The envelope arrived at dusk.
No wax seal.
No Ministry stamp.
Just a plain cream paper folded once and slid under Moreau's door while he was on the firing range.
Chauvet found it first.
He picked it up, turned it over, squinted. "No sender?"
Moreau took it without a word.
Opened it.
One line.
"When the lights go out, we plan by candle. Rue Saint-Dominique. 23:00."
Beneath that, a coded cipher Moreau recognized one he had seen used only once before, in the earliest days of the pilot division's authorization.
Presidential cipher.
He folded it carefully.
Chauvet was already pacing. "This smells like a trap."
De Gaulle, sipping black coffee near the map table, didn't look up. "If they wanted him dead, they'd make it louder. This… is something else."
Moreau nodded slowly. "I'm going. Alone."
Chauvet barked a laugh. "Of course you are."
The Ministry of War was empty at that hour.
A skeleton night staff, one sleepy doorman, and no lights in the upper floors.
