He’d gotten out of bed yesterday without a trace of regret for his decision to stay in Paris, and he’d not been surprised at the other dragonflies’ votes to remain as well. That was just who they were—all guts and with no expectation of glory. He wished they’d gone home, though. It would have been a comfort knowing they were safe. He’d come up with an idea that he hoped they’d all go for if they made it to New York. He would suggest that they visit a tattoo studio. Chris was sure that any tattoo artist was bound to have a drawing of a dragonfly in his stock.

Anyway, Chris could not in good conscience have left Paris at this time on any account. He was in a place that amounted to a fox set free in a henhouse, and he couldn’t walk away from the intel opportunities that access to the March house afforded him. His only regret was having to take advantage of the trust of a father and son that he and Limpet had both come to care about. But, he reminded himself, in this job trust was a tool that opened locked safes. It made people careless, like the general leaving Admiral Canaris’s letter on his desk for anyone to read. And what a shocker it was! If Chris had interpreted it correctly, the chief of the German Abwehr was a traitor to the Nazi regime.

*  *  *

As Bucky shivered through a cold-water shave, a glance out the window of his upstairs room warned him that today deserved the description of “blue Monday.” Skies were overcast, and a heavy fog clung to the air. Bucky thought of this time of year in Oklahoma City, when the weather was at its best—crisp, dry days, blue skies, a golden cast over everything, perfect football weather. He pushed the image from his mind. No good going there. There would be other years to enjoy fall for real in his home state, and then he would recall this time in Paris in November 1942.

He’d had to cast his vote to remain in Paris, no question about it. The firm had received a consulting contract for the construction of a secret mountain facility in the French Alps, where the Nazis planned to build guns with barrels capable of launching bombs across the English Channel. Work was to begin in January. If he could get his hands on the blueprints, he could make sure that plant never got off the ground.