Normally a drop into occupied Europe requires weeks if not months of training. But nothing about our situation is normal. Wait that long, and any chance of locating Arie will be gone. That this plan is actually going forward indicates how I’m being viewed: uniquely skilled yet expendable. A gamble worth the risk.

In three long, crammed days, I become an artist’s assistant named Ida Hofman, complete with a Dutch identity card and passport. My Dutch speech is ruled passable, thanks to years of interactions with neighbors in Amesboro, some of them fresh immigrants, many of them elders set in their ways. Ironically, my dialect gained from the Jansens is deemed slightly stronger than that from Papa, causing me another twinge of remorse.

To cover my bases and any flaws in my accent, I transform into a native of the Groningen province now living in Elspeet, a village in the province of Gelderland, with a full family tree and history. Absorbing these details is a cinch after years of memorizing scripts and acting a role. The information is drilled into me regardless, along with knowledge of daily life to avoid standing out: rationing, customs, transportation, even walking. The British habit of first looking right when crossing the street, a fatal tell in Holland, is one I’ve mastered since moving to England and must swiftly break. To buffer me against any other distinct norms I could miss, I’m to play a visitor of Utrecht—my destination city—meeting a dear relative on holiday.

As for physical training, I’m permitted to bypass lessons I could literally teach, from escapes and evasions to gadgets and maps. Among the more helpful sessions involve defensive maneuvers and parachute drops—simulations, that is. Strapped to wires in an airplane hangar, and once from a hot-air balloon, I practice jumps with eager recruits from an unnamed section.

I do realize, of course, that my trepidation over a plane ride shouldn’t drastically outweigh that of a subsequent leap and plummet through the sky. Nevertheless, focusing on the latter helps sustain my fortitude, as does avoiding related reminders.

Like the unsettling one before me.

Massive on the screen at a cinema in London, a newsreel is showcasing a British bomber. “And look here,” the male narrator exclaims. “These brave lads of Tiger Squadron prepare for their voyage on a mighty Lancaster. Oh my… It appears they have created a special gift for their journey.” The grinning airmen pose with an enormous bomb painted with the message Easter Egg for Hitler.