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She drove the car into a bay at Steegen’s auto shop minutes before noon. Johan and Pieter were deep in discussion when she swung through the shop’s glass door.

“ Mevreow Brouwer,” Johan inclined his head.

“Mila, please. How are you, Johan?”

“As well as any,” Steen said, as they moved off to a small office and closed the door. “Doing my best from day to day.”

Pieter wasted no time. “As you may know, Mila,” he said, “the Cinema here is open three days a week from noon until four, mostly showing short films and a lot of German propaganda. It is open today for the matinee before the Reich meeting this evening.”

Mila nodded.

“The meeting presents a unique opportunity for us to rid the Reich of an untold number of officers. But it is dangerous, Mila. This is something Daan Mulder and I might have carried out ourselves but the timing is wrong. He and I are heading up another risky operation elsewhere tonight.”

He paused. In any case, a lovely German speaker out for an entertainment might be the better option.”

Mila listened.

“If you think you are up to it, you will attend today’s matinee,” Pieter said, looking over at Steegen.

Johan held out his hand, palm open, and Pieter held up one of two small devices.

“You would need to manage, sometime during the afternoon, to plant this small incendiary device someplace inside the Cinema where it will not be noticed. ”

He slipped the small, bullet-like object into her hand. “It is a flammable apparatus that can be activated from outside the building. You understand?”

“I think so.”

“Step one is to place it discreetly this afternoon.”

“And then?”

“Step two,” he said, handing her the second device, “is to circle back to the Cinema this evening while the meeting of the Germans is in progress – sometime between eight and ten. You will carry this detonator in your pocket. It is an electronic connector, Mila. When you depress it, it will set off the device you planted earlier and the Cinema will go up in flames.”

She nodded slowly, but her heartbeat quickened.

Pieter put a hand on her shoulder. “In any case, a beautiful young woman walking past the Cinema is less likely to be questioned, I think, than a man. But again, it is risky, Mila. We will understand if you are not ready for it…because if you are caught – “

He did not need to say anymore.

Mila closed her eyes her eyes for a moment. What if she were recognized – accosted by someone who had sat at her father’s table?

Pieter seemed to read her mind. “It is reasonable to expect, I think, that once the meeting has begun, there will be few, if any, Germans outside the building. Still, I reemphasize the risk.”

Mila took a moment. “I would not be honest if I said it does not frighten me, Pieter.” She took a breath. “But I want to do it. I want to be the one to blast those Nazi pigs into oblivion.”

EVI

It was warm under the heavy patchwork quilt, and there seemed no reason for her to hurry. Evi rolled over on her side and reflected once again on her encounter with the American airman.

He had been in hiding with a Dutch farm family for nearly six months, he had told Evi and the Resistance guards as they retreated from the German’s hastily dug gravesite – since shortly after the Normandy invasion.

“I was damned lucky when I was shot down,” he told them. “My parachute drifted in the wind and I landed in a wooded area less than a mile from here. I didn’t know it then, but it was somewhere on the Beekhof farmland. Do you know them?”

Evi did not. Her companions exchanged glances.

“You are correct,” one of them said in a mix of Dutch and English. “You were damned lucky you were not shot down by the Germans.”

“I realize that,” the American told them.

“The Beekhofs took me in. They’re fine people – hard-working farmers.

Their young son found me while he was scouting the field for dry firewood.

I had a displaced knee and a slight concussion.

Somehow, they got me back on my feet, and I’ve been there ever since. I owe them.”

“Why are you out here after dark, Officer Reese – I assume without proper papers?”

“ Behagen. Ik Jake.” The American had picked up some Dutch.

“Jake, then. Even here, outside the city, you put yourself at risk as well as the Beekhofs.”

“No,” he had said. “I have papers.” He reached into his jacket pocket and produced them.

The men had squinted at the identification. “A German identification?’

The American had sighed. “A German who was living here in the Netherlands. The Beekhofs have a friend in the civic bureau. He was able to secure these for me.”

“You know some Dutch.”

“I’m learning. But it’s hard to be shut up here, away from my unit. Sometimes I feel like I’m jumping out of my skin. I need to stretch my legs now and then…with any luck, maybe figure out some kind of way to get back to my unit.”

He paused, glancing at Evi. “Anyway, as it turned out, it was a good thing for this young lady that I happened to be passing by. ”

It had occurred to Evi then that the American might think she was a prostitute – or a Nazi sympathizer – or both. She felt the color rising in her cheeks. But before she could respond, her bodyguards had circled around her.

“We were seconds behind you,” the taller of her bodyguards broke through her mortification. “You are lucky we did not shoot you first…”

“We need to get this girl home,” his companion said. “If you have any sense, Jake Reese, you will return straightaway to the Beekhof farm. In these dangerous times, it takes more than luck to survive.”

...

Mam had been wide-eyed with fright by the time Evi slipped through the door of the barge – the more so when she saw the dirty smudges on her skirt.

“Evi, lieve god , are you alright?”

Evi had taken her mother’s hands. “I’m fine, Mam.”

“I was frantic, Evi. What happened?

“Everything was good,” she said, skirting the truth. “We buried another German.”

Mam examined the folds of her skirt.

“I took a little fall, that is all. It is dark out there in the woods.”

Mam had looked deep into her eyes. When Evi said nothing, she sighed. “Evi, this is not a good idea. I think you should reconsider.”

“I will not reconsider. The Germans are starving us, beating us in the streets. If this is the way I can make them pay, I will do that.”

She wanted to say more – to tell Mam she had decided she would learn to shoot, not only for her own protection, but to kill Germans whenever she had the chance.

But this was not the time, she knew. Instead, she had smiled at her mother.

“Trust me, Mam, please. I do not do this alone. I have two big bodyguards who will not hesitate to shoot if I am ever in danger – and that is more than you can say when you are in danger of being caught every time you transport a Jewish refugee in the barge or go off to pick up a load of beets or – or tulip bulbs.”

Mam stood straighter. “The beets and the tulip bulbs I bring home are keeping us, and many others, from starvation.”

“Yes, but what if you are stopped by the Gestapo?”

“I am a Dutch citizen, Evi. I have my papers. I live on this barge. I have the right to be on the river.”

Now Evi sighed. “On the river, perhaps. But not when you are moving refugees and contraband under the noses of the Germans.”

Now there was nothing more for Mam to go.

Evi reached out to hug her mother. “Is there tea?”

“Yes.”

Would you like some?”

“I would.”

Evi moved into the kitchen and put the pot on to boil. She waited until the tea was poured.

“Mam,” she asked, as though it were an afterthought, “Do you know a family called the Beekhofs? I think they have a farm outside the city.”

Mam had knit her brows together. “Beekhof. I do not think so. Why?”

Evi had shrugged. “No reason. Someone mentioned them…that is all.”

ZOE

Zoe was among the first to hear the bad news – largely because Daan Mulder, like the other Resistance leaders in Haarlem, had been advised of it almost as quickly as it began in the bitter days of mid-December.

The German army was launching a major offensive against the Allied forces, striking once again, as they had done unsuccessfully nearly five years earlier, in the dense woods of the Ardennes Forest .

Because of the sheer number of troops bulking up, and the number of tanks lining up to support them, Radio Oranje and news outlets all over the free world were calling it the Battle of the Bulge.

“But this time, unfortunately,” Daan paused. “There were only a few battle-worn American divisions stationed there – mostly troops who were there to rest and recover. It appears the Germans are having an easy time breaking through.”

Zoe shook her head. “But we were so sure the Normandy invasion was a turning point – that the Allies were breaking through – “

Daan’s mouth twisted. “We were wrong, Zoe. Hitler was not so easily deterred. His objective now, we think, is to drive through to the coast of the English Channel and split the strength of the Allied armies.”

“Can the Allies rally, do you think?”

“We can only hope so.”

Zoe sighed. “Will there never be an end to this war?”

There was a long moment of silence before Daan rose. “Well. There is work to be done tonight, as you well know, and if all goes well, we will at least have food on our tables. I am on my way now with Pieter to the target area.”

Zoe, who had watched Pieter loading explosives into Daan’s old British built Austin, was prepared and anxious. She looked at her watch. “I’m right behind you,” she said. “God be with us.”

...

It was dusk by the time she parked her bicycle against an oak tree in a clearing near the railroad tracks, some twelve kilometers out of Haarlem.

She bent to inspect her bicycle’s wheels, which had behaved a bit oddly, and cursed silently, noting the wear and tear on the tires.

Where in this world of shortage and want was she to find new rubber tires to replace them?