I nodded. I knew. You had to be blind and deaf not to know what was going on in the city. We were locked in like animals in a cage. Any way out was through the Russian sector, and I doubted they would let us leave on the other side. Even I knew that Berlin had been a race. A prize. The highest trophy, and Russia was pissed off that they had to share it. There is only gold for Russia, no silver, no bronze. I had heard stories about the Russian sector, how the people there were nothing more than prisoners. They weren't allowed out at all. The entire city was in a chokehold.
"Do you have family in West Germany?" Gideon asked me suddenly. "Anyone who could take you? Anyone safe?"
"No," I whispered. "I told you. This is my home."
"A dangerous home."
I lifted my chin. "I'm not leaving. I won't abandon Klaus. Or Axel. Or Hilde. Or the others like them."
His jaw ticked. Stubborn challenging stubborn.
"You're impossible," he said.
"You're not my boss," I shot back.
We stared at each other. Something softened first in him. Then in me. From across the clinic, Hilde held out her candy and whispered, "Inga."
The way she said my name… it made all the fear worth it.
Gideon let out a slow breath. "Come on," he murmured. "Let's get you all home."
Home.
Not rubble.
Home.
Berlin — July 21, 1948, Wednesday
Jamison's officewas usually spotless. It was one of the things I admired about him: tight ship, tight uniform, tight rules. The kind of man who kept his pencils in a straight line and his boots polished even when Berlin was falling apart outside.
But today?
It looked like hell.
Two overstuffed inboxes sagged under classified folders. A cold cup of coffee sat forgotten near the edge of the desk, and a greasy ring stained the blotter. Three maps of Berlin were pinned to the wall, one with so many red X's it looked like a battlefield. Another had colored pins marking air corridors. A third had hastily drawn arrows, scribbles, and notes in thick black marker.
The window behind him was cracked open to let out the cigarette smoke, but all it let in was gray light and thedistant grinding of jackhammers as Trümmerfrauen smashed at rubble piles down the street.
Jamison looked worse than the office.
His uniform was impeccable, yes, but there were deep lines carved under his eyes. His face was pale, a shade lighter than his collar, from too many days locked inside, and there was just the faintest tremor in his hands as he sorted through a stack of papers.
He didn't look like an officer. He looked like a man holding back a landslide with his bare hands. When he finally noticed me, he waved me inside without looking up. "Griffin. Close the door. Sit."
I did. A moment passed—him reading, me waiting—before he glanced up over the file.
"So," he said dryly, "any moreincidentsthat never happened?"
I huffed a humorless laugh. "Not since the last ones."
He raised a brow. "Clarify."
I leaned back in the chair. "Two Soviet fighters stalked me on approach this morning."
His jaw tightened. "How close?"
"Close enough to see the pilot's cigarette dangling out his window."
