Free Citadel by Stephen Hunter Page B

where Macht had set up his headquarters
and threatening in a loud voice to send them
all to Russia if they didn’t produce the enemy agent
quickly. Thus the Abwehr men took to calling him
the Black Pigeon behind his back, for the name
took into account his pigeonlike strut, breast
puffed, dignity formidable, self-importance manifest,
while accomplishing nothing tangible whatsoever
except to leave small piles of shit wherever
he went.
    His SS staff got with the drill, as they were, fanatics
or not, at least security professionals, and it
seemed that even after a bit they were calling him
the Black Pigeon as well. But on the whole, they,
the Abwehr fellows, and the 11th Battalion feldpolizei people meshed well and produced such results
as could be produced. The possibles they
netted were not so spectacular as a regal movie
star, but the theory behind each apprehension was
sound. There were a number of handsome men,
some gangsters, some actors, one poet, and a homosexual
hairdresser. Macht and Abel raised their
eyebrows at the homosexual hairdresser, for it occurred
to them that the officer who had whistled
him down had perhaps revealed more about himself
than he meant to.
    Eventually the first shift went off and the second
came on. These actually were the sharper fellows,
as Macht assumed that the British agent would be more likely to conduct his business during
the evening, whatever that business might be.
And indeed the results were, if not better, more responsible.
In fact one man brought in revealed
himself to be not who he claimed he was, and that
he was a wanted jewel thief who still plied his
trade, Occupation or no. It took a shrewd eye to
detect the vitality and fearlessness this fellow wore
behind shoddy clothes and darkened teeth and an
old man’s hobble, but the SS man who made the
catch turned out to be highly regarded in his own
unit. Macht made a note to get him close to any
potential arrest situations, as he wanted his best
people near the action. He also threatened to turn
the jewel thief over to the French police but instead
recruited him as an informant for future use. He
was not one for wasting much.
    Another arrestee was clearly a Jew, even if his
papers said otherwise, even if he had no possible
connection to British Intelligence. Macht examined
the papers carefully, showed them to a bunco
expert on the team, and confirmed that they were
fraudulent. He took the fellow aside and said,
“Look, friend, if I were you I’d get myself and my
family out of Paris as quickly as possible. If I can
see through your charade in five seconds, sooner
or later the SS will too, and it’s off to the East for
all of you. These bastards have the upper hand for
now, so my best advice to you is, no matter what it
costs, get the hell out of Paris. Get out of France.
No matter what you think, you cannot wait them
out, because the one thing they absolutely will do before they’re either chased out of town or put
against a wall and shot is get all the Jews. That’s
what they live for. That’s what they’ll die for, if it
comes to that. Consider this fair warning and
probably the only one you’ll get.”
    Maybe the man would believe him, maybe not.
There was nothing he could do about it. He got
back to the telephone, as, along with his other detectives,
he spent most of the time monitoring his
various snitches, informants, sympathizers, and
sycophants, of course turning up nothing. If the
agent was on the Left Bank, he hadn’t moved an
inch.
    And he hadn’t. Basil sat on the park bench the entire
day, obliquely watching the German across the
street. He got so he knew the man well: his gait
(bad left hip, Great War wound?); his policeman’s
patience at standing in one place for an hour, then
moving two meters and standing in that place for
an hour; his stubbornness at never, ever abandoning
his post, except once, at three p.m., for a brief
trip to the pissoir, during which he kept