He’d had to watch the very life drain from his brother’s thigh. Watch the light go out of his eyes. He’d had to dig his grave himself, carry him to it. Send word home to their mother, to Ilse, that Heinrich was gone. Their hero had fallen.

Berlin had been no help. None. They’d give Heinrich a medal for his service, he was certain, but there had been no aid. No other agent sent to assist him. Nothing. Just instruction to move on to his next assignment.

Those blighted codes. And this factory. He’d had to map out where it was for them, send them the instructions that would enable the Luftstreitkräfte to find it from the air. And he had. He’d done his duty, and he’d sent the telegram that afternoon as he’d been instructed.

But he’d have his own revenge too. For Heinrich. Because the hero couldn’t fall without consequence.

A small beam of light passed by the windows of the ground floor of the factory—the sign he’d been waiting for. By the time he carried Dorothea over to the small side entrance, the guard would be long gone, making his rounds on the other side of the building.

Tossing a coin to the front seat of the cab for the driver to find when he awoke from his own drug-induced sleep—assuming the explosion of the factory didn’t take him out—Das Gespenst slid toward the door. Opened it, climbed out, and reached for Dorothea.

He only coughed once, which pleased him. His lips curved up just a bit. Perhaps Margot De Wilde’s prayers for him were working.

Margot unbuttoned her coat, shrugged out of it, and tossed it on her chair even as Drake slid the satchel with the false codebook to the floor under it. “What’s come in since I left?” She didn’t stop at her usual station but rather hurried to where the pneumatic tubes delivered all the newly intercepted telegrams, Drake a step behind.

De Grey looked up from his spot with an exaggerated frown. “I thought you’d been excused from the night shift since you were here all last night.”

“I was. Just couldn’t stay away. Has there been anything in the new code?”

“Not that I’ve seen. Though DID dropped off the recovered codebook not long ago. Excellent work on that, Elton. I hope he promised you a prize.”

Drake breathed a laugh. “It never came up.”

“What are you looking for?” Culbreth looked up from his work, eyes dazed enough to prove he’d been hard at it. “The new one, did you say? I think I . . . yes, hold on. I saw something. Half an hour ago, perhaps. Haven’t had a chance yet to—”