Page 1 of Midnight on the Scottish Shore

1

Amsterdam, the Netherlands Tuesday, February 11, 1941

When Cilla van der Zee volunteered to aid the resistance by infiltrating the Dutch Nazis, she never imagined she’d be swept up in a mob set on attacking her friends.

Her adventure no longer seemed grand.

Black-uniformed thugs of the Dutch Weerbaarheidsafdeling jostled Cilla as they prowled the open-air market of Amsterdam’s Waterloo Square. WA men slapped at the colorful awnings over the booths, stole fruit from baskets, and searched for their human prey.

Cilla fumbled for her sister’s elbow. “Hilde, stay back.”

Hilde snatched an apple from a stall. “You’re not my mother. I’m staying with Arno.”

Arno Bakker, Hilde’s good-for-nothing Nazi boyfriend, shook his fist and jeered at the men marching toward them—a small group of Jews and their friends.

Friends like Dirk de Vos. Tall and vivacious and good for anything and everything.

He’d come today because Cilla informed the resistance about the WA’s plans.

Cilla’s stomach went as hard as the red bricks underfoot.

Through the mass of black-capped men, Dirk met Cilla’s gaze—sharp, short, and shattering. If Cilla showed any mercy, she’d lose her standing with the Dutch Nazis and cut off Dirk’s source of information for his underground newspaper.

A jerk of her chin sufficed as a reply.

Nine months had passed since the Germans had conquered the Netherlands. Nine months of relative quiet, but a quiet pregnant with the swelling expectation of unrest. Of darkness.

Recently, pangs had started. The Germans had dismissed Jewish civil servants, including teachers and professors, and then required all Jews to register. Men of the WA, the paramilitary branch of the Dutch Nazi Party, had begun attacking Jews, who had formed bands for self-protection, aided by good men like Dirk.

All around Cilla in the freezing fog rose shouts and cries of labor pains.

Dirk jutted a finger toward the mob, but the cacophony swallowed his words.

Someone bumped Cilla from behind, and she edged aside. She had to get Hilde away. Women couldn’t join the WA, but Hilde had insisted on coming with Arno.

Arno shoved a dark-haired young man.

Hilde laughed, big and sloppy, and she threw her apple at Dirk. She missed. She stank of beer, and lines etched her face as if she were ten years older than Cilla rather than two years younger.

Everyone else in the family had given up on Hilde. Rather, Hilde had driven them away with wild ways and cruel words, but Cilla refused to give up on her sister, on her responsibility.

And Hilde’s embrace of the NSB, the Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging —the Dutch Nazis—had eased Cilla’s infiltration of the group.

A skinny, long-faced man threw a punch at Arno, and Arno rained blows down on the smaller man.

Dirk lunged at Arno.

“Watch—” Cilla clamped her lips shut to silence her warning.

Shouts rang out. Black uniforms mixed with gray and brown suits, and fists thudded on flesh. The WA outnumbered their foes.

Cilla grabbed Hilde’s elbow and yanked her away from the melee.

This time Hilde didn’t protest.

Dirk lurched to the side, his suit jacket hanging off one shoulder, and he yelled out insults to the manhood of everyone in black.

As one, the Nazis roared and charged him.

What was Dirk doing? He was going to get hurt. Cilla’s hand flew to her mouth.

Dirk ran, tossing taunts over his shoulder and making a shooing motion with one arm.

His friends—they helped their fallen comrades to their feet and scattered.

“Dirk, no,” Cilla whispered into her gloved fingers. He was drawing off the mob so his friends could escape. Noble. Dangerous.

A black circle enveloped Dirk, punching and kicking, crouching lower and lower.

“No, no, no,” Cilla muttered. A scream writhed inside her, and she wrestled it down.

The WA men straightened up, fell back, grinned.

Dirk lay on the ground, his head ... misshapen. His mouth lax. His eyes wide. A scarlet puddle spread, flowing in the cracks between the bricks.

A guttural cry rent its way up Cilla’s throat, tore past her fingers.

As Hilde cheered and laughed.

“How could you?” Cilla wheeled on her sister. “A man—a man just died.”

Hilde’s eyes narrowed to greenish-blue slits. “I thought you were on our side.”

Cilla’s breath bounced around, out of control. If she didn’t pull herself together, she could die too. But how could she stay silent? “Not this. Not beating men to death.”

With a roll of her shoulder, Hilde pulled free from Cilla’s grip.

Arno sauntered closer, wearing a disgusting smirk. He met Cilla’s gaze, and the smirk lowered to a scowl. “What’s wrong with Cilla?”

A pit formed in Cilla’s stomach, as dark and vile as Arno’s uniform, and she gripped the green wool of her coat. “I—I’ve never seen a man die before.”

A laugh shot out. “You still haven’t. That’s a rat, not a man.”

Cilla slammed her eyes shut against the sight of Dirk’s body. Of Arno mocking his death.

“Look.” Arno jammed a finger into Cilla’s shoulder. “Open your eyes and look what those rats did to Hendrik Koot.”

Cilla pried open her eyes and followed the line of Arno’s arm to where a man in black lay on the bricked pavement. Bleeding. But alive.

“Next time.” Arno jammed his finger into Cilla’s shoulder so hard, she stumbled back a step. “Next time, I’d better see you cheering with your sister.”

He marched away to aid the injured man.

Next time? Next time Cilla might say too much. Next time they might turn on her, might even turn on Hilde simply for being Cilla’s sister.

Next time must never come to pass.

“I need to go home,” Cilla said to her sister, and she hurried away without waiting for a reply.

At the far end of Waterloo Square, she stuffed her hideous NSB armband deep in her pocket, hopped on a tram, and found a seat.

Dirk. Only yesterday she’d seen him at her cousin Gerrit van der Zee’s flat. She’d flirted with Dirk. He’d flirted back. Now he was dead.

A sob filled her throat, choked her.

Cilla struggled to regain composure. She had to break free, had to escape, had to protect Hilde, even when Hilde didn’t want protection. Especially when she didn’t.

When the tram reached her destination, she rushed to Gerrit’s flat, where a dozen of his friends had gathered. Delighted calls of “Cilla!” greeted her.

But Liese Pender stood, and her brow warped. “What’s wrong?”

“They—the WA—they killed Dirk.”

“Oh no.” Liese wrapped Cilla in a fierce hug. “Oh no.”

Cilla had no time for sympathy. She pulled away and found Gerrit’s devastated face. “I need to talk to you alone. Now.”

Gerrit ran a hand back into his blond hair and led her to his room. He sat on his bed, planted his elbows on his knees, and buried his head in his hands.

Cilla sat in a straight-backed chair, and her legs jiggled. Gerrit and Dirk had been close friends. He needed time to grieve. But Cilla couldn’t wait. She needed his help.

“How did it happen?” Gerrit’s voice came out ragged.

“Dirk drew off the WA to save his friends. The WA beat him to death.” Her chin wobbled.

“You saw?” Gerrit’s green-blue van der Zee eyes peeked at her from between his fingers.

Cilla could only nod.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“I need to get out.”

“Out?”

“Of the NSB.”

Gerrit lowered his hands and sat up, revealing his reddened face. “You can’t. We need your reports for the paper. We need to know the NSB’s plans.”

Cilla squirmed in her seat, against the confines. “I can’t do it anymore.”

Gerrit wiped a hand over his mouth. “Last month your report helped us move our headquarters before a raid.”

“And today my report got Dirk killed.” Her voice broke. “I can’t do this anymore. They want me to do things I can’t do. Things I won’t do. It’s only a matter of time. Someday I’ll speak my mind and get arrested. I might lead them to you.”

Gerrit stared at her, as maddeningly calm and steady as always. But hadn’t she come for that very calmness and steadiness?

“Cilla,” he said in a soft voice. “If you suddenly leave the NSB, they’ll get suspicious. If they realize you’re a resistance informer, they’ll arrest you.”

Her chest caved in. “And I’ll lead them to you.”

He nodded once.

Cilla’s breath accelerated, raced. “I’m trapped. I need to escape. I’ll go to England, to Tante Margriet.” Their beloved aunt was married to an Englishman.

“How?” Still calm, still steady. “How would you get all the false papers you’d need to travel to Belgium, to occupied France, to Vichy France, to Spain, to Portugal? Hundreds of miles. Very few have done it.”

“I’ll take a boat then.” Cilla waved toward the sea. “I have money. I’ll pay a fisherman. People have escaped by sea.”

“In the early days, yes. But the Germans watch the coast. They’re banning civilians and outsiders from much of the coastline. You know this.”

She did. She groaned and cast her gaze to the ceiling. “Then I’ll become an onderduiker .”

“An under-diver? You?” A thin note of humor lifted Gerrit’s voice. “Cilla van der Zee, always surrounded by a crowd of admiring friends, will go into hiding in a basement in the country? You’d never survive.”

No, she wouldn’t. Her breath built up inside and puffed out in short bursts. “I’m trapped. I need to be free.”

Gerrit leveled his gaze at her, unspeaking, in that way of his, taking eons to compose his thoughts.

Cilla didn’t have eons. She bolted to her feet and shook her hands before her chest, shook off the chains.

Gerrit drew a long breath. “You want to escape the trap so you can find freedom.”

“Of course.” She couldn’t keep the exasperation out of her voice. That was the thought he took eons to compose?

“Sometimes you have to find freedom inside the trap.”

Cilla gaped at her cousin. “For a brilliant man, sometimes you make no sense.”

Gerrit stood and set a firm hand on her shoulder. “You must stay in the trap. You have no choice. Attend the NSB meetings but keep to the fringes. And don’t join any more mobs, no matter what nonsense Hilde gets involved with.”

Her shoulder chafed under the pressure of his grip, and she shrugged him off.

One corner of Gerrit’s mouth puckered. “You can do it. You’re a good actress. Do it for Dirk.”

Cilla managed a nod and spun away, out of the room, out of the flat.

Do it for Dirk? Dirk was dead, and if she stayed in the NSB, she’d be dead too.

****

Tuesday, February 25, 1941

How much longer could Cilla keep acting?

She sat beside Hilde in the NSB assembly hall as men and women muttered to each other before the meeting started.

In the fortnight since Dirk’s death, much had happened. Hendrik Koot had died from his injuries, and the Germans had cordoned off the Jewish neighborhood in Amsterdam. Over the past weekend, the Germans had rounded up over four hundred Jewish men and sent them to a concentration camp.

On Tuesday morning the Dutch people had risen in protest. Tram workers walked off the job, and a general strike swept Amsterdam.

Cilla had never been so proud to be Dutch.

That sentiment wasn’t echoed in the NSB, and tonight’s meeting would overflow with vitriol. How could Cilla hold her tongue?

She sandwiched that tongue between her molars. The NSB was the only political party now allowed in the Netherlands, but it remained small and despised. She knew the names of each person in the room.

Except the middle-aged man standing to the side, one of the few in the room not wearing the black WA uniform or the black armband of the NSB. Trim and neatly groomed, he scanned the seats with an analytical look.

If Cilla didn’t know better, she’d think he was spying on the group, as she was. But who would spy so blatantly?

Cilla nudged her sister. “Do you know who that man is?”

Hilde let out a beer-scented chuckle. “He’s too old for you.”

Arno leaned around Hilde. “That’s Dr. Schultz with the German Abwehr. He’s recruiting spies.”

“He tried to recruit Arno.” Hilde’s bleary eyes lit up.

“To be a spy?” Cilla fought to keep her voice low and to suppress a laugh.

“In England,” Hilde said. “He refused. He can’t bear to leave me.”

“That’s right.” Arno clamped a hand over Hilde’s knee.

All of Cilla’s acting ability went into not smacking that possessive hand. And into raising an innocent smile. “I didn’t realize you spoke English.”

“Enough.”

“More importantly, he’s smart and ruthless.” Pride sparked in Hilde’s voice.

Ruthless, yes. Cilla had seen for herself. But smart? The man would have been arrested five seconds after landing on British soil. What good was a spy so indiscreet that he told his girlfriend and her sister about his recruitment—and identified his recruiter?

Dr. Schultz’s gaze landed on Cilla and slid away, uninterested.

The first speaker came to the podium, greeted by raucous applause. How could Cilla pay attention when ideas careened in her mind, new and reckless and liberating?

Dr. Schultz pushed away from the wall and strolled out of the hall.

That idea careened to her feet, and she stood. She leaned down and whispered in her sister’s ear. “I’m going to powder my nose.”

“Now? The meeting’s started.”

“I’ll be back.” She dashed out of the hall, driven by the pulsing rhythm of recklessness.

In the moonless night in the blacked-out city, Cilla strained to make out Dr. Schultz’s figure.

There! A flicker of motion, a shuffle of footsteps on damp pavement.

Cilla trotted up behind him and then in front of him, and she extended her hand. “Good evening. My name is Cilla van der Zee. Arno Bakker told me you’re recruiting spies to go to England.”

Dr. Schultz grunted. “What! He shouldn’t have—”

“One of many reasons he is the wrong person.” Cilla lifted a smile and wiggled her outstretched hand. “I, however, am the perfect person.”

Dr. Schultz stepped to the side to pass her. “If you’ll excuse me, miss.”

“Miss van der Zee.” Cilla blocked his path and extended her hand and smile again. “I speak fluent English. I have family in England. I visited each summer, and I was educated in a prestigious English boarding school. I know England and have friends in high places. I am the perfect candidate.”

Dr. Schultz paused, then shook her hand. “You certainly don’t lack confidence.”

“I don’t.” Her smile grew. “By the way, one of my boyfriends was a wireless enthusiast. Rather a bore, but he taught me Morse code and how to transmit and receive.”

“Indeed?” Interest stretched out his voice.

Cilla had found her freedom. The Germans themselves would transport her to England, where she could disappear from their sight and start a new life.

To escape the Nazis, she would become a Nazi spy.