It was closing on 5 a.m., and Brigitte was so tired. She pressed a cold, wet cloth to her bloody lip. She would not let her eyes close. The last time she did, the man hit her.

They were assembled in the kitchen, Brigitte seated at the kitchen table, Colette across from her. While Tom and Rafael had crept over the roof in front, the squad of Milice had burst into the door in back. They’d acted as though they’d raided a Resistance headquarters full of weapons, instead of a home with four women.

“I don’t know what else we can do here,” the man who’d hit Brigitte said to Claudio. “Do you want this to go all the way up to Rommel? Not me.”

The man’s name was Laroche, a brisk, authoritative man with streaks of gray in hair so thick it stuck up from his head like a bristle broom. “If we pursue it, that is where it will have to go. Is it worth it?”

“But it is true,” Brigitte said plaintively. “He worked for Rommel himself! Please don’t look at me like that, Colette. I am sorry I did not tell you everything. I am in love.”

Colette said nothing.

“He did not tell you he is working with the Allies . . . ,” Laroche said once more.

“No! I told you, I do not know why he left. Is he guilty of something? Perhaps. We all are, I think. But I make no excuse for how I feel.” She drew herself up, declared passionately, “So what if he is guilty of something? I am in love!” Suddenly she gasped, then clapped a hand to her cheek.

Laroche said quickly, “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Brigitte said.

“I can even out your mouth, my dear,” Laroche said.

“It is nothing, it is ridiculous.” Then, unwillingly, in a small voice, “His motorcycle. He says he borrowed it . . . but now I wonder . . .”

“Borrowed it from who?”

“Rommel.”

“Rommel?” Laroche barked, incredulous. He turned to Claudio. “You say his papers were signed by Rommel? He was assigned to the Cimenterie by Rommel? And now he borrows a motorcycle from his best friend, Rommel?” He frowned. “I wonder if we are dealing with a simple lunatic. Certainly the papers are forged. Maybe he stole them from someone. Perhaps his only crime is that he is a braggart who wants to impress a whore.”

“Oh no, monsieur, he is on very good terms with Rommel,” Brigitte assured.

“Terms?” Claudio exploded. “He said he never met him! Didn’t he, Colette? He said he’d pass his papers on to his grandchildren! He’d never met him.”

“That is not true!” Brigitte hotly declared. “He told me he is Rommel’s confidant!”

Claudio swooped in, pushing his face into hers. “He knew he could lie to you, but not to us.” He withdrew, leaving a sour wake of wine-coated breath. He turned to Laroche. “I’m telling you—”

“Enough.” Laroche had the look of a man who had figured it all out. He put his hands behind his back. “If we go to the Cimenterie, we will find there never was a Major Kees Nieuwenhuis. Perhaps he is the very Dutch conscript he was sent to ‘investigate,’ just a man who filled himself with grandiose thoughts.” He shrugged. “You are enslaved on the wall twelve hours a day, what else can you do? Your country is flattened by the Reich, you have lost all pride . . . you imagine yourself to a better place. He is nothing but a con man.”

“What about the name Cabby?” Claudio demanded.

“Yes—and when have you ever cared about the transcripts, Benoit?” Laroche turned a glare on him. “I know what you do with them. You use them to wipe your backside. How many times have we handed them out, hmm? You read one transcript and suddenly you are an expert on Allied evasion tactics.”

“It was her idea,” Claudio said, pointing at Colette. “She read it and—”

“She read the transcript?” Laroche demanded, voice high. “You pass out the weeklies to your friends?”

“It was just sitting on the table with—”

“What else has she seen, hmm? Oh—perhaps I should be talking to Mademoiselle Colette, here. Maybe she should have your job!”

“But the way he looked when she said, ‘Tom’—”

“The way he looked,” Laroche mocked. “He probably looked the way I would have: ‘Why is this crazy broad calling me Tom? Doesn’t she know my name?’”

“What transcript?” Brigitte asked.

“Go ahead. Show her. Everyone else has seen it.”

Grimacing, Claudio reached into his back pocket. He unfolded a piece of paper and tossed it on the table. Brigitte reached for it, smoothed it out.

—Angel flight this is lead. Rolling in. One and two take targets on the right three and four

—Captain we got movement.

—Mayday this is Angel three I’m hit I’m hit.

—Angel three can you make it back?

—Pressure gauge says no flight lead. I’m going in.

—Copy. We’ll cap the area. Good luck Tom.

—Good luck Cab.

—Guts and glory Cabby.

“It was part of a transmission intercepted at the radar station at Douvres-la-Délivrande,” Laroche said. “Benoit believes your man is this pilot. Yet I have questioned everyone, Benoit; all say he was Dutch, no question about it—especially Private Müller, and a German should know, in particular one who lived near the border of Holland.”

The paper sat in Brigitte’s hands. It was supposed to mean nothing to her.

“I have had enough of this. I am sorry I struck you, mademoiselle. You were falling asleep. It was rude.” Laroche’s look lingered on Brigitte, and his eyes narrowed. He turned to Claudio. Half to himself, he said, “Could it be that you are jealous?”

“What? Me, jealous? Pfft. I can have her anytime I want. Trust me.”

It was supposed to mean nothing to her.

Mayday this is Angel three I’m hit . . .

“You never brought me flowers.”

Attention went to Colette. It was the first time she’d spoken since Laroche had questioned her in the sitting room hours ago. Brigitte saw a fleeting look: the hazel eyes went from the transcript to Brigitte. They flashed away to land full upon Claudio.

“Major Kees brought Brigitte the loveliest little soaps. They know each other a few days, he brings her soap. You?” Her lip curled. “At least you brought the others raspberries.”

Claudio could not have been more pathetically found out.

“Flowers even once?” Colette shouted. “And we are supposed to be in love? Not a dandelion!”

Laroche rolled his eyes. “Enough. This matter is closed. Benoit, you will apologize to the men you roused. We will keep an eye out for this Kees, we will confiscate his motorcycle—which he likely stole from a garrison—and we will forget this silly debacle. He is long gone, ready to impress the next credulous oaf. Or—” he looked to Brigitte, smiling thinly—“the next, ah, young lady.”

Colette had revived Brigitte to her role.

“But I am in love,” she said miserably, leaving off the transcript, twisting the bloodstained cloth in her fingers. “You must find him! Please! You must bring him back to me!”

“You are in love,” Laroche softly mocked. “A whore does not know the meaning of the word. Love is . . .” He drew a long, filling breath, eyes misty and distant, and then apparently decided not to throw his pearls before swine. With fatherly kindness, patting her arm with the same hand that had struck her, he said, “I advise you to forget him, mademoiselle.” He glanced at the gendarme standing near the door and gave a motion to go. He left the kitchen, Claudio on his heels, leaving Colette and Brigitte alone.

The soiled piece of paper lay upon the kitchen table. Colette reached for it, slowly folded it. She held it for a moment and then handed it to Brigitte. She walked out of the room.

Brigitte held the paper to her stomach. When she could, she slipped it into her pocket.

She went to the back door to lock it, then opened it wide. In three desperate wrests, she yanked the sign off the door, Nur für Wehrmacht, and winged it into the yard. She shut the door, locked it, and headed for her room.

At the foot of the stairs, she stopped, gasping, a hand on each wall. He was gone. He was gone. She would never see him again. She bowed, until her head touched a step.

He would live. He would live. He was safe.

She lowered her hands. She rose, smoothed her dress, started up the stairs.

It was closing on 5 a.m., and Monsieur Rousseau had fallen into an exhausted sleep, head resting in the wingback. Charlotte fetched her gray wool sweater and covered him, tucking him in. She tenderly caressed his head, something she’d never dare if he were awake.

“So much like his father, don’t you think?” she whispered.

Gerard nodded. She slipped her hand into Gerard’s, and they left.

It was closing on 5 a.m., and Hauptmann Braun was trying to sleep. He liked Rousseau, and the man’s concern for an old woman was commendable. The treatment of the old woman was not.

Rousseau had said it could turn him into a resistant, and though Braun could hardly blame him, he’d not lose his only friend in the country. The woman was dead, and that’s all that really mattered. Wasn’t it? Maybe she did have a heart attack. He turned over and tried to close his eyes. Whenever he did, he saw the empty eyes and the bruised and swollen face of an old woman.

It was closing on 5 a.m., and Tom listened to Rafael slip out the back door.

He heard the halting creak as Madame Bouvier hobbled to her bedroom. He waited until he was sure the woman was asleep and then slipped out of bed.

He pulled on his trousers and tucked in the shirt Madame had said she would wash in the morning. He slipped on his coat. He settled his bulletless gun on his hip and put on the German hat. He looked in the mirror, but could not make out his reflection. He knew it was a German he’d see, and he’d sell every square inch of this German real estate to get Clemmie released. He didn’t know how. He’d figure it out as he went. The truth was, it was now or never. If he stayed, he’d lie to himself just as Rafael had lied, that somehow, someway, the Resistance would figure something out.

Immediate three-part plan: Get a weapon. Get an ally. Get going.

He’d go to Madame Vion at the château. “Century,” he whispered as he slipped out the back door and closed it soundlessly. “Greenland sent me.”

She was head of a Resistance cell; surely she could get him a weapon . . . and perhaps far more. A maternity hospital must have access to a vehicle. He could get to Cabourg, maybe in an ambulance. For now he only had to worry about getting to the château.

He pressed himself against the door. Two ways to get to the château: take the main road, or follow the Caen Canal. Both were rotten options. On the road he’d have to pass Brigitte’s, and who knew if the Milice were still there or if he’d encounter them on their way back to the Mairie. If he followed the Caen Canal, he’d pass too closely to the Caen Canal Bridge, heavily guarded and garrisoned.

What if he crossed the street and took backyards to the château? A straight crow-fly shot? He glanced at the sky. Though dawn was fast approaching, at least there was no moon to betray—And a sudden thought came. He’d take Clemmie with him. To Le Vey, to the airstrip where the Lysander was due in just a few days’ time. He’d take Clemmie with him to England. He grinned.

At least you gotta plan for after Cabourg, Oswald said snidely.

He squeezed his eyes shut. The Mairie was in eyeshot of Madame Bouvier’s. Crossing the road was the first and worst part. He’d have to do it for either route. He’d cross the street and get a feel for which route once there.

“Come on, Cabby. Now or never.”

He unpeeled himself from the door, crouched low, and made his way around the house to the front.

Laroche paused on the first step of the Mairie. Something wasn’t right. He turned and faced the street.

“What is it?” Paget said, a few steps ahead.

“I saw something.” Laroche peered across the road. Something did not belong. What was it? He half turned and almost retraced his last few steps. He was coming around the corner of the Mairie . . . he’d swept a cursory look across the street . . .

“There—in the hedge by the gate across the road.” False dawn had given the streets the barest gray illumination. Yet he wasn’t sure. He could see a shadow on the periphery, but not if he looked straight on.

“Paget, go out back and circle around. Take Janvier and Russo. One of you come from the right, one from the left, and put a man at the back in case he gets through that gate. Be careful; whoever it is may be armed.”

There was no reason a shadow should freeze in a hedgerow. Unless of course that shadow was a lunatic braggart whose best friend was Rommel.