Brad Hudson had been the last reeled in or, rather, the last to jump willingly into the Dragonfly boat. As May drew to an end, all had been recruited except for the young fly-fisherman Alistair reluctantly had in mind to complete his specially picked network. Sam Barton, aka Bucky, had signed the OSS applicant form in Kelly’s Coffee Shop in Oklahoma City the Monday after his twenty-second birthday. Chris Brandt, christened Christoph, of New Braunfels, Texas, had scrawled his signature on the dotted line within twenty-four hours of his call to Washington asking for an interview. Victoria and Bridgette had already contacted him and were as good as signed up when Alistair left for Meeker, Colorado, and returned relieved that he’d failed in an objective he’d had little hope and desire of accomplishing in the first place. He’d given in to the temptation of a chance to see Joanna again with the added bonus of a weekend of fishing that might ease some of the stress chronic to his life.

He’d found Brad Hudson a carbon copy of his dad and Joanna as desirable as he remembered. How she’d managed to stay the woman of his memories considering the tough life she’d lived was beyond him. It had been twenty-three years since he had last seen her. When he first laid eyes on Joanna Bukowski, she was wearing a threadbare coat, standing in freezing weather in a soup line in Koblenz, where he and his army buddy, Thomas Hudson, were billeted as part of the Allied force occupying Germany at the tail end of World War I. A ruckus broke out in the line that required military authority to restore order. A man had grabbed Joanna’s ration of bread and soup and run away, leaving her without a bowl for a second serving. She had spun around with a cry of appeal to the American soldiers butting in, and Alistair had never seen a look so desperate or a face so beautiful despite it being gaunt from malnutrition. It was a moment he’d never forgotten. “Let us help you,” he’d said. And Thomas, already extending his arm, had added, “Yes, let us help you, Fräulein. There’s a café close by where you can get warm, and we can get you a hot meal.”

She’d taken Thomas’s arm, and just like that, Joanna Bukowski was whisked out of Alistair’s reach. Alistair served as best man at their wedding in January 1919. Upon his friend’s discharge from the army that year, Thomas had brought his bride to Meeker, Colorado, land of the mountains and rivers he loved. Alistair had thought it best not to see them again.

She had naturally been shocked to see him, but Alistair had been gratified that she recognized him after only a few seconds’ stunned stare. “It was your voice,” she explained. “I’ve never forgotten the sound of your voice.”