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“Do you have any other claim tickets?”
“Other?” Bauer acted as if he didn’t understand. “I have just this ticket… ?”
“Search him,” said the agent.
The others put Bauer’s hands against the wall and performed a not-very-friendly frisk. They found nothing in his pockets or on his person.
“What is your name?” asked the agent.
“Jean-Claude Bouvier,” he answered. It was the name on the claim ticket.
The agent’s eyes narrowed. “When did you arrive in Nuremberg?”
“I arrive… this day… this afternoon on train from Paris.”
“Why are you here?”
“Je suis architecte… uh, I am…”
“You’re an architect?”
“Yes.” Bauer nodded.
The agent looked at the bag at Bauer’s side. “What is in that luggage?”
“Ah, I show you.”
“Wait!” The agents fanned out backward, creating considerable distance from Bauer and his bag, keeping their weapons trained. “Open it slowly,” the lead agent said.
“Je ne comprends pas,” Bauer said again. He bent down and opened the leather bag—Erich von der Haas’s leather bag, which Bauer had checked at the train station at the same time the train from Paris arrived earlier today.
He dumped out the contents for the Gestapo agents to see. Architectural drawings of a building, a manual of Parisian architectural standards, assorted other journals and books, along with a set of pens and pencils.
This was not the first time in his stint in the Nazi resistance that Bauer had needed a cover story.
“Is there… problem?” Bauer asked.
“Why did you check this bag?”
“Why check… ? Ah. Il y avait trop de choses à transporter.” He rounded his arms. “Too much bags to… carry? I come back for this.”
“Where do you live?” asked the agent.
“Paris.”
“Where in Paris? What is your address?”
“I live in the thirteenth arrondissement. Near L’Église de Notre Saint-Père on Le Rue San Miguel. Do you know this neighborhood?”
The agent sighed. “No.”
That was good, because neither did Bauer. He’d made it up on the fly.
The agent looked at his fellow Gestapo officers, then nodded at Bauer. “You may go.”
Bauer gathered his bag and its contents and thanked the officers. Then he calmly walked out of the concourse.
When he reentered the hotel room, von der Haas was shaking his head. “I was about to have a heart attack, Bauer. They stopped you inside, I assume?”
