The Freedom Line by Peter Eisner

Author:Peter Eisner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

The Life of a Traitor

Paris, France. December 1943.

The Nazis had rounded up dozens of members of the Comet Line in Brussels and Paris, but now they had new intelligence indicating that Jean-François had restored operations and was increasing the number of airmen being moved to southern France. They turned to their most successful infiltrator, Jean Masson, the Belgian traitor who had been lying low since the arrest of Monsieur de Jongh and friends in June, and he prepared to dust off his identity as a resistance operative and hit the streets of Paris once more.

Looking out on Paris from the balcony of his apartment near Montmartre, Jean Masson could enjoy some level of satisfaction. His loyalty to the Third Reich and his success in penetrating escape organizations like Comet had won him a certain cachet. His hours were his own, so he could wake up at leisure and look with pride at his two little boys, whose names were a clear mark of his self-regard and his idolatry of the Führer. The children were two-year-old Jacques Junior and ten-month-old Adolph.

Masson was an ardent Nazi, and his love for the Führer was now reaping dividends. He enjoyed a high lifestyle and had as much money as he needed. By all accounts he doted on his children and their mother, his mistress, Marie-Thérèse Laurent. Marie-Thérèse’s husband was off in Africa and not likely to come back soon—if ever—as long as the Nazis controlled France.

Masson lived in the ninth arrondissement at 29, rue de Douai. He kept two apartments there: one for his family and the other for his Gestapo cronies and their operations.

If a delivery of escapees was scheduled, Masson sometimes conducted business right at the apartment. The pilots were delivered by one of his accomplices, often Colette—Marie-Antoinette Orsini was her real name—with whom he sometimes traveled up to the Franco-Belgian border. If Marie-Thérèse suspected a liaison with Colette, what of it? Did Masson owe allegiance to any one woman? His only allegiance was to the Führer.

Airmen described arriving in Paris relaxed and confident, certain they were about to be sent back to England. Several of them recalled the shifty smile of the rather diminutive man whose name they often did not quite remember, Jean or perhaps Jacques. He was not a memorable character. Promptly, Masson escorted them to the adjoining apartment, where Captain Schnurr and his assistant Lieutenant Brandstetter were waiting. Sometimes the Gestapo officers held them there and administered an initial beating. The concierge of the building heard the screams. Once, she said, she heard someone shout out: “Don’t shoot them in the head because they don’t talk after that. Shoot elsewhere.” The neighbors might or might not have heard that, but they certainly knew what was going on. They also were powerless. Even moving from the building could cause suspicion. But Masson and his friends didn’t always conduct business there. Occasionally the Gestapo men called for a car and transferred the airmen directly to headquarters.

If the morning was free, Masson could walk the mile or so to Gestapo headquarters by foot.

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