Page 59 of Beehive

I pulled a chair to the window and sat with my back to it. Thomas flopped onto the bed.

Less than a half hour later, the scraping of a note sliding beneath our door brought both of us to our feet.

“Here we go,” Thomas said, bending down to retrieve the folded paper. Reading it quickly, he flipped the page around and held it up for me to read.

Alpha. Widow’s peak.

“Loquacious as ever,” I mumbled.

Thomas smirked but said nothing. He refolded the note and shoved it in his pocket.

We’d changed out of our formal attire in favor of dark street cloths more appropriate to the nighttime extracurricular activities we anticipated that evening. There had been a possibility Visla wouldn’t see our signal or receive our missive until the next day. I was relieved to not have to wait for her guidance.

Glancing about the room one final time before locking eyes on me, Thomas mouthed, “Let’s go.”

The walk felt longer than it should have.

Alpha was midnight.

The widow’s peak meant the top of the bell tower at St. Matthias Church, one of five meeting places we’d memorized prior to crossing the border.

We kept to the shadows, our movements deliberate, our eyes constantly scanning. Even in the British sector, safety was an illusion.

St. Matthias loomed ahead, its bell tower a silhouette against the moonlit, cloudy sky. The church itself had fared better than most, its structure largely intact, though its windows bore the scars of shattered stained glass. The iron gate of the graveyard at the church’s rear creaked faintly as we slipped inside.

Shadows swallowed us whole.

Thomas led us on a winding path between, around, and occasionally, over tombstones. Several stone mausoleums where wealthy Berliners lay interred glared accusingly as we passed.

It felt like the eyes of a thousand ghosts stared in anger at our trespass.

Climbing the bell tower’s stair was grueling. The narrow flight spiraled endlessly. A few dozen steps into our ascent, I remembered our training and began counting steps. By the time we reached the top, my legs burned, my breath came in shallow gasps, and I’d completely lost count.

Thomas, of course, looked as composed as ever.

Visla was waiting.

Or rather, her voice was waiting.

She remained out of sight, hidden in the shadows of the far corner, well concealed by the church’s giant bell and its dangling clacker.

When Thomas started to move around the bell, she snapped, “Stay where you are.”

“Jesus,” Thomas muttered. “We’re on the same side, you know?”

“I am only on my own side, and I prefer you stay on yours.”

“Fine,” Thomas surrendered.

“You took your time,” she said, adding a reprimand to the chilliness of her greeting.

“We were being careful,” I replied, my voice even. “You wanted no tails, remember? Besides, the city is too quiet. It feels . . . wrong.”

“It is not quiet. It is listening,” she said in perhaps the most bone-chilling pronouncement I’d heard of late. “What do you have?”

Thomas took the lead. “The rabbi statue.The Keeper of Wisdom.We found it. We saw it at the museum gala we attended earlier tonight. It’s displayed in public and appears unsecured. We believe the Soviets remain unaware of its presence.”

There was a pause, the kind that made my chest tighten.