At the end of his shift late that afternoon, Achim Fleischer stood on the metro platform waiting with a crowd of other passengers, determined to be among the first to step aboard and grab a seat. At the whistle of an oncoming train barreling up the track, he trusted the status of his uniform to allow him to disregard a metro official’s warning to step away from the edge of the platform. Within a minute of the passengers’ surge forward before the train stopped, the air was rent with the screech of locomotive brakes, frantic whistle blowing, and human screams. A man—the puffed-up policeman, so Achim was later described by a witness—had fallen into the path of the arriving train. The death was later declared an accident. The victim had been bumped to his demise by the indifference of the crowd—a lesson in personal safety and moral behavior that rail passengers should bear in mind for the future, metro authorities advised.

Monday night at the prescribed time of eight o’clock, Bridgette received a transmission from Bern: All is taken care of. Stay put.

Later that evening, Sister Mary Frances received a visitor, a Frenchman of the type rarely invited into the convent, never into her private quarters, and certainly not at that time of night. After hearing the news he had been dispatched to impart, the mother superior crossed herself. “God have mercy upon his soul,” she said, to which the man replied, “Amen.”

*  *  *

That afternoon in a back hall of the boardinghouse, Bucky passed the note to Dirk, who read it with an ear-to-ear smile. “Hot diggety dog! Thanks, buddy,” Dirk said. He punched Bucky’s shoulder playfully. “Looks like my ride is on the way! I’ll know more when I meet with somebody tomorrow afternoon who’ll tell me the drill.”

“Sssh!” Bucky cautioned him.

Dirk put his finger to his lips. “I won’t say another word, amigo.”

You shouldn’t have said that much, Bucky’s glare said to him and watched the sergeant swagger off to join the German boarders drinking schnapps in the lounge, his smirk as clear to read as a schoolgirl’s taunt on a playground: Yay-ya-yay, ya yay yay! I’ve got a secret! After a couple of steins of beer, who wouldn’t take bets that the fathead wouldn’t slip in a boast that his days among his tormentors were numbered? Bucky didn’t give a Billybedamn for the consequences to Dirk Drechsler, but he did for the lives of his father’s men.

Bucky stewed over the situation until he was able to speak with the turncoat privately the following evening to learn the details of his defection. At breakfast, the captain noticed his sergeant’s happy mood and inquired what accounted for the sudden bounce in his Hintern.

Bucky winced when Dirk threw him a quick wink down the table and replied with appalling recklessness, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”