“To prove to you people that you have a security break, that you are sloppy in securing classified material, and that your means of locking down this building wouldn’t keep out a blind man,” she stunned them by answering, her tone scathing.

“What do you mean? How did you get into the building?”

“I simply crawled through the coal chute.”

It was also Bridgette who may have saved the eventual team of Dragonfly from being on the bus back to Washington at the end of the assessment program. Those still in the running were to be treated to a graduation party. The candidates were to relax, let their hair down, have fun, get drunk if they liked. They deserved it. Bridgette was reported to have said to her group of friends, “I am suspicious about the objective of this party. The program isn’t over until midnight. We’re still being evaluated. I think they want to get us snockered so that we will let our guards down and reveal our cover stories. It will be all over for us if we do.”

The others allowed that she had a point. They were all tired, sleep deprived, anxious, and vulnerable to the balm of alcohol, but heeding Bridgette’s gut warning, their names were not among those scratched from the rating board the next morning.

The next phase of training took place in a remote, wooded area known as Camp X, where the remaining candidates were drilled in field- and tradecraft, weaponry, and intelligence gathering and reporting; given instruction in how to translate data into code, pick locks, and break into buildings to steal and photograph documents; and subjected to grueling physical exercises that tested the limits of stamina and nerve. By the end of the six-week period, Alistair had settled on the name of the alpha dog upon whose shoulders the whole Paris operation would depend—Bridgette Loring. She would become his radio operator.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN