Laugh of the Hyenas Read online

  The Laugh of

  the Hyenas

  By

  Ivan Roussetzki

  &

  Don Gabor

  Conversation Arts Media

  BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

  Copyright © 2015 by Ivan Roussetzki and Don Gabor

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  Conversation Arts Media

  P.O. Box 715

  Brooklyn, NY 11215

  www.conversationartsmedia.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Book Layout © 2014 BookDesignTemplates.com

  Laugh of the Hyenas / Ivan Roussetzki and Don Gabor. – 1st ed.

  Library of Congress

  Roussetzki, Ivan; Gabor, Don

  World War, 1939-1941– British-French Intelligence–Fiction, 2. World War, 1939-1941 Bulgarian underground–Fiction 3. World War, 1939-1941 Gestapo–Fiction

  ISBN 978-1-879834-31-6 (Bound Book)

  ISBN 978-1-879834-32-3 (PDF)

  ISBN 978-1-879834-33-0 (MOBI)

  ISBN 978-1-879834-34-7 (EPUB)

  Laugh of the Hyenas is dedicated to my co-author and friend, Ivan Roussetzki, who sadly died in 2007. Ivan wrote the original draft of this novel in “Bulgarian English.” When we met in 1996 Ivan told me he was looking for a co-author. I said, “I’m not the guy.” After reading the opening page and first few chapters I became “the guy” and we started working together on the book. It has taken many more years to finish, but Ivan’s story and characters live on in this book.

  A special thanks goes to Eileen Cowell, Nancy Dugan, Dan Carman, Hilary Zarycky, and Fran Seigel for their editorial assistance and advice for this book.

  

  Death came suddenly on a cool Saturday afternoon. The murderer turned away as my soul slowly left my body, like so many red rose petals adrift on the wind. The killer was a young man in a long coat and a broad-rimmed hat that looked like a miniature lid to a black coffin. He approached me silently in the crowd. For a brief moment the coffin lid opened, and his boiling red eyes stared into mine. Then his swift knife pierced me twice. I died almost instantly following a singular, unheeded plea for mercy. Long before my death, however, it was the second winter of the Second World War…

  

  

  Part I

  May 1938

  CHAPTER 1

  Notre-Dame Cathedral’s scowling gargoyles cast their imposing gaze on Helen Noverman as she walked past. She looked up at the church’s gothic towers and crossed herself, praying that the “special job” a Frenchman had told her about the night before was still available. She paused for a moment in the small rose garden behind the cathedral. The morning mist from the Seine mingled with the dewy fragrance of roses filling the air.

  Over the course of the last two years, she had worked the streets of Paris for Claude Du Vall, the city’s most prosperous and ruthless pimp. With her slim build, dark hair cascading over her shoulders and around her heart-shaped face, bright brown eyes, and seductive smile, she was one of his highest paid prostitutes. If Claude ever found out she was seeing someone else about a job—well, she didn’t want to think about what he would do to her. Helen checked the Frenchman’s address for the fourth time and touched her white marguerite earrings for good luck. Damp rose petals from the garden’s brick path clung to the soles of her shoes as she continued on her way.

  Helen stepped onto the ancient stone bridge that led to the Ille St-Louis, one of two islands in the Seine and among Paris’s most exclusive residential districts. As she gazed back at the city, she thought about just how dark her life had become in the “City of Lights.” When the Nazis murdered her father, and Helen and her mother fled Germany in 1933, she was still an innocent girl of fourteen. Her innocence wouldn’t last long. By the time her mother died two years later, Helen had lost count of how many men she had slept with to make ends meet.

  Once over the bridge, she turned right onto the narrow street filled with bakeries, butchers, and cheese shops. Helen followed the street to its end, where she found the house around the corner on the Quai d’Anjou. The imposing five-story townhouse was one of several built on the island by developers in the early seventeenth century. Its stark white facade and grand windows overlooked the Seine, with views of the Right and Left Banks.

  “Anyone who lived here had to be very wealthy,” she whispered.

  Was the man who approached her last night in the Carmine Bar telling her the truth when he said he needed a woman like her for a special job? But what job, in God’s name, was so special that it paid twenty-five thousand francs? Helen couldn’t even imagine what it was he wanted her to do, and all she could think of was that this stranger must be very rich. But it was his money, and for that kind of cash she would do anything he asked—anything!

  Jean Lopié’s apartment was one of two on the second floor. A sign on his door said, “Monsieur Jean Lopié, Interior Designer. Please ring the bell twice.” When he had asked Helen to come to his flat in her ‘professional capacity,’ he had said that he lived alone. She waited for him to answer and wondered, why ring the bell twice? Perhaps there was someone else in his apartment he wanted to share her with, but for twenty-five thousand francs, Helen would entertain whomever he pleased.

  After Helen rang the bell, waited a moment, and rang again, Jean Lopié opened the door. Helen stood before the man she had met in the Carmine Bar. In his stocking feet, he was shorter than she remembered. He was dressed in a pair of silk pajamas and his boyish face was half-covered with shaving cream. For a moment he stared silently at her with deep blue eyes. Helen smiled, looked at him, and waited.

  “Pardon Mademoiselle,” he finally said. “I didn’t expect you quite so early.”

  “Oh, Monsieur Lopié, I’m sorry, but I was so excited about meeting you that I barely slept last night. I couldn’t think of anyone but you, and I didn’t want to be a minute late!”

  Helen followed the wiry man into a long hallway decorated with a painted mural of pink and red roses and semi-nude women frolicking beside fountains. A sparkling chandelier spread a buttery yellow light onto the sensuous painting and the wooden parquet floors.

  He led her to the end of the hall and pointed to an open door on the left. Now Helen understood why she needed to ring the bell twice. The flat was enormous. She entered a room nearly twice the size of her entire apartment, and while the hallway was akin to a rose garden bathed in sunlight, this elegant setting proved its dark and luxurious counterpart. A covey of four black leather sofas surrounded a low-standing ebony coffee table. The obviously expensive furniture sat on an immense Persian carpet. Newspapers and magazines lay about as though a whirlwind had randomly scattered giant gray leaves about.

  Helen drew closer to the carpet and gazed at its soft colors, which blended into a serene landscape. Like the hallway, it too featured an immense garden scene, but of a more ancient variety, with graceful patterns of leaves, flowers and birds. Men and women sat among trees and fountains while they watched swans and ducks float about on silky blue waters. As she looked at the vivid images depicted in the carpet, she felt as if she had stepped into the Garden of Eden. Noticing several large Byzantine paintings adorning the walls, for a brief moment Helen imagined that she was standing in a museum, or perhaps in the palace of a king. For Jean Lopié to live in
such a grand apartment among these exquisitely beautiful works of art, he had to be rich—very rich, indeed.

  While Helen’s gaze took in every element of her surroundings, Lopié rushed about, picking up newspapers and magazines from the sofas, table and carpet. He still had shaving cream all over his face, and Helen had to laugh at this handsome man, who was still clad in his sleeping attire. After a burst of activity, he turned to her and said, “There, that’s much better.”

  Helen must have had a funny look on her face, because he asked, “What? Is something wrong?”

  “You need to finish your shaving, I suppose,” she said with a delicate smile.

  He laughed as he disappeared behind another door, but after a second, he reappeared. “Please make yourself comfortable. Have some coffee, or if you prefer, a drink. Look in the cupboard by the window. I’ll be ready momentarily, and then we can discuss my proposition.”

  Helen picked up a photograph sitting on the sideboard. It was Jean Lopié in an officer’s uniform from the French foreign legion, his beret at a rakish angle, an impish smile on his face.

  “Are you a war hero?” Helen asked.

  Jean Lopié entered from the adjoining room wearing a pair of stylish slacks, a sleeveless V-neck wool sweater over a long-sleeve white shirt, and a dark silk tie. His curly brown hair was parted in the middle and combed back, revealing his broad forehead.

  “No, I’m just serving my country. Please sit,” he said.

  They both sat down on one of the sofas, their thighs touching.

  “Let’s begin. The job has three components. First, you must attract the attention of a particular man, a German industrialist, staying in the Hôtel Le Bristol on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Second, you must encourage him to invite you to his room.”

  “And third?” she asked, a wary look spreading over her face. Jean hesitated for a moment.

  “Distract him long enough to slip the contents of this small packet into a glass of champagne, and my men will do the rest.”

  “Your men?” Helen asked. She suddenly realized that there was much more to this job than catering to a randy client from the dance halls.

  “Mademoiselle, if you accept this job, you can help save the lives of many people.”

  Helen hesitated for a moment, allowing his comment to fully sink in. Then the truth hit her.

  “You’re a spy?”

  She sounded surprised, but now the sum of money he had offered her began to make some sense. “But why me, Monsieur Lopié? Perhaps I am a German sympathizer. After all, I am German.”

  Jean Lopié looked at her before he spoke, and his next few words sealed their relationship.

  “You were born in Brooklyn, New York but raised since the age of 4 in Baden-Baden, Germany. Approximately three and a half years ago the Nazis arrested and murdered your father soon after the burning of the Reichstag. You and your mother escaped just before they took him away, and shortly afterwards you made your way to Paris. Shall I go on?”

  Helen was dumbfounded! Who was this man? How did he know so much about her? Could she really trust him? The money was tempting, but she still wasn’t sure what to say.

  “Well?” he asked after a few moments. “I’m afraid I need your answer right now.”

  “Claude will be livid,” Helen muttered, “but offers like this don’t come along every day. Okay, Monsieur Lopié, perhaps you’re right. I’m not a Nazi sympathizer. In fact, I’m quite the opposite.”

  

  Helen Noverman’s training began immediately that afternoon and consisted of more than three hours of Jean talking and her listening. First he explained how she was to go about meeting the German industrialist. This Helen found rather ironic.

  “You’re telling me how to pick up and seduce a man, Monsieur Lopié?” she laughed. “I think I have plenty of experience on how to do that!”

  “Helen, you have a lot to learn if you want to live to tell your children the story,” he said. “Shall I continue or are we finished here?”

  “I apologize,” she said. “Please go on.” Oh well. She could survive this minor humiliation and a lot more. After all, twenty-five thousand francs was worth some sacrifices.

  To aid Helen’s seduction of the German industrialist and make her feel more like a special agent than a prostitute, Jean bought her expensive clothes, jewelry, shoes, sheer underwear and perfume. Shopping in the fine boutiques on the Champs Élysées had a tremendous impact on her. Helen had only dreamed of such luxury and loved every moment and every franc spent in the shops.

  While her pimp, Claude Du Vall, had bought her some nice things, they paled in comparison to the elegant items that now lay on the grand bed in Jean’s apartment. In addition, Jean wanted her to stay with him for the next several days to be trained and to complete the mission. How could she refuse all this? Jean Lopié had given Helen an opportunity that would change her life forever.

  

  The following evening, Jean took Helen to the Hôtel La Bristol to get a closer look at where she would perform her first mission as a spy for the French Secret Service. They drove past the hotel, turning left, then right, and finally parking on a small street in front of a bakery that was closed. Then they walked toward the restaurant where Jean had booked a table. On the way, he explained why it was crucial to look over the location before an operation takes place. As they entered the restaurant, Helen glanced around the opulent room with a sense of excitement, and that’s when her heart nearly stopped. She saw a large, blond young man dressed in an open silk shirt with gold chains sipping a drink and discussing the menu with a waiter at one of the front tables.

  Helen froze in her tracks when Claude’s eyes caught hers. He interrupted his conversation and glowered. Helen sucked in her breath and tried to turn around. She felt a shiver of fear run down her spine, but Jean Lopié’s hand continued to guide her forward to the table. Helen hadn’t informed Claude about her ‘date’ with Jean Lopié because of—well, to be frank—the amount of money involved. Plus, she had spent the night with Jean, so Claude had not heard from her for more than twenty-four hours. That was a cardinal sin in her profession, punishable by a beating at the very least.

  Jean Lopié did not know about Claude Du Vall’s reputation for violence and lack of savoir-faire. So, with her in tow, they walked in his direction. As they were about to pass, Claude stood up, pushed back his chair and stepped directly into their path. His face was a mixture of uncontrolled primitive emotions. He was like a madman who discovered his lover in the arms of his rival.

  Even if Helen could have concocted a believable story for her unexcused absence, Claude didn’t give her enough time to deliver it. In a flash, his iron grip closed around her neck and his loud voice went off like a gunshot in her ear.

  “Here you are, you cheating bitch! Working behind my back, eh? Now I’ve got you!”

  Claude was so angry he squeezed Helen as if he were wringing the neck of a chicken and practically lifted her off the floor. People eating and talking nearby just stared.

  “Excuse me, sir, but I’m sure you don’t know this fine lady,” Jean said.

  Claude released his grip on Helen’s neck and turned his head to see who dared to interfere with his business. He saw what looked to him to be a country gentleman who would disappear at the first sign of trouble.

  “It’s none of your fucking business, Mamma’s Boy, but if you must know, she works for me, so piss off!”

  By this time, the restaurant was dead silent, and all eyes were on them. Helen tried to move a few steps back, but Claude grabbed her arm. That’s when she heard Jean speak with surprising authority.

  “Not anymore. From now on she is with me. Now, if you’d be so kind as to release her arm, I believe you’re hurting her.”

  Claude was stunned. His mouth fell open, and his eyes bulged like giant black grapes about to burst. He would trounce anyone who had the audacity to snatch his most prized hooker from his very grasp. Claude remained cool in
most situations, but he couldn’t take an insult from the gentleman who stood a head shorter than him. Helen had seen Claude lose his temper once or twice before, and it was not a pretty sight.

  “Claude, please!” she begged, “I can explain!”

  “Shut up, you slut!” he screamed and tossed her to the floor like a sack of potatoes. He inhaled and turned, about to vent his rage on Jean. This was Claude’s big mistake. What happened then shocked Helen, but it shocked Claude even more.

  Like a lightning bolt, Jean Lopié’s half-closed right fist shot out, and his knuckles crashed deep into the vulnerable spot just below the center of Claude’s ribcage. Claude gasp for air as his huge body folded over in pain. Who says lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice? A moment later, the outside of Jean’s left fist hammered a crushing blow onto the bridge of Claude’s nose, causing him to bend forward and spawning a geyser of blood onto the pimp’s silk shirt and linen pants. A final punch directly to Claude’s right ear caused him to cascade backward onto an empty table, which collapsed under his weight.

  Helen and the other patrons couldn’t believe what they had just witnessed. The look on Claude’s face was one that Helen would never forget. After shaking the stars out of his eyes and wiping his bloodied face on a handkerchief, he glared at Jean and then at Helen from the sawdust-covered restaurant floor. Claude was in shock and so was she! How could this small man knock an oaf like Claude to the floor with such force? In less time than it took to blink an eye, the battle was over and Jean Lopié had barely a hair out of place.

  “Excuse me, Mademoiselle,” Jean said, placing his hand on Helen’s arm. “Did he hurt you? Are you all right?”