Crouched down, I creep toward the side edge of the thicket. When I stretch for a peek, I shudder at the origin of the beams. Roughly thirty yards away, two sets of partially obscured headlamps shine dimly on the agents. The three men are facing the vehicles, still in their coveralls. With their hands behind their heads, they’re being forced to kneel by rifle-wielding soldiers in bell-shaped helmets.

German troops.

Oh, God in heaven, no, no, no.

I jerk my body out of view, though for the life of me, I can’t steer my eyes away.

An officer, distinctive in his peaked hat, walks toward them with an awkward gait. He halts before the middle captive—Bram—and speaks. Indecipherable from a distance.

Did the Germans spot our low-flying plane and radio ahead to track us?

The officer gives a wave of his pistol, a signal. A soldier marches over. Beside Bram, he raises his rifle high and at an angle, then swings the butt of it toward the agent’s head. Surely this all occurs rapidly, but in that instant, fear slows all movement in my mind’s eye. In detail, I see Bram shift out of the weapon’s path and jab his elbow into the soldier’s groin. As the man contracts, Bram immediately grabs hold of the rifle, as if his instigation was deliberate, strategic.

Then a blast rings out.

Yet the spray of blood emerges from Bram, a bullet having tunneled through his skull. The officer shot first.

Bram’s body crumples just as a neighboring agent lunges for the pistol. The officer’s extended arm leaves it vulnerable. The two fight for control, a struggle that ends with another blast of a gun—this time from a soldier’s rifle—and the agent collapses.

There are barking sounds, muffled by the screaming inside me. Outwardly I’m frozen. My limbs are anvils, which is fine, just fine. As the scene can’t be real. It’s a film on a screen. I’m watching from the safety of a theater. Shortly we’ll have an intermission and a change of reels.

“Herr Hauptsturmführer!”

The officer—a captain with the SS, I believe—responds by turning to the approaching caller, a broad soldier lugging a large cylindrical object. It’s the capsule with parachute dragging. Behind him, another soldier escorts a German shepherd snarling on a leash. As the officer confers, a moment of collective distraction, the third agent sneaks to his feet. He dashes furtively toward the shadows, until the dog erupts with ferocious barks.

The soldier who’d been guarding the agent turns. “Halt!”