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But the possibility that she might be called upon made her think of Jacob Reese. She rinsed her tea cup and dried it. With a rush of resolve that took her by surprise, she put on her coat, pulled on the blue knit cap with the yellow butterfly, and launched herself out of the barge.

In moments, she was on her bicycle, pedaling with decided purpose.

...

She was stopped, along with a young man who held two young children in tow, at a German check point that had suddenly appeared near the intersection near the now-shuttered schoolhouse.

She held her breath, assuring herself the guards had no way of knowing about her encounters with German officers – and to her relief, the guard who checked her identification papers looked her up and down quickly and waved her off without comment.

She pedaled off, wondering with a mix of hopelessness and relief if she would ever begin to look her age.

But the stop made her cautious, and more than once, she looked over her shoulder to be sure she was not being followed. But she stayed on course until she came in sight of the well- hidden Beekhof driveway.

The shepherd, Otto, met her halfway up the driveway and flanked her, barking until she got off the bicycle and reached to scratch him behind the ears. Then he followed her, tail wagging, to the door.

She knocked vigorously, but no one answered.

Evi stood back, surveying the house and grounds.

A patch of garden to one side of the house had recently been plowed over, perhaps, she thought, in anticipation of a spring planting once the frost lifted.

The very prospect of spring vegetables made her stomach growl.

To the other side of the house, a couple of empty wheelbarrows and a small plow stood in front of a few mostly bare trees, small patches of blue-grey sky peeking through their scraggly branches.

In the stillness, Evi thought she detected the low thrum of voices. She moved closer to the sound, Otto trotting beside her, and turned an ear to the side of the yellow plow to listen. It was quiet for a moment, and then she heard the sounds again. Perhaps they were out in the field.

She squeezed behind the plow and discovered to her surprise that the scrawny trees were not trees at all, but hefty boughs bound together, obscuring a gate that was nearly hidden behind a screen of ivy.

She hesitated, listening again. Now it was almost eerily quiet. When she pushed at the gate, it swung open and she found herself looking into the barrel of a rifle.

She jumped back, trying to find her voice.

“Wait!” Her voice was a squeak.

The rifle was lowered and a pair of angry, amber eyes bored into her. “Are you kidding me, girl? You could have been killed!”

Evi blinked, backing away. “I am sorry, Jacob, I was -”

“What?”

“I was just looking to find you.”

Jacob lowered the rifle to his side. “A word of advice, Evi Strobel. Don’t poke around in strange places. We live in a dangerous world.”

She worked to attune her ear to his American accent, glad for all the hours she had spent studying English in school. “Yes, it is dangerous,” she began, raising her chin, “and that is exactly why I wanted to find you.”

Jacob’s eyes narrowed.

“I want you to teach me to shoot.”

Now the American seemed to swallow a smile. “You want me to teach you to shoot.”

Evi nodded. “Yes. I want to be able to protect myself.”

“From drunken Nazis who want to bed you. ”

She felt her face redden. “Yes, if it comes to that. But also, at other times. I want to do more to defeat the Germans than dispose of one Nazi at a time.”

The American looked distinctly amused.

Evi flushed and straightened. “I have made a request from Resistance leaders for my own weapon and for shooting lessons. But there could be an issue because of my age, and so I am coming to you.”

Jacob Reese seemed to take her measure. “You’re serious,” he said at last.

“I am.”

“You are seventeen.”

Evi sighed. “I will be seventeen in February.”

“But you said –”

“I know. But I am not a child, Jacob – and as you very well know, I have reason to fear for my safety.”

She saw the indecision in his face. “I would have to clear it with the Beekhofs,” he said finally. “This is their land, after all.”

“But you will try…”

Jacob sighed, his handsome face a mix of indecision and amusement. “I will do my best, Evi Strobel. Come back tomorrow at noon – and this time…”

He slowly began to raise the rifle. “Try ringing the doorbell.”

ZOE

Zoe cycled once around the kliniek building on Daan’s borrowed bicycle. She saw no SS vehicles in the street nor any hint that the office had been breached. She parked the bicycle next to hers and entered through the back doo r

The place felt eerily quiet. Ilke had allowed herself to be led home by her sister, but it was as though the poor woman’s fear and dread had sucked the air out of the room.

A lone calico cat was housed in the kennel, an elderly male content to wear off his fever by sleeping much of the time. He was curled into himself and breathing easily when Zoe peered in. She closed the door, checked to be sure the front door was firmly locked, then made her way into Daan’s office.

It was tidy as always, the desktop cleared of everything but a daily calendar, a business card file, an adding machine, a pen and ink stand and the telephone.

She picked up the calendar and rifled through the pages, but it contained only kliniek appointments, nothing personal in nature.

She combed through his card file, but found not a single business card that was not connected to kliniek business – not even a card with Zoe’s home address, or his sister-in-law’s, or anyone connected with Resistance business. She had expected nothing less.

Daan’s desk drawers, too, provided little to reveal the personal business of its owner – only the usual assortment of pens and pencils, paper clips, a business checkbook, and assorted stationery supplies – and an extra pair of scuffed brown shoes in the bottom drawer.

She looked carefully through the metal file cabinet for anything outside of kliniek business, and examined every volume in the wooden bookcase.

But her assertion to Pieter had been correct.

Daan Mulder was too smart, and too careful, to have anything in his office that might tie him or anyone else to Resistance business.

Eyes closed, Zoe sank into his desk chair, touched a hand to the telephone, and felt around her the kindly aura of her determined employer and friend. She lost track of how long she had been sitting there when she heard the insistent pounding.

Her blood ran cold as she rose to investigate, but the front door crashed open and by the time she reached the reception desk, two impossibly big and grim-faced Gestapo officers were halfway across the room.

MILA

Mila sat, crossing names off a list while Pieter made as many phone calls as he dared. He was business-like but persistent, doing everything he could to find why Daan Mulder had been grabbed and where he might have been taken.

Mila made a few calls herself, under the pretense of seeking goods and services from the few questionably aligned Dutch vendors who served a high-end clientele.

But they came up empty.

It was cold, even here in the small inner office of Pieter’s ‘plumbing’ office. She got up to stretch, pulled her heavy wool cardigan close around her. Then the phone shrilled on Pieter’s desk.

He snatched it up and listened. After a moment, his green eyes darkened, and a muscle twitched in his jaw.

Slowly, he put the phone back in its cradle.

“The Resistance cell in Amsterdam…. If their intelligence is correct, the leak came from Police Captain Reimar de Boer… I cannot say I am surprised.”

Mila considered. “De Boer? A Dutchman?”

“ Ja – and not for the first time.” Pieter’s mouth twisted. “The bastard is not even a Nazi sympathizer. But he has been known to sell out his countrymen to the Germans for a wad of guilders….”

Mila’s eyebrows rose.

“We can’t be certain he’s the source,” Pieter said. “But it would not be the first time – and the tip came from a highly placed infiltrator in Dutch police circles. De Boer learned somehow of Daan’s involvement in the train explosion, and was able to cash in on it.”

By implication, Mila knew, it could mean there was a price on Pieter’s head as well. He knew it too, she was sure .

Not for the first time, Mila wondered where he slept at night.

She wondered, too, at the deep roots of the Resistance, how extensive their reach, how much they knew or could guess from their network of informants all over the continent.

She looked at Pieter with new respect. “If money will help…a ransom…”

Pieter shook his head. “We have banker friends who quietly subsidize our mission,” he said. “And funds come, too, from a couple of Dutch brewing companies making piles of money from all these beer-soaked Germans.”

He drummed his fingers on the desk. “Unfortunately, we do not yet know where they are holding Daan.” His voice was bitter. “But it is well past time to do something about de Boer.”

EVI

It was precisely noon when she rang the doorbell at the Beekhof farmhouse. Otto, tail wagging, trotted alongside her, uttering a few half-hearted woofs.

Evi felt an odd sense of satisfaction that he no longer barked wildly at her approach. Instead, he nudged against her until she scratched behind his ears, his pink tongue conveying his pleasure.

The door was answered by a wiry, gray-haired woman wrapped in a bulky brown sweater – Mevrouw Beekhof, Evi surmised – who peered at her through the half-open door. “You are looking for Jacob?”

Evi nodded. “ Ja ,I am Evi Strobel.”

The door opened wider, and Evi entered the now-familiar room.

“Klara Beekhof,” she said. “Jacob has talked of you…Follow me, behage n. The men are in the back acres.”