Red Rainbow by G Johanson (best e reader for academics txt) 📕

“Nothing is decided. All voices will be listened to.”

“Don’t do anything. Please.”

“She’s not the heroine you think she is.”

“87 dead in one night, she’s all right by me.”

Hector was less enamoured, showing up just after Marcella. The Love Phantom poured out glasses of chardonnay for them all and called the meeting in session. Plague could not come for obvious reasons, while their other contacts were not official members, as much as the group had anything official about it. Patience was their guest, safer left out of this. Patience’s absence meant the Love Phantom did not need to wear a mask tonight, all present having seen his face on multiple occasions.

“Hector, last time we talked they were drafting names for the list. How goes it?”

“They have 87. The current talk is of doubling it. Two of ours die for every one of theirs. We’ve not agreed to provide the extra names yet.” Yet was the key word. Hector acknowledged that his bosses gave in to every request eventually, usually through lack of a choice.

“Okay. I’ve had lunch with a general. The forced labour option as an alternative... it’s not going so well. He’s apologetic to me, he is trying to sell it as a punishment, but his boss isn’t buying it.” The Love Phantom knew his dining companion was trying his best to do this for him. He was so apologetic at his failures, genuinely believing that the two of them were the best of friends. And the Love Phantom did actually like him, he was good company, just on the wrong side.

“Forced labour can mean death anyway,” Scrambler objected – a statement that was truthful but not helpful considering that the Love Phantom had originally befriended General Probst over the issue of forced labour. Probst was instrumental in who was selected, and the Love Phantom managed to get several of his own staff spared from this when picked – which meant that some other poor unfortunates took their place. It was not necessarily a good rule, but one which was widespread and a human failing. Protect your own first.

“It’s a delaying tactic. It would take time to organise, time in which we may be liberated,” the Love Phantom said.

“Forget the generals. The soldiers are going to do something,” Marcella said with absolute certainty. “It’s their friends who died.”

“Okay,” the Love Phantom nodded, showing her he was considering her view. “Florence Pascoe nee Cahen. Daughter of a serial killer and following in his bloody footsteps. That’s who they want. No wanted posters as we know, but every German in town and every Vichy policeman and Milice are looking for her.”

“Can we locate her?” Hector asked.

“She’ll be showing her face again, right?” the Love Phantom said, looking to Marcella.

“Whether we like it or not,” she replied.

“This sounds like a job for your skillset,” Hector said to him. The Love Phantom knew what he was saying without saying it. Kill her to appease them and spare dozens – maybe hundreds.

“She’d be suspicious of any approach. We got off on the wrong foot.”

“Hardly an issue for you, Love Phantom. Dance, Salome, dance.”

“Show me some moves then, give me some inspiration,” the Love Phantom bantered back. Dark jokes had got them through the last few years, and he wouldn’t stop them even if he could (though ‘get your sword out, Perseus’ would have suited him more), but this was something he had to seriously weigh up. He got close to his other targets for gain, to win their favour and influence them. Assassination – of a virtual black widow – was a different proposition.

Scrambler was a dissenting voice, and it was welcome, the Love Phantom wanting this questioned – that way he didn’t have to do it if a better argument was made. “Why are we even considering doing their dirty work for them? She deserves applause, not this.”

“A bit hard for her audiences to applaud her,” Hector said wryly.

“Come on, Love Phantom. He might not be, but you’re better than this,” Scrambler said.

“It was an outing for the rank and file. There was no real gain to it, but there will be real loss if we don’t do something. Look, if we do have to do it, it looks like it’s going to be me, doesn’t it, so don’t worry about it. You won’t be involved.” The Love Phantom was conflicted. On the one hand, Hector was too quick to have her killed, but Scrambler was too biased towards her and couldn’t acknowledge the chaos she’d caused for no gain at all.

Scrambler still wasn’t having it. “Don’t downplay what she did. War is all about fucking numbers. Those 87 may be key during the Battle of Paris, the Battle of France. Even if there are reprisals, how many more lives would those soldiers have taken when it’s time to fight?”

“Plague could have made them ill, you could have jammed their weapons, I could have wandered amongst them and tried to distract them – none of them are as effective as what she did, I accept that. But we’ve never been a death squad,” the Love Phantom said, proud that they’d not taken that path. Was he really going to start now, use that gift to cause harm?

The Love Phantom found something that night back in his master home that offered a possibility amongst Patience’s notes. A lengthy paragraph from the same person. A farewell to his family and warning for the future. He sounded as though he were a member of the Milice who had come a cropper and feared for them. If any Frenchmen had to die – and the Love Phantom’s preference was for none – members of the Milice were the best option. Their actions during the Occupation doomed them anyway, once Paris was free, so all he would really be doing was bringing the inevitable forward to save others. He made plans to visit Patience for more, briefly confusing her abilities in his head. He wanted