Page 24

In the cold, clear afternoon, the Beekhof acreage seemed to stretch on forever, much of it already plowed over. A swath of a pathway had been carved through what might once have been a cornfield, but she could see no further than that .

An iron triangle hung from a rope just outside the back door. Mevrouw Beekhof struck it firmly with a short length of pipe, and before long, Jacob Reese emerged from the choppy brush. His beard was gone. Evi stared.

“ Dank u , Mam Beekhof.. I am here,” he said.

The woman nodded and slipped back inside. Jacob turned his attention to Evi.

“Hallo,” she murmured, suddenly shy.

He looked at her, a bemused expression on his handsome face. “You really want to do this, eh?”

She nodded firmly, and watched his smile widen.

“Well, then,” he said. “Let’s get to it.”

He led her to a clearing out of sight of the house. It had been prepared for target practice, she saw, a flat board placed on top of a felled tree trunk with an assortment of old tins and bric-a-brac neatly stacked on the ground beneath it.

From the jacket of his coat, Jacob brought out a pistol, which looked larger and blacker and far more menacing close-up than it had when she had seen one from a distance. Evi studied it.

“This is a forty-five caliber Colt M-1911,” Jacob said, holding the pistol out in front of her. “It’s standard issue in the U.S. military.”

Evi leaned in for a closer look.

“It isn’t loaded, because you will not be doing any shooting today.

Today, you will learn every part of this device.

You will take it apart and put it back together, again and again, until you know it by heart, and then you will hold it, handle it, and work with it until it feels like an extension of your hand. ”

Evi took the pistol, startled at how heavy it was, and studied it from every angle.

Jacob watched her. “This is the grip,” he said, pointing.

Magazine… Rear sight…Trigger guard… Trigger… Muzzle… Slide stop… Front sight. In her wildest dreams, Evi would not have believed the weapon could have so many parts. Take down lever…Take-down notch…Barrel…Chamber…Hammer…

Again and again, Jacob quizzed her, making her recite the name of each part and describe its function .

“Next time, you’ll disassemble this thing and put it back together,” he told her. “It’s more information than you’ll ever need, but I want you to know this pistol like the back of your hand before you go out there intending to use it.”

Evi nodded, though her patience was wearing thin. “If that’s what you think I need to do, Jacob.”

He nodded firmly. “All my friends call me Jake.”

She looked down, turned over a stone with her foot. “I like Jacob better.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “Okay. Jacob it is.”

He led her to the back door. “Evi’s back, Mevrouw Beckhof,” he called.

In the doorway, he receded slowly. Evi took in the amber eyes, the even-featured, clean-shaven face. He did look younger without the beard – perhaps no more than twenty or twenty-two.

Mevrouw Beekhof appeared in the doorway. “Can you stop for tea, Jake?” she asked.

“No, Ma’am, but thank you. We’re making progress out back, but we need every hand.”

The farmer’s wife nodded. “ Gaan , then,” she said. “And you, Evi Strobel…your nose is red with the cold. Come in and have a cup of tea before you get back on your bicycle.”

Evi waved at Jacob’s receding form. “Wednesday at noon,” he called over his shoulder.

She followed Mevrouw Beekhof into a neatly scrubbed kitchen. “ Dank u , but I -”

“Sit.”

Evi sat, taking in the faded yellow walls of the kitchen, the array of well-used pots and pans that hung over the stove, the Delft dinnerware neatly stacked on shelves.

Mevrouw Beekhof put a steaming cup in front of her, retrieved her own cup and sat across from her.

“So, why does a pretty, young girl like you need to learn how to shoot?” she asked.

Evi did not hesitate. “I work for the Resistance. I need to be prepared to meet the enemy. ”

The older woman nodded, blue eyes narrowing in a thin, surprisingly unlined face. “Ah,” she said. “I see….but so young…”

Evi’s chin went up the slightest bit. “I will be seventeen next month.”

Mevrouw Beekhof smiled, making her unlined face look even younger. “I see. You know, Evi, you need to be careful when you talk about Resistance activities to people you do not know very well – even to me.”

“But you are hiding Jacob - “

“ Ja. Still, for your own safety.”

The farmer’s wife paused for a moment, then rose and brought down a blue flowered tin from a shelf over the kitchen table. “On the other hand,” she held out the tin. “A young woman who fights against the Germans needs to keep her strength up.”

Evi could smell the sugary contents before she saw them. Her mouth watered and her stomach began to growl.

“Please, take all you like.”

Evi took a ginger-studded pastry from the tin. “ Gemberbolus ,” she murmured. “Ginger cookies.”

“ Ja.”

Evi’s eyes filled with tears. “My Mam used to make them, before the war.”

“I have used my rations only sparingly.”

The near-forgotten sweetness exploded in Evi’s mouth. She closed her eyes let the tears flow.

ZOE

The German’s face was inches from hers, ruddy, angry, insistent. “Papers!” He backed her toward the wall.

Zoe found her voice, tearing her gaze from the rifle at his side. “In there,” she pointed. “In my office. ”

“Geh mit irh,” he shouted, turning on his heel to his companion. “Follow her.”

Easing out from behind the German’s bulk, Zoe left the room, aware of heavy footsteps right behind her. Fumbling, her heartbeat loud in her ears, she searched the office for her bag and reached for it.

“ Halt !” her pursuer raised his pistol.

Zoe backed off, watched as the younger Nazi rummaged through the bag. He tossed it back to her. “Papers!”

She withdrew her identification papers from a zippered section in the bag, silently handed them over. She could hear a commotion coming from Daan’s office, the thump of objects being tossed about, what sounded like desk drawers crashing to the floor.

There was nothing there to connect Daan to Pieter or the Resistance, she was certain, but these German brutes would not give up until they had combed through every inch of his possessions.

Poor Ilke. Zoe guessed the Mulder home had by now been thoroughly scavenged.

The square-jawed officer, his mouth a thin line, inspected Zoe’s ID papers, looked up twice, comparing her photo to her face.

She recalled instantly the night of the train explosion, the bag she had been forced to leave behind. Once again, her stomach roiled. She prayed silently there had been nothing revealing in its contents.

The German’s harsh voice cut through her reverie. “What is your business here?” he barked in surprisingly good Dutch.

“I work here,” she kept her voice even. “I am a licensed veterinarian.”

“You know this man, Daan Mulder.”

“He is my employer.”

“He is an enemy of the Reich,” the German spat. “You work with him for the Resistance.”

It was a statement, not a question. Zoe stiffened. “I am a veterinarian…an animal doctor. I work here at the kliniek . That is all.”

The older Nazi strode into her office, exchanged words in German with his companion .

The younger man brushed Zoe aside, began pulling drawers from her desk.

“You,” the older German directed her to the reception desk. “Sit.”

Zoe sat, working to keep her anxiety under control as the two Gestapo officers rampaged through her office, ripping files from the cabinet, scanning reports on her desk, rifling through every book in her bookcase and roughly tossing them aside.

When they finished in her office, they attacked the reception area, flinging aside supplies and equipment yanked from the desk, from the rows of neatly marked small storage bins.

By the time they were finished, the place was a shambles, but finding nothing of import seemed only to make the Germans angrier.

“You work for the Resistance!” the older one insisted.

“I work in the kliniek ,” she said again, working to keep control of her voice. “I am a veterinarian. I treat dogs and cats when they are sick.”

The man narrowed steel blue eyes. “Do you know you are working for an enemy of the Reich?”

Zoe fought against the trembling inside. “Daan Mulder is my employer at the kliniek . That is all that I know of him.”

...

In the end, they left with the same swiftness with which they had smashed their way in.

To her relief, they had asked her nothing about her family, nothing about the train explosion, nothing about the food and supplies pilfered from the mangled train wreck.

They only warned her to stay within their sights, to be a visibly compliant Dutch citizen.

They never asked her where Daan was. But of course, they already knew. She closed her eyes, as close to prayer as she could muster, willing him, with every fiber of her being, to be alive, to stay strong.

MILA

She was still in Pieter’s office when the call came from Zoe.

“You are not hurt?” she heard him ask .

He listened quietly, gave a quick instruction, then hung up and turned to Mila.

“The Gestapo has been and gone from the pet kliniek . They tore the place apart, found nothing, and left Zoe with an unholy mess and a warning.”

“How can I help?”

Pieter’s fingers tapped a rhythm on his desk. “I need to talk with the rest of the council. I cannot go forward without support, and it will take every contact we have to determine where they are holding Daan.”

He paused.

“This much I know,” he said finally. “If we can be sure that de Boer sold him out, that traitor is our next priority.”

Briefly, he drummed his fingers on the desk. “But Zoe needs help – now – and reassurance that she is not alone. Can you go the kliniek, Mila? Perhaps call on a few more hands to help clean up the chaos the bastards left her with?”

“Of course.” Mila rose and gathered her things.

She knew whose help she would enlist.

EVI