over. They pulled a couple of chairs over from a nearby table and greeted their friends.

After they’d taken their seats, Gabi glanced back across the street. The man was still there and staring right at them. “Do you know that man?” Gabi asked.

Bernard and Colette looked in the direction of Gabi’s line of sight.

As soon as the stranger noticed they were looking in his direction, he turned and walked around the corner.

“I saw him last night. He bumped into me at the Brasserie.”

Bernard shared the story of their awkward moment. “I didn’t recognize him, as I do most of the patrons of the Lipp. He probably mistook me for someone else, or he was admiring my good looks.”

“More likely, our beautiful companions.” Eric raised his cup toward Gabi, then Colette. “Would you like to join us for a cappuccino?”

“Sounds good,” Colette replied. Gabi noticed Colette’s strained look. She definitely wasn’t the same playful girl who had been teasing Madame Beaumont as she made the bed this morning.

Eric must have noticed too. He held up two fingers to signal the waiter, then turned to Colette. “How did it go today at the Louvre?”

“I must have tried twenty times to reach the Chateau. Apparently, the phone lines between Paris and Annecy are down. It’s anyone’s guess how long it will take to get them repaired. I want to go into the office tomorrow morning and try one last time.”

“No problem. Once we get our fuel, Bernard and I will pick you up at the Louvre.”

“I also need to see Monsieur Rambouillet before we go. He oversaw the delivery of the
Mona Lisa
to the Chateau de Dampierre last spring, so he can confirm the directions.”

“Speaking of confirming things, I made reservations at a small bistro near my aunt’s home,” Bernard said. “It’s called the Café de Flore. The
Poulet à la Montrache
is their calling card. You’ll love it.”

Eric turned to Gabi. “Sounds like a great meal to celebrate our night out in Paris.”

As Bernard promised, Colette found Café de Flore’s house specialty—pan-fried chicken immersed in a mushroom and cream sauce—to be delicious.

She offered the last of her roasted potatoes to Bernard, who cut them in half and used each piece to mop up what little sauce remained on his plate. Colette assessed his clean dish and wished there was more. French cuisine was uniformly excellent, but the portions were
trop petit
.

The four shared a pear tart with a small dollop of whipped cream for dessert, but Colette had only a bite. An infectious yawn circled the table, and she was eager to call it a day. She couldn’t sit this close to Bernard without feeling tension radiate off him like heat from a wood-burning stove.

Colette stood quietly by Bernard’s side as Eric paid the check. Just as they reached the door, Gabi announced that she wanted to buy some things to eat on the trip.

“Maybe the chef will part with a few provisions—or an extra tart,” she said with a smile.

Eric patted Bernard’s shoulder. “Feel free to go on ahead. We’ll catch up.”

Colette followed Bernard as they made their way onto the sidewalk, welcomed by the cool evening air.

Bernard’s aunt and uncle lived only a few blocks away off the Boulevard Saint-Michel. Turning in that direction, Bernard folded her arm into his, and they headed down the dimly lit street, enjoying the chance to let their dinner settle.

Colette had been worried Bernard would hound her, wanting to know information about Heller, so she was pleasantly surprised he said nothing, asked nothing. How could she explain what she had done?

As they passed a small alley next to the restaurant, Colette noticed the smell of cigarette smoke drifting from the darkness. Crossing the alley’s entrance, she detected the sound of someone coming from behind.

Turning first, she saw the flash of polished steel as a man emerged from the alley, running toward Bernard. Her voice caught in her throat and she forced it out.

“Bernard, look out!” she cried.

The blade rose just as Bernard turned. Instinctively, she pushed Bernard to the side as the sharp blade came slashing down. The razor-sharp edge caught on the sleeve of her jacket. She cried out as she felt herself losing her balance. Her feet stumbled, and she crashed to the sidewalk. Her shoulder hit first, then her cheek. Pain radiated down her arm.

Colette recoiled, expecting a second blow. As the attacker lunged again at Bernard, she recognized him as the person lurking outside the Brasserie Lipp.

“Stop!” Colette cried out.

Bernard jumped away from the man’s reach just as the blade slashed down. She watched helplessly as they warily circled each other. The bearded man again lifted the wide serrated knife, ready to strike.

“Who are you?” Bernard shouted.

“You don’t know me, but you should remember killing my brother!”

Had Bernard done such a thing?
Colette covered her mouth with her hand and wondered if she should run for help. Instead, fear planted her to the ground.

“You’ve mistaken me for someone else!”

The assailant slashed the blade across Bernard’s chest, slicing his khaki shirt as he leaned away.

Colette scurried to her feet. The agitated man looked like he only wanted one thing—to avenge his brother’s death. He again whipped the air with his knife and advanced on the Frenchman.

“The Pantin rail yard. Two years ago. You stopped that train.”

Bernard backed up. “Yes, and saved dozens of French lives!”

“But not my brother’s!”

The crazed man lunged, making another attempt to thrust the blade toward his chest. Bernard sidestepped the advance and caught the wrist of his attacker. The momentum of the assailant’s driving force knocked Bernard back, causing both to plummet to the concrete sidewalk. Colette stepped back and then stood by helplessly, wondering if she should try to jump in and separate them as they rolled, arms flailing.

“Colette! Bernard!” It was Eric’s voice down the street as he sprinted toward them.

“Hurry!” The exclamation came out in a desperate gasp as she watched each man trying to gain the upper hand. Then, with a thud, the two tumbled off the curb and into the street.

Neither moved.

Eric neared, rushing to grab the back of the assailant’s shirt. With amazing strength, Eric yanked him off Bernard.

Colette’s knees grew weak, and tears filled her eyes as she saw a large red stain already forming on the front of Bernard’s shirt.

Colette rushed to his side. “You’re hurt!”

Bernard gulped for air, a wild look in his eyes. A small gasp followed, then another. Finally, Bernard shook his head. He still searched for air when Colette helped him scramble to his knees.

The attacker groaned but lay motionless as Eric turned him onto his back. A black handle was all that could be seen of the knife protruding from just below his armpit.

Bernard crawled toward the assailant and shook the wounded man’s shoulders. “Why were you trying to kill me? It wasn’t my fault!”

“You . . . Nazi traitor!” the attacker seethed through clenched teeth. Short gasps were punctuated with feeble coughs.

“When you stopped . . . the train . . . you killed . . . my . . . Philippe. He want . . . he wanted Göring.”

“But Göring wasn’t on the train!”

The wounded man looked momentarily confused. Then his eyes rolled upward as his head fell backward, smacking the pavement hard.

His quest for revenge was over.

 
1
8

The deadly attack shattered the fragile peace ushered in with Libération. Two days after the German Army pulled out of Paris was too early to let your guard down.

Despite the warm August night, Gabi shivered while she and the others patiently answered questions from a police detective following his arrival by bicycle. The
inspecteur
scribbled their statements into a notebook as he attempted to sort out what happened or what prompted the assassination attempt on Bernard.

The detective knew the attacker. Said his name was Antoine Celeste. Well-known member of the Free French. A hero of the Resistance, but also emotionally unstable following his brother’s brutal execution at the hands of the Nazis two years ago.

“Ça suffit.”
That’s enough
. The detective quietly shut his notebook. “Since there were no other eyewitnesses to the events at the Pantin rail yard, I chalk this up to Celeste’s inability to deal with his grief.”

Another tragedy of this war
, Gabi thought
.

She watched Eric pull Bernard aside as a horse-drawn team from the morgue carted off Celeste’s body.

“You doing okay?”

The tired Frenchman sighed. “It was him or me, and I didn’t want to be the one to go.”

Gabi watched Bernard’s eyes move to where Colette sat on a nearby stoop. Her arms were crossed, and she pulled them tight against her. With head lowered and shoulders slumped, she was clearly shaken. Colette’s reaction was understandable. She’d thought—momentarily—her boyfriend was dead.

What Gabi didn’t understand was Bernard’s reaction. As he looked at Colette, Gabi didn’t see worry or sadness. She saw regret on his face.

What does he regret? That he put her in danger?
Gabi wondered.

Bernard pressed a hand to his forehead and then walked toward Colette with determination.

He cares
, Gabi thought to herself.
I can see he loves her. He never wanted to put the woman he loves in that type of situation
.

With grim faces, the two couples stepped into the Maison Beaumont, where Irene Beaumont prepared a pot of tea upon learning of the attack. Eric and the others gathered around the dining room table and described their side of the story to the Beaumonts’ friends who had stopped by to visit.

The appropriate remarks of outrage were made, and one by one, Eric noticed that the Beaumont friends drifted away, leaving them alone.

Eric was thankful that neither Bernard nor Colette were hurt. He needed them. As much as he believed in Gabi—and his own resources—they couldn’t save the
Mona Lisa
by themselves.

The phone rang, and Madame Beaumont answered. She called Bernard over, who listened and didn’t say much until he thanked the caller and hung up. He turned silent for a moment, as if he was replaying the conversation in his mind, trying to believe what he’d just heard.

“Did you find some fuel?” Eric asked.

“More like the fuel found us,” Bernard replied with a confused look. “Looks like we can drive over to the 2nd Armored depot at the École Militaire first thing in the morning. A Colonel Tollet will be expecting us. Apparently, he received a message from London telling him to give us as much petrol as we need, no questions asked. But who . . . how . . . did they know to call here?”

He was completely flummoxed. “Who did you say you worked for?”

“I didn’t . . . so how early can we go? I’m worried about beating the Germans to Annecy.”

“I was told not before 7 a.m.”

“That’ll work. Once we get going, how long do you expect us to be on the road?”

“Let’s see.” Bernard unfolded a fraying road map of France and spread it across the table. “I’ve heard it’s nine or ten hours . . .” He measured the distance of one hundred kilometers on the scale bar with his thumb and forefinger and “walked” that measurement from Paris across France in a southeasterly direction.

“
Et voilà
. Right around five hundred kilometers. If we can average fifty or sixty kilometers an hour, we should get there between six and seven o’clock, provided we leave Paris by 9 a.m. How many jerry cans do you have?”

“Two,” Eric replied. “That was enough to get us here from Bern and should be more than enough to get us to Annecy.”

“Did you hear anything about the road conditions?” Gabi asked. “The Germans are in retreat . . .”

“They took off due east for the Fatherland”—Bernard nearly spit out the words—“but we’re going south. Still, we have to stay alert.”

“We can’t be delayed,” Colette said. “If those two German agents get there first, we’ll lose the
Mona Lisa
—perhaps forever.”

“We’ll get there as fast as we can.” Bernard leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Eric said he wants to be a race car driver after the war, so now’s his chance for some practice.”

Gabi looked at Eric in mock surprise, the first light moment of the evening.

Eric smiled. “Bernard’s kidding. But if the roads are in good shape, I’m flooring it. Of course, some roads could be torn up from bombs or blocked by disabled vehicles. We just don’t know.”

He scanned the map, thankful for Bernard’s expertise. “So show me . . . which route are we taking?”

“Certainly. We’ll leave Paris through the Porte d’Italie, and then take the Route de Fontainebleau in a southerly direction.”

Eric followed Bernard’s finger, which took them through Rozay-en-Brie. He didn’t say anything, and a quick glance at Gabi’s poker face meant that she wasn’t going to bring up the incident with the Ost soldiers again.

For the next ten minutes, Bernard carefully explained the entire route they would follow. Eric could tell that he was thorough in his approach, as well as his calculations.

“Colette, tell us what you know about the family,” Bernard said.

“A count and countess live at the chateau,” Colette answered. “I’ve corresponded frequently with Countess Ariane Valois. Up until last week, we spoke together by telephone every fortnight when service was available. But I’ve never met her or her husband.”

“It’s a shame you couldn’t reach them,” Gabi said.

“I tried several times. I’m worried about the safety of the Countess and
La Joconde
. All we can do is hope for the best.”

“Is the plan to drive back to Paris the following morning?” Eric asked.

“Depending on what we find there, the answer is yes.”

Gabi looked from the map to Colette. “If we’re spending the night, where are we going to stay?”

Colette grinned for the first time in hours. “Apparently, this ‘little’ chateau has fifteen bedrooms. I would imagine the Countess will extend hospitality, given the unusual circumstances.”

Bernard folded the map as everyone stood up to go off to bed.

Things were shaping up nicely, although the more he learned about Eric and Gabi, and their connections, the more his guard went up. They were not to be trifled with, especially if things got sticky with the
Mona Lisa
.

He mentally reviewed some items he needed to pack in his satchel, such as a pistol, ammunition, knife, blackjack, and handcuffs.

Preparation was key. He would bide his time until the right moment, and then he would strike.

There was a knock on the bedroom door.

Colette sat up in bed. She knew it wasn’t Gabi since her friend was taking a bath. She pulled her blanket closer to her neck.

“Entrée,” Colette said.

Madame Beaumont stepped inside. “I know it’s terribly late, but there’s a monsieur on the phone who insists on speaking with you.”

“Who could be calling at eleven o’clock?” Colette’s tone was foreboding.

“I don’t know, but he said there was a pressing matter regarding the Louvre.”

Colette rose and slipped on a robe, her heart pounding. She rushed past Madame Beaumont and hurried downstairs. Knowing who it could be . . . but not wanting to believe it.

Cupping the black handset to her ear, she felt her pulse race and a queasy feeling sweep through her body.

“Oui?”

“Mademoiselle, you are a difficult one to reach these days.”

“How did you get this number?” she snapped.

“I still have a few reliable contacts in Paris. Our military may have departed your beloved city, but there are assets willing to help, for a price.”

“I am no longer one of your ‘assets.’ Now that Paris is free, there is no need for you to contact me again. I wish you a pleasant evening.” Colette started to hang up the phone, but something caused her to pause. If Heller knew how to reach her by phone, he no doubt could send his “reliable contacts” after her—and after them.

“I am concerned for Madame Beaumont’s safety,” Heller continued in a cool tone. “These are uncertain times.”

Fear stiffened Colette. She could hear the older woman humming as she cleaned the kitchen. If Heller had the ability to track her down in the middle of the night, he still had the clout to follow through on his threats.

“What do you want?”

“Just confirmation that the
Mona Lisa
has not been removed from the location that you gave me a month ago.”

Colette inhaled sharply and paused. She released the breath slowly, hoping her next words would sound convincing. “Actually, she is en route back to the Louvre as we speak.” Her voice rose in mock confidence.

“I see. That is most unfortunate. Well . . . c’est la vie. I would hope that you haven’t tried to mislead me, my dear Colette. It would be such a tragedy to make Madame Beaumont suffer needlessly, in addition to your brave boyfriend.” The line went dead.

Colette stood motionless. Her hands trembled as she pushed open the door into the dining room. Replaying the conversation, she hoped she was persuasive. The problem was, he’d caught her off guard, and she knew that had the roles been reversed, she would have seen through the attempted deception.

Even though fear from tonight still had her on edge, it would take more than a phone call to scare her off.

She would not let Heller win.

Not this time.