Page 22 of Beehive

The woman from earlier in the day stood there. Her hair was now loose and hanging about her shoulders, while round, wire-framed spectacles sat atop her nose. Where she had dressed fashionably before, she now wore loose-fitting clothes more appropriate for a night on the couch with a good book than a social outing—or secret mission. Will watched over her shoulder from a few paces away.

“Come in quickly,” she instructed, then stepped aside.

The moment I entered, she pulled the door closed, turned three different bolts, and lowered a metal crossbar.

Will’s brows nearly reached his hairline.

“We can never be too safe,” the woman said in hushed tones. “Come with me, and please, do not speak until we are behind the metal door.”

“Metal door?” Will mouthed in my direction.

All I could do was shrug and follow our hostess. Will trailed behind.

We’d entered through the delivery door, the way men hauling cans and cases of supplies might enter when dropping off items for the kitchen’s use. The woman stepped past a long wooden table used for food preparation, stopping at an ancient wood-burning stove whose worn pipe flowed into the ceiling. Without so much as a glance back, she reached out, grabbed the crank that opened the flue, and yanked. The entire thing lifted on unseen hinges that wailed in protest, revealing a set of stairs that descended into the depths below the shop. A lone candle burned in a sconce attached to the rough-hewn wall of the stairwell, creating more eerie shadows than casting light.

“The others are already here; otherwise, this passage would be black as coffee,” she said, pointing to a thick chain dangling from the bottom of the stove. “Pull that when you are on the staircase.”

I glanced back to find Will looking as shocked by the woman’s caution as I felt. By the time he entered and pulled the chain, wewere several stairs below. I nearly slammed into the woman at the sound of the stove thudding back into place.

Her chuckle echoed off the rock walls. “That gets most when they enter for the first time. The humor of it never gets old.”

“Great. Now that we’re descending into the depths of Paris, you have a sense of humor?”

Will giggled behind me.

The fucker actually giggled.

That caused the woman to bark a very unladylike laugh.

“Traitors,” I groused.

Twelve stairs.

That’s how many we took before reaching another candle in another sconce mounted beside a rusty metal door with a thick handle.

The woman rapped four times, four crisp, precise knocks.

A bolt turned.

Then another.

Then a third.

When the door swung open, a man with straight brown hair and thin spectacles looked past the woman into my eyes and smiled. “Hello, Condor.”

“Manakin?” I stammered, suddenly off balance by the appearance of the man who served as our tether to the American OSS when we’d studied at Harvard. The use of my original code name also brought back a flood of memories from our first missions.

A shudder ran through me at a flashback of my capture at the hands of the Nazis.

Will reached the bottom step and bumped into me, shoving me forward into the woman who, for her part, let out a loud, French-sounding, “Oof,” before righting herself against the doorframe.

Manakin’s grin widened. “I see Emu is as graceful as ever.”

“Sorry,” Will muttered.

Manakin stepped aside and motioned for us to enter. “Come in. There is someone here I believe you will both enjoy seeing again.”

The room we entered was far larger than I expected, likely spanning more space than the dining room and kitchen above us combined. Bare lights hung from cords draped across the ceiling, looking almost like holiday lights whose bulbs were far too large for the celebration. On the wall spanning one side of the room hung maps of every size and variety, making me wonder if the entire world was displayed in this underground cavern. Several tables made to seat six or eight sat in the room’s center, a mirror image of the restaurant above.

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