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permissions—
and he now searched for a man who, in the
terrible imagery of document photography, might
be considered to look enough like him.
    It was a pleasant day and he wandered this way
and that, more or less sightseeing. At last he encountered
a fellow who would pass for him, a welldressed
burgher in a black homburg and overcoat,
dour and official-looking. But the bone structure
was similar, given to prominent cheekbones and a
nose that looked like a Norman axe. In fact the fellow
could have been a long-lost cousin. (Had he
cared to, Basil could have traced the St. Florian line
back to a castle not 100 kilometers from where he
stood now, whence came his Norman forebears in
1044—but of course it meant nothing to him).
    Among Basil’s skills was pickpocketing, very
useful for a spy or agent. He had mastered its intricacies
during his period among Malaysian gunrunners
in 1934, when a kindly old rogue with one
eye and fast hands named Malong had taken a liking
to him and shown him the basics of the trade.
Malong could pick the fuzz off a peach, so educated
were his fingers, and Basil proved an apt
pupil. He’d never graduated to the peach-fuzz
class, but the gentleman’s wallet and document envelopes
should prove easy enough.
    He used the classic concealed hand dip and distraction
technique, child’s play but clearly effective
out here in the French hinterlands. Shielding his
left hand from view behind a copy of that day’s Le
Monde , he engineered an accidental street-corner
bump, apologized, and then said, “I was looking at
the air power of les amis today.” He pointed upward,
where a wave of B-17s painted a swath in the
blue sky with their fuzzy white contrails as they
sped toward Munich or some other Bavarian destination
for an afternoon of destruction. “It seems
they’ll never stop building up their fleet. But when
they win, what will they do with all those airplanes?”
    The gentleman, unaware that the jostle and
rhetoric concealed a deft snatch from inside not
merely his overcoat but also his suit coat, followed
his interrupter’s pointed arm to the aerial
array.
    â€œThe Americans are so rich, I believe our German
visitors are doomed,” said the man. “I only
hope when it is time for them to leave they don’t
grow bitter and decide to blow things up.”
    â€œThat is why it is up to us to ingratiate ourselves
with them,” said Basil, reading the eyes of an appeaser
in his victim, “so that when they do abandon
their vacation, they depart with a gentleman’s
deportment. Vive la France .”
    â€œIndeed,” said the mark, issuing a dry little
smile of approval, then turning away to his far
more important business.
    Basil headed two blocks in the opposite direction,
two more in another, then rotated around to
the train station. There, in the men’s loo, he examined
his trove: 175 francs, identity papers for one
Jacques Piens, and a German travel authority “for
official business only,” both of which wore a
smeary black-and-white photo of M. Piens, moustachioed
and august and clearly annoyed at the indignity
of posing for German photography.
    He had a coffee. He waited, smiling at all, and
a few minutes before four approached the ticket
seller’s window and, after establishing his bona
fides as M. Piens, paid for and was issued a firstclass
ticket on the four p.m. Cherbourg–Paris
run.
    He went out on the platform, the only Frenchman
among a small group of Luftwaffe enlisted
personnel clearly headed to Paris for a weekend
pass’s worth of fun and frolic. The train arrived, as
the Germans had been sensible enough not to interfere with the workings of the French railway system,
the continent’s best. Spewing smoke, the engine
lugged its seven cars to the platform and, with
great drama of steam, brakes, and steel, reluctantly
halted. Basil knew where first class would be and
parted company with the