Page 34 of Winter's End
“You would need to manage, sometime during the afternoon, to plant this small incendiary device someplace inside the Cinema where it will not be noticed.”
He slipped the small, bullet-like object into her hand. “It is a flammable apparatus that can be activated from outside the building. You understand?”
“I think so.”
“Step one is to place it discreetly this afternoon.”
“And then?”
“Step two,” he said, handing her the second device, “is to circle back to the Cinema this evening while the meeting of the Germans is in progress – sometime between eight and ten. You will carry this detonator in your pocket. It is an electronic connector, Mila. When you depress it, it will set off the device you planted earlier and the Cinema will go up in flames.”
She nodded slowly, but her heartbeat quickened.
Pieter put a hand on her shoulder. “In any case, a beautiful young woman walking past the Cinema is less likely to be questioned, I think, than a man. But again, it is risky, Mila. We will understand if you are not ready for it…because if you are caught – “
He did not need to say anymore.
Mila closed her eyes her eyes for a moment.What if she were recognized – accosted by someone who had sat at her father’s table?
Pieter seemed to read her mind. “It is reasonable to expect, I think, that once the meeting has begun, there will be few, if any, Germans outside the building. Still, I reemphasize the risk.”
Mila took a moment. “I would not be honest if I said it does not frighten me, Pieter.” She took a breath. “But I want to do it. I want to be the one to blast those Nazi pigs into oblivion.”
EVI
It was warm under the heavy patchwork quilt, and there seemed no reason for her to hurry. Evi rolled over on her side and reflected once again on her encounter with the American airman.
He had been in hiding with a Dutch farm family for nearly six months, he had told Evi and the Resistance guards as they retreatedfrom the German’s hastily dug gravesite – since shortly after the Normandy invasion.
“I was damned lucky when I was shot down,” he told them. “My parachute drifted in the wind and I landed in a wooded area less than a mile from here. I didn’t know it then, but it was somewhere on the Beekhof farmland. Do you know them?”
Evi did not. Her companions exchanged glances.
“You are correct,” one of them said in a mix of Dutch and English. “You were damned lucky you were not shot down by the Germans.”
“I realize that,” the American told them. “The Beekhofs took me in. They’re fine people – hard-working farmers. Their young son found me while he was scouting the field for dry firewood. I had a displaced knee and a slight concussion. Somehow, they got me back on my feet, and I’ve been there ever since. I owe them.”
“Why are you out here after dark, Officer Reese – I assume without proper papers?”
“Behagen. IkJake.” The American had picked up some Dutch.
“Jake, then. Even here, outside the city, you put yourself at risk as well as the Beekhofs.”
“No,” he had said. “I have papers.” He reached into his jacket pocket and produced them.
The men had squinted at the identification. “A German identification?’
The American had sighed. “A German who was living here in the Netherlands. The Beekhofs have a friend in the civic bureau. He was able to secure these for me.”
“You know some Dutch.”
“I’m learning. But it’s hard to be shut up here, away from my unit. Sometimes I feel like I’m jumping out of my skin. I need to stretch my legs now and then…with any luck, maybe figure out some kind of way to get back to my unit.”
He paused, glancing at Evi. “Anyway, as it turned out, it was a good thing for this young lady that I happened to be passing by.”
It had occurred to Evi then that the American might think she was a prostitute – or a Nazi sympathizer – or both. She felt the color rising in her cheeks. But before she could respond, her bodyguards had circled around her.
“We were seconds behind you,” the taller of her bodyguards broke through her mortification. “You are lucky we did not shoot you first…”
