Chapter 41 Chapter Forty

Dieter's car blew a tire on the RN3 road between Paris and Meaux.A bent nail went into the tire.Annoyed at the delay, he paced restlessly up and down the side of the road, but Lieutenant Hesse jacked the car up, put the spare tire on quickly and silently, and they were on the road again in a few minutes. Dieter went to bed late, Hans gave him a shot of morphine in the early morning to put him to sleep, and now he watched impatiently as the ugly industrial scene in the east of Paris gradually turned into a farm idyll.He was anxious to get back to Lance.He had set a trap for Flick Claret, and he was going to be there to see her fall into the trap.

The powerful Hispano-Sousa galloped along a straight road lined with poplars—a road probably built by the Romans.When the war just started, Dieter once imagined the Third Reich as the Roman Empire at that time, becoming a hegemon across Europe, bringing unprecedented peace and prosperity to the countries it ruled.Now he's not so sure. He was very worried about his mistress.Stephanie is in danger and he is responsible for it.But now everyone's life was at stake, he told himself, and modern warfare had pushed everyone to the forefront.The best way to protect Stephanie - and himself and his family in Germany - is to defeat the Allied invasion.Sometimes he cursed himself for bringing his lover so close to action.He was playing a dangerous game, using her to work for him from an unprotected position.

Resistance fighters do not take prisoners.Their own life was at stake, so if they caught French collaborators, they didn't hesitate to kill them on the spot. The thought of Stephanie being killed made his chest tighten and he could barely breathe.He could hardly imagine himself living without her.With the prospect bleak, he realizes that he may be in love with her.He'd been telling himself she was just a pretty courtesan, and he'd used her the way all men used women like that.He saw now that he had been fooling himself, and the desire to get back to Lance, to her, was growing stronger and stronger.

It was Sunday afternoon, so there weren't many cars on the road, and they were walking fast. The second puncture occurred just an hour before Reims.Dieter was almost screaming with anger.Another bent nail.Was it because wartime tires were of such poor quality?he thinks.Perhaps the French deliberately scattered these old nails on the road, knowing that nine out of ten vehicles passing by were driven by the occupying forces. The car doesn't have a second spare tire and has to be repaired before it can be driven away.They left the car and walked.After walking a mile, they came to a farmer's house.The whole family sat around the table, having just finished a big Sunday lunch, with cheese, strawberries and several empty wine bottles left on the table.Among the French, only country people can eat enough.Dieter forced the peasant into his wagon and drove them to the next town.

There was only one gas pump in the town square, on the sidewalk outside a wheelmaker's shop with a closed sign in the window.They knocked on the door and called up a tiger-faced mechanic who was enjoying a Sunday afternoon nap.The mechanic hit an old truck, put Hans next to him, and drove off. Dieter sat in the living room of the mechanic's house, staring at three children in rags.The mechanic's wife looked tired, her hair was dirty, and she was busy in the kitchen, but she poured him a glass of cold water and nothing else. Dieter thought of Stephanie again.There was a telephone in the hallway.He glanced toward the kitchen. "Can I make a phone call?" he asked politely. "Sure, I'll pay you."

She glanced at it hostilely. "Where are you going?" "Lance." She nodded, noting the time with the clock on the mantelpiece. Dieter dialed the operator and gave him the number for the house on Du Bois Avenue.Someone answered the phone quickly, with a low, stiff voice, repeating his number with a provincial accent.Dieter was surprised and said in French: "I am Pierre Charenton." The voice on the other end of the phone immediately became Stephanie's voice, and she said, "My dear." Only then did he realize that she was imitating Miss Remus's voice just now, in case of accidents.His mood immediately relaxed. "Is everything alright?" he asked her.

"I caught another enemy agent for you," she said calmly. His lips were dry. "My God... Well done! What the hell is going on?" "I met him at the station café and brought him here." Dieter closed his eyes.If something had gone wrong, if she had done anything to make the agents suspicious—she might be dead by now. "and then?" "Your men tied him up." She said "he," which meant that the terrorist was not Flick.Dieter was a little disappointed.Either way, his strategy worked.This was the second Allied agent to fall into the trap. "how does he look like?"

"It's a young man with a limp and half of his ear was knocked off by a bullet." "How did you treat him?" "He's in the kitchen, on the floor. I'm going to call Saint-Cecile and have them take him away." "Don't do that. Lock him in the cellar. I need to talk to him before Webb." "Where are you?" "In a village. Got a damn tire punctured." "Come back soon." "I'll be at your place in an hour or two." "Ok." "How are you?" "very good." Dieter wanted a serious answer. "But seriously, how do you feel?"

"How am I feeling?" She paused. "You don't usually ask that." Dieter hesitated and said, "I usually don't involve you in catching terrorists." Her voice softened. "I feel fine. Don't worry about me." One sentence blurted out, and he realized that he hadn't intended to say: "What will we do after the war is over?" The other end of the phone line looked surprised and silent. Dieter said: "Of course, this war may last for ten years, but on the other hand it may be over in two weeks, and then what do we do?" She regained her composure a little, but when she spoke, her voice trembled abnormally: "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know," he said, but the words dissatisfied him, 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 a strange voice on the other end of the phone, and he realized that she was crying.He suddenly choked up.He caught a glance at him from the mechanic's wife, who was still remembering the time on the phone.He controlled himself and turned his back, not wanting strangers to notice his frustration. "I'll be at your place in a minute," he said. "We'll have a good talk then."

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