Julian accepted his assignment that afternoon. He still worried about his ability to blend in, about whether he would be effective, and about whether he would be caught, but he no longer agonized over his soul.
“Glad to have you,” Lieutenant McDougall, the British officer, said. “We are sending you to Essen, in the center of the Ruhr. We are interested in any intelligence you can give us, but I expect you will have the most luck gathering information about the Krupp factory. If the Germans are developing secret weapons, any warning we have will improve our response and decrease our losses. I recommend forming friendships with factory workers and courting them for information.”
“How will I blend in?”
McDougall pulled a few documents from his leather satchel. “I have had some paperwork forged for you. Your new name is Becker. Hans Becker. You served in the Polish areas of the Russian Empire with a distant nephew of Herr and Frau Von Hayek. The nephew doesn’t exist, so you can make up his name and how he died. Pick something you can easily remember. Frau Von Hayek will introduce you to a local family, and you’ll be one of their servants. I hope that won’t be too large of an inconvenience. Workers are less suspicious.”
“That’s fine.” He could tolerate being a servant if it would help the poilus in the trenches. He wasn’t scared of hard work—he’d been brought up on a dairy, and cows had to be cared for no matter the weather and regardless of holidays. As for a dead friend, he would describe him as a Teutonic version of Maximo. “So I’m Hans Becker from Alsace. Invalided out of the army after an injury in Russia. Assuming I survive long enough to learn anything, how do I report it?” Julian hesitated for a moment, then decided to mention the one idea he’d come up with. “I can write backward. It was a game my father and I used to play. But it would look suspicious, and it’s easy to read with a mirror.”
McDougall pulled a small jar from his satchel. “Invisible ink. Call it aftershave if anyone asks. Use it as you would normal ink, but use a smooth pen so you don’t leave scratches on your paper—or find rough paper. Write an ordinary letter in ordinary ink, then put this between the lines. If you write backward as well, you’ll buy yourself time should something happen.”
“How does it get from me to you?”
“You’ll mail it to someone near the Dutch border. Either I will sneak in to collect it, or I’ll have an associate smuggle it to me. I am still setting up the details.”
“Still setting up the details?” Julian preferred a tried-and-tested method, not one currently being thrown together.
“It will be in working order before you go in.”
“And when will that be?”
McDougall shrugged. “About a week. It depends on the weather.”
Julian had one week of life left, perhaps more if he could successfully become Hans Becker. He’d already been told he would get no additional leave, but at least he had time to write to his parents. He couldn’t tell them what he was doing, but he wanted them to know they wouldn’t hear from him for a while, if ever again. He bowed his head in sorrow; even if he survived, he doubted he would see his mother again in this life. Her health had been fading anyway, but the decline had accelerated when her sons had gone to war, then taken a permanent turn for the worse when Julian’s brother had been killed.
He spent the next five days training. An officer from the French Deuxième Bureau briefed him on what to expect, and McDougall spent hours every day drilling him on his cover story. Most afternoons he studied hand-to-hand combat with a retired British sergeant. The man’s techniques were unconventional—perhaps unchivalrous—but he seemed eager to teach Julian the tricks he’d learned in the jungles of India. Julian spent his remaining time studying maps of the Essen area, reading newspaper accounts of the war in the east, and practicing with invisible ink. He wrote a dozen normal letters to his mother and father, and McDougall agreed to mail them at two-week intervals. Julian had a feeling the war would outlast his letters, but he doubted he would. The Germans, the French, the British—everyone executed spies.
* * *
On a crisp autumn morning a week after Julian was asked to go into Germany, McDougall told him it was time to leave. A pilot in a Royal Flying Corps uniform accompanied McDougall to the final briefing that evening, held in the tent where most of Julian’s training had been conducted. It took Julian a few seconds of staring at the familiar-looking man for the memory to surface.
“You look different when you aren’t covered in oil,” he told Warren Flynn, the British-Canadian pilot he’d met while taking Maximo to the aid station.
“You look different when you aren’t dipped in mud and speckled with blood.”
“You’ve met?” McDougall asked.
“Yes, Olivier helped me pull my wounded gunner from a wrecked plane this spring.”
“Did he survive?” Julian asked.
“Yes. Boyle made a full recovery, and his injuries don’t seem to have tamed his thirst for flying. Last week he shipped home for pilot’s training. I’ll miss having him as my mechanic, but I’m flying a single-seat plane now, so I don’t need a gunner anymore. And your friend? How is he?”
Julian looked away. “He didn’t make it.”
“I’m sorry.”
Julian turned the conversation back to their assignment. “I don’t suppose you’re using a single-seat plane tonight?”
“No, a two-seater reconnaissance aircraft. I flew it around this morning for a test. It’s slow, but that’s why we’re going in by moonlight.”
An orderly came into the tent and handed McDougall a bundle of cloth. Julian knew it instantly by the color—a German uniform. At his current age, it was more plausible for him to dress like a member of the military until he was established in Essen. If I live that long.
“Let’s go over everything one final time,” McDougall began. “After Lieutenant Flynn drops you off, he will fly to the Netherlands to refuel.”
“You’re sure the fuel will be waiting for me? And no Dutch officials protesting an invasion of their neutrality?”
“Land on the correct field and you’ll have no trouble. Now, Olivier, let’s review your instructions. After you leave the aircraft . . .”
“I go to the nearest train station and purchase a ticket to Essen. I avoid all unnecessary conversation and go directly to Frau Von Hayek’s home. She’ll supply me with the remaining papers I need and find me work. When I have news, I write a mild, completely unsuspicious letter, put my report in the lines between with invisible ink, and mail it to the Düsseldorf address you gave me. I learn what I can, report often, and stay out of trouble.”
“Good. And I’ve added a code name: Arachne. Use that if you need to communicate through a different method—a telegram requesting withdrawal, for example. In the ancient Greek myth, Arachne claimed she was a better weaver than even the goddess Athena. The goddess challenged her to a contest and won. In despair, Arachne hung herself, but the goddess took pity on her and turned her into a spider. That is what you shall be—a spider in a German family’s home. Seeing all and arousing no suspicion.”
“You can’t give him a code name for a woman,” Flynn said.
McDougall’s head snapped from Julian to Flynn. “Why not? It fits the mission.” “No, it doesn’t.”
“It most certainly does. All about changed identity and gathering information as something ordinary.”
The pilot folded his arms across his chest. “I’m currently disenchanted with King Constantine and the rest of the Greeks. His code name is Spider.”
McDougall cleared his throat. “Last I checked, you were not in charge of this mission.”
“No, I’m just the transportation, and I don’t transport male agents who have been given feminine code names. And please don’t give me a code name. I don’t want to be Icarus.”
Red crept onto McDougall’s temples, but eventually his face relaxed. “Fine.” He looked at Julian. “Spider.”
Julian didn’t care what his code name was; he hoped he’d never have to use it. But he had found the conversation amusing. McDougall handed him the German uniform, and Julian turned around to put it on.
While he was changing, the other men continued. “Do you speak any German, Flynn? If something happens, I want you to be able to get out.”
“Kann der Kaiser in der Hölle verrötten.”
Julian chuckled.
“What was that?” McDougall asked.
Flynn didn’t answer, so McDougall turned to Julian. “A translation, please.”
“‘May the Kaiser rot in hell.’”
McDougall glared at Flynn. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”
“I know when to keep my mouth shut,” Flynn said.
“Except around me.”
“Yes, except around you.”