With great restraint, he had waited a full week before sending Charlie home with a ream of paper from OT Headquarters and with strict instructions not to tell Ivy the source.
The glass grew warm in the northwest sector of the map, so Gerrit slid the lamp to the southeast, dipped his pen in the ink, and guided the nib around the smooth curve of St. Ouen’s Bay on the west coast, a shoreline teeming with guns to prevent an Allied landing.
Time pressed, not only on the clock but on the calendar. Spring and any Allied operations loomed before him. The more information he could provide the Allies, the better.
Tomorrow after church, he’d pass this map to Charlie.
Discretion was more vital than ever. Schmeling had said the German secret field police were screening mail arriving in Jersey, especially mail to foreign workers, as they suspected the presence of the French resistance on the island.
Their suspicions were correct.
Gerrit gritted his teeth. Charlie’s cover story of buying theparachute silk from a Jersey farmer rang false. On a small and well-populated island, every farmer could be identified. Every downed plane or airman was accounted for. Every parachute.
His pen rounded the point at Corbière, his starting position. With great care not to disturb the layering of silk and paper and glass, he laid his T square along the first grid line running north to south. This part of the map would be easier, and his pen traced a clean line.
If only Charlie’s part were as easy. If only Gerrit could guide each step of the operation as cleanly.
He couldn’t. A fifteen-year-old boy, intelligent though he was, had to carry contraband past customs officials, inspectors, crewmen with unknown loyalties, and through the streets of Saint-Malo to his cutout, who might be tailed by the Gestapo.
Gerrit had no control over the results. Only God did. But if God controlled the results, why did things keep falling apart?
Gerrit grimaced and drew another vertical line. He could finally name his doubts. He doubted God’s faithfulness, and that made him squirm inside. Either God was faithful by nature, or he was not. If God was faithful, Gerrit had made serious errors in his thinking. Where had his logic failed?
After investing his talents, reputation, and life, was it wrong to want good results? It didn’t seem wrong.
Yet the squirming intensified. He didn’t simplywantgood results. Heexpectedthem.
Gerrit leaned back in his chair, and his gaze shifted from the brightness of the lamp to the dimness of the room around him.
He expected God to produce good results, but the Lord had never promised such a thing. That was where his logic had failed, where his faith had failed, where his trust had failed.
With a deep groan, Gerrit resumed his work and prayed for forgiveness and understanding and the courage to trust.
He finished the vertical grid lines, then the horizontal lines, and he penned “A1” in the first sector, “A2” in the second.
A knock on the door. “Van der Zee? Are you here?”
Willy Riedel? Gerrit sucked in a breath. Hadn’t he gone to the Forum?
The doorknob turned.
Gerrit had forgotten to lock his door?
He bolted across the room.
The door opened wider and wider, and Gerrit had to fill the space before Riedel could see his desk—his work—his crime.
Without showing panic.
He grabbed the inner doorknob, gripped the doorjamb, thrust his body into the gap, and schooled his expression to mild interest. Despite the flurry in his gut. “Good evening, Herr Bauführer. I thought you went to the Forum.”
“Stupid film, and I don’t want to go drinking tonight.” An expectant smile filled his broad face. “I thought I’d see what you were doing.”
Did Gerrit’s body block the view of his desk on the far wall under the window? Could he sound benign, as if he weren’t tracing maps of German military installations to send to their enemies? Gerrit tilted his head toward his desk. “Writing letters. My sister’s birthday is soon. Another time, ja?”
Hope filled Riedel’s brown eyes. A social creature, friendly, more refined than most of his OT comrades. “I found some cake in the kitchen. Come join me.”
“I’m sorry, but my mother promised bodily harm if I forgot my sister’s birthday. Another time?”
