“Assuming we win theday.”
“Right,” Manakin agreed. “Assuming that.”
There was a pause—so long I wondered if Manakin was still on the line.
“And Emu?” He stilled my hand before I could hang up.
“Yes, sir?”
“Take care of each other, will you?”
A heartbeat passed, and the line went dead.
I stood in the phone booth for a long moment, the receiver still pressed to my ear, listening to the static.
Take care of each other.
From Manakin, that was practically a declaration of love.
I hung up the phone and stepped out of the booth. The woman behind the counter gave me a curious look. I’d been in there longer than a normal call warranted. I smiled, paid for the call, and walked back out into the cold.
Bisch was leaning against the car, smoking a cigarette. He straightened when he saw me.
“Trouble?”
“No. Just a long report.” I climbed into the passenger seat. “We need to be out of Switzerland by tonight.”
“The Baroness suspected as much.” He started the car. “She has already made arrangements.”
Of course she had. The Baroness was always three steps ahead.
We pulled out of the village and began the winding drive back up to the farmhouse. The sun was higher now, the snow glittering like diamonds in the morning light. It was beautiful—the kind of beauty that felt almost obscene after everything that had happened.
“He will recover,” Bisch said quietly.
I looked at him. “What?”
“Your partner.” Bisch kept his eyes on the road. “I have seen men come back from worse. He is strong and very stubborn.” A pause. “He fought the entire time I was dragging him to the car. He kept trying to tell me about the photographs, about keeping the film dry. Even half conscious, he was thinking about the mission.”
“That sounds like him.”
“It is a rare thing.” Bisch went quiet for a moment. “The Baroness sees it in both of you. That is why she trusts you.”
“She told you that?”
“She did not need to.” He glanced at me. “I have been with her for many years. I know what she values. I see who she lets close.” Another pause. “You are the first outsiders she has trusted since . . . since her husband died.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
The Baroness’s husband had died in 1943. He’d been killed by the Nazis, according to the fragments of her history I’d pieced together. The Baroness hadlived through nine years of solitude, nine years of building walls.
And for some unfathomable reason, she’d let us through.
“Thank you,” I said finally. “For saving him, for being there when—”
“Do not thank me.” Bisch’s voice was flat. “I did what the Baroness would have wanted, what any decent man would have done.” He turned the car onto the narrow road that led up to the farmhouse. “We should all be thanking him for having the courage to finish the mission even when it was killing him.”
I would. I’d thank Thomas for the rest of my life if I had to. For the mission and so much more. But first, I needed to see him. I needed to watch him breathe, feel his heartbeat, and remind myself that he was real and alive and still here.
