“Lieutenant Hendra. He teaches French.”
“Yeah, he lives a couple rows over. He’s got a French flag pinned to the flap.”
“Thanks!” Finn said and tore off in search of that flag. It didn’t take him long to find it.
“Wake up, Hendra,” Finn said as he entered the tent. “I need a newspaper article translated.”
A muffled groan rose from a lump on the cot, buried beneath a mound of blankets. “What, now?”
“Please,” Finn said. “It’s urgent.” He couldn’t wait until daylight.
“Hang on,” the man said, rolling upright in his cot. Finn lit alantern while Lieutenant Hendra wiped the sleep from his eyes and put on his glasses.
“This is the article,” Finn said, pointing to the circled headline. Hendra hunkered over the newspaper, turning it toward the glow of the lantern as he read.
Please, he silently prayed as Hendra scanned the article.Please,God,let Mathilde be okay and her family safe. I’ll do anything, pay any price, but please...
“It says that a lady named Mathilde Verhaegen was arrested in connection with the escape of an American pilot, Finn Delaney. Hey, that’s you, isn’t it?”
Finn’s breath froze in his throat, and he could only nod.
“It gets worse,” Hendra said. “When they came to arrest her, they searched her house looking for where she hid you. They found a secret cache beneath the floorboards, and it was stuffed with issues ofLa Libre Belgique. The newspaper is forbidden, and anyone caught distributing it gets charged with sedition. She was caught red-handed, so her guilt is a foregone conclusion. The crime of sedition carries with it the death penalty.”
An eerie calmness settled over Finn. This wasn’t a hard decision. He knew exactly what he needed to do.
Mathilde Verhaegen had risked her life to save him. Now he would return the favor and no matter the cost.
He was going to Belgium.
22
Delia stood on the granite staircase leading up to the New York Stock Exchange Building, scanning the crowds of businessmen hustling down the sidewalks of Wall Street. It ought to be easy to pick out Finn’s battered leather jacket amid the crush of black suits, but she’d been waiting for almost half an hour and there had been no sign of him.
They had less than fifteen minutes to meet with Mr. Babcock, and then Finn was expected to ring the opening bell. Photographers for the Hearst newspapers were already gathered on the trading floor, waiting to capture the moment on film. Mr. Babcock wasn’t the friendliest of men, and Bertie had gone to great lengths to secure the honor for Finn. Striking the large brass bell with a mallet didn’t exactly need a lot of instruction, but it wasn’t polite of him to disregard the meeting with Mr. Babcock.
The opening of the stock exchange waited for no one, and so five minutes before ten o’clock, Delia raced inside to apologize to Mr. Babcock. After the glare of the morning sun on the white granite steps, it was hopelessly dim inside the building. She hurried down the crowded corridor, angling around clerks and traders to get to Mr. Babcock’s office.
The secretary looked up from her desk as Delia barged in. “Have you seen Finn?” she asked, breathless.
The secretary shook her head. “Still no sign of him. Mr. Babcock has gone to ring the bell himself. Oh, and he’s angry.”
The man had a right to be angry. Such a ceremonial honor was rare and hard to come by, and failing to show up was unspeakably rude. Delia would have to figure out a way to smooth things over with Mr. Babcock. With luck, she might be able to move Finn’s appointment to another day.
She arrived at the trading floor mere seconds before the ringing of the opening bell. A scowling man, presumably Mr. Babcock himself, stood on the podium, mallet poised beside the bell as he stared at an immense clock mounted on the wall across the room. Three photographers stood at the base of the podium, looking up at Mr. Babcock in confusion. They were here to photograph America’s first war hero ringing the bell, not an ordinary businessman who looked as if he were sucking on a lemon.
The instant the clock’s minute hand reached 10:00 a.m., Mr. Babcock banged the mallet against the brass bell. “Trading is open!” he announced, and the sea of stockbrokers flew into action, calling out orders and hurrying to their trading posts. Delia intercepted Mr. Babcock on his way to the administrative wing of the building.
“Mr. Babcock,” she called as she hurried to reach him. He paused at the door of his office and spun around, peering down at her from his lofty height.
“My apologies for Lieutenant Delaney,” she said, still struggling to catch her breath. “He comes all the way from Camp Mills, and there may have been a slowdown on the subway—”
“Every person in New York City knows there can be slowdowns on the subway. They make allowances for it and get to their appointments on time.”
“Yes, but please keep in mind he’s been wounded. He walks with a cane.” In truth, Finn had been getting around quite well,but she wasn’t beneath resorting to the wounded-hero angle if it could win Finn a second shot at this opportunity. “Could we reschedule his day to ring the opening bell? I will ensure he doesn’t miss the appointment again.”
Mr. Babcock frowned but agreed. “Contact my secretary,” he grumbled. “And tell Bert Hoover he owes me a free round of golf for this one.”
Delia nodded and thanked the man, wondering if it would be possible to reschedule Finn’s appointment with Mr. Babcock before he had to leave for Chicago.
