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Zoe watched as three men ran from the open doorway of the barn, pausing only to glance at the two downed German guards before sprinting towards the woods behind the barn.

They wore civilian clothing, no coats, no hats, and nothing to distinguish them – but Zoe would have known her father’s halting gait – the result of a decades-old old soccer injury – anywhere.

“Papa!” she called, rooted to the ground, caught between a wish to rush to her father and the pressing need to get to Evi, who lay motionless on the ground.

She did not waver long. Clearly, there were no other guards inside the barn, or her father and the others would not have been able to rush out as they had. But Evi needed her.

In the next instant, she crossed the few meters, knelt at Evi’s side, peeled back her coat collar, and shakily reached for a pulse.

“Zoe?”

Evi was alive! Godjidank !

She glanced up long enough to see her father’s face. “Papa!” she said. “The barn is empty?”

He turned at the sound of her voice and nodded. “Zoe?”

“Grasp this girl carefully under one arm and help me move her inside…”

To her relief, Evi moaned as they carried her in and laid her gently on a pile of dirty straw. Under the light of an oil lamp hung from a hook on the wall. Zoe bent to her friend. In the flickering light, she saw the bullet hole in the shoulder of Evi’s coat and a widening patch of blood.

She looked up only briefly. “Run, Papa,” she said. “ Godjizdank , you are safe. Go home only long enough to grab Mam and get yourselves to Tante Inge’s house in Haaksbergen.”

Zoe gently patted Evi’s cheek. “Evi, can you hear me? It is Zoe…”

She looked up briefly. “Do you understand, Papa? Do not stay at home. Go with Mam to Tante Inge’s. You will be safer from the Germans there than in Enschede.”

Evi’s eyes flickered open, but she groaned, clearly in pain.

“Go, Papa,” she said, and her father, coatless, shivered in the cold, kissed the top of her head and started off.

Zoe lifted Evi’s shoulder as gently as she could, tried to bare the arm from its layers of clothing enough to assess the damage. She probed the wound as gently as she could.

Evi whimpered, groaned, and cried out.

Zoe looked up, glanced out of the barn doorway, fearful a contingent of German soldiers could turn up at any moment.

“I am almost there, Evi,” she murmured. “I know it is painful, but please try to be still. I need to see how badly you are hurt.”

She was not skilled in human physiology, but she knew enough from her veterinary studies to know that the shoulder contains the main artery of the arm, and a nerve bundle that controls its motor function.

Luck was with them, she hoped, in that she could not detect the presence of a bullet. Possibly the bullet had pierced the skin and exited. But there could be fragments left behind…

She tore a strip of fabric from her underskirt, wrapped it around the wound to stem the blood, then tore a larger strip she would try to use as a sling.

Evi’s eyes were closed again. She dared not let her sink into concussion. She patted her cheek. “Wake up, Evi! Try to stay awake. We cannot remain here.”

Evi blinked. “Zoe?”

“ Ja,” Zoe murmured, supporting her upper body as Evi tried to sit. “You have been shot,” she told her, doing her best to fashion the makeshift sling.

Evi opened her eyes. Zoe searched them for signs of concussion, but her gaze seemed clear and focused.

“You must try to stand. Evi,” she said, “and walk, if you can. We must get out of here, and quickly, before more German soldiers turn up.”

Evi’s eyes fluttered and closed.

MILA

Naked tree limbs reached toward the sky, and withered leaves swirled around the lamp posts.

Around her, her countrymen and women appeared to go about their lives as best they could under the watchful eyes of the Germans.

But they moved stealthily, hurrying from one place to the next, eyes mostly downcast.

Mila sat on the wooden bench, debating what to do next.

All at once, she knew. She rose to her feet and went in search of a public telephone.

When she found one, she slipped inside the box, thanked the heavens for a dial tone, and searched her memory. With Pieter unreachable and Daan gone, she decided to call Leela Bakker at the Dans Hal.

It took three tries until the call went through.

“Leela,” she said, finally. “It is Mila. Mila Brouwer. I need to find a contact in Amsterdam…”

Leela did not hesitate. “I have an aunt in Amsterdam…Her name is Liesbeth…” She gave Mila a telephone number.

Mila hung up, hoped the connection would not fail, fed in more coins and dialed again.

She told Liesbeth that Leela had referred her, offered the words that would identify her as a friend, and told her she needed a local contact .

Liesbeth was as prompt and perceptive as Leela. She gave Mila an address.

“It is a reputable cobbler’s shop,” Liesbeth told her. “Be sure to tell them you were referred by the Van der Leeves. I am sure you they will be able to meet your needs.”

...

It was a short walk to the address she was given, a cobbler’s shop as Liesbeth had told her. A bell tinkled overhead as she entered.

Inside, a middle-aged man in a grimy leather cobbler’s apron bent over a shoe last. He looked up as Mila entered.

“Hallo,” she said, smiling. “My name is Mila Brouwer. I am from Haarlem, where I believe you may have friends. I was referred to your shop by the Van der Leeves.”

The cobbler took a moment before answering.

“I know your name. We have a mutual friend, I think, by the name of Pieter.”

Mila nodded. “We do.”

The cobbler wiped his hands on his apron. “Berend,” he called over his shoulder. “Can you watch the front of the shop?”

A young man with sharp blue eyes and a neat, short beard, stepped from behind a curtained area. He wore an apron much like older man’s.

“Follow me, please,” the cobbler told Mila. “I may have just the shoes you are looking for.”

She followed him behind a curtained area into a small office, where he shook her hand and offered her a chair.

“There is too much glass out front,” he said, sitting behind a cluttered desk. “Here we have a bit of privacy.”

He held out a hand. “My name is Klaus Jaansen. I have known Pieter for many years – since long before we found ourselves on the same side of a cause. ”

Klaus Jaansen leaned back in his chair. “I think I can guess why you are here.”

Mila felt instantly comfortable.

“Pieter came to Amsterdam to hold a certain police captain accountable for Daan Mulder’s abduction.”

She nodded.

“We offered our assistance, but Pieter believed he could act on his own. This mission is personal to him.”

“It is. I was here with him for the initial rendezvous. A random passer-by was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“And I can only guess,” Jaansen said, “that Pieter wants to accomplish what he came here for.”

“I want to help, if I can,” Mila said.

Jaansen paused, but briefly. “The target resides in Diemen,” he said, confirming what the day nurse had told her.

He gave her an address. “My guess is that Pieter is somewhere in the vicinity. But it is not so safely walkable.”

She was about to speak when Jaansen leaned forward. “The place will be guarded, of that I am sure…and I must tell you there is not much we can do to protect you if your plans should go awry.”

He paused. “But if you are determined, we can provide you with a bed for tonight, and a map and a bicycle in the morning.”

EVI

She must have passed out, because the first thing Evi remembered when she swam to the surface of a misty fog was Zoe bending over her.

She did not know for a moment where she was – only that the pain in her shoulder hurt like a mad thing as Zoe worked to extricate her arm from her layers of clothing.

“Ouch! Oh, Zoe it hurts. ”

“You are a hero, Evi. You need to know that. You shot down two German guards. My father and his friends are free.”

Evi blinked, her gaze darting around the old barn, settling finally on Zoe’s ministrations.

She did not feel like a hero. She felt like the daughter of a woman murdered by Nazis who had managed a bit of payback. What was it Jacob had called it? Even Steven ...

“You were shot in the shoulder,” Zoe told her. “It is a flesh wound, I think. I do not see a bullet, although there may be fragments.”

Zoe was tearing a strip of fabric from her underskirt. “There was fair bit of blood, but that is subsiding” she said, wrapping the cloth around Evi’s arm.

Evi winced.

“I know how much it must hurt, Evi. But we need to get out of here. Now…”

She watched as Evi gritted her teeth and rose to a sitting position, then helped pull her friend to her feet. Supporting her as best she could, she peered out of the barn, assessed the quiet, and walked the two of them past the fallen Nazis.

“My book bag….” Evi said.

Zoe found it where it fell in the gravel and hoisted it over her shoulder.

The pre-dawn streets were eerily hushed, but the chilling sound of Nazi boots had never seemed closer…

...

“Try to stay awake,” Zoe told her as they boarded the near-empty train. “I do not think you have a concussion, but it would be best to stay awake if you can until we can be certain. ”

Evi nodded, doing her best to keep her eyes open and her brain from registering her pain. “Talk to me, then,” she murmured. “It will help me stay awake.”

Zoe cast about for something to say. One thing was uppermost in her mind.

“I have been working with my cousin, the head of a hospital in Heemstede,” she blurted. “We are doing our best to keep refugees safe in a makeshift space at the hospital.”

Evi’s gaze swiveled.

“Mostly they are hiding families who have Jewish children in their care,” Zoe went on. But also there are some Jewish doctors…and some others…”.

Evi turned to face her.