“You’re not going alone,” Thomas said immediately.
“I am.” Her voice brooked no argument. “The clerk is terrified. He will not speak if he sees unfamiliar faces. He knows me, if by reputation alone. He came to me for help. I am the only one he might trust.”
“After everything that’s happened? After the warehouse?” Thomas was on his feet now, his voice rising. “Baroness, every time you go somewhere alone, something goes wrong. I am not going to let you—”
“You forget yourself, Thomas.” The Baroness’s eyes flashed with something of her old fire. “I am not one of your assets to be managed or handled.I have been doing this work since before you were born, and I will not cower in a safe house while our enemies move freely.”
I stepped in, joining Thomas’s plea. “Then let one of us come with you. We can stay in the background, out of sight. Just in case—”
“In case of what? In case I am betrayed again?” Her gaze swept the room, landing on each of us in turn. “Someone in this circle is feeding information to the enemy. I do not know who. Until I do, I cannot trust any of you to watch my back without wondering if you are positioning a knife for it.”
Her words were brutal and final.
Thomas looked like he had been slapped.
Even Bisch’s granite composure cracked for a moment, something wounded flickering behind his pale eyes.
Otto turned away, his magnificent mustache trembling with suppressed emotion.
“Baroness,” I said quietly. “We’re trying to help you.”
“I know.” Her voice softened, if only slightly. “And I am trying to keep you alive, all of you. The best way to do that is to keep you away from me until I know who is safe and who is not.” She moved toward the door, pausing with her hand on the frame. “I will contact you when the meeting is done. If you do not hear from me by noon, assume the worst.”
“And then what?” Thomas demanded. “What are we supposed to do if something happens to you?”
The Baroness was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was steady, but beneath it I could hear the weight of a woman who had spent her life preparing for moments like this.
“Then you finish what I started,” she said. “You find whoever is behind this, and you stop them. You make them pay for every life they have taken.”
10
Thomas
Will pulled me aside. “We need to report in.”
I stared at him. We were standing in the hallway of the safe house. The Baroness and Bisch were chatting quietly in the kitchen. The smell of burnt coffee hung in the air.
“Report in?” I repeated. “To the man who ordered us to stay in Paris? The man whose direct orders we’ve been ignoring for over a week?”
“Yes.”
“The man who is going to be absolutely furious with us.”
“Also yes.”
I ran a hand through my hair, trying to find the flaw in his logic. There had to be one. There was always a way to avoid unpleasant conversations with handlers. I had made a career of it.
“Why now?” I asked. “We’ve been radio silent this whole time. Another few dayswon’t—”
“Another few days might be all we have.” Will’s voice was quiet but firm. “We’ve confirmed a Soviet-backed operation to overthrow a neutral European government. We have names, dates, and financial records. We know about Adlerhorst, and we know February 15th.” He paused. “If something happens to us, that intelligence dies with us.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to us.”
“Weber probably thought the same thing. So did Hoffmann. So did Maurer.”
I didn’t have an answer for that.
“Look,” Will continued, “I’m not saying we ask permission. We’re past that. But Manakin needs to know what we’ve learned. The American government needs to know. If this conspiracy succeeds—if the Soviets manage to install a puppet government in Switzerland—that’s not just a Swiss problem. It’s a NATO problem. Hell, Thomas, it’s a Cold War escalation of seismic proportions.” His jaw tightened. “We’re intelligence officers. We gathered intelligence, and now we have to report it.”
