I looked at the pin in my hand. It was such a small thing with such enormous weight.
“Thank you,” I choked out.
“Thank you.” She released my hand and stepped back, her hand reaching out to rub Thomas’s good arm. “Now go. Return to Paris and cherish a moment of well-deserved peace.”
Without another word, she turned and walked out of the kitchen, her footsteps fading down the hall.
Thomas and I stood in the amber light of the setting sun streaming through the window, the edelweiss pin gleaming between us.
“Well,” he said.
“Well.” I swallowed.
“Let’s go home.”
I closed my fingers around the pin and nodded.
“Let’s go home.”
39
Epilogue
Moscow | February 1952
Joseph Stalin stalked the marbled halls of the Kremlin with the measured pace of a predator—unhurried and deliberate, each footfall echoing against stone that had witnessed centuries of Russian power. The two men flanking him struggled to match his pace, their faces pale in the flickering light of the chandeliers overhead.
Neither man spoke. Neither dared.
The General Secretary had not said a word since receiving the report from Bern. He had simply risen from his desk, walked to the window overlooking Red Square, and stood there for a long moment, as still and silent as the statues he’d surveyed.
Then he had turned and begun walking, and the two officials had scrambled to follow.
That had been ten minutes ago.
Ten minutes of corridors and staircases and echoing silence broken only by the click of heels on marble.
Ten minutes of waiting for the storm to break.
“Explain this to me,” Stalin said, his voice dangerously soft, “how an operation eighteen months in the making, funded with millions in Swiss francs and coordinated across four countries, collapsed in a single night.”
The taller of the two officials—a deputy minister whose name would never appear in any official record—cleared his throat.
“Comrade General Secretary, the operation encountered unexpected—”
“Unexpected?” Stalin stopped walking and raised one unkempt brow. The two men nearly collided with each other in their haste to stop as well. “Unexpected. That is your explanation. That is what you offer me.”
“The Swiss intelligence services were more capable than our assessments suggested. The Baroness von Hohenberg proved most resilient. And we believe American agents were involved—”
“Bah! There are always American agents involved. They could not stay in their own yard if their very lives depended on it.” Stalin turned to face the men, his eyes flat and cold. “This is not unexpected. It was inevitable. Any plan that does not account for American interference is noplan at all.”
The deputy minister fell silent.
His colleague—shorter, rounder, and sweating despite the corridor’s chill—attempted to salvage what remained of the conversation.
“The operation was not a complete failure, Comrade General Secretary. The fear we instilled—the uncertainty of future attacks—has lasting value. The Swiss will be looking over their shoulders for years. On the heels of our work in Rome, the West’s trust in their institutions has been shaken. Seeds of doubt have been planted that will—”
“Seeds.” Stalin’s voice was barely above a whisper. “You speak to me of seeds and doubts as though I might spend them as currency. They hold little value against the power that comes with true victory.” He took a step closer, and the shorter man flinched as if struck. “I did not authorize three million francs for seeds. I authorized it for Switzerland, for a neutral, unaligned nation brought to heel. I did this to bring the world’s banking system underourinfluence as a staging ground in the heart of Europe.”
