The Second Objective

He remembered climbing those same steps for the first time, proud and in awe, his father’s sleek leather glove holding his hand. His father was still a high-ranking diplomat and they had been treated like royalty, shown all the sights, squired around the city in a chauffeured car. The happiest days his family had ever known, less than a year before they ended in a single day.

Twelve years later, after the Germans had taken France, he returned as an SS officer on leave, self-made, on his own merits. Everyone in that hotel, in Paris, showed him a respect that not so long before he’d had reason to believe would be denied to him forever. With that visit had come the assurance that his father’s disgrace was at last behind him.

The sound of the chair hitting the floor in the next room.

The old man’s obsequious, servile smile, the fluttering of his hands whenever a superior turned a corner. How pathetic and defeated he had looked when they found him out. The image still sickened Von Leinsdorf. The womanly tears as his father confessed the secret he’d kept from his wife and son all those years; everything they believed about him a lie. Packing his own bags for exile, unshaven, doubled over, sobbing as he folded every collar and crease like a ghetto tailor, the life already kicked out of him. The shameful legacy of the Jew visible in him from a mile away.

Von Leinsdorf had vowed to forget the man. He would cut the scar from his soul.

The creak of the rope when he walked in and found him swinging from that beam. The old man’s pleading eyes meeting his, clawing at his own throat, his life ending with one last misgiving. Von Leinsdorf never moved. He watched him die and then he turned and left the room.

No one had ever worked harder to erase a memory; why would it come back now? Because Paris had fallen? Did that mean all his work had been for nothing? This hotel, the site of the only triumph he’d ever known, was back in the hands of the enemy, Americans and British crawling all over the city, smug and entitled, as if the war were already won.

They would soon be hearing from him about that.

The rattle of a passing bus broke his reverie. He studied the hotel, noting the security outside, the traffic patterns passing through its doors. After twenty minutes he crossed the street and climbed the stairs, leaning on his cane.

Stammering in excited French and broken English, he explained to the guards at the door that an unexploded German shell had been found in his neighborhood. They tried to explain that he needed to report such a matter to his local police or SHAEF’s offices near the Place Vendôme. With the wounded dignity of an outraged Great War veteran, his tirade resulted in a spell of breathlessness. The guards assisted him into the lobby to recover, promising he could speak to the next available officer. After bringing him a glass of water, they promptly forgot about him. Von Leinsdorf settled into a chair that offered him a view of the elevators and the front desk. He watched a steady stream of British officers who had taken up residence in the hotel as they came and went.

He waited for an officer of a specific age and size. Such a man hurried through the door at eleven-thirty-five, carrying two suitcases and an attaché case. Von Leinsdorf rose from his chair and hobbled past the front desk, patting his face with a handkerchief, in time to see this British lieutenant, just arrived from London, identify himself, receive his room key, 417, and carry his bags toward the lift.

Von Leinsdorf waited five minutes, then entered an enclosed lobby phone booth and placed a call through the switchboard to room 417.

“Hallo?”

“Is that Lieutenant Pearson?” asked Von Leinsdorf.

“Yes?”

“I’ve been ringing you for over an hour. This is Major Smyth-Cavender over at SHAEF. Where the blazes are you?”

“I literally just walked through the door, sir.”

“Some problem with the flight, was there?”

“A bit delayed, actually, sir.”

“Yes, well, RAF’s got their own problems. We’ve had a cock-up down the hall here ourselves, pushed the clock right out of round. How are your quarters?”

“Fine, splendid.”

“Beats a damp foxhole by a crushing margin. So listen, Pearson old boy, since there’s no rush, why don’t you pop round and meet me at Maxim’s. Do you know where that is?”

“No, sir.”

“Hard by the hotel there; ask at the desk. It’s our officers’ club for the moment. I’ll stand you to a glass and a spot of lunch, act the welcoming committee. Shall we say quarter past noon then?”

“That’s only ten minutes, sir.”

“Take you five to get there. You can unpack later.”

“Yes, sir, right away, sir.”

Von Leinsdorf hung up the phone and ducked through a nearby door into a service stairwell. He took the stairs to the basement and moved along a low corridor, following the smell of steam until he found the laundry. No one was there. Stepping into a storage area, he removed his overcoat and jacket and replaced it with a valet’s coat, gloves, and hat. He walked into the bustling laundry area and searched through a hanging line of cleaned and pressed military uniforms ready for delivery. After finding what he was looking for, he walked out holding the suit up in front of his face. He waited for the service elevator, followed an Algerian house keeper pushing a linen trolley on board, and rode it up to the fourth floor. The house keeper stepped off first. He started down the hall in a different direction, looking at room numbers, then made a show of patting his pocket, groaned, and turned to the house keeper.

“Merde, j’ai oublié ma clef de passage. Cher, ouvriez-vous une salle pour moi pour satisfaire?”

“Quelle salle?”

Von Leinsdorf pretended to look at the ticket attached to the suit. “Quatre cents dix-sept.”

“Oui, oui,” she said wearily.

She led him around the corridor to the room and knocked twice.

“House keeping,” she said.

When there was no answer, she opened the door with her pass key. Von Leinsdorf slipped her an American five-dollar bill. She pocketed it and turned away, sensing that perhaps this was something she didn’t wish to know any more about.

“Merci beaucoup, chéri.”

He entered, then closed and silently locked the door behind him. He hung the suit on a hook, closed the blinds, and turned on a lamp. He laid Pearson’s two suitcases on the bed, opened and quickly searched through them, taking out the man’s kit bag. He opened the man’s attaché and sca

Walking into the bathroom, he removed his shirt and jacket and studied himself in the mirror. He eased off the false mustache, washed the gray from his hair, the makeup from his face, and used Pearson’s razor and soap to give himself a close shave. He pulled a black eye patch from his pocket, covered his left eye with it, then turned to the uniform he’d just stolen from the basement.

“Pearson, old boy, dreadfully sorry, I had one foot out the door and our G2 rings me with the catastrophe du jour,” said Von Leinsdorf.

“Isn’t that always the way?” said Pearson, rising from the table to shake the major’s hand.

Callow, late twenties, weak and sweaty grip. Perfect.

“They’ve not done you any favors with this table. We call this sector Outer Siberia.”

“Really?” Pearson looked around as if he expected to be seized and carted away.

“Don’t be afraid to buy yourself a better table. Nothing like the same service here since the gendarmes dragged Albert the maître d’ off for crimes imagined. For all their bloody whining, you’d think they preferred feeding the Nazis. Maybe they tipped better. First time in Paris?”

“As a matter of fact it is, sir.”

“Not what it was, of course, nor what it will be.” Von Leinsdorf snapped his fingers, summoning a waiter. “Best let me order, old thing, or you’ll end up with stewed boot on your plate. Garçon, bring us a decent claret, not that swill you decant at the bar, one of those ’38 Lafittes you walled up in the basement before the Huns marched in. This is Lieutenant Pearson, just across the pond. Treat him exceptionally well, he’s an important man, you’ll be seeing a lot of him. We’ll both have the tournedos, medium well. Salade vert apres, c’est ca?”