“Is it possible,” I asked, “that this time it won’t be an assassination? Suppose, for example, it’s sabotage, or kidnapping, or . . .”
“No, I doubt it,” he said. “Our man directs killers, and if we could just think of . . . my God!” He’d put down the glass and was staring so intently into the trees behind us that I turned around.
“What is it?”
“He is here to assassinate.”
“Impossible,” I said. “There’s not a man in this region of any strategic importance, and no one will be . . .”
“There’s one,” he said, his eyes shining.
“Who’s that?”
“Auguste Lupa.”
We sat for a moment or two in silence, while I thought of objections to what he’d said. In the first place, Lupa had arrived on the trail of our man, but that of course could be a way to have Lupa where he wanted him. Come to Valence so that Lupa would come here, so that he could kill him here? That was far-fetched, and I said so. Why Valence?
“Possibly because Lupa has an embarrassing connection here, and killing him in sordid surroundings would not only be good propaganda but would rid Germany of the agent they most feared.” Marcel was warming now to his own suggestion.
“But there would be no propaganda, since the public has never heard of Lupa, since Lupa wasn’t even his name a few months ago. Finally, Marcel, he would never have waited so long to move. If he had known who Lupa was and where he would find him, he would have acted and cleared out months ago.”
“You’re probably right,” he conceded, “but he’s here for something, and we don’t have any idea of who he is, what he wants, or why he’s here. We must ask Lupa what he has on him, and tonight.”
“It will be difficult at the gathering,” I said.
“Then later.”
“We’ll see, but I can’t shake the feeling that the man is here for sabotage.”
“To sabotage what? There’s nothing here in Valence.”
“No, not in Valence itself. But there is the arms factory in St. Etienne, surely close enough to warrant investigation. You know as well as I that all our major defense research is going on there. Our man would also know. Otherwise, why would Lupa be here? It’s got to be something damned important. If that factory is blown . . . well, it’ll set us back over a year.”
He looked down at the ground and picked up his beer. “It’s guarded, of course.”
“It’s impregnable.”
“Well, there you are.”
“No. What bothers me is its seeming invulnerability. There are enough troops guarding the place, all right, but in a sense that is really not the point. It can’t be directly assaulted, which is of course why they’d have to send a man here—to break it, to find a way in.”
