Page 4

Two

Christian Bauer had always wanted to see Paris. But as the car, one of many in the cavalcade, drove down the abandoned streets of the city, he had the distinct impression that this was not how Paris wanted to be seen.

There were no artists set up on the streets. No romantic music from a concertina. No scents of bread wafting from bakeries. No couples strolling arm in arm down the avenues, their gazes locked on the Eiffel Tower in the distance. No locals darting in exasperation around tourists.

There was only a scorching sun beating down, making the interior of the car so hot he found himself wishing he could peel off the suffocating jacket he couldn’t quite think of as his .

There were empty, mocking streets. Litter danced in the wind kicked up from the line of autos, and from some distant street he could hear German words squawking from a loudspeaker.

Call him a romantic, but that was all wrong.

He loved his mother tongue with a depth that surely surpassed the average German, but even he knew it shouldn’t have such a prominent place here.

Spoken, of course. By tourists and expatriates and the educated.

But it shouldn’t be shouted in these streets with the help of amplification.

If he dared to voice that out loud, he’d likely be court-martialed.

“Is this it, Professor?” Gunter Kraus said from the front as he broke formation and halted the car in front of a stately building. “The university?”

Christian peered out the open window, reading the French inscription on the building with ease.

One hall, at least, of the Sorbonne, without question.

He’d never seen it in person, but it matched the photographs he’d perused.

“It is. Though I don’t see a soul moving about.

” He reached for the door handle, and Kraus all but squealed his objection.

Christian sighed. “I can open my own door, soldat .”

“Can, yes—but shouldn’t. That is why you have me, ja ?”

He set his jaw, but it wasn’t enough to keep the words from grinding out. “I am a professor. I don’t need a...servant.”

Instead of being offended, Kraus flashed him a white-toothed grin.

He couldn’t be more than twenty—the very age Christian was accustomed to seeing in desks in his lecture hall or scouring the shelves in his library, not in pristine army uniforms. “You’re also a sonderführer .

Given considerable power in Paris, I might add, as the bibliotheksschutz .

And that comes with appearances you must keep up. ”

He tried not to wince at the rank—but who could blame him?

It wasn’t even a real rank, honestly. Or at least, it hadn’t been before they’d created it three years ago for men like him.

Men utterly untrained in anything tactical or military, but who had some specialized skill the Reich decided they needed.

A rank for veterinarians and translators and construction engineers, who were rounded up and forced to serve, the threat quite clear.

Saying no was not an option. They would serve, or they would be sent to one of the dreaded concentration camps.

Who ever would have thought they’d need him ? Even the title of bibliotheksschutz , library protector, was a mockery. He sighed and waved a hand at Kraus. “All right then. Open my door already, you lazy boy.”

Kraus laughed in a way Christian suspected he’d never do in the presence of a real commanding officer. He shut off the car first, then let himself out, jogged around, and opened Christian’s door with a flourish.

He was a good boy. Bright, full of life, puffed up on the figment of victory and the chance to make something of himself, lured in by the romantic, empty promises of glory.

Christian had never been to war, but he knew those promises were empty. He read—and not just the rubbish propaganda being published these days, either.

Stepping out into the full sun was a trade-off from suffocating in the stifling interior of the car. At least out here he could move around, take it all in. He patted Kraus on the arm. “Give me a moment. Don’t leave without me.”

Kraus’s brows flew up. “Of course I won’t. I’m to be at your disposal every moment, sir.” He snapped into a salute.

Christian fought back a grin. “Such pageantry—it’s sure to turn my head. When I return to my lecture hall, perhaps I’ll demand all my students greet me so.”

Seemingly against his will, Kraus gave another grin. “I’d like to see that, sir—perhaps I’ll join my cousin someday at university and sit in on one of your classes. I mean, assuming you ever lecture on something other than literature.”

His own brows lifted now. “It is my specialty. Hence...” He motioned to the brilliant white facade of the Sorbonne, admiring the sculptures carved into the space between its columns and its peak.

His aim wasn’t just any part of the massive university—he was looking specifically for the library. “What is your cousin studying?”

Kraus breathed a laugh. “Haven’t a clue. Something with books. He’d be right at home here.” The boy’s wince, however, said he wasn’t.

Opposite how Christian felt as they started along the path.

This world he understood. The sprawl of a university, even one he’d never seen before, was as familiar as his own skin.

That’s why he’d wanted to come here first, rather than the National Library.

He missed traveling the walkways between buildings like he missed—

He cut the thought short, pushing it all aside. He couldn’t afford to miss anything. And why should he? He’d only been gone two weeks from his faculty position, since he’d received the unequivocal summons from Goebbels himself.

You didn’t argue with the Minister of Propaganda when he said you’d been carefully selected to head up a special team in Paris, to be sent in the very minute they took the city, not unless you wanted to die in one of the filthy prison camps.

You packed your bag and wondered how you would look in a beret.

Answer: laughable.

Kraus craned his head this way and that as they walked. “Not a soul—you’re right about that, sir.”

“And I suspect that means the buildings are all locked up tight.” He could have tested the theory on any number of doors they’d strode past, but he wasn’t interested in if just any building was open. He only wanted one.

Another boyish grin. “We can take care of that. Don’t worry.” Kraus patted his sidearm as if it were a chatelaine.

Christian scowled, but alarm nipped at him. Kraus seemed a friend when they were bantering in a car. But none of Christian’s friends brandished guns like keys. “We will do no damage.”

“But—”

“I have many libraries’ collections to catalogue and... relocate.” He nearly winced at the word. “If this one is closed, we will simply try another, and another, until we find one we can enter without vandalism. We are gentlemen, Kraus. Not thugs.”

His companion looked none too convinced, nor as if “gentleman” was something he particularly aspired to.

He had, Christian had already learned, grown up on a farm about an hour out of Berlin.

He’d spent the last several years striving to excel in the Hitler Youth, not to learn table manners or niceties.

He was not Christian’s typical student—or at least, not what his students used to be. He had to remember that. He mustn’t forget that this amiable young man was trained to conquer and kill, not to converse and catalogue.

Christian had to watch himself. Every moment. Every day.

They found the library a few minutes later, evidenced by the towering shelves of books visible through the equally towering windows. The sight made his heart thump in exactly the same way it had whenever he saw Adele Werner when he was fifteen—the chest-filling race of first love.

Adele had long since drifted into the realm of memory. The books...never.

He tried the door, unsurprised to find it locked tight. Kraus’s mouth twisted. “Are you certain you don’t want me to force it?”

If they broke this massive, story-and-a-half high double door, there would be no fixing it.

He shook his head. “If the university personnel do not return in a week or two and I cannot find my way in otherwise, we’ll examine what can be done.

” He had a job to do, after all. And failure would come with consequences.

Kraus grunted. “Should we try the other libraries then? Or would you prefer to find your quarters and get settled?”

He already knew his assigned quarters would be in some hotel or another, conscripted by the army. He hated hotels.

But there was one other library he’d been instructed to find and take possession of quickly.

One whose collection was of primal interest to the Reich.

One that was to be guarded with singular purpose.

One whose door would be normal enough that even if Kraus did some damage, they could simply replace it.

He pivoted, facing back toward the car again. “To the Boulevard Arago. We will find the Library of the Burned Books and set up our headquarters there.”

Kraus’s brow furrowed. He trotted along beside Christian’s long strides. “Set up there? But shouldn’t that place just be burned? It’s in the very name, isn’t it? Aren’t those all the titles by our enemies, filled with un-German ideas?”

Ideas opposed to the Reich, anyway. He sent Kraus the same look he gave his students when he’d asked a deep question and they’d tried to get away with a pat answer.

Even so, his realization of minutes before rang like a gong in his mind.

Watch yourself, Christian. “When the army takes possession of enemy headquarters and finds their intelligence files, do they burn them?”

Kraus’s expression shifted. “Of course not. They read them. Learn whatever they can from them.”