The dance of prey had come to a close.
Miriam locked the door to the cellar, hoping the SS wouldn’t get a chance to test their howitzers on its reinforced steel. Hoping the battle above would swing out of the National Socialists’ favor.
It was impossible to avoid the dead; stepping around one corpse simply led to another. Miriam had to tiptoe her way to the communication station. Her garroting move had ruined the headset cord. Not much had been spared in the second firefight, though the radio still seemed to be working.
Kasper and Brigitte were another exception. Well-trained though they were, the pair looked overwhelmed by the sheer number of bodies. Miriam wondered what it said about her that this carnage wasn’t shocking, had not been shocking for a long, long time.
What had shocked Miriam was what she’d witnessed on the Reichssender: Luka Löwe not just playing the hero but being one. Himmler’s on-air confession. Yael among wolves…
Miriam hadn’t seen the end of the tape, as busy as she was fighting for her own life. The television was as much a corpse as the others: screen shattered, circuits laid bare. The Führer’s face was finally gone, but so was Yael.
It was easy to worry about her friend and harder to hope. But neither of these things would do much good, here among the dead. What would be helpful was a line of communication with the world above. Miriam tested the headset from Johann’s busted radio in Kasper’s machine. Someone was still transmitting on the other end, listing letters faster than Miriam could memorize.
“Do you have a pencil, Brigitte?”
The operative patted her hair only to remember that her pencil was half javelined in one of the bodies below. “I had extras. Somewhere…”
“It’s still broadcasting?” Kasper approached the stool.
Miriam nodded. “After what just happened on the Reichssender, General Reiniger needs this map room more than ever. Do you have protocols to tell them the crisis has been averted?”
“Well, yes—”
“Good. Use them.” Miriam handed him the headset and joined Brigitte in the search. She looked on the card table, where the Doppelgänger Project files lay undisturbed by the chaos. Luka had been using a pencil to write his speech, hadn’t he?
SS-Standartenführer Baasch’s hat crowned the top of the pile. Miriam swept it off. There was nothing she regretted about squeezing that trigger. It was the final aim that lingered with her—unfired.
Had it been smart to let Felix and his sister go? Probably not.
Had it been right? Miriam didn’t know. This mercy went against everything the Soviets had taught her: We will destroy the murderers of our children/comrades/friends. But she’d been learning new lessons as of late, and the way Adele had flung herself between Felix and the gun reminded Miriam of Yael and the Molotov firing line. Reminded her that killing the Wolfe boy would be foolish.
In the end, his wasn’t her life to take.
Luka’s pencil lay where the victor last set it, wedged against his speech: half written, now finished. Miriam handed the writing utensil to Brigitte. “Here. This will do.”
The operative righted a fallen stool and settled in front of the Enigma machine. Two bullet holes speckled its unhinged lid, the machinery within untouched. After a few unjumbled letters, more than enough exchanged pass codes, communication between the resistance map room and the forces above was reestablished. Miriam left the operatives to their radio exchange and moved toward the far wall, where Henryka’s map folded into itself. The back of the paper was heavy with indigo ink, bled through. All Miriam could see were new countries. Upside down, piecing themselves together in a sea of white.
She knelt to the floor and collected fallen thumbtacks until her hands couldn’t hold any more sharpness. One by one, she used them to pin the world back into place.