the children understood he was a sergeant. The boys stiffened in fear when the two men stopped before them.
“Your brother,” the doctor said, “is not in the section of lost children.”
“What?”
“The sergeant believes he may have been transported to the commissary, but I imagine he’s still in the building. We must find him before anything happens to him,” Michelle said, glancing at the sergeant.
“I can’t put my men on this job, but I can ask some friends to help us. The velodrome is large, but it only has a few private rooms,” the sergeant explained.
Jacob felt his heart breaking into shards of glass, slicing at him from within, making breath impossible.
“We’re going to find him,” the doctor said. His frail encouragement fell flat, and Jacob burst into tears. He knew that hatred was an unbeatable force in the heart of a wicked man. Every second that went by, his brother was in more danger. He took off running down the halls of the stadium, his heart pounding in his ears with a furious thrum.
Chapter 5
Paris
July 17, 1942
Darkness allied itself to fear that night. Jacob ran from one place to the next, stopped short when he saw a boy that looked like his brother in the crowd, then recommenced his frantic search. It was almost impossible for the doctor to keep up with him. Finally they reached the uppermost tier. The rows of seats swarmed with people even though this was the hottest area in the velodrome. Not even the hint of a breeze stirred, and the nearness of the Seine only increased the humidity.
Jacob stared into faces darkened both by the lack of light and exhaustion. He scoured the bathrooms and searched the few empty seats he could find, then sat down on a bench jutting out into the main hall.
“He’s not here,” he said flatly as the doctor approached, panting.
“He’s got to be somewhere,” Michelle insisted. Though the stadium was enormous, there were only a limited number of hiding places.
“The only place we haven’t gone is . . . Of course!” Jacob shouted, jumping to his feet again.
“Where now?”
“The basement. The gendarme took him to the basement!”
Jacob tore down the stairs and came upon Joseph and the sergeant on their way up. The banging of feet on the stairway reverberated louder as the rest of the group followed Jacob down. Minutes later, on the ground floor, Jacob tried to pull open the basement door—yet it would not budge. The sergeant and a few of the gendarmes that had joined them tried as well, but it was locked from the inside.
“Surely there’s another way in?” Jacob asked the air, frantic. They looked all around but saw no other possible way into the basement.
“Maybe from the bathrooms?” suggested one of the policemen. They all ran back up to the main floor and searched the bathroom hand over hand for any out-of-the-way door. Despite the nauseating stench, Jacob threw himself on the ground to leave no square inch unexplored.
“And we’re sure they didn’t take the child from the building?” Michelle asked the sergeant.
“No, they would have presented a transfer slip. Besides, it’s too soon.”
One of the gendarmes raised his arms and hollered for everyone to come. “Look here!” The group ran toward him and saw two handles sticking out of a metal plate in the floor. Two of the men managed to lift it, revealing a sort of tunnel. One of the gendarmes shone his flashlight into the darkness inside. “There’s no way to know where it—”
Jacob wasted no time. He grabbed the flashlight from the man’s hand and jumped down into the tunnel, with Joseph right behind him. They fell onto a damp, cold floor, then stood and shone the light all around them. “It looks just like the tunnel I was in the other night,” Jacob said.
The boys walked as fast as they could, nearly losing track of the many turns they took, but Jacob kept his eyes on the pipes that looked like the ones he had seen in his first foray into the basement’s inner workings. They walked for a while before the tunnel changed and became more like a hallway. Seeing a light at the end, they proceeded with care.
Jacob feared the worst when he heard voices and cries of pain. He pulled out his pocketknife and, pressed against the wall, made his way carefully toward the room at the entryway ahead. Joseph followed close behind. Jacob turned to Joseph ever so briefly and motioned for absolute