“Aunt Claire possesses information not safe for us or her. I have made arrangements to get her out of Paris tonight. If you ever need to contact me—but only in case of extreme emergency,” his father warned, “leave word in the cavity of the plane tree in the park across from her chateau. It is the one that shades the bench by the stream. Should I need to contact you, you will find a black mark on the right underside of the first step of your boardinghouse. Couriers are too risky. Go to the tree.”

“Yes sir,” Bucky said.

Otherwise, they were not to meet again until the war was over. It was too perilous for them both. The house in Honfleur was to be closed, and his aunt’s chateau vacated but for a caretaker. Nicholas Cravois would disappear into the mountains, and Bucky would not see him again until France was liberated. Then he would contact him and they would reunite. “However,” he’d said, holding his son’s gaze with eyes the changeable hues of Bucky’s own, “if I do not survive, promise me that your American father will never learn the truth of your birth.”

“I promise,” Bucky had said.

Bucky had been thankful that Aunt Claire would be out of Paris. One more door closed to his discovery, he’d thought, until another had opened up with the unexpected appearance of Liverwort at the boardinghouse. Captain Achterberg had not noticed her start at seeing him, only her beauty. “Amazing,” he’d said. “I wonder who she is.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Bucky said.

He was approaching the convent wall. Despite the biting cold, since houses and apartments were no warmer anyway, a small group had gathered around the mural and others were approaching. Even on this freezing Saturday the usual policeman was standing about, puffed up with self-importance, mouth clamped tight and eyes steely beneath his billed cap. Bucky drew up behind a man whose height and size blocked him from the sweep of the cop’s surveillance and spotted the diagonal mark drawn through the central dragonfly. His heart did a little somersault when he noted the slightly deeper clouding of the tip of the North Star and the subtly darker shadings on the other code symbols.

Coat collar up and head drawn into his shoulders ostensibly for warmth, Bucky walked away quickly. He saw no sign of the others. He would not know which or if any member of Dragonfly had gotten Labrador’s message until they showed up in the tearoom today at four o’clock. No code had been devised for “message received.”

*  *  *