“So we have to wait.” Phillip gripped his beer stein so hard he half hoped the handle might snap off. He was so tired of playing nice, of ignoring every stab. He hadn’t come here to give a strained smile at the same callous people he could have smiled at back home.
“It won’t be too much longer now. Just a few hours!”
“And I’ve got dinner,” Mitzi announced, returning down the basement steps with a tray.
Despite himself, Phillip’s mouth watered. The camping rations he’d scarfed down that morning, scavenged out of the bags of the dead German family in the cabin, had barely served as an appetizer. Mitzi’s tray was loaded with stacks of grilled sausage links glistening with grease and creamy cutlets. The smell of roasted meat unleashed a mighty rumble in his gut.
Then he noticed the looks on Simone’s and Rebeka’s faces.
“I can’t eat that,” Simone said.
Rebeka stared. “Me neither.”
“Oh, surely you can make an exception. You’re half starved,” Ilse said.
“That’s my decision.”
“But you can’t do the Resistance much good if you’re dead,” Mitzi said, around a mouthful of sauerkraut.
Phillip glanced at Rebeka, the tension in her mouth and her hollowed cheeks. Maybe he could convince her to have some of the bread rolls, or the sauerkraut—just something to get her strength up before they started the search for her brother—
Rebeka spun from the booth with a miserable cry. Phillip dropped the sausage link he’d been pulling toward his plate and rushed toward her, but she was fury and wounded pride, shoving him away. “Don’t touch me,” she wheezed, then slumped forward. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it isn’t you, it isn’t you.”
But it was the whole world. It was people who blamed their troubles on those with even less power than them. It was the “believers” whose mouths prayed as their hands shoved away the suffering, the sick, the poor, the oppressed. It was the nonbelievers convinced that empathy was a weakness they needed to evolve past.
Rebeka clasped Phillip’s hands in her own. “This is why we’re here,” she whispered feverishly. “This is why we’re carrying on. Because I’ll be damned if we put our fate in the hands of people who can drop our cause the moment it becomes too heavy for them to carry.”
Phillip shook his head. “I’ll never be clever enough, smart enough, innovative enough to prove my worth. I already tried, and I only made things worse.”
“Your worth as a person isn’t something you have to prove.”
Phillip tipped forward, legs going weak beneath him. Such a simple idea, but one he’d never even considered. His whole life had been about proving himself. To his successful parents, to Mr. Connolly and the white world south of Archer Street, to himself. He was trying to make himself tall enough that no one could push him down. But maybe he was already enough. Or, could still be yet.
He tried to smile at her, but relief overwhelmed him, a wave that threatened to break on his face. “I still want to help,” he managed.
Rebeka raised her hand and brushed her thumb along his lower lashes. He knew it came away damp, but didn’t care. “Then let’s wreck the Third Reich.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
EVANGELINE
By the time they left 84 avenue Foch, the first rays of sun had already stained Paris’s eastern flank. It all looked so wrong, given the night she’d had. Twilight Paris was seductive: glamorous and mature. But predawn Paris should look more innocent; its hands should not ache from being too long clenched in fists; its teeth should not throb from a tense jaw. Its eyes should not be dried out and swollen from exhaustion, terror, tears.
If Stefan saw anything wrong with the morning, though, he was careful not to show it. He was still onstage—for how could any of this not have been part of a careful performance, one he’d possibly been scripting since the day they met? If the act was wearing him out, if the hours of Georges-Yves’s screams had taken any toll on him, he gave no hint. He whistled as he opened Evangeline’s door for her, then slid in behind the chauffeur.
More than anything, she was shocked he was letting her leave Gestapo headquarters at all.
“I apologize for the long evening,” he said, as the car nosed its way toward the Champs-Élysées. The Arc de Triomphe seemed like a cruel mockery as it loomed into view. “But given your position, I am sure you recognize how terribly important it was. That interrogation simply could not wait.”
He folded his overcoat between them on the bench. Her gaze swept over it, the pockets, the lining, all the little creases and folds she’d carefully memorized. Her father once called her a thieving magpie, an insult she took to heart. Now, the Magpie’s fingers twitched.
“I see the point,” Evangeline answered carefully. “However, I’m not sure it has much to do with my office.” Through the blear of exhaustion, she managed to chain together an alibi. “We only deal with requisitions, after all. Not counterintelligence.”
“Ahh, but that is where you are wrong. Counterintelligence is the duty of all subjects of the Third Reich.” Stefan folded his hands neatly over one knee as he leaned toward her. “Those requisitions your office manages—why, it is just that kind of critical intelligence that someone has been leaking across the airwaves that poor imbecile’s network established.”
The hours of fear and visceral horror as she watched Stefan conduct his interrogation had wrung her out, leaving a frayed, filthy dishrag of a girl behind. She scrabbled for purchase in some kind of lie, some kind of subterfuge, but only came up with broken nails.
“That’s why you came to my office in the first place,” she said slowly. “You were hunting a mole.”
He smiled, far too pleased with himself. “That’s right.”
“But you caught them. Did you not? Three people left the office quite abruptly, shortly afterward.” Which was true. At least one had been a reassignment, Evangeline knew, but Stefan didn’t have to know she knew that. She’d changed her tactics, slowly, carefully, after his investigation had begun. Gradually enough that he might not notice the mole had been tipped off to his attentions. She was doing everything right. By God, she’d done everything so carefully that she feared she hadn’t made any real difference at all.
But she’d done enough to send the Gestapo scrambling. She’d done enough for Simone to be building some sort of damned ridiculous campaign into the heart of the Third Reich. She’d done enough that Georges-Yves was going to pay for it with his life, and who knew how many more. She’d done enough to sign her own execution orders, if Stefan was steering this where she feared.
And still the Nazis held her city, the world, in their brutal grasp.
“I thought we’d caught them, but no,” Stefan finally said, the tinge of remorse in his voice far too phony. “It would seem we have not. But it’s no matter. I’m sure we will very soon.”
They had reached the 16th arrondissement. He could not possibly be taking her home for real—could he? This was just another stage of the hunt, of whatever snare he was trying to draw around her. She’d been caught, and he was drawing it out for as long as he could, waiting for her nerves to fray and snap. She didn’t need to be sitting in that same bloody chair where Georges-Yves had slumped for her interrogation to have already begun.
“It has been a long night, and I’ve been a terrible excuse of a gentleman by keeping you out so late.” He patted her hand; she didn’t bother to hide her instinct to recoil. “Take the day off. Get some rest. You work far too hard as it is.”
“Some rest,” she repeated. As if she could possibly sleep after that.
Yes. He wanted her scared, panicked, thrashing about to pull the snare tighter. He was letting her go so he could follow her back to her den. He had all the pieces of the network sorted out: now he wanted to see how she would assemble them.
“I’ll do my best,” she offered with
a smile. And let herself into the mansion, his eyes burning a hole in her back the entire way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
SIMONE
One hour and far too much awkward silence later, they were finally allowed into the keg cellar that smelled of wet and yeast. Beside her, Phillip nearly choked at the pitiful receiver they’d been using to listen to Resistance communiqués. “I’m amazed you can even get a signal with this thing.”
“It’s verboten to buy anything more powerful,” Jürgen said with a shrug. “And even if it weren’t, it’s a sure way to expose yourself as a spy.”
“How did you learn the transmission codes? Where to listen?” Simone asked.
“My mother has friends in Paris who connected us. They promised we could do some good,” Ilse said.
“Well?” Phillip turned toward Simone, lips pressed into a thin line. “Shall we get to work?”
She didn’t know him well, but it was palpable, his reluctance. It was heavy in her, too. Neither of them trusted these bumbling fools, these pampered Germans who played at Resistance like it was a low-stakes dominos game. They only placed bets with spare change, and not their very lives. It made Simone sick to think how very many lives they’d be placing in these idiots’ hands as fresh bargaining chips.
But then she thought of the Magpie, waiting expectantly on the other side of the vast fields of static. They were running out of time: to gather intelligence on Wewelsburg, to stop Rebeka’s brother, and then, if they knew what was good for them, to flee this cursed forest for good.
“Let’s do it,” Simone said.
Phillip let out his breath. Trusting her. She hoped that trust wasn’t misplaced.
“All right.” Phillip rubbed his hands together. “First, I’m going to switch out your power source. This thing you’ve got is barely better than a crystal diode. Then we’ll get you set up with the huff-duff foilers and a TX box—uh, a transmitter, that is. Then, if it looks like everything’s functioning as it should, I’ll leave you with this—” He held up the device he’d designed, the frequency folder. “This will cover all your encryption and decryption needs, and confuse even the most dedicated direction finders. You can get rid of all of this.” He waved his hand at the stack of loose papers they’d been using to unscramble the Resistance ciphers. “Under one condition.”
They all stared at him wide-eyed.
“At the first hint, and I mean the very first hint, that someone might stumble across it, you take your shoe and you smash that cipher box.” He pantomimed crushing it with the heel of his boot. “Smash it as hard as you can.”
* * *
After a fair bit of work and some creative rearrangement of the cellar’s circuitry, they had a functioning transmission station. The German kids crowded around it like it was a new toy, arguing over whose information would get sent out first, but Simone spoke up anxiously.
“Actually, I need to transmit something.”
The Germans looked at each other; Jürgen shrugged and headed back upstairs to entertain his patrons.
“We were supposed to report in to the Magpie once we reached Wewelsburg,” Simone said in a low voice to Phillip. “I don’t know if the network ever received our previous message, but . . .”
“But?” Phillip asked, one eyebrow raised. Simone didn’t answer, her jaw tightening. Stupid, wishful thinking on her part. Could she really ask him to trust her once more?
With a sigh, Phillip stationed himself at the transmission station and switched on the encryption box. “All right, what should we send?”
Simone tugged at the sleeves of her hunting jacket, pulling them down over her hands. “Send it urgent to Magpie. Say that . . . that we’ve reached Wewelsburg and are ready to gather any shiny bits the Magpie requires. Standing by.”
Phillip tapped out the message slowly, painstakingly, the dits and dahs taking an eternity. It dropped out into the ether, and across Europe, hidden in basements just like this one, men and women hunched over their radios turned down low and rushed to scribble down the message before it slipped out of their grasp. But none called back out. The receiver stayed quiet.
“Sorry.” Simone shrank into her jacket, her stomach sinking. “I guess I just thought—”
MAGPIE. TX BEGINS.
Phillip scrambled to grab a pencil. Simone almost ripped it from his hand, then thought better, and wrapped her arms around herself as he rushed to transcribe the new message. She hovered at his shoulder like a bird ready to spook.
YOUR MAGPIE WELCOMES ALL SHINIES FOR HER NEST, the message continued. CAN PROVIDE LIMITED SUPPORT.
“Ilse! Ilse, where are you?”
Jürgen rushed back down the stairs, his face flushed. Simone gritted her teeth, willing Phillip to concentrate on the Morse code while the Germans gathered in excited, rushed tones.
ENTERING CAMELOT BUT SOME CHANNELS COMPROMISED, Simone answered. CAN YOU HELP US?
TIME LIMITED, Phillip transcribed as the response came in. CAN ARRANGE SAFE EXTRACTION AFTER TWO HOURS—
“You’re needed at the Castle. Kreutzer’s orders. The guards are waiting for you upstairs.”
—BUT THIS NETWORK UNSAFE, the response finished. ADVISE ON NEXT STEPS, OVER.
The floor opened up beneath her, the sinkhole that was her heart threatening to swallow her alive. Could this Magpie really be her Evangeline? Her flighty, thieving, mischievous girl. She had been orchestrating countless tiny coups, not the ones that lived in her own head like Ilse’s and Jürgen’s did, but the thousand cuts that just might strike the right artery. The bitterness Simone had felt that swollen April night still burned inside her—it had grown pleasant to hold on to—but no, even that comfort was washed away in this new flood of relief.
“Yes,” Simone pleaded. “Tell her we’ll take the two hours.”
Phillip watched Simone for a moment, and for once in her life, she was too happy to want to hide her happiness behind the shield of her scorn. He laughed once, quick, to himself, and began to type out their response.
“What’s going on?” Ilse asked, crowding over Simone’s shoulder.
Her shrill voice brought Simone back to earth. She turned toward the Germans, Jürgen and his rosy cheeks. Rebeka unfolded her arms from where she’d been lurking in the shadows and stepped closer, eyebrows drawn.
“Why do they need Ilse at the castle?” Rebeka asked.
“They captured a Jewish boy inside the castle compound. Apparently he’d made his way into Dr. Kreutzer’s office. Was trying to assassinate him.”
Rebeka sucked in her breath like she’d been punched in the gut. Simone felt the blow, too. She could only think of one Jewish boy stupid and angry enough to try just that.
“Kreutzer wants your assistance with the questioning,” Jürgen said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
EVANGELINE
Were it not for Simone, none of it would have happened. She would have gone to work in the Vichy alliance; she would have bowed her head and avoided any attention the Nazis shot her way. Maybe she would have allowed Stefan to court her, maybe not, but it would not have been the same. She would have been nothing but a coward then, the coward Simone believed her to be—the coward she really was.
This wasn’t bravery, even now, that compelled her to go on. It was its own cowardice, the fear of Simone actually being right.
For Simone always saw through her, saw her skeletal structure of privilege and comfort and wealth. She had worked hard to make her way to the Sorbonne, it was true; but plenty of people worked hard; plenty of people were at least as smart as she was. Only they didn’t have the silver platter of the Gaturin name, the Gaturin money, the Gaturin comforts to serve up that hard work. Simone exposed her to the bone, revealed every last layer of who Evangeline really was. Evangeline hated it; she hated what she saw when at last she was able to look at herself throug
h Simone’s eyes.
And yet, despite it all, Simone had loved her. For a time.
God, what was she doing? Was she risking countless lives just to prove Simone wrong? To run from the person she knew she really was? She was doing the right thing, the bold and stupid thing, true, the most that could be done by anyone in her position. But it was so minuscule; it was so, so late. Even in this pathetic act of resistance, she’d now been caught.
Georges-Yves had given Stefan everything he knew. The Resistance node locations. The radio frequencies. The codes.
Simone was in the dark of the forest now, stumbling blindly, no idea that the only lifeline she had was now compromised.
Evangeline stared around the darkening mansion, around her bedroom of silk and gold and brocade. Stefan’s men were almost certainly watching the house, waiting to see what her next move would be. He wanted her to rush straight to her radio set and try to warn the others in the network, implicating herself and them. He wanted to see her in action.
Well, Evangeline was well versed in the dangers of wanting too much.
She moved to the far corner of the upstairs sitting room and found the corner piece just beside the fireplace mantel. Simone’s work was so flawless that she doubted even the finest Nazi spy hunter could ever detect the faint dip and groove in the molding that Evangeline was now prying loose.
Deep in the bones of Château à Pont Allemagne, something clicked.
Evangeline rushed back to her bedroom and wrenched open the panel that had been unsealed. She pulled it all out—all of it. The cipher books, the transmissions she’d yet to make, the radio and Morse code communicator and signal booster and everything else, everything someone might possibly need to hang her for subversive acts against the occupying forces.
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