Chasing Mona Lisa (8 page)

 7

Gabi slipped her hand into Eric’s grasp before the Swiss couple reached the two-story entry gate, which opened onto Rue Racine. She needed the reassuring touch of his calloused fingers wrapped around hers.

Eric paused just inside the gate and turned to her. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Gabi closed her eyes for the briefest second. She opened them and looked over his shoulder to the smoke rising in the distance. Then her eyes darted to his gaze—seeing the concern there.

“Yes, I’m ready.” She took a step forward, leading him through the gate. The prospect of participating in Paris’s liberation was dangerous, but the desire to help those who had been suffering for so long propelled her beyond the safety of the courtyard.

A dozen Resistance members fanned into the neighborhood, sprinting along Rue Racine and turning left at Boulevard Saint-Michel.

A concussive boom ricocheted off the Baroque-style buildings. Gabi flinched, and Eric instinctively tightened his grasp of her hand. Together, they searched the lilac-colored sky. The hazy canopy grew smokier by the minute.

“They’re heading north,” Bernard explained. Then he described where the grand boulevard transformed into a bridge connecting the Left Bank with the Île de la Cité, the island home of the Notre Dame Cathedral. “Word on the street is a Panzer’s attacking a partisan barricade in the area.”

Rousseau, clutching a rifle in his left hand, tossed a cigarette into the gutter. “Sounds like that Panzer is knocking over some china at Pont Saint-Michel.”

“Is that where we’re headed?” Gabi whispered to Eric. She tried to picture facing off with a Panzer. A shudder moved down her spine.

“We can always turn around—”

“No, I want to help.” Gabi locked eyes with Eric, searching for his thoughts.

“If the situation is too dangerous, or Bernard says we have to go back, that’s what we’ll do.”

They looked back to Bernard, hunkered down by a brick wall and peering around the corner. “Stay low and follow me,” the Frenchman said.

When they reached Boulevard Saint-Michel, rifle-toting citizens darted behind the broad trunks of poplar trees lining each side. There was no rhyme or reason to their movements, but that was the nature of urban warfare. Through the leafy environs, she couldn’t see the German tank.

“Just a few blocks up.” Bernard jerked his head toward the Seine. “Maybe one of our Molotov cocktails will get him and we won’t need these medicines.” The Resistance leader adjusted the shoulder pack he’d stuffed with bandages and sulfa drugs—just in case.

As the threesome set off, Gabi sensed the mood of the city had changed. Despite the defiant gestures of tattered and improvised French flags hanging from windowsills, a menacing and sullen air hung over Paris like a gathering thunderstorm.

The grand city was past the point of no return, and events were unfolding exactly as Dulles had predicted: pitched battles between a lightly armed but determined local populace with everything to lose, and a well-equipped but morale-whipped Occupation force. No one had expected the insurrection to play out for nearly a week. The lives of thousands of Parisians, and their treasured city, hung in the balance, especially if the Americans bypassed Paris in a race for the Rhine.

Gabi reminded herself to breathe as they crept along Boulevard Saint-Michel, ducking into doorways and storefronts. In the murky distance, popping sounds of small arms fire competed against the intermittent bursts of a machine gun. Judging by the sounds of the pitched battle, they were only a few hundred meters away.

Bernard stopped to catch his breath. “We set up one of our biggest barricades at the end of Boulevard Saint-Michel, where it meets up with the Quai Saint-Michel.”

They continued their advance, and ten minutes later, Gabi got her first good look at a barricade composed of paving stones, bedsprings, hutches, dining room tables, and the like. Behind the makeshift barrier, a dozen men—many cradling hunting rifles or clutching pistols—clustered behind a gimcrack fortification that reached only two meters high.

Gabi and the two men approached within fifty meters and huddled inside the alcove of an abandoned flower shop. Several minutes passed without gunfire. Bernard looked around the corner, then motioned for Gabi and Eric to follow him. Shoulders hunched, they sprinted for the relative safety of the barricade, crouching behind a heavy wooden tabletop.

“Who’s in charge?” Rousseau barked.

A young man with curly blond hair and pink cheeks that glowed with adolescent fervor looked back toward the new arrivals. “I am.”

Gabi looked around. Every partisan appeared as young as her twin brothers serving in the Swiss Army. They had to be students at the Sorbonne.

Bernard eyed him. “Status report?”

“Several partisans ambushed a troop carrier with Molotovs. Direct hit on the engine. The
boches
ran and hid behind the walls on the Île. A Panzer tried to rescue them, but our Molotovs forced him to keep a healthy distance. Then the Panzer backed up and disappeared. Everyone was wondering if he might do an end-around on our position, so I sent a runner into the neighborhood. We haven’t seen the tank since—”

The unmistakable metallic sound of tank tread devouring pavement caused the discussion to stop in its tracks. The Panzer had returned and was advancing slowly along the Quai Saint-Michel, a frontage boulevard that paralleled the Seine.

“Here he comes!” The young leader pointed toward the advancing Panzer.

Gabi looked up to see one of the partisans, a schoolboy no older than seventeen or eighteen, picking his way to the top of the barricade. He poked his head above the firing line.

Just then, rapid machine-gun fire shattered the calm. Gabi watched in horror as blood splattered around them. The boy’s arms raised in the air as he tumbled back, hitting the paving stones and exposing the remnants of his shattered skull.

Gabi stifled a scream and was the first to reach the young man. Her stomach lurched at his shocked, lifeless expression.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t look up to see who was there, but he handed her an overcoat, which she draped over his pale face and the growing pool of dark blood.

More gunfire sounded, plinking the top of the barricade. The men ducked and made themselves the smallest targets possible.

“Where are the Molotovs?” one of the commandos screamed. “Panzer dead ahead, attacking our position!”

Eric ducked his head as machine gun fire erupted from the German tank. The tank rumbled forward slowly, maintaining a healthy distance from any thrown firebombs. Several partisans—the brave ones—inched up the rampart and argued about the wisdom of firing off a few rounds, although Eric knew their bullets had no hope of penetrating the armored hull of a twenty-five-ton tank.

“How far away is he?” Bernard shouted over the din of the battle.

“A hundred meters—still too far for our Molotovs!” one partisan replied.

A tank blast rocked the barricade, jettisoning cobblestones into the air. Eric threw himself on top of Gabi to protect her from the flying rocks. A jagged chunk of concrete landed on his back with a thud.

The jolt of sharp pain between his shoulder blades focused his thinking. This motley band was about to be overrun by a superior military force—and if he and Gabi hung around, the tank would crush them.

“Bernard! We can’t stay here! We have no chance against this Panzer. He is staying out of range of our Molotovs.”

The Resistance leader nodded in agreement. “I’ll lead you out!” he shouted over the din.

Gabi leaned closer. “No, you stay here with your men. We’ll find a way.”

“I can’t let that happen.” Bernard took off the shoulder pack of medical supplies. “I have my orders too, and they were to make sure you return safely to Switzerland. We can leave the bandages and medicines here.”

Eric looked at Gabi, then back at Bernard. “So what are we going to do?”

“Get you back to the safe house. Follow me.”

The three crouched and took off, staying low and keeping the barricade between them and the tank. Eric took one last look over his shoulder. The rest of the student brigade ran for the exit doors, as well. Tanks versus rifles would always be a mismatch.

The trio retraced their steps. Fifteen minutes of stealth movements returned them to where they started—Rue Racine. They were within steps of the medieval hotel when the
klack-klack-klack
of a throaty diesel engine filled the air. This time it wasn’t a Panzer. Eric’s throat cinched down at the sight of a troop truck 150 meters away, bouncing in their direction.

Spotting them, the driver accelerated. Bernard, rifle in hand, beckoned with his other arm. “He’s not stopping to ask for directions. Quick!”

Bernard pounded the wooden gate. “Let us in! Uncle George, it’s me!”

Within seconds, the frizzy gray-haired pensioner who owned the large property cracked it open.

Bernard dove inside. “The
boches
are coming! Warn the others!”

“Everyone’s gone,” George replied. “Just the wife and a few other women are left.”

“You tend to them. We’ll take the underground route.”

Bernard set a wooden post across the back of the double gate while George hustled toward the house. Eric and Gabi followed Bernard toward the parked Panzer, where the Frenchman grabbed a long rod with an S-hook that was leaning against the house. They watched as he immediately began working the steel pole into a manhole cover set in front of the German armored vehicle.

“What are you doing?” Fear raised Gabi’s voice an octave.

“You’ll see.” Bernard grunted as he put more force into the pole.

Eric crouched next to the manhole cover, ready to lend a hand. He heard the diesel truck slow to a stop outside the fortified entry, and he wondered again why he’d put Gabi in this position.

The truck’s engine shut off, followed by the sounds of troops landing on pavement and an animated Germanic exchange. From what Eric could make out, they were squabbling about what they would find on the other side of the wall. One insisted they were walking into a
Hinterhalt
—an ambush—while another soldier reminded everyone they were in the army to fight.

Bernard popped the manhole cover, lifting the heavy lid high enough for Eric to clear it away.

The Frenchman dusted his hands and motioned into the dark cavity. “Our escape route. Like I said, I’m responsible for your safety.”

“What about the others?” Gabi looked behind her. Rifle butts battered the gate, pounding incessantly.

“George and the women can take care of themselves. Time to go, before the
boches
make a move.”

Rifle slung over his back, Bernard stepped onto the first metal rung inside the manhole and descended into the dark, subterranean opening. The distance to the bottom rung wasn’t insignificant: about five meters. Bernard stepped off the bottom rung and found his footing.

Eric leaned over and looked closer. It looked like Bernard was standing next to a river of brackish water. He hoped this was runoff from the storm drains, but the latrine-like smell told him otherwise.

Gabi came up alongside him. “Is that what I think it is?”

As a dairy farmer, Eric knew excrement when he smelled it. “I’m getting a good whiff of rotten eggs.”

The banging of rifle stocks against the oversized gate rose in volume.

“Down you go,” Eric directed.

Gabi clasped her summer dress around her thighs. She moved athletically and began her descent. Bernard assisted her to the landing.

Eric had just stepped onto the first rung when the German troop carrier crashed through the oversized wooden gate and careened into the courtyard. The Swiss reached for the heavy iron cover as he ducked into the manhole opening, but he struggled to move it back into place.

“Leave it!” Bernard yelled. “There isn’t time.”

Eric worked the heavy cover into the opening, but it wasn’t completely seated in its circular casing. His effort would have to do.

Grabbing both sides of the ladder, Eric hurtled down the dark passage. He landed with a thud that echoed inside the damp tunnel.