Their Nazi uniforms propelled Smith backward in time. Unlike yesterday, he didn't feel an overwhelming compulsion to race out and fight the men. In fact, he admitted now that he had taken leave of his good senses in the London Underground the day before. No, what Smith was feeling now was the old sense of cold moral outrage he had experienced in his youth as a member of the OSS.
He hadn't realized that time had dulled his ability to be viscerally offended. He supposed his duties as CURE director were to blame. After seeing so much of the vile underbelly of American society, it was difficult to work up a stomachful of bile over anything. It had taken neo-Nazi storm troopers on the streets of Paris to rekindle the flames of revulsion that had burned away in youth.
"Is it safe, Harold?" his wife's timid voice asked from behind him. She sat in a chair next to the bed. Her face was filled with confusion and tension.
"No," Smith said simply.
The neo-Nazis on the street laughed once loudly and then parted company. A group of four walked down the street; the other three headed into the hotel. Smith watched them disappear beneath the windowsill.
He couldn't allow his emotions to dictate his next few steps. If they were to get out of this alive, he had to approach the situation rationally.
"Maude, please go in the bathroom," he instructed.
She didn't object. She didn't question why. Maude Smith merely stood dutifully and walked into the small room to one side of the bed. The door shut a moment later.
Smith looked at the night table. The cheap phone sat on the varnished wood surface. It was useless.
The invaders had disrupted Paris phone service during the night. He wouldn't be able to contact Remo. Smith crouched down beside the bed. His legs and back ached as he reached beneath the dangling edge of the dust ruffle. He slid his briefcase out onto the worn rug.
Standing, Smith placed the briefcase on the neatly made bed. This accomplished, he sat down in the overstuffed easy chair his wife had vacated moments before.
Smith patiently stared at the cracked painted surface of the old wooden door.
Alone in the room, he waited.
PIERRE LEPOTAGE'S grandfather had bought the small hotel for a modest sum in the early part of the twentieth century. Since that time it had been a tradition for all members of Pierre's family to work there.
Young Pierre had gotten his start in the kitchen during World War II. Back then, the LePotage family had been forced to make the best of a bad situation.
During the Occupation; his grandfather had retired to doing light duty around the hotel. Pierre's father had taken charge behind the desk. And in the kitchen young Pierre had the awesome duty of personally spitting in every meal prepared for the occupying German force. By the end of a busy day, his mouth would be as dry as the North African desert.
Both father and grandfather were long-since dead. Pierre had many years ago assumed the vaunted family position of desk clerk for Hotel de LePotage. So much time had passed since his youth that he had assumed his days of spitting into diners' meals were far behind him.
Pierre was surprised, therefore, when he felt a welling need to expectorate. It came to him the moment the three German soldiers came through the front door of his small family-owned hotel.
"We are under orders to search every building," the leader snarled in crude French as the trio approached the desk.
"Of course," Pierre said. He didn't smile.
"You will accompany us," the skinhead commanded.
Pierre nodded his understanding. He went to the door behind the desk. Reaching around the wall into the small office, he took the big ring with the master key from its special hook above the desk that had been his grandfather's.
Key in hand, he came out from behind the desk and joined the trio of neo-Nazi soldiers.
"Have you men eaten?" Pierre asked.
"No," admitted the German soldier.
The party entered the small elevator. Pierre reached up to grab the gate.
"In that case I invite you to dinner. I will prepare the meal myself."
He pulled the old-fashioned metal gate down with a resounding clank.
SMITH HEARD THEM coming down the hallway. They were stopping at each room in turn.
It had become obvious to the people staying there what was going on in the hotel. The objections tapered into a dull acceptance. Guests submitted their rooms and their personal belongings to the indignity of a search at the hands of the brutish skinhead soldiers.
When they at last came to his door, Smith had been sitting patiently for more than an hour.
He heard the footfalls on the old carpeted floor. There was not a rattle of keys as he expected. Just the sound of a single key sliding into the lock.
Smith got hastily up from the chair and reached for the briefcase on the bed.
The door sprang open into the room. Smith was caught like a deer in headlights. He was leaning over the bed, his frozen hand extended over the battered briefcase with its portable computer. He glanced at the door with a look of desperation.
Coming in from the dingy hallway, the neo-Nazis immediately sensed they had stumbled onto something valuable.
"Move away from there!" one of the soldiers ordered in French.
"Non!" Smith said. He lowered his hand farther. The briefcase was enticingly in reach.
Three machine guns raised threateningly.
"I will not tell you again," the skinhead in command said with sneering coldness.
Defeated, Smith withdrew his hand. Shoulders hunched, he stepped obediently over to the far side of the bed.
The three men hurried across the room. At the door Pierre LePotage looked mournfully at Harold Smith. This was terrible for business. He apologized to his guest with a wordless shrug.
Smith responded with an odd look. He was edging farther to the wall. He glanced down at the floor. It was the subtlest of gestures, but Pierre somehow caught the meaning in Smith's eyes at once. With a casualness that would have impressed the greatest living actor, the desk clerk eased himself back out into the hallway. He disappeared beyond the wall. "What do you suppose it is?" one of the skinheads said to his fellow soldiers, intrigue and greed in his voice.
"Probably more junk," said the lead soldier, studying the metal hasps. He glanced at Smith. "How do you open these?" he demanded.
"They are on a spring. You simply have to twist them," Smith explained.
The soldier placed his thumbs against the pair of locks. He pressed against them, hard. The split second he did so, Smith threw himself to the floor.
Only one of the men saw Smith go down. He watched the American drop from sight behind the bed the instant a wall of flame erupted around all three storm troopers.
The sound was no greater than that of a loud firecracker, but the result was far more violent. Behind the protective shield of the bed, Smith was safe from the brunt of the explosion.
He came up off his stomach a moment later, moving rapidly around the bed.
Pierre came in from the hallway. On the bed a small fire burned atop the charred comforter. The Frenchman expertly pulled the ends of the bedcovers up over the fire, extinguishing the flames.