Laugh of the Hyenas Read online

  Helen assured Jean that she was just a little upset but otherwise okay. He ordered the waiters to help Claude to a table and give him a tall glass of brandy. After making sure that Helen was comfortable at a table across the room, he ordered her a drink. “Stay put for a few minutes. I’ll be right back.” Then, to her amazement, Jean walked over to Claude, who was cradling his nose with a blood-soaked napkin. Seeing that Claude had no intentions of resuming the fight, Jean pulled out a chair and sat next to him. They whispered back and forth for several minutes. Claude took out a pencil and wrote something on a sheet of paper that Jean Lopié pulled from his coat pocket.

  The patrons dining in the restaurant resumed eating their meals and quiet conversations, but most kept one eye on the two men, just in case tempers escalated into blows again. After several more minutes, Jean stood up, reached into his breast pocket for his wallet, and removed a large bundle of bills. He spent the next minute counting out what must have been one hundred thousand francs and handed them to Claude.

  As unbelievable as it sounds, Helen watched Claude’s face open into a broad smile, like someone had propped up his square jaw with toothpicks. The beaten Goliath stood up and squeezed Lopié’s hand vigorously as if they were old friends. Then he wobbled toward the front of the restaurant. Leaving like a defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, Claude Du Vall didn’t even bother looking at Helen as he passed her table and walked into the street.

  “Helen, it’s all settled now,” Jean concluded with a sigh and a sly smile. “Claude promised me he would forget you. What do you think? Should we believe him?”

  CHAPTER 2

  Helen’s first operation as an agent for the French Secret Service began that evening. Jean drove her to within a few blocks of the Hôtel La Bristol and dropped her off. The restaurant had a lovely rear garden decorated with exotic plants, trees and a fountain illuminated by colorful lights. Lopié had done his homework, because he reserved a table for Helen next to the German industrialist, whose habit was to dine by the fountain.

  Attracting the gentleman’s attention was easy, since Helen knew how to capitalize on the hungry look of a man who always wanted to taste something more than fine French cuisine. All she had to do was offer a slightly flirtatious glance and smile and he took it from there. After commenting on the beautiful garden, he invited her to join him at his table. Normally Helen would have quickly accepted, but Jean instructed her to decline his first invitation so that she did not appear too eager. Jean assured her he would ask again, and knowing the persistence of the Germans, she wasn’t worried.

  “Thank you for the kind offer, but I’m waiting for a friend,” Helen said.

  “A male friend, may I presume?” She blushed with a coy smile and nodded.

  The German industrialist looked Helen over as she sat bathed in the restaurant’s soft light, but she pretended not to notice. She looked at her watch for the fifth time in ten minutes, looked at the restaurant door, let out an exasperated sigh, and went to the toilet. Five minutes later, Helen returned to see her target sipping from a glass.

  “Excuse me Mademoiselle, but any man who leaves a beautiful woman like you waiting does not deserve to spend the evening with her. Won’t you please join me for a drink? I can assure you that this champagne is excellent. May I introduce myself?”

  Still hesitating, Helen glanced toward the front of the restaurant and at her watch, yet again.

  “Why not? He’s probably stood me up again.”

  For the next hour they drank and chatted about food, art, music, literature and many worldly topics, except politics. It was then that Helen realized how valuable it was to be able to talk about a variety of subjects, and she thought back to the many hours she had spent in bed with artists, musicians, and professors. When he asked her to join him for dinner, Helen agreed.

  “We will start with the duck pâté, wild mushrooms, and cream of watercress soup with caviar.” The waiter nodded, waiting for him to continue. “Then bring us the braised hare in brown sauce and guinea hen with herb vinaigrette.” After a dismissive wave of his hand, he turned to Helen and smiled. A string quartet in the corner of the garden played a Strauss waltz. He filled both their glasses and they toasted.

  “The chef is excellent, and I always dine here when I am in Paris, but never before with a lovely woman such as yourself.” After another glass of champagne, he asked, “May I have this dance, Mademoiselle?”

  Acting a little drunk, Helen lightly brushed her thighs against his. Then he clumsily pushed his pelvis closer to her. She could feel his growing excitement. The trap set, they talked, drank and danced for another hour. When he bragged about his luxury apartment right upstairs in the hotel and invited her to join him for a nightcap, she accepted with an intoxicated smile.

  As they walked arm in arm up to his flat, Helen recalled Jean Lopié’s description of Albert Strasser and the reason behind the operation. He was the owner of several chemical laboratories in Cologne, Germany. Strasser was negotiating with the Spanish dictator, Franco, to sell him a quantity of chemical warfare gas. The French Secret Service wanted to know what exactly Strasser had to offer, and for how much.

  Following Lopié’s orders, when they got to Strasser’s apartment Helen kissed him hard on the lips and pressed her body close to his. The tips of her breasts grew hard in his hands.

  “Shall we lie down on your beautiful couch, Alfred? It looks so comfortable.”

  Sensing his sexual fantasy was about to come true, Strasser sat beside Helen and groped in the space between her legs while they sipped more champagne. By this time he was drunk, not just with alcohol, but with lust. Throughout the evening she had managed to slip most of her champagne into the fountain beside their table. Even so, she was still a little tipsy.

  Helen let the German’s fat sausage-like fingers probe between her legs so that an earthquake would not have distracted him. She loved the sense of power she had over Strasser. She was in complete control of the situation. After a moment, Helen laughed aloud and suddenly pushed him away. She stood up, walked to the bar and opened yet another bottle of champagne, and poured each of them another glass.

  Strasser figured that Helen was ready to submit completely, so he peeled off his shirt. When he wobbled off for a last trip to the toilet, it was her cue to act. Just as she was pouring the contents of the sleeping drug into his glass, he poked his head out the door and announced in a drunken voice, “Don’t worry, my sweet girl, your Kaiser is coming!”

  When he stumbled back into the room, Helen handed him a full glass and said, “A toast to our fortunate meeting.”

  She let him strip off most of her clothes, but by the time he tried to unfasten her black lace brassiere, his head was resting in her lap.

  The moment he passed out, Helen jumped up and flipped the lights on and off twice to signal Lopié that her part of the job was complete. Less than one minute later three French Secret Service agents entered the apartment and searched Strasser’s belongings. By the time Helen had her hair combed, they had photographed every document in his briefcase, and left without a trace.

  Lopié wanted her to stay with Strasser all night so he would not suspect that anything out of the ordinary had happened. The next morning Helen was already dressed when she shook him awake.

  “What a fine lover you are, Alfred, and thank you for the wonderful meal last night. I hope someday we can spend an evening together again.”

  She kissed him sweetly on the cheek as his head fell back onto the pillow. Closing the door to the room behind her, she took the backstairs to the lobby and walked out of the Hôtel La Bristol, a new person with a new life. Helen Noverman was an official agent of the French Secret Service. She now inhabited in a world in which reality and fantasy lived side-by-side with danger and excitement. This dark yet stimulating combination of deception, passion, and courage fascinated her.

  In addition to a new career, Helen discovered something even more. Jean Lopié was thirty-three years old when they
met, and he was full of energy and ambition. He had inherited more than ten million francs, plus a considerable amount of property from his grandfather, a wealthy French aristocrat. But for Jean Lopié, money and status were not enough. While they provided him with an endless number of financial opportunities, his real dreams took him into the world of international intrigue and deadly serious political games.

  Helen discovered his passion for espionage and adventure on the shelves of his huge library. He had dozens of books on spy techniques developed in the courts of Renaissance Italy, Elizabethan England, and sixteenth-century France. She pulled one volume off the shelf that recounted the history of Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister to King Louis XIII and the creator of France’s first intelligence service, The Cabinet Noir.

  Another tome focused entirely on polyalphabetic ciphers from as early as the fifteenth century. There were also several volumes about photography, telegraphy and other technical advances made during the American Civil War and World War I. The shelves housed literally hundreds of books on geography, history, astronomy, and, of all things, yoga. His interests seemed endless.

  But Jean Lopié’s passion wasn’t just the knowledge, but its application and power. Already a Captain in the French Secret Service, he was in the middle of a geo-political turmoil whose ferocious winds blew into Spain in 1936 and were heading for the rest of Europe. Fate led Helen to Jean Lopié, the man who would become her lover and help her strike a blow against those responsible for the deaths of her father and mother.

  CHAPTER 3

  A violent storm now swamped Europe, and although Helen and Jean were filled with trepidation about the future, for the next week they were like a newly married couple on their honeymoon. They spent their mornings making love, their afternoons taking walks and talking about their lives, and their long evenings exploring the sensuous pleasures of each other’s body.

  But like many honeymoons, this one came to an abrupt end. In March of 1940, Russian and German armies had teamed up to smash Finland’s army, while a large-scale movement of German warships threatened tiny Denmark and its northern neighbor, Norway. Helen thanked God that the British and French Secret Services were now working together, but they had collected precious little real intelligence about German troop movements there.

  So, in late winter, their new bosses in British Intelligence sent Jean and Helen to Oslo, Norway. They were worried about the German ships carrying iron ore and other raw materials from the port of Narvik through Norway’s fjords to the war factories in Germany. The Royal Navy was also concerned about the German U-boats based in Narvik. Their mission was to collect military and political intelligence for the entire region. And, if necessary, they were to help coordinate the movements of a large force of French and British soldiers that would be required to seize control of the port of Narvik or to protect Norway in the event of a German invasion.

  Sailing across a moonlit sea to Oslo with Jean beside her sounded romantic at first, but after they boarded a rickety fishing boat and the captain said to keep an eye open for German U-boats, Helen’s stomach never stopped churning. Spring was still weeks away, and the days were short and dark. Oslo was blanketed with a cold mist that made sailing through the fjords a risky endeavor for even the most experienced of sailors. But there was another form of darkness in Oslo that had nothing to do with the lack of sun.

  A cloud of doom so thick that you could reach out and touch it permeated the atmosphere. From the moment Helen set foot in the ancient port city, she witnessed fear giving way to despair in the faces of Norwegians as they traversed the city. A fiercely independent country, Norway had tried to remain neutral as Hitler’s armies pressed on, but that had become increasingly difficult.

  On the morning of their arrival, Jean and Helen rented different apartments on the same street near the center of the city. Several small buildings and a seventeenth-century brick church that looked like a castle separated their flats. They made sure that both flats had quick escape routes in the event of unexpected visitors in the middle of the night.

  Jean’s first-floor flat in a rooming house had easy access to the street, while Helen’s studio apartment on the second floor of a seven-story building featured a terrace with a fire escape that led to the roof and an adjacent building. It also had a back stairway in the hall that spiraled down to an alley behind the building. Finally, they had a prearranged safe house in case they became separated and had to quickly leave the country. The mission was extremely dangerous, so Jean and Helen had to be scrupulously careful about meeting anyplace more than once, walking together on the street, or talking to each other on the telephone.

  On the afternoon of April 8, Jean told Helen to meet him in a small deserted café near Oslo’s waterfront. As she sipped hot coffee and waited for him to arrive, she gazed at the ancient Akershus Castle, perched on the tip of a rocky peninsula overlooking the Great Oslo Fjord. Wisps of fog hanging over the narrow inlets of Norway’s rugged blue and green coastline rendered this beautiful medieval city deceptively serene.

  Helen took a small bite from a goat cheese sandwich as Jean walked into the café and joined her at the table.

  “I just received a message from London saying that the Royal British Navy is laying mines in Norway’s fjords as we speak,” he whispered. “They want to force German freighters from Narvik, Sweden, into open seas, where British ships can attack them more easily.”

  “So what does that mean to us?” Helen asked.

  “I’m guessing that for some reason Churchill doesn’t think that a major German assault on Norway or Denmark is likely. Given the British Navy’s superiority here, I suppose he’s right. Perhaps he’s more afraid of German surface raiders breaking out into the Atlantic.”

  “But isn’t that good for Norway? I mean, if the Germans don’t invade?”

  “Of course, but that’s if the Brits got it right,” Jean said. “Who knows what the Germans are up to. That’s what we’re supposed to find out.”

  Helen glanced at her half-eaten sandwich. Jean hadn’t touched the coffee that sat in front of him. He looked worried—more worried than she had ever seen him.

  “So what do we do?” she asked.

  “What we were sent here to do. Our assignment is to collect intelligence for the bloody British. Lord knows they need it! Sometimes I wonder why we work with them, but I guess we don’t have a choice, do we?”

  Helen tried another bite of her sandwich, but her appetite had disappeared. She pushed the plate away.

  “Anyway,” Jean continued, “a Norwegian agent who works closely with the government here will meet you at this address near the Royal Palace. See what you can find out about King Haakon’s plans. We need to know if he will continue to support Norway’s neutral position. I’ll meet you this evening as we planned. And Helen, be careful.”

  After Jean left, Helen ordered another coffee and stared at a painting of King Christian, the Norwegian monarch who rebuilt Oslo after a devastating fire in 1624. He looked like the classic Viking, with his long red hair and thick beard. He was proud, brave, and independent—much like the Norwegians today. She couldn’t help but wonder if Oslo was headed for another disaster. But she didn’t dwell on old King Christian for long as she pondered what Oslo had in store for them.

  Helen left the café about 5:00 p.m. and walked to the main street, Karl Johan’s Gate. It was filled with people rushing home from work and shopping. She walked briskly along the street toward the Palace, darting in and out of the many shops that lined the street. After stepping out of a clothing store, Helen sensed someone was following her, so she stopped and glanced around casually. At that moment, a tall thin man no more than twenty paces behind her stopped abruptly and turned away. Was he following her or just window-shopping? Instinct compelled her to pick up the pace.

  Helen’s heart was pounding. She reached the corner of the Parliament Building and stole another glance over her shoulder. “Oh Jesus, he’s still there,” she thought to hers
elf. “Mary, Mother of God, help me.” She made a quick turn and was about to dash across the street when three tough-looking men stepped directly into her path, blocking any escape. The man who had been following behind her spoke up in French.

  “Come with us,” he ordered. “We are the police, and you, as you can see, are surrounded. Please do not resist.”

  Helen was stunned and frightened—and to be truthful, embarrassed. Here she was, her first mission spying in a foreign country, and the police had detained her after being in Oslo for only three days. While working for the French Intelligence in Paris, Helen always had the government to back her up if she got into trouble, but that was out of the question now. In light of all their precautions, she just couldn’t understand why she had been caught. How had she slipped up? Where was Jean? Could he help her out of this mess?

  Helen remembered Jean’s words of warning during her training: “Stay calm. Don’t let them see your fear. Look for a way out. Don’t make your move too soon. You may have only one chance. Jump when they least expect it. Always be ready to fight for your life—or to take it.”

  At that moment, she couldn’t remember if she had put the silver canister that contained the poison pill into her purse before she left her apartment.

  “What is this all about?” she asked.

  Helen was scared to death of these men, but she spoke with as much bravado as she could muster. “You had better have a good explanation. Where are you taking me?”

  Without uttering another word, the four men guided her to a waiting car. The only man who had yet spoken to her opened the door and pushed her inside. They sped off into the cold night.

  Helen looked for any landmark that might help her find her way back to the city, but it was pitch black outside except for the car’s headlamps, which sprayed light onto the old tree-lined road. Oslo became a faint glow in the distance and then finally disappeared as they silently drove deeper into the forest for what, to Helen, seemed like a recurring nightmare.