Paris had fallen, but it did not bow.
Christian first entered the city under cover of dusk, his boots clicking against cobblestones still wet with rain. German banners already draped the boulevards, fluttering where once the tricolor had flown. Armored cars rumbled down the Champs-Élysées while Parisians stood in doorways, eyes fixed on the ground, their silence louder than any jeer.
Berlin wanted reports of triumph; Christian saw only smoldering defiance.
The Abwehr had established its offices in a former bank near Place de la Concorde. Marble floors now echoed with German commands, and vaults once filled with francs stored captured intelligence. Christian's orders were precise: monitor the French underground, infiltrate British sympathizers, and strangle the resistance before it could find breath.
But Paris was unlike Warsaw. Its war was quieter, fought in shadows, and Christian quickly learned it was a city of masks.
His first assignment led him into the labyrinth beneath Gare de l'Est, where couriers ferried messages for the underground. He shadowed a young typist by day and uncovered her second life by night: she was passing lists of German troop positions to a British contact through coded recipes scribbled into cookbooks.
One evening, Christian caught her on a narrow footbridge over the Seine, a parcel tucked beneath her arm.
"You shouldn't be out so late," he murmured in French.
Her head whipped around, eyes wide, but before she could cry out, his gloved hand pressed over her mouth. A twist, a push, and she toppled into the dark river below, her parcel clutched to his chest instead of hers. By morning, Abwehr codebreakers were dissecting its secrets.
Berlin praised his efficiency. Paris whispered of another disappearance.
But for every courier silenced, another emerged.
The underground was hydra-headed, its network sprawling across cafés, churches, and brothels. Christian realized his task was not to kill a single head but to poison the bloodstream itself.
He frequented smoky cafés in Montmartre, slipping into backrooms where jazz still played despite curfews. The French spoke in riddles there, testing strangers with fragments of poetry that doubled as passwords. Christian listened, memorized, and passed names along to Herr Müller in Berlin.
Yet the deeper he delved, the more he saw the hunger in their eyes. Not reckless but calculated. They were waiting, building, preparing. Britain might have been isolated across the Channel, but in Paris, Christian could feel its heartbeat.
One night, he followed a lead into the Catacombs, the endless tunnels beneath the city where bones lined the walls in silent testimony to centuries past. His informant had claimed a cell of resistance fighters gathered there, plotting sabotage against German supply lines.
The air was damp, torches flickering as shadows danced across skulls. Christian moved silently, pistol in hand. He found them — four figures hunched over a crude map, voices hushed but urgent.
"…the British will not abandon us," one said. "…we strike before dawn."
Christian stepped from the dark and fired. Two fell before the others scrambled. A knife scraped across his shoulder as one lunged; he drove his elbow into the man's face and pulled the trigger. Silence fell again, broken only by his own breath echoing against the bones.
He searched their bodies, pocketed documents, then snuffed out their torches, leaving the catacombs darker than when he entered.
But as he climbed back to the surface, he could not shake the feeling that the underground would remember but in Paris, blood did not wash away so easily.
By July, Christian had carved a reputation in the Abwehr. Reports credited him with dismantling three resistance cells, intercepting British messages, and sowing fear among sympathizers. His efficiency impressed Berlin.
Yet he noticed how Parisians stared when he walked the boulevards. Not at him, but through him, with the hollow defiance of a people who refused to forget.
Paris was no conquered city. It was a stage, and he a player cast as shadow and executioner. The applause of Berlin meant nothing here. The city watched in silence, waiting for its cue.
Christian knew then: Paris would not break without a fight.