Page 52 of Winter's End
“But you said –”
“I know. But I am not a child, Jacob – and as you very well know, I have reason to fear for my safety.”
She saw the indecision in his face. “I would have to clear it with the Beekhofs,” he said finally. “This is their land, after all.”
“But you will try…”
Jacob sighed, his handsome face a mix of indecision and amusement. “I will do my best, Evi Strobel. Come back tomorrow at noon – and this time…”
He slowly began to raise the rifle. “Try ringing the doorbell.”
ZOE
Zoe cycled once around thekliniekbuilding on Daan’s borrowed bicycle. She saw no SS vehicles in the street nor any hint that the office had been breached. She parked the bicycle next to hers and entered through the back door
The place felt eerily quiet. Ilke had allowed herself to be led home by her sister, but it was as though the poor woman’s fear and dread had sucked the air out of the room.
A lone calico cat was housed in the kennel, an elderly male content to wear off his fever by sleeping much of the time. He was curled into himself and breathing easily when Zoe peered in. She closed the door, checked to be sure the front door was firmly locked, then made her way into Daan’s office.
It was tidy as always, the desktop cleared of everything but a daily calendar, a business card file, an adding machine, a pen and ink stand and the telephone.
She picked up the calendar and rifled through the pages, but it contained onlykliniekappointments, nothing personal in nature.
She combed through his card file, but found not a single business card that was not connected tokliniekbusiness – not even a card with Zoe’s home address, or his sister-in-law’s, or anyone connected with Resistance business. She had expected nothing less.
Daan’s desk drawers, too, provided little to reveal the personal business of its owner – only the usual assortment of pens and pencils, paper clips, a business checkbook, and assorted stationery supplies – and an extra pair of scuffed brown shoes in the bottom drawer.
She looked carefully through the metal file cabinet for anything outside ofkliniekbusiness, and examined every volume in the wooden bookcase. But her assertion to Pieter had been correct. Daan Mulder was too smart, and too careful, to have anything in his office that might tie him or anyone else to Resistance business.
Eyes closed, Zoe sank into his desk chair, touched a hand to the telephone, and felt around her the kindly aura of her determined employer and friend. She lost track of how long she had been sitting there when she heard the insistent pounding.
Her blood ran cold as she rose to investigate, but the front door crashed open and by the time she reached the reception desk, twoimpossibly big and grim-faced Gestapo officers were halfway across the room.
MILA
Mila sat, crossing names off a list while Pieter made as many phone calls as he dared. He was business-like but persistent, doing everything he could to find why Daan Mulder had been grabbed and where he might have been taken.
Mila made a few calls herself, under the pretense of seeking goods and services from the few questionably aligned Dutch vendors who served a high-end clientele.
But they came up empty.
It was cold, even here in the small inner office of Pieter’s ‘plumbing’ office. She got up to stretch, pulled her heavy wool cardigan close around her. Then the phone shrilled on Pieter’s desk.
He snatched it up and listened. After a moment, his green eyes darkened, and a muscle twitched in his jaw.
Slowly, he put the phone back in its cradle.
“The Resistance cell in Amsterdam…. If their intelligence is correct, the leak came from Police Captain Reimar de Boer… I cannot say I am surprised.”
Mila considered. “De Boer? A Dutchman?”
“Ja– and not for the first time.” Pieter’s mouth twisted. “The bastard is not even a Nazi sympathizer. But he has been known to sell out his countrymen to the Germans for a wad of guilders….”
Mila’s eyebrows rose.
“We can’t be certain he’s the source,” Pieter said. “But it would not be the first time – and the tip came from a highly placed infiltrator in Dutch police circles. De Boer learned somehow of Daan’s involvement in the train explosion, and was able to cash in on it.”
By implication, Mila knew, it could mean there was a price on Pieter’s head as well. He knew it too, she was sure.
