“My company makes automobiles, the finest automobiles, the gold standard.”
Schiller paused before Paul’s office door, emblazoned with the logo for Aubrey Automobiles, a golden “Au” on a black shield. “The chemical symbol for gold. A clever motto.”
“It’s more than a motto.” Paul headed to the stairs. “It’s how we conduct business at every level. If I can’t make cars here, I’ll go to the States and make them there, help my father expand.”
Schiller bowed his blond head. “Very well, Mr. Aubrey. I’ll help you find a buyer. But if you change your mind, please let me know.” He handed Paul a business card with his office address at the Hôtel Majestic.
The German army had planned the occupation with precise detail, down to business cards for the hotels they’d requisition.
Paul tucked the card into the breast pocket of his suit jacket, led Schiller down to the main entrance, and saw him off.
Back inside, workers prepared the machinery to start the day’s work.
Jacques Moreau leaned against the wall at the foot of the stairs. The general foreman was no taller than Paul’s five feet ten but was twice as wide, with muscles earned by a lifetime of manual labor, a potbelly gained by sixty-odd years of French cooking, and oil-black eyes that registered only three emotions—indifference, disdain, and rage.
None was pleasant.
“Bonjour, Moreau.” Paul eased past him and climbed the stairs.
“You are selling to the boche.” Moreau’s footsteps clumped behind him.
Paul’s jaw clenched. None of Moreau’s business. But in the past six years, Paul had learned Moreau knew everyone’s business. One of the traits that made him an excellent foreman—and one of the reasons Paul had never fired him.
“I’ll try to find a French buyer rather than a German,” Paul said. “I do hate to put the workers in this bind.”
Moreau let out a scoffing grunt.
“Pardon?” Paul faced him.
The foreman shook his swarthy, jowly head. “You bourgeoisie never understand. American, French, German—it matters not. You all treat labor like vermin.”
Paul let his gaze burn into the older man’s dark pits of eyes, then he marched upstairs. Same communist rhetoric, over and over. Aubrey Autos offered some of the best wages and conditions in France, and Paul listened to labor’s concerns. Yet they were never satisfied.
Three years earlier, strikes and riots had swept France, and Moreau and his followers had occupied Paul’s factory. To protect himself and his family, Paul had ended up carrying a pistol.
He opened the office door.
“Bonjour, Monsieur Aubrey.” His secretary stood and smiled. “You have a visitor.”
“Merci, Mademoiselle Thibodeaux.” Paul entered his office.
Col. Jim Duffy sat in front of Paul’s desk, and he rose. “Good morning, Paul.”
“Good morning, Duff.” Paul shook the American military attaché’s hand. “I heard you were still in town.”
“Yes. Roscoe Hillenkoetter, Robert Murphy, and I stayed behind with Ambassador Bullitt.”
“Admirable,” Paul said. Bill Bullitt had declared no American ambassador to France had ever left his post due to war. When the French government fled, Bullitt had become Paris’s unofficial mayor and had helped negotiate the city’s surrender.
Paul motioned for Duff to take his seat.
Duff rested his olive drab cap in his lap. More gray laced his dark hair since Paul had last seen him at an embassy party. “I was sorry to hear about Simone. Such a horrendous loss.”
Halfway to his seat, and Paul had to grip the desk for balance.
Only one vision remained—Simone at the American Hospital in Paris, her beautiful legs encased in plaster, broken in a crash that should have caused nothing but bruises. She’d been having headaches, she admitted. Loss of balance. Pain in her limbs. She’d pooh-poohed the symptoms.
The doctors found tumors in her brain, her bones, everywhere. She’d wasted away in a matter of days, begging Paul to take little Josie to the States before the Nazis arrived.
How could he have abandoned his wife to die alone?
Paul sucked in a breath through his nostrils, nodded his thanks to Duff, and lowered himself into his leather chair. “Is this a social call or . . . ?”
“Business.” Duff crossed his ankle over his knee. “I’ll get to the point. We want you to stay in France and run this factory.”
“Can’t do that.” Paul sipped lukewarm coffee. “The Germans won’t let me build cars. I’d have to convert. But I can’t build military equipment.”
“Of course not. Forbidden under our Neutrality Acts. So convert to something else.”
Paul leaned his forearms on the desk, straining the black armband ringing his biceps, and he gazed at his clenched hands. “My wife . . . died. A week ago today. I want to go home. Take my little girl and go home.”
“I understand.” Duff’s voice softened. “But you could do your nation a great service by staying.”
“How?” Paul sat back again and fixed a hard gaze on his friend. “By making—I don’t even know what I could make.”
“Trucks, vans, something of civilian use to the Germans. Something to keep you in contact with Colonel Schiller.”
“You’ve met him.”
His light eyes took on a mischievous look. “Went to Harvard a few years before you. A friendly sort. Talkative. Could be useful.”
“Are you asking me to—”
“Listen attentively. Send me reports on things I might find interesting.”
Paul gripped the armrests. “There’s a name for that, Duff—espionage.”
Duff’s narrow face scrunched up. “You wouldn’t seek information, only pass along what was freely given. And you’re acquainted with men in companies like Renault, Citroën, others that’ll produce military equipment. Schiller’s job is to coordinate industry.”
Paul’s breath stilled. Conversions to new products, production figures, orders—he might indeed hear information that would be useful to Germany’s enemies.
He rubbed his temple. “We’re neutral. No one at home wants to get involved in this war.”
“You haven’t been home for a while. Opinions are shifting. With each new conquest, Hitler pushes the US closer to the Allied camp. It’s only a matter of time.”
A long breath rushed out, and Paul tapped his fingers on the armrests. Home. The only place he wanted to be now.
“We need to know what the Nazis are capable of,” Duff said. “Every bit of information helps. You’d perform a great service to your country.”
The photograph on his desk drew him—Simone holding Josie at Christmas. Although his wife’s image was frozen, challenge shone in her dark eyes. Simone, the woman who’d chopped off her hair and dressed as a man so she could race cars. Simone would take the risk.
Or would she? Simone had given up racing when Josie came along.
“Josie,” he murmured. “She’s only three years old. If anything were to happen to me . . .”
Duff sighed deeply. “She’s an American citizen. We’d take care of her, get her home to your family in the States.”