Bari, Italy
Iuliana Ionescu held her sleeping son and waited. Where did Krzysztof go? He should be resting. She’d spent most of the day with him until a British major asked for a few moments alone. The men had stepped outside, and minutes had stretched into hours. She was concerned for Krzysztof—she’d been worried about him since yesterday morning when he’d been shot in the shoulder while pushing her out of the bullet’s path.
She’d first seen him a month ago but hadn’t really met him until a few weeks later. Yet somehow, in the last two weeks, the logical, gentle Pole had entrenched himself in her heart. In many ways, Krzysztof was Iuliana’s late husband’s opposite, but they were both men firmly rooted in their ideals. When Anatolie’s father was killed, Iuliana had thought she would never fall in love again—it was too painful. But Krzysztof was proving her wrong.
The British major who’d spoken with Krzysztof walked into the room and stopped in front of her. “Mrs. Ionescu?”
“Yes?”
“Come with me, please.”
Anatolie woke, and though it was past his bedtime, she didn’t try to make him sleep again. She put him on his feet and took his hand. He was getting heavy to carry around, and he’d been extra clingy the past day.
The major escorted her to a jeep and motioned her inside.
She hesitated. “Where are we going? And where is Krzysztof?”
“I have a letter from Kapral Zielinski.” He took it from his pocket and pointed to the jeep’s rear seat. Iuliana reached for her letter, but the major held it out of reach. “I am on a strict timeline.”
Feeling uneasy, Iuliana stepped into the car. The major handed her the letter, then sat in the passenger seat, waving over a man from the shadows, who climbed behind the steering wheel. Iuliana opened the letter but couldn’t read the words in the dark. When the driver stopped several minutes later, she could hear the ocean.
The British major led her past two men in caps with red stars to a small building and told her to wait inside. A dim oil lamp sat on a desk in the room’s center, its light just sufficient to show her the furniture and the blacked-out windows. After laying Anatolie on a bench, Iuliana turned up the lamp and read her letter.
Dear Iuliana,
Major Kimby has promised to arrange transport to England for you and Anatolie. I wish I could travel with you, but there are a few things I have to do first. When you get settled in, please leave word with my parents (address below). I know you’ve had mixed luck with men, but I hope you’ll let me call on you when I return to England. I look forward to spending more time with you and getting to know Anatolie better.
Krzysztof
Iuliana finished the letter as the officer came into the room, accompanied by the driver. “Are you Major Kimby?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Where’s Krzysztof?” She hoped Kimby would tell her he was on a hospital ship headed for England.
“On assignment.”
“What? He should be in a hospital!”
Kimby walked across the room and sat behind the desk. He motioned for her to sit across from him. “This was more important.”
“More important than recovering from his wounds?”
Kimby nodded. “It seems Kapral Zielinski and his teammates were involved in some unpleasant contact with our Soviet allies during their last mission.”
Iuliana inhaled sharply. Unpleasant contact was an understatement. But Major Baker had told everyone on the team not to mention anything about their conflict with the NKVD. Iuliana followed Baker’s advice and feigned ignorance. “What happened between Krzysztof’s team and the Communists?”
Kimby let out a short, mocking laugh. “I was hoping you could enlighten me on that very subject. You were there, after all, weren’t you?” When she didn’t speak, he continued. “Lieutenant Eddy, Kapral Zielinski, and James Nelson ran into three NKVD agents. They killed one of our Soviet allies, and the other two disappeared after using Zielinski’s radio to contact their associates. Can you explain what happened to the two missing agents?”
Iuliana shook her head, lying. Peter had taken out the first NKVD man as he was about to stab Iuliana, then shot the other two when they attacked Peter later.
Kimby frowned. He didn’t seem fooled. “Giving Kapral Zielinski and the others a new mission was my only choice. I can’t let them get away with killing Soviet soldiers—it could ruin our Alliance and lose us the war. But I can’t punish them. There would be a public outcry if word leaked that we imprisoned our own commandos after what could be described as self-defense. I had no choice but to send them off again. Now when the Soviet government demands that we turn them over or punish them, we can honestly say they are away on assignment. You know the men, Iuliana. They’d prefer to be in the field rather than in a Moscow prison, wouldn’t they?”
“Who is Krzysztof with?”
“Lieutenant Eddy, Sergeant Moretti, and James Nelson.”
Iuliana felt a little relief. The four of them would look after each other. “And what about Daniel Fisher?” Fisher had nearly died during the debacle with the NKVD.
“Private Fisher was not mentioned by name in the radio report, so he can slip under the radar, so to speak. But you were mentioned, and you are a more serious complication, since I can’t very well send you off on a mission.”
Iuliana glanced at the letter in her lap.
“And I can’t very well send you to England either.”
“But you promised Krzysztof,” she said as panic filled her chest.
“I lied.” Kimby’s face showed no sign of regret or shame.
“Please don’t send me back to Romania,” she begged. She had both Nazi and Communist enemies there. If one didn’t find her and her son, the other would. She wouldn’t last a week.
“That was never my plan.”
“Then what is your plan?”
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to turn you over to the Communists. I apologize, but it is vital that I maintain our relationship with Stalin. We won’t defeat Hitler without his help. I don’t have a direct channel to the Soviet Union, but Tito’s men have offered to take you.”
Iuliana looked behind her at the driver, noticing the red star on his cap and realizing he and the two guards outside were Yugoslav Communists. She turned back to Kimby. “When Krzysztof returns, he’ll come looking for me, and so will his friends.”
Kimby glanced at his fingernails, then at her face. “I’m not too concerned about Krzysztof or his friends returning. I imagine at least half of them are dead already.”
“What?” Iuliana forced herself to take a few deep breaths. “I know those men. They’ll find a way back.”
“You understand my position—if they complete their mission and return, I’ll have to turn them over to the Soviet Union. But between the difficulty of finding the exact drop zone and the fickle nature of parachutes, I don’t think that will be necessary.”
Iuliana jumped to her feet, horrified. Kimby’s words sounded like a confession of sabotage. “Radio the plane and have it turn around! No one on Baker’s team will ever talk about what happened in Bucharest, and I won’t either. You don’t have to do this!”
Kimby grinned. “Perhaps not, but I’m going to do it anyway.”
The Partisan behind Iuliana stepped closer and slapped a damp cloth over her mouth and nose. She grabbed at his wrist and tugged but moved his arm only an inch before he overpowered her. Her vision blurred. She saw Anatolie lying on the bench, asleep, and worked up enough strength to kick the desk into Kimby before she slipped into unconsciousness.