“I’m happy to see you, too, Mr. Solomon,” she replied.
Several vestiges stepped into view from a dark archway. Cassius put his hand on his sword.
“You knew Henry and I would be shot,” I said, gesturing at her crew. “Was it one of yours? How do I know you aren’t here to finish the job?” She sighed. “Understandable, given the circumstances. Very well.” She held up a small knife. “I formally grant you safe passage to and from this meeting. To this I bind my will.” With a well-practiced motion she pricked the meat of her thumb and flicked a small droplet of blood
toward me. It vanished in a bright flame.
“See? Perfectly safe. Now, let’s go inside, shall we?” She turned toward the archway.
After a brief pause, we followed. Cassius was stopped at the door by the woman’s vestiges.
“I don’t come without him.”
She waved a hand, and Cassius was allowed through. Once we were inside, the vestiges shut the door behind us.
“My name is Emaline.” She extended her hand, from which she’d already removed her glove.
I took it—her grip warm and soft. “May I call you Jack?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said, letting go of her hand with a bit of regret.
A few paces behind her stood a woman similarly dressed, with long, red hair in a tail. “This is Margaretha, my personal attaché. She will be joining us. Would you please follow me?”
We passed under World War II airplanes hung from the high ceiling above. Glass cases displaying armor and militaryuniforms lined the walls on either side. Military vehicles and tanks hulked in the gloom, some so battle-damaged that they seemed hardly more than scrap metal. Gun turrets and unexploded ordnance were on display, too.
Evidently, just looking at the displays triggered their illuminating lamps. And inside the golden light, the artifacts seemed to come alive in reenactments of their final battlefield moments—wind, sound, smells—showing how they were damaged.
I wished I’d had time to explore the whole place.
Emaline led us to the Lord Ashcroft Gallery and around to a display. She asked that Cassius and Margaretha stand a short distance away for privacy’s sake.
“Have you heard of Odette Sansom?” she asked me, indicating the display in front of us.
Next to an array of medals, artifacts, and pictures lay a few dolls. “I can’t say that I have.”
“As a child, she overcame polio and blindness. As a young woman she married and had children of her own, which she left behind to work for the Special Operations Executive during World War II. She was a housewife who became a spy and parachuted into France to fight with the French Resistance. She was one of the first women to ever receive the George Cross medal.”
I knew the George Cross. It was a big deal. “And the dolls?”
“She made them for a German priest while she was interned at the Ravensbrück concentration camp after she was captured and tortured by the Gestapo.”
Emaline looked toward a hooded lantern in the display. A holograph rose in a spray of gold light. It showed a woman strapped to a chair while the Gestapo pulled her fingernails out with pliers and stabbed her back with hot pokers.
“She never gave up the whereabouts of her comrades,” Emaline said, shutting down the holograph. “Her courage saved lives.”
“Remarkable woman,” I said.
Emaline turned to me, her face firm and beautiful in the dim lights of the glass case. “It gives me comfort to come here. It suggests that we can all outlast our captors, does it not?”
“You knew we were going to be shot,” I repeated. “Why didn’t you stop it?”
“It was beyond my power to do so,” she said. “But I am so very glad to see you alive.”
“Because you have a job for me?” I asked.
“Notonlythat.”
“And what about Henry? Ishealive?” I watched her closely, trying to see if she would lie to me.
