Page 3 of Skotos (Of Shadows & Secrets #6)

Thomas

M ost days began with quiet and coffee. Occasionally, we’d find a coded message buried in a loaf of bread or under a wine bottle label.

But some days—like today—meant slipping through a side door of an abandoned church in Belleville to meet a man who used to run guns under the noses of Nazis and now spent his twilight years delivering information on the ones who got away.

One might have thought there was no need for clandestine work in Paris four years after the end of the war, but the presence of former Nazis and growing threat of Stalin’s communism had European nations buzzing with activity.

The church where our meet was to take place was a cavern of forgotten things.

Dust hung in webs like old lace as shafts of light pierced through broken panes of stained glass.

The air smelled of wax that hadn’t been lit in years and the faint trace of mildew clinging to the baseboards.

The cracked floor tiles groaned beneath our feet, echoing amid the empty pews, as a hollow silence echoed throughout the nave—causing us to whisper without thinking.

Our contact went by étienne, though we doubted that was his real name.

We’d known him for years—or at least, we knew the version of him he let us see.

He was tall and wiry, a bit like a cartoon stork with human features.

His bent nose was equally wiry, if such things could be said of nostrils.

The man’s leathery skin was lined by age and war, and he bore knobby knuckles that looked as if they’d been carved from driftwood .

. . then dragged behind a car . . . then beaten with the butt of a rifle.

All of which was frighteningly possible.

But it was his hat that made Will smile every time we met: a shapeless old fedora with a pigeon feather tucked into the brim, always slightly askew, like he’d snatched it off a café table in a hurry and never adjusted it into position.

He wore it rain or shine, like a knight donned a helmet, and fiddled with the brim when he was nervous.

And he was always nervous.

étienne greeted us with a curt nod, never wasting words. On cue, he fiddled with the brim of his askew hat, murmuring pleasantries about a friend’s wedding while Will paced behind me, pretending to examine faded saints imprisoned in glass.

Memories stirred, and for a moment, I wasn’t in the church at all .

The years peeled away like smoke in sunlight, and suddenly I was back on our first mission.

The air had been thicker—warmer and somehow louder.

I remembered running through the alleys near Rue des Rosiers, my coat heavy with a pistol and ration stub, my heart pounding too fast. The city had a different sound in those days—gunfire was far off, like thunder rolling over distant hills, but closer still were whispers in dark corners and piano chords drifting from shuttered windows.

I saw a girl’s silhouette lit by candlelight, hunched over a typewriter, pressing each key like a prayer. Then a—

“Thomas,” Will said, nudging me.

I blinked and sat straighter. étienne was staring, half grinning.

“The man in Lyon—he went by Jacques Delon,” étienne said under his breath. “He changed his name to Martel and owns a butcher shop now, but it’s a front. He gets deliveries late. No meat. No ice. Just crates.”

Will shot me a glance but said nothing.

I knew that look.

He was cataloging details—crates, deliveries, times.

“The one in Marseille?” I asked.

étienne shrugged, his fingers brushing the feather in his hat. “Name’s softer. Giraud. He is a real estate agent or something similar. I am never quite sure once they begin selling things. There is no record of the man before ’46. He could be legitimate, but my gut says he is hiding something.”

I leaned in. “What makes you so sure?”

He offered a grin that didn’t touch his eyes. “Men who lie about war either brag too much or say too little. This one? He says nothing at all.”

Will grunted quietly behind me. “Remind me never to play cards with you, étienne.”

“You already owe me cigarettes from the last time,” étienne said, tapping the side of his nose. “Still waiting.”

“Keep waiting,” I muttered.

“Always do,” he said, rising slowly with the creak of old bones and fading guilt. Then he was gone, his hat bobbing like a sentinel through the shafts of colored light.

We didn’t ask how étienne gained his information. He never offered, and we didn’t push. That was how information worked in this life: handed out in fragments.

By midday, Will and I were huddled in a cluttered flat in Montparnasse, poring over files, half of them coded in a mix of German and French—and riddled with paranoia.

Yellowed maps pinned to the walls curled at the edges, and an oscillating fan ticked in the corner like a tired metronome.

Will cross-referenced a list from Washington against the names étienne had provided.

I sorted more maps. Our job wasn’t glamor—it was grunt work.

But it was clean, and we rarely worried about dodging bullets.

“Found one,” Will said, tapping the page. “Confirmed Gestapo but went dark in ’45. Resurfaced in Lyon last week. Looks like the Jaques guy . . . or Martel . . . whatever he’s calling himself now.”

“What did he do during the war?” I asked.

Will scanned papers a moment before speaking again.

“Says here he was a senior collaborator with the Gestapo in Lyon, serving as an informant and local enforcer during the height of the occupation. While technically not German, he was feared as ‘The Knife of Croix-Rousse’ for his personal role in extracting confessions and leading raids against French resistance cells. Multiple OSS records connect him with known atrocities.”

The OSS had been decommissioned in favor of the new CIA in 1947, but we still struggled to keep the acronyms straight.

Our resources were stronger now, with better funding and the weight of a postwar government behind them; still, part of me longed for the “wild west” days under Bill Donovan, the days when ingenuity and a sharp tongue were better weapons than rifles most days.

“Had to be pretty bad to earn a nickname. I take it he’s a Boy Scout leader?”

Will chuckled. “More like Hitler Youth. The more I read about the guy, the more I want to see him ground into sausage. ”

“Please don’t ruin sausage for me.”

Will rolled his eyes and sat back. “Tubed meat aside, what do we do next?”

I thought a moment, then nodded, more to myself than to Will. “Let’s send word to our friends in the DGSE 1 and go find the bastard.”

Surveillance was always our preference—observe, confirm, report—let the local authorities handle the dirty work. As Americans in France, our job was to assist, not judge or execute.

At least, those were the rules most days.

That night, we followed a man from a smoky jazz club to a pension house with peeling paint that was once beige but now looked more akin to the color of shit after a rainy day.

The air inside the club was thick with sweat and brass, cigarette smoke curling through the notes of a trumpet solo that cut like glass.

Will leaned near the bar, pretending to enjoy the set while I stayed close to the rear exit watching our man nurse a drink he would never finish.

When he stood and left, we followed.

The narrow street was half lit by yellowish gaslight and shrouded in mist. We kept our distance, splitting to either side of the road.

The man moved briskly, looking over his shoulder twice.

When he stopped to tie his shoe, I ducked into a recessed doorway, my heart ticking in time with the blood pounding in my ears.

Will barely broke stride, pretending to fumble with a cigarette and a book of matches.

At one point, the man turned sharply down an alley.

I followed while Will looped around.

The walls closed in, and my footfalls softened against damp cobblestone.

Then—

A crash.

A trash bin knocked over.

I froze, hand on the pistol at my side.

From the far end of the alley, a figure darted—small and fast.

Just a cat.

My breath rushed out.

But the man had stopped. He stood under a flickering lamp, peering into the dark.

Will emerged casually from the far side. “Lost, monsieur?” he asked in broken French.

The man muttered something and turned. I melted into shadow as he walked into the pension house and locked the door behind him. We waited five minutes, just in case, then marked the address and disappeared into the fog like we’d never been there.

Back at our flat, Will collapsed onto the couch with a sigh as I poured two glasses of cheap Burgundy and handed him one.

“Think he’s the one?” he asked.

“I think he’s something,” I replied. “We could end it, slip back tonight, quiet and clean.”

Will shot me a look—measured and cool. “That’s not our call. We observe, confirm, pass it up the line. The French will handle the rest.”

“What if they don’t, Will?” I shrugged, not yet ready to let it go. “What if this one slips away like so many others? You know the French courts are a joke, and the American government classified so much information that prosecutors can’t even do their jobs.”

“I get it, babe, but we’re just two men. We can’t do it all—and we definitely can’t start making rules up as we go.” He sat forward, the wine untouched in his hand. “I say we keep watching. Until Washington or the DGSE says otherwise, we don’t pull the trigger.”

I let the silence hang a moment longer, the sharp corners of my impulse dulling under his steady gaze. Finally, I nodded, stood, and set my glass down. “Fine. At least, not tonight.”

“Not tonight,” Will echoed.

1. The Directorate General for External Security (Direction générale de la Sécurité extérieure) is France’s foreign intelligence agency, the equivalent to the British MI6 and the American CIA, established on 27 November 1943.