Shadow Lancelot

Chapter 9: Onboarding

It must be said that Elodie knew exactly how to find a man’s pressure points.

Seeing Julian Vance shake his head, Elodie looked as though she might have pounced on him and taken a chunk out of his shoulder if her mouth hadn't been stuffed with a croissant. To her, this man was the pinnacle of exasperation.

"If you have no intention of coming with me, Julian, why do you insist on asking about my plans?" she muffled through the pastry.

In truth, Julian felt a profound sense of gratitude toward the girl. Elodie was like a chaotic angel sent from the heavens to navigate him through the labyrinth of the De Molay household. Earlier that evening, while they walked along the Rue de Rivoli, they had passed the very "dead drop"—a loose brick in a soot-stained wall—that Julian used to communicate with Margot LeClerc.

Under the pretense of stopping at a kiosk for a pack of Gauloises, Julian had successfully tucked the coded dispatch into the hollow. Now, his only hope was that Margot would notice the signal. He had no other lifeline; in the occupied city of Paris, silence was the only safety.

In the winding, rain-slicked alleys near the Seine, Margot LeClerc—better known in the shadows as Guinevere—adjusted her headscarf. Disguised in a drab wool coat, she stepped off a bicycle to scout the perimeter of the Rue de Rivoli.

The flower shop on Rue de Seine was compromised, and so was she. The realization tasted like copper in her mouth. She had replayed the events a thousand times, and only one conclusion remained: Vivienne, the woman they called 'The Artist,' had visited her on the very night she was receiving a high-priority telegram from London.

Vivienne was the leak.

After narrowly escaping the Milice raid on the flower shop, Margot hadn't retreated to the main safehouse at the Hotel Ritz. Instead, she doubled back to a cold, damp cellar she had used years ago during her first stint as an SOE operative.

By force of habit, she always passed the old dead drop. It was a relic from her days working with the agent codenamed Lancelot. She had assumed it would remain cold forever. But tonight, a faint chalk mark on the base of a lamppost caught her eye.

She waited. She watched the shadows for an hour, her hand resting on the small pistol in her pocket, ensuring there was no Gestapo tail. Only when she was certain it wasn't a "rat trap" did she retrieve the scrap of paper and vanish back into the mist.

Back in the safety of the cellar, by the light of a single candle, she read the scrawl.

"Vivienne has defected."

"Operation Scythe in motion..."

Margot ground her teeth so hard her jaw ached. She had respected Vivienne. She had treated the woman like a sister in arms, only to be sold out to the Milice. Worse, Vivienne’s betrayal had nearly dragged the man she knew as Lancelot—the real Julian Vance—into the abyss.

"Damn her," Margot whispered, the paper curling in the candle flame.

London, Baker Street. Headquarters of the Special Operations Executive (SOE).

Colonel Masterman was in the process of dictating orders to Major Maxwell when the door swung open. Colonel Sterling, the head of intelligence, marched in, his face a mask of grim urgency.

"Sterling? What's the crisis?" Masterman asked without looking up.

Sterling didn't answer immediately. He dropped a decrypted cable onto the mahogany desk.

"Vivienne has turned," Sterling said flatly.

Masterman paused, his pen hovering over the inkwell. He remained outwardly calm, though the air in the room seemed to chill. "And?"

"And... we have word on Operation Scythe."

That broke Masterman’s composure. He stood up, his chair scraping harshly against the floor. Even their best deep-cover assets hadn't been able to glean the specifics of the Nazi 'purge' planned for the French countryside. To date, only Arthur de Molay and the traitor Vivienne should have known the details.

"How did we get this, Sterling? Who sent it?"

Sterling stood ramrod straight, his British Army uniform impeccable despite the late hour. "It came through the old channel, Director. The signal was signed 'Guinevere,' but the source of the data... it has to be Lancelot."

Masterman tapped a rhythmic beat on the table. "Lancelot... our 'Ghost' in Paris. He’s finally hunting." He looked up sharply at Maxwell. "Major, cancel the previous orders. We need a full tactical pivot. If Lancelot has the details of Scythe, we can save the resistance cells in the north."

He stared at the map of France pinned to the wall. "The cub is starting to roar. I wonder... how on earth did he get his hands on De Molay's private files?"

The following morning, Julian Vance officially joined the Intelligence Division of the Milice at 83 Avenue Foch.

Arthur de Molay, the man the city whispered about in fear, personally walked Julian through the corridors. Because of this high-level patronage, the rank-and-file officers—men who usually smelled of stale coffee and malice—treated Julian with a veneer of polite respect.

On paper, Julian was a junior clerk. Without a private office, he was assigned a desk in the main intelligence bull-pen, a room filled with the clatter of typewriters and the hum of redirected phone calls.

To the casual observer, Julian was a "leech" personified. He spent the entire morning slacking off. He sat at his workstation, sipping tea and buried behind a copy of Le Matin. When he finished the paper, he picked up a dusty volume of poetry. He looked like a man who had secured a paycheck through nepotism and intended to do as little as possible to earn it.

But behind the newspaper, Julian’s mind was a racing engine.

He was utilizing a method of hyper-observation—a mental "analytical mode." To him, the room was not a chaotic office; it was a treasure trove. Being stationed in the heart of the Milice was like being a wolf invited into the sheepfold.

(Scanning sector... processing visual data...)

His eyes drifted over the desks within a ten-meter radius. He wasn't just looking; he was filing away every letterhead, every signature, and every half-exposed file.

(Document: 'Operation Scythe' logistics... logistical transport schedules... bank ledgers for Vichy officials...)

A particular thrill shot through him when his eyes landed on a folder labeled Operation Scythe. It confirmed his intelligence: a massive, joint effort between the Gestapo and the Milice to sweep the French countryside and annihilate the Communist partisans—the FTP guerrillas.

As a man whose true sympathies lay with the cause of liberation, Julian knew he had to find a way to warn the partisans. The problem was, he had no bridge to the Communist cells. In the eyes of the underground, he was just Julian Vance: the dandy, the scoundrel, the husband of a Milice cryptographer.

He stood up, stretching his limbs. Sitting too long made him look suspicious; he needed to be the "bored aristocrat."

"Hello there. You're Julian Renard, aren't you?"

Julian stopped at a desk occupied by a man who looked like he hadn't seen sunlight since the fall of the Republic. The man’s hair was a greasy slick, his spectacles were thick as bottle-ends, and his Milice uniform was stained with ink at the cuffs.

This was Su Jian—or rather, the man Julian had identified as the primary filter for the office. Every document that entered the department touched this man's desk first.

Julian leaned against the desk, flashing a disarming, lazy smile. He fished out a silver case and offered a Gauloise.

Su Jian hesitated, looking up from a mountain of manifests. He took the cigarette with a trembling hand. "Thank you. And yes, you're the Vance fellow. The Director's nephew-in-law. I remember the memo."

Julian pulled up a chair, sitting backward on it with a casual air. "An honor to be remembered. It’s my first day, and frankly, I’m bored to tears. I’ve read the news twice. Is there anything a man can do around here to look busy, or am I destined to die of inertia?"

Su Jian looked at Julian with a mixture of envy and pity. "Work is assigned by Chief Inspector Gaston. If he hasn't given you a pile, count your blessings. Why would you want to work? I haven't had a lunch break in three days."

(The Director brought him in personally,) Su Jian thought, his expression transparent to Julian’s trained eyes. (Gaston won't touch him. He doesn't want to offend De Molay by giving his 'golden boy' the drudge work. Lucky bastard.)

Julian nodded sympathetically, his eyes already drifting to the stack of "In-Tray" documents on Su Jian’s left. "You’re right, of course. Perhaps I’ll just go find another cup of tea. But if you ever need a hand with the filing... I’m your man."

As he walked away, Julian had already memorized three transport routes for the upcoming "Scythe" purge. The hunt had truly begun.

Julian had learned everything he needed from Su Jian’s desk without the man even realizing he’d been interrogated. As he wandered back toward the kitchenette to refill his tea, Julian’s mind mapped out the logistics of Operation Scythe. The Nazi high command was planning to use the rail lines through Compiègne to move their heavy suppression units. If the FTP—the Communist partisans—didn't get word, they’d be walking into a meat grinder.

The clacking of typewriters suddenly slowed as a sharp, rhythmic click of heels echoed against the marble floor of the corridor. Julian didn't need to turn around to know who it was. The air in the room seemed to tighten, the lazy atmosphere evaporating instantly.

Adelaide de Molay stepped into the bull-pen.

She looked every bit the high-ranking official of the Milice’s Signals & Cryptography division. Her tailored navy suit was crisp, her blonde hair pinned back in a severe but elegant roll, and her expression was as cold as a Parisian winter.

"Julian," she said, her voice cutting through the room’s low hum.

"My dear," Julian replied, donning his mask of the aimless husband. He gave her a flirtatious, slightly lopsided grin. "Come to check if I’ve managed to find the stationery cupboard without getting lost?"

A few of the clerks stifled titters. Adelaide’s eyes narrowed. To the rest of the office, she was the brilliant, terrifying niece of the Director, and Julian was the charming dead weight she had unfortunately married.

"My uncle wants to see you in his office," she said, ignoring his jab. "And try to look like you belong in a government building, not a cabaret."

Julian set his teacup down with a theatrical sigh. "Duty calls. Su Jian, keep that cigarette for later—you look like you’ll need it."

He followed Adelaide out of the room. Once they were in the empty hallway, the tension between them shifted. It wasn't the coldness of a superior to a subordinate, but the guardedness of two people playing a very dangerous game of chess.

"You’re making a spectacle of yourself," Adelaide hissed under her breath, her eyes scanning the hallway for eavesdroppers. "Reading the paper all morning? You might as well wear a sign that says you aren't here to work."

"On the contrary, Adelaide," Julian whispered back, his voice losing its playful edge. "In this building, the man who does nothing is the only man no one watches. If I started filing reports with enthusiasm, your Chief Inspector Gaston would wonder what I was digging for. As it stands, he think I'm just a pampered fool. It’s the perfect cloak."

Adelaide stopped in front of the heavy oak doors of Arthur de Molay’s office. She turned to him, her gaze searching his face. For a fleeting second, the mask of the Milice officer slipped, revealing the woman who had once shared a life with him before the war turned everything to ash.

"Just be careful, Julian," she said, her voice barely audible. "My uncle isn't a man who tolerates 'fools' for long, even ones married to his niece. If he thinks you’re useless, he’ll find a more permanent way to dispose of you than a desk job."

"I'm harder to get rid of than a bad habit, you know that," Julian teased, though his heart hammered against his ribs.

He pushed the doors open.

The office was vast, overlooking the Avenue Foch. Arthur de Molay sat behind a desk carved from dark mahogany, framed by the swastika and the Vichy tricolor. Beside him stood Major Heinrich Adler, the Gestapo commander whose reputation for cruelty was legendary even among the occupiers.

"Ah, Julian," Arthur said, spreading his hands. "Come in. Major Adler was just telling me about a certain... leakage of information regarding our upcoming 'Scythe' operations. He seems to think our walls have ears."

Julian felt a cold sweat prickle his spine, but he maintained his lazy posture. "Ears, Uncle? In this building? I’d be more worried about the rats. I saw one in the breakroom earlier that looked like it could read German."

Adler didn't laugh. His eyes, blue and predatory, fixed on Julian like a hawk watching a mouse. The game was no longer just about blending in; it was about survival.