The Christmas letters to families were sent and received, an exciting event that called for another diagonal mark across the central dragonfly. In distributing them, Bridgette repeated Major Renault’s orders. “Read and destroy immediately after reading,” she said.

But of course none did, not immediately.

At the meeting, unless an emergency arose, the last they expected to have together for as long as their missions took, Victoria made a suggestion. “What do you say that we make a pact to have another reunion, right here in this café at four o’clock on September twenty-third, 1962?”

Silence fell. All understood the psychology behind the proposal. Liverwort was asking them to declare their faith that they would survive to gather for a twenty-year reunion.

“Well, why not?” she contended, meeting their silence with a determined thrust of her chin. “Don’t dragonflies always return to the river of their hatch?”

“That they do, Liverwort, that they do,” Brad said. He reached forward to lay his palm on the table and each set a hand upon it. “To September twenty-third, 1962, right here in this spot in Paris,” he said, and the others repeated in chorus, “To September twenty-third, 1962, right here in this spot in Paris.”

*  *  *

Victoria and Bridgette were the last to depart the café and walked out together. “What about you, Labrador?” Victoria asked, her voice gentle. “Was there no one back home to write to you? No family, friends?”

“My family and friends are here,” Bridgette said.

When she returned to her attic room that evening, a package wrapped in Christmas paper was waiting for her. The card inside read, “Merry Christmas from A. Renault.” Bridgette smiled. The present was a box that contained one of her favorite things: Michigan cherry jams.

Nineteen forty-two drew to a close. By December 31, the war news appeared a shade brighter for the Allies. The Red Army had the Germans penned at Stalingrad, successfully stopping their further advance into the USSR. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, commander of the Afrika Corps, was trapped in Tunisia, and the British won a strategic naval battle in the Barents Sea against German ships that had been dispatched to destroy fourteen of His Majesty’s merchant ships carrying war materials to Russia.

On New Year’s Eve in Bern, Switzerland, the teetotalling Major Alistair Renault accepted a glass of champagne at a station party and raised it with the office crew to toast all Allied agents working on enemy soil and pray they would make it back alive and well. For his team of five young operatives, Alistair still had his fears, but so far the mice had escaped the cats, and Dragonfly was still in the game.

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

Herr General, may I speak with you a moment?” Hans said, assisting Konrad March in removing his overcoat.

“Of course, Hans. You sound grave. Is it Wilhelm?”

“No, Mein General. May we speak in the kitchen?”