Page 3 of Skotos
Thomas
Most days began with quiet and coffee. Occasionally, we’d find a coded message buried in a loaf of bread or under a wine bottle label. But some days—like today—meant slipping through a side door of an abandoned church in Belleville to meet a man who used to run guns under the noses of Nazis and now spent his twilight years delivering information on the ones who got away.
One might have thought there was no need for clandestine work in Paris four years after the end of the war, but the presence of former Nazis and growing threat of Stalin’s communism had European nations buzzing with activity.
The church where our meet was to take place was a cavern of forgotten things. Dust hung in webs like old lace as shafts of light pierced through broken panes of stained glass. The air smelled of wax that hadn’t been lit in years and the faint trace of mildew clinging to the baseboards. The cracked floor tilesgroaned beneath our feet, echoing amid the empty pews, as a hollow silence echoed throughout the nave—causing us to whisper without thinking.
Our contact went by Étienne, though we doubted that was his real name. We’d known him for years—or at least, we knew the version of him he let us see. He was tall and wiry, a bit like a cartoon stork with human features. His bent nose was equally wiry, if such things could be said of nostrils. The man’s leathery skin was lined by age and war, and he bore knobby knuckles that looked as if they’d been carved from driftwood . . . then dragged behind a car . . . then beaten with the butt of a rifle. All of which was frighteningly possible.
But it was his hat that made Will smile every time we met: a shapeless old fedora with a pigeon feather tucked into the brim, always slightly askew, like he’d snatched it off a café table in a hurry and never adjusted it into position. He wore it rain or shine, like a knight donned a helmet, and fiddled with the brim when he was nervous.
And he was always nervous.
Étienne greeted us with a curt nod, never wasting words. On cue, he fiddled with the brim of his askew hat, murmuring pleasantries about a friend’s wedding while Will paced behind me, pretending to examine faded saints imprisoned in glass.
Memories stirred, and for a moment, I wasn’t in the church at all.
The years peeled away like smoke in sunlight, and suddenly I was back on our first mission. The air had been thicker—warmer and somehow louder. I remembered running through the alleys near Rue des Rosiers, my coat heavy with a pistol and ration stub, my heart pounding too fast. The city had a different sound in those days—gunfire was far off, like thunder rolling over distant hills, but closer still were whispers in dark corners and piano chords drifting from shuttered windows.
I saw a girl’s silhouette lit by candlelight, hunched over a typewriter, pressing each key like a prayer. Then a—
“Thomas,” Will said, nudging me.
I blinked and sat straighter. Étienne was staring, half grinning.
“The man in Lyon—he went by Jacques Delon,” Étienne said under his breath. “He changed his name to Martel and owns a butcher shop now, but it’s a front. He gets deliveries late. No meat. No ice. Just crates.”
Will shot me a glance but said nothing.
I knew that look.
He was cataloging details—crates, deliveries, times.
“The one in Marseille?” I asked.
Étienne shrugged, his fingers brushing the feather in his hat. “Name’s softer. Giraud. He is a real estate agent or something similar. I am never quite sure oncethey begin selling things. There is no record of the man before ’46. He could be legitimate, but my gut says he is hiding something.”
I leaned in. “What makes you so sure?”
He offered a grin that didn’t touch his eyes. “Men who lie about war either brag too much or say too little. This one? He says nothing at all.”
Will grunted quietly behind me. “Remind me never to play cards with you, Étienne.”
“You already owe me cigarettes from the last time,” Étienne said, tapping the side of his nose. “Still waiting.”
“Keep waiting,” I muttered.
“Always do,” he said, rising slowly with the creak of old bones and fading guilt. Then he was gone, his hat bobbing like a sentinel through the shafts of colored light.
We didn’t ask how Étienne gained his information. He never offered, and we didn’t push. That was how information worked in this life: handed out in fragments.
By midday, Will and I were huddled in a cluttered flat in Montparnasse, poring over files, half of them coded in a mix of German and French—and riddled with paranoia. Yellowed maps pinned to the walls curled at the edges, and an oscillating fantickedin the corner like a tired metronome. Will cross-referenced a list from Washington against the names Étienne had provided. I sorted more maps. Our jobwasn’t glamor—it was grunt work. But it was clean, and we rarely worried about dodging bullets.
“Found one,” Will said, tapping the page. “Confirmed Gestapo but went dark in ’45. Resurfaced in Lyon last week. Looks like the Jaques guy . . . or Martel . . . whatever he’s calling himself now.”
“What did he do during the war?” I asked.
Will scanned papers a moment before speaking again. “Says here he was a senior collaborator with the Gestapo in Lyon, serving as an informant and local enforcer during the height of the occupation. While technically not German, he was feared as ‘The Knife of Croix-Rousse’ for his personal role in extracting confessions and leading raids against French resistance cells. Multiple OSS records connect him with known atrocities.”
