Shadow Lancelot

Chapter 14: The Deception

"Since you’re so eager to prove your worth, Ah Xuan, let me help you reach the top."

Julian Vance didn't miss the cold calculation in Arthur de Molay’s voice. After the bloody display in the Vaults, Julian stared at the folder on the mahogany desk. "Sir, you mean I should continue to lead the hunt for the 'Canvas' cell with the Action Division?"

Arthur smiled, the smoke from his cigar curling around his head like a crown. "That’s right. This is a rare opportunity, Julian. In the Milice, respect is earned in blood and successful arrests. If you want to sit at the high table, this is the achievement you need."

(How far this game goes depends entirely on the mole...) Arthur’s inner voice whispered, a jagged thought that Julian caught with a chill.

Julian masked his reaction with a look of stoic determination. "Thank you for the guidance, Director. I won’t let the family down."

A mole? A game of chess? As Julian walked out, his mind raced. The mole was obviously himself—The Ghost—but was Arthur already aware? Or was the Director planning to use Julian to leak specific information as a test? Julian decided to stay with the Action Team. He needed to be on the ground to see how the pieces were moving.

Signals & Cryptography Wing

Adelaide stood by the tall windows of the Signal Corps, watching the black Citroën convoy roar out of the courtyard for the second time that day. She narrowed her eyes, her fingers absently tracing the line of her jaw.

Knock, knock.

"Enter," she said, not turning around.

Lieutenant Morel stepped in, his boots clicking sharply on the parquet floor. "Report, Section Chief. Inspector Girard has indeed led a team to the Rue de Rivoli. They’ve uncovered a wider network based on the leads from the photo studio. The Action Section is moving in now to sweep up the remaining 'Canvas' agents." He paused. "Interestingly, sir, Julian Vance was the one who executed the prisoner during the initial interrogation."

Adelaide nodded slowly. Her face remained a mask of professional indifference, though her heart hammered against her ribs. Julian had killed? The man who had once been a scholar of philosophy was now pulling triggers for her uncle?

After Morel left, Adelaide grabbed the secure telephone on her desk. "What is the status of the 'Canvas' surveillance?" she asked into the receiver. "Understood. Keep the perimeter tight. If a single agent slips through, don't bother reporting back."

She hung up, her brow furrowed. Something was wrong. The timing was too perfect.

Avenue des Champs-Élysées

A fierce gunfight erupted at the offices of Le Flambeau, an underground newspaper. By the time the local gendarmerie arrived to cordon off the area, the cobblestones were stained crimson and the shooters had vanished.

Inside the lead Citroën of the Milice convoy, Inspector Girard slammed his fist into the dashboard, a string of curses falling from his lips.

Julian sat beside him, his expression grim. He looked at the smoking ruins of the newspaper office. They had moved with surgical precision, yet the moment Girard’s men stepped through the door, they were met with a wall of lead.

"Damn it! Who leaked it?" Girard hissed. "It was a total ambush! We lost six men in the first thirty seconds!"

Julian said nothing. He felt lost. He hadn't sent a signal. He hadn't whispered a word to the Resistance. He had been under the direct observation of Girard and his uncle’s shadows the entire time.

The stronghold was definitely an SOE hub, but it had been prepared. If Julian didn't send the warning, who did? Was there another Ghost lurking in the halls of 83 Avenue Foch? Or was this chaos part of Arthur de Molay’s design—a way to manufacture a "leak" to see who would scramble to cover it?

London, Baker Street. SOE Headquarters.

Colonel Masterman stared at the urgent cable from Paris, his face aging ten years in the span of a minute. He looked up at Colonel Sterling, who was standing at attention.

"Our press office on the Champs-Élysées has been hit," Masterman growled. "What the hell is De Molay playing at? I thought he was using the 'Canvas' cell to find our new 'Arc' network hub. Why is he burning the forest down so early?"

Sterling cleared his throat. "Sir, the warning didn't come from our usual channels. The newspaper office received a phone call from inside the Milice headquarters ten minutes before the raid. Was it Lancelot? Or do we have another friend in that building?"

Masterman frowned. "I don't know. But whoever it was, they saved the core team. But the risk... it’s too high."

The door to the office burst open. Major Higgins rushed in, clutching a second telegram. Seeing Sterling, he hesitated.

"Speak freely, Major," Masterman barked.

"Sir," Higgins panted. "The 'Canvas' cell has also received a warning. They claim a Milice officer intentionally sabotaged his own convoy’s radio to give them a window to escape. They want to know: should they stay and continue the 'Sovereign Vaults' mission, or pull out?"

The three men stood in the quiet office, completely baffled.

"You're telling me," Sterling said, "that both locations were warned? One by a phone call and another by a field sabotage?"

Masterman paced the floor. (Is it Julian?) he wondered. (If it is, the boy is playing with fire. He's breaking every protocol we have to keep him safe.)

"We can't lose a man like Lancelot," Sterling whispered. "If De Molay catches him playing both sides of the raid, there won't be enough of him left to bury."

"Agreed," Masterman said, his voice hard. "Tell 'Canvas' to go to ground. And tell Guinevere to find Lancelot. If he’s compromised himself, we extract him tonight—whether he wants to go or not."

Back in Paris, as the sun dipped below the horizon, Julian sat in a quiet cafe, staring at the front page of a collaborationist newspaper. He could feel the net tightening. He had survived the day, but the "leak" that saved the newspaper office wasn't his doing.

He had a rival. Or perhaps, a guardian angel.

He looked toward the dark towers of the Sorbonne. He needed to find Margot. He needed to know who else was in the game before Arthur de Molay decided to flip the board entirely.

The dusk in Paris didn't bring peace; it brought a thickening of the shadows that felt heavy with the scent of cordite and betrayal. Julian Vance sat in a small, dimly lit bistro three blocks away from the Rue de Seine. He kept his hat low, his eyes tracking the reflection of the street in the window.

He was thinking about the newspaper office. Six Milice dead. The SOE saved by a phone call he hadn't made.

(There is another player in the house,) Julian thought, his analytical mind dissecting the day’s events. (Someone close enough to the Director to know the target, yet daring enough to use the internal lines.)

The bell above the bistro door tinkled. A woman in a dark wool coat and a silk scarf stepped in, her heels clicking softly on the sawdust-covered floor. She didn't look at Julian. She sat two tables away and ordered a café au lait.

It was Margot LeClerc. The Nightingale.

Julian waited until the waiter retreated before speaking, his voice barely a murmur. "The radio static was meant for you, Margot. But the phone call to the Champs-Élysées... that wasn't me."

Margot sipped her coffee, her gaze fixed on the street outside. "We know, Lancelot. London is in a panic. They think you've gone rogue or that the Milice is running a sophisticated counter-intelligence play. Who else is in that building that wants us alive?"

"I don't know," Julian admitted. "But Arthur is agitated. He’s moving the Sovereign Vaults gold tonight. He’s using the chaos of the 'Canvas' raids to mask the transport. If we don't hit it at the Tuileries, that gold is gone."

Margot finally looked at him, her green eyes sharp and unforgiving. "London wants you out, Julian. The 'Ghost' is becoming too visible. Guinevere has orders to extract you tonight."

"I'm not leaving until the gold is stopped," Julian said firmly. "Tell Masterman to hold the extraction. If I pull out now, Adelaide is left behind to face Arthur’s wrath. I won't leave her."

83 Avenue Foch: The Cryptography Lab

While Julian met with Margot, Adelaide de Molay was conducting a private investigation of her own. The "leak" at the newspaper office had humiliated the Action Section, and the internal security teams were already sweeping the phone logs.

Adelaide sat at her desk, her fingers trembling as she scrolled through the manual switchboard records from the afternoon. The Milice headquarters used a semi-automated system, but the secondary lines—the ones used by the domestic staff—were still patched through a central hub.

She found it.

A call placed at 2:15 PM, originating from the De Molay residence’s private study, directed to an unlisted number in the 8th Arrondissement.

The study, Adelaide thought. My uncle was at the Ritz. Julian was in the convoy. I was here.

There was only one person left in that house.

Adelaide stood up, her face a mask of cold determination. She grabbed her coat and her service pistol, slipping it into her handbag. She didn't call for a car. She walked out of the headquarters, the cold wind of the Seine biting at her cheeks.

The De Molay Estate: 11:00 PM

The grand house on Avenue Foch felt like a tomb. Adelaide entered through the side door, her movements silent. She found Madame Claire in the kitchen, calmly polishing silver by the light of a single candle.

"You’re home late, Madame," Claire said, not looking up. "The Monsieur hasn't returned yet. He’s with the Director at the banks."

Adelaide walked to the table and slammed the switchboard log down in front of the housekeeper. "You made a phone call today, Claire. To a newspaper office that was about to be raided by the Milice."

Claire stopped polishing. She looked at the paper, then at Adelaide. The grandmotherly mask didn't slip—it dissolved. Her eyes were suddenly as sharp as a bayonet.

"I’ve lived in this house for twenty years, Adelaide," Claire said, her voice dropping into a cultured, iron-willed tone. "I’ve watched your uncle sell this country piece by piece to the men in the gray uniforms. Did you think I was just here to bake bread and dust the portraits?"

Adelaide felt a surge of vertigo. "You're an agent. A mole. All this time..."

"I am a patriot," Claire corrected her. "And I am Julian’s fail-safe. When he arrived, London told me to watch him. If he turned, I was to kill him. If he succeeded, I was to protect him. Today, he couldn't make the call. So I did."

"He’s in danger tonight," Adelaide whispered, her anger replaced by a sudden, sharp fear. "The gold transport is a trap. Arthur knows about Lancelot."

Claire stood up, reaching into the silver chest. She didn't pull out a spoon. She pulled out a compact Luger and a spare magazine. "Then we stop playing house, Adelaide. If we don't get to the Tuileries in twenty minutes, Julian Vance is a dead man."

The Sovereign Vaults: The Tuileries Garden

The midnight air was freezing. Three heavy, canvas-covered trucks sat idling near the edge of the Tuileries Garden. A squad of Waffen-SS soldiers stood guard, their submachine guns slung low.

Julian stood by the lead truck, his breath hitching in the cold. Beside him, Major Heinrich Adler checked his watch.

"Five minutes, Herr Vance," Adler said, his voice a jagged purr. "The Director says you have a 'tactical eye.' Tell me, if the Resistance were to hit this convoy, where would they do it?"

Julian looked at the dark expanse of the gardens. He could feel the eyes of the Corsican Union and the Free French snipers hidden in the trees. He had coordinated the strike through Margot, but he hadn't expected the SS presence to be this heavy.

"They wouldn't hit the gardens, Major," Julian said, playing the dandy one last time. "Too much open ground. They’d wait for the bottleneck at the bridge."

Adler laughed, a dry, mirthless sound. "A logical answer. But unfortunately for them, we aren't going to the bridge."

Adler turned to the trucks. "Open them!"

The back of the lead truck was pulled back. Julian stared. There was no gold. There were only rows of MG-42 machine guns mounted on tripods, manned by soldiers waiting in the shadows.

It wasn't a transport. It was a mobile ambush unit.

(Scanning signatures...) Julian’s dialysis mode flared. He saw the heat signatures of the Resistance fighters moving in the bushes. They were walking into a slaughter.

"Arthur knew you would leak the route, Julian," Adler said, his pistol suddenly pressed against Julian’s ribs. "He wanted to see who would show up to claim the 'gold.' And look... here they come."

A whistle blew in the distance. The Resistance fighters rose from the shadows, ready to seize the trucks.

"No!" Julian screamed, drawing his own weapon.

The gardens erupted into a symphony of fire. The MG-42s tore through the night, their tracers carving lines of white light through the trees. Julian dived behind the wheel of the lead truck, pulling his trigger as Adler fired back, the bullet grazing Julian’s shoulder.

Just as the slaughter seemed inevitable, a roar of an engine echoed from the Rue de Rivoli. A black Milice sedan—the one Julian recognized as his own—crashed through the garden gates.

The passenger window rolled down. Madame Claire leaned out, a submachine gun in her hands, while Adelaide gripped the steering wheel, her face set in a mask of grim defiance.

"Lancelot! Get in!" Claire roared, unleashing a burst of fire that forced Adler to dive for cover.

Julian didn't hesitate. He scrambled toward the car as the world turned into a chaotic blur of smoke and lead. He rolled into the backseat just as Adelaide slammed the car into reverse, tires screaming against the gravel.

"You're late," Julian gasped, clutching his bleeding shoulder.

"I had to help the help with the silver," Adelaide snapped, her eyes fixed on the road.

As they sped away from the burning garden, Julian looked at the two women. The "Scoundrel" was gone. The "Housekeeper" was an assassin. And his wife was a getaway driver.

The battle for the Sovereign Vaults had been a disaster, but the war for Paris had just entered its most lethal phase.