Paris in Disguise (Alex Kovacs thriller series Book 5) by Richard Wake

Author:Richard Wake [Wake, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Manor and State, LLC
Published: 2019-10-27T04:00:00+00:00

26

Wandering around after the meeting, window-shopping in a neighborhood where they still kept up the practice of decorating the shop windows, a neighborhood where the “English Spoken Here” signs aimed at the tourists had been replaced by “Hier Wird Deutsch Gesprochen” signs. You know, for the new tourists.

It really did just start as window-shopping. It didn’t morph into tradecraft until my second sighting of the man in the black homburg who had been following me for at least two blocks, stopping at a safe 200-foot distance both times I stopped.

My first thought was for Rene. I suddenly jettisoned my contempt for him — as well as my anger at myself for allowing him to get to me — and the result was genuine concern. Because it wasn’t likely that the homburg had just randomly picked me up on the street. He must have followed me from Rue Pergolese and taken advantage of my overall sense of relaxation. The truth was, I didn’t perform any kind of evasive action in my walk from the house to the meeting. I just walked out to Avenue Foch and took a straight shot. My stomach full, my feet well-shod, I just pranced up the avenue like any other rich asshole. In one sense, that might have been a good thing — because I was, after all, playing the part of just another rich asshole, and any sign that I was being evasive might have been seen as suspicious by the Gestapo. In fact, it definitely would have been seen as suspicious. So, full marks to me for the impressive, rich asshole impersonation, however unintentional it was.

But that left Rene. The fact that the homburg was following me and not arresting Rene meant that he was probably safe. It wasn’t as if they were so well-staffed that they could afford to put a multi-person surveillance team on me. I mean, who the hell was I? No one, as far as the Germans were concerned. Just some wealthy dilettante who was in town to sponge off auntie. I had done nothing suspicious, taken no action that would have given the Gestapo the slightest concern. But I could see them having a single man tail me, just for laughs. So if that was the case, Rene was almost surely okay.

In one sense, I still had a decision to make. I likely could lose the homburg in a heartbeat if I wanted to. The Metro stop up by the Arc de Triomphe was only two blocks ahead. It would be child’s play to ditch him in there. Of course, ditching him while making it look like I wasn’t ditching him would be harder, and if I was going to play it that way, that was the clear imperative. If he lost me in a crowd somewhere in a station where four different Metro lines converged, well, the homburg could go back to 84 Avenue Foch and shrug a what-can-you-do shrug. But if he managed to stick with me

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