Page 28 of Beehive

If I’d been drinking in that moment, I would’ve sprayed all over the table. Arty had gotten seriously funny since I’d seen him last. We needed to see each other more often.

Thomas pinched the bridge of his nose, as though we either bored him or were beneath his effort to reply.

“Another garrote, a box of compass buttons for each of your suit coats and overcoats, another deck of playing cards where the Jack of Clubs has a map of Berlin sealed inside,” Arty ticked through his list of contents.

“A map?” I asked. “You think we’ll need a secret map now? I thought that was only a wartime thing.”

Manakin inserted himself. “Your cover is as a German art expert hired by the American government to repatriate lost pieces to surrounding countries and homes of Jewish families, those who survived, at least. Someone in that role would not carry a detailed map of the city with sensitive military and intelligence locations marked on its surface.”

“Ah, right. Good point,” I conceded. “If Arty’s done, can we talk through our cover?”

“I’m done,” Arty said, closing the lid to his box of goodies.

Manakin pulled two more sheets of paper from his folder and slid them across to us.

“Tobias Richter?” I asked, reading the name typed in bold at the top of the page.

“Wilhelm Müller again?” Thomas added to my confused gaze. “Won’t these names raise suspicion?”

Manakin held up a palm. “The Nazis who knew those names are dead. The Soviets, as good as their network is, wouldn’t have any reason to know them. You never operated on Soviet soil, and they were busy fending off Hitler’s boys when you used them last. Your familiarity with those cover names and identities should make it easier for your to slip into—and maintain—their personas.”

I scanned my page. “It’s all the same as before.”

“Very close to it,” Manakin confirmed. “Your profession and education are different, tailored to the art world, and Condor’straining in protection was added, but they are essentially the same covers you used before.”

Thomas tossed his page onto the table and sat back. “I like it. What else?”

“We need to talk through insertion, how you will contact our assets in the Soviet sector. We also need to go over general craft for operating behind the curtain.”

“Insertion? If we’re going in as officials hired by the American government, why do we need to insert?” I asked.

Manakin leaned forward on his elbows. “You will be greeted at the border by a Soviet official. It is safe to assume he or she will be an MGB agent or a political officer. Either way, you will be scrutinized from the moment you make contact. The Nazis were good at the spy game, but the Soviets are the best in the business.”

“So no letting our real names slip?” I tried to joke.

Loon scowled and crossed her arms. From the look on her face, she could’ve just as easily reached across the table and slapped me.

“Right. No slipping,” Manakin said, as though discussing the weather. “Oh, we should also talk about the dissolution of the OSS.”

Thomas and I nearly leaped out of our seats.

“They’re doing what? To the OSS?” Thomas shouted.

“Easy, boys.” Manakin motioned for us to sit back down. “We have time for all of that. It’s not as bad as it sounds. Congress is already working on a replacement.”

“Great, that’s all we need. Congress messing with our game,” I mumbled.

A sideways glance revealed Arty with his arms crossed, looking like the one person in the room whodidn’twant to speak. Thanks to his father’s ties to Roosevelt, he likely knew a lot more than any of the rest of us, perhaps even more than Manakin. Ifiled that tidbit away for a more private conversation with my former roomie.

Thomas’s chair groaned as he sat back. “When do we leave?”

Manakin blinked a few times, as though trying to clear his mind of its clutter, then muttered, “Tomorrow.”

10

Heinrich

It was a closely held secret that, at the beginning of the war, Hitler and Stalin reached several carefully constructed agreements, the most sweeping of which kept the Soviets out of our eastern front as long as our armies respected the Russian border.1

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