Chris arrived next. Before leaving Major General March’s house on June 13 to board the vehicles to transport them to their safe houses, the men of Dragonfly had clasped hands as comrades who have fought a long battle together but now must part to complete a final mission on their own: safe passage out of the country. Chris thought that his attempt had surely failed when an SS major boarded a train in Lyon and demanded to see each passenger’s papers. He took one look at Chris, snatched his papers from his hand, and ordered him to stand up. Chris unwound from the overcrowded train seat under the hard study of the man clearly wondering why this six-foot-three young man of compact German muscle wasn’t in uniform. When his scrutiny dropped to the SS travel pass, Chris saw a faint flash of surprise cross his face, but because the fancy had struck him to make him squirm, ordered, “Stay here!” and left the train with Chris’s papers in hand.

“He’s going to check to see if you are who you say you are,” whispered the passenger in the seat behind him.

An hour dragged by, the passengers becoming more agitated with Chris for having caused the delay, before the officer returned. “All is in order!” he said, handing back Chris’s papers with a respectful bow and military click of his heels. Chris expelled the air locked in his lungs. Apparently Colonel Derrick Albrecht, the signer of his travel pass, or someone in his office had vouched for him.

Brad was the last to step foot on safe soil. The delay in leaving France was due to a crucial change in the escape plan he insisted upon. After much arguing and cajoling, those in charge of his rescue operation were finally persuaded to alter his route from English-held Gibraltar on the tip of Spain to Switzerland, where he could look up Wilhelm’s aunt.

Judging by Major General March’s description of her, the sour-faced woman who had to be Helga Wolfe answered the door to her unappealing little house. As she opened the door, the raised voices of a boy and girl in a vicious argument surged around her like foul air. “Yes?” she said in the irritable voice of a woman hopelessly at the end of her patience.

Brad withdrew a letter. “My name is Barnard Wagner, and I’ve come on behalf of your nephew’s father, Major General Konrad March—”

“Herr Wagner!” Brad heard, and suddenly Wilhelm came flying from a room off the hall and Brad, seeing his intent, bent down to scoop him up as the little boy ran past his aunt and leaped into his arms. “You’ve come! You’ve come!” he sobbed, fastening his legs and arms around Brad so tightly he could hardly breathe.