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She had no idea why she had not revealed to Mila that Jacob was teaching her to shoot.

But she did not in the least feel guilt-ridden.

She was doing what she needed to do to for her own protection.

.. and anyway…she felt her mouth curve into a smile - being with Jacob made her forget she was hungry, forget she was frightened, forget everything but his face and his voice and what she was there to accomplish.

Otto ran beside her on the way to the door, then sat still, tail wagging and panting for her attention. “Good boy, Otto,” she murmured, scratching behind his ear. “Yes, you know who I am, don’t you?”

Mevrouw Beekhof greeted her, led her out back and struck the triangle with a pipe. Within moments, Jacob emerged, jogging through the brush from the back acreage.

“Hi there,” he said, making a funny face at her, and something in Evi’s heart began to dance. But he was all business, leading her to the makeshift practice range, bringing the Colt from under his jacket.

“Today,” he said, “we review the components, and you take the pistol apart. Then, if you put it back together correctly, we can start shooting at targets.”

She had the pieces memorized, had reviewed them in her head in the last few evenings, sometimes barely hearing when Mam spoke to her.

She was glad the young scientist had been successfully handed off, grateful for the mostly edible potatoes Mam had found at the marketplace in Middleburg.

But pleasing Jacob, proving her courage, seemed infinitely more essential.

He watched her take the pistol apart. She read his face as he watched her. Deftly, she put the pieces together, and looked up at Jacob, beaming.

He started to reach out, as though to hug her, then stopped and put his hands on her shoulders. “Good job,” he said, grinning. He was close enough for her to see the green flecks in his amber eyes, the tiny nick above his left cheek where he might have cut himself shaving.

They stood like that for a moment, Evi’s heart beating fast. Then Jacob blinked and backed away.

“So, Evi Strobel,” he said. “Are you ready to fire this thing?

She swallowed hard, stepped back, and nodded.

Jacob stood behind her, lifted her arm, adjusted her hand in the grip. The Colt felt heavy, awkward.

“Look through the sight,” he instructed, leaning down, his chin nearly resting on her shoulder. “Look straight ahead. Do you see that empty feed bucket sitting there?”

She nodded.”

“Look for the letter A in the middle of the label.”

Evi peered through the sight.

“Do you see it? The letter A?”

“ Ja .”

“Okay, good. Now squeeze the trigger. But slowly…slowly, Evi, never taking your eye from that letter A.”

Evi squeezed. She heard the loud report – and felt herself jolted backward, landing flat against Jacob’s broad chest.

“Whoa,” he said, reaching to steady her. “I should have warned you about the blowback.”

An acrid smell hung in the air. The sound echoed in her ear drums. Worse, when she wriggled around to look at the target, the feed bucket sat there, untouched, the big letter A mocking her.

Eyes wide, she turned to face Jacob .

“It’s okay.” He smiled ruefully, as though to a child, adding anger to her fierce humiliation.

She wrenched herself away. “Again,” she said, raising the Colt.

“Sure. Only this time, plant your feet a little further apart. You’re such an itty-bitty thing, you need to steady yourself against the recoil.”

She did not know the meaning of ‘itty-bitty.’ She thought she liked the sound of it on his tongue, but she was not certain it was complimentary.

Gripping the weapon, she planted her feet apart, pressed her lips together, and stared through the sight at her target.

ZOE

Air raid sirens had kept her awake for much of the night again, and Zoe faced the wintry day filled with a restless energy. There had been no further word of Daan – nor did she expect it, really, in her heart of hearts.

She had spent the evening helping Ilke and her sister put the Mulder’s ransacked apartment back in order, and made her way home, exhausted, half-expecting to find her own apartment similarly ransacked.

To her relief, it was intact, although she knew full well the Gestapo could turn up at any moment – not that they would find anything in her small living space that would be of any value to them.

From her window, she saw a dusting of snow sweep the cobblestones. Resolute, she dressed warmly, buttoned her old grey coat, and wrapped a red wool scarf around her chin and nose.

She was turning the sign on the front door of the kliniek from ‘closed’ to ‘open’ when a young girl and her mother came around the corner, a mixed breed, short-haired puppy wrapped in a blanket in the woman’s arms.

The poor pup was constipated, they told her, and her little nose was warm with fever .

Zoe found a clean, white coat, took the pup into an examining room, and took his temperature.

She put a few drops of peppermint oil into some cool water to help bring down the fever and applied it to the dog’s paw pads.

She inserted a laxative and advised the pair to walk her more frequently – and take longer walks in spite of the cold.

“Food is scarce, I know” she told them, handing over the pup. “But if you can feed her some fruit peelings or potato skins now and then, the fiber will help her, too.”

Her patients gone and room quiet, Zoe faced the pile of paperwork that still needed to be re-filed. But she could not find the drive to begin, or the patience to sit at her desk.

Sighing, she turned the ‘open’ sign back to ‘closed,’ locked the front door, and went out the back, where she unfastened Daan’s bicycle from its mooring and set out for the hospital in Heemstede.

...

Kurt Schneider smiled and waved as she made her way across the makeshift ward.

“Your timing is wonderful,” he said in Dutch, his accent distinctly German. “I was just about to begin a story time.”

He peered at her, seeming to examine her face. “Are you alright?”

“I have had better days,” she sighed. “My employer at the pet kliniek – and my very dear friend – was grabbed up by the Gestapo. We have no idea where, or even if…” she could not bring herself to finish the thought.

Kurt sighed. “He works with the Resistance, no doubt…”

Zoe nodded. “Two big Nazi henchmen crashed their way into the pet kliniek ,” she said. “They tore it apart, but Daan was a careful man. I am certain they found no trace of Resistance activity among his things…but still…”

Kurt’s face was a mask. “Zoe, these Germans will not rest in their search. Please believe me. I know that.” His eyes searched her face. “Are you safe where you live? ”

“Who knows? I told them I knew nothing. I do not know if they believed me. They have not invaded my apartment – at least, not yet.”

She saw Gerritt coming toward them. “Zoe, I have been trying to reach you.”

She peered into his anxious face. “What is it?”

Gerrit glanced at Kurt.

“It is fine,” she said. “You know as well as I that he can be trusted.”

Gerritt kept his voice at a whisper. “I had a visitor this morning in my office…a high-ranking German official. He was very polite. Not at all threatening. But he asked for a roster of all our patients – and a complete list of staff.”

Zoe blinked.

“I told him it would take us a day or two to get up-to-date lists together. He told me he would return for them on Friday.”

Could this have something to do with Daan? The explosions…the transfer of food…?

Gerritt looked around the crowded ward. “Every Jewish patient and medical worker we have here is hidden away on this floor, along with the hiding families and children.”

“ Ja …”

“I will, of course, provide the officer with accurate lists of the patients and staff on the first four floors of the hospital,” Gerritt said. “There is no one there the Germans want. And let us hope to God this floor is never searched.”

Zoe nodded, keenly aware of the anguish on the face of the storyteller.

MILA

Mila sipped her wine. The dining room table was laden with food, a roasted pork loin with apples, potatoes and currants, but she could barely abide the rich aroma, never mind the taste of it .

Her mother, sick with one of her convenient headaches and despite her father’s clear misgivings, had left the job of hostess to her. She arranged the folds of her grey silk skirt, then slowly twirled the stem of her glass.

The conversation had been less than useful. But her pulse quickened as the hawk-nosed Obershtumfuhrer seated across from her began talking about the explosion at the Haarlem Cinema.

“Dozens of loyal German officers dead,” he growled. “Almost as many injured, many gravely. I was very nearly caught in the flames myself.”

Her father listened, a stern expression on his face. He did not look at Mila.

“The source of the blast is still being traced,” the German said. “But we know the Dutch Resistance was behind it. Herr Hitler himself is enraged.”

“I do not doubt it,” her father said.”

“We have already begun to exact revenge, beginning with another cut in Dutch rations. We feel certain that somewhere, someone with a starving family will come forward with information about the perpetrators.”

“And if not?” her father asked.

The German cut into the slab of meat on his plate and shrugged. “Then Herr Hitler has given us our marching orders. We will begin to eliminate two Dutch citizens for every German murdered until the debt is paid.”

Mila blinked. To her knowledge, there were only three people who knew the origin of the Cinema blast – Johan Steegen, Pieter, and herself. Nobody else had information to share…but her heart sunk to realize how many innocent Dutch would pay the price.

She cleared her throat, and leaned forward, exposing the cleavage in the deep neckline of her dress.