“That’s—”
“That is . . . nobility. It’s what true, selfless leadership looks like. You didn’t fail anyone, Isabella. You fought, you survived, and because you never stopped fighting, Switzerland is still free.”
She stared down at my hand on her arm. Her tears had stopped, but something vulnerable remained in her expression.
“I’m old, Thomas,” she said quietly. “I have been doing this work since I was younger than you are now. In all that time, I have never—” She stopped, then started again. “I have rarely knownthose I could truly rely on and trust completely, not until you and Will came into my life.”
“Isabella—”
“Let me finish.” She pulled free of Bisch and faced me. “You asked me once why I trusted you. You asked why I came to Paris and dragged you into this instead of handling it through official channels.” She paused. “The truth is I did not know at the time, not consciously. I only knew that if I was going to survive this—if Switzerland was going to survive—I needed people who would fight for something more than duty, more than country, more than the cold calculus of statecraft.”
“And that led you to us?” I nearly laughed.
“That is you.” A ghost of a smile crossed her face. “Two Americans who fell in love in a war zone and somehow kept that love alive through all the ugliness that came after. Men who look at each other like the world begins and ends with the other person.” She shook her head. “I never had that, not even with my husband. I never allowed myself to have it, if I am true to myself. I thought . . . I thought it would make me weak.”
“It doesn’t.”
“No,” she agreed. “It does not.” She stepped around Bisch and sat in her chair again.
The three of us stared into the flames before my mind wandered, and I broke the silence.
“We almost lost each other,” I said, thinking about Will and the look on his face when I woke in the bed, broken and bandaged, half frozen and barely conscious. Then I thought about the way he’d held me while I slept, as if afraid I might disappear. “More than once.”
“But you did not.” Her voice was steady now, the tears dried, the mask beginning to rebuild itself. “And in many ways, because of that, Switzerland still stands.”
The announcer chose that moment to interrupt the music again. He offered a brief report, then read a list of names, Order members being sought for questioning.
“They’re moving fast,” he said. “Frei’s not taking any chances.”
“He cannot afford to.” The Baroness rose from her chair, smoothing her dress. “The first hours are critical. If they do not root out the conspirators now, they will scatter and regroup. They will try again.”
“Will they?” I asked. “Try again?”
She was quiet for a moment.
“If not here in Switzerland, they will try elsewhere,” she said finally. “We both know this was a Soviet gambit. Stalin does not take failure well. He will adapt and find some new way to create chaos where none exists.” She moved to the window, looking out at the winter landscape. “And theOrder still lives. The Shadow, whoever he may be, remains. Severan may still live. Even if we killed them both, others will rise to take their place. It is the way of such things. Somewhere out there, someone is already planning their next move.”
“So it’s not over,” I said, my gaze slipping.
“It is never over, Thomas.” She turned to face me. “That is the first lesson of this work—or has your bird man failed to teach you that lesson?” There was humor in her voice, if a bit brittle and dry. “There is no final victory, no moment when we can lie down our weapons and declare peace. There is only the next battle, and the one after that, and the one after that.”
“I take back everything I said about you being inspirational. You’re downright depressing,” I said.
She chuckled, and a bit of light returned to her eyes. “It is the truth, but today we should enjoy a beautiful victory.”
She crossed to the table and began gathering the scattered photographs, the maps, the evidence of everything we’d been through. “Bisch, these need to be given to President Frei, no one else. He will preserve them for the investigation—and for history.”
“Of course, Baroness,” he said, grabbing a large map off the table and beginning to fold it.
Something stilled her hands.
She turned, set the papers down, and crossed back into the living room to stand before me. Then, to my surprise, she gripped my face in her hands, pulled my head down, and pressed a kiss to my forehead. It was a gesture so maternal, so utterly unlike her usual demeanor, that I didn’t know how to react.
“Thank you, Thomas,” she said quietly. “For everything. For saving my country. For saving me.”
Before I could respond, she stepped back, and her mask slid back into place.
“Now,” she said briskly. “We have work to do. The American team needs debriefing, Manakin will want a full report, and I must contact what remains of my network. There will be questions, confusion, and people who need reassurance that the crisis has passed.”
