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Clusters of American soldiers milled around the village square as houses smoldered in the background. The distinct acrid tang of smoking wood, rifle munitions, building dust, and coppery blood hung heavily in the air. German soldiers had been assembled, weaponless—guarded by a dozen Americans—in the center of the plaza. They sat quietly on the cobblestones as others were herded, from side streets at gunpoint, hands in the air, toward the gathering. A collection of wounded soldiers congregated at tables of a partially bombed-out café and were being treated by a pair of medics.
Tank’s appearance, carrying me, stopped nearby conversations. Questions were tossed at him.
“Hey, Sarge, who you got there, another Kraut prisoner?”
“Tank? Who is that?”
“Tank, who’s the Jerry?”
Tank ignored the questions and carried me over to the impromptu first-aid post. An army jeep pulled up, and, stepping in front of other waiting soldiers, he slipped me into the front seat. Two able-bodied soldiers heaved a groaning man, with blood-soaked bandages wrapped around his thigh, onto the stretcher strapped to the hood of the vehicle.
“C’mon, Sarge. You’re sending a Kraut over me?” protested a private with a dressing wrapped around his forehead.
“Take her back to the aid station with you. She needs medical attention.” Tank spoke to the driver, then turned to the protesting soldier. “And she’s not a Kraut. You two take the back.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder.
One of the medics pushed through the crowd. “What’s the problem? Sergeant, these men have been triaged. I haven’t seen this man”—he did a double-take—“woman. Who is she? What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s one of ours and she’s been through hell at the hands of the Krauts, Doc.”
“It’s not a problem. If you point me in the direction of company HQ, I’ll walk.” I swung a leg out intending to alight. “I need to speak...” Whoa. The ground shimmied and shifted.
Tank shoved me back in place. “You can barely walk, much less see through that left eye. And when was the last time you ate?”
I pressed two fingers against my temple. “It’s been awhile.”
The medic began to fire questions at me, surrounding voices rose; it was too much. I couldn’t keep up with all the arguments and squeezed my eyes shut.
First Sergeant Glassman’s dulcet tone intervened, “What’s the problem, gentlemen?”
The voices turned off like a spigot.
“Doc, let her go ... please.”
“Whatever you say, First Sergeant.” The medic returned to his duties, and the two injured men piled in back without further discussion.
Glassman handed me the leather satchel but addressed his comments to the driver. “Get this bag to Captain Devlin. He’s going to want to see what’s inside.”
“Who is Captain Devlin?” I asked as the car jerked into gear and zipped off down the road so quickly I had to grab the handle attached to the dashboard to keep from falling out.
“Intelligence officer,” the driver replied.
“Do you know a Captain McNair?”
“You mean Major McNair? He’s at battalion HQ.”
I didn’t ask any more questions for the rest of the ride because I spent it gritting my teeth against each bump and knock, which sought to exacerbate every bruise on my body. Even so, I couldn’t dismiss the wings of joy that beat in my breast, fluttering happily with the knowledge that Charlie was alive and close by. I reached inside the coat pocket to assure myself his compass remained firmly nestled there. Finally, we jerked to a stop in front of a squat one-story school building. The GIs in the back seat got out, and a pair of orderlies retrieved the poor fellow on the hood. I remained in my seat.
“This is the aid station, ma’am. Do you need help getting out?”
“Where are you headed next?”
“Got to drop off these papers at HQ, then I’ll go back to pick up more of the wounded.”
“Take me to with you to HQ.”
“Ma’am, my orders were to drop you off at the aid station.”
“I have important information for your intelligence officer, Captain Devlin.”
“Whatever you have, ma’am, you can give it to me. I’ll make sure he gets it.”
“It ... is in here.” I tapped my forehead. “Let’s go.”
“Ma’am, my orders were to leave you at the aid station.”
“I don’t give a damn about your orders. I have intelligence that is important to the success of the Allied advance and the security of the United States.”
The fellow had the cheek to roll his eyes at me, and my patience snapped.
“Listen up, soldier,” I snatched a hunk of his coat placket and jerked him forward until we were nose to nose. “I didn’t spend the past week dodging Nazis, sleeping in the cold, and getting slapped around by a misogynistic monster just to have the intelligence I’ve been guarding become useless because it didn’t get to the right people in time.” His eyes had grown wide as I spoke through clenched teeth. I released him and he fell back against his seat. “Take me to your intelligence officer. Now.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself, lady.” We zipped through the town, dodging groups of meandering GIs and trucks. “Who did you say you were?”
“I didn’t.” I could have sworn the drive was even more harrowing than the one that brought us to the aid station, and I wondered who had the audacity to give this fellow a license in the first place. “I’m with the Office of Strategic Services.”
He flashed a blank look but I didn’t deign to explain. “Someone worked you over good, eh?”
“Watch the road!”
The horn blared, sending chickens scattering in all directions—we missed one by millimeters—then he swerved back into his lane to dodge out of the way of an oncoming truck. Finally, the hair-raising ride ended as we drew to a stop in front of a hotel building that showed relatively little scarring on its façade and only a few broken windows. The driver yanked on the hand brake and hopped out, snatching the satchel from my grip.
“Wait here. I’ll see if the captain is in.”
Before I had a chance to protest, he strode through the front doors.
My own dismount out of the Jeep was not so quick or agile, and I followed him at a hobbling pace. The lobby bustled with life. A coterie of soldiers sat in a group of leather club chairs to my left, loudly debating the merits of the Yankees versus the Red Sox over a game of cards. On the right, three soldiers at the check-in desk sorted boxes full of cigarettes and K-rations into piles. Another soldier wandered around calling names and passing out mail. Other soldiers came and went through the front door, blindly moving past me as if I didn’t exist. My driver was nowhere to be seen.
The mailman passed in front of me and I laid a hand on his forearm. “Excuse me, can you tell me where I can find Captain Devlin?”
“Room two-oh-six, I think.” He didn’t glance up from the envelopes sifting through his fingers.
At the far end of the foyer rose the grand staircase, the golden carpets worn and dirty from muddy boots and lack of cleaning but its elegant design and woodwork apparent despite the careworn appearance. A pair of soldiers stood to the right of the stairs, in front of a birdcage elevator, deep in conversation. The beautiful but daunting staircase mocked me. “Does the elevator work?”
“Not if you want it to go up. Timmons,” he called out and headed over to the card players.
Two-oh-six—the brass numbers were much like the staircase, worn and discolored but still claiming the former elegance of the aging hotel. I raised my hand to knock; the door swung inward before my knuckles touched the oak wood.
“What are you doing here? I told you to wait in the Jeep,” my driver said.
“Corporal, who’s that?” a disembodied voice from inside the room asked.
I pushed past the rude corporal and walked into the suite. A sofa and high-backed chair sat in front of a crackling fire. To the right, littered with papers, was a cherry dining table big enough to seat eight. The other half of the room was taken up with a large bed. A hatless, brown-haired captain stood at the foot of the table with his hands on hips. To his left sat a bright-eyed private, who looked not more than a day over eighteen, tapping diligently on his typewriter.
“Captain Devlin?”
His brow furrowed and he squinted at me. “Yes. Have we met?”
“No, sir. My name is Lillian Saint James. I am an operative with the Office of Strategic Services. I have information that your commanding officers are going to want to see.”
The driver dogged my steps. “I’m sorry, sir. Would you like me to—”
But the captain waved him off. “It’s fine, Corporal.” He shook my hand. “You must be the impertinent lady Jones, here, said wouldn’t stay at the aid station. Are you all right? You look as though you have been through the wringer.”
“I’m fine.”
“If you are speaking of the papers Jones dropped off, we’re looking into them.” He indicated the empty bag on the chair, its contents already strewn across the table.
“I am speaking about the film secreted in my boot heel, which provides exact locations of munitions factories, a couple of recently built Luftwaffe airstrips, and two static U-boat locations, including one patrolling the New England coast.”
The typing stopped.
Delivering this information directly to the military, without going through the proper chain of command, was a breach of protocol and would likely land me in a bathtub full of hot water, to put it mildly. However, my body would soon give out, and I hadn’t the time or energy to seek out my people, who probably assumed by now that I was dead and had written me off. Additionally, I felt that turning the materials over to the frontline troops might improve the likelihood that the intelligence could be used sooner rather than later. Beyond all of these justifications, in the back audience of my brain, there rang a small voice that had been growing to a roar ever since I saw the Screaming Eagle on Sergeant Glassman’s shoulder.
“Who did you say you were?” Devlin asked.
“Lily Saint James, code name Fleur-de-lis. I’ve spent the past few months undercover as a nanny for a colonel overseeing the work camp at the Mauser rifle factory in Oberndorf, Germany.”
“Corporal, you’re dismissed,” the captain said sharply over my shoulder. The door closed with a snap. “Did you say Fleur-de-lis?”
“Yes.”
He scratched at the stubble along his jaw. “I was under the impression you were a man.”
“I am surprised you have heard of me at all. You were likely led to believe I was a man for my own security.” The room started to sway as my limited strength threatened to give out. “Captain, do you mind if we sit?”
“Yes, of course, I apologize.” He led me to the high-back wing chair, and I gratefully sank into its plush red-velvet seat, reaching my feet toward the warmth of the fire. “May I take your coat?”
“No.” I waved him off, but the cuff fell back to reveal the bruises and rope burns at my wrist. His gaze missed nothing and I self-consciously tugged the sleeve back in place. “Thank you, I prefer to keep it on.”
“You look half-starved. Let me get you a drink. Sherry or”—he sniffed the clear contents of a decanter sitting on the sideboard behind the sofa—“apple ... gin, I think?”
“Probably schnapps. I’ll take the sherry.”
“Karp, go scrounge up a hot meal for Miss Saint James.”
“Yes, sir.”
The sweet alcohol soothed my abused throat, but my hand shook as I sipped. I silently blessed the captain for not filling the glass to the brim, and, resting my head against the soft fabric, I closed my eyes.
“Tell me, if you were in Oberndorf, how did you end up here?”
“A few days ago I watched my contact, a German sympathizer, throw himself off his own balcony to avoid being captured by the SS,” I explained in a flat voice. “I believed my cover to be in jeopardy if not already compromised. It was too risky to return to the colonel’s home to pick up my exit papers, so I headed into the Schwarzwald.”
“Jesus. How long have you been on the run?”
“Seven or eight days?” I opened my eyes to find the captain literally sitting on the edge of his seat. “My mind is a little fuzzy. I think I was captured two days ago. First Sergeant Glassman and Thompson stormed the building where I was being held and ... well, you understand. Basically, I owe my life to those men. Which reminds me, the Germans seem to think there’s another female spy around here. They called her Black Widow. Have you heard of the code name? Do you know anything about her?”
“No, you’ll have to ask your own people. Information is ... filtered to us. The only reason I recognized your code name is because I read it on a report. Frankly, you’re the first OSS agent who’s been this forthcoming. The rest of your lot seem to skulk in smoky corners and never answer any direct questions.”
“I would be doing the same thing now if I hadn’t made such a bloody mess of it.” I rubbed my temples. “I am not looking forward to seeing my superiors. And when I do, I have a feeling they’re going to spend the next month debriefing me before sticking me uselessly behind a typewriter with the rest of the secretarial pool.”
“You seem competent. I’ll take you as my secretary.”
I allowed a wan smile to cross my face. “I’m not quite ready to be put out to pasture. Besides, I figured coming directly to you, we would cut through a lot of the ... filtering. You are an intelligence officer?”
“Put your mind at ease, I’m intelligence. Are you ... army?”
I finished the sherry and held out my glass for more. The fire had finally warmed my feet. The warmth, along with the sherry, was spreading through my body and seeping into my chilled bones. “No, civilian. I’m not even sure who to report to around here. My German contacts are dead, and the last SOE agent I had contact with was in Stuttgart. As far as the home office knows, I’m dead too. You could say I’m at loose ends.” He refilled my glass and I sipped more of the sweet wine. Tension ebbed from my shoulders, and relaxing against the plump cushions had calmed the nagging ache in my head ... or maybe it was the sherry.
Devlin rested his chin on his fist and stared at me with an incalculable look.
“All right, so I do have an idea who I should report to.”
“You mentioned film.”
“Yes, right-o.” Reluctantly, I placed the half-drunk sherry on the coffee table. “I used a Minox mini camera. Do you have a viewer or developer for the film?” I slid the boot heel aside and out fell David O’Leary’s dog tag. The raised letters scraped roughly against my fingers. I’d forgotten I put it in my boot.
“What have you got there?”
“Three or four days ago, I witnessed an air combat, not far from Bühl, and came across a downed pilot. I tried to help him, but...” Tears pricked my eyes and I licked my lips. “C-c—” I cleared my throat. “Can you make sure the family is notified?”
“Of course.” He pocketed the dog tag.
“Here’s the film. I pray the canister is watertight because we took a couple of unwanted baths together. If it’s ruined, I can show you what I remember, but there was a fair amount of information I simply didn’t have time to read.”
“Can you tell me what you remember now?”
Sighing, I retrieved the sherry and swallowed it down. “No time like the present. Pull out the maps.”
Karp returned carrying a tray. “Some of the fellows were making K-ration stew in the kitchen.” He sniffed the bowl. “I think the mystery meat is potted ham. I also got you a biscuit and coffee, ma’am. I put some sugar in your coffee. The boys make it pretty strong.”
“Thank you, Private. Leave it on the sideboard if you would, please. I’ll get to it in a moment.”
“Karp, go find Peterson and send him to me. Let him know I need to develop Minox mini film. Get me Lieutenant Grimes as well ... and send in the major if you can find him. After that, take a break and get yourself something to eat.”
Sergeant Peterson arrived bearing a negative viewer, although it was for much larger film, and he set to work trying to rig something for the tiny Minox film. Lieutenant Grimes joined us as Devlin and I pored over the maps. I was able to remember and identify a few of the munitions factories and airstrips. However, the details were unclear in my mind—whether due to the fact that it’d been at least a dozen days since I’d seen the materials hidden in the colonel’s safe or the utter exhaustion threatening to overwhelm me, I did not know. The scent of the coffee now filled the room and my stomach grumbled at its siren call. I was about to ask one of the men to hand it to me when a voice interrupted us.
“Jake, I heard you were looking for me.”
The oxygen in my lungs whooshed out and my heart skipped a beat. There he stood at the opposite end of the table. He’d lost weight since I’d seen him last—who hadn’t? The lines around his eyes had deepened, and telltale circles spoke to his lack of rest. The faded memory I’d held in my mind’s eye was merely a black-and-white picture show; it didn’t do him justice. Having him in front of me was like stepping over the rainbow into the Technicolor glory of Oz.
His gaze dusted past me to Devlin on my right, and I realized just how different I must look compared to our last meeting. “What’s the problem?” he asked.
“It looks like we’ve come into some valuable intel. I’d like you to meet—”
“Charlie?” The word came out as a hoarse whisper and those piercing blue eyes rested on me. The room went silent, and I self-consciously tugged a coil of hair forward to cover the bruising.
Recognition flared. “Lily?”
“You’ve met?” Devlin asked.
“Good god, what happened? What are you doing so close to the front lines? What idiotic newspaper sent you and your camera to this godforsaken place, and why are you wearing that ratty German overcoat?”
I licked my dry lips. “Charlie—”
“Newspaper? What newspaper?” Devlin’s questioning gaze raked me up and down, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Charlie.
“She’s a photojournalist,” Charlie explained.
“I’m not ... exactly a newspaper photographer,” I whispered.
“What? What do you mean?”
“I—” The explanation stuck in my throat and I waited, hoping someone else would explain the situation, but nobody came to my rescue, and expectancy hung heavy in the air. “I’m an agent ... for the Office of Strategic Services.” It came out in a shaky undertone.
His mouth turned down as I spoke. “So, when we met...”
“Photojournalism was my cover in Paris.”
“Paris?” Devlin muttered under his breath.
“She’s a spy,” Grimes clarified.
Charlie crossed his arms. “Thank you, Lieutenant, I am beginning to understand.”
Grimes blanched under the derisive gaze.
“And what is an OSS agent doing here at my headquarters?” His icy glare returned to me; its chill wrapped around my heart like a vise.
This wasn’t how I’d pictured our meeting—looking like a ragged street urchin, surrounded by his men and unable to explain what Paris meant to me. Powerless to assure him that our time together was not a lie or a simple wartime affair, and how much I’d wanted to tell him exactly who I was and what I was doing for the war effort. He seemed to tower above me, so I shoved my chair back and, using the table as leverage, pushed myself to a standing position.
“She is sharing intelligence with us.” Devlin shifted closer and the fabric of his sleeve brushed against mine.
“You should see this, Major. She’s identified munitions factories and new airfields.” Grimes pointed to the marks we’d circled on the map.
“If Peterson can get the viewer work—”
“It’s working,” Peterson interrupted Devlin. “You’d better take a look at this, Captain. The first two shots are damaged, maybe we’ll get more once they are developed, but this third shot is a partial, and the fourth ... holy mackerel! There’s a ding-danged U-Boat sitting off the coast of Rhode Island.”
Grimes and Devlin maneuvered around to the coffee table, where Peterson had set up shop. Charlie and I didn’t move. His arctic mien held me immobilized, and my mind begged to know what he was thinking, but there was no way I’d ask in front of his men.
“Charlie, you’re going to want to see this. So is Regimental and probably the navy,” Devlin said.
Finally, his intractable gaze released me from my stupor, and as I turned, the room shimmered, a ringing filled my ears, and darkness tunneled around me. My arms felt floaty and detached while my legs became leaden weights.
From far away, I barely heard my own voice above the din, “I’m sorry, gentlemen, I believe I need to—” My legs collapsed. Strong arms wrapped around me before I hit the hard floor.
It was strange. I could feel the soft comfort of the sofa beneath me and hear voices speaking. Someone pulled the coat aside. There were gasps, and questions tumbled over each other.
“Holy Mother and Mary, who did this to her?”
“Is that a cigarette burn?”
“Take a gander at her neck.”
“Who did you say found her?”
“She’s so thin. Grimes, get a medic.” That was the only voice my mind recognized. I think I tried to push the hands away. “Shh, it’s all right, Lily. Don’t move. It’s all right.”
No, no, don’t look. It’s ugly, my mind cried, but I couldn’t force the words beyond my lips; eventually the ringing turned into a roar and the darkness pulled me into the void.
