Lodestar’s métier remained a mystery, but the ease with which he’d mastered Bridgette’s art lessons suggested a familiarity with drawing board and pencil—“an architect or something on that order,” Liverwort speculated, but his practical approach to matters indicated the mind-set of an engineer. They had laughed over Liverwort’s relation of the joke about the engineer sentenced to death by guillotine. “He watches the device malfunction, studies it, then calls out, ‘Hold on! I see the problem.’” Victoria had overheard Lodestar questioning Moon pilots about an antifascist military leader they might have picked up in France to join French General Charles de Gaulle, who was forming an army in exile in London. Lodestar asked if they’d heard the name Nicholas Cravois. Sure, said the pilot, only he wasn’t with General de Gaulle. He was an important French Resistance leader living in the hills around Paris. The Nazis called him the Black Ghost. Victoria had described their teammate’s face as “lighting up like a neon sign,” and the women agreed that the name had something to do with Lodestar signing on for the Paris mission. His soft drawl and pronunciation of Saturday as “Sa’erdee,” like Bridgette’s college classmate from Duncan, Oklahoma, pegged him as an Okie.

Bridgette would guess Lapwing to be from Texas. He spoke with a twang except when speaking German. His passion was long-distance running. He’d been allowed to get in a daily run during training sessions, even though their instructors had every minute mercilessly and crucially packed. But soon the team came to deduce that running was part of Lapwing’s cover and the laps were necessary to stay in shape. Bridgette wondered if he was aware that Milton Hall’s females were ogling him from an upstairs window as he ran along the estate’s service road shirtless, long legs golden and sinewy, chewing up the dirt track with effortless ease.

At the pub table, brought back from her ruminations, Bridgette heard Lapwing say, “Let’s ask the major tonight. I’m for a reunion when we get back home.”

They all chimed in: “I second that.” “Name the date and place, and I’ll be there.” “Me, too.” “Anywhere, anytime.” They spoke confidently, as if without question—without a dreamer’s doubt—they would make the date. Bridgette became aware of Liverwort’s gaze turned upon her. “And you, Labrador? What do you say?”

“I’ll send the invitations,” she said, “but what if the major refuses to reveal the information? We’re like classified documents, you know, and he plays that card by the book. Our identities could be sealed in top secret files for years.”

Silence fell. Eyes dropped to their half-imbibed pints, fingers toyed with glasses. The unspoken question they were forbidden even to contemplate spread around the table like spilled beer: What’s to keep us from sharing the information now?