He was indeed fortunate to be referred to a loquacious clerk who had handled student registration for the school since its founding in 1920. “Forty-two years I’ve been here,” she said proudly, and to Alistair’s questions replied, “Oh, Mr. Peterson’s been gone from Madison for a long time. He and his wife divorced…No, I don’t know where he relocated or even if he continued teaching. My guess is that he took off to travel around Europe. He was a big one for Europe.”

“Europe…” Alistair mused. “Any special country?”

“He liked France.”

Would she know if Mr. Peterson was still alive? Alistair asked.

“We haven’t heard of his death, and I believe we would have,” the registrar said.

What about his ex-wife? Maybe he could locate Mr. Peterson through her?

A snort. “That hussy disappeared with her paramour right after she took Mr. Peterson for everything he had, poor man.”

Alistair thanked her, hung up, and then asked the long distance operator for the number of the book’s publisher in Trenton, New Jersey. No such listing was available. The publishing house had probably gone defunct years ago. Alistair was not disheartened, for he was still in touch with an organization that could locate the most elusive persons of interest. He’d place a call to a buddy at the CIA with whom he’d served in the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, and put him on to John Peterson’s tracks. Meanwhile, he’d telephone the surviving members of Dragonfly to ask them to find and read the last chapter of The Greatest Ruses of World War II.

Surprisingly, he found them all at their places of work on this late Friday afternoon. They were still young and active at forty-two and, though scattered all over the country, had remained in his life and one another’s since their first reunion in New York City on the twenty-third of September in 1945, forever bound by ties that transcended blood, lifelong friendships, and career attachments. Initially, it had been their doing, the remaining in touch, unusual in a business where war-weary operatives were only too glad to shake themselves free of their case officers as soon as their missions were over. At first he had resisted continuing the association—the idea of it was so foreign to him—but the team had held fast, and after a while he had responded with pleasure to their phone calls, visits, and invitations to weddings, christenings, holidays, and milestone celebrations. The four who had returned, along with their spouses and children, had become the closest to family he’d ever had.

He telephoned Labrador first. He had never stopped thinking of the members of Dragonfly by their OSS field names, just as they had never dropped his military rank when addressing him. It was always Major, never Alistair.