Monday, November 9, began on an uneasy note for Chris also. During a break in gym class, a student approached Chris’s back carrying a balancing pole. Chris, seeing its shadow on the gymnasium floor, had reacted with “the slip,” a sudden rotation of his body to avoid an attack from behind, one of the maneuvers taught during OSS training sessions on defensive tactics. Embarrassed, he apologized to the startled student who had almost received a kick in the groin. Louis Mueller had observed the scene and hurried across the floor to confront him. After a friendly clap on the boy’s shoulder, Chris quickly sent the student on his way before Louis could reach him.

“My God, what was that all about? You nearly scared that boy shitless!”

“One of the defense techniques I’ve been teaching the class,” Chris improvised.

“Since when have you included such maneuvers into your track-and-field curriculum?”

“You don’t approve of teaching defense tactics to our young warriors, Herr Mueller, especially if they are unarmed with an opponent holding a weapon at their back?”

“That’s not the point!”

“What is?”

At a loss for a comeback, Louis dismissed the argument with a frustrated wave of his hand. “You’ve received a message.”

A current of nerves skittered through Chris. Was the message from Major General March? The director would not have bothered to deliver it otherwise, may not have even given it to him. He had not seen the general since having dinner with him a week ago Monday—strange, since the man usually made a point to arrive at the completion of his son’s tutoring sessions to question how he had fared, and Limpet had not encountered him on the riverbank the Sunday before, his neighbor’s usual day to throw in a line from his back forty. Also, this morning the sports director had greeted him with a smirk and glint in his eye that made Chris think the man had discovered something about him over the weekend that was his to know and for his instructor to worry about.

“What does it say?” Chris asked.

The director’s face reddened with rage from the implication. “It came by phone! Major General Konrad March wishes you to dine with him and his son tonight after your tutoring session.”

“How kind of him. I can use a good meal.”

As Chris stepped by him to pass, Louis said, “That was a military maneuver you just demonstrated for the boy. Your file never said anything about your having had army training. Where did you learn it?”

“In martial arts school when I was a boy. I had to learn to defend myself because of this.” Chris held up his thumbless hand.

“As well you should have,” Louis snarled.