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***January 5, 2024***
"Bobby! Bob, wait up!"
Alex had treated them to lunch for the first day of Bobby's new gig on what she called "the FBI lecture circuit." The trio, already wearing coats and hats as they readied to leave, was emerging from the cafeteria on the lowest level of the Boston field office. Darting between confused personnel heading in multiple directions, Marc Thuringer was jogging their way like a compact running back.
"You could have phoned, you know," Bobby pointed out as Thuringer reached them.
"All my calls are monitored," Thuringer said in a confidential voice, catching his breath. He gave Olivia a half-hearted smile. "I hear you made a successful debut today, young lady."
"Something to make up for the Christmas hols being finished already," she responded ruefully.
"And how was your Christmas?"
Olivia responded animatedly, "It was brill! Aunt Agnes and all her family came from Michigan...but you know, you were at Nochebuena! We had Christmas dinner at Aunt Lizzie's-a buffet because Aunt Liz and Uncle Steve's kitchen is almost as small as ours. After dinner, we went to Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas decorations. Boxing Day we were here in Boston to walk the Freedom Trail with the family. There was a big New Year's Eve party at The Dark Crystal and I stayed up until midnight for the first time! Oh, and look at my big pressie for Christmas!" She pulled out an inexpensive smartphone. "It comes with bare rules and Papa and Mama said if I get caught mucking with it in class they'll take it away, but it's mine, and the camera is good so I can blog anywhere. But here's my best gift..." She fished around her neck, withdrawing a gold locket.
"It sounds like a fine holiday," Thuringer said with a smile after admiring the pendant, but his eyes were still grave, causing Alex to exchange a worried look with Bobby.
"I was telling Bobby that the lecture room hallway must be the final way you weed out the agents from the wannabes," she offered tongue-in-cheek to break the underlying tension, "what with the great J. Edgar glowering over everyone who passes. If they don't turn back then, they never will."
Instead of smiling, Thuringer only managed to look grimmer. "Believe me, the Director wouldn't have liked what I have to tell you. Button up and come out to the courtyard."
"Where's your coat?" Alex objected as he chivvied them toward the ground-floor entrance to the central courtyard. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows revealed concrete paving surrounding an open green space with grass, trees, bushes, and picnic tables, which, in warmer weather, would serve as a luncheon spot. "It's freezing outside."
"Trust me, Alex. If I'm cold right now, it's not from the temps."
"Bleak midwinter" slapped them in the face as they entered the courtyard; although the day was sunny, the lush space the employees enjoyed in summer was monochrome with browned grass and the dead heads of plants frosted over. Small areas of frozen mud remained from the previous weekend's rain. Alex tucked her head in her parka hood like a turtle while pulling off her scarf. "Here, at least take this." Bobby took pity on him also, fishing a spare watch cap from his overcoat pocket and handing it over.
Thuringer took advantage of both items while Olivia parked herself in front of Bobby, who had his back to the wind wuthering inside the long, bleak rectangle.
"Do I make a good windbreak, Min?" he asked whimsically; she looked up and nodded, her cheeks rosy with cold despite being bundled in a pink down parka and white fleece-lined pompom hat. "What's going on, Marc?"
Thuringer glanced warily at Olivia, then said, "Adan Ciervo called this morning-actually, he called Matt directly, who then referred him to me. He was so intrigued by that square of microfilm that he worked on it through the holidays." He took a deep breath. "I need you to understand that everything I'm about to tell you requires confirmation, is that clear? Nothing will happen until confirmation is complete, because if the documents are authentic, it's figurative dynamite."
Alex asked, wary, "Should I take Olivia back inside?"
Thuringer paused. "That depends. This may affect her."
When Bobby barked, "The adoption's a done deal," Olivia shifted nervously.
"I wasn't speaking about that. I meant...emotionally."
A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold overtook Olivia. "Someone's not going to die, are they?"
"No," Thuringer said, but hesitated as if having to consider it.
Bobby asked bluntly, "What's Ciervo found out?"
"Penelope told me she had a dossier printed for you before your trip to Paris."
"We needed some light reading," was Alex's dry response.
"Do you remember the Duplantix history?"
Bobby paused for two beats, then answered, "Founded in 1902 by Maximiliano Duplantier as Duplantier Travaux Énergétiques. Coal production provided the first profits, followed by growing investments in petroleum. Managed to stay solvent during the First World War due to the need for coal, however scarce it became. The company was then headed by Stéphan Duplantier, whose brightest idea was to transfer most of the company holdings to Swiss banks in the 1930s. Before the Nazis invaded France, the Duplantiers fled to Switzerland. There was some hostility following the war because they hadn't suffered with their fellow French, but postwar the company boomed using the money that Stéphan had squirreled away with the Swiss. By this time Madame's father, Yves Arnaud, who had served as his father's apprentice during the war, had taken over the reins. He turned DTE, as they were known then, into Duplantix, Ltd. in the 1970s, about the time of the first energy crisis. He assembled the first 'think tank' to brainstorm alternative energy sources."
"Jesus, Bobby, did you memorize it?"
"Practically," Alex commented lightly, but kept her attention on Thuringer with growing dismay.
"The documents on the microfilm allege that the 'standard history' of the between-wars years is company propaganda, not the truth," Thuringer advised. "That's why it's imperative that the remainder of the documents referenced on one of the microfilm documents are tracked down, and that every single one is authenticated. If they indicate what we think they do, given the political climate and the social media feeding frenzy, the State Department may need to do damage control."
Bobby held up his hands in a placating manner. "Marc, you'll need to stop and rewind." Thuringer was chafing his hands so hard that Bobby pulled off his gloves and handed them to him.
"Bobby's right. I'm lost." Alex stepped up to him. "Slowly...what's going on?"
"The documents on the microfilm are in both French and German," said Thuringer reluctantly. "Two are fiscal analyses which state that while Duplantix did have funds in Swiss accounts, they accounted for less than a third of the capital the company used to rebuild after World War II. The hidden documents referenced by the microfilm paperwork allegedly hold indisputable proof that...nearly three-quarters of Duplantix's profits claimed to be from 1946 forward were accrued during the war itself."
"Well, that can't be," Alex began. "France was occupied-" She halted as Bobby's face went cold. "No-"
"The microfilm documents also allege there is proof that...forced labor was used in the Duplantix coal mines and refineries, including-" Here Thuringer glanced at Olivia and chose his words carefully. "-occupants of work camps and people from Ukraine, among others." He hunched in his suit jacket to warm himself. "Ciervo has contacts in the Police Nationale. As soon as he read the microfilm documents, he passed them on to the French. This morning the Police Nationale-hence me running you down-is obtaining warrants to search the address at which the supporting documents are supposedly hidden: a hundred-year-old apartment building-classic Hausmann architecture, they told me-called Appartements Les Pignons-"
"Appartements Les Pignons?" Olivia squeaked. "On the Rue du Léopard?"
Bobby squatted to her level. She was breathing hard, but not from the cold. "Min, what's wrong?"
Alex asked, "You know this place, sweetie?" but Olivia only stared at Thuringer. "4016 Rue du Léopard? Appartement 6?"
Now Thuringer was crouched at her level, too. "Yes, that's the very address Ciervo mentioned. How do you know this, Olivia?"
She said slowly, "It's my...it was my home." Her eyes were wide with shock. "It was our flat, Maman's and mine. And Luisa."
Bobby mouthed soundlessly to Alex: Nicole.
Thuringer asked urgently, "Olivia, do you remember, was there a safe on the premises-in the apartment?"
The child looked bewildered. "Maybe. Maman had some fine jewelry. She left it to me, and Mama and Papa have put it in a...a safe deposit box at the bank. But if there was a safe in our flat, I don't know where it was; she never showed it to me. It wasn't in a wall behind a painting like in the films." Her voice faltered. "I don't understand. What does it mean?"
Bobby hugged her tightly. "We'll explain on the way home. Marc, we have a train to catch. You need to call me the moment you hear anything. I don't care if it's the middle of the night."
Alex was also abruptly in a hurry to be elsewhere. "We need to get moving."
Thuringer handed over their wraps as soon as they were back inside. "The minute I get word. But the translation of the documents, and especially the authentication will take a while. Ciervo told me everything would be triple-checked and no information released until everything was corroborated."
"I wouldn't expect it any other way," Bobby said, moving toward the door in unison with Alex and Olivia, then suddenly pivoted and came back in quick, long strides to face Thuringer as Alex and Olivia hurried toward the front doors, saying tightly, "This is Nicole Wallace we're talking about. You may need to have that apartment stripped down to the bones; she could have the documents concealed in a ceiling joist for all I know. I don't know if the Police Nationale will be able to do that with a new tenant-"
"Then we're all in luck: there is no new tenant. The Police Nationale have never been satisfied about the accident at Chamonix, and they've been holding Wallace's apartment for evidence since last April. Madame Pepin has been furious because it's part of Marcel's holdings and she wants to sell it."
"Then she's possibly stripped it-"
"I spoke to someone in Paris when I got off the line with Ciervo. Appartement 6 has been under surveillance for months. The only things removed from the flat were the child's clothing, the books, and the jewelry, and that was done under the supervision of the police-unless Madame Pepin has a mole there. Each book was examined before it was allowed to be packed, as was the clothing. You've seen the jewelry already if you have it in your safe deposit box."
"Bobby!" urged Alex.
"Call me!" Bobby repeated, then broke into a lope for the door.
. . . . .
Alex led the way through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd at South Station to the Amtrak car with their reserved, paired seats that faced each other. Friday rush hour usually began in the early afternoon; this one was particularly heavy due to a storm forecast for the weekend, so the human throng was inevitable, and the rail car reeked of coffee and doughnuts purchased before boarding, with lesser scents of wet wool, perfume, and notes of camphor. Once seated and facing Olivia, Alex wished she was anywhere but on a train about to explain something so unsettling to a small child.
When they had settled, Bobby flicked a hand into his overcoat pocket as if working one of his magic tricks. What emerged was a Dunkin Donuts bag: Olivia's favorite, the chocolate-frosted doughnut, was handed out first, then Alex's iced blueberry doughnut, and finally his own, the basic old-fashioned. "Sinkers," Alex remembered her dad calling them, always eaten with coffee at hand to dunk into. She would have been happy at the recollection had not Bobby's face been a grim study instead of the relaxed expression he'd worn not two hours earlier over the success of his first lecture.
Olivia accepted the chocolate-frosted confection with its accompanying napkin, savoring it in little nibbles, her attentive eyes on her father's troubled face. He took a large bite, chewed deliberately, and then began, voice pitched only for the three of them, "Human beings have always been tribal. My group lives by the river, yours by the woods. We cherish our lifestyle, you cherish yours. Sometimes the tribes collaborated to hunt or track a dangerous animal. Other times they became rivals. There could be a push by certain elders of each tribe to keep the two apart, due to ideological differences or simple jealousies. 'Our life is better than theirs. Our gods are better than their gods. Our men more manly, better hunters, our women more chaste...or more fertile.'"
She nodded. As she had learned in the past nine months, most of Bobby's stories had a prelude, to which there was a point that eventually revealed itself.
"Eventually 'the others' may get demonized, especially when unknowns happen: plague, epizoötic, crop failures. Someone gets blamed. Scapegoats, we call them."
"Like witches," Olivia supplied, having learned of the infamous "witch trials" during an early October trip to Salem, Massachusetts.
He nodded. "Those 'witches' supposedly had 'unholy knowledge' to be feared. Other scapegoats were the travelers who arrived in their colorful wagons with their predilection for horses."
"The Roma," answered Olivia. "Maman said they used to be called 'gypsies.'"
"And those followers of Abraham and Moses who refused to convert, scapegoats for generations. In medieval times there was a continual vicious rumor that Jewish people would kidnap Christian babies and drink their blood."
Olivia replied fiercely, "That's a lie."
"Of course it is. But here we are 600-700 years later, and in some neighborhoods in the United States inflammatory leaflets are still being found on lawns-vicious screeds that blame Jewish people for everything from pornography to homosexuality, corruption in government to genetically modified foods, 'the collapse of decent society,'" Bobby's face was stormy. "Similar messages are spread in European countries and South America-so many lies."
Olivia finished her doughnut, wiped her face, and crumpled her napkin, making a fist around it. "But why?"
"Because it's easy," Alex interjected. "Because it's simpler to point a finger at a group and proclaim 'It's their fault!' and not take responsibility."
Olivia nodded, surprised by her mother's ferocity. "And this is what the microfilm is about?"
"Historians have studied..." Bobby stopped to draw breath because Alex was giving him a pointed look. "Sorry, Min, I didn't intend to deliver two lectures today. When we visited Compiègne, you told us you knew about concentration camps. You asked about reading Anne Frank. And when you talked about Jacob's grandfather, you knew."
Olivia nodded, and then Bobby swallowed, still watching Alex. She reached her hand across to him to squeeze his hand briefly. "Adolf Hitler thought Jews were vermin, like rats or mice. To him, and his followers, wiping them out would create a world where a German would be proud to live, untouched by their repulsive presence." He scowled in contempt. "Not just Jews-all the so-called 'undesirables' of humanity: homosexuals, gypsies, Communists, political rivals, dissidents, the mentally and physically unfit-Down syndrome children, youngsters in leg braces from polio. Once the extermination was complete, what was left-Hitler's famed 'Aryan race'-would be perfect humanity. And Hitler...the Nazis...the German people...they weren't the only ones who believed it. People in America, England, France-"
Alex was eyeing him. It's time, Bobby.
He continued with a sigh, "Min, you know Hitler invaded France...marched into Paris...during World War II?"
"Yes, Papa. Monsieur Lefevre, the history master, showed us the photo of the man from Marseilles crying. He told us how the French people had little to eat and were cold in winter, had their homes con...confiscated...the smallest wrong word and they would be arrested. The Germans ran one part of France, and then there was the Vichy government, run by the French but overseen by Germans. He called it 'a puppet government.'"
Bobby continued, rubbing his knees nervously, "As a French citizen under martial rule, you could do three things: the safest was to submit to your German masters, obey rules, and keep your head down. This might keep you and your family safe, even as you shivered, cold and ill-fed, since they held your sons as hostages and regarded your older daughters as ripe for assault." Alex flickered warning eyes upon him. "Or you could join the Free French-"
"The Resistance!" interrupted Olivia eagerly. "Monsieur Lefevre told us about them, too. They were brave. Both men and women-even boys and girls-risked their lives spying on Nazi officers and committing sabotage-I'm not sure what that was, but they did it. If they were caught, they were...executed."
Bobby went on, voice now tight, "The third kind wanted to keep their lifestyle at all costs. 'I still want my coffee and pastries in the morning, my pretty dresses or my handsome suits, to walk the street without fear of reprisal. Welcome into my home, we will help you,' they said, and they indeed kept their privileges. Many of them agreed with the Nazis that Jews, not to mention those other 'inferiors,' were always troublesome. Those people were called 'collaborators' and they danced to the Germans' tune without remorse-informed on Jews and 'undesirables.' Betrayed those who helped the 'undesirables.' Reported neighbors for the tiniest infraction or who just 'looked suspicious.'"
Bobby finished, "They walked the streets well fed and well clothed, looking with disdain upon their starving countrymen."
Now he lowered his head, staring at the floor for so long Olivia said softly, "I like the history lesson, Papa, but you don't have to go 'round Robin Hood's barn. Tell me the truth."
He sighed. "Min, the documents on the microfilm...and other documents, the ones Marc talked about being hidden somewhere in Appartements Les Pignons...if the documents are true and not a false tale told by a competitor as a smear campaign against Madame's family...these documents say the Duplantiers earned much of their fortune during World War II."
Olivia nodded solemnly, so Alex reached out her hands to take her daughter's. "Olivia, the only way that could have happened is if the Duplantier family collaborated with the Nazis."
The child's face paled, then she squeezed Alex's hand so hard that her mother flinched. "Did..." and the child swallowed, "did...Papa Marcel know when he married Madame?"
Of course, she would think of Marcel first! Alex was relieved when she saw Bobby relax slightly. "I am almost certain he didn't. I've read a good deal about your Papa Marcel...most of his life he was a good, fair man. I think the Duplantiers covered up their misdeeds so well that he believed the new history they wove around themselves, as did everyone else. He wouldn't have known his father-in-law's secret."
Olivia sighed in relief and shivered, so that when Bobby opened his arms to her, she gladly rose to hug him. Alex took the opportunity to lift the armrest between Olivia's seat and Bobby's and occupy the position; for the rest of the trip, the girl remained cocooned between them, leaning her head against Alex. Bobby extended his left arm around them both, and when a pair of standing passengers asked if they could use the remaining two seats, he nodded assent with a smile.
As they sat in bed reading that night, Bobby's eyes more often drifted to the wall than concentrated on his book. Alex finally asked, "Did you mean that about Marcel Pepin?"
He nodded. "Stupid to have married her, maybe, but his deliberately marrying a Nazi...I don't think so."
"You're tired, Bobby," she said with a wan grin. "Yves Arnaud Duplantier and his father were the Nazis."
"Maybe I'm just tired or too cynical, instead of thinking what I do." He laid his book down in his lap, then rubbed his eyes. "But maybe I'm not. Remember the conversation I overheard in the hallway the night of Marcel's tribute dinner? Madame arguing with Laurent?"
"Sure. What about it?"
"Her criticism of his 'useless friend from "Charlie Hebdo-"'"
"That being Sébastien Anouilh," Alex nodded.
"And how said 'useless friend' introduced him to the young lady he so obviously preferred to 'the beautiful and accomplished Philomène'? Her name was Noémie. Anouilh and Noémie have something in common, Eames. If I tell you her last name is 'Auerbach,' now what's your conclusion?"
Her book slipped from her hands. "Oh, no." She paused, then added, "Laurent doesn't know, does he?"
"That his mother's virulently anti-Semitic? Not a clue, I think. She's hidden it well over the years. Instilled into her via Yves Arnaud. She was his favored child, his protégé, after all. Her mother died when she was sixteen, so she became his hostess. Of the three siblings she was the one most devoted; her father dismissed his alcoholic son as a simpleton and married off his frivolous daughter, then taught his most faithful child all there was to know about the business."
"But why have noted Jewish artists in her collection?"
"The Chagall and the Lucian Freud? That art is her pride and joy after Duplantix. She's willing to overlook the connection because the pieces add value and prestige to what she's collected. She's an opportunistic hypocrite-to add to her other sins. I don't think Madame cares for her children as much as she does for that art." He looked at her. "If this blows up, Alex...we'll have to figure some way to save Laurent. He doesn't deserve this."
. . . . .
Olivia returned to school on Monday with a two-hour delay due to snow; the next afternoon, while Bobby worked on the material for his upcoming lecture in Albany, Thuringer's Zoom ringtone pried him out of a brown study.
Thuringer asked, tongue in cheek, when he connected. "Is there a reason you have a parakeet gnawing on your hair?"
"It's his happy place," Bobby said wryly, looking sideways at Bandit, who had his eyes half closed as he chewed. "Too cold upstairs to work even with a space heater and it's a mess outside. So happy St. Gregory's called a remote learning day. I'm not sure even Alex's car would have managed rain on snow. What's up?"
"A pity your Ms. Wallace didn't work for us," Thuringer answered.
Bobby replied in irritation, "She's not m-my Ms. Wallace and never was. What's the word?"
"Ciervo said the Police Nationale searched the place 'with a fine-toothed comb.' Or so they told him. When they turned up nothing after two days he called a contact at Interpol. One of their operatives searched yesterday and she had it found in less than four hours. There was a five-and -one-quarter inch gap between the wall of a hallway and Olivia's old bedroom that was covered with a perfectly fitted piece of molding that looked like it was original to the apartment, painted the same color as the rest of the molding. The Interpol op noticed that the brads that held the molding had slightly different heads than the others."
"And?"
"Inside was jammed what Sherlock's Dr. Watson might call 'an old tin despatch box,'" Thuringer answered, "padlocked. Grey, battered, and rust stained. Ciervo said his contact told him the box practically popped open once the padlock was removed because it was crammed so full. We have vague dating of early 1950s on the box-the documents in the box all date from 1946 or earlier. Ciervo said that just from eyeballing them, the different kinds of paper match the era: typewriter bond, onionskin-when was the last time anyone saw onionskin, Bobby?-A4 sheets, faded carbon copies, most watermarked with French or German stationers' names, some long out of business. Plus you remember how the typeslugs would make indentations in the paper-those indentations are also present...and there are no documents with proportional fonts as in those so-called 'authentic Presidential papers' a few years back. Ciervo's contact knows they could all be elaborate fakes, and they're already at the Interpol labs-"
"That's quick, isn't it?" Bobby detected movement and saw Alex appear in the archway to the living room bundled in a turtleneck sweater and fleece pants, crossing her arms and tilting her head curiously.
"The moment the Interpol operative saw that it concerned war crimes they confiscated the box. The French weren't going to squawk; they're under growing pressure about flourishing far-right groups as it is."
"And so we wait. You'll give me fair warning...before anything goes down?"
"I can't speak for the French government, Bobby, but I'll give you what I can." He glanced sideways out his window. "Stay dry."
. . . . .
"Bobby," Alex said as she gingerly shut the door to their bedroom, "she's asked again. And she's more upset this time."
"So we need to get to the bottom of this," he responded, troubled. "All right."
When Bobby had initially mentioned his presentation in Albany, the first of a half dozen where he would stay overnight, then return the next day, Olivia's response had only made them smile. "Where will I stay," she asked brightly, "while you and Mama are away? Maybe I could stay with Shard and TJ? I so love their flat! I promise I'll be good. May I have wings for dinner?"
Alex had responded cheerfully, "Where did you get the idea we were both going? I'll be staying right here, and we'll have a fun girls' night: make pizza-or order some of TJ's wings-then watch a film just for us. Have you ever seen Legally Blonde? It's very funny. Or maybe a musical? We could invite Ana for a sleepover. You could do your homework together and if she brings all her school things and clothes, I can drop her off at Rochambeau after I drop you off at St. Greg's."
Olivia had gone very still. "You won't be going with Papa?"
Bobby made a joke of it. "This is for work, not fun, Min. I'll board the train in Meridien, change trains in Springfield, go on to Albany either polishing my lecture or working on trivia questions during the ride. Someone will meet me in Albany, check me into my hotel-after dinner, I'll go to bed; the next morning I get picked up, deliver the lecture, take questions, come home the opposite way. Your mother would be on her own for most of the trip. It's only overnight and I'll be home in time for dinner."
"Oh," Olivia had said blankly.
Alex continued in low tones while he turned the doorknob, "Now she just told me, 'You really should go with Papa, Mama. It will be fun, and you can talk on the train and have dinner together, and be alone that night. It's okay. Maybe I could stay at Mrs. Perrino's flat. I won't be any bother. I'll just do my homework. I promise I'll be good.' She's so intense about it."
Olivia's door was open; she was cross-legged on her bed in her nightgown with a closed book on her lap, staring at it while she held Captain, her stuffed fox, in a tight embrace.
"May we come in?" Bobby asked from the doorway.
"Yes, sir," she returned but looked at Alex reproachfully.
"Olivia...don't," Alex said gently, hurt, then stepped forward and stroked her hair.
Bobby snagged a chair from the kitchen and sat on it backward with his arms crossed over the back. "You've left us a mystery to solve, Min. We don't understand why you're so insistent that we go away together, but we want to. Will you help us?"
Alex sat beside her, curving her arm around her, but Olivia remained stiff.
"You should have time alone together," she finally reiterated, as if by rote, "to have some privacy. You're supposed to, or...or-"
"Or...something bad will happen?" Alex asked, voice low.
The breath Olivia took had a sniffle in it. "You'll fight, and then maybe one of you will go away-"
"No one's leaving, Olivia," Bobby assured her. He paused, then asked, "Have you considered all the empirical evidence?"
Olivia tilted her head as an inquisitive bird might. "I...don't know."
"Well, let's go over it." Bobby ticked off his fingers to emphasize his points. "Your Papa Marcel held an essential position in the government and spent much of his time at it. And, of course, he had to stay at Maison Duplantier, if just for appearance's sake. So it would follow that when he visited your flat, he and your maman wanted some time alone, just for themselves. Is that correct so far?"
Olivia nodded, swallowing.
"So, with that as your evidence, I can see where you might get the idea Alex and I need that 'alone time' as well." He tipped her chin upward with his left hand, continuing earnestly, "We appreciate your being so considerate. But my job is mostly performed here. So is anything your mother does. We have time to ourselves while you're at school, even if it's just washing dishes together. Of course, I'll miss you on my overnight trips-I'll miss you both-but I'll be back the next day." He paused. "Do you remember when, before the tour bus pulled away, Ana and Carlos showed up with the container of pastelillos, and Carlos said it was so we'd remember them when we ate? And I said there was no need to worry, that he and Ana and Mrs. Diaz lived in our hearts. I can't lose you or your mother, Olivia, not ever." He put his fist over his chest and confided softly, "Because you're in here, in the deepest part."
Now Olivia's body relaxed so that Alex could gather the little girl in her arms as she shivered and tears escaped. "No one's leaving, Olivia. Not deliberately. Not ever."
. . . . .
On January 18, Bobby stayed overnight in Albany. He called at bedtime to find that after school they had taken a long walk in the snow, supper had been homemade pizza, and then Olivia asked to see Sneakers, one of their favorite films. She didn't say much on the phone, only that she missed him. "She wanted to see Sneakers because it involved spies like we talked about," Alex texted later. "She loved the ending, where Whistler asks for peace on earth and goodwill toward men."
Saturday night, after they had retreated to the supply closet at The Dark Crystal to change outfits after trivia and had just zipped their coats for the cold walk home, "Secret Agent Man" began tweedling from Bobby's pocket.
Alex watched his face. "Should we go on?"
"Hold on." Bobby answered the phone and activated the speaker. "Marc?"
"The French government still takes World War II seriously," Thuringer told him without preamble. "Interpol and the Police Nationale have been working on this full time."
"Have you seen any of the results?"
"Ciervo has copies and sent me scans of the originals with translations. One letter dated April 1943 has Yves Arnaud discussing production lines with a man named Reinhardt Sauer. My research showed he was an SS-Brigadeführer-"
Bobby scrubbed the back of his neck with his left hand. "Dammit, I was h-hoping it wasn't that bad."
"Oh, it gets worse."
"We're going outside, Bobby," Alex said firmly, voice raised, pulling up Olivia's hood and taking her hand.
"But Mama-"
"Now, Olivia. Please," and Alex had her out the door as Bobby returned the phone to his ear.
Thuringer continued once the door slammed, "There's a 1944 roster of 'guest labor' in the Duplantier coal mines. Almost all of the names were either of Jewish heritage or Ostarbeiter-forced labor-from Ukraine. Interpol's cross-checking the names with the database of those who died in concentration camps, and already have five hits. Also, there's a effusive thank you note from Yves Arnaud to a Colonel Schiller concerning a birthday gift. It was...'liberated' from a wealthy Jewish banking family in Austria, a 'striking still life of a wine bottle, a loaf of bread, and a wedge of cheese against a blue tapestry tablecloth'-"
"Son of a bitch!" Bobby said bitterly. "I know just where it is, too: in the dining room at Maison Duplantier. Did any of the family survive?"
"All died at Dachau."
Bobby was silent, then said abruptly, "Marc, I need to contact Laurent Pepin."
"Well, you know where he works," was Thuringer's terse response, and Bobby could tell that the revelations had shaken him.
"The only contacts I have for Laurent are at Duplantix," returned Bobby patiently, "and I wouldn't put it past Madame to have every phone line and e-mail in the place monitored. Marc, I'm certain Laurent has no part in this-he's just another chess piece for Madame to move around the board. He's been in love with a Jewish woman for most of his adult life, a match Madame objects to, although he doesn't realize why. She's always been critical of his friendship with-" He stopped, then said urgently, "Sébastien Anouilh. Laurent's best friend. That's who I should speak to. He'll know how to contact Laurent safely. Yesterday, if possible."
"I'll get you that information," his associate said quietly and ended the call.
Alex and Olivia were waiting at the rear of The Dark Crystal under the floodlights Shard had installed for his staff's safety, the girl restlessly scuffling her feet in the salt and sand spread on the icy pavement. His face was like a thundercloud waiting to burst, and Olivia asked the inevitable question: "It's bad, isn't it, Papa?"
"Yes," he said heavily, then looked grimly at Alex, "and one of the pieces of evidence was right under our noses at the dinner party, across from the Chagall."
"If...Madame has done something wrong and is disgraced...what will happen to Laurent?" inquired Olivia.
He squatted to her level. "Your mother and I will do our best to see nothing happens to him. I promise, Min."
. . . . .
Robert Goren was standing in the last place he expected to be on one of the closing days of January 2024, in the lobby of New York City's famed Plaza Hotel, under the painting of Kay Thompson's fictional "Eloise." Bundled in his long black overcoat and a dark grey fedora with a black hatband and looking much like hundreds of other older businessmen in the streets that day, he carried a brown leather briefcase; before he'd left the house, he'd asked Alex, "How do I look?"
"Like something out of The Man from UNCLE," she'd answered crisply, prinking his collar and smoothing the shoulders of his coat. Then she looked him straight in the eye. "Be careful, Napoleon Solo."
"You have my word, April Dancer," he'd promised her gravely.
Marc Thuringer had told them via phone the day before, "Bobby, you're the luckiest sunovabitch in the world. Guess where Mr. Anouilh is: back in your old stomping grounds. He's working with the New York Times international division for the winter." Then he paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was grave. "Buddy, remember, you're doing this on your own recognizance-"
"-and if I'm 'caught or killed the IMF will disavow any knowledge of my actions'?" Bobby had responded. "Yes, sir, I get the drift."
"Don't risk your pension, Bobby, or your rep." Thuringer finished with a deep sigh.
+ Mr. Anouilh, we met at Marcel Pepin's memorial dinner: Robert Goren. I need to meet with you-preferably with minimal fuss and much discretion. It's a matter of some importance. + Bobby had texted via the cell number Thuringer passed on.
+ I remember you, Monsieur Goren. Where would you like to meet? +
After Bobby gave him instructions about where to meet and how to identify him, he followed with instructions for Anouilh's appearance, so specifically that the Frenchman seemed amused. + This is very cloak-and-dagger, Monsieur Goren. +
+ We need to be as inconspicuous as possible. + Bobby had texted, but he thought, If only he knew.
And there, if he wasn't mistaken, was Anouilh now, in a warm, nondescript dark Navy-style peacoat and a brimmed hat as instructed, but instead of it pulled over his face, the Frenchman wore it pushed back as if he was a pugnacious 1930s newspaper reporter straight out of Hecht and MacArthur's The Front Page, auburn hair vivid in the chilly afternoon sunlight. A nondescript black laptop case dangled from his left hand.
Now Anouilh smiled at him, a humorous expression on his round face with its improbably green eyes behind square wire-rimmed eyeglasses. "Bonjour, Monsieur Goren."
"Hello, Mr. Anouilh. Your hat, please."
The other man looked surprised. "You were not joking then..." He obligingly adjusted the hat so the brim shaded his face. "It is better now?"
"Yes. Walk with me."
They strolled out of the front door of the Plaza side by side into a crowd of almost identically dressed older men and younger ones in more informal clothing, women in everything from austere business dress and long coats to puffy jackets and too-short skirts for the weather, and the usual complement of tourists blocking the sidewalks as they craned eyes upward to the overcast sky, taking in the city. Bobby himself could not resist quickly looking up and around at the familiar skyline that, for much of his life, had signified "home." He could almost wander the streets blindfolded from his location, he mused: Bergdorf's that way, Dior the other, and to his left, Frederick Law Olmstead's legacy to generations of New Yorkers, Central Park. He took a deep breath of the familiar-acrid car exhaust, cold steel, frosty stonework, metal-scented warm air steaming through metal grates from the subway tunnels, the faint, mouthwatering scent of a hot pretzel cart.
Had Eames felt this way as well? No wonder during her nine months' "exile" in Southbury, Alex had fled each Friday to its familiar chaos!
"You are homesick?" Anouilh asked, shrewdly observing him as they continued walking.
Both men had equally long strides, so they were already well into the confines of Central Park when Bobby responded, "I spent the first fifty years of my life here. It's hard not to feel a pang or two when I come back."
Anouilh agreed. "I travel many places but I am always homesick for Paris."
They walked on, Bobby making small talk about the park and pointing with his hand as if showing Anouilh the sights, Anouilh nodding as if taking it all in. Although it was not bitterly cold, with the damp and cloudiness it was no surprise that the first bench they encountered was empty. Here Bobby halted, brushing off the seat with a gloved hand, then tucking his long legs under the seat.
"We look like we're having an assignation," Anouilh said mischievously.
Bobby grinned finally. "I'm flattered, but I'd have to turn you down."
"No surprise. Madame Goren is très jolie." Anouilh paused, then said with a grave face, "According to your instructions, we should not be seen here together for so long, so you should get to the point."
Bobby flickered eyes on him. "Mr. Anouilh, I'd read some of your work before Laurent introduced us, and more afterward. I had the impression that you were a seeker of the truth. Or am I mistaken and you are more a seeker of what we call 'a scoop'?"
Anouilh was quiet for a few seconds, then acknowledged soberly, "I am a journalist, Monsieur Goren, and 'the scoop' is my bread and butter, because the more revelatory the news, the higher I am paid. However, 'a scoop' without true...ingredients is a tainted dish...'fake news' as you call it. I do not serve 'fake news' to my readers. My inspiration has always been your Mr. Murrow, not the infamous Monsieur Murdoch."
Bobby tilted his head, catching the green of Anouilh's eyes with glints of silver-grey, then he laid the briefcase on his lap and extracted half a dozen copies of redacted documents from it, handing them to the journalist. Anouilh began reading at once, Bobby watching his eyes widen, his breath quicken.
After the second sheet, he queried, hushed, "These are true?"
"They're verified by Interpol. However, several in a similar vein found along with those are still to be authenticated."
Anouilh read two more, then looked up. "This corporation so thoroughly redacted...this is Duplantix, no?"
"That was a quick guess. Is that due to some prejudice against...well, a certain 'Madame Defarge'?" Bobby smiled, remembering the intelligence Saltonstall had received from Harry Cavanaugh.
Anouilh smiled, too, tinged with grimness. "Did you ever have a mentor, Monsieur Goren?"
Now Bobby winced in recall of Declan Gage. "I did. But he ended up killing someone, driving his daughter insane, and died in a prison psych ward."
Anouilh's eyebrows lifted in astonishment, but he recovered. "Mine was not quite so...colorful. Joseph Devillier. A 'journalist's journalist,' he was called, a devotee of your Mr. Murrow, Mr. Cronkite, and Mr. White, whom he quoted like Scripture. He was in his mid-seventies when I met him as a callow uni student, but he was a small boy during the Occupation and remembered the hunger and the cold. He started work at his first newspaper in 1957, and for most of his career, he has been the lone voice crying in the wilderness about the Duplantiers. He distrusted Yves Arnaud even when he was being lauded in the 1970s for his progressive views. The one time Joseph tried to check Duplantix, some ten years back, Yves Pepin stepped in and made him look a fool. It broke his career."
"Odd then that you're such friends with Laurent," Bobby parried.
"An accident of fate, you might say. We met at university, before Devillier, and by the time I met Joseph, I knew Laurent was not like his relatives," Anouilh recounted. "The poor little rich boy and the scholarship student. Of course, his maman misinterpreted our relationship-"
"She would…for more than one reason," Bobby commented with arched eyebrows.
Anouilh stared at him a moment before comprehension dawned on his face. "Oh-ho, this explains Noémie. As for Madame, for far too many years, she has convinced Laurent-no, more than that, 'brainwashed' him, as you say-that he is nothing without her. I was pleased to hear that it was he who forced her to enter into the partnership with your government, especially since she has jealously guarded those energy patents for years."
"He-?" Bobby realized this was their proof that Laurent had persuaded Evangeline Pepin to halt her opposition to Olivia's adoption. "Mr. Anouilh-"
"My friends call me 'Sébe,' Monsieur Goren-and I do believe we are going to be friends."
"Then it's 'Bob.' Sébe, I owe Laurent a large debt." He indicated the papers in Anouilh's hands. "When the rest of those are definitively confirmed, I can see all hell breaking loose against the Duplantier family. I'd like to save Laurent from the direct line of fire. He was kind to my little girl when, if he went by his mother's tenets, he could have scorned her as his brother and sister did."
"He was never like the other two in so many respects-not even looking so much like his father."
"Perhaps," Bobby said dryly, "because you are looking at the wrong man."
Anouilh's eyes popped open for a few seconds, and then he sat back on the bench hard. "You-"
"That was Alex's catch, not mine. Of course, the moment she mentioned it, I saw everything she did, and wondered how I'd been so blind."
"So...what happens next?"
"Nothing can go forward until every document is authenticated. The Police Nationale pulled in Interpol from the start, and I was informed this morning that the Bundespolizei's forensics team was enlisted to assist two weeks ago."
"If they've pulled in les Allemands, it's serious. And, believe me, the Germans will not allow this to lie dormant. If they could wipe every Nazi off the face of this earth, they would."
"The story could be yours when everything is confirmed-I would have to ask," Bobby told him, "but it's Laurent I'm concerned about. I'd like his involvement minimized. It would be best if he divorced himself from his mother's influence before the revelations about the Duplantiers and the events at Duplantix became public knowledge. I know little about his work. Could he...find a position elsewhere?"
"Certainly," Anouilh said with slight resentment. "It's only his mother who makes him think his life depends on remaining with the family business. He wasn't an honors student by any means, but he did well enough, and has worked at Duplantix for over seven years now. Plus he does have a trust set up for him, something Pepin arranged years ago when the economy was flush. The money would support him as he searched for new employment."
"He also has a home Pepin willed him in Quebec," Bobby recalled. "Is there a way I can contact him without going through Duplantix or Maison Duplantier?"
"Monsieur Goren...Bob...will you now trust me?" Anouilh asked after a moment. "Let me do this."
"Are you sure? I wouldn't want it to affect your friendship, and if things go sour between myself and Laurent, I have really nothing to lose-"
"If our friendship has become that weak," replied Anouilh with a troubled voice, "then it does not deserve to survive. In addition, I have what you would call 'an ace in the hold.'"
"'Hole,'" Bobby corrected with a spontaneous grin.
Anouilh chuckled. "Ace in the hole, then. I shall bring Noémie with me. Laurent has loved her for years and the feeling is mutual. All these years she has worked by her father's side, waiting patiently for Laurent to see the light." He waved the papers at Bobby. "I may take these?"
"And these," Bobby said, handing him another dozen. "Do not lose them or show them to anyone else but Laurent. And then destroy them thoroughly."
Anouilh folded and placed the documents already read into the interior pocket of his coat. "It will be a long, consuming blaze, my friend, to warm both myself and my friend. And you will call me if possible...when the story is to break?"
"I promise to do what I can," and they shook hands.
"I suppose we should part in different directions at different times?" Anouilh said, amused.
"I'm heading to the Village," Bobby said, rising.
"And I to Rockefeller Center," the Frenchman smiled. "As they say here-incessantly, may I note-'Enjoy the rest of your day.'"
Bobby returned in the direction he had come, leaving Anouilh still sitting on the bench, reading. He emerged on Fifth Avenue, hailed a taxi, and asked the driver to take him to the Strand, where he set a timer reluctantly on his phone, knowing his weakness for bookstores and that he had to make the 3:40 train.
He was only browsing for himself and had not chosen anything until he passed a clearance table on his way to the cashier's station. For Olivia, he had found a book about kitsune; for Alex, he had picked up the newest Abby Holtzer thriller-and then he saw a markdown book that had seen better days tagged at $2.50. The cover attracted him immediately: a photo of the Brooklyn Bridge and the title Inside the Broken Metropolis: New York City Postcards of the 1970s.
He picked up the limp volume and riffled through it: this was "home," the New York of his formative years, the bleak 70s when visitors stayed away due to news reports of drug users and panhandlers everywhere, an era when the soaring price for gold and silver led to gold chains yanked from tourists' necks, graffiti marred subway trains, and crime was off the charts, the NYPD beleaguered and sullen. In the postcards, the renowned and the infamous among the 70s ruins lived again: the Twin Towers under construction and then completed, the Dakota before John Lennon's death, Scribners and Doubleday, Gimbels and Korvettes, the Wonder Wheel at Coney, the now-razed Hotel Pennsylvania made famous by the Glenn Miller song (under its late 1970s name of the Statler-Hilton). He added it to his tiny stack of books with a nostalgic smile.
Within two hours, his train pulled into New Haven with winter's dark already fallen. He emerged from the train buffeted by commuters, then traveled the long escalator up into the vintage expanse of Union Station. Through the tangle of the crowd, he saw Alex's eyes sparkle; her smile called to him like the beacon of a lighthouse, and he knew he was home.
Next, he was set upon by a small whirlwind. "Papa!"
He hugged Olivia then and there, unmindful of the crowd, and when she saw the bag he was carrying, she asked, "Did you bring me a book?"
"Would I not?" he asked in a droll voice that made her laugh. Then Alex stepped forward, stood on tiptoe, and kissed his cheek, knowing from his tired eyes that it had been a long day.
"We should get out of the way of humanity," she suggested with a grin as a woman jostled Bobby with a resentful grunt. "I parked the car...want to go to Frank Pepe's for dinner?" She explained to Olivia, "Oldest pizzeria in New Haven...supposedly in the United States. From 1925."
Olivia said with a straight face, "The chefs must be very experienced by now," and they both laughed.
En route, Alex asked him quietly, "Is the fix in?"
"I lit the fuse," he said with hope.
.
- - to be concluded - -
.