“One good piece of news.” Full red lips curved up on one side. “Charles Lindbergh is speaking at rallies for America First.”
“I heard.” After the famed aviator visited Germany in the late 1930s, he’d become enthralled with Hitler’s policies. Now he’d joined the isolationist group determined to keep America out of the war.
The countess pressed red-tipped fingernails to her chin. “Maybe people will listen to him and stop Roosevelt’s warmongering. The man believes all Churchill’s propaganda.”
“He certainly does.” The president kept pushing Congress to aid beleaguered Britain.
A spark flashed in blue eyes. “Doesn’t the president consider how war would affect the American Colony in Paris? Why, we’d end up interned like the British, our property and assets seized.”
“We mustn’t let that happen,” Paul said with a frown. Although war would have far graver consequences than disrupting the lives of a few thousand Americans in Paris, Paul took it into consideration. He wanted to leave France before war was declared, but predicting when that would happen was like predicting the stock market.
Today’s paper announced the sinking of an American cargo ship. The German-controlled French newspapers declared the British sank theRobin Moorto entice America into the war, but the US government blamed a German U-boat.
“Aubrey!” a man called from halfway across the room—André Rousselot, a member of thecomité d’organisationfor the automobile industry and an excellent source of information.
Paul gave the Comtesse de la Chapelle a slight bow. “Please excuse me, dear lady.”
“I’ll still be here.” She sashayed away.
Paul sent Rousselot a lift of his chin to signal he was on his way, and he worked his way through the crowd.
When had Rousselot decided to call him Aubrey? At Harvard he’d gone by his last name because his fraternity president was also a Paul.
He missed his fraternity brothers. Peter Lang was teaching German in the States, and Henning—more properly, Baron Henrik Ahlefeldt—Paul hadn’t heard a word from the Dane since the Germans occupied Copenhagen.
Although Rousselot had to be in his sixties, no gray flecked his thatch of black hair. “How goes it at Aubrey Automobiles?”
“The orders come in faster than we can fill them.”
About six feet behind Rousselot, Col. Gerhard Schiller conversed with a French couple. Paul sent him a smile and a lift of his tumbler, and Schiller returned the gesture.
Rousselot took a long swig from his glass. “Good days for our industry,n’est ce pas?”
Paul gave him a mischievous smile. “I’d rather build race cars.”
Rousselot chuckled and rested his tumbler on his protruding belly. “Wouldn’t we all? At least we’re building for a good cause.”
“Good? I make ugly delivery trucks.”
A waiter passed with a tray, and Rousselot exchanged his empty glass for a full one. “Most of us aren’t burdened by your Neutrality Acts. We’re able to do more.”
The opening Paul desired. He angled himself so he could see Schiller and shrugged as if he didn’t believe Rousselot. “What can we do? We make bicycles and delivery trucks and civilian aircraft. How does that help France?”
Rousselot’s dark eyes had a bleary look, and he stepped closer, his liquored breath assaulting Paul. “My company built 1074 aircraft engines in May. They are for German transportplanes. But they also fit bombers. What our friends do with them—what is that to me?”
Paul faked a smile and a sip, and he eased back to draw Rousselot farther from Schiller. “You’re doing a great service. France is unarmed, and I don’t trust the Soviets. Only Germany can protect us. I hope your company is not alone.”
“Not at all. I am on the organization committee, you know.” His chest puffed out.
“I know.” Paul gave him an admiring look. As a lady passed, he used the opportunity to back up more.
Rousselot brushed droplets off his bushy mustache and stepped closer. “You will be pleased with what we do to protect our nation.”
He listed companies, products, numbers. Paul listened intently, itching for pen and paper, committing numbers to memory, senses tingling with excitement and danger.
This would be his most detailed report for Duffy ever. With the US Embassy on the place de la Concorde officially closed, Paul now took his reports to the few remaining embassy officials in their rooms in the Hôtel Bristol. The US military would be thrilled with this list of war matériel being produced in France for the Germans.
Rousselot hailed a waiter and exchanged glasses. “Now our work can aid France directly.”
