His fingers drummed restlessly on the rough wood of the table until he took a swallow of wine. "Mon Dieu, le Boche and keeping the good stuff for themselves, aren't they?" He said, grimacing, "I'd kill them for the promise of good glass of wine, at this point. Does the Bishop happen to have a piano by any chance?"
"Maybe, it's not something I asked about. But there's still the cathedral organ, if you feel musically inclined."
The Halifax bomber flies through the night, high in the clouds to avoid detection. You take the chance to sleep while war-scorched land rolls under you, and at the crack of sundown you enter Bohemia.
Paradropping can be an unpleasant experience if you never experienced it before. Icy winds rock your body, biting on your flesh as you fall towards the outskirts of Plzen, 80 kilometers to the southwest of Prague. There are no unforeseen circumstances, however, and the canvas parachutes deploy properly. You touch the ground in the countryside, a short march from the small city.
Morning mists concealed your approach, but it's possible that someone spotted your approach. The military garrison in the city will surely have cars, if you want to risk it. Otherwise, one of these farms may have horses.
The whole trip L maintains his all-too-common neutral expression, even during the paradrop.He ritualistically puts his parachute away, pulls out his rifle, and begins walking toward the city. He gives and settling a wide berthe.
As much as he enjoyed having the wind in his hair, Tomasz did not like flying. At all. Endless juddering and jittering, and no land in sight. It was worth the heart-stopping terror of the parachute jump just to be back on solid ground - pilots were crazy people.
"Put that away!" Tomasz huffs, out of breath. "If you are seen with it we are through before we have begun!"
"Of course." L obeys and kneels a moment to stow the rifle in a duffel bag.
Sam nearly has to be pushed out of the plane, and the shock of still being alive is enough to keep her from even recognizing L's eccentricities at first.
"If you think I'm walking fifty miles to Prague, then boy are you gonna be surprised. Horses will stand out, but stealing a car from Nazis, as fun as it sounds, is more dangerous. How dangerous, well, we won't know unless we get closer to the town."
Not necessarily. A car will give us more room to hide ourselves and our gear. And that long a walk, I am not looking forward to making it. We may make a car work.
"a car sounds nice Pierce also looks for bycycles, folding ones by preference, but he's not picky there
L, an emotion surprisingly on his face, seems to be expressing confusion. "Why is walking a problem?"
"Because it is 80km to Prague, we are carrying weapons, and I am old. Older. And it will mean we may move in the dark.
"I don't care much, one way or another, but webbed to make a decision and stick to it
"Our bright-eyed boys tell me there are stirrings in the underground. Have you two heard anything?"
She's interrupted meekly by her husband. "Vera, if we are fighting ourselves we can't-"
"The Arnholdt trusted that Polish swine, Samuel, I-"
Samuel's next words are whispered in his wife's ear, and whatever they are they seem to work. Biting her lip, she remains silent for a few moments, with a hard expression.
"I'm not the best person to ask. But you can go to the old monastery Na Slovanech, to the south. From there, take the Trojicka until you get to the Vltava, walk downstream until the third fishermen cellar, then knock four times. Go alone, unarmed. If they let you in, ask of Melchisedec. He'll be the one to help you, if he wants to."
If someone were to actually trace the roundabout route Leo took, and managed to keep track of him throughout the entire trip, they might have noticed something odd. He changed his face three times and his clothes four. The clothes were simple enough, his shirt and his jacket were both reversible, and he mixed them up a few times. His face was another matter entirely but it is best not to linger too long on that.
Regardless, when he was nearing the first landmark Veronika had reluctantly sent him to, Leo looked mostly like himself.
The beautiful city of Plzen, once an important location in the Thirty Years' War and birthplace of the Pilsner beer, is showing the signs of three years' German occupation. You pass Skoda Works, possibly the largest industrial conglomerate in Eastern Europe, now producing tanks for the Wehrmacht. Although the idea of stealing tanks, or at least sabotaging the plant, is appealing, surveillance in the complex is overwhelming, even for people with your considerable skills, and it would mean kissing subtlety goodbye.
Gas rationing means that no civilian car is moving, but you manage to find a bicycle seller and repairer who has enough bikes for you, for 10 Reichsmarks each. You notice that many people are speaking German, albeit with thick accents.
Otherwise, you spot three possible targets for stealing a car:
- The University Hospital has ambulances and a couple of Volkswagen Beetles, painted white with a red cross.
- The Police Station keeps half a dozen of Skodas 420, carrying the Czechoslovakia Police insignia.
- There is a rather undefended (no more than ten soldiers and officers, and the same number of clerks) Wermacht checkpoint at the south side of town, where a luxurious Mercedes-Benz 170 without any distinctive signs is parked.
"Some theological help. I recently ran across a text claiming man was made from clay and not dust and I was hoping an old monastery might have some texts I could cross-reference," Leo said earnestly in nary a trace of an accent.
"the police car would be useful, but too visible, I don't feel right about steeling from a hospital, the luxury car dealership or the bike place seem like my vote
"Bicycles would be more advisable."
"Hm. A bicycle, I can live with. These cars are all far too noticeable."
”As alluring as the car is, bicycles seem like a better bet,” Sam says.
Looking slightly aback at Leo's appearance, the eyes sweep the surroundings before pulling a bolt. "Come in and don't try anything funny."
The door opens and a thin, short girl who looks like she hasn't eaten well or seen the sunlight in some time pulls Leo inside before shutting it down again. There is a revolver in her hand. The room you are in is a dark, small, fish-smelling entry leading to a flight of stairs, with the only commodities of a rickety table and two crates acting as chairs. On the table are a gas lantern and playing cards, and on one of the chairs is a scrawny man with a WWI-era handgun, trained on Leo.
The woman quickly pats Leo down. "Never saw you around. How did you learn of this place? Are you a Yehudi ?"
You buy bikes for the four of you and set off cycling to the north-east, towards Prague. The ride takes around four hours but is otherwise uneventful. You arrive in the beautiful old city short before lunchtime, and have two days before your rendez-vous with your contact.
"We'll see about that" says the girl, taking the dagger from Leo and appraising it before laying it on the table. "I'm bringing you to Melchisedec, but don't try anything weird. I've got my gun on you. Ah, and by the way I'm Hannah."
She takes the gas lantern and points Leo to move down the flight of stairs. At the end lies a heavy, old metal door, which gets opened from behind after Hannah identifies herself.
The complex beyond the door and the following corridor must date back to the Renaissance, if not earlier. Corridors with a low ceiling open in several small halls, walls covered in limestone. Some appear to be used as storage, some as dormitories, some as common areas. Moving forward you estimate that more than a hundred people must live here, and that's excluding any parts of the complex you may have not seen.
"Rabbi, we have visits" says Hannah, knocking on a rickety wooden door a few hundred feet from the stairs you descended. "A goy newcomer, offering help."
The man who opens the door is old and bald, with bushy white eyebrows and a wild beard covering wrinkly skin and pale eyes.
"Ah, it has been some time since we had a visit. Thank you, my dearest."
As he speaks, you feel a mental probe over you.
On the way through the hill country, L rides his bike next to Sam, "Agent Korematsu, it is my suggestion that you adopt a disguise before entering the city. That or you utilize your appearance with one of the others to be intentionally memorable."
Leo does not resist the probe, but stands smiling and looking the elderly rabbi in the eyes with a knowing expression upon his face. He very much doubts the rabbi is prepared for what he finds in Leo's head and lead trusts the strength of the geasan place on him to keep the man from getting in too deep. If the rabbi wanted to try sorting through his memories beyond the past few days, he was welcome to try. There were a worryingly large number of them.
Leo, you see, was rather like the mythological golem in some respects. He was a monster shackled to a purpose. Except instead of clay, this monster was made out of what might have been a person, or something else. His mind was rather like that of someone hopelessly insane except that he had gone so far into madness he had come out the other side. All the parts of a sane mind were there but assembled... wrong.
One thing was clear though, this monster was earnest in his desire to help and was, perhaps better versed in the theory than the rabbi might be.
Also, he hated nazis, that was important.
"You'll have to forgive me, Rabbi, I would have at least brought refreshments but le boche have raided all the grocers."
Sam's response is a tired-sounding huff, but that might just be from the exertion. "I never had this issue in the States, damn it. I'll take care of it." Once they get into Prague she does just that.
His wrinkled forehead corrugates some more. "But that is not the question you came to ask, is it? You do want to help. And if I recognize the handiwork on the wards, you can't speak of your assignment, so I won't ask."
The venerable man takes a jug and fills two chipped mugs with a pale yellow liquid. "Valeriana roots tea. Cold, I'm afraid, we must be careful with fire down here. Now, then, how would you help us, and how can we help you?"
His eyes are sad but steady.
"Merci rabbi," Leo said taking the offered mug and sampling the cold tea lightly, "Not quite to my taste but better than what wine is left around here. Reminds me of a proper fromage," Leo said, delaying for time until Hannah was out of earshot.
"Simply put, rabbi, you know what I am." With a casual gesture that was certainly out a sense of showmanship instead of any mystic benefit, Leo's face shifted to look rather like Melchisedec's own. With some effort he could refine it until not even Hannah could tell them apart, but this was simply a practical demonstration and he dismissed it.
"While I lack specific expertise, I have a solid idea of what you're trying to do and how you're trying to do it. That little poke around in my head you just had confirmed you were not just some desperate man grasping at stories. I want to help because anything to spread the nazi manpower thin in this city helps me. Direct assistance in my operation would not go amiss, of course, but I'd rather not give cause for those holding my leash to slap more geasan on those I'm working with."
Well exhausted from the journey, Tomasz finds a cafe with a good view to sit and watch the city. While he's most resting and listening to the local patter (what he can understand of it), in a journal he's noting Nazi patrols and anything that stinks of the occult. Tomorrow, once he's rested, he'll walk the city.
L heads into town looking for an inn. Speaking decent Czech with an obvious German accent, "I need a room for at least two weeks."
"I know about the occult, the dark worlds beyond this, and those unknowable creatures who dwell in the empty space between the stars. But I am merely a scholar of theory, I never was brave or reckless enough to practice those arts beyond some parlor tricks. Like the one I did upon you."
"Perhaps I am a coward, made weak by old age and responsibilities. I am hiding my people here, away from the sun, rather than bringing the fight to the enemy in some desperate, suicidal, beautiful attempt to have our death mean something. That was apparently the idea of those who left to join the resistance, my own son with them."
"He's not like me, my Elias. He is smart, as fiery and headstrong as the young can be, and he has trained in the occult arts far beyond what I would have liked. When Prague was occupied, he dove in dark studies, seeking the ancient tale of the Golem, until one day three months ago he called me a useless, cowardly fool and left, seeking Rabbi Loew's writings. Ah, Rabbi Loew was the one who built the Golem in the old legends of the Seventeenth Century, to protect the Yehudi against racial cleansing. Old stories repeating, it would look like."
"So, for helping you I will do two things. I will have any of my friends in the city give me any information they can gather about Nazi movements, every bit of intelligence we can find. And I will do my best to contact Elias, as he will be far more useful than I, Hannah or any of us could."
"In exchange, two things as well. First, we'll take any commodity you can send this way. Generators, food, medicine, blankets, stolen, bought or offered, anything. Books, if you can. Morale is lower every day. And second, make the Germans hurt. A man who injures his countryman – as he has done, so it shall be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Just as he has injured a person, so it shall be done to him."
- A group of Polish refugees had settles outside the city walls, and they have mysteriously disappeared.
- The underground dog-fighting ring hide several high-ranking members of the Central Leadership of Home Resistance, the main Czech political resistance movement.
- There is a public execution of rebels scheduled for the fifteenth of May. The Hangman himself may attend.
"Very well, Rabbi Melchisedec. I will make the nazis tremble in fear and pay in blood but that much I would do for free. I accept your terms for as long as I operate in your city. You have an accord with L'Étranger de Paris. The jews of Prague have a new monster."
After reconvening with the others, Tomasz will emphasize the dog-fighting ring to them before going to see the refugees himself.
The next two days pass as L reinforces his guise as a writer by not leaving his room...during the day. At night L sneaks out his room's window and takes note of the layout about a mile radius surrounding the rendezvous location.
On the 9th, L, in his guise, exits down the stairs in his normal getup plus some prayer beads and a crucifix necklace. He walks to the church.
Other than that, the only peculiar thing in the surroundings is the uncanny silence. No crickets are chirping, no birds are singing. Your investigation reveals no traces of magic being used, but something unnatural has passed from the area.
The sky is sunny and the air is chilly as you move towards Saint Mary of the Angels. The church is part of a Capuchin monastery on the western side of town, with white walls almost untainted by smoke and soot. You arrive during a morning function, so that there is nobody to notice you. Behind the church, you spot the shadow of a man, likely your contact.
How are you looking like?
The figure loitering in the shadows strikes a match and, with the sort of excessive care one learns under strict rationing, dips the tip into the bowl of a cheap looking pipe. The brief light is enough to reveal his face through the shadows. It was quite average, a slightly pug nose, over large ears, eyes set a little too closely together maybe. Between a shapeless hat and ragged clothes, he looked like just another disenfranchised local looking for a quiet spot to smoke his pipe.
L feignes surprise as he exclaims in Czech, "Gek? Is that you? I have not seen you in so long! We have only mailed. Did your children like the gifts?" L simmers down the volume near the end as he walks up to the figure arms outstretched.
Still frowning from the results of his attempt to meet with other Poles, Tomasz stands stiffly to the side while they meet their latest ally.
"Ah yes, little Max refuses to let that toy train out of his sight and you should see how Gizela treats the doll you sent!" The figure took the pipe from his mouth and cheerfully embraced L.
"Take me to your accommodations, we'll talk there," he whispered into L's ear before breaking the embrace.
"You're a miracle worker, Emil, I've no idea how you got your hands on toys like those in times like these!"
"Honestly it is only because of my writing. It takes me so many places, you know. Why, I've travelled over half of Europe at this point, and what inspiration it gives! Come, let me take you to my room and we can catch up!" L releases from the embrace and pats Leo on the back. He then begins walking toward the inn paying no heed or attention to the others while making small 'catch up' talk with Leo. "...and I simply must tell you about my latest chapter..."
Sam leaves the greeting to L and stands aside looking bored and barely attention, and sizes up their contact. Before they get moving, she expends some of her magical focus to ensure that Etranger is not under the effect of an illusion.
The man matched L's meaningless small talk point for point as they headed to the inn. It would have been hard to believe the two men were not estranged cousins. However, once they were inside the inn and unobserved, he dropped the act.
"Well, I take it you know who I am?" he said to the assembled spooks with an air of relaxed confidence. His voice had changed, where it had previously been flawless Czech with a touch of a slightly rural accent, now it relaxed into a pronounced French accent. "Give me a moment to relax my face."
There was a very good reason Sam had not been able to see through his disguise. You cannot see through an illusion when there is not one present. As the party looked on, the flesh of his face rippled and pulled itself into another configuration entirely. This was no mentalist trick or bending of the light, the flesh of his body had been sculpted into another form.
The inoffensive mask became a much more horrible visage, as the extensive scarring revealed itself and the twisted man smiled cheerfully at the batch of Laundry operatives. He enjoyed his little reveals. They put him in mind of happier times.
He may have said 'face' but the changes were more extensive than that. Despite his shoulders shifting into a slight hunch he grew taller and lankier. The overall impression was of some kind of twisted, misbegotten man who was clearly and worryingly amused by the regard of the others.
"Bonjour, je m'appelle Leo Étranger, I will be your contact for this mission and interface with our mundane compatriots."
L, maintaining his German writer appearance, merely places his hand to his chest and says blandly, "Agent L."
Tomasz's bushy eyebrows shoot up into his recessed hair. "Matka boska... What happened to you?!"