He had a point, which only irritated her more. “Fine. Simone Khalef.” She dug around for another cigarette. “Do you smoke?”

He shook his head. “Never saw the point.”

“It helps file off the edges. But it can draw attention.” She smirked as she lit up. “Not as much as talking does.”

“Message received, geez.”

They continued in silence, the dark forest pressing in around them. No stars tonight, only thick clouds that drank up what little light the villages offered and glowed dully overhead. The scout perimeter for Siegen shouldn’t be for another three kilometers or so, but it never hurt to be ready.

“Watch the trees,” Simone said under her breath. “If you see glints, red lights flickering, it may be snipers. They’re my favorite.”

“Your favorite?” he asked dubiously.

“To kill. Are you a good shot?”

“Ha. According to the US Army, I’m . . . adequate.” He didn’t sound too troubled by it. “You?”

“One of the best. That’s why they sent me for you.”

“You’re from Paris, right?” Phillip asked. “They told me that was . . . well, kinda the base of operations for your network, I guess.”

“Algerian.” Simone narrowed her eyes. The safest option was silence, but she’d developed a sense for approaching patrols, and it felt good to speak after the oppressive stillness of her hike. But it was dangerous to let people in, to give them a set of keys. They could find all the weaknesses in your structure, all the failure points to exploit. Only Evangeline had ever seen Simone’s before, but it had been enough to leave Simone with a gaping wound.

Evangeline. She shook off a pang and pressed on. Stuck-up, spoiled, selfish, sheltered . . . Simone ran through her well-worn list of reasons not to miss her, but her nerves were too wound up to put the usual force behind it.

“Have you killed one of them yet?” Simone asked.

Phillip was quiet for a moment. “No.”

“Are you ready?”

His voice was thick when he answered. “Kinda thought that was your job.” He turned toward her. “Does it get easier? Once you do it?”

“I never found it hard.”

He laughed at that, at least.

“There is a funny thing about the way people think of the Nazis,” Simone said. “Some like to pretend they are not people, but something other. A real Nazi has no emotions and is only interested in hatred and death, you know the line.”

“Huh. Yeah.” Phillip stared straight ahead. “Makes it easy for people to think they couldn’t be one.”

“Précisément. The danger in that is that when you meet one—when they talk and smile and fuss about little stupid things, go about their stupid lives—you believe that they cannot be the real Nazis. The real ones must be somewhere else. And that”—Simone exhaled—“is a mistake.”

“So what’s the right way to think about them?”