Read Chapter 16: The Double Game

The rifle shot still echoed in Lefebvre’s ears as he dragged Rochefort behind the overturned reading table. Glass crunched under his boots. The lamp on the wall had been shattered, leaving them in a pool of darkness broken only by the grey light of the Paris afternoon through shattered windows.

Rochefort’s hand pressed against his shoulder where the bullet had torn through. Blood seeped between his fingers, black against the white of his dress uniform. His face was pale, but his eyes were sharp, watching the window with the gaze of a man who had been shot before.

“He’ll circle,” Rochefort said through clenched teeth. “Second floor, across the courtyard. He’ll come down the service stairs.”

“You seem to know his habits.” Lefebvre’s own wound burned beneath his coat—the gash from the docks, still not fully healed—but he kept his voice level.

“I know the man Henry sends when he wants silence.” Rochefort laughed, a dry, painful sound. “Lieutenant Barras. Fine shot. No imagination. He’ll expect me to stay here and bleed.”

Lefebvre glanced at the rear door of the reading room. It led to a narrow corridor, then a set of back stairs used by the club’s servants. He had counted them on his way in, a habit from his days in the intelligence section.

“You’re going to trust me?” Rochefort asked, reading his mind.

“I’m going to use you.”

Rochefort’s mouth curled into something between a smile and a grimace. “That’s the spirit, Lefebvre. Help me up.”

They moved through the corridor at a crouch. Lefebvre kept one hand on Rochefort’s belt, guiding him, the other holding his revolver low. The service stairs were narrow, wooden, and smelled of coal dust and old wine. They descended one flight, then another, until they reached the cellar where the club kept its reserve stock.

Lefebvre kicked open a coal chute and shoved Rochefort through it first. The man grunted but did not complain. They emerged into a narrow alley behind the club, slick with rain, empty save for a stray cat that fled at their approach.

Rochefort leaned against the brick wall, breathing hard. “You’ll need to get me to a doctor. Not the military one. The army’s surgeons are loyal to Henry.”

“You know a civilian doctor?”

“Rue de Sévigné. Number twenty-four. Dr. Barnier. He’s discreet, and he owes me a debt.” Rochefort’s eyes glittered in the dim light. “But you’ll want something from me first, won’t you? That’s how this works.”

Lefebvre stared at him. The man was wounded, bleeding, hunted by his own faction—or at least the faction he claimed to belong to. But Lefebvre had learned not to trust appearances. Rochefort had outmaneuvered him at every turn, used him, robbed him, humiliated him.

And yet here they were.

“You said your superiors wanted to herd me, not kill me,” Lefebvre said. “Now a sniper just tried to put a bullet in your skull. That suggests your superiors have lost patience, or you’ve lost your usefulness.”

Rochefort’s laugh was soft, almost admiring. “You’re quick. I’ll give you that.” He winced, pressing harder on his shoulder. “What I told you was true, but not the whole truth. The faction I serve—the one above Henry—doesn’t want you dead. Yet. But they don’t want you running around the city with a crusade, either. They wanted you pushed, tested, driven to see what you’d do.”

“You did a fine job of that.”

“I did. And you surprised me. Most men would have broken by now. You sold your house. You came back with nothing. And still you’re here.” Rochefort studied him with something that might have been respect. “So I’ll make you another offer. A better one.”

Lefebvre said nothing.

“Come work for us,” Rochefort said. “Not for me—I’m a tool, like you’d be. For the man above Henry. He has plans for the army, for the Republic. Plans that require men who can think, not just obey.”

“And what do those plans involve?” Lefebvre’s voice was flat.

“Cleaning house. The current leadership—Henry, the others—they’re crude. They forged one document to destroy a Jew because they thought it would save them. My employer wants something bigger. He wants to reshape the army’s intelligence service entirely. And he needs officers who can do more than file reports and shadow drunkards on docks.”

The rain fell harder. Lefebvre could feel the cold seeping through his coat, his wound throbbing. He thought of Picquart, exiled to the desert. Of the archivist Valois, fled to Marseille, hunted. Of the inspector Rousseau, dead on the docks because he had helped a stranger.

And he thought of what Rochefort had said in the reading room, before the shot: *Several other innocent officers.*

“You mentioned a frame,” Lefebvre said carefully. “Not just Picquart.”

Rochefort’s eyes narrowed, then widened with recognition. “You were listening before the window shattered. Good.” He shifted his weight, pain flickering across his face. “Picquart was the start. The army needed a scapegoat for the Dreyfus affair—someone to blame for the leak who wasn’t already convicted. But Henry’s crew got greedy. They’ve started manufacturing evidence against other officers who ask too many questions. Three names, as far as I know. Colonel Maréchal in logistics. Major Dessaint in the mapping division. And a young captain in the archives named d’Anglars.”

Lefebvre’s blood went cold. D’Anglars. He knew the name—a quiet, meticulous officer with a wife and two children, who had once shared a desk with him during a joint exercise. A man who would never have dreamed of treason.

“Why?” Lefebvre asked.

“Because they’re in the way. Maréchal controls the transport ledgers. Dessaint has access to the fortification blueprints. And d’Anglars—well, d’Anglars keeps the archives, and the archives hold the paperwork for everything. Henry can’t have men in those positions who might notice irregularities.”

“So he frames them. Removes them. Replaces them with his own.”

“Now you understand.” Rochefort’s voice had grown weaker. “My employer wants to stop Henry before he destroys the entire army. But he needs evidence. Real evidence. Not the manufactured kind.”

Lefebvre looked at the wounded man, at the rain in the alley, at the narrow slice of sky above them. He had no money, no papers, no locket, no proof. He had only his name and his will.

And an idea.

“I can’t trust you,” Lefebvre said.

Rochefort smiled weakly. “Of course not. Trust is a luxury for men with leverage.”

“But I can use you.” Lefebvre stepped closer. “You say your employer wants men who can think. Then give me a reason to believe you. Help me get to d’Anglars before Henry does. Get me inside the ministry. Let me see what he’s working on.”

Rochefort’s expression shifted—surprise, then calculation. “You want to play a double game. Pretend to accept my offer. Infiltrate.”

“I want to survive,” Lefebvre said. “And I want to see the truth. Whether that makes me your ally or your enemy depends entirely on what I find.”

Rochefort studied him for a long moment. Rain dripped from his hair into his eyes. Then he laughed, a genuine, ragged laugh.

“You’re either the fiercest man I’ve met or the most foolish,” he said. “Perhaps both. Very well, Lefebvre. I’ll take you to d’Anglars. But I’ll be watching you.”

“You do that,” Lefebvre said. “In the meantime, let’s get you to your doctor before you bleed out and leave me without an introduction.”

Rochefort nodded, and they began to move down the alley—a strange pair, the wounded hunter and the man he had tried to destroy, walking together toward an unknown door.

But Lefebvre’s mind was already spinning forward. D’Anglars. The archives. If the ministry was manufacturing evidence against innocent officers, there had to be records—payments, orders, correspondences. Somewhere in that building, the truth was written down.

He just needed to find it before Henry found him.