Read Chapter 17: The Informer's Game

The navigator’s name was Étienne, and he smelled of damp stone and cheap wine. He met Lucien at the mouth of a sewer tunnel beneath the Pont de Sully, a stubby lantern in one hand and a length of knotted rope coiled over his shoulder like a hangman’s noose.

“Marcel says you want under the Rue de Varenne,” Étienne said, not bothering with pleasantries. “That’s German territory. Deep cellars, reinforced. The old ones go back to the Revolution—wine caves, escape routes, that sort of thing. But the Boche have sealed most of the good entrances.”

Lucien adjusted the collar of the dead printer’s coat. The name on his forged papers now read *Philippe Roussel*, a man who had died of typhoid three weeks ago and whose papers had passed through four pairs of hands before reaching Lucien’s. “I don’t need a good entrance. I need a discreet one.”

Étienne spat into the flowing water beside them. “Discreet costs double.”

“Marcel said you were reasonable.”

“Marcel said a lot of things. Then he started talking to informers, and now he’s got a German bullet in his shoulder.” Étienne’s eyes flicked up and down the quay. “You’re not as dead as they say you are, either.”

Lucien kept his expression flat. “I don’t know what you heard.”

“I heard Lucien Marchand went for a swim in the Seine and didn’t come up. The body they fished out near the Île Saint-Louis was the right size, the right coat. But it had too many fingers on its left hand, and Marchand had a missing one from a carving accident.” Étienne smiled, showing a gap where a tooth should have been. “The Gestapo don’t check fingers. I do.”

“Then you know I’m not in the mood for games,” Lucien said quietly.

“No games. I work for whoever pays. Tonight, that’s you.” Étienne stepped closer, lowering his voice. “But there’s something you should know before I take you anywhere. There’s an informer—a little rat named Fargeau—who’s been selling your secrets to anyone with a Reichsmark. He was at the catacombs two nights ago. He saw the woman, the one with the blond hair.”

Sabine. Lucien’s jaw tightened.

“Where is he?”

“That’s the thing.” Étienne scratched his stubbled chin. “He wants to meet you. Says he knows exactly where the gold is—the real location, not the decoys you’ve been chasing. But he wants asylum in exchange. Passport, papers, safe passage to Lisbon.”

“He’s Gestapo bait.”

“He’s a coward. That’s different.” Étienne shrugged. “Cowards lie when they’re scared. But Fargeau’s not scared. He’s desperate. His wife got picked up by the Milice last week, and the Germans won’t even tell him which camp she’s in. He figures you can get her out, like you used to get people out before the occupation got ugly.”

Lucien considered the angles. Informers were unreliable currency, but they were currency nonetheless. Fargeau might know something. He might also be walking him into a trap that Sabine had laid, or Brandt, or both.

“Where does he want to meet?”

“The Brasserie Zimmermann, near the Châtelet. Tonight, at midnight. He said to look for the man with the shaking hands.”

Lucien pulled a bundle of francs from his pocket and pressed it into Étienne’s palm. “Take me to the Rue de Varenne first. I want to see the general’s house with my own eyes.”

Étienne weighed the money, pocketed it. “Follow me, Monsieur Roussel.”

---

The tunnel beneath the Rue de Varenne was colder than the rest, the air thick with the residue of coal dust and something older, like old bones. Étienne moved with practiced silence, his lantern hooded to a sliver of light. They passed under a grate where Lucien could hear the distant rumble of a truck engine, then a second grate where a single German voice barked commands.

“That’s the back courtyard of Number Seven,” Étienne whispered. “General Kohl moved the rest of his staff into the annex last week. He’s got the main house to himself, plus a rotating guard of six men.”

“And the statue?”

Étienne grunted. “You mean the big horse? Yeah, it’s still in the ground-floor salon. I’ve seen it through the windows—they’ve got it wrapped in canvas, like they’re embarrassed of it. But there’s a crate beside it, the size of a small car. Whatever’s going to Berlin is going in that thing.”

Lucien pressed his eye to the grate. Through a gap in the heavy curtains, he could see a sliver of lamplight and the silhouette of a man pacing. Kohl, most likely. The general had arrived in Paris with a reputation as a collector, an art lover who acquired pieces for the Reich’s museums. But Colette’s ledger had suggested a different kind of collection.

“Can you get me into the basement?”

“Alone? No. But with another man—someone who knows the house’s old service passages—maybe.” Étienne’s voice dropped. “There’s a woman who used to work for the family that owned the house before the occupation. She knows every servant’s door, every coal chute. She’s been hiding since the Milice started sweeping the quarter, but she owes me a favor.”

“Get her.”

“She’ll cost you another.”

Lucien nodded. “It’s done.”

---

The Brasserie Zimmermann was filled with cigar smoke and German officers in rumpled uniforms, the kind who came to drink away the fear of a city that hated them. Lucien took a table in the back corner, his dead man’s coat buttoned to the throat, a glass of watery beer untouched in front of him.

At ten past midnight, a small man slid into the chair opposite him. Fargeau’s hands shook exactly as described, rattling the spoon left on the table. He had the look of a man who hadn’t slept in days—yellowed eyes, a twitching jaw, sweat beading at his temples despite the cold.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” Fargeau whispered.

“And you’re supposed to be useful.” Lucien leaned forward. “You said you knew where the gold is.”

Fargeau’s eyes darted toward the bar. “Not here. The walls have ears that are paid for by both sides. I’ll tell you everything, but you have to promise—my wife. You get her out, and I’ll give you the exact coordinates. The real ones.”

“I can’t move her tonight.”

“You don’t have to move her tonight. Just tell me you’ll try.” Fargeau’s voice cracked. “She’s got a weak heart. They’ll throw her in a camp and she’ll be dead within the month.”

Lucien studied the man. There was genuine fear there, genuine desperation. But desperation made people reckless, and reckless people made mistakes.

Across the room, the door opened and a man in a Gestapo coat entered. Lucien tensed, but the officer merely nodded at the bartender and took a seat at the counter. Routine.

“Alright,” Lucien said. “I’ll do what I can. But you talk first. Where’s the gold?”

Fargeau opened his mouth.

The sound was a crack, sharp as a frozen branch snapping. Fargeau’s chest bloomed red. He stared down at the wound with surprise, then his eyes rolled back and he slid from the chair, hitting the floor with a wet thud.

The brasserie erupted. German officers shouted, chairs scraped, someone screamed. Lucien was already moving, heading for the back door, adrenaline burning through his veins.

Behind him, a woman’s voice cut through the chaos, clear and precise: “Stop that man. He’s the one.”

*Sabine.*

Lucien didn’t look back. He hit the door at a sprint, bursting into an alley that reeked of rotting garbage and urine. Two gunshots snapped past his head, chipping plaster off the wall beside him. He dove behind a stack of crates, breathing hard.

Sabine knew. She knew he was alive, and she knew he was meeting Fargeau. The question was how.

Unless she hadn’t been aiming for him at all—unless Fargeau had been the target all along, and the informer had led him into a trap he hadn’t known existed.

Fargeau was dead. Whatever he knew was gone. And Sabine had just confirmed that Lucien Marchand was still breathing.