As she pedaled along, Frenchmen whistled at her. She was used to that, and ignored it. A couple of Wehrmacht troopers in a field-gray Volkswagen utility vehicle also loudly approved of the way she looked. She ignored them, too. They didn’t know who she was, just that she was a woman they found pretty. That made them harmless.

She wished something would make Dieter Kuhn harmless, too.

Along with the Frenchmen and — women and Germans on the streets of Marseille, she also saw a fair number of Lizards. They’d held the city, and much of the south of France, during the fighting, and still did a lot of business with the Greater German Reich here. Some of that business was legitimate, and craved by the occupiers. But the Nazis would have suppressed the rest if only they could. Ever since it was named Massilia, Marseille had been a smugglers’ paradise.

And so, when Monique noticed a Lizard slowly walking past her block of flats, she didn’t think much of it. She came to a stop and got ready to lug the bicycle upstairs. In this part of town, unlike the university, it would not be waiting for her in the morning if she left it in the street.

Before she could manhandle it into her building, the Lizard came up to her and spoke in hissing, not too grammatical French: “Est-ce que vous etes Monique Dutourd?”

“Yes, I’m Monique Dutourd,” she answered with some surprise. “What do you want with me?”

“You are the brother-no, I err, the sister-of the famous Pierre Dutourd, is it not so?” the Lizard asked. “I seek to reach the famous Dutourd on a matter of business for both of us, but I have the difficulties. You can, it could be, help?”